[Sidenote:—­3—­] Many uprisings were made by many persons, some of which caused serious alarm, but they were all checked.  But affairs in Mesopotamia were still more terrifying, and provoked in the hearts of all, not merely the men of Rome but the rest of mankind, a fear that had a truer foundation.  Artaxerxes, a Persian, having conquered the Parthians in three battles and killed their king, Artabanus, [made a campaign against Hatra, which he endeavored to take as a base for attacking the Romans.  He did make a breach in the wall but, as he lost a number of soldiers through an ambuscade, he transferred his position into Media.  Of this district, as also of Parthia, he acquired no small portion, partly by force and partly by intimidation, and then] marched against Armenia.  Here he suffered a reverse at the hands of the natives, some Medes, and the children of Artabanus, and either fled (as some say) or (as others assert) retired to prepare a larger expedition. [Sidenote:—­4—­] He accordingly became a source of fear to us; for he was encamped with a large army over against not Mesopotamia only but Syria also and boasted that he would win back everything that the ancient Persians had once held, as far as the Grecian Sea.  It was, he said, his rightful inheritance from his forefathers.  He was of no particular account himself, but our military affairs are in such a condition that some joined his cause and others refused to defend themselves.  The troops are so distinguished by wantonness, and arrogance, and freedom from reproof, that those in Mesopotamia dared to kill their commander, Flavius Heracleo, and the Pretorians found fault with me before Ulpianus because I ruled the soldiers in Pannonia with a strong hand; and they demanded my surrender, through fear that some one might compel them to submit to a regime similar to that of the Pannonian troops.

[Sidenote:—­5—­] Alexander, however, paid no attention to them, but promoted me in various ways, appointing me to be consul for the second time, as his colleague, and taking upon himself personally the responsibility of meeting the expenditures of my office.  As the malcontents evinced displeasure at this, he became afraid that they might kill me if they saw me in the insignia of my office, and he bade me spend the period of my consulship in Italy, somewhere outside of Rome.  Later, accordingly, I came both to Rome and to Campania to visit him.  After spending a few days in his company, during which the soldiers saw me without offering to do me any harm, I started for home, being released on account of the trouble with my feet.  Consequently, I expect to spend all the remainder of my life in my own country, as the Divine Presence revealed to me most clearly at the time I was in Bithynia.  Once, in a dream there, I thought I saw myself commanded by it to write at the close of my work the following verses: 

  “Hector was led of Zeus far out of the range of the missiles,
  Out of the dust and the slaying of men, out of blood and of uproar.”