While the fortified towns on either side thus maintained themselves against the attacks made on them, Theodosius, we are told, gave an independent command to the patrician Procopius, and sent him at the head of a body of troops to oppose Varahran.  The armies met, and were on the point of engaging when the Persian monarch made a proposition to decide the war, not by a general battle, but by a single combat.  Procopius assented; and a warrior was selected on either side, the Persians choosing for their champion a certain Ardazanes, and the Romans “Areobindus the Goth,” count of the “Foederati.”  In the conflict which followed the Persian charged his adversary with his spear, but the nimble Goth avoided the thrust by leaning to one side, after which he entangled Ardazanes in a net, and then despatched him with his sword.  The result was accepted by Varahran as decisive of the war, and he desisted, from any further hostilities.  Areobindus received the thanks of the emperor for his victory, and twelve years later was rewarded with the consulship.

But meanwhile, in other portions of the wide field over which the war was raging, Rome had obtained additional successes.  Ardaburius, who probably still commanded in Mesopotamia, had drawn the Persian force opposed to him into an ambuscade, and had destroyed it, together with its seven generals.  Vitianus, an officer of whom nothing more is known, had exterminated the remnant of the Arabs not drowned in the Euphrates.  The war had gone everywhere against the Persians; and it is not improbable that Varahran, before the close of A.D. 421, proposed terms of peace.

Peace, however, was not exactly made till the next year.  Early in A.D. 422, a Roman envoy, by name Maximus, appeared in the camp of Varahran, and, when taken into the presence of the great king, stated that he was empowered by the Roman generals to enter into negotiations, but had had no communication with the Roman emperor, who dwelt so far off that he had not heard of the war, and was so powerful that, if he knew of it, he would regard it as a matter of small account.  It is not likely that Varahran was much impressed by these falsehoods; but he was tired of the war; he had found that Rome could hold her own, and that he was not likely to gain anything by prolonging it; and he was in difficulties as to provisions, whereof his supply had run short.  He was therefore well inclined to entertain Maximus’s proposals favorably.  The corps of the “Immortals,” however, which was in his camp, took a different view, and entreated to be allowed an opportunity of attacking the Romans unawares, while they believed negotiations to be going on, considering that under such circumstances they would be certain of victory.  Varahran, according to the Roman writer who is here our sole authority, consented.  The Immortals made their attack, and the Romans were at first in some danger; but the unexpected arrival of a reinforcement saved them, and the Immortals were defeated and cut off to a man.  After this, Varahran made peace with Rome through the instrumentality of Maximus, consenting, it would seem, not merely that Rome should harbor the Persian Christians, if she pleased, but also that all persecution of Christians should henceforth cease throughout his own empire.