him from the charge of actual cruelty, unless indeed we regard the punishment as an ordinary mode of execution in Persia.  Perhaps, however, in this case, as in other similar ones, there is no sufficient evidence that the process of flaying took place until the culprit was dead, the real object of the excoriation being, not the infliction of pain, but the preservation of a memorial which could be used as a warning and a terror to others.  The skin of Mani, stuffed with straw, was no doubt suspended for some time after his execution over one of the gates of the great city of Shahpur; and it is possible that this fact may have been the sole ground of the belief (which, it is to be remembered, was not universal) that he actually suffered death by flaying.

The death of the leader was followed by the persecution of his disciples.  Mani had organized a hierarchy, consisting of twelve apostles, seventy-two bishops, and a numerous priesthood; and his sect was widely established at the time of his execution.  Varahran handed over these unfortunates, or at any rate such of them as he was able to seize, to the tender mercies of the Magians, who put to death great numbers of Manichseans.  Many Christians at the same time perished, either because they were confounded with the followers of Mani, or because the spirit of persecution, once let loose, could not be restrained, but passed on from victims of one class to those of another, the Magian priesthood seizing the opportunity of devoting all heretics to a common destruction.

Thus unhappy in his domestic administration, Varahran was not much more fortunate in his wars.  Zenobia, the queen of the East, held for some time to the policy of her illustrious husband, maintaining a position inimical alike to Rome and Persia from the death of Odenathus in A.D. 267 to Aurelian’s expedition against her in A.D. 272.  When, however, in this year, Aurelian marched to attack her with the full forces of the empire, she recognized the necessity of calling to her aid other troops besides her own.  It was at this time that she made overtures to the Persians, which were favorably received; and, in the year A.D. 273, Persian troops are mentioned among those with whom Aurelian contended in the vicinity of Palmyra.  But the succors sent were inconsiderable, and were easily overpowered by the arts or arms of the emperor.  The young king had not the courage to throw himself boldly into the war.  He allowed Zenobia to be defeated and reduced to extremities without making anything like an earnest or determined effort to save her.  He continued her ally, indeed, to the end, and probably offered her an asylum at his court, if she were compelled to quit her capital; but even this poor boon he was prevented from conferring by the capture of the unfortunate princess just as she reached the banks of the Euphrates.