from the first an early demise.  No events are assigned to his short reign, which (according to the best authorities) did not exceed the length of four months.  It is evident that he must have been powerless to offer any effectual opposition to Tiridates, whose forces continued to ravage, year after year, the north-western provinces of the Persian empire.  Had Tiridates been a prince of real military talent, it could scarcely have been difficult for him to obtain still greater advantages.  But he was content with annual raids, which left the substantial power of Persia untouched.  He allowed the occasion of the throne’s being occupied by a weak and invalid prince to slip by.  The consequences of this negligence will appear in the next chapter.  Persia, permitted to escape serious attack in her time of weakness, was able shortly to take the offensive and to make the Armenian prince regret his indolence or want of ambition.  The son of Chosroes became a second time a fugitive; and once more the Romans were called in to settle the affairs of the East.  We have now to trace the circumstances of this struggle, and to show how Rome under able leaders succeeded in revenging the defeat and captivity of Valerian, and in inflicting, in her turn, a grievous humiliation upon her adversary.

CHAPTER VI.

Civil War of Narses and his Brother Hormisdas.  Narses victorious.  He attacks and expels Tiridates.  War declared against him by Diocletian.  First Campaign of Galerius, A.D. 297.  Second Campaign, A.D. 298.  Defeat suffered by Narses.  Negotiations.  Conditions of Peace.  Abdication and Death of Narses.

It appears that on the death of Varahran III., probably without issue, there was a contention for the crown between two brothers, Narses and Hormisdas.  We are not informed which of them was the elder, nor on what grounds they respectively rested their claims; but it seems that Narses was from the first preferred by the Persians, and that his rival relied mainly for success on the arms of foreign barbarians.  Worsted in encounters wherein none but Persians fought on either side, Hormisdas summoned to his aid the hordes of the north—­Gelli from the shores of the Caspian, Scyths from the Oxus or the regions beyond, and Russians, now first mentioned by a classical writer.  But the perilous attempt to settle a domestic struggle by the swords of foreigners was not destined on this occasion to prosper.  Hormisdas failed in his endeavor to obtain the throne; and, as we hear no more of him, we may regard it as probable that he was defeated and slain.  At any rate Narses was, within a year or two of his accession, so firmly settled in his kingdom that he was able to turn his thoughts to the external affairs of the empire, and to engage in a great war.  All danger from internal disorder must have been pretty certainly removed before Narses could venture to affront, as he did, the strongest of existing military powers. [PLATE XVIII.]