a certain number of native soldiers.  After a vain attempt to persuade the garrison to a surrender, the attack was made in the usual way, chiefly by scaling parties with ladders, and by battering parties which shook the walls with the ram.  The defenders kept the sealers at bay by a constant discharge of stones and darts from their artillery, arrows from their bows, and leaden bullets from their slings.  They met the assaults of the ram by attempts to fire the wooden covering which protected it and those who worked it.  For some days these efforts sufficed; but after a while the besiegers found a weak point in the defences of the place—­a tower so recently built that the mortar in which the stones were laid was still moist, and which consequently crumbled rapidly before the blows of a strong and heavy battering-ram, and in a short time fell to the ground.  The Persians poured in through the gap, and were at once masters of the entire town, which ceased to resist after the catastrophe.  This easy victory allowed Sapor to exhibit the better side of his character; he forbade the further shedding of blood, and ordered that as many as possible of the garrisons and citizens should be taken alive.  Reviving a favorite policy of Oriental rulers from very remote times, he transported these captives to the extreme eastern parts of his empire, where they might be of the greatest service to him in defending his frontier against the Scythians and Indians.

It is not really surprising, though the historian of the war regards it as needing explanation, that no attempt was made to relieve Singara by the Romans.  The siege was short; the place was considered strong; the nearest point held by a powerful Roman force was Nisibis, which was at least sixty miles distant from Singara.  The neighborhood of Singara was, moreover, ill supplied with water; and a relieving army would probably have soon found itself in difficulties.  Singara, on the verge of the desert, was always perilously situated.  Rome valued it as an outpost from which her enemy might be watched, and which might advertise her of a sudden danger, but could not venture to undertake its defence in case of an attack in force, and was prepared to hear of its capture with equanimity.

From Singara Sapor directed his march almost due northwards, and, leaving Nisibis unassailed upon his left, proceeded to attack the strong fort known indifferently as Phoenica or Bezabde.  This was a position on the east bank of the Tigris, near the point where that river quits the mountains and debouches upon the plain; though not on the site, it may be considered the representative of the modern Jezireh, which commands the passes from the low country into the Kurdish mountains.  Bezabde was the chief city of the province, called after it Zabdicene, one of the five ceded by Narses and greatly coveted by his grandson.  It was much valued by Rome, was fortified in places with a double wall, and was guarded by three legions and a large body of Kurdish