archers.  Sapor, having reconnoitred the place, and, with his usual hardihood, exposed himself to danger in doing so, sent a flag of truce to demand a surrender, joining with the messengers some prisoners of high rank taken at Singara, lest the enemy should open fire upon his envoys.  The device was successful; but the garrison proved stanch, and determined on resisting to the last.  Once more all the known resources of attack and defence were brought into play; and after a long siege, of which the most important incident was an attempt made by the bishop of the place to induce Sapor to withdraw, the wall was at last breached, the city taken, and its defenders indiscriminately massacred.  Regarding the position as one of first-rate importance, Sapor, who had destroyed Singara, carefully repaired the defences of Bezabde, provisioned it abundantly, and garrisoned it with some of his best troops.  He was well aware that the Romans would feel keenly the loss of so important a post, and expected that it would not be long before they made an effort to recover possession of it.

The winter was now approaching, but the Persian monarch still kept the field.  The capture of Bezabde was followed by that of many other less important strongholds, which offered little resistance.  At last, towards the close of the year, an attack was made upon a place called Virta, said to have been a fortress of great strength, and by some moderns identified with Tekrit, an important city upon the Tigris between Mosul and Bagdad.  Here the career of the conqueror was at last arrested.  Persuasion and force proved alike unavailing to induce or compel a surrender; and, after wasting the small remainder of the year, and suffering considerable loss, the Persian monarch reluctantly gave up the siege, and returned to his own country.

Meanwhile the movements of the Roman emperor had been slow and uncertain.  Distracted between a jealous fear of his cousin Julian’s proceedings in the West, and a desire of checking the advance of his rival Sapor in the East, he had left Constantinople in the early spring, but had journeyed leisurely through Cappadocia and Armenia Minor to Samosata, whence, after crossing the Euphrates, he had proceeded to Edessa, and there fixed himself.  While in Cappadocia he had summoned to his presence Arsaces, the tributary king of Armenia, had reminded him of his engagements, and had endeavored to quicken his gratitude by bestowing on him liberal presents.  At Edessa he employed himself during the whole of the summer in collecting troops and stores; nor was it till the autumnal equinox was past that he took the field, and, after weeping over the smoking ruins of Amida, marched to Bezabde, and, when the defenders rejected his overtures of peace, formed the siege of the place.  Sapor was, we must suppose, now engaged before Virta, and it is probable that he thought Bezabde strong enough to defend itself.  At any rate, he made no effort to afford