4.  The mutual hatred of the Pagans and Christians would probably have rekindled the flames of civil war, had not Julian fallen in an expedition against the Persians. 5.  The emperor triumphantly advanced through the dominions of Sa’por as far as the Ti’gris; but the Asiatics, though defeated in the field, adopted means of defence more terrible to an invader than arms.  They laid waste the country, destroyed the villages, and burned the crops in the Roman line of march; a burning sun weakened the powers of the western veterans, and when famine was added to the severity of the climate, their sufferings became intolerable. 6.  With a heavy heart Julian at last gave orders to commence a retreat, and led his exhausted soldiers back over the desert plains which they had already passed with so much difficulty.  The retrograde march was terribly harassed by the light cavalry of the Persians, a species of troops peculiarly fitted for desultory warfare.  The difficulties of the Romans increased at every step, and the harassing attacks of their pursuers became more frequent and more formidable; at length, in a skirmish which almost deserved the name of a battle, Julian was mortally wounded, and with his loss the Romans dearly purchased a doubtful victory.

7.  In the doubt and dismay which followed the death of Ju’lian, a few voices saluted Jo’vian, the first of the imperial domestics, with the title of emperor, and the army ratified the choice.  The new sovereign successfully repelled some fresh attacks of the Persians, but despairing of final success, he entered into a treaty with Sa’por, and purchased a peace, or rather a long truce of thirty years, by the cession of several frontier provinces.

[Illustration:  Jovian issuing the edict in favour of Christianity.]

8.  The first care of Jo’vian was to fulfil the stipulated articles; the Roman garrisons and colonies so long settled in the frontier towns that they esteemed them as their native soil, were withdrawn; and the Romans beheld with regret the omen of their final destruction in the first dismemberment of the empire.  The first edict in the new reign contained a repeal of Julian’s disqualifying laws, and a grant of universal toleration.  This judicious measure at once showed how ineffectual had been the efforts of the late emperor to revive the fallen spirit of paganism; the temples were immediately deserted, the sacrifices neglected, the priests left alone at their altars; those who, to gratify the former sovereign assumed the dress and title of philosophers, were assailed by such storms of ridicule, that they laid aside the designation, shaved their beards, and were soon undistinguished in the general mass of society. 9.  Jo’vian did not long survive this peaceful triumph of Christianity; after a reign of eight months, he was found dead in his bed, having been suffocated by the mephitic vapours which a charcoal fire extracted from the fresh plaster, on the walls of his apartment.