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Dissatisfied with what Azarethes had achieved, and feeling that the season was not too far advanced for a second campaign, Kobad despatched an army under three chiefs, into Mesopotamia, where Sittas was now the principal commander on the Roman side, as Belisarius had been hastily summoned to Byzantium in order to be employed against the "Vandals" in Africa.

It was partly due to his exertions, that Phraates preferred to take the reward which was offered to him by both sides for his accession the secured possession of Mesopotamia from the hand of the Romans, renewed with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting the boundary of the Euphrates, and even consented to operate in concert with the Romans against Armenia.

Weather, crops, and spelling-school these were what his words would say if reported. But below all these commonplaces there vibrated something else. One can make love a great deal better when one doesn't speak of love. Words are so poor! Tones and modulations are better. It is an old story that Whitefield could make an audience weep by his way of pronouncing the word Mesopotamia.

So they journeyed thither, and when they reached the royal quarters the chamberlain went in and acquainted the Caliph Sulayman bin Abd al-Malik with Khuzaymah's arrival, whereat he was troubled and said, "What! is the Governor of Mesopotamia come without our command? This can be only on some grave occasion." Then he bade admit him and said, before saluting him, "What is behind thee, O Khuzaymah?"

'For a long series of years, replied the ambassador, 'the wealth of Egypt and the East, as you are aware, flowed into the Roman treasury. That stream has been diverted to Palmyra. Egypt, and Syria, and Bithynia, and Mesopotamia, were dependants upon Rome, and Roman provinces. It is needless to say what they now are.

Thus having the appearance of armor without its weight he could be safe from plots and also arouse admiration. He often used these garments when not in battle. He wore also a cavalry cloak, now all purple, now purple with white threads, and again of white with purple threads, and also red. In Syria and in Mesopotamia he used Celtic clothing and shoes.

Traces of these are yet to be found in more than one familiar expression recalling the beliefs and ideas that took shape in the plains of Mesopotamia long before the palaces of Babylon and Nineveh were raised upon the banks of its two great rivers. Astrology could not fail to smooth the way for astronomy, its successor.

On his first arrival in Syria, he contented himself with expelling the Parthians from the province, nor was it till late in the year, that, having first made ample preparation, he crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia.

It appears that the Roman generals, in pursuance of the orders given them, marched across Northern Mesopotamia to the Armenian borders, and were there joined by an Armenian contingent which Arsaces sent to their assistance. The allies marched together into Media, and carried fire and sword through the fruitful district known as Chiliacomus, or "the district of the Thousand Villages."

At last, on the 21st of December, the Christian army arrived at the canal of Ashmum Tanah, which alone separated them from the town of Mansuria. The Egyptians were now commanded by Emir Fakhr ed-Din. Ayyub had died a month before, but his wife, Shejret ed-Durr, kept his death a secret until his son Turan Shah should arrive from Mesopotamia.