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Another bas-relief of the age of Sapor I. is on too large a scale, and too complicated, to be represented here; but a description may be given of it, and a specimen subjoined, from which the reader may judge of its character.
After this it would seem that the retreat was unmolested, and Sapor succeeded in conveying the greater part of his army, together with his illustrious prisoner, to his own country. With regard to the treatment that Valerian received at the hands of his conqueror, it is difficult to form a decided opinion.
The general principles which guided his conduct both in religious and other matters may perhaps be best gathered from the words of that "testament," or "dying speech," which he is said to have addressed to his son Sapor. "Never forget," he said, "that, as a king, you are at once the protector of religion and of your country.
Such audacity on the part of a petty town seemed no doubt to him to deserve a severe retribution. The place was therefore given over to the infuriated soldiery, who were allowed to slay and plunder at their pleasure. Of the captives taken, all belonging to the five provinces across the Tigris, claimed as his own by Sapor, though ceded to Rome by his grandfather, were massacred in cold blood.
Their choice fell on a plain, honest Christian soldier named Jovian, who did his best by making a treaty with Sapor, giving up all claim to any lands beyond the Tigris, and surrendering the brave city of Nisibis which had held out so gallantly a great grief to the Eastern Christians.
The glorious reign of Sapor II., which carried the New Persian Empire to the highest point whereto it had yet attained, is followed by a time which offers to that remarkable reign a most complete contrast.
In fact, this invasion of the Goths was not contemplated with that alarm which it ought to have excited, but rather as an accidental evil, like a pestilence or a plague. Moreover, it was lost sight of in the general misery and misfortunes of the times. The Emperor Valerian had just been defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor.
It appears that Sapor, relieved from any further necessity of defending his empire in arms, employed the remaining years of his life in the construction of great works, and especially in the erection and ornamentation of a new capital.
Have I not heard her, many a time, when I have been to solicit alms for some poor unfortunate of my tribe, run back upon the line of years, and speak of the wars of Valerian, of the day when she parted from her great husband, and her two sons, and of that dark day too when the news came that they were all fast in the clutch of that foul barbarian, Sapor -and stood a silent and astonished witness of a love, such as I never saw in any other, and which seemed so great as to be a necessary seed of death to her frail and shattered frame?
But a rumor reached us a few days before I left Rome, that Calpurnius is yet living. We learn, obscurely, that being favorably distinguished and secretly favored by the son of Sapor, he was persuaded to live, and wait for the times to open a way for his escape. You may imagine both my grief and my joy on this intelligence.
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