United States or Armenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The other aide was a Major Moore an Irish soldier of fortune, who had been in the Valerian Army some ten years, and, by his efficiency, had become attached to the General Staff. He was of noble birth the younger son of a younger son of an Irish Earl and "as an Irishman is more than half an American he will, doubtless, be congenial," the King said.

Tradition says that Sapor used his power over Valerian to obtain Roman engineers for this work; and the great dam is still known as the Bund-i-Kaisar, or "dam of Caesar," to the inhabitants of the neighboring country.

At that hour it awoke him with extreme difficulty. He awoke Erebus with extreme difficulty. Five minutes later they were munching bread and butter in the kitchen to stay themselves against the cold of the bitter November morning; then they sallied forth, equipped with rags, string and the bottle of valerian. They bicycled to Muttle Deeping.

"This upstart soldier of fortune," reflected he, "has an unseemly habit of overcoming and leading captive legitimate princes; thus prejudicing Divine right in the eyes of the vulgar. The skin of his predecessor Valerian, curried and stuffed with straw, hangs to this hour in the temple at Ctesiphon, a pleasing spectacle to the immortal gods.

"Valerian!" he said, "I shall not live through the night. Watch with me." The faint raps sounded clearly in the stillness of the great building, and Valerian dreaded lest the warders should hear them, and deal out punishment for an offence which by day they were forced to wink at. But he would not for the world have deserted his friend.

Nay, when the trial came, and the good Valerian set forth to redeem the East from the encroaching power of Persia, I was not found wanting, but abandoned a home, than which there was not a prouder nor happier within the walls of Rome, to take my chance with the emperor and my noble father. The issue thou knowest.

Then, I was delegated frequently by the King to represent him on occasions of ceremony; and, for them, I needed careful coaching. In fact, there were a thousand matters which occupied me to exhaustion. And, through it all, I was trying to get familiar with the organization and administration and methods of the Valerian Army, so as to be fitted to discharge the duties of my high rank.

But instead of making a judicious choice, which would have confirmed his reign and endeared his memory, Valerian, consulting only the dictates of affection or vanity, immediately invested with the supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth whose effeminate vices had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private station.

At the middle of the third century the emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian, wrote, "Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and Carioviscus."

As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit, defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honorable but less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and by the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their former disgrace.