Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/469

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 445 great province. II. They relinquished to the Romans C H A P. five provinces beyond the Tigris. Their situation * _ formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength Cession of was soon improved by art and military skill. Four of ^fnces^'g. these, to the north of the river, were districts of ob- yo"4 *^® scure fame and inconsiderable extent; Intiline, Zab- ° dicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene : but on the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and moun- tainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the Carduchians, who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in the heart of the despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thousand Greeks traversed their coun- try, after a painful march, or rather engagement, of seven days ; and it is confessed by their leader, in his incomparable relation of the retreat, that they suffered more from the arrows of the Carduchians than from the power of the great king K Their posterity, the Curds, with very little alteration either of name or manners, acknowledge the nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost needless to ob- Armenia, serve, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome, was restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of the imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The limits of Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha in Media ; and this in- crease of dominion was not so much an act of liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned be- yond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the Parthians from the crown of Armenia ™ ; and ^ Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Carduene, are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two, Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30.) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I have preferred Ainmianus, (1. xxv. 7.) because it might be proved that Sophene was never in the hands of the Per- sians, either before the reign of Diocletian, or after that of Jovian. For want of correct maps, like those of M. d'Anville, almost all the moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their head, have imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome, that the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris. ' Xenophon's Anabasis, 1. iv. Their bows were three cubits in length, their arrows two ; they rolled down stones that were each a waggon load. The Greeks found a great many villages in that rude country. "> According to Eutropius, (vi. 9. as the text is represented by the best manuscripts,) the city of Tigranocerta was in Arzanene. The names and situation of the ether three may be faintly traced.