potamia, the object of so many wars, was ceded to the empire; and the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all pretensions to that great province. II. Cession of five provinces beyond the Tigris They relinquished to the Romans five provinces beyond the Tigris.[1] Their situation formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength was soon improved by art and military skill. Four of these, to the north of the river, were districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable extent: Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene; but, on the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and mountainous 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 country, 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.[2] Their posterity, the Curds, with very little alteration either of name or manners, acknowledged the nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. Armenia It is almost needless to observe 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 tar as the fortress of Sintha in Media, and this increase of dominion was not so much an act of liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned beyond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the Parthians from the crown of Armenia;[3] and, when the Romans acquired the possession of them, they stipulated, at the expense of the usurpers, an ample compensation, which invested their ally with the extensive and
- ↑ Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Carduene [Corduene], are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two, Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30 [ib.]) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I have preferred Ammianus (l. xxv. 7), because it might be proved, that Sophene was never in the hand of the Persians, 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. [Intilene and Moxoene are the same. Gibbon's statements are not correct. Peter gives Intêlene and Sophene; Ammianus, Moxoene and Rehimene. Thus the question is between Rehimene and Sophene.]
- ↑ Xenophon's Anabasis, l. iv. [3]. 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 Mss.) the city of Tigranocerta was in Arzanene. The names and situation of the other three may be faintly traced.
