Parantzem still refused to surrender, and with 11,000 soldiers and 6,000 fugitive women held the fortress of Ardis fourteen months, till nearly all of them were dead from hunger or disease; then she opened the gates herself. Instead of honoring her, Shahpur, who was a worthy predecessor of the Turks, had her violated on a public platform by his soldiers, and then impaled (368). Meantime, her and Ashag's son, Bab (Papa), had escaped to Constantinople and asked the help of the co-Emperor Valens. That emperor hated to break the treaty, and involve Rome in a new eastern war; but he could not suffer Persia to be strengthened by the possession of all Armenia, and the Roman statesmen had determined to end the long struggle over Armenia by dividing it between Persia and themselves. Bab was secretly helped by the Romans; he kept up a guerrilla warfare in the mountains, and a large part of the Armenian people were prepared to welcome him back to his rightful throne. The Romans tried to keep within the letter of their treaty by not letting him assume the title of king. The Persians considered his support by Greek troops a breach of the treaty, none the less, and Valens alternately aided and disavowed him. The matter was not mended by the worthless character of Bab himself, who murdered his best friends on the least suspicion, and had the incredible baseness to hold a secret correspondence with Shahpur, the worse than murderer of his parents. Finally the Romans, convinced that he must be under their watch if they were to have any security of him, tolled him down to Cilicia, and prevented him from returning by guards of soldiers. He made his escape, and professed his allegiance to the Romans as before; but Valens resolved to be rid of him, and had him murdered by Count Trajan, the Roman commander in the East.