The reign of Arshak is, indeed, contemporary with the great wars which were waged by Shapur with the power which disputed his supremacy over the East. However little credit we may attach to the narrative of the Armenian historian, it is at least plain that a king who owed his throne to the Cæsars was often their enemy and never their loyal ally. We are told, indeed, that on one occasion his armies violated the Roman territory and advanced as far as Angora; on another that the king himself led his troops against those of the Empire, and fell upon them as they were preparing to receive a Persian attack. When the duel was being waged most fiercely he maintained an attitude of expectant neutrality, waiting to see which of the antagonists would offer him the best terms. The only palliation which we may discover for such a course of outrageous conduct is derived from the obscure notice of a religious persecution, directed against the Armenian pontiff, Nerses, by one of the successors of Constantine. Yet that prelate with true wisdom enjoined resistance to the Persians at a moment when it might well have seemed a desperate course. The king, left to his fate by the provision in the Roman treaty, maintained for awhile a courageous front to the Persian onslaught. But he was at length compelled to sue for peace and to place his person in the power of his enemy under a guarantee of security. His former treachery was requited, as it deserved, by the same treatment; and, while he himself was taken to Persia and consigned to the castle of oblivion, his queen, after a brief resistance, was brought to the presence of Shapur and outraged before the eyes of his army until she expired.