[Sidenote: A.D. 199(?)] [Sidenote:--10--] Next, Severus crossed Mesopotamia and made an attempt on Hatra, which was not far off, but accomplished nothing. In fact, even the engines were burned, many soldiers perished, and vast numbers were wounded. Therefore Severus retired from the place and shifted his quarters. While he was at war, he also put to death two distinguished men. The first was Julius Crispus, a tribune of the Pretorians. The cause of his execution was that indignant at the damage done by the war he had casually uttered a verse of the poet Maro, in which one of the soldiers fighting on the side of Turnus against Aeneas bewails his lot and says: "To enable Turnus to marry Lavinia we are meanwhile perishing, without heed being paid to us." [Footnote: Two and a half lines beginning with verse 371 in Book Eleven of Virgil's Aeneid.] Severus made Valerius, the soldier who had accused him, tribune in his place. The other whom he killed was Laetus, and the reason was that Laetus was proud and was beloved by the soldiers. They often said they would not march, unless Laetus would lead them. The responsibility for this murder, for which he had no clear reason save jealousy, he fastened upon the soldiers, making it appear that they had ventured upon the act contrary to his will. [Sidenote: A.D. 200(?)] [Sidenote:--11--] After laying in a large store of food and preparing many engines he in person again led an attack upon Hatra. He deemed it a disgrace, now that other points had been subdued, that this one alone, occupying a central position, should continue to resist. And he lost a large amount of money and all his engines except those of Priscus, as I stated earlier, [Footnote: Compare Book Seventy-four, chapter 11.] besides many soldiers. Numbers were annihilated in foraging expeditions, as the barbarian cavalry (I mean that of the Arabians) kept everywhere assailing them with precision and violence. The archery of the Atreni, too, was effective over a very long range. Some missiles they hurled from engines, striking many of Severus's men-at-arms, for they discharged two missiles in one and the same shot and there were also many hands and many arrows to inflict injury. They did their assailants the utmost damage, however, when the latter approached the wall, and in an even greater degree after they had broken down a little of it. Then they threw at them among other things the bituminous naphtha of which I wrote above [Footnote: Compare the beginning of Book Thirty-six (supplied from Xiphilinus).] and set fire to the engines and all the soldiers that were struck with it. Severus observed proceedings from a lofty tribunal. [Sidenote:--12--] A portion of the outer circuit had fallen in one place and all the soldiers were eager to force their way inside the remainder, when Severus checked them from doing so by giving orders that the signal for retreat be sounded clearly on all sides. The