He now undertook the war against Persia, which seems to have been interrupted hitherto by other wars. The plan was beautifully devised, only he had reckoned a great deal too much on everything turning out well. He intended to march with his army along the banks of the Euphrates, where supplies could always be procured by means of the river; then to transport his fleet by canals into the Tigris, and thus strike a deadly blow into the heart of the enemy: it was perhaps his object to make Babylon a province. From Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Procopius and Sebastian were to cross the Tigris and join him in the plains of Armenia. Then he made sure that the Armenians, from whom, in the last years of Constantine the Great (or under Constantius), Aderbidjan had been wrested by Sapor, would advance against Media; and no doubt he also reckoned upon the Iberians, whom Sapor had again brought under his rule. But in Armenia and Iberia, Julian’s religious opinions were in his way: the Armenian princes were Arsacidæ and Christians, and therefore hostile to the Persians even because of their bigoted Magianism; yet they were still more hostile to the Ἀποστάτης. They would have been little inclined to give him help, even if a man like Tiridates, who gained such distinction in Galerius’ war, had been at their head; but they were now governed by a prince of very little spirit. The Armenians therefore kept neutral; the Iberians even showed themselves to be the foes of the Romans. Procopius and Sebastian met with immense difficulties in their undertaking, and they were not the men to overcome them. Julian marched down along the Euphrates; but he had started on his expedition too late. For the summer is so hot there, that he ought to have set out even in the midst of winter, so as to reach Babylon in the real season of spring, that is to say, in March or April; for in the middle of April, summer begins in those countries, and they have already got in the harvest. But he did not set out before March, when he came down the Euphrates: his approach struck the Persians with the utmost dismay. After having reduced two strong towns, he arrived before Ctesiphon, where he expected to find Procopius and Sebastian waiting for him. Thus far, all his operations are masterly, and they show his great skill as a general; but he had not thought that Ctesiphon was so strongly fortified as it really was: (its fortifications must have been erected since the time of Carus, as Trajan, Septimius Severus, and Carus had taken it). He became convinced that he should not be able to effect anything here with his army; yet this conviction came too late. He was quite right in not attempting to storm the place, as his soldiers wanted him to do: his fatal blunder was not a military one. Sapor had repeatedly sued for peace in the most pressing manner; but Julian wished, as it would seem, altogether to destroy the Persian empire, so that he might no more be hindered by a