“Let me speak from experience,” said Constantius. “Two years ago I was attached, with a squadron of galleys, to the expedition against the tribes of Mount Taurus. While the galleys wintered in Cyprus, I followed the troops up the hills. Nothing had been omitted that would counteract the severity of the season. Tents, provisions, clothing adapted to the hills, even luxuries despatched from the islands, gave the camps almost the indulgences of cities. The physical hardships of the campaign were trivial compared with those of hundreds in which the Romans had beaten regular armies. Yet the discontent was indescribable, from the perpetual alarms of the service. The mountaineers were not numerous and were but half armed; they were not disciplined at all. A Roman centurion would have outmaneuvered all their captains. But they were brave; they knew nothing but to kill or be killed, and it made no difference to them whether Death did his work by night or by day. Sleep to us was scarcely possible. To sit down on a march was to be leveled at by a score of arrows; to pursue the archers was to be lured into some hollow, where a fragment of the rock above or a felled tree, was ready to crush the legionaries. We chased them from hill to hill; we might as well have chased the vultures and eagles that duly followed us, with the perfect certainty of not being disappointed of their meal. Wherever the enemy showed themselves they were beaten, but our victory was totally fruitless. The next turn of the mountain road was a stronghold, from which we had to expect a new storm of arrows, lances, and fragments of rock.