Whichever of these narratives may come nearest to the truth, the emperor died in the captivity of the enemy,[96] and the consequence of this disaster was the forfeiture of the East to the Persians. Above all Antioch, the largest and richest city of the East, fell for the first time since it was Roman into the power of the public foe, and in good part through the fault of its own citizens. Mareades, an Antiochene of rank, whom the council had expelled for the embezzlement of public monies, brought the Persian army to his native town; whether it be a fable that the citizens were surprised in the theatre itself by the advancing foes, there is no doubt that they not merely offered no resistance, but that a great part of the lower population, partly in consideration of Mareades, partly in the hope of anarchy and pillage, saw with pleasure the entrance of the Persians. Thus the city with all its treasures became the prey of the enemy, and fearful ravages were committed in it; Mareades indeed also was--we know not why--condemned by king Sapor to perish by fire.[97] Besides numerous smaller places, the capitals of Cilicia and Cappadocia--Tarsus and Caesarea, the latter, it is stated, a town of 400,000 inhabitants--suffered the same fate. Endless trains of captives, who were led like cattle once a day to the watering, covered the desert-routes of the East. On the return home the Persians, it is alleged, in order the more rapidly to cross a ravine, filled it up with the bodies of the captives whom they brought with them. It is more credible that the great “imperial dam” (Bend-i-Kaiser) at Sostra (Shuster) in Susiana, by which still at the present day the water of the Pasitigris is conveyed to the higher-lying regions, was built by these captives; as indeed the emperor Nero’s architects had helped to build the capital of Armenia, and generally in this domain the Occidentals always maintained their superiority. The Persians nowhere encountered resistance from the empire; but Edessa still held out, and Caesarea had bravely defended itself, and had only fallen by treachery. The local resistance gradually passed beyond a mere defensive behind the walls of towns, and the breaking up of the Persian hosts, brought about by the wide extent of the conquered territory, was favourable to the bold partisan. A self-appointed Roman leader, Callistus,[98] succeeded in a happy _coup de main_; with the vessels which he had brought together in the ports of Cilicia he sailed for Pompeiopolis--which the Persians were just besieging, while they at the same time laid waste Lycaonia,--killed several thousand men, and possessed himself of the royal harem. This induced the king, under pretext of celebrating a festival that might not be put off, to go home at once in such haste that, in order not to be detained, he purchased from the Edessenes free passage through their territory in return for all the Roman gold money which he had captured as booty. Odaenathus,