I, Constantius, victor by land and sea, perpetual Augustus, to my brother King Sapor, offer most ample greeting. I rejoice in your health, and if you will, I shall be your friend hereafter; but this covetousness of yours, always unbending and more widely encroaching, I vehemently reprobate.

You demand Mesopotamia as your own and likewise Armenia, and you recommend lopping off some members of a sound body, so that its health may afterwards be put upon a firm footing—advice which is rather to be refuted than to be confirmed by any agreement. Therefore listen to the truth, not obscured by any juggling, but transparent and not to be intimidated by any empty threats.

My praetorian prefect, thinking to undertake an enterprise conducing to the public weal, entered into conversations with a general of yours, through the agency of some individuals of little worth and without consulting me, on the subject of peace. This we neither reject nor refuse, if only it take place with dignity and honour, without at all prejudicing our self-respect or our majesty.

For at this time, when the sequence of events (may envy’s breezes be placated!) has beamed in manifold form upon us, when with the overthrow of the usurpers the whole Roman world is subject to us, it is absurd and silly to surrender what we long preserved unmolested when we were still confined within the bounds of the Orient.That is, when Constantius shared the rule with his brothers and governed only the eastern provinces.

Furthermore, pray make an end of those intimidations which (as usual) are directed against us, since there can be no doubt that it was not through slackness, but through self-restraint that we have sometimes accepted battle rather than offered it, and that when we are set upon, we defend our territories with the most valiant spirit of a good conscience; for we know both by experience and by reading that while in some battles, though rarely, the Roman cause has stumbled, yet in the main issue of our wars it has never succumbed to defeat.

This embassy having been sent back without obtaining anything—for no fuller answer could be made to the king’s unbridled greed—after a very few days it was followed by Count Prosper,See xiv. 11, 5; xv. 13, 3. Spectatus, tribune and secretary,There were three classes of secretaries. The highest held the rank of tribune; see Introd., pp. xliii f. and likewise, at the suggestion of Musonianus,See xv. 13, 1; xvi. 9, 2. the philosopher Eustathius,From Cappadocia, a pupil of Iamblichus. as a master of persuasion; they carried with them letters of the emperor and gifts, and meanwhile planned by some craft or other to stay Sapor’s preparations, so that his northern provinces might not be fortified beyond the possibility of attack.

In the midst of these uncertainties the Juthungi, a branch of the Alamanni bordering on Italian territory, forgetful of the peace and the treaty which they had obtained by their prayers, were laying waste Raetia with such violence as even to attempt the besieging of towns, contrary to their habit.