Res Gestae

Now that the envoys of the Greeks have been sent far away and perhaps are to be killed, that aged king, not content with Hellespontus, will bridge the Granicus and the Rhyndacus[*](Two rivers of Mysia, in north-western Asia Minor, the former celebrated for the victory of Alexander the Great over the Persians, the latter for the defeat of Mithradates by Lucullus.) and come to invade Asia with many nations. He is naturally passionate and very cruel, and he has as an instigator and abetter the successor of the former Roman emperor Hadrian;[*](Referring of course to the deserter Antoninus.) unless Greece takes heed, it is all over with her and her dirge chanted.

This writing meant that the king of the Persians had crossed the rivers Anzaba and Tigris, and, urged on by Antoninus, aspired to the rule of the

There was at that time in Corduene,[*](A mountainous region in Armenia, taken by Caesar Maximnianus from the Persians in the time of Galerius, but not yet wholly freed from their rule. Later it was separated from the Persian dominion by Jovian: cf. xxv. 2.) which was subject to the Persian power, a satrap called Jovinianus on Roman soil, a youth who had secret sympathy with us for the reason that, having been detained in Syria as a hostage and allured by the charm of liberal studies, he felt a burning desire to return to our country.