Book 27
12.1
Now the king of the Persians, the famous 368–70 A.D. Sapor, now aged,He was now 70 years old. and from the very outset of his reign given over to the pleasure of plunder, after the death of the emperor Julian and the shameful treaty of peace that was struck,Cf. xxv. 7, 9 ff. for a time appeared with his subjects to be friendly to us. But then, trampling under foot the promise of the pact made under Jovian,Cf. xxv. 7, 14. he laid his hand on Armenia, with the intention of bringing the country under his sway, as if all force of the agreements that had been made was at an end.
12.2
At first he tried to accomplish his purpose through various arts of deception, and he inflicted slight losses on this powerfully populous nation, by soliciting some of the grandees and satraps and surprising others by unexpected forays.
12.3
Then, by carefully calculated flattery mingled with perjury, King Arsaces himself was tricked; for after being invited to a banquet he was taken according to orders to a secret rear-door; there, after his eyes had been gouged out, he was bound in silver chains, which among that people is regarded as a consolation, though an empty one, for the punishment of men of rank,Cf. Curtius, v. 12, 20, ne tamen honos regi non haberetur, aureis compedibus Dareum vinciunt; Hdt. iii. 130. and then he was banished to a fortress called Agabana, where after being tortured he was slain by the penal steel.
