[245] Rollin; Chandler.
[246] This is Quintus Curtius’ account. Plutarch says 40,000 talents.
[247] Or five thousand talents weight. Dacier calls it so many hundred-weight; and the eastern talent was near that weight. Pliny tells us, that a pound of the double-dipped Tyrian purple, in the time of Augustus, sold for a hundred crowns.—Langhorne.
[248] Plutarch says, that in his time specimens were still to be seen of the same kind and age, in all their pristine lustre.
[249] Rollin.
[250] Fragments of earthenware, scattered in the greatest profusion, are found to the distance of twenty-six miles.—Walpole’s Travels in Turkey, vol. i. 420.
[251] Nearchus, p. 415.
[252] When taken prisoner by Sapor.
[253] The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult, the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So little has been preserved in eastern history before Mahomet, that the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the victory of Sapor, an event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliothèque Orientale.—Gibbon.
[254] Strabo; Plutarch; Arrian; Quintus Curtius; Prideaux; Rollin; Gibbon; Vincent; Rennell; Barthelemy; Kinneir; Walpole.