To bring these Assyrians again into subjection to the Roman power, Julian commenced a campaign against them. He took with him sixty-five thousand veteran Roman soldiers and a vast body of Scythian auxiliaries and roving Arabs. Eleven hundred barges crowded the Euphrates, to float down the stream the emperor’s ponderous engines of war and his military supplies.
These boats, flat-bottomed, were easily converted into pontoon-bridges. As this immense army crossed the Euphrates, and entered Assyria, Julian gathered the whole body around him, and, with the most imposing rites of pagan religion, offered sacrifices to the pagan gods, appealing to them for aid in his enterprise. The appeal, for a time, seemed not to be in vain. Signal success accompanied his arms. City after city fell before the terrible power of the Roman legions. The trail of the victorious army was marked by smouldering ruins and blood.
Maogamalcha was one of the most important cities of this Assyrian realm. The wolfish Roman legions burst through the gates. Every conceivable outrage was inflicted upon the wretched inhabitants, and then they were consigned to indiscriminate massacre. The governor of the city was burned alive. There were in the suburbs three palaces, enriched with every thing which could minister to the pride of an Eastern monarch. Palaces, gardens, parks, statuary, paintings,—all were reduced to utter ruin.
The devastation of a palace creates much emotion; but it is the burning of the cottage, of which history takes such little notice, which fills the world with weeping and woe. Julian became such a terror to this whole region, that the painters of the nation represented him as a lion vomiting fire. And yet this same man seemed to have his appetites and passions under perfect control: he was quite free from many of those vices which degrade humanity; he shared all the hardships of the soldiers, often traversing with them, on foot, the burning plains.
But ere long the heathen gods, whose aid he had implored, and upon whom he had relied, seemed to abandon him. He was led to adopt the most insane measures, which could only result in his ruin. Troubles gathered thickly around him. He became so harassed with anxiety, that he could not sleep. One night, in troubled dreams, or in a revery, an angel appeared before him weeping, and covered with a funereal veil.
The superstitious monarch, affrighted, rushed from his tent. It was midnight. The camp was silent. The stars of Mesopotamia shone down sadly upon the apostate. Suddenly a brilliant meteor shot athwart the sky. To the superstitious pagan it was a menace from the god of war, indicating defeat.
At break of day the trumpets suddenly sounded, summoning the soldiers to repel an attack from the foe springing by surprise upon them. It was a sultry summer’s morning: not a breath of air mitigated the overpowering heat. Julian, as he rushed to the field, laid aside his cuirass. A cloud of arrows and javelins fell upon him. A barbed javelin, lined with sharp inlaid blades of steel, grazed his arm, pierced his ribs, and, with its keen point, penetrated deeply the liver of the monarch. Frantic with pain, Julian seized the weapon, and endeavored to wrench it out. In the attempt, his hands were severely lacerated by the blades. Bleeding, fainting, he fell senseless to the ground.
His guards bore his inanimate body from the tumult of the battle to a neighboring tent. It was some time before he awoke to consciousness. The blood was gushing from the wound. It was evident to Julian, and to all others, that he must soon die. Grasping a handful of the crimson gore, he flung it madly toward the heavens, as if conscious that Jesus was reigning there, and exclaimed, “O Galilean! thou hast conquered.”
The current of life was now fast ebbing, and death was manifestly near at hand. The wretched Julian made a faint attempt to rally to his support his pagan philosophy.
“I have lived,” he said, “without any sin. I am not afraid to die. My soul is now to be absorbed into the ethereal substance of the universe.”