HKB
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Often appears with: supply, logistics, and encampment · battle and tactics · siege and fortification · sapor vs jovian · samara on the tigris · night crossing · naval warfare and sea power · flooded river · engineers and improvised bridges · elephant attack
Usually: narrative (2) · sudden reversal of fortune (2) · the fall of the great (1)
Pressured by soldiers’ impatience, Jovian and officers resist crossing the flooded Tigris; selected Gauls and northern Germans force a night passage, signal success, and engineers plan bridges with bladders and animal hides.
report being spread that we were at no great distance from our own frontier, the army raised an impatient shout, and demanded to be at once led across the Tigris. 12. But the emperor and his officers opposed this demand, and showed them that the river, now just at the time of the rising of the Dogstar, was much flooded, entreated them not to trust themselves to its dangerous currents, reminding them that most of the…
Gibbon shifts to the aftermath of Julian: Sapor learns of Julian’s death, attacks Jovian’s rear with elephants, and the Romans fight and retreat along the Tigris to Samara, Carche, and Dura, then attempt crossing under pressure.
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears; and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the ten…