THIRD BAS-RELIEF. 
543 
expect nothing but insult from his captor ; and this was verified 
in the scene before us. On the instant that Shapoor seized his 
captive, that proud monarch put a double disgrace on the Roman 
purple, by investing a person of no note, called Cyriades, with 
the title of Emperor; and the Roman army in chains could not 
but ratify the election. This man was a native of Antioch, 
then the capital of the Caesars in the East; and probably, as he 
immediately marched along with the Persian king to that city, 
and under sanction of his own imperial dignity, resigned the 
whole to the pillage of Shapoor, he had previously been 
the most eminent traitor, in compassing the captivity of his 
betrayed sovereign. Hence, as the kneeling figure with the 
laurel, the Roman badge of sovereignty, on his brow, must be 
Valerian, it would be difficult to conjecture who that other 
person is that wears a second diadem of the kind, unless we 
suppose him to be Cyriades. The crowned head, the satisfied 
smile on the countenance, so strongly contrasted with the earnest 
supplication in the face of the kneeling figure, together with the 
act of vassalage declared in the clasped hands, all would seem to 
urge, that this is the new emperor the Persian monarch set up 
to be his creature, and to dishonour the Roman name. Plis 
having shackles about his ancles (if they are so), like those of 
Valerian, would not militate against this supposition, since he 
might have thought proper to appear as a prisoner amongst the 
rest, until the king distinguished him by the public investiture 
of the imperial purple. 
This event happened A. D. 260, and soon after, the unhappy 
monarch was led captive, with hundreds of his people brought 
from the Roman settlements in the East, to assist in building 
the city of Shapoor; a superb monument, as the victor intended, 
