But now Sapor saw his opportunity--the opportunity for which he had perhaps planned and waited.

His light troops on the adjacent hills commanded the camp, and, advancing on every side, surrounded it.
They were fresh and eager for the fray; they fought in the security afforded by the darkness; while the fires of the camp showed them their enemies, worn out with fatigue, sleepy, or drunken.

The result, as might have been expected, was a terrible carnage.

The Persians overwhelmed the legionaries with showers of darts and arrows; flight, under the circumstances, was impossible; and the Roman soldiers mostly perished where they stood.

They took, however, ere they died, an atrocious revenge.