Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 18.5.7

[7] For having been brought up in their midst, as a man well informed on all matters, finding eager hearers, desirous of having their ears tickled, who did not praise him but like Homer’s Phaeacians ¹ admired him in silence, he would rehearse the history of the past forty years. He showed that after constant successes in war, especially at Hileia and Singara, ² where that furious contest at night took place and our troops were cut to pieces with great carnage, as if some fetial priest were intervening ³ to stop the fight, the Persians did not yet reach Edessa nor the bridges of the Euphrates, in spite of being victorious; whereas trusting to their prowess and their splendid successes, they ought so to have extended their kingdom as to rule over all Asia, especially at a time when through the continual commotions of civil wars Rome’s stoutest soldiers were shedding their blood on two sides.