Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of the

times: and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and Asia

with blood, were compelled to reign as the ministers of charity

and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been formerly

observed, was endowed with ample possessions in Italy, Sicily,

and the more distant provinces; and her agents, who were commonly

sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even criminal,

jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor of

St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a

vigilant and moderate landlord; 73 and the epistles of Gregory

are filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or

vexatious lawsuits; to preserve the integrity of weights and

measures; to grant every reasonable delay; and to reduce the

capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the right of

marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. 74 The rent or the

produce of these estates was transported to the mouth of the

Tyber, at the risk and expense of the pope: in the use of wealth

he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and

liberally applied to their wants the inexhaustible resources of

abstinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and

disbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran,

as the model of Christian economy. On the four great festivals,

he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his

domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of

burial, the almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest

of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he distributed

to the poor, according to the season, their stated portion of

corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, fresh provisions,

clothes, and money; and his treasurers were continually summoned

to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence

and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless, of

strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day,

and of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a

frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to

some objects deserving of his compassion. The misery of the times

had reduced the nobles and matrons of Rome to accept, without a

blush, the benevolence of the church: three thousand virgins

received their food and raiment from the hand of their

benefactor; and many bishops of Italy escaped from the Barbarians

to the hospitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly

be styled the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme

sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a beggar

who had perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during

several days from the exercise of sacerdotal functions. II. The

misfortunes of Rome involved the apostolical pastor in the

business of peace and war; and it might be doubtful to himself,

whether piety or ambition prompted him to supply the place of his

absent sovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor from a long

slumber; exposed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his

inferior ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn

from Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to

guard their cities and altars; and condescended, in the crisis of

danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the operations, of

the provincial troops. But the martial spirit of the pope was

checked by the scruples of humanity and religion: the imposition

of tribute, though it was employed in the Italian war, he freely

condemned as odious and oppressive; whilst he protected, against

the Imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the soldiers who

deserted a military for a monastic life. If we may credit his own

declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to exterminate

the Lombards by their domestic factions, without leaving a king,

a duke, or a count, to save that unfortunate nation from the

vengeance of their foes. As a Christian bishop, he preferred the

salutary offices of peace; his mediation appeased the tumult of

arms: but he was too conscious of the arts of the Greeks, and the

passions of the Lombards, to engage his sacred promise for the

observance of the truce. Disappointed in the hope of a general

and lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without the

consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy was

suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and

seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of

heretics and Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by

the Byzantine court with reproach and insult; but in the

attachment of a grateful people, he found the purest reward of a

citizen, and the best right of a sovereign. 75

73 (return) [ Baronius is unwilling to expatiate on the care of

the patrimonies, lest he should betray that they consisted not of

kingdoms, but farms. The French writers, the Benedictine editors,

(tom. iv. l. iii. p. 272, &c.,) and Fleury, (tom. viii. p. 29,

&c.,) are not afraid of entering into these humble, though

useful, details; and the humanity of Fleury dwells on the social

virtues of Gregory.]

74 (return) [ I much suspect that this pecuniary fine on the

marriages of villains produced the famous, and often fabulous

right, de cuissage, de marquette, &c. With the consent of her

husband, a handsome bride might commute the payment in the arms

of a young landlord, and the mutual favor might afford a

precedent of local rather than legal tyranny]

75 (return) [ The temporal reign of Gregory I. is ably exposed by

Sigonius in the first book, de Regno Italiae. See his works, tom.

ii. p. 44—75]

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part I.

Revolutions On Persia After The Death Of Chosroes On Nushirvan.—His Son

Hormouz, A Tyrant, Is Deposed.—Usurpation Of Baharam.—Flight And

Restoration Of Chosroes II.—His Gratitude To The Romans.—The Chagan Of

The Avars.—Revolt Of The Army Against Maurice.—His Death.—Tyranny Of

Phocas.—Elevation Of Heraclius.—The Persian War.—Chosroes Subdues

Syria, Egypt, And Asia Minor.—Siege Of Constantinople By The Persians

And Avars.—Persian Expeditions.—Victories And Triumph Of Heraclius.

The conflict of Rome and Persia was prolonged from the death of

Craesus to the reign of Heraclius. An experience of seven hundred

years might convince the rival nations of the impossibility of

maintaining their conquests beyond the fatal limits of the Tigris

and Euphrates. Yet the emulation of Trajan and Julian was

awakened by the trophies of Alexander, and the sovereigns of

Persia indulged the ambitious hope of restoring the empire of

Cyrus. 1 Such extraordinary efforts of power and courage will

always command the attention of posterity; but the events by

which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a

faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the

reader would be exhausted by the repetition of the same

hostilities, undertaken without cause, prosecuted without glory,

and terminated without effect. The arts of negotiation, unknown

to the simple greatness of the senate and the Caesars, were

assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes; and the

memorials of their perpetual embassies 2 repeat, with the same

uniform prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the

insolence of the Barbarians, and the servile temper of the

tributary Greeks. Lamenting the barren superfluity of materials,

I have studied to compress the narrative of these uninteresting

transactions: but the just Nushirvan is still applauded as the

model of Oriental kings, and the ambition of his grandson

Chosroes prepared the revolution of the East, which was speedily

accomplished by the arms and the religion of the successors of

Mahomet.

1 (return) [ Missis qui... reposcerent... veteres Persarum ac

Macedonum terminos, seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post

Alexandro, per vaniloquentiam ac minas jaciebat. Tacit. Annal.

vi. 31. Such was the language of the Arsacides. I have repeatedly

marked the lofty claims of the Sassanians.]

2 (return) [ See the embassies of Menander, extracted and

preserved in the tenth century by the order of Constantine

Porphyrogenitus.]

In the useless altercations, that precede and justify the

quarrels of princes, the Greeks and the Barbarians accused each

other of violating the peace which had been concluded between the

two empires about four years before the death of Justinian. The

sovereign of Persia and India aspired to reduce under his

obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia 3 Felix; the distant

land of myrrh and frankincense, which had escaped, rather than

opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the defeat of Abrahah

under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons and brothers

gave an easy entrance to the Persians: they chased the strangers

of Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea; and a native prince of the

ancient Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or

viceroy of the great Nushirvan. 4 But the nephew of Justinian

declared his resolution to avenge the injuries of his Christian

ally the prince of Abyssinia, as they suggested a decent pretence

to discontinue the annual tribute, which was poorly disguised by

the name of pension. The churches of Persarmenia were oppressed

by the intolerant spirit of the Magi; 411 they secretly invoked

the protector of the Christians, and, after the pious murder of

their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported as the

brethren and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of

Nushirvan were disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded

to the importunities of the Turks, who offered an alliance

against the common enemy; and the Persian monarchy was threatened

at the same instant by the united forces of Europe, of Aethiopia,

and of Scythia. At the age of fourscore the sovereign of the East

would perhaps have chosen the peaceful enjoyment of his glory and

greatness; but as soon as war became inevitable, he took the

field with the alacrity of youth, whilst the aggressor trembled

in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or Chosroes,

conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that

important fortress had been left destitute of troops and

magazines, the valor of the inhabitants resisted above five

months the archers, the elephants, and the military engines of

the Great King. In the mean while his general Adarman advanced

from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed the Euphrates,

insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the city of

Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,

whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the

bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the

provinces and the court, produced a salutary effect in the

repentance and abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit

arose in the Byzantine councils; and a truce of three years was

obtained by the prudence of Tiberius. That seasonable interval

was employed in the preparations of war; and the voice of rumor

proclaimed to the world, that from the distant countries of the

Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Maesia, Pannonia, Illyricum,

and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry was reenforced

with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Yet the king of

Persia, without fear, or without faith, resolved to prevent the

attack of the enemy; again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing

the ambassadors of Tiberius, arrogantly commanded them to await

his arrival at Caesarea, the metropolis of the Cappadocian

provinces. The two armies encountered each other in the battle of

Melitene: 412 the Barbarians, who darkened the air with a cloud

of arrows, prolonged their line, and extended their wings across

the plain; while the Romans, in deep and solid bodies, expected

to prevail in closer action, by the weight of their swords and

lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their right wing,

suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard

in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp,

pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a

train of camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the

Persian host, and returned with songs of victory to his friends,

who had consumed the day in single combats, or ineffectual

skirmishes. The darkness of the night, and the separation of the

Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an opportunity of revenge;

and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid and impetuous

assault. But the review of his loss, and the consciousness of his

danger, determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat: he burnt, in his

passage, the vacant town of Melitene; and, without consulting the

safety of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an

elephant. After this unsuccessful campaign, the want of

magazines, and perhaps some inroad of the Turks, obliged him to

disband or divide his forces; the Romans were left masters of the

field, and their general Justinian, advancing to the relief of

the Persarmenian rebels, erected his standard on the banks of the

Araxes. The great Pompey had formerly halted within three days’

march of the Caspian: 5 that inland sea was explored, for the

first time, by a hostile fleet, 6 and seventy thousand captives

were transplanted from Hyrcania to the Isle of Cyprus. On the

return of spring, Justinian descended into the fertile plains of

Assyria; the flames of war approached the residence of Nushirvan;

the indignant monarch sunk into the grave; and his last edict

restrained his successors from exposing their person in battle

against the Romans. 611 Yet the memory of this transient affront

was lost in the glories of a long reign; and his formidable

enemies, after indulging their dream of conquest, again solicited

a short respite from the calamities of war. 7

3 (return) [ The general independence of the Arabs, which cannot

be admitted without many limitations, is blindly asserted in a

separate dissertation of the authors of the Universal History,

vol. xx. p. 196—250. A perpetual miracle is supposed to have

guarded the prophecy in favor of the posterity of Ishmael; and

these learned bigots are not afraid to risk the truth of

Christianity on this frail and slippery foundation. * Note: It

certainly appears difficult to extract a prediction of the

perpetual independence of the Arabs from the text in Genesis,

which would have received an ample fulfilment during centuries of

uninvaded freedom. But the disputants appear to forget the

inseparable connection in the prediction between the wild, the

Bedoween habits of the Ismaelites, with their national

independence. The stationary and civilized descendant of Ismael

forfeited, as it were, his birthright, and ceased to be a genuine

son of the “wild man” The phrase, “dwelling in the presence of

his brethren,” is interpreted by Rosenmüller (in loc.) and

others, according to the Hebrew geography, “to the East” of his

brethren, the legitimate race of Abraham—M.]

4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 477. Pocock,

Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 64, 65. Father Pagi (Critica, tom. ii.

p. 646) has proved that, after ten years’ peace, the Persian war,

which continued twenty years, was renewed A.D. 571. Mahomet was

born A.D. 569, in the year of the elephant, or the defeat of

Abrahah, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 89, 90, 98;) and

this account allows two years for the conquest of Yemen. * Note:

Abrahah, according to some accounts, was succeeded by his son

Taksoum, who reigned seventeen years; his brother Mascouh, who

was slain in battle against the Persians, twelve. But this

chronology is irreconcilable with the Arabian conquests of

Nushirvan the Great. Either Seif, or his son Maadi Karb, was the

native prince placed on the throne by the Persians. St. Martin,

vol. x. p. 78. See likewise Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae.—M.]

411 (return) [ Persarmenia was long maintained in peace by the

tolerant administration of Mejej, prince of the Gnounians. On his

death he was succeeded by a persecutor, a Persian, named

Ten-Schahpour, who attempted to propagate Zoroastrianism by

violence. Nushirvan, on an appeal to the throne by the Armenian

clergy, replaced Ten-Schahpour, in 552, by Veschnas-Vahram. The

new marzban, or governor, was instructed to repress the bigoted

Magi in their persecutions of the Armenians, but the Persian

converts to Christianity were still exposed to cruel sufferings.

The most distinguished of them, Izdbouzid, was crucified at Dovin

in the presence of a vast multitude. The fame of this martyr

spread to the West. Menander, the historian, not only, as appears

by a fragment published by Mai, related this event in his

history, but, according to M. St. Martin, wrote a tragedy on the

subject. This, however, is an unwarrantable inference from the

phrase which merely means that he related the tragic event in his

history. An epigram on the same subject, preserved in the

Anthology, Jacob’s Anth. Palat. i. 27, belongs to the historian.

Yet Armenia remained in peace under the government of

Veschnas-Vahram and his successor Varazdat. The tyranny of his

successor Surena led to the insurrection under Vartan, the

Mamigonian, who revenged the death of his brother on the marzban

Surena, surprised Dovin, and put to the sword the governor, the

soldiers, and the Magians. From St. Martin, vol x. p. 79—89.—M.]

412 (return) [ Malathiah. It was in the lesser Armenia.—M.]

5 (return) [ He had vanquished the Albanians, who brought into

the field 12,000 horse and 60,000 foot; but he dreaded the

multitude of venomous reptiles, whose existence may admit of some

doubt, as well as that of the neighboring Amazons. Plutarch, in

Pompeio, tom. ii. p. 1165, 1166.]

6 (return) [ In the history of the world I can only perceive two

navies on the Caspian: 1. Of the Macedonians, when Patrocles, the

admiral of the kings of Syria, Seleucus and Antiochus, descended

most probably the River Oxus, from the confines of India, (Plin.

Hist. Natur. vi. 21.) 2. Of the Russians, when Peter the First

conducted a fleet and army from the neighborhood of Moscow to the

coast of Persia, (Bell’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 325—352.) He justly

observes, that such martial pomp had never been displayed on the

Volga.]

611 (return) [ This circumstance rests on the statements of

Evagrius and Theophylaci Simocatta. They are not of sufficient

authority to establish a fact so improbable. St. Martin, vol. x.

p. 140.—M.]

7 (return) [ For these Persian wars and treaties, see Menander,

in Excerpt. Legat. p. 113—125. Theophanes Byzant. apud Photium,

cod. lxiv p. 77, 80, 81. Evagrius, l. v. c. 7—15. Theophylact, l.

iii. c. 9—16 Agathias, l. iv. p. 140.]

The throne of Chosroes Nushirvan was filled by Hormouz, or

Hormisdas, the eldest or the most favored of his sons. With the

kingdoms of Persia and India, he inherited the reputation and

example of his father, the service, in every rank, of his wise

and valiant officers, and a general system of administration,

harmonized by time and political wisdom to promote the happiness

of the prince and people. But the royal youth enjoyed a still

more valuable blessing, the friendship of a sage who had presided

over his education, and who always preferred the honor to the

interest of his pupil, his interest to his inclination. In a

dispute with the Greek and Indian philosophers, Buzurg 8 had once

maintained, that the most grievous misfortune of life is old age

without the remembrance of virtue; and our candor will presume

that the same principle compelled him, during three years, to

direct the councils of the Persian empire. His zeal was rewarded

by the gratitude and docility of Hormouz, who acknowledged

himself more indebted to his preceptor than to his parent: but

when age and labor had impaired the strength, and perhaps the

faculties, of this prudent counsellor, he retired from court, and

abandoned the youthful monarch to his own passions and those of

his favorites. By the fatal vicissitude of human affairs, the

same scenes were renewed at Ctesiphon, which had been exhibited

at Rome after the death of Marcus Antoninus. The ministers of

flattery and corruption, who had been banished by his father,

were recalled and cherished by the son; the disgrace and exile of

the friends of Nushirvan established their tyranny; and virtue

was driven by degrees from the mind of Hormouz, from his palace,

and from the government of the state. The faithful agents, the

eyes and ears of the king, informed him of the progress of

disorder, that the provincial governors flew to their prey with

the fierceness of lions and eagles, and that their rapine and

injustice would teach the most loyal of his subjects to abhor the

name and authority of their sovereign. The sincerity of this

advice was punished with death; the murmurs of the cities were

despised, their tumults were quelled by military execution: the

intermediate powers between the throne and the people were

abolished; and the childish vanity of Hormouz, who affected the

daily use of the tiara, was fond of declaring, that he alone

would be the judge as well as the master of his kingdom.

In every word, and in every action, the son of Nushirvan

degenerated from the virtues of his father. His avarice defrauded

the troops; his jealous caprice degraded the satraps; the palace,

the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were stained with the

blood of the innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings

and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his

cruelty, he sometimes condescended to observe, that the fears of

the Persians would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred

must terminate in rebellion but he forgot that his own guilt and

folly had inspired the sentiments which he deplored, and prepared

the event which he so justly apprehended. Exasperated by long and

hopeless oppression, the provinces of Babylon, Susa, and

Carmania, erected the standard of revolt; and the princes of

Arabia, India, and Scythia, refused the customary tribute to the

unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow

sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of

Mesopotamia and Assyria: one of their generals professed himself

the disciple of Scipio; and the soldiers were animated by a

miraculous image of Christ, whose mild aspect should never have

been displayed in the front of battle. 9 At the same time, the

eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great khan, who

passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand

Turks. The imprudent Hormouz accepted their perfidious and

formidable aid; the cities of Khorassan or Bactriana were

commanded to open their gates; the march of the Barbarians

towards the mountains of Hyrcania revealed the correspondence of

the Turkish and Roman arms; and their union must have subverted

the throne of the house of Sassan.

8 (return) [ Buzurg Mihir may be considered, in his character and

station, as the Seneca of the East; but his virtues, and perhaps

his faults, are less known than those of the Roman, who appears

to have been much more loquacious. The Persian sage was the

person who imported from India the game of chess and the fables

of Pilpay. Such has been the fame of his wisdom and virtues, that

the Christians claim him as a believer in the gospel; and the

Mahometans revere Buzurg as a premature Mussulman. D’Herbelot,

Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 218.]

9 (return) [ See the imitation of Scipio in Theophylact, l. i. c.

14; the image of Christ, l. ii. c. 3. Hereafter I shall speak

more amply of the Christian images—I had almost said idols. This,

if I am not mistaken, is the oldest of divine manufacture; but in

the next thousand years, many others issued from the same

workshop.]

Persia had been lost by a king; it was saved by a hero. After his

revolt, Varanes or Bahram is stigmatized by the son of Hormouz as

an ungrateful slave; the proud and ambiguous reproach of

despotism, since he was truly descended from the ancient princes

of Rei, 10 one of the seven families whose splendid, as well as

substantial, prerogatives exalted them above the heads of the

Persian nobility. 11 At the siege of Dara, the valor of Bahram

was signalized under the eyes of Nushirvan, and both the father

and son successively promoted him to the command of armies, the

government of Media, and the superintendence of the palace. The

popular prediction which marked him as the deliverer of Persia,

might be inspired by his past victories and extraordinary figure:

the epithet Giubin 1111 is expressive of the quality of dry wood:

he had the strength and stature of a giant; and his savage

countenance was fancifully compared to that of a wild cat. While

the nation trembled, while Hormouz disguised his terror by the

name of suspicion, and his servants concealed their disloyalty

under the mask of fear, Bahram alone displayed his undaunted

courage and apparent fidelity: and as soon as he found that no

more than twelve thousand soldiers would follow him against the

enemy; he prudently declared, that to this fatal number Heaven

had reserved the honors of the triumph. 1112 The steep and narrow

descent of the Pule Rudbar, 12 or Hyrcanian rock, is the only

pass through which an army can penetrate into the territory of

Rei and the plains of Media. From the commanding heights, a band

of resolute men might overwhelm with stones and darts the myriads

of the Turkish host: their emperor and his son were transpierced

with arrows; and the fugitives were left, without counsel or

provisions, to the revenge of an injured people. The patriotism

of the Persian general was stimulated by his affection for the

city of his forefathers: in the hour of victory, every peasant

became a soldier, and every soldier a hero; and their ardor was

kindled by the gorgeous spectacle of beds, and thrones, and

tables of massy gold, the spoils of Asia, and the luxury of the

hostile camp. A prince of a less malignant temper could not

easily have forgiven his benefactor; and the secret hatred of

Hormouz was envenomed by a malicious report, that Bahram had

privately retained the most precious fruits of his Turkish

victory. But the approach of a Roman army on the side of the

Araxes compelled the implacable tyrant to smile and to applaud;

and the toils of Bahram were rewarded with the permission of

encountering a new enemy, by their skill and discipline more

formidable than a Scythian multitude. Elated by his recent

success, he despatched a herald with a bold defiance to the camp

of the Romans, requesting them to fix a day of battle, and to

choose whether they would pass the river themselves, or allow a

free passage to the arms of the great king. The lieutenant of the

emperor Maurice preferred the safer alternative; and this local

circumstance, which would have enhanced the victory of the

Persians, rendered their defeat more bloody and their escape more

difficult. But the loss of his subjects, and the danger of his

kingdom, were overbalanced in the mind of Hormouz by the disgrace

of his personal enemy; and no sooner had Bahram collected and

reviewed his forces, than he received from a royal messenger the

insulting gift of a distaff, a spinning-wheel, and a complete

suit of female apparel. Obedient to the will of his sovereign he

showed himself to the soldiers in this unworthy disguise: they

resented his ignominy and their own; a shout of rebellion ran

through the ranks; and the general accepted their oath of

fidelity and vows of revenge. A second messenger, who had been

commanded to bring the rebel in chains, was trampled under the

feet of an elephant, and manifestos were diligently circulated,

exhorting the Persians to assert their freedom against an odious

and contemptible tyrant. The defection was rapid and universal;

his loyal slaves were sacrificed to the public fury; the troops

deserted to the standard of Bahram; and the provinces again

saluted the deliverer of his country.

10 (return) [ Ragae, or Rei, is mentioned in the Apocryphal book

of Tobit as already flourishing, 700 years before Christ, under

the Assyrian empire. Under the foreign names of Europus and

Arsacia, this city, 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian gates,

was successively embellished by the Macedonians and Parthians,

(Strabo, l. xi. p. 796.) Its grandeur and populousness in the

ixth century are exaggerated beyond the bounds of credibility;

but Rei has been since ruined by wars and the unwholesomeness of

the air. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom. i. p. 279, 280.

D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Oriental. p. 714.]

11 (return) [ Theophylact. l. iii. c. 18. The story of the seven

Persians is told in the third book of Herodotus; and their noble

descendants are often mentioned, especially in the fragments of

Ctesias. Yet the independence of Otanes (Herodot. l. iii. c. 83,

84) is hostile to the spirit of despotism, and it may not seem

probable that the seven families could survive the revolutions of

eleven hundred years. They might, however, be represented by the

seven ministers, (Brisson, de Regno Persico, l. i. p. 190;) and

some Persian nobles, like the kings of Pontus (Polyb l. v. p.

540) and Cappadocia, (Diodor. Sicul. l. xxxi. tom. ii. p. 517,)

might claim their descent from the bold companions of Darius.]

1111 (return) [ He is generally called Baharam Choubeen, Baharam,

the stick-like, probably from his appearance. Malcolm, vol. i. p.

120.—M.]

1112 (return) [ The Persian historians say, that Hormouz

entreated his general to increase his numbers; but Baharam

replied, that experience had taught him that it was the quality,

not the number of soldiers, which gave success. * * * No man in

his army was under forty years, and none above fifty. Malcolm,

vol. i. p. 121—M.]

12 (return) [ See an accurate description of this mountain by

Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 997, 998,) who ascended it with

much difficulty and danger in his return from Ispahan to the

Caspian Sea.]

As the passes were faithfully guarded, Hormouz could only compute

the number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty

conscience, and the daily defection of those who, in the hour of

his distress, avenged their wrongs, or forgot their obligations.

He proudly displayed the ensigns of royalty; but the city and

palace of Modain had already escaped from the hand of the tyrant.

Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a Sassanian prince,

had been cast into a dungeon; his fetters were broken by the zeal

and courage of a brother; and he stood before the king at the

head of those trusty guards, who had been chosen as the ministers

of his confinement, and perhaps of his death. Alarmed by the

hasty intrusion and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormouz

looked round, but in vain, for advice or assistance; discovered

that his strength consisted in the obedience of others; and

patiently yielded to the single arm of Bindoes, who dragged him

from the throne to the same dungeon in which he himself had been

so lately confined. At the first tumult, Chosroes, the eldest of

the sons of Hormouz, escaped from the city; he was persuaded to

return by the pressing and friendly invitation of Bindoes, who

promised to seat him on his father’s throne, and who expected to

reign under the name of an inexperienced youth. In the just

assurance, that his accomplices could neither forgive nor hope to

be forgiven, and that every Persian might be trusted as the judge

and enemy of the tyrant, he instituted a public trial without a

precedent and without a copy in the annals of the East. The son

of Nushirvan, who had requested to plead in his own defence, was

introduced as a criminal into the full assembly of the nobles and

satraps. 13 He was heard with decent attention as long as he

expatiated on the advantages of order and obedience, the danger

of innovation, and the inevitable discord of those who had

encouraged each other to trample on their lawful and hereditary

sovereign. By a pathetic appeal to their humanity, he extorted

that pity which is seldom refused to the fallen fortunes of a

king; and while they beheld the abject posture and squalid

appearance of the prisoner, his tears, his chains, and the marks

of ignominious stripes, it was impossible to forget how recently

they had adored the divine splendor of his diadem and purple. But

an angry murmur arose in the assembly as soon as he presumed to

vindicate his conduct, and to applaud the victories of his reign.

He defined the duties of a king, and the Persian nobles listened

with a smile of contempt; they were fired with indignation when

he dared to vilify the character of Chosroes; and by the

indiscreet offer of resigning the sceptre to the second of his

sons, he subscribed his own condemnation, and sacrificed the life

of his own innocent favorite. The mangled bodies of the boy and

his mother were exposed to the people; the eyes of Hormouz were

pierced with a hot needle; and the punishment of the father was

succeeded by the coronation of his eldest son. Chosroes had

ascended the throne without guilt, and his piety strove to

alleviate the misery of the abdicated monarch; from the dungeon

he removed Hormouz to an apartment of the palace, supplied with

liberality the consolations of sensual enjoyment, and patiently

endured the furious sallies of his resentment and despair. He

might despise the resentment of a blind and unpopular tyrant, but

the tiara was trembling on his head, till he could subvert the

power, or acquire the friendship, of the great Bahram, who

sternly denied the justice of a revolution, in which himself and

his soldiers, the true representatives of Persia, had never been

consulted. The offer of a general amnesty, and of the second rank

in his kingdom, was answered by an epistle from Bahram, friend of

the gods, conqueror of men, and enemy of tyrants, the satrap of

satraps, general of the Persian armies, and a prince adorned with

the title of eleven virtues. 14 He commands Chosroes, the son of

Hormouz, to shun the example and fate of his father, to confine

the traitors who had been released from their chains, to deposit

in some holy place the diadem which he had usurped, and to accept

from his gracious benefactor the pardon of his faults and the

government of a province. The rebel might not be proud, and the

king most assuredly was not humble; but the one was conscious of

his strength, the other was sensible of his weakness; and even

the modest language of his reply still left room for treaty and

reconciliation. Chosroes led into the field the slaves of the

palace and the populace of the capital: they beheld with terror

the banners of a veteran army; they were encompassed and

surprised by the evolutions of the general; and the satraps who

had deposed Hormouz, received the punishment of their revolt, or

expiated their first treason by a second and more criminal act of

disloyalty. The life and liberty of Chosroes were saved, but he

was reduced to the necessity of imploring aid or refuge in some

foreign land; and the implacable Bindoes, anxious to secure an

unquestionable title, hastily returned to the palace, and ended,

with a bowstring, the wretched existence of the son of Nushirvan.

15

13 (return) [ The Orientals suppose that Bahram convened this

assembly and proclaimed Chosroes; but Theophylact is, in this

instance, more distinct and credible. * Note: Yet Theophylact

seems to have seized the opportunity to indulge his propensity

for writing orations; and the orations read rather like those of

a Grecian sophist than of an Eastern assembly.—M.]

14 (return) [ See the words of Theophylact, l. iv. c. 7., &c. In

answer, Chosroes styles himself in genuine Oriental bombast.]

15 (return) [ Theophylact (l. iv. c. 7) imputes the death of

Hormouz to his son, by whose command he was beaten to death with

clubs. I have followed the milder account of Khondemir and

Eutychius, and shall always be content with the slightest

evidence to extenuate the crime of parricide. Note: Malcolm

concurs in ascribing his death to Bundawee, (Bindoes,) vol. i. p.

123. The Eastern writers generally impute the crime to the uncle

St. Martin, vol. x. p. 300.—M.]

While Chosroes despatched the preparations of his retreat, he

deliberated with his remaining friends, 16 whether he should lurk

in the valleys of Mount Caucasus, or fly to the tents of the

Turks, or solicit the protection of the emperor. The long

emulation of the successors of Artaxerxes and Constantine

increased his reluctance to appear as a suppliant in a rival

court; but he weighed the forces of the Romans, and prudently

considered that the neighborhood of Syria would render his escape

more easy and their succors more effectual. Attended only by his

concubines, and a troop of thirty guards, he secretly departed

from the capital, followed the banks of the Euphrates, traversed

the desert, and halted at the distance of ten miles from

Circesium. About the third watch of the night, the Roman præfect

was informed of his approach, and he introduced the royal

stranger to the fortress at the dawn of day. From thence the king

of Persia was conducted to the more honorable residence of

Hierapolis; and Maurice dissembled his pride, and displayed his

benevolence, at the reception of the letters and ambassadors of

the grandson of Nushirvan. They humbly represented the

vicissitudes of fortune and the common interest of princes,

exaggerated the ingratitude of Bahram, the agent of the evil

principle, and urged, with specious argument, that it was for the

advantage of the Romans themselves to support the two monarchies

which balance the world, the two great luminaries by whose

salutary influence it is vivified and adorned. The anxiety of

Chosroes was soon relieved by the assurance, that the emperor had

espoused the cause of justice and royalty; but Maurice prudently

declined the expense and delay of his useless visit to

Constantinople. In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich

diadem was presented to the fugitive prince, with an inestimable

gift of jewels and gold; a powerful army was assembled on the

frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under the command of the valiant

and faithful Narses, 17 and this general, of his own nation, and

his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris, and never to

sheathe his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne of

his ancestors. 1711 The enterprise, however splendid, was less

arduous than it might appear. Persia had already repented of her

fatal rashness, which betrayed the heir of the house of Sassan to

the ambition of a rebellious subject: and the bold refusal of the

Magi to consecrate his usurpation, compelled Bahram to assume the

sceptre, regardless of the laws and prejudices of the nation. The

palace was soon distracted with conspiracy, the city with tumult,

the provinces with insurrection; and the cruel execution of the

guilty and the suspected served to irritate rather than subdue

the public discontent. No sooner did the grandson of Nushirvan

display his own and the Roman banners beyond the Tigris, than he

was joined, each day, by the increasing multitudes of the

nobility and people; and as he advanced, he received from every

side the grateful offerings of the keys of his cities and the

heads of his enemies. As soon as Modain was freed from the

presence of the usurper, the loyal inhabitants obeyed the first

summons of Mebodes at the head of only two thousand horse, and

Chosroes accepted the sacred and precious ornaments of the palace

as the pledge of their truth and the presage of his approaching

success. After the junction of the Imperial troops, which Bahram

vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two

battles on the banks of the Zab, and the confines of Media. The

Romans, with the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty

thousand, while the whole force of the usurper did not exceed

forty thousand men: the two generals signalized their valor and

ability; but the victory was finally determined by the prevalence

of numbers and discipline. With the remnant of a broken army,

Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of the Oxus: the enmity

of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days were

shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the

stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost

glory. Yet the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of

Bahram; and some excellent laws have prolonged the duration of

his troubled and transitory reign.

16 (return) [ After the battle of Pharsalia, the Pompey of Lucan

(l. viii. 256—455) holds a similar debate. He was himself

desirous of seeking the Parthians: but his companions abhorred

the unnatural alliance and the adverse prejudices might operate

as forcibly on Chosroes and his companions, who could describe,

with the same vehemence, the contrast of laws, religion, and

manners, between the East and West.]

17 (return) [ In this age there were three warriors of the name

of Narses, who have been often confounded, (Pagi, Critica, tom.

ii. p. 640:) 1. A Persarmenian, the brother of Isaac and

Armatius, who, after a successful action against Belisarius,

deserted from his Persian sovereign, and afterwards served in the

Italian war.—2. The eunuch who conquered Italy.—3. The restorer

of Chosroes, who is celebrated in the poem of Corippus (l. iii.

220—327) as excelsus super omnia vertico agmina.... habitu

modestus.... morum probitate placens, virtute verendus;

fulmineus, cautus, vigilans, &c.]

1711 (return) [ The Armenians adhered to Chosroes. St. Martin,

vol. x. p. 312.—M. ——According to Mivkhond and the Oriental

writers, Bahram received the daughter of the Khakan in marriage,

and commanded a body of Turks in an invasion of Persia. Some say

that he was assassinated; Malcolm adopts the opinion that he was

poisoned. His sister Gourdieh, the companion of his flight, is

celebrated in the Shah Nameh. She was afterwards one of the wives

of Chosroes. St. Martin. vol. x. p. 331.—M.]

The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and

executions; and the music of the royal banquet was often

disturbed by the groans of dying or mutilated criminals. A

general pardon might have diffused comfort and tranquillity

through a country which had been shaken by the late revolutions;

yet, before the sanguinary temper of Chosroes is blamed, we

should learn whether the Persians had not been accustomed either

to dread the rigor, or to despise the weakness, of their

sovereign. The revolt of Bahram, and the conspiracy of the

satraps, were impartially punished by the revenge or justice of

the conqueror; the merits of Bindoes himself could not purify his

hand from the guilt of royal blood: and the son of Hormouz was

desirous to assert his own innocence, and to vindicate the

sanctity of kings. During the vigor of the Roman power, several

princes were seated on the throne of Persia by the arms and the

authority of the first Caesars. But their new subjects were soon

disgusted with the vices or virtues which they had imbibed in a

foreign land; the instability of their dominion gave birth to a

vulgar observation, that the choice of Rome was solicited and

rejected with equal ardor by the capricious levity of Oriental

slaves. But the glory of Maurice was conspicuous in the long and

fortunate reign of his son and his ally. A band of a thousand

Romans, who continued to guard the person of Chosroes, proclaimed

his confidence in the fidelity of the strangers; his growing

strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he

steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his

adopted father; and till the death of Maurice, the peace and

alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. 18 Yet

the mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased

with costly and important gifts; the strong cities of

Martyropolis and Dara 1811 were restored, and the Persarmenians

became the willing subjects of an empire, whose eastern limit was

extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the banks

of the Araxes, and the neighborhood of the Caspian. A pious hope

was indulged, that the church as well as the state might triumph

in this revolution: but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the

Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and

eloquence of the Magi: if he was armed with philosophic

indifference, he accommodated his belief, or rather his

professions, to the various circumstances of an exile and a

sovereign. The imaginary conversion of the king of Persia was

reduced to a local and superstitious veneration for Sergius, 19

one of the saints of Antioch, who heard his prayers and appeared

to him in dreams; he enriched the shrine with offerings of gold

and silver, and ascribed to this invisible patron the success of

his arms, and the pregnancy of Sira, a devout Christian and the

best beloved of his wives. 20 The beauty of Sira, or Schirin, 21

her wit, her musical talents, are still famous in the history, or

rather in the romances, of the East: her own name is expressive,

in the Persian tongue, of sweetness and grace; and the epithet of

Parviz alludes to the charms of her royal lover. Yet Sira never

shared the passions which she inspired, and the bliss of Chosroes

was tortured by a jealous doubt, that while he possessed her

person, she had bestowed her affections on a meaner favorite. 22

18 (return) [ Experimentis cognitum est Barbaros malle Roma

petere reges quam habere. These experiments are admirably

represented in the invitation and expulsion of Vonones, (Annal.

ii. 1—3,) Tiridates, (Annal. vi. 32-44,) and Meherdates, (Annal.

xi. 10, xii. 10-14.) The eye of Tacitus seems to have

transpierced the camp of the Parthians and the walls of the

harem.]

1811 (return) [ Concerning Nisibis, see St. Martin and his

Armenian authorities, vol. x p. 332, and Memoires sur l’Armenie,

tom. i. p. 25.—M.]

19 (return) [ Sergius and his companion Bacchus, who are said to

have suffered in the persecution of Maximian, obtained divine

honor in France, Italy, Constantinople, and the East. Their tomb

at Rasaphe was famous for miracles, and that Syrian town acquired

the more honorable name of Sergiopolis. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.

tom. v. p. 481—496. Butler’s Saints, vol. x. p. 155.]

20 (return) [ Evagrius (l. vi. c. 21) and Theophylact (l. v. c.

13, 14) have preserved the original letters of Chosroes, written

in Greek, signed with his own hand, and afterwards inscribed on

crosses and tables of gold, which were deposited in the church of

Sergiopolis. They had been sent to the bishop of Antioch, as

primate of Syria. * Note: St. Martin thinks that they were first

written in Syriac, and then translated into the bad Greek in

which they appear, vol. x. p. 334.—M.]

21 (return) [ The Greeks only describe her as a Roman by birth, a

Christian by religion: but she is represented as the daughter of

the emperor Maurice in the Persian and Turkish romances which

celebrate the love of Khosrou for Schirin, of Schirin for Ferhad,

the most beautiful youth of the East, D’Herbelot, Biblioth.

Orient. p. 789, 997, 998. * Note: Compare M. von Hammer’s preface

to, and poem of, Schirin in which he gives an account of the

various Persian poems, of which he has endeavored to extract the

essence in his own work.—M.]

22 (return) [ The whole series of the tyranny of Hormouz, the

revolt of Bahram, and the flight and restoration of Chosroes, is

related by two contemporary Greeks—more concisely by Evagrius,

(l. vi. c. 16, 17, 18, 19,) and most diffusely by Theophylact

Simocatta, (l. iii. c. 6—18, l. iv. c. 1—16, l. v. c. 1-15:)

succeeding compilers, Zonaras and Cedrenus, can only transcribe

and abridge. The Christian Arabs, Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p.

200—208) and Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 96—98) appear to have

consulted some particular memoirs. The great Persian historians

of the xvth century, Mirkhond and Khondemir, are only known to me

by the imperfect extracts of Schikard, (Tarikh, p. 150—155,)

Texeira, or rather Stevens, (Hist. of Persia, p. 182—186,) a

Turkish Ms. translated by the Abbe Fourmount, (Hist. de

l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) and

D’Herbelot, (aux mots Hormouz, p. 457—459. Bahram, p. 174.

Khosrou Parviz, p. 996.) Were I perfectly satisfied of their

authority, I could wish these Oriental materials had been more

copious.]

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part II.

While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the

prospect of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the

departure of the Lombards, and the ruin of the Gepidae, the

balance of power was destroyed on the Danube; and the Avars

spread their permanent dominion from the foot of the Alps to the

sea-coast of the Euxine. The reign of Baian is the brightest aera

of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied the rustic palace

of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and policy; 23

but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a

minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the

greatness and novelty of the original. The pride of the second

Justin, of Tiberius, and Maurice, was humbled by a proud

Barbarian, more prompt to inflict, than exposed to suffer, the

injuries of war; and as often as Asia was threatened by the

Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous inroads, or

costly friendship, of the Avars. When the Roman envoys approached

the presence of the chagan, they were commanded to wait at the

door of his tent, till, at the end perhaps of ten or twelve days,

he condescended to admit them. If the substance or the style of

their message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with real or

affected fury, their own dignity, and that of their prince; their

baggage was plundered, and their lives were only saved by the

promise of a richer present and a more respectful address. But

his sacred ambassadors enjoyed and abused an unbounded license in

the midst of Constantinople: they urged, with importunate

clamors, the increase of tribute, or the restitution of captives

and deserters: and the majesty of the empire was almost equally

degraded by a base compliance, or by the false and fearful

excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands. The chagan

had never seen an elephant; and his curiosity was excited by the

strange, and perhaps fabulous, portrait of that wonderful animal.

At his command, one of the largest elephants of the Imperial

stables was equipped with stately caparisons, and conducted by a

numerous train to the royal village in the plains of Hungary. He

surveyed the enormous beast with surprise, with disgust, and

possibly with terror; and smiled at the vain industry of the

Romans, who, in search of such useless rarities, could explore

the limits of the land and sea. He wished, at the expense of the

emperor, to repose in a golden bed. The wealth of Constantinople,

and the skilful diligence of her artists, were instantly devoted

to the gratification of his caprice; but when the work was

finished, he rejected with scorn a present so unworthy the

majesty of a great king. 24 These were the casual sallies of his

pride; but the avarice of the chagan was a more steady and

tractable passion: a rich and regular supply of silk apparel,

furniture, and plate, introduced the rudiments of art and luxury

among the tents of the Scythians; their appetite was stimulated

by the pepper and cinnamon of India; 25 the annual subsidy or

tribute was raised from fourscore to one hundred and twenty

thousand pieces of gold; and after each hostile interruption, the

payment of the arrears, with exorbitant interest, was always made

the first condition of the new treaty. In the language of a

Barbarian, without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to

complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; 26 yet he was not

inferior to the most civilized nations in the refinement of

dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the

chagan asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the

ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces. 27 The plains of the

Lower Hungary were covered with the Avar horse and a fleet of

large boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to descend the

Danube, and to transport into the Save the materials of a bridge.

But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the

conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and

baffled his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn

oath that his views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by

his sword, the symbol of the god of war, that he did not, as the

enemy of Rome, construct a bridge upon the Save. “If I violate my

oath,” pursued the intrepid Baian, “may I myself, and the last of

my nation, perish by the sword! May the heavens, and fire, the

deity of the heavens, fall upon our heads! May the forests and

mountains bury us in their ruins! and the Save returning, against

the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us in his angry

waters!” After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly inquired,

what oath was most sacred and venerable among the Christians,

what guilt or perjury it was most dangerous to incur. The bishop

of Singidunum presented the gospel, which the chagan received

with devout reverence. “I swear,” said he, “by the God who has

spoken in this holy book, that I have neither falsehood on my

tongue, nor treachery in my heart.” As soon as he rose from his

knees, he accelerated the labor of the bridge, and despatched an

envoy to proclaim what he no longer wished to conceal. “Inform

the emperor,” said the perfidious Baian, “that Sirmium is

invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the

citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now

impossible to relieve or defend.” Without the hope of relief, the

defence of Sirmium was prolonged above three years: the walls

were still untouched; but famine was enclosed within the walls,

till a merciful capitulation allowed the escape of the naked and

hungry inhabitants. Singidunum, at the distance of fifty miles,

experienced a more cruel fate: the buildings were razed, and the

vanquished people was condemned to servitude and exile. Yet the

ruins of Sirmium are no longer visible; the advantageous

situation of Singidunum soon attracted a new colony of

Sclavonians, and the conflux of the Save and Danube is still

guarded by the fortifications of Belgrade, or the White City, so

often and so obstinately disputed by the Christian and Turkish

arms. 28 From Belgrade to the walls of Constantinople a line may

be measured of six hundred miles: that line was marked with

flames and with blood; the horses of the Avars were alternately

bathed in the Euxine and the Adriatic; and the Roman pontiff,

alarmed by the approach of a more savage enemy, 29 was reduced to

cherish the Lombards, as the protectors of Italy. The despair of

a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the

Avars the invention and practice of military engines. 30 But in

the first attempts they were rudely framed, and awkwardly

managed; and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Beraea, of

Philippopolis and Adrianople, soon exhausted the skill and

patience of the besiegers. The warfare of Baian was that of a

Tartar; yet his mind was susceptible of a humane and generous

sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary waters had

restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and the

Romans confessed, that their starving army was fed and dismissed

by the liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary,

Poland, and Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the

Oder; 31 and his new subjects were divided and transplanted by

the jealous policy of the conqueror. 32 The eastern regions of

Germany, which had been left vacant by the emigration of the

Vandals, were replenished with Sclavonian colonists; the same

tribes are discovered in the neighborhood of the Adriatic and of

the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself, the Illyrian

cities of Neyss and Lissa are again found in the heart of

Silesia. In the disposition both of his troops and provinces the

chagan exposed the vassals, whose lives he disregarded, 33 to the

first assault; and the swords of the enemy were blunted before

they encountered the native valor of the Avars.

23 (return) [ A general idea of the pride and power of the chagan

may be taken from Menander (Excerpt. Legat. p. 118, &c.) and

Theophylact, (l. i. c. 3, l. vii. c. 15,) whose eight books are

much more honorable to the Avar than to the Roman prince. The

predecessors of Baian had tasted the liberality of Rome, and he

survived the reign of Maurice, (Buat, Hist. des Peuples Barbares,

tom. xi. p. 545.) The chagan who invaded Italy, A.D. 611,

(Muratori, Annali, tom. v. p. 305,) was then invenili aetate

florentem, (Paul Warnefrid, de Gest. Langobard. l v c 38,) the

son, perhaps, or the grandson, of Baian.]

24 (return) [ Theophylact, l. i. c. 5, 6.]

25 (return) [ Even in the field, the chagan delighted in the use

of these aromatics. He solicited, as a gift, and received.

Theophylact, l. vii. c. 13. The Europeans of the ruder ages

consumed more spices in their meat and drink than is compatible

with the delicacy of a modern palate. Vie Privee des Francois,

tom. ii. p. 162, 163.]

26 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vi. c. 6, l. vii. c. 15. The Greek

historian confesses the truth and justice of his reproach]

27 (return) [ Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 126—132, 174, 175)

describes the perjury of Baian and the surrender of Sirmium. We

have lost his account of the siege, which is commended by

Theophylact, l. i. c. 3. * Note: Compare throughout Schlozer

Nordische Geschichte, p. 362—373—M.]

28 (return) [ See D’Anville, in the Memoires de l’Acad. des

Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 412—443. The Sclavonic name of

Belgrade is mentioned in the xth century by Constantine

Porphyrogenitus: the Latin appellation of Alba Croeca is used by

the Franks in the beginning of the ixth, (p. 414.)]

29 (return) [ Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. B. 600, No. 1. Paul

Warnefrid (l. iv. c. 38) relates their irruption into Friuli, and

(c. 39) the captivity of his ancestors, about A.D. 632. The

Sclavi traversed the Adriatic cum multitudine navium, and made a

descent in the territory of Sipontum, (c. 47.)]

30 (return) [ Even the helepolis, or movable turret. Theophylact,

l. ii. 16, 17.]

31 (return) [ The arms and alliances of the chagan reached to the

neighborhood of a western sea, fifteen months’ journey from

Constantinople. The emperor Maurice conversed with some itinerant

harpers from that remote country, and only seems to have mistaken

a trade for a nation Theophylact, l. vi. c. 2.]

32 (return) [ This is one of the most probable and luminous

conjectures of the learned count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples

Barbares, tom. xi. p. 546—568.) The Tzechi and Serbi are found

together near Mount Caucasus, in Illyricum, and on the lower

Elbe. Even the wildest traditions of the Bohemians, &c., afford

some color to his hypothesis.]

33 (return) [ See Fredegarius, in the Historians of France, tom.

ii. p. 432. Baian did not conceal his proud insensibility.]

The Persian alliance restored the troops of the East to the

defence of Europe: and Maurice, who had supported ten years the

insolence of the chagan, declared his resolution to march in

person against the Barbarians. In the space of two centuries,

none of the successors of Theodosius had appeared in the field:

their lives were supinely spent in the palace of Constantinople;

and the Greeks could no longer understand, that the name of

emperor, in its primitive sense, denoted the chief of the armies

of the republic. The martial ardor of Maurice was opposed by the

grave flattery of the senate, the timid superstition of the

patriarch, and the tears of the empress Constantina; and they all

conjured him to devolve on some meaner general the fatigues and

perils of a Scythian campaign. Deaf to their advice and entreaty,

the emperor boldly advanced 34 seven miles from the capital; the

sacred ensign of the cross was displayed in the front; and

Maurice reviewed, with conscious pride, the arms and numbers of

the veterans who had fought and conquered beyond the Tigris.

Anchialus was the last term of his progress by sea and land; he

solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal

prayers; his mind was confounded by the death of a favorite

horse, the encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain,

and the birth of a monstrous child; and he forgot that the best

of omens is to unsheathe our sword in the defence of our country.

35 Under the pretence of receiving the ambassadors of Persia, the

emperor returned to Constantinople, exchanged the thoughts of war

for those of devotion, and disappointed the public hope by his

absence and the choice of his lieutenants. The blind partiality

of fraternal love might excuse the promotion of his brother

Peter, who fled with equal disgrace from the Barbarians, from his

own soldiers and from the inhabitants of a Roman city. That city,

if we may credit the resemblance of name and character, was the

famous Azimuntium, 36 which had alone repelled the tempest of

Attila. The example of her warlike youth was propagated to

succeeding generations; and they obtained, from the first or the

second Justin, an honorable privilege, that their valor should be

always reserved for the defence of their native country. The

brother of Maurice attempted to violate this privilege, and to

mingle a patriot band with the mercenaries of his camp; they

retired to the church, he was not awed by the sanctity of the

place; the people rose in their cause, the gates were shut, the

ramparts were manned; and the cowardice of Peter was found equal

to his arrogance and injustice. The military fame of Commentiolus

37 is the object of satire or comedy rather than of serious

history, since he was even deficient in the vile and vulgar

qualification of personal courage. His solemn councils, strange

evolutions, and secret orders, always supplied an apology for

flight or delay. If he marched against the enemy, the pleasant

valleys of Mount Haemus opposed an insuperable barrier; but in

his retreat, he explored, with fearless curiosity, the most

difficult and obsolete paths, which had almost escaped the memory

of the oldest native. The only blood which he lost was drawn, in

a real or affected malady, by the lancet of a surgeon; and his

health, which felt with exquisite sensibility the approach of the

Barbarians, was uniformly restored by the repose and safety of

the winter season. A prince who could promote and support this

unworthy favorite must derive no glory from the accidental merit

of his colleague Priscus. 38 In five successive battles, which

seem to have been conducted with skill and resolution, seventeen

thousand two hundred Barbarians were made prisoners: near sixty

thousand, with four sons of the chagan, were slain: the Roman

general surprised a peaceful district of the Gepidae, who slept

under the protection of the Avars; and his last trophies were

erected on the banks of the Danube and the Teyss. Since the death

of Trajan the arms of the empire had not penetrated so deeply

into the old Dacia: yet the success of Priscus was transient and

barren; and he was soon recalled by the apprehension that Baian,

with dauntless spirit and recruited forces, was preparing to

avenge his defeat under the walls of Constantinople. 39

34 (return) [ See the march and return of Maurice, in

Theophylact, l. v. c. 16 l. vi. c. 1, 2, 3. If he were a writer

of taste or genius, we might suspect him of an elegant irony: but

Theophylact is surely harmless.]

35 (return) [ Iliad, xii. 243. This noble verse, which unites the

spirit of a hero with the reason of a sage, may prove that Homer

was in every light superior to his age and country.]

36 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 3. On the evidence of this

fact, which had not occurred to my memory, the candid reader will

correct and excuse a note in Chapter XXXIV., note 86 of this

History, which hastens the decay of Asimus, or Azimuntium;

another century of patriotism and valor is cheaply purchased by

such a confession.]

37 (return) [ See the shameful conduct of Commentiolus, in

Theophylact, l. ii. c. 10—15, l. vii. c. 13, 14, l. viii. c. 2,

4.]

38 (return) [ See the exploits of Priscus, l. viii. c. 23.]

39 (return) [ The general detail of the war against the Avars may

be traced in the first, second, sixth, seventh, and eighth books

of the history of the emperor Maurice, by Theophylact Simocatta.

As he wrote in the reign of Heraclius, he had no temptation to

flatter; but his want of judgment renders him diffuse in trifles,

and concise in the most interesting facts.]

The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Caesar

and Trajan, than to those of Justinian and Maurice. 40 The iron

of Tuscany or Pontus still received the keenest temper from the

skill of the Byzantine workmen. The magazines were plentifully

stored with every species of offensive and defensive arms. In the

construction and use of ships, engines, and fortifications, the

Barbarians admired the superior ingenuity of a people whom they

had so often vanquished in the field. The science of tactics, the

order, evolutions, and stratagems of antiquity, was transcribed

and studied in the books of the Greeks and Romans. But the

solitude or degeneracy of the provinces could no longer supply a

race of men to handle those weapons, to guard those walls, to

navigate those ships, and to reduce the theory of war into bold

and successful practice. The genius of Belisarius and Narses had

been formed without a master, and expired without a disciple.

Neither honor, nor patriotism, nor generous superstition, could

animate the lifeless bodies of slaves and strangers, who had

succeeded to the honors of the legions: it was in the camp alone

that the emperor should have exercised a despotic command; it was

only in the camps that his authority was disobeyed and insulted:

he appeased and inflamed with gold the licentiousness of the

troops; but their vices were inherent, their victories were

accidental, and their costly maintenance exhausted the substance

of a state which they were unable to defend. After a long and

pernicious indulgence, the cure of this inveterate evil was

undertaken by Maurice; but the rash attempt, which drew

destruction on his own head, tended only to aggravate the

disease. A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of

interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those

whom he proposes to reclaim. The troops of Maurice might listen

to the voice of a victorious leader; they disdained the

admonitions of statesmen and sophists; and, when they received an

edict which deducted from their pay the price of their arms and

clothing, they execrated the avarice of a prince insensible of

the dangers and fatigues from which he had escaped.

The camps both of Asia and Europe were agitated with frequent and

furious seditions; 41 the enraged soldiers of Edessa pursued with

reproaches, with threats, with wounds, their trembling generals;

they overturned the statues of the emperor, cast stones against

the miraculous image of Christ, and either rejected the yoke of

all civil and military laws, or instituted a dangerous model of

voluntary subordination. The monarch, always distant and often

deceived, was incapable of yielding or persisting, according to

the exigence of the moment. But the fear of a general revolt

induced him too readily to accept any act of valor, or any

expression of loyalty, as an atonement for the popular offence;

the new reform was abolished as hastily as it had been announced,

and the troops, instead of punishment and restraint, were

agreeably surprised by a gracious proclamation of immunities and

rewards. But the soldiers accepted without gratitude the tardy

and reluctant gifts of the emperor: their insolence was elated by

the discovery of his weakness and their own strength; and their

mutual hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of forgiveness or

the hope of reconciliation. The historians of the times adopt the

vulgar suspicion, that Maurice conspired to destroy the troops

whom he had labored to reform; the misconduct and favor of

Commentiolus are imputed to this malevolent design; and every age

must condemn the inhumanity of avarice 42 of a prince, who, by

the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of gold, might have

prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in the hands

of the chagan. In the just fervor of indignation, an order was

signified to the army of the Danube, that they should spare the

magazines of the province, and establish their winter quarters in

the hostile country of the Avars. The measure of their grievances

was full: they pronounced Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or

slaughtered his faithful adherents, and, under the command of

Phocas, a simple centurion, returned by hasty marches to the

neighborhood of Constantinople. After a long series of legal

succession, the military disorders of the third century were

again revived; yet such was the novelty of the enterprise, that

the insurgents were awed by their own rashness. They hesitated to

invest their favorite with the vacant purple; and, while they

rejected all treaty with Maurice himself, they held a friendly

correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with Germanus, the

father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the former

condition of Phocas, that the emperor was ignorant of the name

and character of his rival; but as soon as he learned, that the

centurion, though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of

danger, “Alas!” cried the desponding prince, “if he is a coward,

he will surely be a murderer.”

40 (return) [ Maurice himself composed xii books on the military

art, which are still extant, and have been published (Upsal,

1664) by John Schaeffer, at the end of the Tactics of Arrian,

(Fabricius, Bibliot Graeca, l. iv. c. 8, tom. iii. p. 278,) who

promises to speak more fully of his work in its proper place.]

41 (return) [ See the mutinies under the reign of Maurice, in

Theophylact l iii c. 1—4,.vi. c. 7, 8, 10, l. vii. c. 1 l. viii.

c. 6, &c.]

42 (return) [ Theophylact and Theophanes seem ignorant of the

conspiracy and avarice of Maurice. These charges, so unfavorable

to the memory of that emperor, are first mentioned by the author

of the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 379, 280;) from whence Zonaras

(tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77, 78) has transcribed them. Cedrenus (p.

399) has followed another computation of the ransom.]

Yet if Constantinople had been firm and faithful, the murderer

might have spent his fury against the walls; and the rebel army

would have been gradually consumed or reconciled by the prudence

of the emperor. In the games of the Circus, which he repeated

with unusual pomp, Maurice disguised, with smiles of confidence,

the anxiety of his heart, condescended to solicit the applause of

the factions, and flattered their pride by accepting from their

respective tribunes a list of nine hundred blues and fifteen

hundred greens, whom he affected to esteem as the solid pillars

of his throne Their treacherous or languid support betrayed his

weakness and hastened his fall: the green faction were the secret

accomplices of the rebels, and the blues recommended lenity and

moderation in a contest with their Roman brethren. The rigid and

parsimonious virtues of Maurice had long since alienated the

hearts of his subjects: as he walked barefoot in a religious

procession, he was rudely assaulted with stones, and his guards

were compelled to present their iron maces in the defence of his

person. A fanatic monk ran through the streets with a drawn

sword, denouncing against him the wrath and the sentence of God;

and a vile plebeian, who represented his countenance and apparel,

was seated on an ass, and pursued by the imprecations of the

multitude. 43 The emperor suspected the popularity of Germanus

with the soldiers and citizens: he feared, he threatened, but he

delayed to strike; the patrician fled to the sanctuary of the

church; the people rose in his defence, the walls were deserted

by the guards, and the lawless city was abandoned to the flames

and rapine of a nocturnal tumult. In a small bark, the

unfortunate Maurice, with his wife and nine children, escaped to

the Asiatic shore; but the violence of the wind compelled him to

land at the church of St. Autonomus, 44 near Chalcedon, from

whence he despatched Theodosius, he eldest son, to implore the

gratitude and friendship of the Persian monarch. For himself, he

refused to fly: his body was tortured with sciatic pains, 45 his

mind was enfeebled by superstition; he patiently awaited the

event of the revolution, and addressed a fervent and public

prayer to the Almighty, that the punishment of his sins might be

inflicted in this world rather than in a future life. After the

abdication of Maurice, the two factions disputed the choice of an

emperor; but the favorite of the blues was rejected by the

jealousy of their antagonists, and Germanus himself was hurried

along by the crowds who rushed to the palace of Hebdomon, seven

miles from the city, to adore the majesty of Phocas the

centurion. A modest wish of resigning the purple to the rank and

merit of Germanus was opposed by his resolution, more obstinate

and equally sincere; the senate and clergy obeyed his summons;

and, as soon as the patriarch was assured of his orthodox belief,

he consecrated the successful usurper in the church of St. John

the Baptist. On the third day, amidst the acclamations of a

thoughtless people, Phocas made his public entry in a chariot

drawn by four white horses: the revolt of the troops was rewarded

by a lavish donative; and the new sovereign, after visiting the

palace, beheld from his throne the games of the hippodrome. In a

dispute of precedency between the two factions, his partial

judgment inclined in favor of the greens. “Remember that Maurice

is still alive,” resounded from the opposite side; and the

indiscreet clamor of the blues admonished and stimulated the

cruelty of the tyrant. The ministers of death were despatched to

Chalcedon: they dragged the emperor from his sanctuary; and the

five sons of Maurice were successively murdered before the eyes

of their agonizing parent. At each stroke, which he felt in his

heart, he found strength to rehearse a pious ejaculation: “Thou

art just, O Lord! and thy judgments are righteous.” And such, in

the last moments, was his rigid attachment to truth and justice,

that he revealed to the soldiers the pious falsehood of a nurse

who presented her own child in the place of a royal infant. 46

The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the

emperor himself, in the twentieth year of his reign, and the

sixty-third of his age. The bodies of the father and his five

sons were cast into the sea; their heads were exposed at

Constantinople to the insults or pity of the multitude; and it

was not till some signs of putrefaction had appeared, that Phocas

connived at the private burial of these venerable remains. In

that grave, the faults and errors of Maurice were kindly

interred. His fate alone was remembered; and at the end of twenty

years, in the recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful

tale was interrupted by the tears of the audience. 47

43 (return) [ In their clamors against Maurice, the people of

Constantinople branded him with the name of Marcionite or

Marcionist; a heresy (says Theophylact, l. viii. c. 9). Did they

only cast out a vague reproach—or had the emperor really listened

to some obscure teacher of those ancient Gnostics?]

44 (return) [ The church of St. Autonomous (whom I have not the

honor to know) was 150 stadia from Constantinople, (Theophylact,

l. viii. c. 9.) The port of Eutropius, where Maurice and his

children were murdered, is described by Gyllius (de Bosphoro

Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.) as one of the two harbors of Chalcedon.]

45 (return) [ The inhabitants of Constantinople were generally

subject; and Theophylact insinuates, (l. viii. c. 9,) that if it

were consistent with the rules of history, he could assign the

medical cause. Yet such a digression would not have been more

impertinent than his inquiry (l. vii. c. 16, 17) into the annual

inundations of the Nile, and all the opinions of the Greek

philosophers on that subject.]

46 (return) [ From this generous attempt, Corneille has deduced

the intricate web of his tragedy of Heraclius, which requires

more than one representation to be clearly understood, (Corneille

de Voltaire, tom. v. p. 300;) and which, after an interval of

some years, is said to have puzzled the author himself,

(Anecdotes Dramatiques, tom. i. p. 422.)]

47 (return) [ The revolt of Phocas and death of Maurice are told

by Theophylact Simocatta, (l. viii. c. 7—12,) the Paschal

Chronicle, (p. 379, 380,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 238-244,)

Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 77—80,) and Cedrenus, (p.

399—404.)]

Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would

have been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably

acknowledged in the provinces of the East and West. The images of

the emperor and his wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to

the veneration of the clergy and senate of Rome, and afterwards

deposited in the palace of the Caesars, between those of

Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and a Christian, it was

the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government;

but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of the

assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of

the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated

with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of

repentance; he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the

people and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety

and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the

Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened

against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a

prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be

transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. 48 I have

already traced the steps of a revolution so pleasing, in

Gregory’s opinion, both to heaven and earth; and Phocas does not

appear less hateful in the exercise than in the acquisition of

power. The pencil of an impartial historian has delineated the

portrait of a monster: 49 his diminutive and deformed person, the

closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless

chin, and his cheek disfigured and discolored by a formidable

scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged

in the supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust and

drunkenness; and his brutal pleasures were either injurious to

his subjects or disgraceful to himself. Without assuming the

office of a prince, he renounced the profession of a soldier; and

the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious peace, and

Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was inflamed by

passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance or

reproach. The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been

intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was

beheaded at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were

soothed by the comforts of religion and the consciousness of

innocence. Yet his phantom disturbed the repose of the usurper: a

whisper was circulated through the East, that the son of Maurice

was still alive: the people expected their avenger, and the widow

and daughters of the late emperor would have adopted as their son

and brother the vilest of mankind. In the massacre of the

Imperial family, 50 the mercy, or rather the discretion, of

Phocas had spared these unhappy females, and they were decently

confined to a private house. But the spirit of the empress

Constantina, still mindful of her father, her husband, and her

sons, aspired to freedom and revenge. At the dead of night, she

escaped to the sanctuary of St. Sophia; but her tears, and the

gold of her associate Germanus, were insufficient to provoke an

insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to

justice: but the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her

safety: a monastery was allotted for her prison, and the widow of

Maurice accepted and abused the lenity of his assassin. The

discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy, dissolved the

engagements, and rekindled the fury, of Phocas. A matron who

commanded the respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife,

and mother of emperors, was tortured like the vilest malefactor,

to force a confession of her designs and associates; and the

empress Constantina, with her three innocent daughters, was

beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same ground which had been stained

with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such an

example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and

sufferings of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom

preceded by the forms of trial, and their punishment was

embittered by the refinements of cruelty: their eyes were

pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, the hands and

feet were amputated; some expired under the lash, others in the

flames; others again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple

speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The

hippodrome, the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of

the Romans, was polluted with heads and limbs, and mangled

bodies; and the companions of Phocas were the most sensible, that

neither his favor, nor their services, could protect them from a

tyrant, the worthy rival of the Caligulas and Domitians of the

first age of the empire. 51

48 (return) [ Gregor. l. xi. epist. 38, indict. vi. Benignitatem

vestrae pietatis ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus.

Laetentur coeli et exultet terra, et de vestris benignis actibus

universae republicae populus nunc usque vehementer afflictus

hilarescat, &c. This base flattery, the topic of Protestant

invective, is justly censured by the philosopher Bayle,

(Dictionnaire Critique, Gregoire I. Not. H. tom. ii. p. 597 598.)

Cardinal Baronius justifies the pope at the expense of the fallen

emperor.]

49 (return) [ The images of Phocas were destroyed; but even the

malice of his enemies would suffer one copy of such a portrait or

caricature (Cedrenus, p. 404) to escape the flames.]

50 (return) [ The family of Maurice is represented by Ducange,

(Familiae By zantinae, p. 106, 107, 108;) his eldest son

Theodosius had been crowned emperor, when he was no more than

four years and a half old, and he is always joined with his

father in the salutations of Gregory. With the Christian

daughters, Anastasia and Theocteste, I am surprised to find the

Pagan name of Cleopatra.]

51 (return) [ Some of the cruelties of Phocas are marked by

Theophylact, l. viii. c. 13, 14, 15. George of Pisidia, the poet

of Heraclius, styles him (Bell. Avaricum, p. 46, Rome, 1777). The

latter epithet is just—but the corrupter of life was easily

vanquished.]

Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.—Part III.

A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to

the patrician Crispus, 52 and the royal images of the bride and

bridegroom were indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of

the emperor. The father must desire that his posterity should

inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the monarch was offended by

this premature and popular association: the tribunes of the green

faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were

condemned to instant death: their lives were granted to the

prayers of the people; but Crispus might reasonably doubt,

whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary

competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude

of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every province of the

empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa,

persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience

to the centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople. By

the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent

exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country; but his

ambition was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous

enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of

Gregory, his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were

armed by the two adventurous youths; they agreed that the one

should navigate the fleet from Carthage to Constantinople, that

the other should lead an army through Egypt and Asia, and that

the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence and

success. A faint rumor of their undertaking was conveyed to the

ears of Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius

were secured as the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous

heart of Crispus extenuated the distant peril, the means of

defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept

till the African navy cast anchor in the Hellespont. Their

standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives and exiles who

thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty masts

were adorned with the holy symbols of religion, 53 steered their

triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from

the windows of the palace his approaching and inevitable fate.

The green faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to oppose a

feeble and fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans:

but the people, and even the guards, were determined by the

well-timed defection of Crispus; and the tyrant was seized by a

private enemy, who boldly invaded the solitude of the palace.

Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a vile habit, and

loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the

Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes

of his abominable reign. “Wilt thou govern better?” were the last

words of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of

insult and torture, his head was severed from his body, the

mangled trunk was cast into the flames, and the same treatment

was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper, and the

seditious banner of the green faction. The voice of the clergy,

the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to ascend the

throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after some

graceful hesitation, he yielded to their entreaties. His

coronation was accompanied by that of his wife Eudoxia; and their

posterity, till the fourth generation, continued to reign over

the empire of the East. The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and

prosperous; the tedious march of Nicetas was not accomplished

before the decision of the contest: but he submitted without a

murmur to the fortune of his friend, and his laudable intentions

were rewarded with an equestrian statue, and a daughter of the

emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of Crispus,

whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the

Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to

excuse, the ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of

the senate, the son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the

monastic life; and the sentence was justified by the weighty

observation of Heraclius, that the man who had betrayed his

father could never be faithful to his friend. 54

52 (return) [ In the writers, and in the copies of those writers,

there is such hesitation between the names of Priscus and

Crispus, (Ducange, Fam Byzant. p. 111,) that I have been tempted

to identify the son-in-law of Phocas with the hero five times

victorious over the Avars.]

53 (return) [ According to Theophanes. Cedrenus adds, which

Heraclius bore as a banner in the first Persian expedition. See

George Pisid. Acroas L 140. The manufacture seems to have

flourished; but Foggini, the Roman editor, (p. 26,) is at a loss

to determine whether this picture was an original or a copy.]

54 (return) [ See the tyranny of Phocas and the elevation of

Heraclius, in Chron. Paschal. p. 380—383. Theophanes, p. 242-250.

Nicephorus, p. 3—7. Cedrenus, p. 404—407. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.

xiv. p. 80—82.]

Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of

Phocas, which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her

enemies. According to the friendly and equal forms of the

Byzantine and Persian courts, he announced his exaltation to the

throne; and his ambassador Lilius, who had presented him with the

heads of Maurice and his sons, was the best qualified to describe

the circumstances of the tragic scene. 55 However it might be

varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes turned with horror

from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy, disclaimed the

usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father and

benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment, which

humanity would feel, and honor would dictate, promoted on this

occasion the interest of the Persian king; and his interest was

powerfully magnified by the national and religious prejudices of

the Magi and satraps. In a strain of artful adulation, which

assumed the language of freedom, they presumed to censure the

excess of his gratitude and friendship for the Greeks; a nation

with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or alliance;

whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who must

be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most

atrocious of crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign. 56

For the crime of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he

oppressed was chastised with the calamities of war; and the same

calamities, at the end of twenty years, were retaliated and

redoubled on the heads of the Persians. 57 The general who had

restored Chosroes to the throne still commanded in the East; and

the name of Narses was the formidable sound with which the

Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants. It is

not improbable, that a native subject of Persia should encourage

his master and his friend to deliver and possess the provinces of

Asia. It is still more probable, that Chosroes should animate his

troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded the

most would remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favor.

The hero could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the

tyrant was conscious how little he deserved the obedience of a

hero. Narses was removed from his military command; he reared an

independent standard at Hierapolis, in Syria: he was betrayed by

fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the market-place of

Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief whom they could fear

or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory were twice

broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced by

the arrows of the Barbarians; and a great number of the captives

were beheaded on the field of battle by the sentence of the

victor, who might justly condemn these seditious mercenaries as

the authors or accomplices of the death of Maurice. Under the

reign of Phocas, the fortifications of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and

Edessa, were successively besieged, reduced, and destroyed, by

the Persian monarch: he passed the Euphrates, occupied the Syrian

cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and Berrhaea or Aleppo, and soon

encompassed the walls of Antioch with his irresistible arms. The

rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the

incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and

Chosroes provided a decent apology for their submission or

revolt, by an impostor, who attended his camp as the son of

Maurice 58 and the lawful heir of the monarchy.

55 (return) [ Theophylact, l. viii. c. 15. The life of Maurice

was composed about the year 628 (l. viii. c. 13) by Theophylact

Simocatta, ex-præfect, a native of Egypt. Photius, who gives an

ample extract of the work, (cod. lxv. p. 81—100,) gently reproves

the affectation and allegory of the style. His preface is a

dialogue between Philosophy and History; they seat themselves

under a plane-tree, and the latter touches her lyre.]

56 (return) [ Christianis nec pactum esse, nec fidem nec foedus

..... quod si ulla illis fides fuisset, regem suum non

occidissent. Eutych. Annales tom. ii. p. 211, vers. Pocock.]

57 (return) [ We must now, for some ages, take our leave of

contemporary historians, and descend, if it be a descent, from

the affectation of rhetoric to the rude simplicity of chronicles

and abridgments. Those of Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 244—279)

and Nicephorus (p. 3—16) supply a regular, but imperfect, series

of the Persian war; and for any additional facts I quote my

special authorities. Theophanes, a courtier who became a monk,

was born A.D. 748; Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, who

died A.D. 829, was somewhat younger: they both suffered in the

cause of images Hankius, de Scriptoribus Byzantinis, p. 200-246.]

58 (return) [ The Persian historians have been themselves

deceived: but Theophanes (p. 244) accuses Chosroes of the fraud

and falsehood; and Eutychius believes (Annal. tom. ii. p. 212)

that the son of Maurice, who was saved from the assassins, lived

and died a monk on Mount Sinai.]

The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received, 59

was that of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so

often overturned by earthquakes, and pillaged by the enemy, could

supply but a small and languid stream of treasure and blood. The

Persians were equally successful, and more fortunate, in the sack

of Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; and as they advanced

beyond the ramparts of the frontier, the boundary of ancient war,

they found a less obstinate resistance and a more plentiful

harvest. The pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned in every

age with a royal city: her obscure felicity has hitherto escaped

the historian of the Roman empire: but Chosroes reposed his

troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the hills

of Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phœnician coast. The

conquest of Jerusalem, 60 which had been meditated by Nushirvan,

was achieved by the zeal and avarice of his grandson; the ruin of

the proudest monument of Christianity was vehemently urged by the

intolerant spirit of the Magi; and he could enlist for this holy

warfare with an army of six-and-twenty thousand Jews, whose

furious bigotry might compensate, in some degree, for the want of

valor and discipline. 6011 After the reduction of Galilee, and

the region beyond the Jordan, whose resistance appears to have

delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem itself was taken by

assault. The sepulchre of Christ, and the stately churches of

Helena and Constantine, were consumed, or at least damaged, by

the flames; the devout offerings of three hundred years were

rifled in one sacrilegious day; the Patriarch Zachariah, and the

true cross, were transported into Persia; and the massacre of

ninety thousand Christians is imputed to the Jews and Arabs, who

swelled the disorder of the Persian march. The fugitives of

Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the charity of John

the Archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of saints by

the epithet of almsgiver: 61 and the revenues of the church, with

a treasure of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the

true proprietors, the poor of every country and every

denomination. But Egypt itself, the only province which had been

exempt, since the time of Diocletian, from foreign and domestic

war, was again subdued by the successors of Cyrus. Pelusium, the

key of that impervious country, was surprised by the cavalry of

the Persians: they passed, with impunity, the innumerable

channels of the Delta, and explored the long valley of the Nile,

from the pyramids of Memphis to the confines of Aethiopia.

Alexandria might have been relieved by a naval force, but the

archbishop and the præfect embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes

entered the second city of the empire, which still preserved a

wealthy remnant of industry and commerce. His western trophy was

erected, not on the walls of Carthage, 62 but in the neighborhood

of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene were finally extirpated;

and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps of Alexander,

returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert. In

the same campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates to

the Thracian Bosphorus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege,

and a Persian camp was maintained above ten years in the presence

of Constantinople. The sea-coast of Pontus, the city of Ancyra,

and the Isle of Rhodes, are enumerated among the last conquests

of the great king; and if Chosroes had possessed any maritime

power, his boundless ambition would have spread slavery and

desolation over the provinces of Europe.

59 (return) [ Eutychius dates all the losses of the empire under

the reign of Phocas; an error which saves the honor of Heraclius,

whom he brings not from Carthage, but Salonica, with a fleet

laden with vegetables for the relief of Constantinople, (Annal.

tom. ii. p. 223, 224.) The other Christians of the East,

Barhebraeus, (apud Asseman, Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. iii. p.

412, 413,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 13—16,) Abulpharagius,

(Dynast. p. 98, 99,) are more sincere and accurate. The years of

the Persian war are disposed in the chronology of Pagi.]

60 (return) [ On the conquest of Jerusalem, an event so

interesting to the church, see the Annals of Eutychius, (tom. ii.

p. 212—223,) and the lamentations of the monk Antiochus, (apud

Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 614, No. 16—26,) whose one hundred

and twenty-nine homilies are still extant, if what no one reads

may be said to be extant.]

6011 (return) [ See Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. p. 240.—M.]

61 (return) [ The life of this worthy saint is composed by

Leontius, a contemporary bishop; and I find in Baronius (Annal.

Eccles. A.D. 610, No. 10, &c.) and Fleury (tom. viii. p. 235-242)

sufficient extracts of this edifying work.]

62 (return) [ The error of Baronius, and many others who have

carried the arms of Chosroes to Carthage instead of Chalcedon, is

founded on the near resemblance of the Greek words, in the text

of Theophanes, &c., which have been sometimes confounded by

transcribers, and sometimes by critics.]

From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the

reign of the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the

Hellespont and the Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian

monarchy. But the provinces, which had been fashioned by the

habits of six hundred years to the virtues and vices of the Roman

government, supported with reluctance the yoke of the Barbarians.

The idea of a republic was kept alive by the institutions, or at

least by the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and the subjects

of Heraclius had been educated to pronounce the words of liberty

and law. But it has always been the pride and policy of Oriental

princes to display the titles and attributes of their

omnipotence; to upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name

and abject condition, and to enforce, by cruel and insolent

threats, the rigor of their absolute commands. The Christians of

the East were scandalized by the worship of fire, and the impious

doctrine of the two principles: the Magi were not less intolerant

than the bishops; and the martyrdom of some native Persians, who

had deserted the religion of Zoroaster, 63 was conceived to be

the prelude of a fierce and general persecution. By the

oppressive laws of Justinian, the adversaries of the church were

made the enemies of the state; the alliance of the Jews,

Nestorians, and Jacobites, had contributed to the success of

Chosroes, and his partial favor to the sectaries provoked the

hatred and fears of the Catholic clergy. Conscious of their fear

and hatred, the Persian conqueror governed his new subjects with

an iron sceptre; and, as if he suspected the stability of his

dominion, he exhausted their wealth by exorbitant tributes and

licentious rapine despoiled or demolished the temples of the

East; and transported to his hereditary realms the gold, the

silver, the precious marbles, the arts, and the artists of the

Asiatic cities. In the obscure picture of the calamities of the

empire, 64 it is not easy to discern the figure of Chosroes

himself, to separate his actions from those of his lieutenants,

or to ascertain his personal merit in the general blaze of glory

and magnificence. He enjoyed with ostentation the fruits of

victory, and frequently retired from the hardships of war to the

luxury of the palace. But in the space of twenty-four years, he

was deterred by superstition or resentment from approaching the

gates of Ctesiphon: and his favorite residence of Artemita, or

Dastagerd, was situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to

the north of the capital. 65 The adjacent pastures were covered

with flocks and herds: the paradise or park was replenished with

pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars, and the

noble game of lions and tigers was sometimes turned loose for the

bolder pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred and sixty elephants

were maintained for the use or splendor of the great king: his

tents and baggage were carried into the field by twelve thousand

great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size; 66 and the

royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses,

among whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their

speed or beauty. 6611 Six thousand guards successively mounted

before the palace gate; the service of the interior apartments

was performed by twelve thousand slaves, and in the number of

three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine

might console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira.

The various treasures of gold, silver, gems, silks, and

aromatics, were deposited in a hundred subterraneous vaults and

the chamber Badaverd denoted the accidental gift of the winds

which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the Syrian

harbors of his rival. The vice of flattery, and perhaps of

fiction, is not ashamed to compute the thirty thousand rich

hangings that adorned the walls; the forty thousand columns of

silver, or more probably of marble, and plated wood, that

supported the roof; and the thousand globes of gold suspended in

the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and the

constellations of the zodiac. 67 While the Persian monarch

contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an

epistle from an obscure citizen of Mecca, inviting him to

acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God. He rejected the

invitation, and tore the epistle. “It is thus,” exclaimed the

Arabian prophet, “that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the

supplications of Chosroes.” 68 6811 Placed on the verge of the

two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy

the progress of their mutual destruction; and in the midst of the

Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before many years

should elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the

Romans. 69

63 (return) [ The genuine acts of St. Anastasius are published in

those of the with general council, from whence Baronius (Annal.

Eccles. A.D. 614, 626, 627) and Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol.

i. p. 242—248) have taken their accounts. The holy martyr

deserted from the Persian to the Roman army, became a monk at

Jerusalem, and insulted the worship of the Magi, which was then

established at Caesarea in Palestine.]

64 (return) [ Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 99. Elmacin, Hist.

Saracen. p. 14.]

65 (return) [ D’Anville, Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions,

tom. xxxii. p. 568—571.]

66 (return) [ The difference between the two races consists in

one or two humps; the dromedary has only one; the size of the

proper camel is larger; the country he comes from, Turkistan or

Bactriana; the dromedary is confined to Arabia and Africa.

Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 211, &c. Aristot. Hist.

Animal. tom. i. l. ii. c. 1, tom. ii. p. 185.]

6611 (return) [ The ruins of these scenes of Khoosroo’s

magnificence have been visited by Sir R. K. Porter. At the ruins

of Tokht i Bostan, he saw a gorgeous picture of a hunt,

singularly illustrative of this passage. Travels, vol. ii. p.

204. Kisra Shirene, which he afterwards examined, appears to have

been the palace of Dastagerd. Vol. ii. p. 173—175.—M.]

67 (return) [ Theophanes, Chronograph. p. 268. D’Herbelot,

Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 997. The Greeks describe the decay,

the Persians the splendor, of Dastagerd; but the former speak

from the modest witness of the eye, the latter from the vague

report of the ear.]

68 (return) [ The historians of Mahomet, Abulfeda (in Vit.

Mohammed, p. 92, 93) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p.

247,) date this embassy in the viith year of the Hegira, which

commences A.D. 628, May 11. Their chronology is erroneous, since

Chosroes died in the month of February of the same year, (Pagi,

Critica, tom. ii. p. 779.) The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de

Mahomed, p. 327, 328) places this embassy about A.D. 615, soon

after the conquest of Palestine. Yet Mahomet would scarcely have

ventured so soon on so bold a step.]

6811 (return) [ Khoosroo Purveez was encamped on the banks of the

Karasoo River when he received the letter of Mahomed. He tore the

letter and threw it into the Karasoo. For this action, the

moderate author of the Zeenut-ul-Tuarikh calls him a wretch, and

rejoices in all his subsequent misfortunes. These impressions

still exist. I remarked to a Persian, when encamped near the

Karasoo, in 1800, that the banks were very high, which must make

it difficult to apply its waters to irrigation. “It once

fertilized the whole country,” said the zealous Mahomedan, “but

its channel sunk with honor from its banks, when that madman,

Khoosroo, threw our holy Prophet’s letter into its stream; which

has ever since been accursed and useless.” Malcolm’s Persia, vol.

i. p. 126—M.]

69 (return) [ See the xxxth chapter of the Koran, entitled the

Greeks. Our honest and learned translator, Sale, (p. 330, 331,)

fairly states this conjecture, guess, wager, of Mahomet; but

Boulainvilliers, (p. 329—344,) with wicked intentions, labors to

establish this evident prophecy of a future event, which must, in

his opinion, embarrass the Christian polemics.]

At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered,

no prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since

the first twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching

dissolution of the empire. If the motives of Chosroes had been

pure and honorable, he must have ended the quarrel with the death

of Phocas, and he would have embraced, as his best ally, the

fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of

his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the war revealed the

true character of the Barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of

Heraclius to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the

innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were

rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace. Syria,

Egypt, and the provinces of Asia, were subdued by the Persian

arms, while Europe, from the confines of Istria to the long wall

of Thrace, was oppressed by the Avars, unsatiated with the blood

and rapine of the Italian war. They had coolly massacred their

male captives in the sacred field of Pannonia; the women and

children were reduced to servitude, and the noblest virgins were

abandoned to the promiscuous lust of the Barbarians. The amorous

matron who opened the gates of Friuli passed a short night in the

arms of her royal lover; the next evening, Romilda was condemned

to the embraces of twelve Avars, and the third day the Lombard

princess was impaled in the sight of the camp, while the chagan

observed with a cruel smile, that such a husband was the fit

recompense of her lewdness and perfidy. 70 By these implacable

enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was insulted and besieged:

and the Roman empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople,

with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some maritime

cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the

loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and

pestilence; and the emperor, incapable of resistance, and

hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and

government to the more secure residence of Carthage. His ships

were already laden with the treasures of the palace; but his

flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed the powers of

religion in the defence of his country; led Heraclius to the

altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would

live and die with the people whom God had intrusted to his care.

The chagan was encamped in the plains of Thrace; but he

dissembled his perfidious designs, and solicited an interview

with the emperor near the town of Heraclea. Their reconciliation

was celebrated with equestrian games; the senate and people, in

their gayest apparel, resorted to the festival of peace; and the

Avars beheld, with envy and desire, the spectacle of Roman

luxury. On a sudden the hippodrome was encompassed by the

Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal

march: the tremendous sound of the chagan’s whip gave the signal

of the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm,

was saved with extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So

rapid was the pursuit, that the Avars almost entered the golden

gate of Constantinople with the flying crowds: 71 but the plunder

of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they transported

beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy thousand captives. On

the shore of Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference with

a more honorable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his

galley, saluted with reverence and pity the majesty of the

purple. The friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to

conduct an embassy to the presence of the great king, was

accepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon

and peace was humbly presented by the Praetorian præfect, the

præfect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the

patriarchal church. 72 But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally

mistaken the intentions of his master. “It was not an embassy,”

said the tyrant of Asia, “it was the person of Heraclius, bound

in chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne.

I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had

abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun.”

Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman practice of his

country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of the

ambassadors violated the law of nations, and the faith of an

express stipulation. Yet the experience of six years at length

persuaded the Persian monarch to renounce the conquest of

Constantinople, and to specify the annual tribute or ransom of

the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents

of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a

thousand virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms;

but the time and space which he obtained to collect such

treasures from the poverty of the East, was industriously

employed in the preparations of a bold and desperate attack.

70 (return) [Footnote 70: Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis

Langobardorum, l. iv. c. 38, 42. Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom.

v. p. 305, &c.]

71 (return) [ The Paschal Chronicle, which sometimes introduces

fragments of history into a barren list of names and dates, gives

the best account of the treason of the Avars, p. 389, 390. The

number of captives is added by Nicephorus.]