23 (return) [ From Caf to Caf; which a m_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

would interpret, from Imaus, perhaps, to Mount Atlas. According

to the religious philosophy of the Mahometans, the basis of Mount

Caf is an emerald, whose reflection produces the azure of the

sky. The mountain is endowed with a sensitive action in its roots

or nerves; and their vibration, at the command of God, is the

cause of earthquakes. (D’Herbelot, p. 230, 231.)]

2311 (return) [ Altai, i. e. Altun Tagh, the Golden Mountain. Von

Hammer Osman Geschichte, vol. i. p. 2.—M.]

24 (return) [ The Siberian iron is the best and most plentiful in

the world; and in the southern parts, above sixty mines are now

worked by the industry of the Russians, (Strahlenberg, Hist. of

Siberia, p. 342, 387. Voyage en Siberie, par l’Abbe Chappe

d’Auteroche, p. 603—608, edit in 12mo. Amsterdam. 1770.) The

Turks offered iron for sale; yet the Roman ambassadors, with

strange obstinacy, persisted in believing that it was all a

trick, and that their country produced none, (Menander in

Excerpt. Leg. p. 152.)]

25 (return) [ Of Irgana-kon, (Abulghazi Khan, Hist. Genealogique

des Tatars, P ii. c. 5, p. 71—77, c. 15, p. 155.) The tradition

of the Moguls, of the 450 years which they passed in the

mountains, agrees with the Chinese periods of the history of the

Huns and Turks, (De Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 376,) and the

twenty generations, from their restoration to Zingis.]

2511 (return) [ The Mongol Temugin is also, though erroneously,

explained by Rubruquis, a smith. Schmidt, p 876.—M.]

2512 (return) [ There appears the same confusion here. Bertezena

(Berte-Scheno) is claimed as the founder of the Mongol race. The

name means the gray (blauliche) wolf. In fact, the same tradition

of the origin from a wolf seems common to the Mongols and the

Turks. The Mongol Berte-Scheno, of the very curious Mongol

History, published and translated by M. Schmidt of Petersburg, is

brought from Thibet. M. Schmidt considers this tradition of the

Thibetane descent of the royal race of the Mongols to be much

earlier than their conversion to Lamaism, yet it seems very

suspicious. See Klaproth, Tabl. de l’Asie, p. 159. The Turkish

Bertezena is called Thou-men by Klaproth, p. 115. In 552,

Thou-men took the title of Kha-Khan, and was called Il Khan.—M.]

2513 (return) [ Great Bucharia is called Turkistan: see Hammer,

2. It includes all the last steppes at the foot of the Altai. The

name is the same with that of the Turan of Persian poetic

legend.—M.]

26 (return) [ The country of the Turks, now of the Calmucks, is

well described in the Genealogical History, p. 521—562. The

curious notes of the French translator are enlarged and digested

in the second volume of the English version.]

27 (return) [ Visdelou, p. 141, 151. The fact, though it strictly

belongs to a subordinate and successive tribe, may be introduced

here.]

28 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 12, l. ii. c. 3.

Peyssonel, Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 99, 100,

defines the distance between Caffa and the old Bosphorus at xvi.

long Tartar leagues.]

29 (return) [ See, in a Memoire of M. de Boze, (Mem. de

l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vi. p. 549—565,) the ancient

kings and medals of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and the gratitude of

Athens, in the Oration of Demosthenes against Leptines, (in

Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom. i. p. 466, 187.)]

30 (return) [ For the origin and revolutions of the first Turkish

empire, the Chinese details are borrowed from De Guignes (Hist.

des Huns, tom. P. ii. p. 367—462) and Visdelou, (Supplement a la

Bibliotheque Orient. d’Herbelot, p. 82—114.) The Greek or Roman

hints are gathered in Menander (p. 108—164) and Theophylact

Simocatta, (l. vii. c. 7, 8.)]

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part II.

In the rapid career of conquest, the Turks attacked and subdued

the nation of the Ogors or Varchonites 3011 on the banks of the

River Til, which derived the epithet of Black from its dark water

or gloomy forests. 31 The khan of the Ogors was slain with three

hundred thousand of his subjects, and their bodies were scattered

over the space of four days’ journey: their surviving countrymen

acknowledged the strength and mercy of the Turks; and a small

portion, about twenty thousand warriors, preferred exile to

servitude. They followed the well-known road of the Volga,

cherished the error of the nations who confounded them with the

Avars, and spread the terror of that false though famous

appellation, which had not, however, saved its lawful proprietors

from the yoke of the Turks. 32 After a long and victorious march,

the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the

country of the Alani 33 and Circassians, where they first heard

of the splendor and weakness of the Roman empire. They humbly

requested their confederate, the prince of the Alani, to lead

them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the

permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the

Euxine Sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to

behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people:

their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was

gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit

appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were

admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the

ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: “You see

before you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest

and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible

Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service: we are

able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your

repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the

reward of our valor, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and

fruitful possessions.” At the time of this embassy, Justinian had

reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five years: his

mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the

conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest

of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of

inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted to the senate

his resolution to dissemble the insult, and to purchase the

friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins

of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of

their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately

prepared to captivate the Barbarians; silken garments, soft and

splendid beds, and chains and collars incrusted with gold. The

ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from

Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor’s guards, was

sent with a similar character to their camp at the foot of Mount

Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike

advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the

enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and

promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives,

who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and

Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and

Germany, violating the law of nations, and abusing the rights of

victory. Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on

the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were

obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are

found, as tributaries and vassals, under the standard of the

Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king, still

affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and

Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia,

to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue

or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious

designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the

timid, though jealous policy, of detaining their ambassadors, and

denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the

capital of the empire. 34

3011 (return) [ The Ogors or Varchonites, from Var. a river,

(obviously connected with the name Avar,) must not be confounded

with the Uigours, the eastern Turks, (v. Hammer, Osmanische

Geschichte, vol. i. p. 3,) who speak a language the parent of the

more modern Turkish dialects. Compare Klaproth, page 121. They

are the ancestors of the Usbeck Turks. These Ogors were of the

same Finnish race with the Huns; and the 20,000 families which

fled towards the west, after the Turkish invasion, were of the

same race with those which remained to the east of the Volga, the

true Avars of Theophy fact.—M.]

31 (return) [ The River Til, or Tula, according to the geography

of De Guignes, (tom. i. part ii. p. lviii. and 352,) is a small,

though grateful, stream of the desert, that falls into the Orhon,

Selinga, &c. See Bell, Journey from Petersburg to Pekin, (vol.

ii. p. 124;) yet his own description of the Keat, down which he

sailed into the Oby, represents the name and attributes of the

black river, (p. 139.) * Note: M. Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques

de l’Asie, p. 274) supposes this river to be an eastern affluent

of the Volga, the Kama, which, from the color of its waters,

might be called black. M. Abel Remusat (Recherchea sur les

Langues Tartares, vol. i. p. 320) and M. St. Martin (vol. ix. p.

373) consider it the Volga, which is called Atel or Etel by all

the Turkish tribes. It is called Attilas by Menander, and Ettilia

by the monk Ruysbreek (1253.) See Klaproth, Tabl. Hist. p. 247.

This geography is much more clear and simple than that adopted by

Gibbon from De Guignes, or suggested from Bell.—M.]

32 (return) [ Theophylact, l. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true

Avars are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what

can be more illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive

Ogors to that national appellation is confessed by the Turks

themselves, (Menander, p. 108.)]

33 (return) [ The Alani are still found in the Genealogical

History of the Tartars, (p. 617,) and in D’Anville’s maps. They

opposed the march of the generals of Zingis round the Caspian

Sea, and were overthrown in a great battle, (Hist. de Gengiscan,

l. iv. c. 9, p. 447.)]

34 (return) [ The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may

be read in Menander, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155,)

Theophanes, (p. 196,) the Historia Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 109,)

and Gregory of Tours, (L iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of

France, tom. ii. p. 214, 217.)]

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors

may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the

conquerors of the Avars. 35 The immense distance which eluded

their arms could not extinguish their resentment: the Turkish

ambassadors pursued the footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik,

the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine and Constantinople, and at

length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request

that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. Even

commerce had some share in this remarkable negotiation: and the

Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the Turks, embraced

the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the Caspian, a new

road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman empire.

The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped

the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand: their silk was

contemptuously burnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia,

with a suspicion of poison; and the great khan permitted his

faithful vassal Maniach, the prince of the Sogdoites, to propose,

at the Byzantine court, a treaty of alliance against their common

enemies. Their splendid apparel and rich presents, the fruit of

Oriental luxury, distinguished Maniach and his colleagues from

the rude savages of the North: their letters, in the Scythian

character and language, announced a people who had attained the

rudiments of science: 36 they enumerated the conquests, they

offered the friendship and military aid of the Turks; and their

sincerity was attested by direful imprecations (if they were

guilty of falsehood) against their own head, and the head of

Disabul their master. The Greek prince entertained with

hospitable regard the ambassadors of a remote and powerful

monarch: the sight of silk-worms and looms disappointed the hopes

of the Sogdoites; the emperor renounced, or seemed to renounce,

the fugitive Avars, but he accepted the alliance of the Turks;

and the ratification of the treaty was carried by a Roman

minister to the foot of Mount Altai. Under the successors of

Justinian, the friendship of the two nations was cultivated by

frequent and cordial intercourse; the most favored vassals were

permitted to imitate the example of the great khan, and one

hundred and six Turks, who, on various occasions, had visited

Constantinople, departed at the same time for their native

country. The duration and length of the journey from the

Byzantine court to Mount Altai are not specified: it might have

been difficult to mark a road through the nameless deserts, the

mountains, rivers, and morasses of Tartary; but a curious account

has been preserved of the reception of the Roman ambassadors at

the royal camp. After they had been purified with fire and

incense, according to a rite still practised under the sons of

Zingis, 3611 they were introduced to the presence of Disabul. In

a valley of the Golden Mountain, they found the great khan in his

tent, seated in a chair with wheels, to which a horse might be

occasionally harnessed. As soon as they had delivered their

presents, which were received by the proper officers, they

exposed, in a florid oration, the wishes of the Roman emperor,

that victory might attend the arms of the Turks, that their reign

might be long and prosperous, and that a strict alliance, without

envy or deceit, might forever be maintained between the two most

powerful nations of the earth. The answer of Disabul corresponded

with these friendly professions, and the ambassadors were seated

by his side, at a banquet which lasted the greatest part of the

day: the tent was surrounded with silk hangings, and a Tartar

liquor was served on the table, which possessed at least the

intoxicating qualities of wine. The entertainment of the

succeeding day was more sumptuous; the silk hangings of the

second tent were embroidered in various figures; and the royal

seat, the cups, and the vases, were of gold. A third pavilion was

supported by columns of gilt wood; a bed of pure and massy gold

was raised on four peacocks of the same metal: and before the

entrance of the tent, dishes, basins, and statues of solid

silver, and admirable art, were ostentatiously piled in wagons,

the monuments of valor rather than of industry. When Disabul led

his armies against the frontiers of Persia, his Roman allies

followed many days the march of the Turkish camp, nor were they

dismissed till they had enjoyed their precedency over the envoy

of the great king, whose loud and intemperate clamors interrupted

the silence of the royal banquet. The power and ambition of

Chosroes cemented the union of the Turks and Romans, who touched

his dominions on either side: but those distant nations,

regardless of each other, consulted the dictates of interest,

without recollecting the obligations of oaths and treaties. While

the successor of Disabul celebrated his father’s obsequies, he

was saluted by the ambassadors of the emperor Tiberius, who

proposed an invasion of Persia, and sustained, with firmness, the

angry and perhaps the just reproaches of that haughty Barbarian.

“You see my ten fingers,” said the great khan, and he applied

them to his mouth. “You Romans speak with as many tongues, but

they are tongues of deceit and perjury. To me you hold one

language, to my subjects another; and the nations are

successively deluded by your perfidious eloquence. You

precipitate your allies into war and danger, you enjoy their

labors, and you neglect your benefactors. Hasten your return,

inform your master that a Turk is incapable of uttering or

forgiving falsehood, and that he shall speedily meet the

punishment which he deserves. While he solicits my friendship

with flattering and hollow words, he is sunk to a confederate of

my fugitive Varchonites. If I condescend to march against those

contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips;

they will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my

innumerable cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they

have followed to invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the

vain pretence, that Mount Caucasus is the impregnable barrier of

the Romans. I know the course of the Niester, the Danube, and the

Hebrus; the most warlike nations have yielded to the arms of the

Turks; and from the rising to the setting sun, the earth is my

inheritance.” Notwithstanding this menace, a sense of mutual

advantage soon renewed the alliance of the Turks and Romans: but

the pride of the great khan survived his resentment; and when he

announced an important conquest to his friend the emperor

Maurice, he styled himself the master of the seven races, and the

lord of the seven climates of the world. 37

35 (return) [ Theophanes, (Chron. p. 204,) and the Hist.

Miscella, (l. xvi. p. 110,) as understood by De Guignes, (tom. i.

part ii. p. 354,) appear to speak of a Turkish embassy to

Justinian himself; but that of Maniach, in the fourth year of his

successor Justin, is positively the first that reached

Constantinople, (Menander p. 108.)]

36 (return) [ The Russians have found characters, rude

hieroglyphics, on the Irtish and Yenisei, on medals, tombs,

idols, rocks, obelisks, &c., (Strahlenberg, Hist. of Siberia, p.

324, 346, 406, 429.) Dr. Hyde (de Religione Veterum Persarum, p.

521, &c.) has given two alphabets of Thibet and of the Eygours. I

have long harbored a suspicion, that all the Scythian, and some,

perhaps much, of the Indian science, was derived from the Greeks

of Bactriana. * Note: Modern discoveries give no confirmation to

this suspicion. The character of Indian science, as well as of

their literature and mythology, indicates an original source.

Grecian art may have occasionally found its way into India. One

or two of the sculptures in Col. Tod’s account of the Jain

temples, if correct, show a finer outline, and purer sense of

beauty, than appears native to India, where the monstrous always

predominated over simple nature.—M.]

3611 (return) [ This rite is so curious, that I have subjoined

the description of it:— When these (the exorcisers, the Shamans)

approached Zemarchus, they took all our baggage and placed it in

the centre. Then, kindling a fire with branches of frankincense,

lowly murmuring certain barbarous words in the Scythian language,

beating on a kind of bell (a gong) and a drum, they passed over

the baggage the leaves of the frankincense, crackling with the

fire, and at the same time themselves becoming frantic, and

violently leaping about, seemed to exorcise the evil spirits.

Having thus as they thought, averted all evil, they led Zemarchus

himself through the fire. Menander, in Niebuhr’s Bryant. Hist. p.

381. Compare Carpini’s Travels. The princes of the race of Zingis

Khan condescended to receive the ambassadors of the king of

France, at the end of the 13th century without their submitting

to this humiliating rite. See Correspondence published by Abel

Remusat, Nouv. Mem. de l’Acad des Inscrip. vol. vii. On the

embassy of Zemarchus, compare Klaproth, Tableaux de l’Asie p.

116.—M.]

37 (return) [ All the details of these Turkish and Roman

embassies, so curious in the history of human manners, are drawn

from the extracts of Menander, (p. 106—110, 151—154, 161-164,) in

which we often regret the want of order and connection.]

Disputes have often arisen between the sovereigns of Asia for the

title of king of the world; while the contest has proved that it

could not belong to either of the competitors. The kingdom of the

Turks was bounded by the Oxus or Gihon; and Touran was separated

by that great river from the rival monarchy of Iran, or Persia,

which in a smaller compass contained perhaps a larger measure of

power and population. The Persians, who alternately invaded and

repulsed the Turks and the Romans, were still ruled by the house

of Sassan, which ascended the throne three hundred years before

the accession of Justinian. His contemporary, Cabades, or Kobad,

had been successful in war against the emperor Anastasius; but

the reign of that prince was distracted by civil and religious

troubles. A prisoner in the hands of his subjects, an exile among

the enemies of Persia, he recovered his liberty by prostituting

the honor of his wife, and regained his kingdom with the

dangerous and mercenary aid of the Barbarians, who had slain his

father. His nobles were suspicious that Kobad never forgave the

authors of his expulsion, or even those of his restoration. The

people was deluded and inflamed by the fanaticism of Mazdak, 38

who asserted the community of women, 39 and the equality of

mankind, whilst he appropriated the richest lands and most

beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. The view of these

disorders, which had been fomented by his laws and example, 40

imbittered the declining age of the Persian monarch; and his

fears were increased by the consciousness of his design to

reverse the natural and customary order of succession, in favor

of his third and most favored son, so famous under the names of

Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the youth more illustrious in

the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous that he should be

adopted by the emperor Justin: 4011 the hope of peace inclined

the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal; and

Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance

of his Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the

advice of the quaestor Proclus: a difficulty was started, whether

the adoption should be performed as a civil or military rite; 41

the treaty was abruptly dissolved; and the sense of this

indignity sunk deep into the mind of Chosroes, who had already

advanced to the Tigris on his road to Constantinople. His father

did not long survive the disappointment of his wishes: the

testament of their deceased sovereign was read in the assembly of

the nobles; and a powerful faction, prepared for the event, and

regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne

of Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of

forty-eight years; 42 and the Justice of Nushirvan is celebrated

as the theme of immortal praise by the nations of the East.

38 (return) [ See D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568, 929;)

Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291;) Pocock,

(Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71;) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.

176;) Texeira, (in Stevens, Hist. of Persia, l. i. c. 34.) *

Note: Mazdak was an Archimagus, born, according to Mirkhond,

(translated by De Sacy, p. 353, and Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104,) at

Istakhar or Persepolis, according to an inedited and anonymous

history, (the Modjmal-alte-warikh in the Royal Library at Paris,

quoted by St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 322) at Wischapour in

Chorasan: his father’s name was Bamdadam. He announces himself as

a reformer of Zoroastrianism, and carried the doctrine of the two

principles to a much greater height. He preached the absolute

indifference of human action, perfect equality of rank, community

of property and of women, marriages between the nearest kindred;

he interdicted the use of animal food, proscribed the killing of

animals for food, enforced a vegetable diet. See St. Martin, vol.

vii. p. 322. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104. Mirkhond translated by De

Sacy. It is remarkable that the doctrine of Mazdak spread into

the West. Two inscriptions found in Cyrene, in 1823, and

explained by M. Gesenius, and by M. Hamaker of Leyden, prove

clearly that his doctrines had been eagerly embraced by the

remains of the ancient Gnostics; and Mazdak was enrolled with

Thoth, Saturn, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicurus, John, and Christ,

as the teachers of true Gnostic wisdom. See St. Martin, vol. vii.

p. 338. Gesenius de Inscriptione Phoenicio-Graeca in Cyrenaica

nuper reperta, Halle, 1825. Hamaker, Lettre a M. Raoul Rochette,

Leyden, 1825.—M.]

39 (return) [ The fame of the new law for the community of women

was soon propagated in Syria (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii.

p. 402) and Greece, (Procop. Persic. l. i. c. 5.)]

40 (return) [ He offered his own wife and sister to the prophet;

but the prayers of Nushirvan saved his mother, and the indignant

monarch never forgave the humiliation to which his filial piety

had stooped: pedes tuos deosculatus (said he to Mazdak,) cujus

foetor adhuc nares occupat, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p.

71.)]

4011 (return) [ St. Martin questions this adoption: he urges its

improbability; and supposes that Procopius, perverting some

popular traditions, or the remembrance of some fruitless

negotiations which took place at that time, has mistaken, for a

treaty of adoption some treaty of guaranty or protection for the

purpose of insuring the crown, after the death of Kobad, to his

favorite son Chosroes, vol. viii. p. 32. Yet the Greek historians

seem unanimous as to the proposal: the Persians might be expected

to maintain silence on such a subject.—M.]

41 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 11. Was not Proclus

over-wise? Was not the danger imaginary?—The excuse, at least,

was injurious to a nation not ignorant of letters. Whether any

mode of adoption was practised in Persia, I much doubt.]

42 (return) [ From Procopius and Agathias, Pagi (tom. ii. p. 543,

626) has proved that Chosroes Nushirvan ascended the throne in

the fifth year of Justinian, (A.D. 531, April 1.—A.D. 532, April

1.) But the true chronology, which harmonizes with the Greeks and

Orientals, is ascertained by John Malala, (tom. ii. 211.)

Cabades, or Kobad, after a reign of forty-three years and two

months, sickened the 8th, and died the 13th of September, A.D.

531, aged eighty-two years. According to the annals of Eutychius,

Nushirvan reigned forty seven years and six months; and his death

must consequently be placed in March, A.D. 579.]

But the justice of kings is understood by themselves, and even by

their subjects, with an ample indulgence for the gratification of

passion and interest. The virtue of Chosroes was that of a

conqueror, who, in the measures of peace and war, is excited by

ambition, and restrained by prudence; who confounds the greatness

with the happiness of a nation, and calmly devotes the lives of

thousands to the fame, or even the amusement, of a single man. In

his domestic administration, the just Nushirvan would merit in

our feelings the appellation of a tyrant. His two elder brothers

had been deprived of their fair expectations of the diadem: their

future life, between the supreme rank and the condition of

subjects, was anxious to themselves and formidable to their

master: fear as well as revenge might tempt them to rebel: the

slightest evidence of a conspiracy satisfied the author of their

wrongs; and the repose of Chosroes was secured by the death of

these unhappy princes, with their families and adherents. One

guiltless youth was saved and dismissed by the compassion of a

veteran general; and this act of humanity, which was revealed by

his son, overbalanced the merit of reducing twelve nations to the

obedience of Persia. The zeal and prudence of Mebodes had fixed

the diadem on the head of Chosroes himself; but he delayed to

attend the royal summons, till he had performed the duties of a

military review: he was instantly commanded to repair to the iron

tripod, which stood before the gate of the palace, 43 where it

was death to relieve or approach the victim; and Mebodes

languished several days before his sentence was pronounced, by

the inflexible pride and calm ingratitude of the son of Kobad.

But the people, more especially in the East, is disposed to

forgive, and even to applaud, the cruelty which strikes at the

loftiest heads; at the slaves of ambition, whose voluntary choice

has exposed them to live in the smiles, and to perish by the

frown, of a capricious monarch. In the execution of the laws

which he had no temptation to violate; in the punishment of

crimes which attacked his own dignity, as well as the happiness

of individuals; Nushirvan, or Chosroes, deserved the appellation

of just. His government was firm, rigorous, and impartial. It was

the first labor of his reign to abolish the dangerous theory of

common or equal possessions: the lands and women which the

sectaries of Mazdak has usurped were restored to their lawful

owners; and the temperate 4311 chastisement of the fanatics or

impostors confirmed the domestic rights of society. Instead of

listening with blind confidence to a favorite minister, he

established four viziers over the four great provinces of his

empire, Assyria, Media, Persia, and Bactriana. In the choice of

judges, præfects, and counsellors, he strove to remove the mask

which is always worn in the presence of kings: he wished to

substitute the natural order of talents for the accidental

distinctions of birth and fortune; he professed, in specious

language, his intention to prefer those men who carried the poor

in their bosoms, and to banish corruption from the seat of

justice, as dogs were excluded from the temples of the Magi. The

code of laws of the first Artaxerxes was revived and published as

the rule of the magistrates; but the assurance of speedy

punishment was the best security of their virtue. Their behavior

was inspected by a thousand eyes, their words were overheard by a

thousand ears, the secret or public agents of the throne; and the

provinces, from the Indian to the Arabian confines, were

enlightened by the frequent visits of a sovereign, who affected

to emulate his celestial brother in his rapid and salutary

career. Education and agriculture he viewed as the two objects

most deserving of his care. In every city of Persia orphans, and

the children of the poor, were maintained and instructed at the

public expense; the daughters were given in marriage to the

richest citizens of their own rank, and the sons, according to

their different talents, were employed in mechanic trades, or

promoted to more honorable service. The deserted villages were

relieved by his bounty; to the peasants and farmers who were

found incapable of cultivating their lands, he distributed

cattle, seed, and the instruments of husbandry; and the rare and

inestimable treasure of fresh water was parsimoniously managed,

and skilfully dispersed over the arid territory of Persia. 44 The

prosperity of that kingdom was the effect and evidence of his

virtues; his vices are those of Oriental despotism; but in the

long competition between Chosroes and Justinian, the advantage

both of merit and fortune is almost always on the side of the

Barbarian. 45

43 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 23. Brisson, de Regn.

Pers. p. 494. The gate of the palace of Ispahan is, or was, the

fatal scene of disgrace or death, (Chardin, Voyage en Perse, tom.

iv. p. 312, 313.)]

4311 (return) [ This is a strange term. Nushirvan employed a

stratagem similar to that of Jehu, 2 Kings, x. 18—28, to separate

the followers of Mazdak from the rest of his subjects, and with a

body of his troops cut them all in pieces. The Greek writers

concur with the Persian in this representation of Nushirvan’s

temperate conduct. Theophanes, p. 146. Mirkhond. p. 362.

Eutychius, Ann. vol. ii. p. 179. Abulfeda, in an unedited part,

consulted by St. Martin as well as in a passage formerly cited.

Le Beau vol. viii. p. 38. Malcolm vol l p. 109.—M.]

44 (return) [ In Persia, the prince of the waters is an officer

of state. The number of wells and subterraneous channels is much

diminished, and with it the fertility of the soil: 400 wells have

been recently lost near Tauris, and 42,000 were once reckoned in

the province of Khorasan (Chardin, tom. iii. p. 99, 100.

Tavernier, tom. i. p. 416.)]

45 (return) [ The character and government of Nushirvan is

represented some times in the words of D’Herbelot, (Bibliot.

Orient. p. 680, &c., from Khondemir,) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii.

p. 179, 180,—very rich,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. vii. p. 94,

95,—very poor,) Tarikh Schikard, (p. 144—150,) Texeira, (in

Stevens, l. i. c. 35,) Asseman, (Bibliot Orient. tom. iii. p.

404-410,) and the Abbe Fourmont, (Hist. de l’Acad. des

Inscriptions, tom. vii. p. 325—334,) who has translated a

spurious or genuine testament of Nushirvan.]

To the praise of justice Nushirvan united the reputation of

knowledge; and the seven Greek philosophers, who visited his

court, were invited and deceived by the strange assurance, that a

disciple of Plato was seated on the Persian throne. Did they

expect, that a prince, strenuously exercised in the toils of war

and government, should agitate, with dexterity like their own,

the abstruse and profound questions which amused the leisure of

the schools of Athens? Could they hope that the precepts of

philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a

despot, whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute

and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation? 46 The

studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial: but his

example awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the

light of science was diffused over the dominions of Persia. 47 At

Gondi Sapor, in the neighborhood of the royal city of Susa, an

academy of physic was founded, which insensibly became a liberal

school of poetry, philosophy, and rhetoric. 48 The annals of the

monarchy 49 were composed; and while recent and authentic history

might afford some useful lessons both to the prince and people,

the darkness of the first ages was embellished by the giants, the

dragons, and the fabulous heroes of Oriental romance. 50 Every

learned or confident stranger was enriched by the bounty, and

flattered by the conversation, of the monarch: he nobly rewarded

a Greek physician, 51 by the deliverance of three thousand

captives; and the sophists, who contended for his favor, were

exasperated by the wealth and insolence of Uranius, their more

successful rival. Nushirvan believed, or at least respected, the

religion of the Magi; and some traces of persecution may be

discovered in his reign. 52 Yet he allowed himself freely to

compare the tenets of the various sects; and the theological

disputes, in which he frequently presided, diminished the

authority of the priest, and enlightened the minds of the people.

At his command, the most celebrated writers of Greece and India

were translated into the Persian language; a smooth and elegant

idiom, recommended by Mahomet to the use of paradise; though it

is branded with the epithets of savage and unmusical, by the

ignorance and presumption of Agathias. 53 Yet the Greek historian

might reasonably wonder that it should be found possible to

execute an entire version of Plato and Aristotle in a foreign

dialect, which had not been framed to express the spirit of

freedom and the subtilties of philosophic disquisition. And, if

the reason of the Stagyrite might be equally dark, or equally

intelligible in every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal

argumentation of the disciple of Socrates, 54 appear to be

indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic

style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was

informed, that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an

ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the

treasures of the kings of India. The physician Perozes was

secretly despatched to the banks of the Ganges, with instructions

to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable

work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence

accomplished the translation; and the fables of Pilpay 55 were

read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The

Indian original, and the Persian copy, have long since

disappeared; but this venerable monument has been saved by the

curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic,

the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and

transfused through successive versions into the modern languages

of Europe. In their present form, the peculiar character, the

manners and religion of the Hindoos, are completely obliterated;

and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior

to the concise elegance of Phaedrus, and the native graces of La

Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated

in a series of apologues: but the composition is intricate, the

narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the

Brachman may assume the merit of inventing a pleasing fiction,

which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to

a royal ear, the harshness of instruction. With a similar design,

to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of

their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess,

which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of

Nushirvan. 56

46 (return) [ A thousand years before his birth, the judges of

Persia had given a solemn opinion, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 31, p.

210, edit. Wesseling.) Nor had this constitutional maxim been

neglected as a useless and barren theory.]

47 (return) [ On the literary state of Persia, the Greek

versions, philosophers, sophists, the learning or ignorance of

Chosroes, Agathias (l. ii. c. 66—71) displays much information

and strong prejudices.]

48 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. DCCXLV. vi.

vii.]

49 (return) [ The Shah Nameh, or Book of Kings, is perhaps the

original record of history which was translated into Greek by the

interpreter Sergius, (Agathias, l. v. p. 141,) preserved after

the Mahometan conquest, and versified in the year 994, by the

national poet Ferdoussi. See D’Anquetil (Mem. de l’Academie, tom.

xxxi. p. 379) and Sir William Jones, (Hist. of Nadir Shah, p.

161.)]

50 (return) [ In the fifth century, the name of Restom, or

Rostam, a hero who equalled the strength of twelve elephants, was

familiar to the Armenians, (Moses Chorenensis, Hist. Armen. l.

ii. c. 7, p. 96, edit. Whiston.) In the beginning of the seventh,

the Persian Romance of Rostam and Isfendiar was applauded at

Mecca, (Sale’s Koran, c. xxxi. p. 335.) Yet this exposition of

ludicrum novae historiae is not given by Maracci, (Refutat.

Alcoran. p. 544—548.)]

51 (return) [ Procop. (Goth. l. iv. c. 10.) Kobad had a favorite

Greek physician, Stephen of Edessa, (Persic. l. ii. c. 26.) The

practice was ancient; and Herodotus relates the adventures of

Democedes of Crotona, (l. iii p. 125—137.)]

52 (return) [ See Pagi, tom. ii. p. 626. In one of the treaties

an honorable article was inserted for the toleration and burial

of the Catholics, (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 142.)

Nushizad, a son of Nushirvan, was a Christian, a rebel, and—a

martyr? (D’Herbelot, p. 681.)]

53 (return) [ On the Persian language, and its three dialects,

consult D’Anquetil (p. 339—343) and Jones, (p. 153—185:) is the

character which Agathias (l. ii. p. 66) ascribes to an idiom

renowned in the East for poetical softness.]

54 (return) [ Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phaedon,

Parmenides, and Timaeus. Renaudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.

tom. xii. p. 246—261) does not mention this Barbaric version of

Aristotle.]

55 (return) [ Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three

different languages: 1. In Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (A.D.

1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697,

in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek Sapientia Indorum,

inserted by Pere Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer,

(p. 547—620, edit. Roman.) 3. In French, from the Turkish,

dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliman Contes et Fables Indiennes

de Bidpai et de Lokman, par Mm. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778,

3 vols. in 12mo. Mr. Warton (History of English Poetry, vol. i.

p. 129—131) takes a larger scope. * Note: The oldest Indian

collection extant is the Pancha-tantra, (the five collections,)

analyzed by Mr. Wilson in the Transactions of the Royal Asiat.

Soc. It was translated into Persian by Barsuyah, the physician of

Nushirvan, under the name of the Fables of Bidpai, (Vidyapriya,

the Friend of Knowledge, or, as the Oriental writers understand

it, the Friend of Medicine.) It was translated into Arabic by

Abdolla Ibn Mokaffa, under the name of Kalila and Dimnah. From

the Arabic it passed into the European languages. Compare Wilson,

in Trans. As. Soc. i. 52. dohlen, das alte Indien, ii. p. 386.

Silvestre de Sacy, Memoire sur Kalila vs Dimnah.—M.]

56 (return) [ See the Historia Shahiludii of Dr. Hyde, (Syntagm.

Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 61—69.)]

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III.

The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with the

successor of Constantine; and the anxiety of his domestic

situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which

Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Roman

ambassadors at his feet. He accepted eleven thousand pounds of

gold, as the price of an endless or indefinite peace: 57 some

mutual exchanges were regulated; the Persian assumed the guard of

the gates of Caucasus, and the demolition of Dara was suspended,

on condition that it should never be made the residence of the

general of the East. This interval of repose had been solicited,

and was diligently improved, by the ambition of the emperor: his

African conquests were the first fruits of the Persian treaty;

and the avarice of Chosroes was soothed by a large portion of the

spoils of Carthage, which his ambassadors required in a tone of

pleasantry and under the color of friendship. 58 But the trophies

of Belisarius disturbed the slumbers of the great king; and he

heard with astonishment, envy, and fear, that Sicily, Italy, and

Rome itself, had been reduced, in three rapid campaigns, to the

obedience of Justinian. Unpractised in the art of violating

treaties, he secretly excited his bold and subtle vassal

Almondar. That prince of the Saracens, who resided at Hira, 59

had not been included in the general peace, and still waged an

obscure war against his rival Arethas, the chief of the tribe of

Gassan, and confederate of the empire. The subject of their

dispute was an extensive sheep-walk in the desert to the south of

Palmyra. An immemorial tribute for the license of pasture

appeared to attest the rights of Almondar, while the Gassanite

appealed to the Latin name of strata, a paved road, as an

unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labors of the

Romans. 60 The two monarchs supported the cause of their

respective vassals; and the Persian Arab, without expecting the

event of a slow and doubtful arbitration, enriched his flying

camp with the spoil and captives of Syria. Instead of repelling

the arms, Justinian attempted to seduce the fidelity of Almondar,

while he called from the extremities of the earth the nations of

Aethiopia and Scythia to invade the dominions of his rival. But

the aid of such allies was distant and precarious, and the

discovery of this hostile correspondence justified the complaints

of the Goths and Armenians, who implored, almost at the same

time, the protection of Chosroes. The descendants of Arsaces, who

were still numerous in Armenia, had been provoked to assert the

last relics of national freedom and hereditary rank; and the

ambassadors of Vitiges had secretly traversed the empire to

expose the instant, and almost inevitable, danger of the kingdom

of Italy. Their representations were uniform, weighty, and

effectual. “We stand before your throne, the advocates of your

interest as well as of our own. The ambitious and faithless

Justinian aspires to be the sole master of the world. Since the

endless peace, which betrayed the common freedom of mankind, that

prince, your ally in words, your enemy in actions, has alike

insulted his friends and foes, and has filled the earth with

blood and confusion. Has he not violated the privileges of

Armenia, the independence of Colchos, and the wild liberty of the

Tzanian mountains? Has he not usurped, with equal avidity, the

city of Bosphorus on the frozen Maeotis, and the vale of

palm-trees on the shores of the Red Sea? The Moors, the Vandals,

the Goths, have been successively oppressed, and each nation has

calmly remained the spectator of their neighbor’s ruin. Embrace,

O king! the favorable moment; the East is left without defence,

while the armies of Justinian and his renowned general are

detained in the distant regions of the West. If you hesitate or

delay, Belisarius and his victorious troops will soon return from

the Tyber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched

consolation of being the last devoured.” 61 By such arguments,

Chosroes was easily persuaded to imitate the example which he

condemned: but the Persian, ambitious of military fame, disdained

the inactive warfare of a rival, who issued his sanguinary

commands from the secure station of the Byzantine palace.

57 (return) [ The endless peace (Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 21)

was concluded or ratified in the vith year, and iiid consulship,

of Justinian, (A.D. 533, between January 1 and April 1. Pagi,

tom. ii. p. 550.) Marcellinus, in his Chronicle, uses the style

of Medes and Persians.]

58 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 26.]

59 (return) [ Almondar, king of Hira, was deposed by Kobad, and

restored by Nushirvan. His mother, from her beauty, was surnamed

Celestial Water, an appellation which became hereditary, and was

extended for a more noble cause (liberality in famine) to the

Arab princes of Syria, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 69, 70.)]

60 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. ii. c. 1. We are ignorant of

the origin and object of this strata, a paved road of ten days’

journey from Auranitis to Babylonia. (See a Latin note in

Delisle’s Map Imp. Orient.) Wesseling and D’Anville are silent.]

61 (return) [ I have blended, in a short speech, the two orations

of the Arsacides of Armenia and the Gothic ambassadors.

Procopius, in his public history, feels, and makes us feel, that

Justinian was the true author of the war, (Persic. l. ii. c. 2,

3.)]

Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused the

confidence of treaties; and the just reproaches of dissimulation

and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his

victories. 62 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the

plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of

Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, till

the small, though populous, town of Dura 6211 presumed to arrest

the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery

and surprise, were burst open; and as soon as Chosroes had

stained his cimeter with the blood of the inhabitants, he

dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in

what place he had left the enemy of the Romans. The conqueror

still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and as he

beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the

ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to

punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve

thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold;

the neighboring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the

payment: and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of

Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was

generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced

into the heart of Syria: but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his

approach, disappointed him of the honor of victory; and as he

could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king

displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a

robber. Hierapolis, Berrhaea or Aleppo, Apamea and Chalcis, were

successively besieged: they redeemed their safety by a ransom of

gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and

opulence; and their new master enforced, without observing, the

terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he

exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege;

and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true

cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion of

the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years had elapsed

since Antioch was ruined by an earthquake; 6212 but the queen of

the East, the new Theopolis, had been raised from the ground by

the liberality of Justinian; and the increasing greatness of the

buildings and the people already erased the memory of this recent

disaster. On one side, the city was defended by the mountain, on

the other by the River Orontes; but the most accessible part was

commanded by a superior eminence: the proper remedies were

rejected, from the despicable fear of discovering its weakness to

the enemy; and Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, refused to trust

his person and dignity within the walls of a besieged city. The

people of Antioch had inherited the vain and satirical genius of

their ancestors: they were elated by a sudden reenforcement of

six thousand soldiers; they disdained the offers of an easy

capitulation and their intemperate clamors insulted from the

ramparts the majesty of the great king. Under his eye the Persian

myriads mounted with scaling-ladders to the assault; the Roman

mercenaries fled through the opposite gate of Daphne; and the

generous assistance of the youth of Antioch served only to

aggravate the miseries of their country. As Chosroes, attended by

the ambassadors of Justinian, was descending from the mountain,

he affected, in a plaintive voice, to deplore the obstinacy and

ruin of that unhappy people; but the slaughter still raged with

unrelenting fury; and the city, at the command of a Barbarian,

was delivered to the flames. The cathedral of Antioch was indeed

preserved by the avarice, not the piety, of the conqueror: a more

honorable exemption was granted to the church of St. Julian, and

the quarter of the town where the ambassadors resided; some

distant streets were saved by the shifting of the wind, and the

walls still subsisted to protect, and soon to betray, their new

inhabitants. Fanaticism had defaced the ornaments of Daphne, but

Chosroes breathed a purer air amidst her groves and fountains;

and some idolaters in his train might sacrifice with impunity to

the nymphs of that elegant retreat. Eighteen miles below Antioch,

the River Orontes falls into the Mediterranean. The haughty

Persian visited the term of his conquests; and, after bathing

alone in the sea, he offered a solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving

to the sun, or rather to the Creator of the sun, whom the Magi

adored. If this act of superstition offended the prejudices of

the Syrians, they were pleased by the courteous and even eager

attention with which he assisted at the games of the circus; and

as Chosroes had heard that the blue faction was espoused by the

emperor, his peremptory command secured the victory of the green

charioteer. From the discipline of his camp the people derived

more solid consolation; and they interceded in vain for the life

of a soldier who had too faithfully copied the rapine of the just

Nushirvan. At length, fatigued, though unsatiated, with the spoil

of Syria, 6213 he slowly moved to the Euphrates, formed a

temporary bridge in the neighborhood of Barbalissus, and defined

the space of three days for the entire passage of his numerous

host. After his return, he founded, at the distance of one day’s

journey from the palace of Ctesiphon, a new city, which

perpetuated the joint names of Chosroes and of Antioch. The

Syrian captives recognized the form and situation of their native

abodes: baths and a stately circus were constructed for their

use; and a colony of musicians and charioteers revived in Assyria

the pleasures of a Greek capital. By the munificence of the royal

founder, a liberal allowance was assigned to these fortunate

exiles; and they enjoyed the singular privilege of bestowing

freedom on the slaves whom they acknowledged as their kinsmen.

Palestine, and the holy wealth of Jerusalem, were the next

objects that attracted the ambition, or rather the avarice, of

Chosroes. Constantinople, and the palace of the Caesars, no

longer appeared impregnable or remote; and his aspiring fancy

already covered Asia Minor with the troops, and the Black Sea

with the navies, of Persia.

62 (return) [ The invasion of Syria, the ruin of Antioch, &c.,

are related in a full and regular series by Procopius, (Persic.

l. ii. c. 5—14.) Small collateral aid can be drawn from the

Orientals: yet not they, but D’Herbelot himself, (p. 680,) should

blush when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan

contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D’Anville

(l’Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory.]

6211 (return) [ It is Sura in Procopius. Is it a misprint in

Gibbon?—M.]

6212 (return) [ Joannes Lydus attributes the easy capture of

Antioch to the want of fortifications which had not been restored

since the earthquake, l. iii. c. 54. p. 246.—M.]

6213 (return) [ Lydus asserts that he carried away all the

statues, pictures, and marbles which adorned the city, l. iii. c.

54, p. 246.—M.]

These hopes might have been realized, if the conqueror of Italy

had not been seasonably recalled to the defence of the East. 63

While Chosroes pursued his ambitious designs on the coast of the

Euxine, Belisarius, at the head of an army without pay or

discipline, encamped beyond the Euphrates, within six miles of

Nisibis. He meditated, by a skilful operation, to draw the

Persians from their impregnable citadel, and improving his

advantage in the field, either to intercept their retreat, or

perhaps to enter the gates with the flying Barbarians. He

advanced one day’s journey on the territories of Persia, reduced

the fortress of Sisaurane, and sent the governor, with eight

hundred chosen horsemen, to serve the emperor in his Italian

wars. He detached Arethas and his Arabs, supported by twelve

hundred Romans, to pass the Tigris, and to ravage the harvests of

Assyria, a fruitful province, long exempt from the calamities of

war. But the plans of Belisarius were disconcerted by the

untractable spirit of Arethas, who neither returned to the camp,

nor sent any intelligence of his motions. The Roman general was

fixed in anxious expectation to the same spot; the time of action

elapsed, the ardent sun of Mesopotamia inflamed with fevors the

blood of his European soldiers; and the stationary troops and

officers of Syria affected to tremble for the safety of their

defenceless cities. Yet this diversion had already succeeded in

forcing Chosroes to return with loss and precipitation; and if

the skill of Belisarius had been seconded by discipline and

valor, his success might have satisfied the sanguine wishes of

the public, who required at his hands the conquest of Ctesiphon,

and the deliverance of the captives of Antioch. At the end of the

campaign, he was recalled to Constantinople by an ungrateful

court, but the dangers of the ensuing spring restored his

confidence and command; and the hero, almost alone, was

despatched, with the speed of post-horses, to repel, by his name

and presence, the invasion of Syria. He found the Roman generals,

among whom was a nephew of Justinian, imprisoned by their fears

in the fortifications of Hierapolis. But instead of listening to

their timid counsels, Belisarius commanded them to follow him to

Europus, where he had resolved to collect his forces, and to

execute whatever God should inspire him to achieve against the

enemy. His firm attitude on the banks of the Euphrates restrained

Chosroes from advancing towards Palestine; and he received with

art and dignity the ambassadors, or rather spies, of the Persian

monarch. The plain between Hierapolis and the river was covered

with the squadrons of cavalry, six thousand hunters, tall and

robust, who pursued their game without the apprehension of an

enemy. On the opposite bank the ambassadors descried a thousand

Armenian horse, who appeared to guard the passage of the

Euphrates. The tent of Belisarius was of the coarsest linen, the

simple equipage of a warrior who disdained the luxury of the

East. Around his tent, the nations who marched under his standard

were arranged with skilful confusion. The Thracians and Illyrians

were posted in the front, the Heruli and Goths in the centre; the

prospect was closed by the Moors and Vandals, and their loose

array seemed to multiply their numbers. Their dress was light and

active; one soldier carried a whip, another a sword, a third a

bow, a fourth, perhaps, a battle axe, and the whole picture

exhibited the intrepidity of the troops and the vigilance of the

general. Chosroes was deluded by the address, and awed by the

genius, of the lieutenant of Justinian. Conscious of the merit,

and ignorant of the force, of his antagonist, he dreaded a

decisive battle in a distant country, from whence not a Persian

might return to relate the melancholy tale. The great king

hastened to repass the Euphrates; and Belisarius pressed his

retreat, by affecting to oppose a measure so salutary to the

empire, and which could scarcely have been prevented by an army

of a hundred thousand men. Envy might suggest to ignorance and

pride, that the public enemy had been suffered to escape: but the

African and Gothic triumphs are less glorious than this safe and

bloodless victory, in which neither fortune, nor the valor of the

soldiers, can subtract any part of the general’s renown. The

second removal of Belisarius from the Persian to the Italian war

revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or

supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals,

without concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an

army of thirty thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals,

their ranks, and their ensigns. Four thousand Persians,

intrenched in the camp of Dubis, vanquished, almost without a

combat, this disorderly multitude; their useless arms were

scattered along the road, and their horses sunk under the fatigue

of their rapid flight. But the Arabs of the Roman party prevailed

over their brethren; the Armenians returned to their allegiance;

the cities of Dara and Edessa resisted a sudden assault and a

regular siege, and the calamities of war were suspended by those

of pestilence. A tacit or formal agreement between the two

sovereigns protected the tranquillity of the Eastern frontier;

and the arms of Chosroes were confined to the Colchian or Lazic

war, which has been too minutely described by the historians of

the times. 64

63 (return) [ In the public history of Procopius, (Persic. l. ii.

c. 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28;) and, with some slight

exceptions, we may reasonably shut our ears against the

malevolent whisper of the Anecdotes, (c. 2, 3, with the Notes, as

usual, of Alemannus.)]

64 (return) [ The Lazic war, the contest of Rome and Persia on

the Phasis, is tediously spun through many a page of Procopius

(Persic. l. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30.) Gothic. (l. iv. c. 7—16)

and Agathias, (l. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55—132, 141.)]

The extreme length of the Euxine Sea 65 from Constantinople to

the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage of nine

days, and a measure of seven hundred miles. From the Iberian

Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river

descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is

traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream

become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of

Sarapana, five days’ journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the

same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The

proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least

the idea, of wafting the precious merchandise of India down the

Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the

Phasis into the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. As it successively

collects the streams of the plain of Colchos, the Phasis moves

with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it

is sixty fathom deep, and half a league broad, but a small woody

island is interposed in the midst of the channel; the water, so

soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats

on the surface of the waves, and is no longer susceptible of

corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are

navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated

region of Colchos, 66 or Mingrelia, 67 which, on three sides, is

fortified by the Iberian and Armenian mountains, and whose

maritime coast extends about two hundred miles from the

neighborhood of Trebizond to Dioscurias and the confines of

Circassia. Both the soil and climate are relaxed by excessive

moisture: twenty-eight rivers, besides the Phasis and his

dependent streams, convey their waters to the sea; and the

hollowness of the ground appears to indicate the subterraneous

channels between the Euxine and the Caspian. In the fields where

wheat or barley is sown, the earth is too soft to sustain the

action of the plough; but the gom, a small grain, not unlike the

millet or coriander seed, supplies the ordinary food of the

people; and the use of bread is confined to the prince and his

nobles. Yet the vintage is more plentiful than the harvest; and

the bulk of the stems, as well as the quality of the wine,

display the unassisted powers of nature. The same powers

continually tend to overshadow the face of the country with thick

forests; the timber of the hills, and the flax of the plains,

contribute to the abundance of naval stores; the wild and tame

animals, the horse, the ox, and the hog, are remarkably prolific,

and the name of the pheasant is expressive of his native

habitation on the banks of the Phasis. The gold mines to the

south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient

profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and

Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of

precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the

hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the

laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians. The

waters, impregnated with particles of gold, are carefully

strained through sheep-skins or fleeces; but this expedient, the

groundwork perhaps of a marvellous fable, affords a faint image

of the wealth extracted from a virgin earth by the power and

industry of ancient kings. Their silver palaces and golden

chambers surpass our belief; but the fame of their riches is said

to have excited the enterprising avarice of the Argonauts. 68

Tradition has affirmed, with some color of reason, that Egypt

planted on the Phasis a learned and polite colony, 69 which

manufactured linen, built navies, and invented geographical maps.

The ingenuity of the moderns has peopled, with flourishing cities

and nations, the isthmus between the Euxine and the Caspian; 70

and a lively writer, observing the resemblance of climate, and,

in his apprehension, of trade, has not hesitated to pronounce

Colchos the Holland of antiquity. 71

65 (return) [ The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine

Sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Arrian:

I. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by

the singular diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the

parliament of Dijon, (Hist. de la Republique Romaine, tom. ii. l.

iii. p. 199—298,) who ventures to assume the character of the

Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously

formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the

Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy, or by whom he might be

copied; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical

design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor

Hadrian, (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, tom. i.,) and contains

whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to

Dioscurias; whatever he had heard from Dioscurias to the Danube;

and whatever he knew from the Danube to Trebizond.]

66 (return) [ Besides the many occasional hints from the poets,

historians &c., of antiquity, we may consult the geographical

descriptions of Colchos, by Strabo (l. xi. p. 760—765) and Pliny,

(Hist. Natur. vi. 5, 19, &c.)]

67 (return) [ I shall quote, and have used, three modern

descriptions of Mingrelia and the adjacent countries. 1. Of the

Pere Archangeli Lamberti, (Relations de Thevenot, part i. p.

31-52, with a map,) who has all the knowledge and prejudices of a

missionary. 2. Of Chardia, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 54,

68-168.) His observations are judicious and his own adventures in

the country are still more instructive than his observations. 3.

Of Peyssonel, (Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 49, 50,

51, 58 62, 64, 65, 71, &c., and a more recent treatise, Sur le

Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 1—53.) He had long resided

at Caffa, as consul of France; and his erudition is less valuable

than his experience.]

68 (return) [ Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 15. The gold and

silver mines of Colchos attracted the Argonauts, (Strab. l. i. p.

77.) The sagacious Chardin could find no gold in mines, rivers,

or elsewhere. Yet a Mingrelian lost his hand and foot for showing

some specimens at Constantinople of native gold]

69 (return) [ Herodot. l. ii. c. 104, 105, p. 150, 151. Diodor.

Sicul. l. i. p. 33, edit. Wesseling. Dionys. Perieget. 689, and

Eustath. ad loc. Schohast ad Apollonium Argonaut. l. iv.

282-291.]

70 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxi. c. 6.

L’Isthme... couvero de villes et nations qui ne sont plus.]

71 (return) [ Bougainville, Memoires de l’Academie des

Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 33, on the African voyage of Hanno

and the commerce of antiquity.]

But the riches of Colchos shine only through the darkness of

conjecture or tradition; and its genuine history presents a

uniform scene of rudeness and poverty. If one hundred and thirty

languages were spoken in the market of Dioscurias, 72 they were

the imperfect idioms of so many savage tribes or families,

sequestered from each other in the valleys of Mount Caucasus; and

their separation, which diminished the importance, must have

multiplied the number, of their rustic capitals. In the present

state of Mingrelia, a village is an assemblage of huts within a

wooden fence; the fortresses are seated in the depths of forests;

the princely town of Cyta, or Cotatis, consists of two hundred

houses, and a stone edifice appertains only to the magnificence

of kings. Twelve ships from Constantinople, and about sixty

barks, laden with the fruits of industry, annually cast anchor on

the coast; and the list of Colchian exports is much increased,

since the natives had only slaves and hides to offer in exchange

for the corn and salt which they purchased from the subjects of

Justinian. Not a vestige can be found of the art, the knowledge,

or the navigation, of the ancient Colchians: few Greeks desired

or dared to pursue the footsteps of the Argonauts; and even the

marks of an Egyptian colony are lost on a nearer approach. The

rite of circumcision is practised only by the Mahometans of the

Euxine; and the curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no

longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race. It is in the

adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that

nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty in

the shape of the limbs, the color of the skin, the symmetry of

the features, and the expression of the countenance. 73 According

to the destination of the two sexes, the men seemed formed for

action, the women for love; and the perpetual supply of females

from Mount Caucasus has purified the blood, and improved the

breed, of the southern nations of Asia. The proper district of

Mingrelia, a portion only of the ancient Colchos, has long

sustained an exportation of twelve thousand slaves. The number of

prisoners or criminals would be inadequate to the annual demand;

but the common people are in a state of servitude to their lords;

the exercise of fraud or rapine is unpunished in a lawless

community; and the market is continually replenished by the abuse

of civil and paternal authority. Such a trade, 74 which reduces

the human species to the level of cattle, may tend to encourage

marriage and population, since the multitude of children enriches

their sordid and inhuman parent. But this source of impure wealth

must inevitably poison the national manners, obliterate the sense

of honor and virtue, and almost extinguish the instincts of

nature: the Christians of Georgia and Mingrelia are the most

dissolute of mankind; and their children, who, in a tender age,

are sold into foreign slavery, have already learned to imitate

the rapine of the father and the prostitution of the mother. Yet,

amidst the rudest ignorance, the untaught natives discover a

singular dexterity both of mind and hand; and although the want

of union and discipline exposes them to their more powerful

neighbors, a bold and intrepid spirit has animated the Colchians

of every age. In the host of Xerxes, they served on foot; and

their arms were a dagger or a javelin, a wooden casque, and a

buckler of raw hides. But in their own country the use of cavalry

has more generally prevailed: the meanest of the peasants

disdained to walk; the martial nobles are possessed, perhaps, of

two hundred horses; and above five thousand are numbered in the

train of the prince of Mingrelia. The Colchian government has

been always a pure and hereditary kingdom; and the authority of

the sovereign is only restrained by the turbulence of his

subjects. Whenever they were obedient, he could lead a numerous

army into the field; but some faith is requisite to believe, that

the single tribe of the Suanians as composed of two hundred

thousand soldiers, or that the population of Mingrelia now

amounts to four millions of inhabitants. 75

72 (return) [ A Greek historian, Timosthenes, had affirmed, in

eam ccc. nationes dissimilibus linguis descendere; and the modest

Pliny is content to add, et postea a nostris cxxx. interpretibus

negotia ibi gesta, (vi. 5) But the words nunc deserta cover a

multitude of past fictions.]

73 (return) [ Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. iii. p. 433—437) collects

the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and travellers. If, in the

time of Herodotus, they were, (and he had observed them with

care,) this precious fact is an example of the influence of

climate on a foreign colony.]

74 (return) [ The Mingrelian ambassador arrived at Constantinople

with two hundred persons; but he ate (sold) them day by day, till

his retinue was diminished to a secretary and two valets,

(Tavernier, tom. i. p. 365.) To purchase his mistress, a

Mingrelian gentleman sold twelve priests and his wife to the

Turks, (Chardin, tom. i. p. 66.)]

75 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 765. Lamberti, Relation de la

Mingrelie. Yet we must avoid the contrary extreme of Chardin, who

allows no more than 20,000 inhabitants to supply an annual

exportation of 12,000 slaves; an absurdity unworthy of that

judicious traveller.]

Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part IV.

It was the boast of the Colchians, that their ancestors had

checked the victories of Sesostris; and the defeat of the

Egyptian is less incredible than his successful progress as far

as the foot of Mount Caucasus. They sunk without any memorable

effort, under the arms of Cyrus; followed in distant wars the

standard of the great king, and presented him every fifth year

with one hundred boys, and as many virgins, the fairest produce

of the land. 76 Yet he accepted this gift like the gold and ebony

of India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and ivory

of Aethiopia: the Colchians were not subject to the dominion of a

satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as well as substance

of national independence. 77 After the fall of the Persian

empire, Mithridates, king of Pontus, added Colchos to the wide

circle of his dominions on the Euxine; and when the natives

presumed to request that his son might reign over them, he bound

the ambitious youth in chains of gold, and delegated a servant in

his place. In pursuit of Mithridates, the Romans advanced to the

banks of the Phasis, and their galleys ascended the river till

they reached the camp of Pompey and his legions. 78 But the

senate, and afterwards the emperors, disdained to reduce that

distant and useless conquest into the form of a province. The

family of a Greek rhetorician was permitted to reign in Colchos

and the adjacent kingdoms from the time of Mark Antony to that of

Nero; and after the race of Polemo 79 was extinct, the eastern

Pontus, which preserved his name, extended no farther than the

neighborhood of Trebizond. Beyond these limits the fortifications

of Hyssus, of Apsarus, of the Phasis, of Dioscurias or

Sebastopolis, and of Pityus, were guarded by sufficient

detachments of horse and foot; and six princes of Colchos

received their diadems from the lieutenants of Caesar. One of

these lieutenants, the eloquent and philosophic Arrian, surveyed,

and has described, the Euxine coast, under the reign of Hadrian.

The garrison which he reviewed at the mouth of the Phasis

consisted of four hundred chosen legionaries; the brick walls and

towers, the double ditch, and the military engines on the

rampart, rendered this place inaccessible to the Barbarians: but

the new suburbs which had been built by the merchants and

veterans, required, in the opinion of Arrian, some external

defence. 80 As the strength of the empire was gradually impaired,

the Romans stationed on the Phasis were neither withdrawn nor

expelled; and the tribe of the Lazi, 81 whose posterity speak a

foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea coast of Trebizond, imposed

their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom of Colchos. Their

independence was soon invaded by a formidable neighbor, who had

acquired, by arms and treaties, the sovereignty of Iberia. The

dependent king of Lazica received his sceptre at the hands of the

Persian monarch, and the successors of Constantine acquiesced in

this injurious claim, which was proudly urged as a right of

immemorial prescription. In the beginning of the sixth century,

their influence was restored by the introduction of Christianity,

which the Mingrelians still profess with becoming zeal, without

understanding the doctrines, or observing the precepts, of their

religion. After the decease of his father, Zathus was exalted to

the regal dignity by the favor of the great king; but the pious

youth abhorred the ceremonies of the Magi, and sought, in the

palace of Constantinople, an orthodox baptism, a noble wife, and

the alliance of the emperor Justin. The king of Lazica was

solemnly invested with the diadem, and his cloak and tunic of

white silk, with a gold border, displayed, in rich embroidery,

the figure of his new patron; who soothed the jealousy of the

Persian court, and excused the revolt of Colchos, by the

venerable names of hospitality and religion. The common interest

of both empires imposed on the Colchians the duty of guarding the

passes of Mount Caucasus, where a wall of sixty miles is now

defended by the monthly service of the musketeers of Mingrelia.

76 (return) [ Herodot. l. iii. c. 97. See, in l. vii. c. 79,

their arms and service in the expedition of Xerxes against

Greece.]

77 (return) [ Xenophon, who had encountered the Colchians in his

retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv. p. 320, 343, 348, edit. Hutchinson;

and Foster’s Dissertation, p. liii.—lviii., in Spelman’s English

version, vol. ii.,) styled them. Before the conquest of

Mithridates, they are named by Appian, (de Bell. Mithridatico, c.

15, tom. i. p. 661, of the last and best edition, by John

Schweighaeuser. Lipsae, 1785 8 vols. largo octavo.)]

78 (return) [ The conquest of Colchos by Mithridates and Pompey

is marked by Appian (de Bell. Mithridat.) and Plutarch, (in Vit.

Pomp.)]

79 (return) [ We may trace the rise and fall of the family of

Polemo, in Strabo, (l. xi. p. 755, l. xii. p. 867,) Dion Cassius,

or Xiphilin, (p. 588, 593, 601, 719, 754, 915, 946, edit.

Reimar,) Suetonius, (in Neron. c. 18, in Vespasian, c. 8,)

Eutropius, (vii. 14,) Josephus, (Antiq. Judaic. l. xx. c. 7, p.

970, edit. Havercamp,) and Eusebius, (Chron. with Scaliger,

Animadvers. p. 196.)]

80 (return) [ In the time of Procopius, there were no Roman forts

on the Phasis. Pityus and Sebastopolis were evacuated on the

rumor of the Persians, (Goth. l. iv. c. 4;) but the latter was

afterwards restored by Justinian, (de Edif. l. iv. c. 7.)]

81 (return) [ In the time of Pliny, Arrian, and Ptolemy, the Lazi

were a particular tribe on the northern skirts of Colchos,

(Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 222.) In the age of

Justinian, they spread, or at least reigned, over the whole

country. At present, they have migrated along the coast towards

Trebizond, and compose a rude sea-faring people, with a peculiar

language, (Chardin, p. 149. Peyssonel p. 64.)]

82 (return) [ John Malala, Chron. tom. ii. p. 134—137 Theophanes,

p. 144. Hist. Miscell. l. xv. p. 103. The fact is authentic, but

the date seems too recent. In speaking of their Persian alliance,

the Lazi contemporaries of Justinian employ the most obsolete

words, &c. Could they belong to a connection which had not been

dissolved above twenty years?]

But this honorable connection was soon corrupted by the avarice

and ambition of the Romans. Degraded from the rank of allies, the

Lazi were incessantly reminded, by words and actions, of their

dependent state. At the distance of a day’s journey beyond the

Apsarus, they beheld the rising fortress of Petra, 83 which

commanded the maritime country to the south of the Phasis.

Instead of being protected by the valor, Colchos was insulted by

the licentiousness, of foreign mercenaries; the benefits of

commerce were converted into base and vexatious monopoly; and

Gubazes, the native prince, was reduced to a pageant of royalty,

by the superior influence of the officers of Justinian.

Disappointed in their expectations of Christian virtue, the

indignant Lazi reposed some confidence in the justice of an

unbeliever. After a private assurance that their ambassadors

should not be delivered to the Romans, they publicly solicited

the friendship and aid of Chosroes. The sagacious monarch

instantly discerned the use and importance of Colchos; and

meditated a plan of conquest, which was renewed at the end of a

thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his

successors. 84 His ambition was fired by the hope of launching a

Persian navy from the Phasis, of commanding the trade and

navigation of the Euxine Sea, of desolating the coast of Pontus

and Bithynia, of distressing, perhaps of attacking,

Constantinople, and of persuading the Barbarians of Europe to

second his arms and counsels against the common enemy of mankind.

Under the pretence of a Scythian war, he silently led his troops

to the frontiers of Iberia; the Colchian guides were prepared to

conduct them through the woods and along the precipices of Mount

Caucasus; and a narrow path was laboriously formed into a safe

and spacious highway, for the march of cavalry, and even of

elephants. Gubazes laid his person and diadem at the feet of the

king of Persia; his Colchians imitated the submission of their

prince; and after the walls of Petra had been shaken, the Roman

garrison prevented, by a capitulation, the impending fury of the

last assault. But the Lazi soon discovered, that their impatience

had urged them to choose an evil more intolerable than the

calamities which they strove to escape. The monopoly of salt and

corn was effectually removed by the loss of those valuable

commodities. The authority of a Roman legislator, was succeeded

by the pride of an Oriental despot, who beheld, with equal

disdain, the slaves whom he had exalted, and the kings whom he

had humbled before the footstool of his throne. The adoration of

fire was introduced into Colchos by the zeal of the Magi: their

intolerant spirit provoked the fervor of a Christian people; and

the prejudice of nature or education was wounded by the impious

practice of exposing the dead bodies of their parents, on the

summit of a lofty tower, to the crows and vultures of the air. 85

Conscious of the increasing hatred, which retarded the execution

of his great designs, the just Nashirvan had secretly given

orders to assassinate the king of the Lazi, to transplant the

people into some distant land, and to fix a faithful and warlike

colony on the banks of the Phasis. The watchful jealousy of the

Colchians foresaw and averted the approaching ruin. Their

repentance was accepted at Constantinople by the prudence, rather

than clemency, of Justinian; and he commanded Dagisteus, with

seven thousand Romans, and one thousand of the Zani, 8511 to

expel the Persians from the coast of the Euxine.

83 (return) [ The sole vestige of Petra subsists in the writings

of Procopius and Agathias. Most of the towns and castles of

Lazica may be found by comparing their names and position with

the map of Mingrelia, in Lamberti.]

84 (return) [ See the amusing letters of Pietro della Valle, the

Roman traveler, (Viaggi, tom. ii. 207, 209, 213, 215, 266, 286,

300, tom. iii. p. 54, 127.) In the years 1618, 1619, and 1620, he

conversed with Shah Abbas, and strongly encouraged a design which

might have united Persia and Europe against their common enemy

the Turk.]

85 (return) [ See Herodotus, (l. i. c. 140, p. 69,) who speaks

with diffidence, Larcher, (tom. i. p. 399—401, Notes sur

Herodote,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 11,) and Agathias, (l.

ii. p. 61, 62.) This practice, agreeable to the Zendavesta,

(Hyde, de Relig. Pers. c. 34, p. 414—421,) demonstrates that the

burial of the Persian kings, (Xenophon, Cyropaed. l. viii. p.

658,) is a Greek fiction, and that their tombs could be no more

than cenotaphs.]

8511 (return) [ These seem the same people called Suanians, p.

328.—M.]

The siege of Petra, which the Roman general, with the aid of the

Lazi, immediately undertook, is one of the most remarkable

actions of the age. The city was seated on a craggy rock, which

hung over the sea, and communicated by a steep and narrow path

with the land. Since the approach was difficult, the attack might

be deemed impossible: the Persian conqueror had strengthened the

fortifications of Justinian; and the places least inaccessible

were covered by additional bulwarks. In this important fortress,

the vigilance of Chosroes had deposited a magazine of offensive

and defensive arms, sufficient for five times the number, not

only of the garrison, but of the besiegers themselves. The stock

of flour and salt provisions was adequate to the consumption of

five years; the want of wine was supplied by vinegar; and of

grain from whence a strong liquor was extracted, and a triple

aqueduct eluded the diligence, and even the suspicions, of the

enemy. But the firmest defence of Petra was placed in the valor

of fifteen hundred Persians, who resisted the assaults of the

Romans, whilst, in a softer vein of earth, a mine was secretly

perforated. The wall, supported by slender and temporary props,

hung tottering in the air; but Dagisteus delayed the attack till

he had secured a specific recompense; and the town was relieved

before the return of his messenger from Constantinople. The

Persian garrison was reduced to four hundred men, of whom no more

than fifty were exempt from sickness or wounds; yet such had been

their inflexible perseverance, that they concealed their losses

from the enemy, by enduring, without a murmur, the sight and

putrefying stench of the dead bodies of their eleven hundred

companions. After their deliverance, the breaches were hastily

stopped with sand-bags; the mine was replenished with earth; a

new wall was erected on a frame of substantial timber; and a

fresh garrison of three thousand men was stationed at Petra to

sustain the labors of a second siege. The operations, both of the

attack and defence, were conducted with skilful obstinacy; and

each party derived useful lessons from the experience of their

past faults. A battering-ram was invented, of light construction

and powerful effect: it was transported and worked by the hands

of forty soldiers; and as the stones were loosened by its

repeated strokes, they were torn with long iron hooks from the

wall. From those walls, a shower of darts was incessantly poured

on the heads of the assailants; but they were most dangerously

annoyed by a fiery composition of sulphur and bitumen, which in

Colchos might with some propriety be named the oil of Medea. Of

six thousand Romans who mounted the scaling-ladders, their

general Bessas was the first, a gallant veteran of seventy years

of age: the courage of their leader, his fall, and extreme

danger, animated the irresistible effort of his troops; and their

prevailing numbers oppressed the strength, without subduing the

spirit, of the Persian garrison. The fate of these valiant men

deserves to be more distinctly noticed. Seven hundred had

perished in the siege, two thousand three hundred survived to

defend the breach. One thousand and seventy were destroyed with

fire and sword in the last assault; and if seven hundred and

thirty were made prisoners, only eighteen among them were found

without the marks of honorable wounds. The remaining five hundred

escaped into the citadel, which they maintained without any hopes

of relief, rejecting the fairest terms of capitulation and

service, till they were lost in the flames. They died in

obedience to the commands of their prince; and such examples of

loyalty and valor might excite their countrymen to deeds of equal

despair and more prosperous event. The instant demolition of the

works of Petra confessed the astonishment and apprehension of the

conqueror. A Spartan would have praised and pitied the virtue of

these heroic slaves; but the tedious warfare and alternate

success of the Roman and Persian arms cannot detain the attention

of posterity at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The advantages

obtained by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and

splendid; but the forces of the great king were continually

supplied, till they amounted to eight elephants and seventy

thousand men, including twelve thousand Scythian allies, and

above three thousand Dilemites, who descended by their free

choice from the hills of Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in

close or in distant combat. The siege of Archaeopolis, a name

imposed or corrupted by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and

precipitation; but the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia:

Colchos was enslaved by their forts and garrisons; they devoured

the scanty sustenance of the people; and the prince of the Lazi

fled into the mountains. In the Roman camp, faith and discipline

were unknown; and the independent leaders, who were invested with

equal power, disputed with each other the preeminence of vice and

corruption. The Persians followed, without a murmur, the commands

of a single chief, who implicitly obeyed the instructions of

their supreme lord. Their general was distinguished among the

heroes of the East by his wisdom in council, and his valor in the

field. The advanced age of Mermeroes, and the lameness of both

his feet, could not diminish the activity of his mind, or even of

his body; and, whilst he was carried in a litter in the front of

battle, he inspired terror to the enemy, and a just confidence to

the troops, who, under his banners, were always successful. After

his death, the command devolved to Nacoragan, a proud satrap,

who, in a conference with the Imperial chiefs, had presumed to

declare that he disposed of victory as absolutely as of the ring

on his finger. Such presumption was the natural cause and

forerunner of a shameful defeat. The Romans had been gradually

repulsed to the edge of the sea-shore; and their last camp, on

the ruins of the Grecian colony of Phasis, was defended on all

sides by strong intrenchments, the river, the Euxine, and a fleet

of galleys. Despair united their counsels and invigorated their

arms: they withstood the assault of the Persians and the flight

of Nacoragan preceded or followed the slaughter of ten thousand

of his bravest soldiers. He escaped from the Romans to fall into

the hands of an unforgiving master who severely chastised the

error of his own choice: the unfortunate general was flayed

alive, and his skin, stuffed into the human form, was exposed on

a mountain; a dreadful warning to those who might hereafter be

intrusted with the fame and fortune of Persia. 86 Yet the

prudence of Chosroes insensibly relinquished the prosecution of

the Colchian war, in the just persuasion, that it is impossible

to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the

wishes and efforts of its inhabitants. The fidelity of Gubazes

sustained the most rigorous trials. He patiently endured the

hardships of a savage life, and rejected with disdain, the

specious temptations of the Persian court. 8611 The king of the

Lazi had been educated in the Christian religion; his mother was

the daughter of a senator; during his youth he had served ten

years a silentiary of the Byzantine palace, 87 and the arrears of

an unpaid salary were a motive of attachment as well as of

complaint. But the long continuance of his sufferings extorted

from him a naked representation of the truth; and truth was an

unpardonable libel on the lieutenants of Justinian, who, amidst

the delays of a ruinous war, had spared his enemies and trampled

on his allies. Their malicious information persuaded the emperor

that his faithless vassal already meditated a second defection:

an order was surprised to send him prisoner to Constantinople; a

treacherous clause was inserted, that he might be lawfully killed

in case of resistance; and Gubazes, without arms, or suspicion of

danger, was stabbed in the security of a friendly interview. In

the first moments of rage and despair, the Colchians would have

sacrificed their country and religion to the gratification of

revenge. But the authority and eloquence of the wiser few

obtained a salutary pause: the victory of the Phasis restored the

terror of the Roman arms, and the emperor was solicitous to

absolve his own name from the imputation of so foul a murder. A

judge of senatorial rank was commissioned to inquire into the

conduct and death of the king of the Lazi. He ascended a stately

tribunal, encompassed by the ministers of justice and punishment:

in the presence of both nations, this extraordinary cause was

pleaded, according to the forms of civil jurisprudence, and some

satisfaction was granted to an injured people, by the sentence

and execution of the meaner criminals. 88

86 (return) [ The punishment of flaying alive could not be

introduced into Persia by Sapor, (Brisson, de Regn. Pers. l. ii.

p. 578,) nor could it be copied from the foolish tale of Marsyas,

the Phrygian piper, most foolishly quoted as a precedent by

Agathias, (l. iv. p. 132, 133.)]

8611 (return) [ According to Agathias, the death of Gubazos

preceded the defeat of Nacoragan. The trial took place after the

battle.—M.]

87 (return) [ In the palace of Constantinople there were thirty

silentiaries, who were styled hastati, ante fores cubiculi, an

honorable title which conferred the rank, without imposing the

duties, of a senator, (Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. 23. Gothofred.

Comment. tom. ii. p. 129.)]

88 (return) [ On these judicial orations, Agathias (l. iii. p.

81-89, l. iv. p. 108—119) lavishes eighteen or twenty pages of

false and florid rhetoric. His ignorance or carelessness

overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica—his

former revolt. * Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias

are not judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is

a deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of

adhering to the Roman, or embracing the Persian alliance.—M.]

In peace, the king of Persia continually sought the pretences of

a rupture: but no sooner had he taken up arms, than he expressed

his desire of a safe and honorable treaty. During the fiercest

hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a deceitful

negotiation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes, that

whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and

contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honors for his own

ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus assumed

the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted his

younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the pale

and reflected splendor of the moon. This gigantic style was

supported by the pomp and eloquence of Isdigune, one of the royal

chamberlains. His wife and daughters, with a train of eunuchs and

camels, attended the march of the ambassador: two satraps with

golden diadems were numbered among his followers: he was guarded

by five hundred horse, the most valiant of the Persians; and the

Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than twenty

of this martial and hostile caravan. When Isdigune had saluted

the emperor, and delivered his presents, he passed ten months at

Constantinople without discussing any serious affairs. Instead of

being confined to his palace, and receiving food and water from

the hands of his keepers, the Persian ambassador, without spies

or guards, was allowed to visit the capital; and the freedom of

conversation and trade enjoyed by his domestics, offended the

prejudices of an age which rigorously practised the law of

nations, without confidence or courtesy. 89 By an unexampled

indulgence, his interpreter, a servant below the notice of a

Roman magistrate, was seated, at the table of Justinian, by the

side of his master: and one thousand pounds of gold might be

assigned for the expense of his journey and entertainment. Yet

the repeated labors of Isdigune could procure only a partial and

imperfect truce, which was always purchased with the treasures,

and renewed at the solicitation, of the Byzantine court. Many

years of fruitless desolation elapsed before Justinian and

Chosroes were compelled, by mutual lassitude, to consult the

repose of their declining age. At a conference held on the

frontier, each party, without expecting to gain credit, displayed

the power, the justice, and the pacific intentions, of their

respective sovereigns; but necessity and interest dictated the

treaty of peace, which was concluded for a term of fifty years,

diligently composed in the Greek and Persian languages, and

attested by the seals of twelve interpreters. The liberty of

commerce and religion was fixed and defined; the allies of the

emperor and the great king were included in the same benefits and

obligations; and the most scrupulous precautions were provided to

prevent or determine the accidental disputes that might arise on

the confines of two hostile nations. After twenty years of

destructive though feeble war, the limits still remained without

alteration; and Chosroes was persuaded to renounce his dangerous

claim to the possession or sovereignty of Colchos and its

dependent states. Rich in the accumulated treasures of the East,

he extorted from the Romans an annual payment of thirty thousand

pieces of gold; and the smallness of the sum revealed the

disgrace of a tribute in its naked deformity. In a previous

debate, the chariot of Sesostris, and the wheel of fortune, were

applied by one of the ministers of Justinian, who observed that

the reduction of Antioch, and some Syrian cities, had elevated

beyond measure the vain and ambitious spirit of the Barbarian.

“You are mistaken,” replied the modest Persian: “the king of

kings, the lord of mankind, looks down with contempt on such

petty acquisitions; and of the ten nations, vanquished by his

invincible arms, he esteems the Romans as the least formidable.”

90 According to the Orientals, the empire of Nushirvan extended

from Ferganah, in Transoxiana, to Yemen or Arabia Faelix. He

subdued the rebels of Hyrcania, reduced the provinces of Cabul

and Zablestan on the banks of the Indus, broke the power of the

Euthalites, terminated by an honorable treaty the Turkish war,

and admitted the daughter of the great khan into the number of

his lawful wives. Victorious and respected among the princes of

Asia, he gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to

the ambassadors of the world. Their gifts or tributes, arms, rich

garments, gems, slaves or aromatics, were humbly presented at the

foot of his throne; and he condescended to accept from the king

of India ten quintals of the wood of aloes, a maid seven cubits

in height, and a carpet softer than silk, the skin, as it was

reported, of an extraordinary serpent. 91

89 (return) [ Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic

court of Ravenna (Goth. l. i. c. 7;) and foreign ambassadors have

been treated with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey,

(Busbequius, epist. iii. p. 149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage

D’Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A. de Lange, in Bell’s

Travels, vol. ii. p. 189—311.)]

90 (return) [ The negotiations and treaties between Justinian and

Chosroes are copiously explained by Procopius, (Persie, l. ii. c.

10, 13, 26, 27, 28. Gothic. l. ii. c. 11, 15,) Agathias, (l. iv.

p. 141, 142,) and Menander, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 132—147.)

Consult Barbeyrac, Hist. des Anciens Traites, tom. ii. p. 154,

181—184, 193—200.]

91 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 680, 681, 294,

295.]

Justinian had been reproached for his alliance with the

Aethiopians, as if he attempted to introduce a people of savage

negroes into the system of civilized society. But the friends of

the Roman empire, the Axumites, or Abyssinians, may be always

distinguished from the original natives of Africa. 92 The hand of

nature has flattened the noses of the negroes, covered their

heads with shaggy wool, and tinged their skin with inherent and

indelible blackness. But the olive complexion of the Abyssinians,

their hair, shape, and features, distinctly mark them as a colony

of Arabs; and this descent is confirmed by the resemblance of

language and manners the report of an ancient emigration, and the

narrow interval between the shores of the Red Sea. Christianity

had raised that nation above the level of African barbarism: 93

their intercourse with Egypt, and the successors of Constantine,

94 had communicated the rudiments of the arts and sciences; their

vessels traded to the Isle of Ceylon, 95 and seven kingdoms

obeyed the Negus or supreme prince of Abyssinia. The independence

of the Homerites, 9511 who reigned in the rich and happy Arabia,

was first violated by an Aethiopian conqueror: he drew his

hereditary claim from the queen of Sheba, 96 and his ambition was

sanctified by religious zeal. The Jews, powerful and active in

exile, had seduced the mind of Dunaan, prince of the Homerites.

They urged him to retaliate the persecution inflicted by the

Imperial laws on their unfortunate brethren: some Roman merchants

were injuriously treated; and several Christians of Negra 97 were

honored with the crown of martyrdom. 98 The churches of Arabia

implored the protection of the Abyssinian monarch. The Negus

passed the Red Sea with a fleet and army, deprived the Jewish

proselyte of his kingdom and life, and extinguished a race of

princes, who had ruled above two thousand years the sequestered

region of myrrh and frankincense. The conqueror immediately

announced the victory of the gospel, requested an orthodox

patriarch, and so warmly professed his friendship to the Roman

empire, that Justinian was flattered by the hope of diverting the

silk trade through the channel of Abyssinia, and of exciting the

forces of Arabia against the Persian king. Nonnosus, descended

from a family of ambassadors, was named by the emperor to execute

this important commission. He wisely declined the shorter, but

more dangerous, road, through the sandy deserts of Nubia;

ascended the Nile, embarked on the Red Sea, and safely landed at

the African port of Adulis. From Adulis to the royal city of

Axume is no more than fifty leagues, in a direct line; but the

winding passes of the mountains detained the ambassador fifteen

days; and as he traversed the forests, he saw, and vaguely

computed, about five thousand wild elephants. The capital,

according to his report, was large and populous; and the village

of Axume is still conspicuous by the regal coronations, by the

ruins of a Christian temple, and by sixteen or seventeen obelisks

inscribed with Grecian characters. 99 But the Negus 9911 gave

audience in the open field, seated on a lofty chariot, which was

drawn by four elephants, superbly caparisoned, and surrounded by

his nobles and musicians. He was clad in a linen garment and cap,

holding in his hand two javelins and a light shield; and,

although his nakedness was imperfectly covered, he displayed the

Barbaric pomp of gold chains, collars, and bracelets, richly

adorned with pearls and precious stones. The ambassador of

Justinian knelt; the Negus raised him from the ground, embraced

Nonnosus, kissed the seal, perused the letter, accepted the Roman

alliance, and, brandishing his weapons, denounced implacable war

against the worshipers of fire. But the proposal of the silk

trade was eluded; and notwithstanding the assurances, and perhaps

the wishes, of the Abyssinians, these hostile menaces evaporated

without effect. The Homerites were unwilling to abandon their

aromatic groves, to explore a sandy desert, and to encounter,

after all their fatigues, a formidable nation from whom they had

never received any personal injuries. Instead of enlarging his

conquests, the king of Aethiopia was incapable of defending his

possessions. Abrahah, 9912 the slave of a Roman merchant of

Adulis, assumed the sceptre of the Homerites,; the troops of

Africa were seduced by the luxury of the climate; and Justinian

solicited the friendship of the usurper, who honored with a

slight tribute the supremacy of his prince. After a long series

of prosperity, the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the

gates of Mecca; and his children were despoiled by the Persian

conqueror; and the Aethiopians were finally expelled from the

continent of Asia. This narrative of obscure and remote events is

not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a

Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have

been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a

revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the

world. 100 1001

92 (return) [ See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 449. This

Arab cast of features and complexion, which has continued 3400

years (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiopic. l. i. c. 4) in the

colony of Abyssinia, will justify the suspicion, that race, as

well as climate, must have contributed to form the negroes of the

adjacent and similar regions. * Note: Mr. Salt (Travels, vol. ii.

p. 458) considers them to be distinct from the Arabs—“in feature,

color, habit, and manners.”—M.]

93 (return) [ The Portuguese missionaries, Alvarez, (Ramusio,

tom. i. fol. 204, rect. 274, vers.) Bermudez, (Purchas’s

Pilgrims, vol. ii. l. v. c. 7, p. 1149—1188,) Lobo, (Relation,

&c., par M. le Grand, with xv. Dissertations, Paris, 1728,) and

Tellez (Relations de Thevenot, part iv.) could only relate of

modern Abyssinia what they had seen or invented. The erudition of

Ludolphus, (Hist. Aethiopica, Francofurt, 1681. Commentarius,

1691. Appendix, 1694,) in twenty-five languages, could add little

concerning its ancient history. Yet the fame of Caled, or

Ellisthaeus, the conqueror of Yemen, is celebrated in national

songs and legends.]

94 (return) [ The negotiations of Justinian with the Axumites, or

Aethiopians, are recorded by Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20)

and John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 163—165, 193—196.) The historian of

Antioch quotes the original narrative of the ambassador Nonnosus,

of which Photius (Bibliot. Cod. iii.) has preserved a curious

extract.]

95 (return) [ The trade of the Axumites to the coast of India and

Africa, and the Isle of Ceylon, is curiously represented by

Cosmas Indicopleustes, (Topograph. Christian. l. ii. p. 132, 138,

139, 140, l. xi. p. 338, 339.)]

9511 (return) [ It appears by the important inscription

discovered by Mr. Salt at Axoum, and from a law of Constantius,

(16th Jan. 356, inserted in the Theodosian Code, l. 12, c. 12,)

that in the middle of the fourth century of our era the princes

of the Axumites joined to their titles that of king of the

Homerites. The conquests which they made over the Arabs in the

sixth century were only a restoration of the ancient order of

things. St. Martin vol. viii. p. 46—M.]

96 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. Aethiop. l. ii. c. 3.]

97 (return) [ The city of Negra, or Nag’ran, in Yemen, is

surrounded with palm-trees, and stands in the high road between

Saana, the capital, and Mecca; from the former ten, from the

latter twenty days’ journey of a caravan of camels, (Abulfeda,

Descript. Arabiae, p. 52.)]

98 (return) [ The martyrdom of St. Arethas, prince of Negra, and

his three hundred and forty companions, is embellished in the

legends of Metaphrastes and Nicephorus Callistus, copied by

Baronius, (A. D 522, No. 22—66, A.D. 523, No. 16—29,) and refuted

with obscure diligence, by Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii.

l. xii. c. ii. p. 333—348,) who investigates the state of the

Jews in Arabia and Aethiopia. * Note: According to Johannsen,

(Hist. Yemanae, Praef. p. 89,) Dunaan (Ds Nowas) massacred 20,000

Christians, and threw them into a pit, where they were burned.

They are called in the Koran the companions of the pit (socii

foveae.)—M.]

99 (return) [ Alvarez (in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 219, vers. 221,

vers.) saw the flourishing state of Axume in the year

1520—luogomolto buono e grande. It was ruined in the same century

by the Turkish invasion. No more than 100 houses remain; but the

memory of its past greatness is preserved by the regal

coronation, (Ludolph. Hist. et Comment. l. ii. c. 11.) * Note:

Lord Valentia’s and Mr. Salt’s Travels give a high notion of the

ruins of Axum.—M.]

9911 (return) [ The Negus is differently called Elesbaan,

Elesboas, Elisthaeus, probably the same name, or rather

appellation. See St. Martin, vol. viii. p. 49.—M.]

9912 (return) [ According to the Arabian authorities, (Johannsen,

Hist. Yemanae, p. 94, Bonn, 1828,) Abrahah was an Abyssinian, the

rival of Ariathus, the brother of the Abyssinian king: he

surprised and slew Ariathus, and by his craft appeased the

resentment of Nadjash, the Abyssinian king. Abrahah was a

Christian; he built a magnificent church at Sana, and dissuaded

his subjects from their accustomed pilgrimages to Mecca. The

church was defiled, it was supposed, by the Koreishites, and

Abrahah took up arms to revenge himself on the temple at Mecca.

He was repelled by miracle: his elephant would not advance, but

knelt down before the sacred place; Abrahah fled, discomfited and

mortally wounded, to Sana—M.]

100 (return) [ The revolutions of Yemen in the sixth century must

be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 19, 20,)

Theophanes Byzant., (apud Phot. cod. lxiii. p. 80,) St.

Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 144, 145, 188, 189, 206, 207, who

is full of strange blunders,) Pocock, (Specimen Hist. Arab. p.

62, 65,) D’Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12, 477,) and Sale’s

Preliminary Discourse and Koran, (c. 105.) The revolt of Abrahah

is mentioned by Procopius; and his fall, though clouded with

miracles, is an historical fact. Note: To the authors who have

illustrated the obscure history of the Jewish and Abyssinian

kingdoms in Homeritis may be added Schultens, Hist. Joctanidarum;

Walch, Historia rerum in Homerite gestarum, in the 4th vol. of

the Gottingen Transactions; Salt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 446, &c.:

Sylvestre de Sacy, vol. i. Acad. des Inscrip. Jost, Geschichte

der Israeliter; Johannsen, Hist. Yemanae; St. Martin’s notes to

Le Beau, t. vii p. 42.—M.]

1001 (return) [ A period of sixty-seven years is assigned by most

of the Arabian authorities to the Abyssinian kingdoms in

Homeritis.—M.]

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of

Justinian.—Part I.

Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By Totila.—Loss

And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By Narses.—Extinction Of

The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory,

Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death And Character Of

Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.

The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has

exposed, on every side, the weakness of the Romans; and our

wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge

an empire whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending.

But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian, are

the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the

remains of strength, and accelerate the decay of the powers of

life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and

Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the

departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror,

and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.

From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice,

as well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious

minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of

Belisarius; and as the old registers of tribute had been burnt by

the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and

arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa. 1 The increase of

taxes, which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a

general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands, soon

dispelled the intoxication of the public joy: but the emperor was

insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was

awakened and alarmed by the clamors of military discontent. Many

of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the

Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and

inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned

to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and

selfish representations of their officers, that the liberality of

Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition;

that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the

treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished

Barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the

emperors would be applied only to the support of that government

on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend. The

mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most

part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines, and were instigated

by the clergy, of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and

rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism.

The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a

century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of

the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children,

and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen

by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honors of the Eastern

service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band

of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of

the Isle of Lesbos, to alter their course: they touched on

Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly

erected, on Mount Aurasius, the standard of independence and

revolt. While the troops of the provinces disclaimed the commands

of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against

the life of Solomon, who filled with honor the place of

Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the

tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of

the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of

the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their

discontent; and, at the end of ten days, a furious sedition was

kindled in the Circus, which desolated Africa above ten years.

The pillage of the city, and the indiscriminate slaughter of its

inhabitants, were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and

intoxication: the governor, with seven companions, among whom was

the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily: two thirds of the

army were involved in the guilt of treason; and eight thousand

insurgents, assembling in the field of Bulla, elected Stoza for

their chief, a private soldier, who possessed in a superior

degree the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom, his

eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his

equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius, and the

nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field;

and the victorious generals were compelled to acknowledge that

Stoza deserved a purer cause, and a more legitimate command.

Vanquished in battle, he dexterously employed the arts of

negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and

the chiefs who had trusted to his faithless promise were murdered

by his order in a church of Numidia. When every resource, either

of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stoza, with some desperate

Vandals, retired to the wilds of Mauritania, obtained the

daughter of a Barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his

enemies, by the report of his death. The personal weight of

Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the temper, of Germanus,

the emperor’s nephew, and the vigor and success of the second

administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the

camp, and maintained for a while the tranquillity of Africa. But

the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant

province; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor

relieved, and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently

mature, Stoza was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of

Carthage. He fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the

agonies of death, when he was informed that his own javelin had

reached the heart of his antagonist. 1001 The example of Stoza,

and the assurance that a fortunate soldier had been the first

king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and he promised, by a

private treaty, to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their

dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The

feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was

raised, by his marriage with the niece of Justinian, to the

office of exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the

guards, and his abject supplications, which provoked the

contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant.

After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a

banquet by the hand of Artaban; 1002 and it is singular enough,

that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should

reestablish at Carthage the authority of the Roman empire. In the

conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life

of Caesar, every circumstance is curious and important to the

eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or

rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of

Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or

resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.

1 (return) [ For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor

desire another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the

image, and whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable

events of his own times. In the second book of the Vandalic war

he relates the revolt of Stoza, (c. 14—24,) the return of

Belisarius, (c. 15,) the victory of Germanus, (c. 16, 17, 18,)

the second administration of Solomon, (c. 19, 20, 21,) the

government of Sergius, (c. 22, 23,) of Areobindus, (c. 24,) the

tyranny and death of Gontharis, (c. 25, 26, 27, 28;) nor can I

discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various

portraits.]

1001 (return) [ Corippus gives a different account of the death

of Stoza; he was transfixed by an arrow from the hand of John,

(not the hero of his poem) who broke desperately through the

victorious troops of the enemy. Stoza repented, says the poet, of

his treasonous rebellion, and anticipated—another

Cataline—eternal torments as his punishment.

Reddam, improba, pœnas Quas merui. Furiis socius Catilina cruentis

Exagitatus adest. Video jam Tartara, fundo Flammarumque globos, et

clara incendia volvi.

—Johannidos, book iv. line 211.

All the other authorities confirm Gibbon’s account of the death

of John by the hand of Stoza. This poem of Corippus, unknown to

Gibbon, was first published by Mazzuchelli during the present

century, and is reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine

writers.—M]

1002 (return) [ This murder was prompted to the Armenian

(according to Corippus) by Athanasius, (then præfect of Africa.)

Hunc placidus canâ gravitate coegit

Inumitera mactare virum.—Corripus, vol. iv. p. 237—M.]

2 (return) [ Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in

lively colors, the murder of Gontharis. One of the assassins

uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot: “If I fail,”

said Artasires, “in the first stroke, kill me on the spot, lest

the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices.”]

That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from

whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman

laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some

deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. The

Moors, 3 though ignorant of justice, were impatient of

oppression: their vagrant life and boundless wilderness

disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and

experience had shown, that neither oaths nor obligations could

secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount

Auras had awed them into momentary submission; but if they

respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the

pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom

their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments

of Tripoli and Pentapolis. A Moorish tribe encamped under the

walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance, and receive from the

governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were

introduced as friends into the city; but on the dark suspicion of

a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius, and

the clamor of arms and revenge was reechoed through the valleys

of Mount Atlas from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean. A

personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother,

rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the

Vandals had formerly signalized his valor; the rudiments of

justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and

while he laid Adrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the

emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall

of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his

troops from Carthage: but, at the distance of six days’ journey,

in the neighborhood of Tebeste, 4 he was astonished by the

superior numbers and fierce aspect of the Barbarians. He proposed

a treaty; solicited a reconciliation; and offered to bind himself

by the most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?”

interrupted the indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels,

the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that

the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our

innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second

time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury

and the vindication of their own honor.” Their honor was

vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon, and

the total loss of his army. 411 The arrival of fresh troops and

more skilful commanders soon checked the insolence of the Moors:

seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the

doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated

with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive

inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the

measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above

a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the

Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were

alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of

Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days

without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The

nation of the Vandals had disappeared: they once amounted to a

hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the

children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely

surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a

relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the

Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their

mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius

first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and

country, strenuously exercised in the labors of commerce and

agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was

converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to

Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has

confidently affirmed, that five millions of Africans were

consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian. 5

3 (return) [ The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into

the narrative of Procopius, (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19—23, 25, 27, 28.

Gothic. l. iv. c. 17;) and Theophanes adds some prosperous and

adverse events in the last years of Justinian.]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 46 / 79 章

23 (return) [ From Caf to Caf; which a more rational geography