History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0169/01694.txt

Text File | 1992-10-11 | 48KB | 714 lines

$Unique_ID{how01694}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Part III.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Gibbon, Edward}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{heraclius
footnote
tom
thousand
persian
chosroes
emperor
empire
ii
constantinople}
$Date{1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)}
$Log{}
Title:       History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Book:        Chapter XLVI: Troubles In Persia.
Author:      Gibbon, Edward
Date:        1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Part III.

     A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to the
patrician Crispus, ^52 and the royal images of the bride and bridegroom were
indiscreetly placed in the circus, by the side of the emperor.  The father
must desire that his posterity should inherit the fruit of his crimes, but the
monarch was offended by this premature and popular association: the tribunes
of the green faction, who accused the officious error of their sculptors, were
condemned to instant death: their lives were granted to the prayers of the
people; but Crispus might reasonably doubt, whether a jealous usurper could
forget and pardon his involuntary competition.  The green faction was
alienated by the ingratitude of Phocas and the loss of their privileges; every
province of the empire was ripe for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of
Africa, persisted above two years in refusing all tribute and obedience to the
centurion who disgraced the throne of Constantinople.  By the secret
emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent exarch was solicited to
save and to govern his country; but his ambition was chilled by age, and he
resigned the dangerous enterprise to his son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the
son of Gregory, his friend and lieutenant. The powers of Africa were armed by
the two adventurous youths; they agreed that the one should navigate the fleet
from Carthage to Constantinople, that the other should lead an army through
Egypt and Asia, and that the Imperial purple should be the reward of diligence
and success.  A faint rumor of their undertaking was conveyed to the ears of
Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius were secured as the
hostages of his faith: but the treacherous heart of Crispus extenuated the
distant peril, the means of defence were neglected or delayed, and the tyrant
supinely slept till the African navy cast anchor in the Hellespont.  Their
standard was joined at Abidus by the fugitives and exiles who thirsted for
revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose lofty masts were adorned with the holy
symbols of religion, ^53 steered their triumphant course through the
Propontis; and Phocas beheld from the windows of the palace his approaching
and inevitable fate.  The green faction was tempted, by gifts and promises, to
oppose a feeble and fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans: but
the people, and even the guards, were determined by the well-timed defection
of Crispus; and they tyrant was seized by a private enemy, who boldly invaded
the solitude of the palace.  Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a
vile habit, and loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat to the
Imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes of his
abominable reign. "Wilt thou govern better?" were the last words of the
despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of insult and torture, his
head was severed from his body, the mangled trunk was cast into the flames,
and the same treatment was inflicted on the statues of the vain usurper, and
the seditious banner of the green faction.  The voice of the clergy, the
senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to ascend the throne which he had
purified from guilt and ignominy; after some graceful hesitation, he yielded
to their entreaties. His coronation was accompanied by that of his wife
Eudoxia; and their posterity, till the fourth generation, continued to reign
over the empire of the East.  The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and
prosperous; the tedious march of Nicetas was not accomplished before the
decision of the contest: but he submitted without a murmur to the fortune of
his friend, and his laudable intentions were rewarded with an equestrian
statue, and a daughter of the emperor.  It was more difficult to trust the
fidelity of Crispus, whose recent services were recompensed by the command of
the Cappadocian army.  His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to excuse, the
ingratitude of his new sovereign.  In the presence of the senate, the
son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the monastic life; and the
sentence was justified by the weighty observation of Heraclius, that the man
who had betrayed his father could never be faithful to his friend. ^54

[Footnote 52: In the writers, and in the copies of those writers, there is
such hesitation between the names of Priscus and Crispus, (Ducange, Fam
Byzant. p. 111,) that I have been tempted to identify the son-in-law of Phocas
with the hero five times victorious over the Avars.]

[Footnote 53: According to Theophanes.  Cedrenus adds, which Heraclius bore as
a banner in the first Persian expedition. See George Pisid. Acroas L 140.  The
manufacture seems to have flourished; but Foggini, the Roman editor, (p. 26,)
is at a loss to determine whether this picture was an original or a copy.]

[Footnote 54: See the tyranny of Phocas and the elevation of Heraclius, in
Chron. Paschal. p. 380 - 383. Theophanes, p. 242 - 250.  Nicephorus, p. 3 - 7.
Cedrenus, p. 404 - 407.  Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 80 - 82.]

     Even after his death the republic was afflicted by the crimes of Phocas,
which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her enemies.  According
to the friendly and equal forms of the Byzantine and Persian courts, he
announced his exaltation to the throne; and his ambassador Lilius, who had
presented him with the heads of Maurice and his sons, was the best qualified
to describe the circumstances of the tragic scene. ^55 However it might be
varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes turned with horror from the
assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy, disclaimed the usurper, and declared
himself the avenger of his father and benefactor.  The sentiments of grief and
resentment, which humanity would feel, and honor would dictate, promoted on
this occasion the interest of the Persian king; and his interest was
powerfully magnified by the national and religious prejudices of the Magi and
satraps.  In a strain of artful adulation, which assumed the language of
freedom, they presumed to censure the excess of his gratitude and friendship
for the Greeks; a nation with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace
or alliance; whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who must
be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most atrocious of
crimes, the impious murder of their sovereign. ^56 For the crime of an
ambitious centurion, the nation which he oppressed was chastised with the
calamities of war; and the same calamities, at the end of twenty years, were
retaliated and redoubled on the heads of the Persians. ^57 The general who had
restored Chosroes to the throne still commanded in the East; and the name of
Narses was the formidable sound with which the Assyrian mothers were
accustomed to terrify their infants.  It is not improbable, that a native
subject of Persia should encourage his master and his friend to deliver and
possess the provinces of Asia.  It is still more probable, that Chosroes
should animate his troops by the assurance that the sword which they dreaded
the most would remain in its scabbard, or be drawn in their favor.  The hero
could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the tyrant was conscious how
little he deserved the obedience of a hero.  Narses was removed from his
military command; he reared an independent standard at Hierapolis, in Syria:
he was betrayed by fallacious promises, and burnt alive in the market-place of
Constantinople.  Deprived of the only chief whom they could fear or esteem,
the bands which he had led to victory were twice broken by the cavalry,
trampled by the elephants, and pierced by the arrows of the Barbarians; and a
great number of the captives were beheaded on the field of battle by the
sentence of the victor, who might justly condemn these seditious mercenaries
as the authors or accomplices of the death of Maurice. Under the reign of
Phocas, the fortifications of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and Edessa, were
successively besieged, reduced, and destroyed, by the Persian monarch: he
passed the Euphrates, occupied the Syrian cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and
Berrhaea or Aleppo, and soon encompassed the walls of Antioch with his
irresistible arms.  The rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the
empire, the incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and
Chosroes provided a decent apology for their submission or revolt, by an
impostor, who attended his camp as the son of Maurice ^58 and the lawful heir
of the monarchy.

[Footnote 55: Theophylact, l. viii. c. 15.  The life of Maurice was composed
about the year 628 (l. viii. c. 13) by Theophylact Simocatta, ex-praefect, a
native of Egypt.  Photius, who gives an ample extract of the work, (cod. lxv.
p. 81 - 100,) gently reproves the affectation and allegory of the style. His
preface is a dialogue between Philosophy and History; they seat themselves
under a plane-tree, and the latter touches her lyre.]

[Footnote 56: Christianis nec pactum esse, nec fidem nec foedus .... . quod
si ulla illis fides fuisset, regem suum non occidissent.  Eutych. Annales tom.
ii. p. 211, vers. Pocock.]

[Footnote 57: We must now, for some ages, take our leave of contemporary
historians, and descend, if it be a descent, from the affectation of rhetoric
to the rude simplicity of chronicles and abridgments.  Those of Theophanes
(Chronograph. p. 244 - 279) and Nicephorus (p. 3 - 16) supply a regular, but
imperfect, series of the Persian war; and for any additional facts I quote my
special authorities.  Theophanes, a courtier who became a monk, was born A.D.
748; Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, who died A.D. 829, was somewhat
younger: they both suffered in the cause of images Hankius, de Scriptoribus
Byzantinis, p. 200 - 246.]

[Footnote 58: The Persian historians have been themselves deceived: but
Theophanes (p. 244) accuses Chosroes of the fraud and falsehood; and Eutychius
believes (Annal. tom. ii. p. 212) that the son of Maurice, who was saved from
the assassins, lived and died a monk on Mount Sinai.]

     The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received, ^59 was
that of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so often overturned by
earthquakes, and pillaged by the enemy, could supply but a small and languid
stream of treasure and blood.  The Persians were equally successful, and more
fortunate, in the sack of Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; and as they
advanced beyond the ramparts of the frontier, the boundary of ancient war,
they found a less obstinate resistance and a more plentiful harvest.  The
pleasant vale of Damascus has been adorned in every age with a royal city: her
obscure felicity has hitherto escaped the historian of the Roman empire: but
Chosroes reposed his troops in the paradise of Damascus before he ascended the
hills of Libanus, or invaded the cities of the Phoenician coast. The conquest
of Jerusalem, ^60 which had been meditated by Nushirvan, was achieved by the
zeal and avarice of his grandson; the ruin of the proudest monument of
Christianity was vehemently urged by the intolerant spirit of the Magi; and he
could enlist for this holy warfare with an army of six-and- twenty thousand
Jews, whose furious bigotry might compensate, in some degree, for the want of
valor and discipline. ^* After the reduction of Galilee, and the region beyond
the Jordan, whose resistance appears to have delayed the fate of the capital,
Jerusalem itself was taken by assault.  The sepulchre of Christ, and the
stately churches of Helena and Constantine, were consumed, or at least
damaged, by the flames; the devout offerings of three hundred years were
rifled in one sacrilegious day; the Patriarch Zachariah, and the true cross,
were transported into Persia; and the massacre of ninety thousand Christians
is imputed to the Jews and Arabs, who swelled the disorder of the Persian
march.  The fugitives of Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the
charity of John the Archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of saints
by the epithet of almsgiver: ^61 and the revenues of the church, with a
treasure of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the true
proprietors, the poor of every country and every denomination.  But Egypt
itself, the only province which had been exempt, since the time of Diocletian,
from foreign and domestic war, was again subdued by the successors of Cyrus.
Pelusium, the key of that impervious country, was surprised by the cavalry of
the Persians: they passed, with impunity, the innumerable channels of the
Delta, and explored the long valley of the Nile, from the pyramids of Memphis
to the confines of Aethiopia.  Alexandria might have been relieved by a naval
force, but the archbishop and the praefect embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes
entered the second city of the empire, which still preserved a wealthy remnant
of industry and commerce.  His western trophy was erected, not on the walls of
Carthage, ^62 but in the neighborhood of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene
were finally extirpated; and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps of
Alexander, returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert.  In the
same campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates to the Thracian
Bosphorus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege, and a Persian camp was
maintained above ten years in the presence of Constantinople.  The sea-coast
of Pontus, the city of Ancyra, and the Isle of Rhodes, are enumerated among
the last conquests of the great king; and if Chosroes had possessed any
maritime power, his boundless ambition would have spread slavery and
desolation over the provinces of Europe.

[Footnote 59: Eutychius dates all the losses of the empire under the reign of
Phocas; an error which saves the honor of Heraclius, whom he brings not from
Carthage, but Salonica, with a fleet laden with vegetables for the relief of
Constantinople, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 223, 224.) The other Christians of the
East, Barhebraeus, (apud Asseman, Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 412,
413,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 13 - 16,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 98,
99,) are more sincere and accurate.  The years of the Persian war are disposed
in the chronology of Pagi.]

[Footnote 60: On the conquest of Jerusalem, an event so interesting to the
church, see the Annals of Eutychius, (tom. ii. p. 212 - 223,) and the
lamentations of the monk Antiochus, (apud Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 614,
No. 16 - 26,) whose one hundred and twenty-nine homilies are still extant, if
what no one reads may be said to be extant.]

[Footnote *: See Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. p. 240. - M.]

[Footnote 61: The life of this worthy saint is composed by Leontius, a
contemporary bishop; and I find in Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 610, No. 10,
&c.) and Fleury (tom. viii. p. 235 - 242) sufficient extracts of this edifying
work.)]

[Footnote 62: The error of Baronius, and many others who have carried the arms
of Chosroes to Carthage instead of Chalcedon, is founded on the near
resemblance of the Greek words, in the text of Theophanes, &c., which have
been sometimes confounded by transcribers, and sometimes by critics.]

     From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the reign of
the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the Hellespont and the
Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian monarchy.  But the provinces, which
had been fashioned by the habits of six hundred years to the virtues and vices
of the Roman government, supported with reluctance the yoke of the Barbarians.
The idea of a republic was kept alive by the institutions, or at least by the
writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and the subjects of Heraclius had been
educated to pronounce the words of liberty and law.  But it has always been
the pride and policy of Oriental princes to display the titles and attributes
of their omnipotence; to upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name and
abject condition, and to enforce, by cruel and insolent threats, the rigor of
their absolute commands.  The Christians of the East were scandalized by the
worship of fire, and the impious doctrine of the two principles: the Magi were
not less intolerant than the bishops; and the martyrdom of some native
Persians, who had deserted the religion of Zoroaster, ^63 was conceived to be
the prelude of a fierce and general persecution.  By the oppressive laws of
Justinian, the adversaries of the church were made the enemies of the state;
the alliance of the Jews, Nestorians, and Jacobites, had contributed to the
success of Chosroes, and his partial favor to the sectaries provoked the
hatred and fears of the Catholic clergy.  Conscious of their fear and hatred,
the Persian conqueror governed his new subjects with an iron sceptre; and, as
if he suspected the stability of his dominion, he exhausted their wealth by
exorbitant tributes and licentious rapine despoiled or demolished the temples
of the East; and transported to his hereditary realms the gold, the silver,
the precious marbles, the arts, and the artists of the Asiatic cities.  In the
obscure picture of the calamities of the empire, ^64 it is not easy to discern
the figure of Chosroes himself, to separate his actions from those of his
lieutenants, or to ascertain his personal merit in the general blaze of glory
and magnificence.  He enjoyed with ostentation the fruits of victory, and
frequently retired from the hardships of war to the luxury of the palace. But
in the space of twenty-four years, he was deterred by superstition or
resentment from approaching the gates of Ctesiphon: and his favorite residence
of Artemita, or Dastagerd, was situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to
the north of the capital. ^65 The adjacent pastures were covered with flocks
and herds: the paradise or park was replenished with pheasants, peacocks,
ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars, and the noble game of lions and tigers
was sometimes turned loose for the bolder pleasures of the chase.  Nine
hundred and sixty elephants were maintained for the use or splendor of the
great king: his tents and baggage were carried into the field by twelve
thousand great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size; ^66 and the royal
stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses, among whom the names
of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their speed or beauty. ^* Six thousand
guards successively mounted before the palace gate; the service of the
interior apartments was performed by twelve thousand slaves, and in the number
of three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine might
console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira.  The various
treasures of gold, silver, gems, silks, and aromatics, were deposited in a
hundred subterraneous vaults and the chamber Badaverd denoted the accidental
gift of the winds which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the
Syrian harbors of his rival.  The vice of flattery, and perhaps of fiction, is
not ashamed to compute the thirty thousand rich hangings that adorned the
walls; the forty thousand columns of silver, or more probably of marble, and
plated wood, that supported the roof; and the thousand globes of gold
suspended in the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and the
constellations of the zodiac. ^67 While the Persian monarch contemplated the
wonders of his art and power, he received an epistle from an obscure citizen
of Mecca, inviting him to acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God.  He
rejected the invitation, and tore the epistle.  "It is thus," exclaimed the
Arabian prophet, "that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the supplications
of Chosroes." ^68 ^! Placed on the verge of the two great empires of the East,
Mahomet observed with secret joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and
in the midst of the Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell, that before
many years should elapse, victory should again return to the banners of the
Romans. ^69

[Footnote 63: The genuine acts of St. Anastasius are published in those of the
with general council, from whence Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 614, 626, 627)
and Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol. i. p. 242 - 248) have taken their
accounts.  The holy martyr deserted from the Persian to the Roman army, became
a monk at Jerusalem, and insulted the worship of the Magi, which was then
established at Caesarea in Palestine.]

[Footnote 64: Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 99. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 14.]

[Footnote 65: D'Anville, Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. p.
568 - 571.]

[Footnote 66: The difference between the two races consists in one or two
humps; the dromedary has only one; the size of the proper camel is larger; the
country he comes from, Turkistan or Bactriana; the dromedary is confined to
Arabia and Africa.  Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 211, &c. Aristot.
Hist. Animal. tom. i. l. ii. c. 1, tom. ii. p. 185.]

[Footnote *: The ruins of these scenes of Khoosroo's magnificence have been
visited by Sir R. K. Porter.  At the ruins of Tokht i Bostan, he saw a
gorgeous picture of a hunt, singularly illustrative of this passage. Travels,
vol. ii. p. 204.  Kisra Shirene, which he afterwards examined, appears to have
been the palace of Dastagerd.  Vol. ii. p. 173 - 175. - M.]

[Footnote 67: Theophanes, Chronograph. p. 268.  D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 997.  The Greeks describe the decay, the Persians the splendor,
of Dastagerd; but the former speak from the modest witness of the eye, the
latter from the vague report of the ear.]

[Footnote 68: The historians of Mahomet, Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, p. 92,
93) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 247,) date this embassy in the
viith year of the Hegira, which commences A.D. 628, May 11.  Their chronology
is erroneous, since Chosroes died in the month of February of the same year,
(Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 779.) The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de
Mahomed, p. 327, 328) places this embassy about A.D. 615, soon after the
conquest of Palestine.  Yet Mahomet would scarcely have ventured so soon on so
bold a step.]

[Footnote !: Khoosroo Purveez was encamped on the banks of the Karasoo River
when he received the letter of Mahomed.  He tore the letter and threw it into
the Karasoo.  For this action, the moderate author of the Zeenut-ul- Tuarikh
calls him a wretch, and rejoices in all his subsequent misfortunes. These
impressions still exist.  I remarked to a Persian, when encamped near the
Karasoo, in 1800, that the banks were very high, which must make it difficult
to apply its waters to irrigation.  "It once fertilized the whole country,"
said the zealous Mahomedan, "but its channel sunk with honor from its banks,
when that madman, Khoosroo, threw our holy Prophet's letter into its stream;
which has ever since been accursed and useless.  Malcolm's Persia, vol. i. p.
126 - M.]

[Footnote 69: See the xxxth chapter of the Koran, entitled the Greeks.  Our
honest and learned translator, Sale, (p. 330, 331,) fairly states this
conjecture, guess, wager, of Mahomet; but Boulainvilliers, (p. 329 - 344,)
with wicked intentions, labors to establish this evident prophecy of a future
event, which must, in his opinion, embarrass the Christian polemics.]

     At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no
prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since the first twelve
years of Heraclius announced the approaching dissolution of the empire.  If
the motives of Chosroes had been pure and honorable, he must have ended the
quarrel with the death of Phocas, and he would have embraced, as his best
ally, the fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of his
benefactor Maurice.  The prosecution of the war revealed the true character of
the Barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of Heraclius to beseech his
clemency, that he would spare the innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace
to the world, were rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace.
Syria, Egypt, and the provinces of Asia, were subdued by the Persian arms,
while Europe, from the confines of Istria to the long wall of Thrace, was
oppressed by the Avars, unsatiated with the blood and rapine of the Italian
war.  They had coolly massacred their male captives in the sacred field of
Pannonia; the women and children were reduced to servitude, and the noblest
virgins were abandoned to the promiscuous lust of the Barbarians. The amorous
matron who opened the gates of Friuli passed a short night in the arms of her
royal lover; the next evening, Romilda was condemned to the embraces of twelve
Avars, and the third day the Lombard princess was impaled in the sight of the
camp, while the chagan observed with a cruel smile, that such a husband was
the fit recompense of her lewdness and perfidy. ^70 By these implacable
enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was insulted and besieged: and the Roman
empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople, with the remnant of Greece,
Italy, and Africa, and some maritime cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the
Asiatic coast.  After the loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine
and pestilence; and the emperor, incapable of resistance, and hopeless of
relief, had resolved to transfer his person and government to the more secure
residence of Carthage.  His ships were already laden with the treasures of the
palace; but his flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed the powers of
religion in the defence of his country; led Heraclius to the altar of St.
Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would live and die with the people
whom God had intrusted to his care.  The chagan was encamped in the plains of
Thrace; but he dissembled his perfidious designs, and solicited an interview
with the emperor near the town of Heraclea.  Their reconciliation was
celebrated with equestrian games; the senate and people, in their gayest
apparel, resorted to the festival of peace; and the Avars beheld, with envy
and desire, the spectacle of Roman luxury.  On a sudden the hippodrome was
encompassed by the Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and
nocturnal march: the tremendous sound of the chagan's whip gave the signal of
the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm, was saved with
extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse.  So rapid was the pursuit, that
the Avars almost entered the golden gate of Constantinople with the flying
crowds: ^71 but the plunder of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they
transported beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy thousand captives.  On
the shore of Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference with a more
honorable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his galley, saluted with
reverence and pity the majesty of the purple.  The friendly offer of Sain, the
Persian general, to conduct an embassy to the presence of the great king, was
accepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon and peace was
humbly presented by the Praetorian praefect, the praefect of the city, and one
of the first ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church. ^72 But the lieutenant
of Chosroes had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master.  "It was not an
embassy," said the tyrant of Asia, "it was the person of Heraclius, bound in
chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne.  I will never
give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had abjured his crucified God, and
embraced the worship of the sun." Sain was flayed alive, according to the
inhuman practice of his country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of
the ambassadors violated the law of nations, and the faith of an express
stipulation.  Yet the experience of six years at length persuaded the Persian
monarch to renounce the conquest of Constantinople, and to specify the annual
tribute or ransom of the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand
talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand
virgins.  Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms; but the time and space
which he obtained to collect such treasures from the poverty of the East, was
industriously employed in the preparations of a bold and desperate attack.

[Footnote 70: Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis Langobardorum, l. iv. c. 38, 42.
Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p. 305, &c.]

[Footnote 71: The Paschal Chronicle, which sometimes introduces fragments of
history into a barren list of names and dates, gives the best account of the
treason of the Avars, p. 389, 390.  The number of captives is added by
Nicephorus.]

[Footnote 72: Some original pieces, such as the speech or letter of the Roman
ambassadors, (p. 386 - 388,) likewise constitute the merit of the Paschal
Chronicle, which was composed, perhaps at Alexandria, under the reign of
Heraclius.]

     Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of the
most extraordinary and inconsistent.  In the first and last years of a long
reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure, or of
superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of the public calamities.
But the languid mists of the morning and evening are separated by the
brightness of the meridian sun; the Arcadius of the palace arose the Caesar of
the camp; and the honor of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously retrieved by the
exploits and trophies of six adventurous campaigns.  It was the duty of the
Byzantine historians to have revealed the causes of his slumber and vigilance.
At this distance we can only conjecture, that he was endowed with more
personal courage than political resolution; that he was detained by the
charms, and perhaps the arts, of his niece Martina, with whom, after the death
of Eudocia, he contracted an incestuous marriage; ^73 and that he yielded to
the base advice of the counsellors, who urged, as a fundamental law, that the
life of the emperor should never be exposed in the field. ^74 Perhaps he was
awakened by the last insolent demand of the Persian conqueror; but at the
moment when Heraclius assumed the spirit of a hero, the only hopes of the
Romans were drawn from the vicissitudes of fortune, which might threaten the
proud prosperity of Chosroes, and must be favorable to those who had attained
the lowest period of depression. ^75 To provide for the expenses of war, was
the first care of the emperor; and for the purpose of collecting the tribute,
he was allowed to solicit the benevolence of the eastern provinces.  But the
revenue no longer flowed in the usual channels; the credit of an arbitrary
prince is annihilated by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was first
displayed in daring to borrow the consecrated wealth of churches, under the
solemn vow of restoring, with usury, whatever he had been compelled to employ
in the service of religion and the empire.  The clergy themselves appear to
have sympathized with the public distress; and the discreet patriarch of
Alexandria, without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted his
sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret treasure. ^76
Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only two were found to have
survived the stroke of time and of the Barbarians; ^77 the loss, even of these
seditious veterans, was imperfectly supplied by the new levies of Heraclius,
and the gold of the sanctuary united, in the same camp, the names, and arms,
and languages of the East and West.  He would have been content with the
neutrality of the Avars; and his friendly entreaty, that the chagan would act,
not as the enemy, but as the guardian, of the empire, was accompanied with a
more persuasive donative of two hundred thousand pieces of gold.  Two days
after the festival of Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple for the
simple garb of a penitent and warrior, ^78 gave the signal of his departure.
To the faith of the people Heraclius recommended his children; the civil and
military powers were vested in the most deserving hands, and the discretion of
the patriarch and senate was authorized to save or surrender the city, if they
should be oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy.

[Footnote 73: Nicephorus, (p. 10, 11,) is happy to observe, that of two sons,
its incestuous fruit, the elder was marked by Providence with a stiff neck,
the younger with the loss of hearing.]

[Footnote 74: George of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112 - 125, p. 5,) who states the
opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any sinister views.  Would
he have excused the proud and contemptuous admonition of Crispus?]

[Footnote 75: George Pisid. Acroas. i. 51, &c. p: 4.

     The Orientals are not less fond of remarking this strange vicissitude;
and I remember some story of Khosrou Parviz, not very unlike the ring of
Polycrates of Samos.]

[Footnote 76: Baronius gravely relates this discovery, or rather
transmutation, of barrels, not of honey, but of gold, (Annal. Eccles. A.D.
620, No. 3, &c.) Yet the loan was arbitrary, since it was collected by
soldiers, who were ordered to leave the patriarch of Alexandria no more than
one hundred pounds of gold.  Nicephorus, (p. 11,) two hundred years
afterwards, speaks with ill humor of this contribution, which the church of
Constantinople might still feel.]

[Footnote 77: Theophylact Symocatta, l. viii. c. 12.  This circumstance need
not excite our surprise.  The muster-roll of a regiment, even in time of
peace, is renewed in less than twenty or twenty-five years.]

[Footnote 78: He changed his purple for black, buckskins, and dyed them red in
the blood of the Persians, (Georg. Pisid. Acroas. iii. 118, 121, 122 See the
notes of Foggini, p. 35.)]

     The neighboring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and arms:
but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to the attack, the
victory of the Persians in the sight of Constantinople might have been the
last day of the Roman empire.  As imprudent would it have been to advance into
the provinces of Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry to intercept his
convoys, and continually to hang on the lassitude and disorder of his rear.
But the Greeks were still masters of the sea; a fleet of galleys, transports,
and store-ships, was assembled in the harbor; the Barbarians consented to
embark; a steady wind carried them through the Hellespont the western and
southern coast of Asia Minor lay on their left hand; the spirit of their chief
was first displayed in a storm, and even the eunuchs of his train were excited
to suffer and to work by the example of their master.  He landed his troops on
the confines of Syria and Cilicia, in the Gulf of Scanderoon, where the coast
suddenly turns to the south; ^79 and his discernment was expressed in the
choice of this important post. ^80 From all sides, the scattered garrisons of
the maritime cities and the mountains might repair with speed and safety to
his Imperial standard.  The natural fortifications of Cilicia protected, and
even concealed, the camp of Heraclius, which was pitched near Issus, on the
same ground where Alexander had vanquished the host of Darius.  The angle
which the emperor occupied was deeply indented into a vast semicircle of the
Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian provinces; and to whatsoever point of the
circumference he should direct his attack, it was easy for him to dissemble
his own motions, and to prevent those of the enemy.  In the camp of Issus, the
Roman general reformed the sloth and disorder of the veterans, and educated
the new recruits in the knowledge and practice of military virtue.  Unfolding
the miraculous image of Christ, he urged them to revenge the holy altars which
had been profaned by the worshippers of fire; addressing them by the endearing
appellations of sons and brethren, he deplored the public and private wrongs
of the republic. The subjects of a monarch were persuaded that they fought in
the cause of freedom; and a similar enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign
mercenaries, who must have viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome
and of Persia.  Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a centurion,
inculcated the lessons of the school of tactics, and the soldiers were
assiduously trained in the use of their weapons, and the exercises and
evolutions of the field.  The cavalry and infantry in light or heavy armor
were divided into two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the centre, and
their signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat or pursuit; the
direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to represent in
fictitious combat the operations of genuine war.  Whatever hardships the
emperor imposed on the troops, he inflicted with equal severity on himself;
their labor, their diet, their sleep, were measured by the inflexible rules of
discipline; and, without despising the enemy, they were taught to repose an
implicit confidence in their own valor and the wisdom of their leader. Cilicia
was soon encompassed with the Persian arms; but their cavalry hesitated to
enter the defiles of Mount Taurus, till they were circumvented by the
evolutions of Heraclius, who insensibly gained their rear, whilst he appeared
to present his front in order of battle.  By a false motion, which seemed to
threaten Armenia, he drew them, against their wishes, to a general action.
They were tempted by the artful disorder of his camp; but when they advanced
to combat, the ground, the sun, and the expectation of both armies, were
unpropitious to the Barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their tactics
in a field of battle, ^81 and the event of the day declared to the world, that
the Persians were not invincible, and that a hero was invested with the
purple.  Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius boldly ascended the heights of
Mount Taurus, directed his march through the plains of Cappadocia, and
established his troops, for the winter season, in safe and plentiful quarters
on the banks of the River Halys. ^82 His soul was superior to the vanity of
entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph; but the presence of the
emperor was indispensably required to soothe the restless and rapacious spirit
of the Avars.

[Footnote 79: George of Pisidia, (Acroas. ii. 10, p. 8) has fixed this
important point of the Syrian and Cilician gates.  They are elegantly
described by Xenophon, who marched through them a thousand years before.  A
narrow pass of three stadia between steep, high rocks, and the Mediterranean,
was closed at each end by strong gates, impregnable to the land, accessible by
sea, (Anabasis, l. i. p. 35, 36, with Hutchinson's Geographical Dissertation,
p. vi.) The gates were thirty-five parasangs, or leagues, from Tarsus,
(Anabasis, l. i. p. 33, 34,) and eight or ten from Antioch.  Compare Itinerar.
Wesseling, p. 580, 581.  Schultens, Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p.
9.  Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, par M. Otter, tom. i. p. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 80: Heraclius might write to a friend in the modest words of Cicero:
Castra habuimus ea ipsa quae contra Darium habuerat apud Issum Alexander,
imperator haud paulo melior quam aut tu aut ego." Ad Atticum, v. 20.  Issus, a
rich and flourishing city in the time of Xenophon, was ruined by the
prosperity of Alexandria or Scanderoon, on the other side of the bay.]

[Footnote 81: Foggini (Annotat. p. 31) suspects that the Persians were
deceived by the of Aelian, (Tactic. c. 48,) an intricate spiral motion of the
army.  He observes (p. 28) that the military descriptions of George of Pisidia
are transcribed in the Tactics of the emperor Leo.]

[Footnote 82: George of Pisidia, an eye-witness, (Acroas. ii. 122, &c.,)
described in three acroaseis, or cantos, the first expedition of Heraclius.
The poem has been lately (1777) published at Rome; but such vague and
declamatory praise is far from corresponding with the sanguine hopes of Pagi,
D'Anville, &c.]

     Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been
attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the empire
^83 He permitted the Persians to oppress for a while the provinces, and to
insult with impunity the capital of the East; while the Roman emperor explored
his perilous way through the Black Sea, ^84 and the mountains of Armenia,
penetrated into the heart of Persia, ^85 and recalled the armies of the great
king to the defence of their bleeding country.  With a select band of five
thousand soldiers, Heraclius sailed from Constantinople to Trebizond;
assembled his forces which had wintered in the Pontic regions; and, from the
mouth of the Phasis to the Caspian Sea, encouraged his subjects and allies to
march with the successor of Constantine under the faithful and victorious
banner of the cross.  When the legions of Lucullus and Pompey first passed the
Euphrates, they blushed at their easy victory over the natives of Armenia.
But the long experience of war had hardened the minds and bodies of that
effeminate peeple; their zeal and bravery were approved in the service of a
declining empire; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the house of
Sassan, and the memory of persecution envenomed their pious hatred of the
enemies of Christ.  The limits of Armenia, as it had been ceded to the emperor
Maurice, extended as far as the Araxes: the river submitted to the indignity
of a bridge, ^86 and Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark Antony, advanced
towards the city of Tauris or Gandzaca, ^87 the ancient and modern capital of
one of the provinces of Media.  At the head of forty thousand men, Chosroes
himself had returned from some distant expedition to oppose the progress of
the Roman arms; but he retreated on the approach of Heraclius, declining the
generous alternative of peace or of battle.  Instead of half a million of
inhabitants, which have been ascribed to Tauris under the reign of the Sophys,
the city contained no more than three thousand houses; but the value of the
royal treasures was enhanced by a tradition, that they were the spoils of
Croesus, which had been transported by Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes.  The
rapid conquests of Heraclius were suspended only by the winter season; a
motive of prudence, or superstition, ^88 determined his retreat into the
province of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian; and his tents were most
probably pitched in the plains of Mogan, ^89 the favorite encampment of
Oriental princes.  In the course of this successful inroad, he signalized the
zeal and revenge of a Christian emperor: at his command, the soldiers
extinguished the fire, and destroyed the temples, of the Magi; the statues of
Chosroes, who aspired to divine honors, were abandoned to the flames; and the
ruins of Thebarma or Ormia, ^90 which had given birth to Zoroaster himself,
made some atonement for the injuries of the holy sepulchre.  A purer spirit of
religion was shown in the relief and deliverance of fifty thousand captives.
Heraclius was rewarded by their tears and grateful acclamations; but this wise
measure, which spread the fame of his benevolence, diffused the murmurs of the
Persians against the pride and obstinacy of their own sovereign.

[Footnote 83: Theophanes (p. 256) carries Heraclius swiftly into Armenia.
Nicephorus, (p. 11,) though he confounds the two expeditions, defines the
province of Lazica.  Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 231) has given the 5000
men, with the more probable station of Trebizond.]

[Footnote 84: From Constantinople to Trebizond, with a fair wind, four or five
days; from thence to Erzerom, five; to Erivan, twelve; to Taurus, ten; in all,
thirty-two.  Such is the Itinerary of Tavernier, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 12 -
56,) who was perfectly conversant with the roads of Asia. Tournefort, who
travelled with a pacha, spent ten or twelve days between Trebizond and
Erzerom, (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xviii.;) and Chardin (Voyages,
tom. i. p. 249 - 254) gives the more correct distance of fifty-three
parasangs, each of 5000 paces, (what paces?) between Erivan and Tauris.]

[Footnote 85: The expedition of Heraclius into Persia is finely illustrated by
M. D'Anville, (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 559 -
573.) He discovers the situation of Gandzaca, Thebarma, Dastagerd, &c., with
admirable skill and learning; but the obscure campaign of 624 he passes over
in silence.]

[Footnote 86: Et pontem indignatus Araxes. - Virgil, Aeneid, viii. 728.  The
River Araxes is noisy, rapid, vehement, and, with the melting of the snows,
irresistible: the strongest and most massy bridges are swept away by the
current; and its indignation is attested by the ruins of many arches near the
old town of Zulfa.  Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 252.]

[Footnote 87: Chardin, tom. i. p. 255 - 259.  With the Orientals, (D'Herbelot,
Biblioth. Orient. p. 834,) he ascribes the foundation of Tauris, or Tebris, to
Zobeide, the wife of the famous Khalif Haroun Alrashid; but it appears to have
been more ancient; and the names of Gandzaca, Gazaca, Gaza, are expressive of
the royal treasure.  The number of 550,000 inhabitants is reduced by Chardin
from 1,100,000, the popular estimate.]

[Footnote 88: He opened the gospel, and applied or interpreted the first
casual passage to the name and situation of Albania.  Theophanes, p. 258.]

[Footnote 89: The heath of Mogan, between the Cyrus and the Araxes, is sixty
parasangs in length and twenty in breadth, (Olearius, p. 1023, 1024,)
abounding in waters and fruitful pastures, (Hist. de Nadir Shah, translated by
Mr. Jones from a Persian Ms., part ii. p. 2, 3.) See the encampments of Timur,
(Hist. par Sherefeddin Ali, l. v. c. 37, l. vi. c. 13,) and the coronation of
Nadir Shah, (Hist. Persanne, p. 3 - 13 and the English Life by Mr. Jones, p.
64, 65.)]

[Footnote 90: Thebarma and Ormia, near the Lake Spauta, are proved to be the
same city by D'Anville, (Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxviii. p. 564, 565.) It
is honored as the birthplace of Zoroaster, according to the Persians,
(Schultens, Index Geograph. p. 48;) and their tradition is fortified by M.
Perron d'Anquetil, (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxi. p. 375,) with
some texts from his, or their, Zendavesta.

     Note: D'Anville (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxii. p. 560)
labored to prove the identity of these two cities; but according to M. St.
Martin, vol. xi. p. 97, not with perfect success.  Ourmiah. called Ariema in
the ancient Pehlvi books, is considered, both by the followers of Zoroaster
and by the Mahometans, as his birthplace.  It is situated in the southern part
of Aderbidjan. - M.]