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.
[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.
[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.
[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,
[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.
Note: D'Anville (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxxii.