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THE DECLINE AND FALL
from the Tiber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched consolation of being the last devoured."[1] 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.
He invades Syria. A.D. 540 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.[2] 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 [Sura] Dura 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 scymitar 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 neighbouring 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 honour 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, Berrhœa 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;- ↑ 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).
- ↑ 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.
