OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 47 standard of Bahram ; and the provinces again saluted the deliverer of his country. As the passes were faithfully guarded, Honnouz could only Hormouz is compute the number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty imp^Iloned conscience, and the daily defection of those who, in the hour of his distress, avenged their wrongs or foi'got their obligations. He proudly displayed the ensigns of royalty ; but the city and palace of Modain had already escaped from the hand of the tyrant. Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a Sassanian prince, had been cast into a dungeon ; his fetters were broken by the zeal and courage of a brother ; and he stood before the king at the head of those trusty guards who had been chosen as the ministers of his confinement and })erhaps of his death. Alarmed by the hasty intrusion and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormouz looked round, but in vain, for advice or assistance ; discovered that his strength consisted in the obedience of others, and patiently yielded to the single arm of Bindoes, who dragged him from the throne to the same dungeon in which he himself had been so lately confined. At the first tumult, Chosroes, the eldest of the sons of Hormouz, escaped from the city ; he was persuaded to return by the pressing and friendly invitation of Bindoes, who promised to seat him on his father's throne, and who expected to reign under the name of an in- experienced youth. In the just assurance that his accom))lices could neither forgive nor hope to be forgiven, and that every Persian might be trusted as the judge and enemy of the tyrant, he instituted a public trial without a precedent and without a copy in the annals of the East. The son of Nushirxan, who had requested to plead in his own defence, was introduced as ^ a criminal into the full assembly of the nobles and satraps. ^"^ He was heard with decent attention as long as he expatiated on the advantages of order and obedience, the danger of in- novation, and the inevitable discord of those who had en- couraged each other to trample on their lawful and hereditary sovereign. By a pathetic appeal to their humanity, he ex- torted that pity which is seldom refused to the fallen fortunes of a king ; and, while they beheld the abject posture and squalid appearance of the prisoner, his tears, Jiis chains, and the marks of ignominious stripes, it was impossible to forget how recently they had adored the divine splendour of his ^■^ The Orientals suppose that Bahram convened this assembly and proclaimed Chosroes, but Theophylact is, m this instance, more distinct and credible.
