strangers; his growing strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his adopted father; and, till the death of Maurice, the peace and alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. Yet the mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased with costly and important gifts: the strong cities of Martyropolis and Dara were restored, and the Persarmenians became the willing subjects of an empire, whose eastern limit was extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the banks of the Araxes and the neighbourhood of the Caspian. A pious hope was indulged that the church as well as the state might triumph in this revolution; but, if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and eloquence of the Magi; if he was armed with philosophic indifference, he accommodated his belief, or rather his professions, to the various circumstances of an exile and a sovereign. The imaginary conversion of the king of Persia was reduced to a local and superstitious veneration for Sergius,[1] one of the saints of Antioch, who heard his prayers and appeared to him in dreams; he enriched the shrine with offerings of gold and silver, and ascribed to this invisible patron the success of his arms, and the pregnancy of Sira, a devout Christian and the best beloved of his wives.[2] The beauty of Sira, or Schirin,[3] her wit, her musical talents,
- ↑ Sergius and his companion Bacchus, who are said to have suffered in the persecution of Maximian, obtained divine honour in France, Italy, Constantinople, and the East. Their tomb at Rasaphe was famous for miracles, and that Syrian town acquired the more honourable name of Sergiopolis. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. v. p. 491-496. Butler's Saints, vol. x. p. 155. [One of the sources used by Tabari transforms Sergius into a general sent by Maurice to restore Chosroes to the throne. For Maurice's Armenian acquisitions cp. Appendix 5.]
- ↑ Evagrius (l. vi. c. 21) and Theophylact (l. v. c. 13, 14) have preserved the original letters of Chosroes written in Greek, signed with his own hand, and afterwards inscribed on crosses and tables of gold, which were deposited in the church of Sergiopolis. They had been sent to the bishop of Antioch, as primate of Syria.
- ↑ The Greeks only describe her as a Roman by birth, a Christian by religion; but she is represented as the daughter of the emperor Maurice in the Persian and Turkish romances, which celebrate the love of Khosrou for Schirin, of Schirin for Ferhad, the most beautiful youth of the East. D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. p. 789, 997, 998. [The name Shīrīn is Persian, and Sebaeos expressly states that she was a native of Khūzistān (c. 5, p. 50, Russ. Tr.), but agrees with the other sources that she was a Christian. Tabari (p. 283) states that Maurice gave Chosroes his daughter Maria, and it seems that Persian tradition is unanimous (Nöldeke, ib.) in recording that Chosroes married a daughter of the emperor and that she was the mother of Shērōe (Siroes). If Maria had been given to Chosroes at the time of his restoration, the circumstance could hardly fail to have been noticed by Theophylactus; the silence of the Greek sources is, in any case, curious. The chronicle of Michael the Syrian, it is true, supports the statement of Tabari (Journ. Asiat., 1848, Oct., p. 302).]
10, xii. 10-14). The eye of Tacitus seems to have transpierced the camp of the Parthians and the walls of the harem.
