76 THE DECLINE AND FALL 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 honourable foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his galley, saluted with reverence and pity the majesty of rshahin] the purple. The friendly- offer of Sain the Persian general, to peace '^ conduct an embassy to the presence of the (jreat King, was ac- cepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon and peace was Immbly presented by the praetorian prsefect, the praefect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church.'^ 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 has ab- jured 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 em])ire : 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 em- ployed in the preparations of a bold and desperate attack. Hisprepara- Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius A.D, G21 ■ is one of the most extraoi'dinary 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 care- less 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 honour of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzan- tine historians to have revealed the causes of his slumber and
- Some original pieces, such as the speech or letter of the Roman ambassadors
(p. 386-388 [p. jcrj sqq., ed. Bonn]), likewise constitute the merit of the Paschal Chronicle, which was composed, perhaps at Alexandria, under the reign of Heraclius [cp. Appendix i].
