he appeared at the imperial court he assumed an offensive degree of familiarity and boldness, and when the Khosroës attempted to force him to obedience, he always found a secure shelter in the solitude of the desert.[1] The Romans had frequent causes of complaint against their Saracen allies. During the reign of Anastasius they more than once invaded the districts of Euphratesia, Palestine, and Syria, but were defeated by the promptitude of the governors of the provinces;[2] and Amru'l-Keis ben Naukal had obtained by force several districts to the south of Palestine, and the island of Iotabe, and had been confirmed in his conquest and made a governor of the Arab tribes by the emperor, on his submission.[3]
With a people of this character, it may be supposed that the violent measures of Justinian against the Monophysites would be the least likely to produce submission. Hareth, the king of the
- ↑ Fakhr-eddin Razi, Hist. Chron. Dynast. ap. De Sacy, Chrestomathie Arab., tom. i. p. 62.
- ↑ Theophanes, Chronograph. pp. 121–123.
- ↑ This occurrence is placed by Theophanes (p. 121) in the reign of Anastasius. The historian Malchus (Eclogæ Legat. ed. Hoeschelio, p. 73), has given a particular relation of it, and says it was under Leo; he calls Amru'l-Keis ὁ Αμορκεσος του Νοκαλιου, and says that he had left the service of the Persians, had invaded western Arabia, and had made war on the Saracens, but not on the Romans. He had afterwards turned Christian, and sent a priest to Byzantium to solicit an alliance with the emperor.
