CHAP. the astonishment and apprehension of the con

XLII. queror.

The Col.

chian or

A Spartan would have praised and pitied the virtue of these heroic slaves: but the tedious warLazie war, fare and alternate success of the Roman and Persian $49-556 arms cannot detain the attention of posterity at the

A. D.

foot of mount Caucasus. The advantages obtained by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and splendid; but the forces of the great king were continually supplied, till they amounted to eight elephants and seventy thousand men, including twelve thousand Scythian allies, and above three thousand Dilemites, who descended by their free choice from the hills of Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in close or in distant combat. The siege of Archæopolis, a name imposed or corrupted by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and precipitation; but the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia: Colchos was enslaved by their forts and garrisons; they devoured the scanty sustenance of the people and the prince of the Lazi fled into the mountains. In the Roman camp, faith and discipline were unknown; and the independent leaders, who were invested with equal power, disputed with each other the pre-eminence of vice and corruption. The Persians followed, without a murmur, the commands of a single chief, who implicitly obeyed the instructions of their supreme lord. Their general was distinguished among the heroes of the East, by his wisdom in counsel, and his valour in the field. The advanced age of Mermeroes, and the lameness of both his

feet,

XLII.

feet, could not diminish the activity of his mind, CHA P. or even of his body; and whilst he was carried in a litter in the front of battle, he inspired terror to the enemy, and a just confidence to the troops, who, under his banners, were always successful. After his death, the command devolved to Nacoragan, a proud satrap, who, in conference with the imperial chiefs, had presumed to declare that he disposed of victory as absolutely as of the ring on his finger. Such presumption was the natural cause and forerunner of a shameful defeat. The Romans had been gradually repulsed to the edge of the sea-shore; and their last camp, on the ruins of the Grecian colony of Phasis, was defended on all sides by strong intrenchments, the river, the Euxine, and a fleet of gallies. Despair united their counsels and invigorated their arms they withstood the assault of the Persians; and the flight of Nacoragan preceded or followed the slaugher of ten thousand of his bravest soldiers. He escaped from the Romans to fall into the hands of an unforgiving master, who severely chastised the error of his own choice; the unfortunate general was flayed alive; and his skin, stuffed into the human form, was exposed on a mountain; a dreadful warning to those who might hereafter be entrusted with the fame and fortune of Persia*. Yet the prudence of Chosroes insensibly relinquished the prosecution of the Colchian war, in the just persuasion that

it

The punishment of flaying alive could not be introduced into Persia by Sapor (Brison. de Regn. Pers. 1. ii. p. 578.), nor could it be copied from the foolish tale of Marsyas the Phrygian piper, most foolishly quoted as a precedent by Agathias (1. iv. p. 132, 133.).

CHAP. it is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a

XLII. distant country against the wishes and efforts of its be in habitants. The fidelity of Gubazes sustained the

most rigorous trials. He patiently endured the hardships of a savage life, and rejected, with disdain, the specious temptations of the Persian court. The king of the Lazi had been educated in the Christian religion; his mother was the daughter of a senator; during his youth, he had served ten years a silentiary of the Byzantine palace*, and the arrears of an unpaid salary were a motive of attachment as well as of complaint. But the long continuance of his sufferings extorted from him a naked representation of the truth; and truth was an unpardonable libel on the lieutenants of Justinian, who, amidst the delays of a ruinous war, had spared his enemies and trampled on his allies. Their malicious information persuaded the emperor, that his faithless vassal already meditated a second defection : an order was issued to send him prisoner to Constantinople ; a treacherous clause was inserted, that he might be lawfully killed in case of resist. ance; and Gubazes, without arms, or suspicion of danger, was stabbed in the security of a friendly interview. In the first moments of rage and despair the Colchians would have sacrificed their country and religion to th- gratification of revenge. But the au.. thority and eloquence of the wiser few, obtained a

XLII.

salutary pause; the victory of the Phasis restored CHAP. the terror of the Roman arms, and the emperor was solicitous to absolve his own name from the imputation of so foul a murder. A judge of senatorial rank was commissioned to enquire into the conduct and death of the king of the Lazi. He ascended a stately tribunal, encompassed by the ministers of justice and punishment: in the presence of both nations, this extraordinary cause was pleaded according to the forms of civil jurisprudence, and some satisfaction was granted to an injured people, by the sentence and execution of the meaner criminals *.

tions and tween Jus

treaties be

tinian and

A D.

540-561;

In peace, the king of Persia continually sought Negocia the pretences of a rupture; but no sooner had he taken up arms, than he expressed his desire of a safe and honourable treaty. During the fiercest Chores hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a deceitful negociation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes, that whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honours for his own ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus assumed the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted his younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the pale and reflected splendour of the moon. This gigantic style was supported by the pomp and eloquence of Isdigune, one of the royal chamberlains. His wife and daughters,

VOL. VII.

On these judicial orations, Agathias (1. iii. p. 81-89. 1. iv. p. 108-119.) lavishes eighteen or twenty pages of false and florid rhetoric. His ignorance or carelessness overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica-his former revolt.

CHAP. daughters, with a train of eunuchs and camels, at XLII. tended the march of the ambassador; two satraps

with golden diadems were numbered among his followers he was guarded by five hundred horse, the most vailiant of the Persians; and the Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than twenty of this martial and hostile caravan. When Isdigune had saluted the emperor, and delivered his presents, he passed ten months at Constantinople without discussing any serious affairs. Instead of being confined to his palace, and receiving food and water from the hands of his keepers, the Persian ambassador, without spies or guards, was allowed to visit the capital; and the freedom of conversation and trade enjoyed by his domestics, offended the prejudices of an age, which rigorously practised the law of nations, without confidence or courtesy *. By an unexampled indulgence, his interpreter, a servant below the notice of a Roman magistrate, was seated, at the table of Justinian, by the side of his master; and one thousand pounds of gold might be assigned for the expence of his journey and entertainment. Yet the repeated labours of Isdigune could procure only a partial and imperfect truce, which was always purchased with the treasures, and renewed at the solicitation, of the Byzantine court. Many years of fruitless desolation elapsed before Justinian and Chosroes

Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic court of Ravenna (Goth. 1. i. c. 7.); and foreign ambassadors have been treated with the same jealousy and rigour in Turkey (Busbequius, Epist. iii. p. 149. 242, &c.) Russia (Voyage 'Olearius), and China (Narrative of M. de Lange, in Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 189-311.).