He is deposed, A.D. 628,

Feb. 25;

and mur

son Sirves,

Feb. 28.

appear in the camp; and if the enterprise should fail, his escape was contrived to the Imperial court. But the new monarch was saluted with unanimous acclamations; the flight of Chosroes (yet where could he have fled?) was rudely arrested, eighteen sons were massacred before his face, and he was thrown into a dungeon, where he expired on the fifth day. The Greeks and modern Persians minutely describe how Chosroes was indered by his sulted, and famished, and tortured, by the command of an inhuman son, who so far surpassed the example of his father; but at the time of his death what tongue would relate the story of the parricide? what eye could penetrate into the tower of darkness? According to the faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he sunk without hope into a still deeper abyss, 107 and it will not be denied that tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such infernal abodes. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the life of Chosroes; his unnatural son enjoyed only eight months the fruit of his crimes; and in the space of four years the regal title was assumed by nine candidates, who disputed, with the sword or dagger, the fragments of an exhausted monarchy. Every province and each city of Persia was the scene of independence, of discord, and of blood; and the state of anarchy prevailed about eight years longer, till the factions were silenced and united under the common yoke of the Arabian caliphs. 108

107 On the first rumour of the death of Chosroes, an Heracliad in two cantos was instantly published at Constantinople by George of Pisidia (p. 97-105). A priest and a poet might very properly exult in the damnation of the public enemy (liny e Tagraga, v. 56): but such mean revenge is unworthy of a king and a conqueror; and I am sorry to fnd so much black superstition (θεομάχος Χοσρόης ἔπεσεν καὶ ἐπτωματίσθη εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια . . . εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἀκατάσβεστον, &c.) in the letter of Heraclius [Chron. Pasch. p. 728 sq., ed. Bonn]: he almost applauds the parricide of Siroes as an act of piety and justice.

108 The best Oriental accounts of this last period of the Sassanian kings are found in Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 251-256), who dissembles the parricide of Siroes, D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 789), and Assemanni (Bibliothec. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 415-420).

Yet Gibbon himself places the flight and death of Yesdegird III., the last king of Persia, in 651. The famous era of Yesdegird dates from his accession, June

b The Mahometans show no more charity towards the memory of Chosroes 16, 632.-M.

tween the two empires, A.D. 628,

As soon as the mountains became passable the emperor received the welcome news of the success of the conspiracy, the death Treaty of of Chosroes, and the elevation of his eldest son to the throne peace beof Persia. The authors of the revolution, eager to display their merits in the court or camp of Tauris, preceded the March, &c. ambassadors of Siroes, who delivered the letters of their master to his brother the emperor of the Romans.109 In the language of the usurpers of every age, he imputes his own crimes to the Deity, and, without degrading his equal majesty, he offers to reconcile the long discord of the two nations by a treaty of peace and alliance more durable than brass or iron. The conditions of the treaty were easily defined and faithfully executed. In the recovery of the standards and prisoners which had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the emperor imitated the example of Augustus; their care of the national dignity was celebrated by the poets of the times, but the decay of genius may be measured by the distance between Horace and George of Pisidia; the subjects and brethren of Heraclius were redeemed from persecution, slavery, and exile; but, instead of the Roman eagles, the true wood of the holy cross was restored to the importunate demands of the successor of Constantine. The victor was not ambitious of enlarging the weakness of the empire; the son of Chosroes abandoned without regret the conquests of his father; the Persians who evacuated the cities of Syria and Egypt were honourably conducted to the frontier; and a war which had wounded the vitals of the two monarchies produced no change in their external and relative situation. The return of Heraclius from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph, and after the exploits of six glorious campaigns he peaceably enjoyed the sabbath of his toils. After a long impatience, the senate, the clergy, and the people went forth to meet their hero with tears and acclamations, with olive-branches and innumerable lamps; he entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four elephants, and, as soon as the emperor could disengage himself from the tumult of public joy, he tasted more genuine satisfaction in the embraces of his mother and his son.110

109 The letter of Siroes in the Paschal Chronicle (p. 402 [tom. i. p. 735, ed. Bonn]) unfortunately ends before he proceeds to business." The treaty appears in its execution in the histories of Theophanes and Nicephorus.

110 The burthen of Corneille's song,

"Montrez Heraclius au peuple qui l'attend,"

is much better suited to the present occasion. See his triumph in Theophanes (p. 272,

M. Mai, Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, vol. i. P. 2, p. 223, has added some lines,

but no clear sense can be made out of the fragment.-M.

111

The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very different kind, the restitution of the true cross to the holy sepulchre. Heraclius performed in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem: the identity of the relic was verified by the discreet patriarch, and this august ceremony has been commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross. Before the emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground he was instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp and vanity of the world; but in the judgment of his clergy, the persecution of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the precepts of the Gospel." He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and India; and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules 112 was eclipsed, in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils the most valuable portion had been expended in the war, distributed to the soldiers, or buried, by an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the Euxine. The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the obligation of restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had borrowed for their own defence: a perpetual fund was required to satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces, already wasted by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled to a second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred thousand soldiers, 113 who had fallen by the sword, was of

273 [tom. i. p. 503 sq., ed. Bonn]) and Nicephorus (p. 15, 16). The life of the mother and tenderness of the son are attested by George of Pisidia (Bell. Abar. 255, &c. p. 49). The metaphor of the Sabbath is used, somewhat profanely, by these Byzantine Christians.

See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 628, No. 1-4), Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 240-248), Nicephorus (Brev. p. 15). The seals of the case had never been broken; and this preservation of the cross is ascribed (under God) to the devotion of queen Sira.

112 George of Pisidia, Acroas. iii. de Expedit. contra Persas, 415, &c. [p. 21], and Heracliad. Acroas. i. 65-138. I neglect the meaner parallels of Daniel, Timotheus, &c.; Chosroes and the chagan were of course compared to Belshazzar, Pharaoh, the old serpent, &c.

113 Suidas (in Excerpt. Hist. Byzant. p. 46) gives this number; but either the Persian must be read for the Isaurian war, or this passage does not belong to the emperor Heraclius.

If the clergy imposed upon the kneeling and penitent emperor the persecution of the Jews, it must be acknowledged that provocation was not wanting; for how many of them had been eye-witnesses of, perhaps sufferers in, the horrible atrocities committed on the capture of the city! Yet we have no authentic account of great

severities exercised by Heraclius. The law of Hadrian was re-enacted, which prohibited the Jews from approaching within three miles of the city-a law which, in the present exasperated state of the Christians, might be a measure of security or mercy, rather than of oppression. Milman, Hist. of Jews, iii. 242.-M.

less fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and population in this long and destructive war; and although a victorious army had been formed under the standard of Heraclius, the unnatural effort appears to have exhausted rather than exercised their strength. While the emperor triumphed at Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines of Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some troops who advanced to its relief; an ordinary and trifling occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution. These robbers were the apostles of Mahomet; their fanatic valour had emerged from the desert; and in the last eight years of his reign Heraclius lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he had rescued from the Persians.

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