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 278 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xl narrow passage of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern side of Iberia or Georgia into the plain that reaches to the Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander, perhaps, or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had descended by right of conquest or inheri- tance to a prince of the Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor ; but, while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades forcibly occupied the straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and Iberian gates excluded the horse- men of Scythia from the shortest and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains was covered by the ram- part of Gog and Magog, the long wall which has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph 140 and a Russian conqueror. 141 According to a recent description, huge stones seven feet thick, twenty-one feet in length or height, are artificially joined with- out iron or cement, to compose a wall which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of Derbend, over the hills and through the valleys of Daghestan and Georgia. Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy of Cabades ; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his son, so formidable to the Romans under the name of Chosroes, so dear to the Orientals under the appellation of Nushirwan. The Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace and war; but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which equally protected the two empires from the inroads of the Scythians. 142 VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had long since degenerated from their primitive glory ; yet some reproach may be justly 140 The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ixth century, appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a vague report of the wall of China (Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 267-270. Memoires de l'Academie, torn. xxxi. p. 210-219). 141 See a learned dissertation of Baier, de micro Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, torn. i. p. 425-463 ; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar Peter I. became master of Derbend in the year 722, the measure of the wall was found to be 3285 Kussian orgyice, or fathom, each of seven feet English ; in the whole somewhat more than four miles in length. 142 See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. 1. i. c. 16, 22 ; 1. ii.) and d'Herbelot (p. 682).