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 392 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap xlii He invades Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused mo the confidence of treaties ; and the just reproaches of dissimula- tion and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his victories. 71 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, [sura] till the small, though populous, town of Dura presumed to arrest the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery and surprise, were burst open ; and, as soon as Chos- roes had stained his scymitar with the blood of the inhabitants, he dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in what place he had left the enemy of the Bomans. The conqueror still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and, as he beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold ; the neighbouring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the payment; and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced into the heart of Syria ; but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his approach, dis- appointed him of the honour of victory ; and, as he could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a robber. Hiera- polis, Berrhcea or Aleppo, Apamea, and Chalcis were succes- sively besieged ; they redeemed their safety by a ransom of gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and opulence ; and their new master enforced, without observing, the terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege ; and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion And mine of the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years Antioch The invaaion of Syria, the ruin of Antiooh, &c. are related in a full and regular series by Prooopius (Persic. 1. ii. c. 5-14). Small collateral aid can be drawn from the Orientals: yet not they, but d'Herbelot himself (p. 680), should blush, when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory.