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 chap, xlh] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 397 calamities of war were suspended by those of pestilence. A tacit or formal agreement between the two sovereigns protected the tranquillity of the eastern frontier ; and the arms of Chosroes were confined to the Colchian or Lazic war, which has been too minutely described by the historians of the times. 74 The extreme length of the Euxine sea, 75 from Constanti- Descrip- nople to the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage coichos. of nine days and a measure of seven hundred miles. From Mingre'iia the Iberian Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river descends with such oblique vehemence that in a short space it is traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream become placid and navigable till it reaches the town of Sarapana, five days' journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the same hills, but in a contrary direction, to the Caspian lake. The proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least the idea, of wafting the precious merchan- dise of India down the Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the Phasis into the Euxine and Medi- terranean seas. As it successively collects the streams of the plain of Coichos, the Phasis moves with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it is sixty fathom deep and half a league broad, but a small woody island is inter- posed in the midst of the channel : the water, so soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats on the surface of the waves and is no longer susceptible of corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated region of 74 The Lazio war, the contest of Rome and Persia on the Phasis, is tediously spun through many a page of Procopius (Persic. 1. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30. Gothic. 1. iv. c. 7-16), and Agathias (1. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55-132, 141). [For a full account in English see Bury's Later Roman Empire, i. p. 427-430, and 441 sqq.] 75 The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Airian : 1. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by the shigidar diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the parliament of Dijon (Hist, de la Republique Romaine, torn. ii. 1. iii. p. 199-298), who ventures to assume the oharacter of the Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy or by whom he might be copied ; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor Hadrian (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, torn, i.), and contains whatever the governor of Pontus had seen [a.d. 131-2], from Trebizond to Dioscurias ; whatever he had heard, from Dioscurias to the Danube ; and whatever he knew, from the Danube to Trebizond. [It is included in Muller's Geog. Graec. Min. i. p. 257 sqq. For Arrian see Pelham's article in English Historical Review, Oct. 1896.]