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Rh the evidence of his virtues; his vices are those of Oriental despotism; but in the long competition between Chosroes and Justinian the advantage both of merit and fortune is almost always on the side of the Barbarian.

To the praise of justice Nushirvan united the reputation of knowledge; and the seven Greek philosophers, who visited his court, were invited and deceived by the strange assurance that a disciple of Plato was seated on the Persian throne. Did they expect that a prince, strenuously exercised in the toils of war and government, should agitate, with dexterity like their own, the abstruse and profound question which amused the leisure of the schools of Athens? Could they hope that the precepts of philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a despot whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation? The studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial, but his example awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the light of science was diffused over the dominions of Persia. At Gondi Sapor, in the neighbourhood of the royal city of Susa, an academy of physic was founded, which insensibly became a liberal school of poetry, philosopliy, and rhetoric. The annals of the monarchy were composed; and, while recent and