Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/104

 S'2 THE DEC^LINE AND FALL forces which had wintered in the Pontic regions ; and, from the mouth of the Phasis to the 'Caspian Sea^ encouraged his subjects and allies to march with the successor of Constantine under the faithful and victorious banner of the cross. When the legions of Lucullus and Pompej' first passed the Euphrates, they blushed at their easy victory over the natives of Armenia. But the long experience of war had hardened the minds and bodies of that effeminate people ; their zeal and bi'avery were approved in the service of a declining empire ; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the house of Sassan, and the memory of persecu- tion envenomed their pious hatred of the enemies of Christ. The limits of Armenia, as it had been ceded to the emperor Maurice, extended as far as the Araxes ; the river submitted to the indignity of a bridge ; ''^' and Heraclius, in the footsteps of [C.June 21] Mark Antony, advanced towards the city of Tauris or Gand- zaca,^"'' the ancient and modern capital of one of the provinces of Media. At the head of forty thousand men, Chosroes himself had returned from some distant expedition to oppose the pro- gress of the Roman arms ; but he retreated on the approach of Heraclius, declining the generous alternative of peace or of battle. Instead of half a million of inhabitants, which have been ascribed to Tauris under the reign of the Sophys, the city contained no more than three thousand houses ; but the value of the royal treasures was enhanced by a tradition that they were the spoils of Croesus, which had been transported by Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes. The rapid conquests of Heraclius were suspended only by the winter season ; a motive of pru- dence, or superstition,^""' determined his retreat into the pro- vince of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian ; and his tents were most probably pitched in the plains of Moganji'j" the '"■' Et pontem indignatus Araxes. Virgil, .-Eneid, viii. 728. The river Araxes is noisy, rapid, vehement, and, with the melting of the snows, irresistible; the strongest and most massy bridges are swept away by the current ; and its indigna- tion is attested by the ruins of many arches near the old town of Zulfa. Voyages de Chardin, torn. i. p. 252. [For the cessions to Maurice cp. Appendix 4.] i"" Chardin, torn. i. p. 255-259. With the Orientals (D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, p. 834), he ascribes the foundation of Tauris, or Tebris, to Zobeide, the wite of the famous Caliph Haroun Alrashid ; but it appears to have been more ancient ; and the names of Gandzaca, Gazaca, Gaza, are expressive of the royal treasure. The number of 550,000 inhabitants is reduced by Chardin from i,ioo,<xx), the popular estimate. ifs He opened the gospel, and applied or interpreted the first casual passage to the name and situation of Albania. Theophanes, p. 258 [p. 308, de Boor]. '"'The heath of Mogan, between the Cyrus and the Araxes, is sixty parasangs in length and twenty in breadth (Olearius, p. 1023, 1024), abounding in waters and fruitful pastures (Hist, de Nadir Shah, translated by Mr. Jones from a