Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/107

 or THE EOMAN EMPIRE 85 torrent^ was about three hundred feet broad ; the bridge was fortified with strong turrets ; and the banks were lined with barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict, which continued till the evening, the Romans prevailed in the assault, and a Persian of gigantic size was slain and thrown into the Sarus by the hand of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed and dismayed; Heraclius pursued his march to Sebaste in [c. April, a.d. Cappadocia ; and, at the expiration of three years, the same coast of the Kuxine applauded his return from a long and victorious expedition.^^- Instead of skirmishing on the frontier, the two monarchs who DeUverance disputed the empire of the East aimed their desperate strokes nopu from at the heart of their rival. The military force of Persia was and Avar*, wasted by the marches and combats of twenty years, and many of the veterans, who had survived the perils of the sword and the climate, were still detained in the fortresses of Egypt and Syria. But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes exhausted his kingdom ; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and slaves, were divided into three formidable bodies. ^^"^ The first army of fifty thousand men, illustrious by the ornament and title of the golden spears, was destined to march against He- raclius ; the second was stationed to prevent his junction with the troops of his brother Theodorus ; and the third was com- manded to besiege Constantinople, and to second the opera- tions of the chagan, with whom the Persian king had ratified a treaty of alliance and partition. Sarbar, the general of the [Shahrbaraz] third army, penetrated through the provinces of Asia to the well-known camp of Chalcedon, and amused himself with the desti-uction of the sacred and profane buildings of the Asiatic suburbs, while he impatiently waited the arrival of his Scythian friends on the opposite side of the Bosphorus. On the twenty- ninth of June, thirty thousand barbarians, the vanguard of the Avars, forced the long wall, and drove into the capital a promiscuous croAvd of peasants, citizens, and soldiers. Four- score thousand ^1^ of his native subjects, and of the vassal tribes persevering courage of the three campaigns (rpil'; TTiipihpnij.ov;) against the Persians. "■'Petavius (Annotationes ad Nicephorum, p. 62, 63, 64) discriminates the names and actions of five Persian generals, who were successively sent against Heraclius. '1^ This number of eight myriads is specified by George of Pisidia (Bell. Abar. 2ig). The poet (50-88) clearly indicates that the old chagan lived till the reign of Heraclius, and that his son and successor was born of a foreign mother. Yet Foggini (Annotat. p. 57) has given another interpretation to this passage. [Cp. above, p. 53, n. 31.]
 * !'- George of Pisidia (Bell. Abaricum, 246-265, p. 49) celebrates with truth the