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 OF THE PvOMAN EMPIRE 87 exhausted, and, after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and formidable retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this signal deliverance to the virgin Mary ; but the mother of Christ would surely have condemned their inhuman murder of the Persian envoys, who were entitled to the rights of humanity, if they were not protected by the laws of nations.^^'^ After the division of his army, Heraclius prudently retired to Auiances and the banks of the Phasis, from whence he maintained a defensive Heracuus ° war against the fifty thousand gold spears of Persia. His anxiety was relieved by the deliverance of Constantinople ; his hopes were confirmed by a victory of his brother Theodorus ; ^^~ and to the hostile league of Chosroes with the Avars the Roman emperor opposed the useful and honourable alliance of the Turks. At his liberal invitation, the horde of Chozars ^^^ [Khazars] transported their tents from the plains of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia ; Heraclius received them in the neigh- bourhood of Teflis,^^'^ and the khan with his nobles dismounted from their horses, if we may credit the Greeks, and fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the purple of the Csesar. Such volun- tary homage and important aid were entitled to the warmest acknowledgments ; and the emperor, taking off his own diadem, placed it on the head of the Turkish prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace and the appellation of son. After a sumptuous banquet, he presented Ziebel with the plate and ornaments, the gold, the g-ems, and the silk, which had been used at the Imperial table, and, with his own hand, distributed ^^"The Paschal Chronicle (p. 392-397 [p. 716 si/(/.]) gives a minute and authentic narrative of the siege and deliverance of Constantinople. Theophanes (p. 264 [p. 316, ed. de Boor]) adds some circumstances ; and a faint light may be obtained from the smoke of George of Pisidia, who has composed a poem (de Bello Abarico, p. 45-54)10 commemorate this auspicious event. [There is another minute account of this siege preserved in many Mss. and printed b' Mai in Nova Patrum Bib- liotheca, vol. 6, 1853. V. Vasilievski has made it probable that its author is Theodore Syncellus, who was one of the deputies to the chagan. See Viz. Vremenn., iii. p.' 91-2.] 1" [Over Shahin.] 1^^ The power of the Chozars prevailed in the viith, viiith, and ixth centuries. They were known to the Greeks, the Arabs, and, under the name of A'osa, to the Chinese themselves. De Guignes, Hist, des Huns, tom. ii. part ii. p. 507- 509- 1'^ [An Armenian source states that the Khazars, who had invaded Persian territory in a previous year, now joined Heraclius in a siege of Tifiis. But a Persian general entered the town and successfully defied the besiegers. Zhebu, the chagan of the Khazars, then withdrew to his own land, but in the following year sent auxiliaries to the Emperor. .See Gerland, op. cit., p. 364. With the exception of these events in connexion with the Khazars, the year from autumn A.D. 626 to autumn A.D. 627 is a blank.]