Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/114

 92 THE DECLINE AND FALL from the painful duty of carrying fire and sword through the fairest countries of Asia. But the pride of the Persian had not yet sunk to the level of his fortune ; he derived a momen- tary confidence from the retreat of the emperor ; he wept with impotent rage over the ruins of his Assyrian palaces ; and dis- regarded too long the rising murmurs of the nation, who complained that their lives and fortunes Avere sacrificed to the obstinacy of an old man. That unhappy old man was himself tortured with the sharpest pains both of mind and body ; and, in the consciousness of his approaching end, he resolved to fix a tiai-a on the head of Merdaza, the most favoured of his sons. But the will of Chosroes was no longer revered, and Siroes, who gloried in the rank and merit of his mother Sira, had con- spired with the malecontents to assert and anticipate the rights of primogeniture.^^-' Twenty-two satraps, they styled them- selves patriots, were tempted by the wealth and honours of a new reign : to the soldiers, the heir of Chosroes promised an increase of pay ; to the Christians the free exercise of their religion ; to the captives liberty and rewards ; and to the nation instant peace and the reduction of taxes. It was determined by the conspirators that Siroes, with the ensigns of royalty, should appear in the camp ; and, if the enterprise should fail, his escape was contrived to the Imperial court. But the new monarch was saluted with unanimous acclamations ; the flight Heisdeposed, of Cliosrocs (yet where could he have fled .'') was rudely arrested, Feb.' 25 ' eighteen sons were massacred before his face, and he was thrown and murdered into a dungeon, where he expired on the fifth day. The Greeks sfroel,°r"b. and modern Persians minutely describe how Chosroes was in- ^ suited, and famished, and tortured, by the command of an inhuman son, who so far surpassed the example of his father ; but at the time of his death, what tongue could relate the story of the parricide } what eye could penetrate into the totvcr of darkness- ? According to the faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he sunk without hope into a still deeper abyss ; ^^" 129 The authenlic narrative of the fall of Chosroes is contained in the letter of Heraclius (Chron. Paschal, p. 398 [p. 727]), and the history of Theophanes (p. 271 [p. 326, ed. de Boor]). '•'» On the first rumour of the death of Chosroes, an Heracliad in two cantos was instantly published at Constantinople by George of Pisidia (p. 97-105). A priest and a poet might very properly exult in the damnation of the public enemy (i,^.^7ev iv [Ic^. to"] TaprripJ [Acr. i. ], V. 56) : but such mean revenge is unworthy of a king and a conqueror ; and T am sorry to find so much black superstition (fleo/xo-XO? Xr)(rpoT7? 677*^cre /cat en-TeujuaTtfrflTj et? to. Kajadoi'La . . . *n.s to irvp aKarda^iffTOi'^ &c.) in the letter of Heraclius : he almost applauds the parricide of Siroes as an act of piety and justice.