Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/95

 OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 73 in the general blaze of glory and magnificence. He enjoyed with ostentation the fruits of victory, and frequently retired from the hardships of war to the luxury of the palace. But in the space of twenty-four years, he was deterred by superstition or resentment from approaching the gates of Ctesiphon ; and his favourite residence of Artemita, or Dastagerd,"^ was situate beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to the north of the capital. ^*^ The adjacent pastures were covered with flocks and herds ; the paradise or park was replenished with pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars ; and the noble game of lions and tigers was sometimes turned loose for the bolder pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred and sixty ele- phants were maintained for the use or splendour of the Great King ; his tents and baggage were carried into the field by twelve thousand great camels and eight thousand of a smaller size ; ^^ and the royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses, among whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their speed or beauty. Six thousand guards successively mounted before the palace gate ; the service of the interior apartments was performed by twelve thousand slaves ; and in the number of three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine might console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira. The various treasures of gold, silver, gems, silk, and aromatics, were deposited in an hundred subterraneous vaults ; and the chamber Badaverd denoted the accidental gift of the winds which had wafted the spoils of Heraclius into one of the Syrian harbours of his rival. The voice of flattery, and perhaps of fiction, is not ashamed to com- pute the thirty thousand rich hangings that adorned the walls, the forty thousand columns of silver, or more probably of marble, and plated wood, that supported the roof; and the thousand globes of gold suspended in the dome, to imitate the motions of the planets and the constellations of the zodiac. ^^ While ™[In Chron. Pasch. Aao-rayfp-xrxrop ■= Dastagerd-i-Chosrau. In Mart. Anastasii (Act. Sett. Jan. 22) the place is called Discarta, the Aramaic form (Arab Daskarat). Cp. Noldeke, op. cit. p. 295 ; and see below, p. 90, n. 126".] 8" D'Anville, M6m. de I'Acad^mie des Inscriptions, torn, xxxii. p. 568-571. dromedary has only one ; the size of the proper camel is larger ; the country he comes from, Turkestan or Bactriana ; the dromedary is confined to Arabia and Africa. Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 211, &.c. .A.ristot. Hist. Animal, torn. i. 1. ii. c. I, tom. ii. p. 185. 82 Theophanes, Chronograph, p. 26B [p. 322, ed. de Boor]. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 997. The Greeks describe the decay, the Persians the splendour, of Dastagerd ; but the former speak from the modest witness of the eye, the latter from the vague report of the ear.
 * iThe difference between the two races consists in one or two humps ; the