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Rh the head of 30,000 men this energetic monarch descended on Syria, exacting 2000 pounds of silver from Hierapolis as the price of immunity. He demanded double this sum from Aleppo, and set fire to the city when it failed to raise the amount specified.

From Aleppo Chosroes proceeded to Antioch, which was weakly garrisoned, as most of Justinian's army was in Europe attempting to reassemble the ancient Roman empire. A last-minute reinforcement of 6000 soldiers from the district of Horns proved no match for the Persian invader. The city was sacked. Its cathedral was stripped of its gold and silver treasures and of its splendid marbles. The whole town was completely destroyed. Its inhabitants were carried away as captives. The career of the city as an intellectual centre thus after eight centuries came to an end. In its last days Antioch was a prominent Christian city, ranking with Con- stantinople and Alexandria as a patriarchal see. The economic and human consequences of the Persian sack, following catastrophic earthquakes in 526 and 528, were permanently disastrous.

From Antioch Chosroes moved on to Apamea, another flourishing Christian centre. Its church claimed the pos- session of a piece of the true cross, which was reverently preserved in a jewelled casket and displayed annually as the whole population worshipped. This casket, together with all the gold and silver in the town, was taken by the invader, but the relic itself was spared, being devoid of value to him. The natives ascribed the deliverance of their city from destruction to the efficacy of the holy relic.

In 542 a truce was concluded and thereafter renewed several times until 562, when a fifty-year treaty was signed binding Justinian to pay tribute to the c great king' and to refrain from any religious propaganda in Persian territory. In the early seventh century hostilities were renewed by Chosroes II, who swept over Syria from 611 to 614, carrying plunder and destruction wherever he passed. He pillaged Rh