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 CHAPTER XVI

THE LAST DAYS OF JUSTINIAN: LITERATURE AND ART IN THE SIXTH CENTURY: SUMMARY AND REVIEW OF THE REIGN

In the spring of 550, when the five years' truce with Persia expired, Justinian became anxious to effect a further pacification with Chosroes, and Peter Magister, with whose diplomatic work we are already familiar, was entrusted with the negotiations. The Shah, however, declined to formulate any definite terms at the moment and dismissed him with a promise that he would shortly send a plenipotentiary of his own to the Byzantine Court, who should have full powers to draft a treaty in accordance with the best interests of both nations. He was as good as his word, and the Persian embassy soon arrived at Constantinople, headed by Isdigunas, a man insufferably pompous and arrogant, who brought with him in his train such an immense following that he seemed to be advancing to the battlefield rather than conducting a peaceful mission. He was accompanied by his wife, children, and a brother; and also by two members of the highest Persian nobility, who displayed themselves in public wearing golden diadems on their heads. The Byzantines resented the overwhelming magnificence of this legation, regarding it as an intolerable assumption of superiority by the Orientals; and they were