Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/236

 CHAPTER XI

THE SECOND PERSIAN WAR: FALL OF ANTIOCH: MILITARY OPERATIONS IN LAZICA

While Justinian was thus conquering in the West and substituting his own rule for that of barbarian potentates, the tide of war was rising in the East, and almost similar disasters to those he was inflicting were impending on the integral territory of the Empire.

The triumphal progress of the Imperial arms in Africa and Italy was watched with the keenest solicitude by Chosroes, and he began to fear that the power and resources of his hereditary rival were being so formidably increased that he would soon be able to make an irresistible attack on his own dominions. Even before the formalities of the Perpetual Peace had been completely adjusted the news arrived of the virtual subjugation of the Vandalic kingdom; and Chosroes, while congratulating the Emperor by his legates, jestingly put forward a claim to share in the spoils, which, he observed, could not have been won but for his own ready assent to the Roman suit for peace. Justinian, however, took his banter seriously, and presented him with a large sum of money as a conciliatory gift.

Chosroes is represented by the historian of the period as