ience of seven hundred years might
convince the rival nations of the impossibility of maintaining their
conquests beyond the fatal limits of the Tigris and Euphrates. Yet
the emulation of Trajan and Julian was awakened by the trophies of
Alexander, and the sovereigns of Persia indulged the ambitious hope of
restoring the empire of Cyrus. [1] Such extraordinary efforts of power
and courage will always command the attention of posterity; but the
events by which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a
faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the reader
would be exhausted by the repetition of the same hostilities, undertaken
without cause, prosecuted without glory, and terminated without effect.
The arts of negotiation, unknown to the simple greatness of the senate
and the Caesars, were assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes;
and the memorials of their perpetual embassies [2] repeat, with the
same uniform prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the
insolence of the Barbarians, and the servile temper of the tributary
Greeks. Lamenting the barren superfluity of materials, I have studied to
compress the narrative of these uninteresting transactions: but the just
Nushirvan is still applauded as the model of Oriental kings, and the
ambition of his grandson Chosroes prepared the revolution of the East,
which was speedily accomplished by the arms and the religion of the
successors of Mahomet.

[Footnote 1: Missis qui... reposcerent... veteres Persarum ac Macedonum
terminos, seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post Alexandro, per
vaniloquentiam ac minas jaciebat. Tacit. Annal. vi. 31. Such was the
language of the Arsacides. I have repeatedly marked the lofty claims of
the Sassanians.]

[Footnote 2: See the embassies of Menander, extracted and preserved in
the tenth century by the order of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.]

In the useless altercations, that precede and justify the quarrels of
princes, the Greeks and the Barbarians accused each other of violating
the peace which had been concluded between the two empires about four
years before the death of Justinian. The sovereign of Persia and India
aspired to reduce under his obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia
[3] Felix; the distant land of myrrh and frankincense, which had
escaped, rather than opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the
defeat of Abrahah under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons
and brothers