gave an easy entrance to the Persians: they chased the
strangers of Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea; and a native prince of the
ancient Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or viceroy
of the great Nushirvan. [4] But the nephew of Justinian declared his
resolution to avenge the injuries of his Christian ally the prince of
Abyssinia, as they suggested a decent pretence to discontinue the annual
tribute, which was poorly disguised by the name of pension. The churches
of Persarmenia were oppressed by the intolerant spirit of the Magi;
[411] they secretly invoked the protector of the Christians, and, after
the pious murder of their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported
as the brethren and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of
Nushirvan were disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded to the
importunities of the Turks, who offered an alliance against the common
enemy; and the Persian monarchy was threatened at the same instant by
the united forces of Europe, of Aethiopia, and of Scythia. At the age
of fourscore the sovereign of the East would perhaps have chosen the
peaceful enjoyment of his glory and greatness; but as soon as war became
inevitable, he took the field with the alacrity of youth, whilst the
aggressor trembled in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or
Chosroes, conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
important fortress had been left destitute of troops and magazines, the
valor of the inhabitants resisted above five months the archers, the
elephants, and the military engines of the Great King. In the mean while
his general Adarman advanced from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed
the Euphrates, insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the
city of Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,
whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the
bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the provinces
and the court, produced a salutary effect in the repentance and
abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit arose in the Byzantine
councils; and a truce of three years was obtained by the prudence of
Tiberius. That seasonable interval was employed in the preparations
of war; and the voice of rumor proclaimed to the world, that from the
distant countries of the Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Maesia,
Pannonia, Illyricum, and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry
was reenforced with one hundred an