ence, the contrast of laws, religion, and manners, between the East
and West.]

[Footnote 17: In this age there were three warriors of the name of
Narses, who have been often confounded, (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p.
640:) 1. A Persarmenian, the brother of Isaac and Armatius, who, after
a successful action against Belisarius, deserted from his Persian
sovereign, and afterwards served in the Italian war.--2. The eunuch who
conquered Italy.--3. The restorer of Chosroes, who is celebrated in
the poem of Corippus (l. iii. 220--327) as excelsus super omnia
vertico agmina.... habitu modestus.... morum probitate placens, virtute
verendus; fulmineus, cautus, vigilans, &c.]

[Footnote 1711: The Armenians adhered to Chosroes. St. Martin, vol. x.
p. 312.--M.]

[Footnote 1712: According to Mivkhond and the Oriental writers, Bahram
received the daughter of the Khakan in marriage, and commanded a body
of Turks in an invasion of Persia. Some say that he was assassinated;
Malcolm adopts the opinion that he was poisoned. His sister Gourdieh,
the companion of his flight, is celebrated in the Shah Nameh. She
was afterwards one of the wives of Chosroes. St. Martin. vol. x. p.
331.--M.]

The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and executions;
and the music of the royal banquet was often disturbed by the groans
of dying or mutilated criminals. A general pardon might have diffused
comfort and tranquillity through a country which had been shaken by
the late revolutions; yet, before the sanguinary temper of Chosroes is
blamed, we should learn whether the Persians had not been accustomed
either to dread the rigor, or to despise the weakness, of their
sovereign. The revolt of Bahram, and the conspiracy of the satraps, were
impartially punished by the revenge or justice of the conqueror; the
merits of Bindoes himself could not purify his hand from the guilt
of royal blood: and the son of Hormouz was desirous to assert his own
innocence, and to vindicate the sanctity of kings. During the vigor of
the Roman power, several princes were seated on the throne of Persia by
the arms and the authority of the first Caesars. But their new subjects
were soon disgusted with the vices or virtues which they had imbibed in
a foreign land; the instability of their dominion gave birth to a vulgar
observation, that the choice of Rome was solicited and rejected with
equal ardor by the capricious levity of Oriental slaves. But the glory
of Maurice wa