lcedon,
the emperor held a safer conference with a more honorable foe, who,
before Heraclius descended from his galley, saluted with reverence and
pity the majesty of the purple. The friendly offer of Sain, the Persian
general, to conduct an embassy to the presence of the great king, was
accepted with the warmest gratitude, and the prayer for pardon and peace
was humbly presented by the Praetorian praefect, the praefect of the
city, and one of the first ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church. [72]
But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally mistaken the intentions of
his master. "It was not an embassy," said the tyrant of Asia, "it was
the person of Heraclius, bound in chains, that he should have brought to
the foot of my throne. I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome,
till he had abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the
sun." Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman practice of his
country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of the ambassadors
violated the law of nations, and the faith of an express stipulation.
Yet the experience of six years at length persuaded the Persian monarch
to renounce the conquest of Constantinople, and to specify the annual
tribute or ransom of the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a
thousand talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses,
and a thousand virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms;
but the time and space which he obtained to collect such treasures from
the poverty of the East, was industriously employed in the preparations
of a bold and desperate attack. [Footnote 70: Paul Warnefrid, de Gestis
Langobardorum, l. iv. c. 38, 42. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p.
305, &c.]

[Footnote 71: The Paschal Chronicle, which sometimes introduces
fragments of history into a barren list of names and dates, gives the
best account of the treason of the Avars, p. 389, 390. The number of
captives is added by Nicephorus.]

[Footnote 72: Some original pieces, such as the speech or letter of the
Roman ambassadors, (p. 386--388,) likewise constitute the merit of the
Paschal Chronicle, which was composed, perhaps at Alexandria, under the
reign of Heraclius.]

Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of
the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of
a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure,
or of superstition, the careless and impotent specta