not as
the enemy, but as the guardian, of the empire, was accompanied with a
more persuasive donative of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two
days after the festival of Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple
for the simple garb of a penitent and warrior, [78] gave the signal
of his departure. To the faith of the people Heraclius recommended
his children; the civil and military powers were vested in the most
deserving hands, and the discretion of the patriarch and senate was
authorized to save or surrender the city, if they should be oppressed
in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy. [Footnote 73:
Nicephorus, (p. 10, 11,) is happy to observe, that of two sons, its
incestuous fruit, the elder was marked by Providence with a stiff neck,
the younger with the loss of hearing.]

[Footnote 74: George of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112--125, p. 5,) who states
the opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any sinister
views. Would he have excused the proud and contemptuous admonition of
Crispus?]

[Footnote 75: George Pisid. Acroas. i. 51, &c. p: 4. The Orientals are
not less fond of remarking this strange vicissitude; and I remember
some story of Khosrou Parviz, not very unlike the ring of Polycrates of
Samos.]

[Footnote 76: Baronius gravely relates this discovery, or rather
transmutation, of barrels, not of honey, but of gold, (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 620, No. 3, &c.) Yet the loan was arbitrary, since it was collected
by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the patriarch of Alexandria no
more than one hundred pounds of gold. Nicephorus, (p. 11,) two hundred
years afterwards, speaks with ill humor of this contribution, which the
church of Constantinople might still feel.]

[Footnote 77: Theophylact Symocatta, l. viii. c. 12. This circumstance
need not excite our surprise. The muster-roll of a regiment, even in
time of peace, is renewed in less than twenty or twenty-five years.]

[Footnote 78: He changed his purple for black, buckskins, and dyed them
red in the blood of the Persians, (Georg. Pisid. Acroas. iii. 118, 121,
122 See the notes of Foggini, p. 35.)]

The neighboring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and arms:
but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to the attack,
the victory of the Persians in the sight of Constantinople might have
been the last day of the Roman empire. As imprudent would it have been
to advance into the provinces of Asia, leaving their innumerable cava