ect or oblique order, the deep or extended
phalanx; to represent in fictitious combat the operations of genuine
war. Whatever hardships the emperor imposed on the troops, he inflicted
with equal severity on himself; their labor, their diet, their sleep,
were measured by the inflexible rules of discipline; and, without
despising the enemy, they were taught to repose an implicit confidence
in their own valor and the wisdom of their leader. Cilicia was soon
encompassed with the Persian arms; but their cavalry hesitated to
enter the defiles of Mount Taurus, till they were circumvented by the
evolutions of Heraclius, who insensibly gained their rear, whilst he
appeared to present his front in order of battle. By a false motion,
which seemed to threaten Armenia, he drew them, against their wishes, to
a general action. They were tempted by the artful disorder of his
camp; but when they advanced to combat, the ground, the sun, and the
expectation of both armies, were unpropitious to the Barbarians; the
Romans successfully repeated their tactics in a field of battle, [81]
and the event of the day declared to the world, that the Persians were
not invincible, and that a hero was invested with the purple. Strong in
victory and fame, Heraclius boldly ascended the heights of Mount Taurus,
directed his march through the plains of Cappadocia, and established
his troops, for the winter season, in safe and plentiful quarters on the
banks of the River Halys. [82] His soul was superior to the vanity of
entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph; but the presence
of the emperor was indispensably required to soothe the restless and
rapacious spirit of the Avars.

[Footnote 79: George of Pisidia, (Acroas. ii. 10, p. 8) has fixed this
important point of the Syrian and Cilician gates. They are elegantly
described by Xenophon, who marched through them a thousand years
before. A narrow pass of three stadia between steep, high rocks, and the
Mediterranean, was closed at each end by strong gates, impregnable
to the land, accessible by sea, (Anabasis, l. i. p. 35, 36, with
Hutchinson's Geographical Dissertation, p. vi.) The gates were
thirty-five parasangs, or leagues, from Tarsus, (Anabasis, l. i. p. 33,
34,) and eight or ten from Antioch. Compare Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 580,
581. Schultens, Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit. Saladin. p. 9. Voyage en
Turquie et en Perse, par M. Otter, tom. i. p. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 80: Heraclius might write