to a friend in the modest words of
Cicero: "Castra habuimus ea ipsa quae contra Darium habuerat apud Issum
Alexander, imperator haud paulo melior quam aut tu aut ego." Ad Atticum,
v. 20. Issus, a rich and flourishing city in the time of Xenophon, was
ruined by the prosperity of Alexandria or Scanderoon, on the other side
of the bay.]

[Footnote 81: Foggini (Annotat. p. 31) suspects that the Persians were
deceived by the of Aelian, (Tactic. c. 48,) an intricate spiral motion
of the army. He observes (p. 28) that the military descriptions of
George of Pisidia are transcribed in the Tactics of the emperor Leo.]

[Footnote 82: George of Pisidia, an eye-witness, (Acroas. ii. 122,
&c.,) described in three acroaseis, or cantos, the first expedition of
Heraclius. The poem has been lately (1777) published at Rome; but such
vague and declamatory praise is far from corresponding with the sanguine
hopes of Pagi, D'Anville, &c.]

Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been
attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of
the empire [83] He permitted the Persians to oppress for a while the
provinces, and to insult with impunity the capital of the East; while
the Roman emperor explored his perilous way through the Black Sea, [84]
and the mountains of Armenia, penetrated into the heart of Persia,
[85] and recalled the armies of the great king to the defence of
their bleeding country. With a select band of five thousand soldiers,
Heraclius sailed from Constantinople to Trebizond; assembled his forces
which had wintered in the Pontic regions; and, from the mouth of the
Phasis to the Caspian Sea, encouraged his subjects and allies to march
with the successor of Constantine under the faithful and victorious
banner of the cross. When the legions of Lucullus and Pompey first
passed the Euphrates, they blushed at their easy victory over the
natives of Armenia. But the long experience of war had hardened the
minds and bodies of that effeminate peeple; their zeal and bravery were
approved in the service of a declining empire; they abhorred and feared
the usurpation of the house of Sassan, and the memory of persecution
envenomed their pious hatred of the enemies of Christ. The limits of
Armenia, as it had been ceded to the emperor Maurice, extended as far as
the Araxes: the river submitted to the indignity of a bridge, [86] and
Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark Antony, advanced towards the city
o