as assaulted by the Avars, who had made
some progress in the science of attack; they advanced to sap or batter
the wall, under the cover of the impenetrable tortoise; their engines
discharged a perpetual volley of stones and darts; and twelve lofty
towers of wood exalted the combatants to the height of the neighboring
ramparts.

But the senate and people were animated by the spirit of Heraclius, who
had detached to their relief a body of twelve thousand cuirassiers; the
powers of fire and mechanics were used with superior art and success in
the defence of Constantinople; and the galleys, with two and three ranks
of oars, commanded the Bosphorus, and rendered the Persians the idle
spectators of the defeat of their allies. The Avars were repulsed; a
fleet of Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor; the vassals
of the chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were exhausted, and
after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and formidable
retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this signal deliverance to
the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ would surely have condemned
their inhuman murder of the Persian envoys, who were entitled to the
rights of humanity, if they were not protected by the laws of nations.
[97]

[Footnote 94: Petavius (Annotationes ad Nicephorum, p. 62, 63, 64)
discriminates the names and actions of five Persian generals who were
successively sent against Heraclius.]

[Footnote 95: This number of eight myriads is specified by George of
Pisidia, (Bell. Abar. 219.) The poet (50--88) clearly indicates that
the old chagan lived till the reign of Heraclius, and that his son and
successor was born of a foreign mother. Yet Foggini (Annotat. p. 57) has
given another interpretation to this passage.]

[Footnote 96: A bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, had been the
present of the Scythian king to Darius, (Herodot. l. iv. c. 131, 132.)
Substituez une lettre a ces signes (says Rousseau, with much good
taste) plus elle sera menacante moins elle effrayera; ce ne sera qu'une
fanfarronade dont Darius n'eut fait que rire, (Emile, tom. iii. p. 146.)
Yet I much question whether the senate and people of Constantinople
laughed at this message of the chagan.]

[Footnote 97: The Paschal Chronicle (p. 392--397) gives a minute and
authentic narrative of the siege and deliverance of Constantinople
Theophanes (p. 264) adds some circumstances; and a faint light may be
obtained from the smoke of Ge