raclius was not less admirable in
the use of victory; by a march of forty-eight miles in four-and-twenty
hours, his vanguard occupied the bridges of the great and the lesser
Zab; and the cities and palaces of Assyria were open for the first
time to the Romans. By a just gradation of magnificent scenes, they
penetrated to the royal seat of Dastagerd, [1031] and, though much of
the treasure had been removed, and much had been expended, the remaining
wealth appears to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have satiated
their avarice. Whatever could not be easily transported, they consumed
with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of those wounds which he
had so often inflicted on the provinces of the empire: and justice might
allow the excuse, if the desolation had been confined to the works of
regal luxury, if national hatred, military license, and religious zeal,
had not wasted with equal rage the habitations and the temples of the
guiltless subject. The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and
the deliverance of the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria,
reflect a purer glory on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace
of Dastagerd, he pursued his march within a few miles of Modain or
Ctesiphon, till he was stopped, on the banks of the Arba, by the
difficulty of the passage, the rigor of the season, and perhaps the fame
of an impregnable capital. The return of the emperor is marked by the
modern name of the city of Sherhzour: he fortunately passed Mount
Zara, before the snow, which fell incessantly thirty-four days; and the
citizens of Gandzca, or Tauris, were compelled to entertain the soldiers
and their horses with a hospitable reception. [104]

[Footnote 101: Ctesias (apud Didor. Sicul. tom. i. l. ii. p. 115,
edit. Wesseling) assigns 480 stadia (perhaps only 32 miles) for the
circumference of Nineveh. Jonas talks of three days' journey: the
120,000 persons described by the prophet as incapable of discerning
their right hand from their left, may afford about 700,000 persons of
all ages for the inhabitants of that ancient capital, (Goguet, Origines
des Loix, &c., tom. iii. part i. p. 92, 93,) which ceased to exist
600 years before Christ. The western suburb still subsisted, and is
mentioned under the name of Mosul in the first age of the Arabian
khalifs.]

[Footnote 102: Niebuhr (Voyage en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 286) passed
over Nineveh without perceiving it. He mistook for a ridge of hills the
old