rampart of brick or earth. It is said to have been 100 feet high,
flanked with 1500 towers, each of the height of 200 feet.]

[Footnote 103: Rex regia arma fero (says Romulus, in the first
consecration).... bina postea (continues Livy, i. 10) inter tot bella,
opima parta sunt spolia, adeo rara ejus fortuna decoris. If Varro (apud
Pomp Festum, p. 306, edit. Dacier) could justify his liberality in
granting the opime spoils even to a common soldier who had slain the
king or general of the enemy, the honor would have been much more cheap
and common]

[Footnote 1031: Macdonald Kinneir places Dastagerd at Kasr e Shirin,
the palace of Sira on the banks of the Diala between Holwan and Kanabee.
Kinnets Geograph. Mem. p. 306.--M.]

[Footnote 104: In describing this last expedition of Heraclius, the
facts, the places, and the dates of Theophanes (p. 265--271) are so
accurate and authentic, that he must have followed the original letters
of the emperor, of which the Paschal Chronicle has preserved (p.
398--402) a very curious specimen.]

When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even the sense of shame,
should have urged him to meet his rival in the field. In the battle of
Nineveh, his courage might have taught the Persians to vanquish, or
he might have fallen with honor by the lance of a Roman emperor. The
successor of Cyrus chose rather, at a secure distance, to expect the
event, to assemble the relics of the defeat, and to retire, by measured
steps, before the march of Heraclius, till he beheld with a sigh the
once loved mansions of Dastagerd. Both his friends and enemies were
persuaded, that it was the intention of Chosroes to bury himself under
the ruins of the city and palace: and as both might have been equally
adverse to his flight, the monarch of Asia, with Sira, [1041] and three
concubines, escaped through a hole in the wall nine days before the
arrival of the Romans. The slow and stately procession in which he
showed himself to the prostrate crowd, was changed to a rapid and secret
journey; and the first evening he lodged in the cottage of a peasant,
whose humble door would scarcely give admittance to the great king.
[105] His superstition was subdued by fear: on the third day, he entered
with joy the fortifications of Ctesiphon; yet he still doubted of
his safety till he had opposed the River Tigris to the pursuit of the
Romans. The discovery of his fli