e been less lofty, but more solid; and
each tower was protected by a quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil
resisted the tools of the miners, and on the south-east, where the
ground was more tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work,
which advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management of the
river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the inhabitants,
to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the mischiefs of a natural or
artificial inundation. Dara continued more than sixty years to fulfil
the wishes of its founders, and to provoke the jealousy of the Persians,
who incessantly complained, that this impregnable fortress had been
constructed in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two
empires. [1371]

[Footnote 1321: Firouz the Conqueror--unfortunately so named. See St.
Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.--M.]

[Footnote 1322: Rather Hepthalites.--M.]

[Footnote 133: They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis who
traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;) yet, in
the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was the first,
the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the third, (Hill's
Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production, mines, &c., of emeralds,
are involved in darkness; and it is doubtful whether we possess any of
the twelve sorts known to the ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c.,
part ii. l. ii. c. 2, art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least
Perozes lost, the finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates
a ridiculous fable.]

[Footnote 134: The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time of
Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of Eustathius, in
Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the elder Justin, (Cosmas,
Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On their origin and conquests,
see D'Anville, (sur l'Inde, p. 18, 45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second
century they were masters of Larice or Guzerat.]

[Footnote 1341: According to the Persian historians, he was misled
by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm, vol. i. p.
101.--M.]

[Footnote 1342: In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that the
Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his influence the
violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 254.--M.]

[Footnote 135: See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its
consequences, in Procopiu