rrow passage forty paces in length. The
gate is still standing; a considerable part of the wall has bid defiance
to time, &c. M Donald Kinneir's Journey, p. 438.--M]

Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos, Iberia,
and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the branches of Mount
Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or passes, from north to south,
have been frequently confounded in the geography both of the ancients
and moderns. The name of Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied
to Derbend, [138] which occupies a short declivity between the mountains
and the sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been
founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified by
the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of iron. The
Iberian gates [139] [1391] are formed by a narrow passage of six miles
in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern side of Iberia, or
Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the Tanais and the Volga. A
fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps, or one of his successors,
to command that important pass, had descended by right of conquest or
inheritance to a prince of the Huns, who offered it for a moderate
price to the emperor; but while Anastasius paused, while he timorously
computed the cost and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed,
and Cabades forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest and
most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains was covered
by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which has excited the
curiosity of an Arabian caliph [140] and a Russian conqueror. [141]
According to a recent description, huge stones, seven feet thick, and
twenty-one feet in length or height, are artificially joined without
iron or cement, to compose a wall, which runs above three hundred miles
from the shores of Derbend, over the hills, and through the valleys of
Daghestan and Georgia.

Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy of
Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his son, so
formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so dear to the
Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The Persian monarch held
in his hand the keys both of peace and war; but he stipulated, in every
treaty, that Justinian should contribute to the expense of a common
barrier, which equally protected t