nder the names of Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the
youth more illustrious in the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous
that he should be adopted by the emperor Justin: [4011] the hope of
peace inclined the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal; and
Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance of his
Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the advice of the
quaestor Proclus: a difficulty was started, whether the adoption should
be performed as a civil or military rite; [41] the treaty was abruptly
dissolved; and the sense of this indignity sunk deep into the mind
of Chosroes, who had already advanced to the Tigris on his road to
Constantinople. His father did not long survive the disappointment of
his wishes: the testament of their deceased sovereign was read in the
assembly of the nobles; and a powerful faction, prepared for the event,
and regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne of
Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of forty-eight
years; [42] and the Justice of Nushirvan is celebrated as the theme of
immortal praise by the nations of the East.

[Footnote 38: See D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568, 929;) Hyde, (de
Religione Vet. Persarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291;) Pocock, (Specimen Hist.
Arab. p. 70, 71;) Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 176;) Texeira,
(in Stevens, Hist. of Persia, l. i. c. 34.) * Note: Mazdak was an
Archimagus, born, according to Mirkhond, (translated by De Sacy, p. 353,
and Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104,) at Istakhar or Persepolis, according to
an inedited and anonymous history, (the Modjmal-alte-warikh in the Royal
Library at Paris, quoted by St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 322) at Wischapour
in Chorasan: his father's name was Bamdadam. He announces himself as
a reformer of Zoroastrianism, and carried the doctrine of the
two principles to a much grater height. He preached the absolute
indifference of human action, perfect equality of rank, community
of property and of women, marriages between the nearest kindred; he
interdicted the use of animal food, proscribed the killing of animals
for food, enforced a vegetable diet. See St. Martin, vol. vii. p.
322. Malcolm, vol. i. p. 104. Mirkhond translated by De Sacy. It
is remarkable that the doctrine of Mazdak spread into the West. Two
inscriptions found in Cyrene, in 1823, and explained by M. Gesenius,
and by M. Hamaker of Leyden, prove clearly that his doctrines had been
eag