Chosroes was persuaded to renounce his dangerous
claim to the possession or sovereignty of Colchos and its dependent
states. Rich in the accumulated treasures of the East, he extorted from
the Romans an annual payment of thirty thousand pieces of gold; and the
smallness of the sum revealed the disgrace of a tribute in its naked
deformity. In a previous debate, the chariot of Sesostris, and the
wheel of fortune, were applied by one of the ministers of Justinian,
who observed that the reduction of Antioch, and some Syrian cities, had
elevated beyond measure the vain and ambitious spirit of the Barbarian.
"You are mistaken," replied the modest Persian: "the king of kings, the
lord of mankind, looks down with contempt on such petty acquisitions;
and of the ten nations, vanquished by his invincible arms, he esteems
the Romans as the least formidable." [90] According to the Orientals,
the empire of Nushirvan extended from Ferganah, in Transoxiana, to
Yemen or Arabia Faelix. He subdued the rebels of Hyrcania, reduced the
provinces of Cabul and Zablestan on the banks of the Indus, broke the
power of the Euthalites, terminated by an honorable treaty the Turkish
war, and admitted the daughter of the great khan into the number of his
lawful wives. Victorious and respected among the princes of Asia, he
gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to the ambassadors
of the world. Their gifts or tributes, arms, rich garments, gems, slaves
or aromatics, were humbly presented at the foot of his throne; and he
condescended to accept from the king of India ten quintals of the wood
of aloes, a maid seven cubits in height, and a carpet softer than silk,
the skin, as it was reported, of an extraordinary serpent. [91]

[Footnote 89: Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic court of
Ravenna (Goth. l. i. c. 7;) and foreign ambassadors have been treated
with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey, (Busbequius, epist. iii. p.
149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage D'Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A.
de Lange, in Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 189--311.)]

[Footnote 90: The negotiations and treaties between Justinian and
Chosroes are copiously explained by Procopius, (Persie, l. ii. c. 10,
13, 26, 27, 28. Gothic. l. ii. c. 11, 15,) Agathias, (l. iv. p. 141,
142,) and Menander, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 132--147.) Consult Barbeyrac,
Hist. des Anciens Traites, tom. ii. p. 154, 181--184, 193--200.]

[Footnote 91: D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient.