chies of Asia. The ten thousand Greeks traversed their
country, after a painful march, or rather engagement, of seven days;
and it is confessed by their leader, in his incomparable relation of
the retreat, that they suffered more from the arrows of the Carduchians,
than from the power of the Great King. [80] Their posterity, the Curds,
with very little alteration either of name or manners, [801] acknowledged
the nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost
needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome, was
restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of the
Imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The limits of
Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha in Media, and
this increase of dominion was not so much an act of liberality as of
justice. Of the provinces already mentioned beyond the Tigris, the four
first had been dismembered by the Parthians from the crown of
Armenia; [81] and when the Romans acquired the possession of them, they
stipulated, at the expense of the usurpers, an ample compensation,
which invested their ally with the extensive and fertile country of
Atropatene. Its principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the
modern Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and
as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the buildings
and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes. [82] IV. The
country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and savage. But they
were accustomed to the use of arms, and they separated from the empire
barbarians much fiercer and more formidable than themselves. The narrow
defiles of Mount Caucasus were in their hands, and it was in their
choice, either to admit or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia,
whenever a rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer
climes of the South. [83] The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which
was resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to the
strength and security of the Roman power in Asia. [84] The East enjoyed
a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the treaty between the
rival monarchies was strictly observed till the death of Tiridates; when
a new generation, animated with different views and different passions,
succeeded to the government of the world; and the grandson of Narses
undertook a long and memorable war against the princes of the house of
Constantine.

[Footnote 77: By