ere it not justly to be suspected as the fanciful conceit
of a recent sophist. We are told, that in the sack of Athens the Goths
had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire
to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs,
of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the
design; by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were
addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the
exercise of arms. [133] The sagacious counsellor (should the truth of
the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In the most
polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed itself
about the same period; and the age of science has generally been the age
of military virtue and success.

[Footnote 133: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was perfectly
suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in his agreeable
Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]

IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor, had
triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of Arsaces. Of the
many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king of Armenia, had alone
preserved both his life and his independence. He defended himself by the
natural strength of his country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives
and malecontents; by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his
own courage.

Invincible in arms, during a thirty years' war, he was at length
assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The patriotic
satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and dignity of the crown,
implored the protection of Rome in favor of Tiridates, the lawful heir.
But the son of Chosroes was an infant, the allies were at a distance,
and the Persian monarch advanced towards the frontier at the head of an
irresistible force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country,
was saved by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above
twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of Persia.
[134] Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the distresses or
the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the strong garrisons of
Carrhae and Nisibis [1341] to surrender, and spread devastation and
terror on either side of the Euphrates.

[Footnote 134: Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras, l. xii.
p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian serves to
rectify the confused accoun