, and Moxoene; but
on the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and mountainous
territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the Carduchians, who
preserved for many ages their manly freedom in the heart of the despotic
monarchies 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. Their posterity, the Curds, with very
little alteration either of name or manners, * 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; 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.
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. 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. 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 differen