d to
adore the majesty of a Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded
by the casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes to
direct his attention to the rising sun. The indignant successor of
Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he renewed the attack with
headstrong fury, and lost both his army and his life. The death of
Perozes abandoned Persia to her foreign and domestic enemies; and twelve
years of confusion elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could
embrace any designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of
Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war; the Huns and Arabs
marched under the Persian standard, and the fortifications of Armenia
and Mesopotamia were, at that time, in a ruinous or imperfect
condition. The emperor returned his thanks to the governor and people
of Martyropolis for the prompt surrender of a city which could not be
successfully defended, and the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might
justify the conduct of their prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long
and destructive siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty
thousand of the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect
of success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a flattering
prediction from the indecency of the women on the ramparts, who had
revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of the assailants. At
length, in a silent night, they ascended the most accessible tower,
which was guarded only by some monks, oppressed, after the duties of a
festival, with sleep and wine. Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn
of day; the presence of Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn
sword, compelled the Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed,
fourscore thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of their
companions. After the siege of Amida, the war continued three years, and
the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure of its calamities. The
gold of Anastasius was offered too late, the number of his troops was
defeated by the number of their generals; the country was stripped of
its inhabitants, and both the living and the dead were abandoned to the
wild beasts of the desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency
of spoil, inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests
for an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked with
slaughter and devastation, still separated the two empires. To avert the
repetition of the same evils, Anas