ignified the
day and the hour on which the citizens should prepare a bath for his
refreshment, after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary
equal to himself, by the new title of General of the East; his superior
in the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality
of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans and
strangers, relaxed in their discipline, and humbled by recent disasters.
As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to stratagem and ambush,
Belisarius protected his front with a deep trench, which was prolonged
at first in perpendicular, and afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover
the wings of cavalry advantageously posted to command the flanks and
rear of the enemy. When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed
and rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell;
the _immortals_ fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers, and eight
thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of battle. In the next
campaign, Syria was invaded on the side of the desert; and Belisarius,
with twenty thousand men, hastened from Dara to the relief of the
province. During the whole summer, the designs of the enemy were baffled
by his skilful dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied
each night their camp of the preceding day, and would have secured a
bloodless victory, if he could have resisted the impatience of his
own troops. Their valiant promise was faintly supported in the hour
of battle; the right wing was exposed by the treacherous or cowardly
desertion of the Christian Arabs; the Huns, a veteran band of eight
hundred warriors, were oppressed by superior numbers; the flight of
the Isaurians was intercepted; but the Roman infantry stood firm on the
left; for Belisarius himself, dismounting from his horse, showed them
that intrepid despair was their only safety. They turned their backs
to the Euphrates, and their faces to the enemy: innumerable arrows
glanced without effect from the compact and shelving order of their
bucklers; an impenetrable line of pikes was opposed to the repeated
assaults of the Persian cavalry; and after a resistance of many hours,
the remaining troops were skilfully embarked under the shadow of the
night. The Persian commander retired with disorder and disgrace, to
answer a strict account of the lives of so many soldiers, which he had
consumed in a barren victory. But the fame of Belisarius was not sullied
by a defeat, in