the public expense; the daughters were
given in marriage to the richest citizens of their own rank, and the
sons, according to their different talents, were employed in mechanic
trades, or promoted to more honorable service. The deserted villages
were relieved by his bounty; to the peasants and farmers who were found
incapable of cultivating their lands, he distributed cattle, seed, and
the instruments of husbandry; and the rare and inestimable treasure of
fresh water was parsimoniously managed, and skilfully dispersed over the
arid territory of Persia. The prosperity of that kingdom was the effect
and evidence of his virtues; his vices are those of Oriental despotism;
but in the long competition between Chosroes and Justinian, the
advantage both of merit and fortune is almost always on the side of the
Barbarian.

To the praise of justice Nushirvan united the reputation of knowledge;
and the seven Greek philosophers, who visited his court, were invited
and deceived by the strange assurance, that a disciple of Plato
was seated on the Persian throne. Did they expect, that a prince,
strenuously exercised in the toils of war and government, should
agitate, with dexterity like their own, the abstruse and profound
questions which amused the leisure of the schools of Athens? Could they
hope that the precepts of philosophy should direct the life, and control
the passions, of a despot, whose infancy had been taught to consider his
absolute and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation? The
studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial: but his example
awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the light of science
was diffused over the dominions of Persia. At Gondi Sapor, in the
neighborhood of the royal city of Susa, an academy of physic was
founded, which insensibly became a liberal school of poetry, philosophy,
and rhetoric. The annals of the monarchy were composed; and while recent
and authentic history might afford some useful lessons both to the
prince and people, the darkness of the first ages was embellished by the
giants, the dragons, and the fabulous heroes of Oriental romance. Every
learned or confident stranger was enriched by the bounty, and flattered
by the conversation, of the monarch: he nobly rewarded a Greek
physician, by the deliverance of three thousand, captives; and the
sophists, who contended for his favor, were exasperated by the wealth
and insolence of Uranius, their more suc