youth, whilst the
aggressor trembled in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan, or
Chosroes, conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
important fortress had been left destitute of troops and magazines, the
valor of the inhabitants resisted above five months the archers, the
elephants, and the military engines of the Great King. In the mean while
his general Adarman advanced from Babylon, traversed the desert, passed
the Euphrates, insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced to ashes the
city of Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet of his master,
whose perseverance in the midst of winter at length subverted the
bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the provinces
and the court, produced a salutary effect in the repentance and
abdication of the emperor Justin: a new spirit arose in the Byzantine
councils; and a truce of three years was obtained by the prudence of
Tiberius. That seasonable interval was employed in the preparations
of war; and the voice of rumor proclaimed to the world, that from
the distant countries of the Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Maesia,
Pannonia, Illyricum, and Isauria, the strength of the Imperial cavalry
was reenforced with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Yet the
king of Persia, without fear, or without faith, resolved to prevent
the attack of the enemy; again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing the
ambassadors of Tiberius, arrogantly commanded them to await his arrival
at Caesarea, the metropolis of the Cappadocian provinces. The two armies
encountered each other in the battle of Melitene: the Barbarians,
who darkened the air with a cloud of arrows, prolonged their line, and
extended their wings across the plain; while the Romans, in deep and
solid bodies, expected to prevail in closer action, by the weight of
their swords and lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their right
wing, suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard
in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp,
pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a train of
camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the Persian host,
and returned with songs of victory to his friends, who had consumed the
day in single combats, or ineffectual skirmishes. The darkness of the
night, and the separation of the Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an
opportunity of revenge; and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid
and imp