this prudent counsellor, he retired from court, and
abandoned the youthful monarch to his own passions and those of his
favorites. By the fatal vicissitude of human affairs, the same scenes
were renewed at Ctesiphon, which had been exhibited at Rome after the
death of Marcus Antoninus. The ministers of flattery and corruption, who
had been banished by his father, were recalled and cherished by the son;
the disgrace and exile of the friends of Nushirvan established their
tyranny; and virtue was driven by degrees from the mind of Hormouz, from
his palace, and from the government of the state. The faithful agents,
the eyes and ears of the king, informed him of the progress of disorder,
that the provincial governors flew to their prey with the fierceness of
lions and eagles, and that their rapine and injustice would teach the
most loyal of his subjects to abhor the name and authority of their
sovereign. The sincerity of this advice was punished with death; the
murmurs of the cities were despised, their tumults were quelled by
military execution: the intermediate powers between the throne and the
people were abolished; and the childish vanity of Hormouz, who affected
the daily use of the tiara, was fond of declaring, that he alone would
be the judge as well as the master of his kingdom. In every word, and in
every action, the son of Nushirvan degenerated from the virtues of his
father. His avarice defrauded the troops; his jealous caprice degraded
the satraps; the palace, the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were
stained with the blood of the innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the
sufferings and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of
his cruelty, he sometimes condescended to observe, that the fears of
the Persians would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred must
terminate in rebellion but he forgot that his own guilt and folly had
inspired the sentiments which he deplored, and prepared the event which
he so justly apprehended. Exasperated by long and hopeless oppression,
the provinces of Babylon, Susa, and Carmania, erected the standard
of revolt; and the princes of Arabia, India, and Scythia, refused the
customary tribute to the unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of
the Romans, in slow sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers
of Mesopotamia and Assyria: one of their generals professed himself the
disciple of Scipio; and the soldiers were animated by a miraculous image
of Chr