ect, the praefect of the city, and one of the first
ecclesiastics of the patriarchal church. But the lieutenant of Chosroes
had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master. "It was not an
embassy," said the tyrant of Asia, "it was the person of Heraclius,
bound in chains, that he should have brought to the foot of my throne.
I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome, till he had abjured his
crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." Sain was flayed
alive, according to the inhuman practice of his country; and the
separate and rigorous confinement of the ambassadors violated the law of
nations, and the faith of an express stipulation. Yet the experience
of six years at length persuaded the Persian monarch to renounce the
conquest of Constantinople, and to specify the annual tribute or ransom
of the Roman empire; a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents
of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand
virgins. Heraclius subscribed these ignominious terms; but the time and
space which he obtained to collect such treasures from the poverty of
the East, was industriously employed in the preparations of a bold and
desperate attack.

Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of
the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of
a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure,
or of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of the public
calamities. But the languid mists of the morning and evening are
separated by the brightness of the meridian sun; the Arcadius of the
palace arose the Caesar of the camp; and the honor of Rome and Heraclius
was gloriously retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous
campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have revealed
the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this distance we can
only conjecture, that he was endowed with more personal courage than
political resolution; that he was detained by the charms, and perhaps
the arts, of his niece Martina, with whom, after the death of Eudocia,
he contracted an incestuous marriage; and that he yielded to the base
advice of the counsellors, who urged, as a fundamental law, that the
life of the emperor should never be exposed in the field. Perhaps he was
awakened by the last insolent demand of the Persian conqueror; but at
the moment when Heraclius assumed the spirit of a hero, the only hopes
of the Roman