ght standards,
besides those which might be broken or torn, were taken from the
Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut in pieces, and the
victors, concealing their own loss, passed the night on the field. They
acknowledged, that on this occasion it was less difficult to kill
than to discomfit the soldiers of Chosroes; amidst the bodies of their
friends, no more than two bow-shot from the enemy the remnant of the
Persian cavalry stood firm till the seventh hour of the night; about
the eighth hour they retired to their unrifled camp, collected their
baggage, and dispersed on all sides, from the want of orders rather than
of resolution. The diligence of Heraclius was not less admirable in
the use of victory; by a march of forty-eight miles in four-and-twenty
hours, his vanguard occupied the bridges of the great and the lesser
Zab; and the cities and palaces of Assyria were open for the first
time to the Romans. By a just gradation of magnificent scenes, they
penetrated to the royal seat of Dastagerd, and, though much of the
treasure had been removed, and much had been expended, the remaining
wealth appears to have exceeded their hopes, and even to have satiated
their avarice. Whatever could not be easily transported, they consumed
with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of those wounds which he
had so often inflicted on the provinces of the empire: and justice might
allow the excuse, if the desolation had been confined to the works of
regal luxury, if national hatred, military license, and religious zeal,
had not wasted with equal rage the habitations and the temples of the
guiltless subject. The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and
the deliverance of the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria,
reflect a purer glory on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace
of Dastagerd, he pursued his march within a few miles of Modain or
Ctesiphon, till he was stopped, on the banks of the Arba, by the
difficulty of the passage, the rigor of the season, and perhaps the fame
of an impregnable capital. The return of the emperor is marked by the
modern name of the city of Sherhzour: he fortunately passed Mount
Zara, before the snow, which fell incessantly thirty-four days; and the
citizens of Gandzca, or Tauris, were compelled to entertain the soldiers
and their horses with a hospitable reception.

When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even t