confusion; the Romans were summoned to give help to one party, the
Persians to render assistance to the other; Armenia became once more the
battle-ground between the two great powers, and it seemed as if the old
contest, fraught with so many calamities, was to be at once renewed. But
the circumstances of the time were such that neither Rome nor Persia
now desired to reopen the contest. Persia was in the hands of weak and
unwarlike sovereigns, and was perhaps already threatened by Scythic
hordes upon the east. Rome was in the agonies of a struggle with the
ever-increasing power of the Goths; and though, in the course of the
years A.D. 379-382, the Great Theodosius had established peace in the
tract under his rule, and delivered the central provinces of Macedonia
and Thrace from the intolerable ravages of the barbaric invaders, yet
the deliverance had been effected at the cost of introducing large
bodies of Goths into the heart of the empire, while still along the
northern frontier lay a threatening cloud, from which devastation and
ruin might at any time burst forth and overspread the provinces upon the
Lower Danube. Thus both the Roman emperor and the Persian king were well
disposed towards peace. An arrangement was consequently made, and in
A.D. 384, five years after he had ascended the throne, Theodosius gave
audience in Constantinople to envoys from the court of Persepolis, and
concluded with them a treaty whereby matters in Armenia were placed on
a footing which fairly satisfied both sides, and the tranquillity of the
East was assured. The high contracting powers agreed that Armenia should
be partitioned between them. After detaching from the kingdom various
outlying districts, which could be conveniently absorbed into their
own territories, they divided the rest of the country into two unequal
portions. The smaller of these, which comprised the more western
districts, was placed under the protection of Rome, and was committed by
Theodosius to the Arsaces who had been made king by Manuel, the son
of the unfortunate Bab, or Para, and the grandson of the Arsaces
contemporary with Julian. The larger portion, which consisted of the
regions lying towards the east, passed under the suzerainty of Persia,
and was confided by Sapor III., who had succeeded Artaxerxes II., to an
Arsacid, named Chosroes, a Christian, who was given the title of king,
and received in marriage at the same time one of Sapor's sisters.
Such were the