n against them regularly every year from A.D. 443 to 451. In the
year last mentioned he crossed the Oxus, and, attacking the Ephthalites
in their own territory, obtained a complete success, driving the monarch
from the cultivated portion of the country, and forcing him to take
refuge in the desert. So complete was his victory that he seems to have
been satisfied with the result, and, regarding the war as terminated, to
have thought the time was come for taking in hand an arduous task, long
contemplated, but not hitherto actually attempted.

This was no less a matter than the forcible conversion of Armenia to
the faith of Zoroaster. It has been already noted that the religious
differences which--from the time when the Armenians, anticipating
Constantine, adopted as the religion of their state and nation the
Christian faith (ab. A.D. 300)--separated the Armenians from the
Persians, were a cause of weakness to the latter, more especially in
their contests with Rome. Armenia was always, naturally, upon the
Roman side, since a religious sympathy united it with the the court of
Constantinople, and an exactly opposite feeling tended to detach it from
the court of Ctesiphon. The alienation would have been, comparatively
speaking, unimportant, after the division of Armenia between the two
powers, had that division been regarded by either party as final, or as
precluding the formation of designs upon the territory which each had
agreed should be held by the other. But there never yet had been a time
when such designs had ceased to be entertained; and in the war which
Isdigerd had waged with Theodosius at the beginning of his reign,
Roman intrigues in Persarmenia had forced him to send an army into
that country. The Persians felt, and felt with reason, that so long as
Armenia remained Christian and Persia held to the faith of Zoroaster,
the relations of the two countries could never be really friendly;
Persia would always have a traitor in her own camp; and in any time of
difficulty--especially in any difficulty with Rome--might look to
see this portion of her territory go over to the enemy. We cannot
be surprised if Persian statesmen were anxious to terminate so
unsatisfactory a state of things, and cast about for a means whereby
Armenia might be won over, and made a real friend instead of a concealed
enemy.

The means which suggested itself to Isdigerd as the simplest and most
natural was, as above observed, the conversion of t