to Antioch, and after witnessing the
games of the amphitheatre and securing victory to the green champion
because Justinian preferred the blue, he set out at last on his return
to Persia, taking care to visit, upon his way to the Euphrates, the city
of Chalcis, the only important place in Northern Syria that had hitherto
escaped him. The Chalcidians were required not only to ransom themselves
by a sum of money, but to give up to Chosroes the Roman soldiers who
garrisoned their town. By a perjury that may well be forgiven them,
they avoided the more important concession, but they had to satisfy the
avarice of the conqueror by the payment of two hundred pounds of gold.
The Persian host then continued its march, and reaching the Euphrates at
Obbane, in the neighborhood of Barbalissus, crossed by a bridge of boats
in three days. The object of Chosroes in thus changing his return line
of march was to continue in Roman Mesopotamia the course which he had
adopted in Syria since the conclusion of the truce--i.e. to increase his
spoil by making each important city ransom itself. Edessa, Constantina,
and Daras were successively visited, and purchased their safety by a
contribution. According to Procopius, the proceedings before Daras were
exceptional. Although Chosroes, before he quitted Edossa, had received a
communication from Justinian accepting the terms arranged with the Roman
envoys at Antioch, yet, when he reached Daras, he at once resolved upon
its siege. The city was defended by two walls, an outer one of moderate
strength, and an inner one sixty feet high, with towers at intervals,
whose height was a hundred feet. Chosroes, having invested the place,
endeavored to penetrate within the defences by means of a mine; but, his
design having been betrayed, the Romans met him with a countermine, and
completely foiled his enterprise. Unwilling to spend any more time on
the siege, the Persian monarch upon this desisted from his attempt, and
accepted the contribution of a thousand pounds of silver as a sufficient
redemption for the great fortress.

Such is the account of the matter given to us by Procopius, who is our
only extant authority for the details of this war. But the account is
violently improbable. It represents Chosroes as openly flying in the
face of a treaty the moment that he had concluded it, and as departing
in a single instance from the general tenor of his proceedings in all
other cases. In view of the great imp