left the kingdom to his eldest son, Yaksoum. An important
Christian state was thus established in the Great Peninsula; and it was
natural that Justinian should see with satisfaction, and Chosroes with
some alarm, the growth of a power in this quarter which was sure to side
with Rome and against Persia, if their rivalry should extend into
these parts. Justinian had hailed with pleasure the original Abyssinian
conquest, and had entered into amicable relations with both the Axumites
and their colonists in the Yemen. Chosroes now resolved upon a counter
movement. He would employ the quiet secured to him by the peace of A.D.
562 in a great attack upon the Abyssinian power in Arabia. He would
drive the audacious Africans from the soil of Asia, and would earn the
eternal gratitude of the numerous tribes of the desert. He would extend
Persian influence to the shores of the Arabian Gulf, and so confront the
Romans along the whole line of their eastern boundary. He would destroy
the _point d'appui_ which Rome had acquired in South-western Asia, and
so at once diminish her power and augment the strength and glory of
Persia.

The interference of Chosroes in the affairs of a country so distant as
Western Arabia involved considerable difficulties; but his expedition
was facilitated by an application which he received from a native of the
district in question. Saif, the son of Dsu-Yezm, descended from the race
of the old Homerite kings whom the Abyssinians had conquered, grew up at
the court of Abraha in the belief that that prince, who had married his
mother, was not his step-father, but his father. Undeceived by an insult
which Masrouq, the true son of Abraha and successor of Yaksoum, offered
him, Saif became a refugee at the court of Chosroes, and importuned the
Great King to embrace his quarrel and reinstate him on the throne of
his fathers. He represented the Homerite population of Yemen as groaning
under the yoke of their oppressors and only waiting for an opportunity
to rise in revolt and shake it off. A few thousand Persian troops,
enough to form the nucleus of an army, would suffice; they might be sent
by sea to the port of Aden, near the mouth of the Arabian Gulf, where
the Homerites would join them in large numbers; the combined forces
might then engage in combat with the Abyssinians, and destroy them or
drive them from the land. Chosroes took the advice tendered him, so far
at any rate as to make his expedition by sea. His