his advanced age, he immediately took the field in person.
Giving the command of a flying column of 6000 men to Adarman, a skilful
general, he marched himself against the Romans, who under Marcian had
defeated a Persian force, and were besieging Nisibis, forced them to
raise the siege, and, pressing forward as they retired, compelled them
to seek shelter within the walls of Daras, which he proceeded to
invest with his main army. Meanwhile Adarman, at the head of the troops
entrusted to him, crossed the Euphrates near Circesium, and, having
entered Syria, carried fire and sword far and wide over that fertile
province. Repulsed from Antioch, where, however, he burnt the suburbs
of the town, he invaded Coelesyria, took and destroyed Apamea, and then,
recrossing the great river, rejoined Chosroes before Daras. The renowned
fortress made a brave defence. For about five months it resisted,
without obtaining any relief, the entire force of Chosroes, who is said
to have besieged it with 40,000 horse and 100,000 foot. At last, on the
approach of winter, it could no longer hold out; enclosed within lines
of circumvallation, and deprived of water by the diversion of its
streams into new channels, it found itself reduced to extremity, and
forced to submit towards the close of A.D. 573. Thus the great Roman
fortress in these parts was lost in the first year of the renewed war;
and Justin, alarmed at his own temerity, and recognizing his weakness,
felt it necessary to retire from the conduct of affairs, and deliver
the reins of empire to stronger hands. He chose as his coadjutor and
successor the Count Tiberius, a Thracian by birth, who had long stood
high in his confidence; and this prince, in conjunction with the Empress
Sophia, now took the direction of the war.

The first need was to obtain a breathing-space. The Persian king having
given an opening for negotiations, advantage was taken of it by the
joint rulers to send an envoy, furnished with an autograph letter from
the empress, and well provided with the best persuasives of peace, who
was to suggest an armistice for a year, during which a satisfactory
arrangement of the whole quarrel might be agreed upon. Tiberius thought
that within this space he might collect an army sufficiently powerful
to re-establish the superiority of the Roman arms in the east; Chosroes
believed himself strong enough to defeat any force that Rome could now
bring into the field. A truce for a year was