t upon the laborious industry
of the inhabitants, in part upon their numbers. Chosroes regarded Persia
as insufficiently peopled, and made efforts to increase the population
by encouraging and indeed compelling marriage. All marriageable females
were required to provide themselves with husbands; if they neglected
this duty, the government interfered, and united them to unmarried men
of their own class. The pill was gilt to these latter by the advance of
a sufficient dowry from the public treasury, and by the prospect that,
if children resulted from the union, their education and establishment
in life would be undertaken by the state. Another method of increasing
the population, adopted by Chosroes to a certain extent, was the
settlement within his own territories of the captives whom he carried
off from foreign countries in the course of his military expeditions.
The most notorious instance of this policy was the Greek settlement,
known as Rumia (Rome), established by Chosroes after his capture of
Antioch (A.D. 540), in the near vicinity of Ctesiphon.

Oriental monarchs, in many respects civilized and enlightened, have
often shown a narrow and unworthy jealousy of foreigners. Chosroes had
a mind which soared above this petty prejudice. He encouraged the visits
of all foreigners, excepting only the barbarous Turks, readily received
them at his court, and carefully provided for their safety. Not only
were the roads and bridges kept in the most perfect order throughout his
territories, so as to facilitate locomotion, but on the frontiers and
along the chief lines of route guard-houses were built and garrisons
maintained for the express purpose of securing the safety of travellers.
The result was that the court of Chosroes was visited by numbers of
Europeans, who were hospitably treated, and invited, or even pressed, to
prolong their visits.

To the proofs of wisdom and enlightenment here enumerated Chosroes
added another, which is more surprising than any of them. He studied
philosophy, and was a patron of science and learning. Very early in his
reign he gave a refuge at his court to a body of seven Greek sages whom
a persecuting edict, issued by Justinian, had induced to quit their
country and take up their abode on Persian soil. Among the refugees was
the erudite Damascius, whose work De Principiis is well known, and has
recently been found to exhibit an intimate acquaintance with some of the
most obscure of the Orienta