e brought the
empire into the greatest danger. The Arabs crossed the Euphrates and
spread themselves over Mesopotamia; the Khazars invaded Armenia and
Azerbijan; rumor said that the Greek emperor had taken the field and was
advancing on the side of Syria, at the head of 80,000 men; above all, it
was quite certain that the Great Khan of the Turks had put his hordes
in motion, had passed the Oxus with a countless host, occupied Balkh and
Herat, and was threatening to penetrate into the very heart of Persia.
The perilous character of the crisis is perhaps exaggerated; but there
can be little doubt that the advance of the Turks constituted a real
danger. Hormisdas, however, did not even now quit the capital, or
adventure his own person. He selected from among his generals a certain
Varahran or Bahram, a leader of great courage and experience, who had
distinguished himself in the wars of Anushirwan, and, placing all the
resources of the empire at his disposal, assigned to him the entire
conduct of the Turkish struggle. Bahram is said to have contented
himself with a small force of picked men, veterans between forty and
fifty years of age, to have marched with them upon Balkh, contended
with the Great Khan in several partial engagements, and at last entirely
defeated him in a great battle, wherein the Khan lost his life. This
victory was soon followed by another over the Khan's son, who was made
prisoner and sent to Hormisdas. An enormous booty was at the same time
despatched to the court; and Bahram himself was about to return, when he
received his master's orders to carry his arms into another quarter.

It is supposed, by some that, while the Turkish hordes were menacing
Persia upon the north-east, a Roman army, intended to act in concert
with them, was sent by Maurice into Albania, which proceeded to threaten
the common enemy in the north-west. But the Byzantine writers know of no
alliance at this time between the Romans and Turks; nor do they tell
of any offensive movement undertaken by Rome in aid of the Turkish
invasion, or even simultaneously with it. According to them, the war
in this quarter, which certainly broke out in A.D. 589, was provoked by
Hormisdas himself, who, immediately after his Turkish victories, sent
Bahram with an army to invade Colchis and Suania, or in other words to
resume the Lazic war, from which Anushirwan had desisted twenty-seven
years previously. Bahram found the province unguarded, and was ab