about Ctesiphon. When she died, Chosroes called in the aid of sculpture
to perpetuate her image, and sent her statue to the Roman Emperor, to
the Turkish Khan, and to various other potentates.

Chosroes is said to have maintained an enormous seraglio; but of these
secondary wives, none is known to us even by name, except Kurdiyeh, the
sister of Bahram and widow of Bostam, whom she murdered at Chosroes's
suggestion.

During the earlier portion of his reign Chosroes seems to have been
engaged in but few wars, and those of no great importance. According to
the Armenian writers, he formed a design of depopulating that part of
Armenia which he had not ceded to the Romans, by making a general levy
of all the males, and marching them off to the East, to fight against
the Ephthalites; but the design did not prosper, since the Armenians
carried all before them, and under their native leader, Smbat, the
Bagratunian, conquered Hyrcania and Tabaristan, defeated repeatedly the
Koushans and the Ephthalites, and even engaged with success the Great
Khan of the Turks, who came to the support of his vassals at the head
of an army consisting of 300.000 men. By the valor and conduct of Smbat,
the Persian dominion was re-established in the north-eastern mountain
region, from Mount Demavend to the Hindu Kush; the Koushans, Turks, and
Ephthalitos were held in check; and the tide of barbarism, which had
threatened to submerge the empire on this side, was effectually resisted
and rolled back.

With Rome Chosroes maintained for eleven years the most friendly
and cordial relations. Whatever humiliation he may have felt when he
accepted the terms on which alone Maurice was willing to render him aid,
having once agreed to them, he stifled all regrets, made no attempt to
evade his obligations, abstained from every endeavor to undo by intrigue
what he had done, unwillingly indeed, but yet with his eyes open. Once
only during the eleven years did a momentary cloud arise between him
and his benefactor. In the year A.D. 600 some of the Saracenic tribes
dependent on Rome made an incursion across the Euphrates into Persian
territory, ravaged it far and wide, and returned with their booty
into the desert. Chosroes was justly offended, and might fairly have
considered that a _casus belli_ had arisen; but he allowed himself to
be pacified by the representations of Maurice's envoy, George, and
consented not to break the peace on account of so small a matte