bassy to Con

A.D. 558

its lawful proprietors from the yoke of the Turks.36 After a long and victorious march, the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the country of the Alani 37 and Circassians, where they first heard of the splendour and weakness of the Roman empire. They humbly requested their confederate, the prince of the Alani, to lead them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the Euxine sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people: their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were admitted to the audience of Justinian, Their em Candish, the first of the ambassadors, addressed the Roman stantinople. emperor in these terms: "You see before you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service: we are able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the reward of our valour, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and fruitful possessions." At the time of this embassy Justinian had reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five, years; his mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of inglorious peace. In a studied oration he imparted to the senate his resolution to dissemble the insult, and to purchase the friendship, of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately prepared to captivate the Barbarians: silken garments, soft and splendid beds, and chains and collars incrusted with gold. The ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor's guards, was sent with a similar character to their

36 Theophylact, 1. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true Avars are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what can be more illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive Ogors to that national appellation is confessed by the Turks themselves (Menander, p. 108 [?]).

37 The Alani are still found in the Genealogical History of the Tartars (p. 617), and in d'Anville's maps. They opposed the march of the generals of Zingis round the Caspian sea, and were overthrown in a great battle (Hist. de Gengiscan, 1. iv. c. 9, p. 447).

VOL. IV.

23

Embassies of the Turks and

569-582

camp at the foot of mount Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives who fled before the Turkish arms passed the Tanais and Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and Germany, violating the law of nations and abusing the rights of victory. Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are found as tributaries and vassals under the standard of the Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king, still affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the timid though jealous policy of detaining their ambassadors, and denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the capital of the empire. 38

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emRomans. A.D. perors may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors of the Avars.39 The immense distance which eluded their arms could not extinguish their resentment: the Turkish ambassadors pursued the footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, mount Caucasus, the Euxine, and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. Even commerce had some share in this remarkable negotiation; and the Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the Turks, embraced the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the Caspian, a new road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman empire. The Persian, who pre

38 The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may be read in Menander (Excerpt. Legat. p. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155 [frs. 4, 5, 6, 9, 14, 28, ed. Müller, F. H. G. iv.]), Theophanes (p. 196), the Historia Miscella (1. xvi. p. 109), and Gregory of Tours (1. iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of France, tom. ii. p. 214, 217). (Cf. Malalas, p. 489; Cramer, Anecd. Par., 2, p. 114. Theophanes probably derived his notion from the full Malalas.]

39 Theophanes (Chron. p. 204) and the Hist. Miscella (l. xvi. p. 110), as understood by De Guignes (ton. i. part ii. p. 354), appear to speak of a Turkish embassy to Justinian himself; but that of Maniach, in the fourth year of his successor Justin, is positively the first that reached Constantinople (Menander, p. 108 [fr. 18, p. 226, ed. Müller]). [The passage in Theophanes records the embassy of the unknown Hermechionites.]

The [Silzibul]

ferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stoppea the caravans of
Bochara and Samarcand; their silk was contemptuously burnt;
some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia, with a suspicion of
poison; and the great khan permitted his faithful vassal Maniach,
the prince of the Sogdoites, to propose, at the Byzantine court,
a treaty of alliance against their common enemies. Their splen-
did apparel and rich presents, the fruit of Oriental luxury,
distinguished Maniach and his colleagues from the rude savages
of the north; their letters, in the Scythian character and language,
announced a people who had attained the rudiments of science; 40
they enumerated the conquests, they offered the friendship and
military aid, of the Turks; and their sincerity was attested by
direful imprecations (if they were guilty of falsehood) against
their own head and the head of Disabul their master.
Greek prince entertained with hospitable regard the ambassa-
dors of a remote and powerful monarch; the sight of silk-worms
and looms disappointed the hopes of the Sogdoites; the emperor
renounced, or seemed to renounce, the fugitive Avars, but he
accepted the alliance of the Turks; and the ratification of the
treaty was carried by a Roman minister to the foot of mount
Altai. 41 Under the successors of Justinian, the friendship of
the two nations was cultivated by frequent and cordial inter-
course; the most favoured vassals were permitted to imitate
the example of the great khan, and one hundred and six Turks,
who, on various occasions, had visited Constantinople, departed
at the same time for their native country. The duration and
length of the journey from the Byzantine court to mount Altai
are not specified: it might have been difficult to mark a road
through the nameless deserts, the mountains, rivers, and
morasses of Tartary; but a curious account has been preserved
of the reception of the Roman ambassadors at the royal camp.
After they had been purified with fire and incense, according to
a rite still practised under the sons of Zingis, they were intro-
duced to the presence of Disabul.42 In a valley of the Golden

40 The Russians have found characters, rude hieroglyphics, on the Irtish and Yenisei, on medals, tombs, idols, rocks, obelisks, &c. (Strahlenberg, Hist. of Siberia, p. 324, 346, 406, 429). Dr. Hyde (de Religione Veterum Persarum, p. 521, &c.) has given two alphabets of Thibet and of the Eygours. I have long harboured a suspicion that all the Scythian, and some, perhaps much, of the Indian science, was derived from the Greeks of Bactriana. [On recently discovered Turkish inscriptions, see Appendix 16.]

41 [Ektag (Menander) is probably Altai.

But it was not the seat of the chief

khan mentioned in the Chinese sources; see next note.]

42 [Disabul (there is more authority for the form Silzibu!) must be distinguished from the great khan Mukan (553-572), who is celebrated in the Chinese sources. Cp. Appendix 16.]

[A.D. 576]

Mountain, they found the great khan in his tent, seated in a
chair with wheels, to which an horse might be occasionally
harnessed. As soon as they had delivered their presents, which
were received by the proper officers, they exposed, in a florid
oration, the wishes of the Roman emperor, that victory might
attend the arms of the Turks, that their reign might be long
and prosperous, and that a strict alliance, without envy or
deceit, might for ever be maintained between the two most
powerful nations of the earth. The answer of Disabul
corresponded with these friendly professions, and the ambassa-
dors were seated by his side, at a banquet which lasted the
greatest part of the day; the tent was surrounded with silk
hangings, and a Tartar liquor was served on the table, which
possessed at least the intoxicating qualities of wine. The en-
tertainment of the succeeding day was more sumptuous; the
silk hangings of the second tent were embroidered in various
figures; and the royal seat, the cups, and the vases were of
gold. A third pavilion was supported by columns of gilt wood;
a bed of pure and massy gold was raised on four peacocks of the
same metal; and, before the entrance of the tent, dishes, basons,
and statues of solid silver, and admirable art, were ostentatiously
piled in waggons, the monuments of valour rather than of in-
dustry. When Disabul led his armies against the frontiers of
Persia, his Roman allies followed many days the march of the
Turkish camp, nor were they dismissed until they had enjoyed
their precedency over the envoy of the great king, whose loud
and intemperate clamours interrupted the silence of the royal
banquet. The power and ambition of Chosroes cemented the
union of the Turks and Romans, who touched his dominions on
either side; but those distant nations, regardless of each other,
consulted the dictates of interest, without recollecting the ob-
ligations of oaths and treaties. While the successor of Disabul
celebrated his father's obsequies, he was saluted by the am-
bassadors of the emperor Tiberius, who proposed an invasion of
Persia, and sustained with firmness the angry, and perhaps the
just, reproaches of that haughty Barbarian.
"You see my ten
fingers," said the great khan, and he applied them to his mouth.
"You Romans speak with as many tongues, but they are tongues
of deceit and perjury. To me you hold one language, to my
subjects another; and the nations are successively deluded by
your perfidious eloquence. You precipitate your allies into war
and danger, you enjoy their labours, and you neglect your bene-
factors. Hasten your return, inform your master that a Turk is

incapable of uttering or forgiving falsehood, and that he shall speedily meet the punishment which he deserves. While he solicits my friendship with flattering and hollow words, he is sunk to a confederate of my fugitive Varchonites. If I condescend to march against those contemptible slaves, they will tremble at the sound of our whips; they will be trampled, like a nest of ants, under the feet of my innumerable cavalry. I am not ignorant of the road which they have followed to invade your empire; nor can I be deceived by the vain pretence that mount Caucasus is the impregnable barrier of the Romans. I know the course of the Dniester, the Danube, and the Hebrus; the most warlike nations have yielded to the arms of the Turks; and, from the rising to the setting sun, the earth is my inheritance." Notwithstanding this menace, a sense of mutual advantage soon renewed the alliance of the Turks and Romans; but the pride of the great khan survived his resentment; and, when he announced an important conquest to his friend the emperor Maurice, he styled himself the master of the seven races, and the lord of the seven climates, of the world.48

Persia. A.D.

Disputes have often arisen between the sovereigns of Asia, State of for the title of king of the world; while the contest has proved 500-538 that it could not belong to either of the competitors. The kingdom of the Turks was bounded by the Oxus or Gihon; and Touran was separated by that great river from the rival monarchy of Iran, or Persia, which, in a smaller compass, contained perhaps a larger measure of power and population. The Persians, who alternately invaded and repulsed the Turks and the Romans, were still ruled by the house of Sassan, which ascended the throne three hundred years before the accession of Justinian. His contemporary, Cabades, or Kobad, had been successful in war against the emperor Anastasius; but the reign of that prince was distracted by civil and religious troubles. A prisoner in the hands of his subjects; an exile among the enemies of Persia; he recovered his liberty by prostituting the honour of his wife, and regained his kingdom with the dangerous and mercenary aid of the Barbarians who had slain his father. nobles were suspicious that Kobad never forgave the authors of his expulsion, or even those of his restoration. The people was deluded and inflamed by the fanaticism of Mazdak,44 who

His

43 All the details of these Turkish and Roman embassies, so curious in the history of human manners, are drawn from the Extracts of Menander (p. 106-110, 151-154, 161-164 [frs. 18, 19, 20, 21, 43, in F. H. G. iv.]), in which we often regret the want of order and connexion.

4 See d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 568, 929); Hyde (de Religione Vet. Per