every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal argumentation of the disciple of Socrates 62 appear to be indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was informed that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the treasures of the kings of India. The physician Perozes was secretly dispatched to the [Barzoe] banks of the Ganges, with instructions to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence accomplished the translation; and the fables of Pilpay 63 were read and admired in the assembly of Nushirvan and his nobles. The Indian original and the Persian copy have long since disappeared; but this venerable monument has been saved by the curiosity of the Arabian caliphs, revived in the modern Persic, the Turkish, the Syriac, the Hebrew, and the Greek idioms, and transfused through successive versions into the modern languages of Europe. In their present form the peculiar character, the manners and religion of the Hindoos, are completely obliterated; and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpay is far inferior to the concise elegance of Phædrus and the native graces of La Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated in a series of apologues; but the composition is intricate, the narrative pro 62 Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phædon, Parmenides, and Timæus. Renaudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. xii. p. 246-261) does not mention this Barbaric version of Aristotle. 63 Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three different languages: 1. In Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (A.D. 1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697, in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek, Sapientia Indorum, inserted by Père Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer (p. 547620, edit. Roman). 3. In French, from the Turkish, dedicated, in 1540, to Sultan Soliman: Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman, par MM. Galland et Cardonne, Paris, 1778, 3 vols. in 12mo. Mr. Wharton (History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 129-131) takes a larger scope. [These fables formed the collection entitled the Panchatantra. They are translated from Sanskrit into German by Theodore Benfey, who in the first volume of his famous work (Pantschatantra, 1859) gives a full account of the origin and diffusion of the fables. There is no reason to doubt that they were translated into Pehlevi in Nushirvan's reign (cp. Benfey, op. cit. i. p. 6, footnote), and from this translation was made in 8th century the extant Arabic version (ed. by Silvestre de Sacy, "Calila et Dimna ou fables de Bidpai," 1816; English translation by Knatchbull, 1819). Then this Arabic version was translated into Persian (12th century) by Nasr Allah, and a free recension of this version by Husain Vaïz was done into English by Eastwick, 1854. In the Greek translation of Seth the title is not Kalilah and Dimnah, but "Stephanites and Ichnelates". It has been edited critically by V. Puntoni (1889). A Syriac version has been edited by W. Wright (1884), and translated into English by Mr. Keith Falconer (1885). See further, Benfey, op. cit.; Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litt. p. 895. It may be added that Bidpai was a philosopher who appears in some of the fables; and their authorship was ascribed to him by the Arabic translator.] Peace and war with the 533-539 lix, and the precept obvious and barren. Yet the Brachman may assume the merit of inventing a pleasing fiction, which adorns the nakedness of truth, and alleviates, perhaps, to a royal ear the harshness of instruction. With a similar design to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess, which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of Nushirvan.64 65 The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with Romans. A.D the successor of Constantine; and the anxiety of his domestic situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Roman ambassadors at his feet. He accepted eleven thousand pounds of gold, as the price of an endless or indefinite peace; some mutual exchanges were regulated; the Persian assumed the guard of the gates of Caucasus, and the demolition of Dara was suspended, on condition that it should never be made the residence of the general of the East. This interval of repose had been solicited, and was diligently improved, by the ambition of the emperor; his African conquests were the first fruits of the Persian treaty; and the avarice of Chosroes was soothed by a large portion of the spoils of Carthage, which his ambassadors required in a tone of pleasantry and under the colour of friendship.6 66 But the trophies of Belisarius disturbed the slumbers of the great king; and he heard with astonishment, envy, and fear, that Sicily, Italy, and Rome itself had been reduced in three rapid campaigns to the obedience of Justinian. Unpractised in the art of violating treaties, he secretly excited his bold and subtle vassal Almondar. That prince of the Saracens, who resided at Hira,67 had not been included in the general peace, and still waged an obscure war against his rival Arethas, 64 See the Historia Shahiludii of Dr. Hyde (Syntagm. Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 61. 69). [Van der Linde, Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels, 1874; D. Forbes, History of Chess, 1860.] [Harith] 65 The endless peace (Procopius, Persic. 1. i. c. 21) was concluded or ratified in the vith year and iiid consulship of Justinian (A.D. 533, between January 1, and April 1, Pagi, tom. ii. p. 550). Marcellinus, in his Chronicle, uses the style of Medes and Persians. 66 Procopius, Persic. 1. i. c. 26. 67 Almondar, king of Hira, was deposed by Kobad, and restored by Nushirvan. [So Hamza; but it is doubtful.] His mother, from her beauty, was surnamed Celestial Water, an appellation which became hereditary, and was extended for a more noble cause (liberality in famine) to the Arab princes of Syria (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 69, 70). [Between the territories of Hira and the Gnassan.des was the region of the Tha'labites, who are mentioned by Josua Stylites (c. 57' as within the sphere of Roman influence. For the career of Almondar (Mundhir), king of Hira A.D. 505-554, cp. Nöldeke, Tabari, p. 170-1.] the chief of the tribe of Gassan, and confederate of the empire. The subject of their dispute was an extensive sheep-walk in the desert to the south of Palmyra. An immemorial tribute for the licence of pasture appeared to attest the rights of Almondar, while the Gassanite appealed to the Latin name of strata, a paved road, as an unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labours of the Romans, 68 The two monarchs supported the cause of their respective vassals; and the Persian Arab, without expecting the event of a slow and doubtful arbitration, enriched his flying camp with the spoil and captives of Syria. Instead of repelling the arms, Justinian attempted to seduce the fidelity, of Almondar, while he called from the extremities of the earth the nations of Ethiopia and Scythia to invade the dominions of his rival. But the aid of such allies was distant and precarious, and the discovery of this hostile correspondence justified the complaints of the Goths and Armenians, who implored, almost at the same time, the protection of Chosroes. The descendants of Arsaces, who were still numerous in Armenia, had been provoked to assert the last relics of national freedom and hereditary rank; and the ambassadors of Vitiges had secretly traversed the empire to expose the instant, and almost inevitable, danger of the kingdom of Italy. Their representations were uniform, weighty, and effectual. "We stand before your throne, the advocates of your interest as well as of our own. The ambitious and faithless Justinian aspires to be the sole master of the world. Since the endless peace, which betrayed the common freedom of mankind, that prince, your ally in words, your enemy in actions, has alike insulted his friends and foes, and has filled the earth with blood and confusion. Has he not violated the privileges of Armenia, the independence of Colchos, and the wild liberty of the Tzanian mountains? Has he not usurped, with equal avidity, the city of Bosphorus on the frozen Mæotis and the vale of palm-trees on the shores of the Red Sea? The Moors, the Vandals, the Goths, have been successively oppressed, and each nation has calmly remained the spectator of their neighbour's ruin. Embrace, Ŏ king! the favourable moment; the East is left without defence, while the armies of Justinian and his renowned general are detained in the distant regions of the West. If you hesitate and delay, Belisarius and his victorious troops will soon return 68 Procopius, Persic. 1. ii. c. 1. We are ignorant of the origin and object of this strata, a paved road of ten days' journey from Auranitis to Babylonia. (See a Latin note in Delisle's Map Imp. Orient.) Wesseling and d'Anville are silent. He invades Syria. A.D. 540 [Sura] from the Tiber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched an consolation of being the last devoured." 69 By such arguments Chosroes was easily persuaded to imitate the example which he condemned; but the Persian, ambitious of military fame, disdained the inactive warfare of a rival, who issued his sanguinary commands from the secure station of the Byzantine palace. Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused the confidence of treaties; and the just reproaches of dissimulation and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his victories.70 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, till the small, though populous, town of Dura presumed to arrest the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery and surprise, were burst open; and, as soon as Chosroes had stained his scymitar with the blood of the inhabitants, he dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in what place he had left the enemy of the Romans. The conqueror still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and, as he beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold; the neighbouring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the payment; and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced into the heart of Syria; but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his approach, disappointed him of the honour of victory; and, as he could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a robber. Hierapolis, Berrhoea or Aleppo, Apamea, and Chalcis were successively besieged; they redeemed their safety by a ransom of gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and opulence; 69 I have blended, in a short speech, the two orations of the Arsacides of Armenia and the Gothic ambassadors. Procopius, in his public history, feels, and makes us feel, that Justinian was the true author of the war (Persic. 1. ii. c. 2, 3). 70 The invasion of Syria, the ruin of Antioch, &c. are related in a full and regular series by Procopius (Persic. 1. ii. c. 5-14). Small collateral aid can be drawn from the Orientals: yet not they, but d'Herbelot himself (p. 680), should blush, when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory. Antioch and their new master enforced, without observing, the terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege; and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion of the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years And ruins had elapsed since Antioch was ruined by an earthquake; but the queen of the East, the new Theopolis, had been raised from the ground by the liberality of Justinian; and the increasing greatness of the buildings and the people already erased the memory of this recent disaster. On one side, the city was defended by the mountain, on the other by the river Orontes; but the most accessible part was commanded by a superior eminence; the proper remedies were rejected, from the despicable fear of discovering its weakness to the enemy; and Germanus, the emperor's nephew, refused to trust his person and dignity within the walls of a besieged city. The ! people of Antioch had inherited the vain and satirical genius of their ancestors: they were elated by a sudden reinforcement of six thousand soldiers; they disdained the offers of an easy capitulation; and their intemperate clamours insulted from the ramparts the majesty of the great king. Under his eye the Persian myriads mounted with scaling-ladders to the assault; the Roman mercenaries fled through the opposite gate of Daphne; and the generous resistance of the youth of Antioch served only to aggravate the miseries of their country. As Chosroes, attended by the ambassadors of Justinian, was descending from the mountain, he affected, in a plaintive voice, to deplore the obstinacy and ruin of that unhappy people; but the slaughter still raged with unrelenting fury; and the city, at the command of a Barbarian, was delivered to the flames. The cathedral of Antioch was indeed preserved by the avarice, not the piety, of the conqueror; a more honourable exemption was granted to the church of St. Julian and the quarter of the town where the ambassadors resided; some distant streets were saved by the shifting of the wind; and the walls still subsisted to protect, and soon to betray, their new inhabitants. Fanaticism had defaced the ornaments of Daphne, but Chosroes breathed a purer air amidst her groves and fountains; and some idolaters in his train might sacrifice with impunity to the nymphs of that elegant retreat. Eighteen miles below Antioch, the river Orontes falls into the Mediterranean. The haughty Persian visited the term of his conquests; and, after bathing alone |