Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.
Part III.
It was the boast of the Colchians, that their ancestors had
checked the victories of Sesostris; and the defeat of the
Egyptian is less incredible than his successful progress as far
as the foot of Mount Caucasus. They sunk without any memorable
effort, under the arms of Cyrus; followed in distant wars the
standard of the great king, and presented him every fifth year
with one hundred boys, and as many virgins, the fairest produce
of the land. ^76 Yet he accepted this gift like the gold and
ebony of India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and
ivory of Aethiopia: the Colchians were not subject to the
dominion of a satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as
well as substance of national independence. ^77 After the fall of
the Persian empire, Mithridates, king of Pontus, added Colchos to
the wide circle of his dominions on the Euxine; and when the
natives presumed to request that his son might reign over them,
he bound the ambitious youth in chains of gold, and delegated a
servant in his place. In pursuit of Mithridates, the Romans
advanced to the banks of the Phasis, and their galleys ascended
the river till they reached the camp of Pompey and his legions.
^78 But the senate, and afterwards the emperors, disdained to
reduce that distant and useless conquest into the form of a
province. The family of a Greek rhetorician was permitted to
reign in Colchos and the adjacent kingdoms from the time of Mark
Antony to that of Nero; and after the race of Polemo ^79 was
extinct, the eastern Pontus, which preserved his name, extended
no farther than the neighborhood of Trebizond. Beyond these
limits the fortifications of Hyssus, of Apsarus, of the Phasis,
of Dioscurias or Sebastopolis, and of Pityus, were guarded by
sufficient detachments of horse and foot; and six princes of
Colchos received their diadems from the lieutenants of Caesar.
One of these lieutenants, the eloquent and philosophic Arrian,
surveyed, and has described, the Euxine coast, under the reign of
Hadrian. The garrison which he reviewed at the mouth of the
Phasis consisted of four hundred chosen legionaries; the brick
walls and towers, the double ditch, and the military engines on
the rampart, rendered this place inaccessible to the Barbarians:
but the new suburbs which had been built by the merchants and
veterans, required, in the opinion of Arrian, some external
defence. ^80 As the strength of the empire was gradually
impaired, the Romans stationed on the Phasis were neither
withdrawn nor expelled; and the tribe of the Lazi, ^81 whose
posterity speak a foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea coast of
Trebizond, imposed their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom
of Colchos. Their independence was soon invaded by a formidable
neighbor, who had acquired, by arms and treaties, the sovereignty
of Iberia. The dependent king of Lazica received his sceptre at
the hands of the Persian monarch, and the successors of
Constantine acquiesced in this injurious claim, which was proudly
urged as a right of immemorial prescription. In the beginning of
the sixth century, their influence was restored by the
introduction of Christianity, which the Mingrelians still profess
with becoming zeal, without understanding the doctrines, or
observing the precepts, of their religion. After the decease of
his father, Zathus was exalted to the regal dignity by the favor
of the great king; but the pious youth abhorred the ceremonies of
the Magi, and sought, in the palace of Constantinople, an
orthodox baptism, a noble wife, and the alliance of the emperor
Justin. The king of Lazica was solemnly invested with the
diadem, and his cloak and tunic of white silk, with a gold
border, displayed, in rich embroidery, the figure of his new
patron; who soothed the jealousy of the Persian court, and
excused the revolt of Colchos, by the venerable names of
hospitality and religion. The common interest of both empires
imposed on the Colchians the duty of guarding the passes of Mount
Caucasus, where a wall of sixty miles is now defended by the
monthly service of the musketeers of Mingrelia. ^82
[Footnote 76: Herodot. l. iii. c. 97. See, in l. vii. c. 79,
their arms and service in the expedition of Xerxes against
Greece.]
[Footnote 77: Xenophon, who had encountered the Colchians in his
retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv. p. 320, 343, 348, edit. Hutchinson;
and Foster's Dissertation, p. liii. - lviii., in Spelman's
English version, vol. ii.,) styled them. Before the conquest of
Mithridates, they are named by Appian, (de Bell. Mithridatico, c.
15, tom. i. p. 661, of the last and best edition, by John
Schweighaeuser. Lipsae, 1785 8 vols. largo octavo.)]
[Footnote 78: The conquest of Colchos by Mithridates and Pompey
is marked by Appian (de Bell. Mithridat.) and Plutarch, (in Vit.
Pomp.)]
[Footnote 79: We may trace the rise and fall of the family of
Polemo, in Strabo, (l. xi. p. 755, l. xii. p. 867,) Dion Cassius,
or Xiphilin, (p. 588, 593, 601, 719, 754, 915, 946, edit.
Reimar,) Suetonius, (in Neron. c. 18, in Vespasian, c. 8,)
Eutropius, (vii. 14,) Josephus, (Antiq. Judaic. l. xx. c. 7, p.
970, edit. Havercamp,) and Eusebius, (Chron. with Scaliger,
Animadvers. p. 196.)]
[Footnote 80: In the time of Procopius, there were no Roman forts
on the Phasis. Pityus and Sebastopolis were evacuated on the
rumor of the Persians, (Goth. l. iv. c. 4;) but the latter was
afterwards restored by Justinian, (de Edif. l. iv. c. 7.)]
[Footnote 81: In the time of Pliny, Arrian, and Ptolemy, the Lazi
were a particular tribe on the northern skirts of Colchos,
(Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 222.) In the age of
Justinian, they spread, or at least reigned, over the whole
country. At present, they have migrated along the coast towards
Trebizond, and compose a rude sea-faring people, with a peculiar
language, (Chardin, p. 149. Peyssonel p. 64.)]
[Footnote 82: John Malala, Chron. tom. ii. p. 134 - 137
Theophanes, p. 144. Hist. Miscell. l. xv. p. 103. The fact is
authentic, but the date seems too recent. In speaking of their
Persian alliance, the Lazi contemporaries of Justinian employ the
most obsolete words, &c. Could they belong to a connection which
had not been dissolved above twenty years?]
But this honorable connection was soon corrupted by the
avarice and ambition of the Romans. Degraded from the rank of
allies, the Lazi were incessantly reminded, by words and actions,
of their dependent state. At the distance of a day's journey
beyond the Apsarus, they beheld the rising fortress of Petra, ^83
which commanded the maritime country to the south of the Phasis.
Instead of being protected by the valor, Colchos was insulted by
the licentiousness, of foreign mercenaries; the benefits of
commerce were converted into base and vexatious monopoly; and
Gubazes, the native prince, was reduced to a pageant of royalty,
by the superior influence of the officers of Justinian.
Disappointed in their expectations of Christian virtue, the
indignant Lazi reposed some confidence in the justice of an
unbeliever. After a private assurance that their ambassadors
should not be delivered to the Romans, they publicly solicited
the friendship and aid of Chosroes. The sagacious monarch
instantly discerned the use and importance of Colchos; and
meditated a plan of conquest, which was renewed at the end of a
thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his
successors. ^84 His ambition was fired by the hope of launching a
Persian navy from the Phasis, of commanding the trade and
navigation of the Euxine Sea, of desolating the coast of Pontus
and Bithynia, of distressing, perhaps of attacking,
Constantinople, and of persuading the Barbarians of Europe to
second his arms and counsels against the common enemy of mankind.
Under the pretence of a Scythian war, he silently led his troops
to the frontiers of Iberia; the Colchian guides were prepared to
conduct them through the woods and along the precipices of Mount
Caucasus; and a narrow path was laboriously formed into a safe
and spacious highway, for the march of cavalry, and even of
elephants. Gubazes laid his person and diadem at the feet of the
king of Persia; his Colchians imitated the submission of their
prince; and after the walls of Petra had been shaken, the Roman
garrison prevented, by a capitulation, the impending fury of the
last assault. But the Lazi soon discovered, that their
impatience had urged them to choose an evil more intolerable than
the calamities which they strove to escape. The monopoly of salt
and corn was effectually removed by the loss of those valuable
commodities. The authority of a Roman legislator, was succeeded
by the pride of an Oriental despot, who beheld, with equal
disdain, the slaves whom he had exalted, and the kings whom he
had humbled before the footstool of his throne. The adoration of
fire was introduced into Colchos by the zeal of the Magi: their
intolerant spirit provoked the fervor of a Christian people; and
the prejudice of nature or education was wounded by the impious
practice of exposing the dead bodies of their parents, on the
summit of a lofty tower, to the crows and vultures of the air.
^85 Conscious of the increasing hatred, which retarded the
execution of his great designs, the just Nashirvan had secretly
given orders to assassinate the king of the Lazi, to transplant
the people into some distant land, and to fix a faithful and
warlike colony on the banks of the Phasis. The watchful jealousy
of the Colchians foresaw and averted the approaching ruin. Their
repentance was accepted at Constantinople by the prudence, rather
than clemency, of Justinian; and he commanded Dagisteus, with
seven thousand Romans, and one thousand of the Zani, ^* to expel
the Persians from the coast of the Euxine.
[Footnote 83: The sole vestige of Petra subsists in the writings
of Procopius and Agathias. Most of the towns and castles of
Lazica may be found by comparing their names and position with
the map of Mingrelia, in Lamberti.]
[Footnote 84: See the amusing letters of Pietro della Valle, the
Roman traveler, (Viaggi, tom. ii. 207, 209, 213, 215, 266, 286,
300, tom. iii. p. 54, 127.) In the years 1618, 1619, and 1620, he
conversed with Shah Abbas, and strongly encouraged a design which
might have united Persia and Europe against their common enemy
the Turk.]
[Footnote 85: See Herodotus, (l. i. c. 140, p. 69,) who speaks
with diffidence, Larcher, (tom. i. p. 399 - 401, Notes sur
Herodote,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 11,) and Agathias, (l.
-
p. 61, 62.) This practice, agreeable to the Zendavesta,
(Hyde, de Relig. Pers. c. 34, p. 414 - 421,) demonstrates that
the burial of the Persian kings, (Xenophon, Cyropaed. l. viii. p.
658,) is a Greek fiction, and that their tombs could be no more
than cenotaphs.]
[Footnote *: These seem the same people called Suanians, p. 328.
- M.]
The siege of Petra, which the Roman general, with the aid of
the Lazi, immediately undertook, is one of the most remarkable
actions of the age. The city was seated on a craggy rock, which
hung over the sea, and communicated by a steep and narrow path
with the land. Since the approach was difficult, the attack
might be deemed impossible: the Persian conqueror had
strengthened the fortifications of Justinian; and the places
least inaccessible were covered by additional bulwarks. In this
important fortress, the vigilance of Chosroes had deposited a
magazine of offensive and defensive arms, sufficient for five
times the number, not only of the garrison, but of the besiegers
themselves. The stock of flour and salt provisions was adequate
to the consumption of five years; the want of wine was supplied
by vinegar; and of grain from whence a strong liquor was
extracted, and a triple aqueduct eluded the diligence, and even
the suspicions, of the enemy. But the firmest defence of Petra
was placed in the valor of fifteen hundred Persians, who resisted
the assaults of the Romans, whilst, in a softer vein of earth, a
mine was secretly perforated. The wall, supported by slender and
temporary props, hung tottering in the air; but Dagisteus delayed
the attack till he had secured a specific recompense; and the
town was relieved before the return of his messenger from
Constantinople. The Persian garrison was reduced to four hundred
men, of whom no more than fifty were exempt from sickness or
wounds; yet such had been their inflexible perseverance, that
they concealed their losses from the enemy, by enduring, without
a murmur, the sight and putrefying stench of the dead bodies of
their eleven hundred companions. After their deliverance, the
breaches were hastily stopped with sand-bags; the mine was
replenished with earth; a new wall was erected on a frame of
substantial timber; and a fresh garrison of three thousand men
was stationed at Petra to sustain the labors of a second siege.
The operations, both of the attack and defence, were conducted
with skilful obstinacy; and each party derived useful lessons
from the experience of their past faults. A battering-ram was
invented, of light construction and powerful effect: it was
transported and worked by the hands of forty soldiers; and as the
stones were loosened by its repeated strokes, they were torn with
long iron hooks from the wall. From those walls, a shower of
darts was incessantly poured on the heads of the assailants; but
they were most dangerously annoyed by a fiery composition of
sulphur and bitumen, which in Colchos might with some propriety
be named the oil of Medea. Of six thousand Romans who mounted
the scaling-ladders, their general Bessas was the first, a
gallant veteran of seventy years of age: the courage of their
leader, his fall, and extreme danger, animated the irresistible
effort of his troops; and their prevailing numbers oppressed the
strength, without subduing the spirit, of the Persian garrison.
The fate of these valiant men deserves to be more distinctly
noticed. Seven hundred had perished in the siege, two thousand
three hundred survived to defend the breach. One thousand and
seventy were destroyed with fire and sword in the last assault;
and if seven hundred and thirty were made prisoners, only
eighteen among them were found without the marks of honorable
wounds. The remaining five hundred escaped into the citadel,
which they maintained without any hopes of relief, rejecting the
fairest terms of capitulation and service, till they were lost in
the flames. They died in obedience to the commands of their
prince; and such examples of loyalty and valor might excite their
countrymen to deeds of equal despair and more prosperous event.
The instant demolition of the works of Petra confessed the
astonishment and apprehension of the conqueror.
A Spartan would have praised and pitied the virtue of these
heroic slaves; but the tedious warfare and alternate success of
the Roman and Persian arms cannot detain the attention of
posterity at the foot of Mount Caucasus. The advantages obtained
by the troops of Justinian were more frequent and splendid; but
the forces of the great king were continually supplied, till they
amounted to eight elephants and seventy thousand men, including
twelve thousand Scythian allies, and above three thousand
Dilemites, who descended by their free choice from the hills of
Hyrcania, and were equally formidable in close or in distant
combat. The siege of Archaeopolis, a name imposed or corrupted
by the Greeks, was raised with some loss and precipitation; but
the Persians occupied the passes of Iberia: Colchos was enslaved
by their forts and garrisons; they devoured the scanty sustenance
of the people; and the prince of the Lazi fled into the
mountains. In the Roman camp, faith and discipline were unknown;
and the independent leaders, who were invested with equal power,
disputed with each other the preeminence of vice and corruption.
The Persians followed, without a murmur, the commands of a single
chief, who implicitly obeyed the instructions of their supreme
lord. Their general was distinguished among the heroes of the
East by his wisdom in council, and his valor in the field. The
advanced age of Mermeroes, and the lameness of both his feet,
could not diminish the activity of his mind, or even of his body;
and, whilst he was carried in a litter in the front of battle, he
inspired terror to the enemy, and a just confidence to the
troops, who, under his banners, were always successful. After his
death, the command devolved to Nacoragan, a proud satrap, who, in
a conference with the Imperial chiefs, had presumed to declare
that he disposed of victory as absolutely as of the ring on his
finger. Such presumption was the natural cause and forerunner of
a shameful defeat. The Romans had been gradually repulsed to the
edge of the sea-shore; and their last camp, on the ruins of the
Grecian colony of Phasis, was defended on all sides by strong
intrenchments, the river, the Euxine, and a fleet of galleys.
Despair united their counsels and invigorated their arms: they
withstood the assault of the Persians and the flight of Nacoragan
preceded or followed the slaughter of ten thousand of his bravest
soldiers. He escaped from the Romans to fall into the hands of an
unforgiving master who severely chastised the error of his own
choice: the unfortunate general was flayed alive, and his skin,
stuffed into the human form, was exposed on a mountain; a
dreadful warning to those who might hereafter be intrusted with
the fame and fortune of Persia. ^86 Yet the prudence of Chosroes
insensibly relinquished the prosecution of the Colchian war, in
the just persuasion, that it is impossible to reduce, or, at
least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts
of its inhabitants. The fidelity of Gubazes sustained the most
rigorous trials. He patiently endured the hardships of a savage
life, and rejected with disdain, the specious temptations of the
Persian court. ^* The king of the Lazi had been educated in the
Christian religion; his mother was the daughter of a senator;
during his youth he had served ten years a silentiary of the
Byzantine palace, ^87 and the arrears of an unpaid salary were a
motive of attachment as well as of complaint. But the long
continuance of his sufferings extorted from him a naked
representation of the truth; and truth was an unpardonable libel
on the lieutenants of Justinian, who, amidst the delays of a
ruinous war, had spared his enemies and trampled on his allies.
Their malicious information persuaded the emperor that his
faithless vassal already meditated a second defection: an order
was surprised to send him prisoner to Constantinople; a
treacherous clause was inserted, that he might be lawfully killed
in case of resistance; and Gubazes, without arms, or suspicion of
danger, was stabbed in the security of a friendly interview. In
the first moments of rage and despair, the Colchians would have
sacrificed their country and religion to the gratification of
revenge. But the authority and eloquence of the wiser few
obtained a salutary pause: the victory of the Phasis restored the
terror of the Roman arms, and the emperor was solicitous to
absolve his own name from the imputation of so foul a murder. A
judge of senatorial rank was commissioned to inquire into the
conduct and death of the king of the Lazi. He ascended a stately
tribunal, encompassed by the ministers of justice and punishment:
in the presence of both nations, this extraordinary cause was
pleaded, according to the forms of civil jurisprudence, and some
satisfaction was granted to an injured people, by the sentence
and execution of the meaner criminals. ^88
[Footnote 86: The punishment of flaying alive could not be
introduced into Persia by Sapor, (Brisson, de Regn. Pers. l. ii.
-
578,) nor could it be copied from the foolish tale of Marsyas,
the Phrygian piper, most foolishly quoted as a precedent by
Agathias, (l. iv. p. 132, 133.)]
[Footnote *: According to Agathias, the death of Gubazos preceded
the defeat of Nacoragan. The trial took place after the battle.
- M.]
[Footnote 87: In the palace of Constantinople there were thirty
silentiaries, who were styled hastati, ante fores cubiculi, an
honorable title which conferred the rank, without imposing the
duties, of a senator, (Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. 23. Gothofred.
Comment. tom. ii. p. 129.)]
[Footnote 88: On these judicial orations, Agathias (l. iii. p. 81
- 89, l. iv. p. 108 - 119) lavishes eighteen or twenty pages of
false and florid rhetoric. His ignorance or carelessness
overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica - his
former revolt.
Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias are not
judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is a
deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of
adhering to the Roman, or embracing the Persian alliance. - M.]]
In peace, the king of Persia continually sought the
pretences of a rupture: but no sooner had he taken up arms, than
he expressed his desire of a safe and honorable treaty. During
the fiercest hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a
deceitful negotiation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes,
that whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and
contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honors for his own
ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus
assumed the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted
his younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the
pale and reflected splendor of the moon. This gigantic style was
supported by the pomp and eloquence of Isdigune, one of the royal
chamberlains. His wife and daughters, with a train of eunuchs
and camels, attended the march of the ambassador: two satraps
with golden diadems were numbered among his followers: he was
guarded by five hundred horse, the most valiant of the Persians;
and the Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than
twenty of this martial and hostile caravan. When Isdigune had
saluted the emperor, and delivered his presents, he passed ten
months at Constantinople without discussing any serious affairs.
Instead of being confined to his palace, and receiving food and
water from the hands of his keepers, the Persian ambassador,
without spies or guards, was allowed to visit the capital; and
the freedom of conversation and trade enjoyed by his domestics,
offended the prejudices of an age which rigorously practised the
law of nations, without confidence or courtesy. ^89 By an
unexampled indulgence, his interpreter, a servant below the
notice of a Roman magistrate, was seated, at the table of
Justinian, by the side of his master: and one thousand pounds of
gold might be assigned for the expense of his journey and
entertainment. Yet the repeated labors of Isdigune could procure
only a partial and imperfect truce, which was always purchased
with the treasures, and renewed at the solicitation, of the
Byzantine court Many years of fruitless desolation elapsed before
Justinian and Chosroes were compelled, by mutual lassitude, to
consult the repose of their declining age. At a conference held
on the frontier, each party, without expecting to gain credit,
displayed the power, the justice, and the pacific intentions, of
their respective sovereigns; but necessity and interest dictated
the treaty of peace, which was concluded for a term of fifty
years, diligently composed in the Greek and Persian languages,
and attested by the seals of twelve interpreters. The liberty of
commerce and religion was fixed and defined; the allies of the
emperor and the great king were included in the same benefits and
obligations; and the most scrupulous precautions were provided to
prevent or determine the accidental disputes that might arise on
the confines of two hostile nations. After twenty years of
destructive though feeble war, the limits still remained without
alteration; and Chosroes was persuaded to renounce his dangerous
claim to the possession or sovereignty of Colchos and its
dependent states. Rich in the accumulated treasures of the East,
he extorted from the Romans an annual payment of thirty thousand
pieces of gold; and the smallness of the sum revealed the
disgrace of a tribute in its naked deformity. In a previous
debate, the chariot of Sesostris, and the wheel of fortune, were
applied by one of the ministers of Justinian, who observed that
the reduction of Antioch, and some Syrian cities, had elevated
beyond measure the vain and ambitious spirit of the Barbarian.
"You are mistaken," replied the modest Persian: "the king of
kings, the lord of mankind, looks down with contempt on such
petty acquisitions; and of the ten nations, vanquished by his
invincible arms, he esteems the Romans as the least formidable."
^90 According to the Orientals, the empire of Nushirvan extended
from Ferganah, in Transoxiana, to Yemen or Arabia Faelix. He
subdued the rebels of Hyrcania, reduced the provinces of Cabul
and Zablestan on the banks of the Indus, broke the power of the
Euthalites, terminated by an honorable treaty the Turkish war,
and admitted the daughter of the great khan into the number of
his lawful wives. Victorious and respected among the princes of
Asia, he gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to
the ambassadors of the world. Their gifts or tributes, arms,
rich garments, gems, slaves or aromatics, were humbly presented
at the foot of his throne; and he condescended to accept from the
king of India ten quintals of the wood of aloes, a maid seven
cubits in height, and a carpet softer than silk, the skin, as it
was reported, of an extraordinary serpent. ^91
[Footnote 89: Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic
court of Ravenna (Goth. l. i. c. 7;) and foreign ambassadors have
been treated with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey,
(Busbequius, epist. iii. p. 149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage
D'Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A. de Lange, in Bell's
Travels, vol. ii. p. 189 - 311.)]
[Footnote 90: The negotiations and treaties between Justinian and
Chosroes are copiously explained by Procopius, (Persie, l. ii. c.
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