Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/66

44 THE DECLINE AND FALL would teacli the most loyal of his subjects to abhor the name and authority of their sovereign. The sincerity of this advice was punished with death, the murmurs of the cities were despised, their tumults were quelled by military execution ; the intermediate powers between the throne and the people were abolished ; and the childish vanity of Hormouz, who affected the daily use of the tiara, was fond of declaring that he alone would be the judge as well as the master of his kingdom. In every word and in every action, the son of Nushirvan degenerated from the virtues of his father. His avarice defrauded the troops ; his jealous cajmce degraded the satraps ; the palace, the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris, were stained with the blood of the innocent ; and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his cruelty, he sometimes conde- scended to observe that the fears of the Persians would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred must terminate in rebellion ; but he forgot that his own guilt and folly had in- spired the sentiments which he deplored, and prepared the event which he so justly apprehended. Exasperated by long and hopeless oppression, the provinces of Babylon, Susa, and Carmania erected the standard of revolt ; and the princes of Arabia, India, and Scythia refused the customary tribute to the unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of Meso})otamia and Assyria ; one of their generals professed him- self the disciple of Scipio ; and the soldiers were animated by a miraculous image of Christ, whose mild aspect should never have been displayed in the front of battle.^** At the same time, the eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great khan.^* [c. A.D. 588] who passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand Turks. The imprudent Hormouz accepted their perfidious and formidable aid ; the cities of Khorasan or Bactriana were commanded to open their gates ; the march of the barbarians towards the mountains of Hyrcania revealed the power by the support of the lower classes. It was a bold policjr, too bold for his talents.] '3 See the imitation of Scipio in Theophylact, 1. i. c. 14; the image of Christ, 1. ii. c. 3. Hereafter I shall speak more amply of the Christian imuges — I had almost said iduh. This, if I am not mistaken, is the oldest uxeipo7roi,|Tos of divine manufacture ; but in the next thousand years many others issued from the same work-shop. 1 [He is nanieil Shaba by llisham, apud Tabari (Ncildeke, p. 269); and kemusat identified him with Chao-wu, a khan who is mentioned at this time in the Chinese annals.^