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chap, xlii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 383 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 danger- ous and mercenary aid of the Barbarians who had slain his father. His 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, 45 who asserted the community of women 40 and the equality of mankind, whilst he appropriated the richest lands and most beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. The view of these disorders, which had been fomented by his laws and example, 47 embittered the declining age of the Persian monarch ; and his fears were increased by the consciousness of his design to reverse the natural and customary order of succession, in favour of his third and most favoured son, so famous under the names of Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the youth more illustrious in the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous that he should be adopted by the emperor Justin ; the hope of peace inclined the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal ; and Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance of his Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the advice of the quaestor Proclus : a difficulty was 45 See d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient, p. 568, 929) ; Hyde (de Religione Vet. Per- sarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291) ; Poeock (Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71) ; Eutychius (Annal. torn. ii. p. 176) ; Texeira (in Stevens, Hist, of Persia, 1. i. c. 34). [See further Tabari, ed. Noldeke, p. 141 sqq., and Noldeke's fourth excursus, p. 455 sqq. The doctrine preached by Mazdak was not invented by him but was due to an unknown namesake of the great Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). Its religious character distinguishes Mazdakism from all modern socialistic theories. Cobad's object in adopting this doctrine was to damage the nobility by undermining the in- stitution of the family and the laws of inheritance.] 46 The fame of the new law for the community of women was soon propagated in Syria (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. iii. p. 402) and Greece (Procop. Persic. 1. i. c. 5). 47 He offered his own wife and sister to the prophet ; but the prayers of Nu- shirvan saved his mother, and the indignant monarch never forgave the humiliation to which his filial piety had stooped : pedes tuos deosculatus (said he to Mazdak), cujus fEetor adhue nares oecupat (Poeock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 71).