CHAPTER VIII
BAR-SOMA AND ACACIUS
Yezdegerd was succeeded on the throne by Piroz. Not altogether peaceably, for there was a rival claimant in the person of Prince Hormizdas, and he was only overthrown by Turkish help—help that had to be paid for by the cession of a frontier fortress. Piroz, however, succeeded, and ruled for twenty-eight years. Christian writers give him a high character, in that he was (they declare[1]) ruled in all things by the advice of a Christian of whom we shall hear much—Bar-soma of Nisibis. Bar-soma was a favourite of Piroz, no doubt, and his adviser in some things, and no very good adviser either. Still, it may be doubted whether the power of the Christian counsellor was as great as other Christians thought, particularly as they always tend to believe that a man in any post of authority is practically omnipotent. If the power of Bar-soma was anything like as great as Christians believed, Magians must have judged the precedent a very bad one, for no king of the Sassanid house was so consistently unlucky as was Piroz. He was unfortunate in war abroad, for in fighting with the Turks (a war brought on solely by his own perfidy[2]) he was manœuvred into a hopeless posi-
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