In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich diadem was presented to the fugitive prince, with an inestimable gift of jewels and gold; a powerful army was assembled on the frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under the command of the valiant and faithful Narses, and this general, of his own nation and his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris and never to sheath his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne of his ancestors. After the junction of the imperial troops, which Bahram vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two battles on the banks of the Zab and the confines of Media. The Romans, with the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty thousand, while the whole force of the usurper did not exceed forty thousand men; the two generals signalised their valour and ability, but the victory was finally determined by the prevalence of numbers and discipline. With the remnant of a broken army, Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of the Oxus; the enmity of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days were shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons—the stings of remorse and despair and the bitter remembrance of lost glory. Yet the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of Bahram; and some excellent laws have prolonged the duration of his troubled and transitory reign.
The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and executions; and the music of the royal banquet was often disturbed by the groans of dying or mutilated criminals. A band of a thousand Romans, who continued to guard the person of Chosroes, proclaimed his confidence in the fidelity of the strangers; his growing strength enabled him to dismiss this unpopular aid, but he steadily professed the same gratitude and reverence to his adopted father; and till the death of Maurice the peace and alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. Yet the mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased with costly and important gifts; the strong cities of Martyropolis and Dara were restored, and the Pers-Armenians became the willing subjects of an empire whose eastern limit was extended, beyond the example of former times, as far as the banks of the Araxes and the neighbourhood of the Caspian. A pious hope was indulged that the church, as well as the state, might triumph in this revolution; but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and eloquence of the magi; if he was armed with philosophic indifference, he accommodated his belief, or rather his professions, to the various circumstances of an exile and a sovereign.
THE AVARS
[570-602 A.D.]
While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the prospect of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the departure of the Lombards and the ruin of the Gepidæ, the balance of power was destroyed on the Danube; and the Avars spread their permanent dominion from the foot of the Alps to the sea coast of the Euxine. The reign of Baian is the brightest era of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied the rustic palace of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and policy; but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the greatness and novelty of the original. The pride of the second Justin, of Tiberius and Maurice, was humbled by a proud barbarian, more prompt to inflict than exposed to suffer the injuries of war; and as often as Asia was threatened by the Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous inroads or costly friendship of the Avars.
When the Roman envoys approached the presence of the chagan, they were commanded to wait at the door of his tent till, at the end perhaps of ten or twelve days, he condescended to admit them. If the substance or the style of their message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with real or affected fury, their own dignity and that of their prince; their baggage was plundered, and their lives were only saved by the promise of a richer present and a more respectful address. But his sacred ambassadors enjoyed and abused an unbounded license in the midst of Constantinople; they urged, with importunate clamours, the increase of tribute or the restitution of captives and deserters; and the majesty of the empire was almost equally degraded by a base compliance, or by the false and fearful excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands.
In the language of a barbarian without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; yet he was not inferior to the most civilised nations in the refinements of dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the chagan asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces. The plains of lower Hungary were covered with the Avar horse, and a fleet of large boats was built in the Hercynian wood, to descend the Danube and to transport into the Savus the materials of a bridge. But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded the conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and baffled his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn oath that his views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by his sword, the symbol of the god of war, that he did not, as the enemy of Rome, construct a bridge upon the Savus. “If I violate my oath,” pursued the intrepid Baian, “may I myself, and the last of my nation, perish by the sword; may the heavens and fire, the deity of the heavens, fall upon our heads! may the forests and mountains bury us in their ruins! and the Savus returning, against the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us in his angry waters!”
After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly inquired what oath was most sacred and venerable among the Christians, what guilt of perjury it was most dangerous to incur. The bishop of Singidunum presented the Gospel, which the chagan received with devout reverence. “I swear,” said he, “by the God who has spoken in this holy book, that I have neither falsehood on my tongue nor treachery in my heart.” As soon as he rose from his knees, he accelerated the labour of the bridge, and despatched an envoy to proclaim what he no longer wished to conceal. “Inform the emperor,” said the perfidious Baian, “that Sirmium is invested on every side. Advise his prudence to withdraw the citizens and their effects, and to resign a city which it is now impossible to relieve or defend.”
Without the hope of relief, the defence of Sirmium was prolonged above three years; the walls were still untouched; but famine was enclosed within the walls, till a merciful capitulation allowed the escape of the naked and hungry inhabitants. Singidunum, at the distance of fifty miles, experienced a more cruel fate; the buildings were razed, and the vanquished people was condemned to servitude and exile. Yet the ruins of Sirmium are no longer visible; the advantageous situation of Singidunum soon attracted a new colony of Slavonians, and the conflux of the Savus and Danube is still guarded by the fortifications of Belgrade, or the White City, so often and so obstinately disputed by the Christian and Turkish arms. From Belgrade to the walls of Constantinople, a line may be measured of six hundred miles; that line was marked with flames and with blood; the horses of the Avars were alternately bathed in the Euxine and the Adriatic; and the Roman pontiff, alarmed by the approach of a more savage enemy, was reduced to cherish the Lombards as the protectors of Italy. The despair of a captive, whom his country refused to ransom, disclosed to the Avars the invention and practice of military engines; but in the first attempts, they were rudely framed and awkwardly managed; and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Berœa, of Philippopolis and Hadrianopolis, soon exhausted the skill and patience of the besiegers.
The warfare of Baian was that of a Tatar; yet his mind was susceptible of a humane and generous sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary waters had restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and the Romans confessed that their starving army was fed and dismissed by the liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary, Poland, and Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the Oder; and his new subjects were divided and transplanted by the jealous policy of the conqueror. The eastern regions of Germany, which had been left vacant by the emigration of the Vandals, were replenished with Slavonian colonists; the same tribes are discovered in the neighbourhood of the Adriatic and of the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself the Illyrian cities of Neisse and Lissa are again found in the heart of Silesia. In the disposition both of his troops and provinces the chagan exposed the vassals, whose lives he disregarded, to the first assault; and the swords of the enemy were blunted before they encountered the native valour of the Avars.