he ambassadors, or rather spies, of the Persian monarch. The
plain between Hierapolis and the river was covered with the squadrons of
cavalry, six thousand hunters, tall and robust, who pursued their
game without the apprehension of an enemy. On the opposite bank the
ambassadors descried a thousand Armenian horse, who appeared to guard
the passage of the Euphrates. The tent of Belisarius was of the coarsest
linen, the simple equipage of a warrior who disdained the luxury of the
East. Around his tent, the nations who marched under his standard were
arranged with skilful confusion. The Thracians and Illyrians were posted
in the front, the Heruli and Goths in the centre; the prospect was
closed by the Moors and Vandals, and their loose array seemed to
multiply their numbers. Their dress was light and active; one soldier
carried a whip, another a sword, a third a bow, a fourth, perhaps,
a battle axe, and the whole picture exhibited the intrepidity of the
troops and the vigilance of the general. Chosroes was deluded by
the address, and awed by the genius, of the lieutenant of Justinian.
Conscious of the merit, and ignorant of the force, of his antagonist,
he dreaded a decisive battle in a distant country, from whence not
a Persian might return to relate the melancholy tale. The great king
hastened to repass the Euphrates; and Belisarius pressed his retreat, by
affecting to oppose a measure so salutary to the empire, and which could
scarcely have been prevented by an army of a hundred thousand men. Envy
might suggest to ignorance and pride, that the public enemy had been
suffered to escape: but the African and Gothic triumphs are less
glorious than this safe and bloodless victory, in which neither fortune,
nor the valor of the soldiers, can subtract any part of the general's
renown. The second removal of Belisarius from the Persian to the Italian
war revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or
supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals, without
concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an army of thirty
thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals, their ranks, and their
ensigns. Four thousand Persians, intrenched in the camp of Dubis,
vanquished, almost without a combat, this disorderly multitude; their
useless arms were scattered along the road, and their horses sunk under
the fatigue of their rapid flight. But the Arabs of the Roman party
prevailed over their brethren; t