torious Moslems." [17] But the
invincible Caled was soon transferred to the Syrian war: the invasion
of the Persian frontier was conducted by less active or less prudent
commanders: the Saracens were repulsed with loss in the passage of
the Euphrates; and, though they chastised the insolent pursuit of the
Magians, their remaining forces still hovered in the desert of Babylon.
[1711]

[Footnote 16: Pocock will explain the chronology, (Specimen Hist.
Arabum, p. 66-74,) and D'Anville the geography, (l'Euphrate, et le
Tigre, p. 125,) of the dynasty of the Almondars. The English scholar
understood more Arabic than the mufti of Aleppo, (Ockley, vol. ii. p.
34: ) the French geographer is equally at home in every age and every
climate of the world.]

[Footnote 1611: Eichhorn and Silvestre de Sacy have written on the
obscure history of the Mondars.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Fecit et Chaled plurima in hoc anno praelia, in quibus
vicerunt Muslimi, et infidelium immensa multitudine occisa spolia
infinita et innumera sunt nacti, (Hist. Saracenica, p. 20.) The
Christian annalist slides into the national and compendious term of
infidels, and I often adopt (I hope without scandal) this characteristic
mode of expression.]

[Footnote 1711: Compare throughout Malcolm, vol. ii. p. 136.--M.]

The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a moment their
intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence of the priests and
nobles, their queen Arzema was deposed; the sixth of the transient
usurpers, who had arisen and vanished in three or four years since the
death of Chosroes, and the retreat of Heraclius. Her tiara was placed
on the head of Yezdegerd, the grandson of Chosroes; and the same aera,
which coincides with an astronomical period, [18] has recorded the fall
of the Sassanian dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. [19] The youth
and inexperience of the prince (he was only fifteen years of age)
declined a perilous encounter: the royal standard was delivered into the
hands of his general Rustam; and a remnant of thirty thousand regular
troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to one hundred and twenty
thousand subjects, or allies, of the great king. The Moslems, whose
numbers were reenforced from twelve to thirty thousand, had pitched
their camp in the plains of Cadesia: [20] and their line, though it
consisted of fewer men, could produce more soldiers, than the unwieldy
host of the infidels. I shall here observe, what I must o