acquired by the victorious Moslems." 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.

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, has recorded the fall of
the Sassanian dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. 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: 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 often repeat, that the charge of the
Arabs was not, like that of the Greeks and Romans, the effort of a firm
and compact infantry: their military force was chiefly formed of cavalry
and archers; and the engagement, which was often interrupted and often
renewed by single combats and flying skirmishes, might be protracted
without any decisive event to the continuance of several days. The
periods of the battle of Cadesia were distinguished by their peculiar
appellations. The first, from the well-timed appearance of six thousand
of the Syrian brethren, was denominated the day of _succor_. The day of
_concussion_ might express the disorder of one, or perhaps of both,
of the contending armies. The third, a nocturnal tumult, received the
whimsical name of the night of _barking_, from the discordant clamors,
which were compared to the inarticulate sounds of the fiercest animals.
The morning of the succeedin