n founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was
fortified by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of
iron. The _Iberian_ gates are formed by a narrow passage of six miles
in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern side of Iberia, or
Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the Tanais and the Volga. A
fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps, or one of his successors,
to command that important pass, had descended by right of conquest or
inheritance to a prince of the Huns, who offered it for a moderate
price to the emperor; but while Anastasius paused, while he timorously
computed the cost and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed,
and Cabades forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest and
most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains was covered
by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which has excited the
curiosity of an Arabian caliph and a Russian conqueror. According to a
recent description, huge stones, seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet
in length or height, are artificially joined without iron or cement, to
compose a wall, which runs above three hundred miles from the shores
of Derbend, over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and
Georgia. Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy
of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his son, so
formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so dear to the
Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The Persian monarch held
in his hand the keys both of peace and war; but he stipulated, in every
treaty, that Justinian should contribute to the expense of a common
barrier, which equally protected the two empires from the inroads of the
Scythians.

VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens and the consulship of
Rome, which had given so many sages and heroes to mankind. Both these
institutions had long since degenerated from their primitive glory; yet
some reproach may be justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a
prince, by whose hand such venerable ruins were destroyed.

Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of Ionia
and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the patrimony of a
city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, within
the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense
of the di