ntent with
such liberal reception, departed from Constantinople, and Valentin, one
of the emperor's guards, was sent with a similar character to their camp
at the foot of Mount Caucasus. As their destruction or their success
must be alike advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade
the enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and
promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives, who
fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and Borysthenes, and
boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and Germany, violating the
law of nations, and abusing the rights of victory. Before ten years
had elapsed, their camps were seated on the Danube and the Elbe, many
Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were obliterated from the earth, and the
remainder of their tribes are found, as tributaries and vassals, under
the standard of the Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title of their king,
still affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and Justinian
entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia, to balance the
prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue or treachery of an Avar
betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious designs of their countrymen;
and they loudly complained of the timid, though jealous policy, of
detaining their ambassadors, and denying the arms which they had been
allowed to purchase in the capital of the empire.

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors may be
ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors of the
Avars. The immense distance which eluded their arms could not extinguish
their resentment: the Turkish ambassadors pursued the footsteps of
the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine
and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor of
Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of
rebels and fugitives. Even commerce had some share in this remarkable
negotiation: and the Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the
Turks, embraced the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the
Caspian, a new road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman
empire. The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped
the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand: their silk was contemptuously
burnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia, with a suspicion of
poison; and the great khan permitted his faithful vassal Maniach, the
prince of the Sogdoites, to propose, at