of Barbalissus, and defined the space of three
days for the entire passage of his numerous host. After his return,
he founded, at the distance of one day's journey from the palace of
Ctesiphon, a new city, which perpetuated the joint names of Chosroes
and of Antioch. The Syrian captives recognized the form and situation
of their native abodes: baths and a stately circus were constructed for
their use; and a colony of musicians and charioteers revived in Assyria
the pleasures of a Greek capital. By the munificence of the royal
founder, a liberal allowance was assigned to these fortunate exiles; and
they enjoyed the singular privilege of bestowing freedom on the slaves
whom they acknowledged as their kinsmen. Palestine, and the holy wealth
of Jerusalem, were the next objects that attracted the ambition, or
rather the avarice, of Chosroes. Constantinople, and the palace of the
Caesars, no longer appeared impregnable or remote; and his aspiring fancy
already covered Asia Minor with the troops, and the Black Sea with the
navies, of Persia.

These hopes might have been realized, if the conqueror of Italy had
not been seasonably recalled to the defence of the East. While Chosroes
pursued his ambitious designs on the coast of the Euxine, Belisarius,
at the head of an army without pay or discipline, encamped beyond the
Euphrates, within six miles of Nisibis. He meditated, by a skilful
operation, to draw the Persians from their impregnable citadel, and
improving his advantage in the field, either to intercept their retreat,
or perhaps to enter the gates with the flying Barbarians. He advanced
one day's journey on the territories of Persia, reduced the fortress of
Sisaurane, and sent the governor, with eight hundred chosen horsemen,
to serve the emperor in his Italian wars. He detached Arethas and his
Arabs, supported by twelve hundred Romans, to pass the Tigris, and to
ravage the harvests of Assyria, a fruitful province, long exempt from
the calamities of war. But the plans of Belisarius were disconcerted by
the untractable spirit of Arethas, who neither returned to the camp,
nor sent any intelligence of his motions. The Roman general was fixed
in anxious expectation to the same spot; the time of action elapsed, the
ardent sun of Mesopotamia inflamed with fevers the blood of his European
soldiers; and the stationary troops and officers of Syria affected to
tremble for the safety of their defenceless cities. Yet this diversion
had