uburbs of
Pera and Galata to the Blachernae and seven towers; and the inhabitants
descried with terror the flaming signals of the European and Asiatic
shores. In the mean while, the magistrates of Constantinople repeatedly
strove to purchase the retreat of the chagan; but their deputies were
rejected and insulted; and he suffered the patricians to stand before
his throne, while the Persian envoys, in silk robes, were seated by his
side. "You see," said the haughty Barbarian, "the proofs of my perfect
union with the great king; and his lieutenant is ready to send into
my camp a select band of three thousand warriors. Presume no longer to
tempt your master with a partial and inadequate ransom your wealth and
your city are the only presents worthy of my acceptance. For yourselves,
I shall permit you to depart, each with an under-garment and a shirt;
and, at my entreaty, my friend Sarbar will not refuse a passage through
his lines. Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has
left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of the
Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into the air like birds,
unless like fishes you could dive into the waves." During ten successive
days, the capital was assaulted by the Avars, who had made some progress
in the science of attack; they advanced to sap or batter the wall,
under the cover of the impenetrable tortoise; their engines discharged
a perpetual volley of stones and darts; and twelve lofty towers of wood
exalted the combatants to the height of the neighboring ramparts. But
the senate and people were animated by the spirit of Heraclius, who
had detached to their relief a body of twelve thousand cuirassiers; the
powers of fire and mechanics were used with superior art and success in
the defence of Constantinople; and the galleys, with two and three ranks
of oars, commanded the Bosphorus, and rendered the Persians the idle
spectators of the defeat of their allies. The Avars were repulsed; a
fleet of Sclavonian canoes was destroyed in the harbor; the vassals
of the chagan threatened to desert, his provisions were exhausted, and
after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a slow and formidable
retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this signal deliverance to
the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ would surely have condemned
their inhuman murder of the Persian envoys, who were entitled to the
rights of humanity, if they were not protected by the laws o