monarch, Tiridates. A large addition to the
Armenian territory out of the Median is doubtless intended; but it is
quite impossible to determine definitely the extent or exact character
of the cession.

(iv.) The fourth article of the treaty is sufficiently intelligible.
So long as Armenia had been a fief of the Persian empire, it naturally
belonged to Persia to exercise influence over the neighboring Iberia,
which corresponded closely to the modern Georgia, intervening between
Armenia and the Caucasus. Now, when Armenia had become a dependency
of Rome, the protectorate hitherto exercised by the Sassanian princes
passed naturally to the Caesars; and with the protectorate was bound up
the right of granting investiture to the kingdom, whereby the protecting
power was secured against the establishment on the throne of an
unfriendly person. Iberia was not herself a state of much strength; but
her power of opening or shutting the passes of the Caucasus gave her
considerable importance, since by the admission of the Tatar hordes,
which were always ready to pour in from the plains of the North, she
could suddenly change the whole face of affairs in North-Western Asia,
and inflict a terrible revenge on any enemy that had provoked her. It
is true that she might also bring suffering on her friends, or even
on herself, for the hordes, once admitted, were apt to make little
distinction between friend and foe; but prudential considerations did
not always prevail over the promptings of passion, and there had been
occasions when, in spite of them, the gates had been thrown open and
the barbarians invited to enter. It was well for Rome to have it in her
power to check this peril. Her own strength and the tranquillity of
her eastern provinces were confirmed and secured by the right which she
(practically) obtained of nominating the Iberian monarchs.

(v.) The fifth article of the treaty, having been rejected by Narses
and then withdrawn by Sicorius, need not detain us long. By limiting the
commercial intercourse of the two nations to a single city, and that a
city within their own dominions, the Romans would have obtained enormous
commercial advantages. While their own merchants remained quietly at
home, the foreign merchants would have had the trouble and expense of
bringing their commodities to market a distance of sixty miles from the
Persian frontier and of above a hundred from any considerable town; they
would of course have been