Chapter XLII: State Of The Barbaric World.—Part III

The son of Kobad found his kingdom involved in a war with the
successor of Constantine; and the anxiety of his domestic
situation inclined him to grant the suspension of arms, which
Justinian was impatient to purchase. Chosroes saw the Roman
ambassadors at his feet. He accepted eleven thousand pounds of
gold, as the price of an endless or indefinite peace: 57 some
mutual exchanges were regulated; the Persian assumed the guard of
the gates of Caucasus, and the demolition of Dara was suspended,
on condition that it should never be made the residence of the
general of the East. This interval of repose had been solicited,
and was diligently improved, by the ambition of the emperor: his
African conquests were the first fruits of the Persian treaty;
and the avarice of Chosroes was soothed by a large portion of the
spoils of Carthage, which his ambassadors required in a tone of
pleasantry and under the color of friendship. 58 But the trophies
of Belisarius disturbed the slumbers of the great king; and he
heard with astonishment, envy, and fear, that Sicily, Italy, and
Rome itself, had been reduced, in three rapid campaigns, to the
obedience of Justinian. Unpractised in the art of violating
treaties, he secretly excited his bold and subtle vassal
Almondar. That prince of the Saracens, who resided at Hira, 59
had not been included in the general peace, and still waged an
obscure war against his rival Arethas, the chief of the tribe of
Gassan, and confederate of the empire. The subject of their
dispute was an extensive sheep-walk in the desert to the south of
Palmyra. An immemorial tribute for the license of pasture
appeared to attest the rights of Almondar, while the Gassanite
appealed to the Latin name of strata, a paved road, as an
unquestionable evidence of the sovereignty and labors of the
Romans. 60 The two monarchs supported the cause of their
respective vassals; and the Persian Arab, without expecting the
event of a slow and doubtful arbitration, enriched his flying
camp with the spoil and captives of Syria. Instead of repelling
the arms, Justinian attempted to seduce the fidelity of Almondar,
while he called from the extremities of the earth the nations of
Aethiopia and Scythia to invade the dominions of his rival. But
the aid of such allies was distant and precarious, and the
discovery of this hostile correspondence justified the complaints
of the Goths and Armenians, who implored, almost at the same
time, the protection of Chosroes. The descendants of Arsaces, who
were still numerous in Armenia, had been provoked to assert the
last relics of national freedom and hereditary rank; and the
ambassadors of Vitiges had secretly traversed the empire to
expose the instant, and almost inevitable, danger of the kingdom
of Italy. Their representations were uniform, weighty, and
effectual. “We stand before your throne, the advocates of your
interest as well as of our own. The ambitious and faithless
Justinian aspires to be the sole master of the world. Since the
endless peace, which betrayed the common freedom of mankind, that
prince, your ally in words, your enemy in actions, has alike
insulted his friends and foes, and has filled the earth with
blood and confusion. Has he not violated the privileges of
Armenia, the independence of Colchos, and the wild liberty of the
Tzanian mountains? Has he not usurped, with equal avidity, the
city of Bosphorus on the frozen Maeotis, and the vale of
palm-trees on the shores of the Red Sea? The Moors, the Vandals,
the Goths, have been successively oppressed, and each nation has
calmly remained the spectator of their neighbor’s ruin. Embrace,
O king! the favorable moment; the East is left without defence,
while the armies of Justinian and his renowned general are
detained in the distant regions of the West. If you hesitate or
delay, Belisarius and his victorious troops will soon return from
the Tyber to the Tigris, and Persia may enjoy the wretched
consolation of being the last devoured.” 61 By such arguments,
Chosroes was easily persuaded to imitate the example which he
condemned: but the Persian, ambitious of military fame, disdained
the inactive warfare of a rival, who issued his sanguinary
commands from the secure station of the Byzantine palace.

57 (return) [ The endless peace (Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 21)
was concluded or ratified in the vith year, and iiid consulship,
of Justinian, (A.D. 533, between January 1 and April 1. Pagi,
tom. ii. p. 550.) Marcellinus, in his Chronicle, uses the style
of Medes and Persians.]

58 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 26.]

59 (return) [ Almondar, king of Hira, was deposed by Kobad, and
restored by Nushirvan. His mother, from her beauty, was surnamed
Celestial Water, an appellation which became hereditary, and was
extended for a more noble cause (liberality in famine) to the
Arab princes of Syria, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 69, 70.)]

60 (return) [ Procopius, Persic. l. ii. c. 1. We are ignorant of
the origin and object of this strata, a paved road of ten days’
journey from Auranitis to Babylonia. (See a Latin note in
Delisle’s Map Imp. Orient.) Wesseling and D’Anville are silent.]

61 (return) [ I have blended, in a short speech, the two orations
of the Arsacides of Armenia and the Gothic ambassadors.
Procopius, in his public history, feels, and makes us feel, that
Justinian was the true author of the war, (Persic. l. ii. c. 2,
3.)]

Whatever might be the provocations of Chosroes, he abused the
confidence of treaties; and the just reproaches of dissimulation
and falsehood could only be concealed by the lustre of his
victories. 62 The Persian army, which had been assembled in the
plains of Babylon, prudently declined the strong cities of
Mesopotamia, and followed the western bank of the Euphrates, till
the small, though populous, town of Dura 6211 presumed to arrest
the progress of the great king. The gates of Dura, by treachery
and surprise, were burst open; and as soon as Chosroes had
stained his cimeter with the blood of the inhabitants, he
dismissed the ambassador of Justinian to inform his master in
what place he had left the enemy of the Romans. The conqueror
still affected the praise of humanity and justice; and as he
beheld a noble matron with her infant rudely dragged along the
ground, he sighed, he wept, and implored the divine justice to
punish the author of these calamities. Yet the herd of twelve
thousand captives was ransomed for two hundred pounds of gold;
the neighboring bishop of Sergiopolis pledged his faith for the
payment: and in the subsequent year the unfeeling avarice of
Chosroes exacted the penalty of an obligation which it was
generous to contract and impossible to discharge. He advanced
into the heart of Syria: but a feeble enemy, who vanished at his
approach, disappointed him of the honor of victory; and as he
could not hope to establish his dominion, the Persian king
displayed in this inroad the mean and rapacious vices of a
robber. Hierapolis, Berrhaea or Aleppo, Apamea and Chalcis, were
successively besieged: they redeemed their safety by a ransom of
gold or silver, proportioned to their respective strength and
opulence; and their new master enforced, without observing, the
terms of capitulation. Educated in the religion of the Magi, he
exercised, without remorse, the lucrative trade of sacrilege;
and, after stripping of its gold and gems a piece of the true
cross, he generously restored the naked relic to the devotion of
the Christians of Apamea. No more than fourteen years had elapsed
since Antioch was ruined by an earthquake; 6212 but the queen of
the East, the new Theopolis, had been raised from the ground by
the liberality of Justinian; and the increasing greatness of the
buildings and the people already erased the memory of this recent
disaster. On one side, the city was defended by the mountain, on
the other by the River Orontes; but the most accessible part was
commanded by a superior eminence: the proper remedies were
rejected, from the despicable fear of discovering its weakness to
the enemy; and Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, refused to trust
his person and dignity within the walls of a besieged city. The
people of Antioch had inherited the vain and satirical genius of
their ancestors: they were elated by a sudden reenforcement of
six thousand soldiers; they disdained the offers of an easy
capitulation and their intemperate clamors insulted from the
ramparts the majesty of the great king. Under his eye the Persian
myriads mounted with scaling-ladders to the assault; the Roman
mercenaries fled through the opposite gate of Daphne; and the
generous assistance of the youth of Antioch served only to
aggravate the miseries of their country. As Chosroes, attended by
the ambassadors of Justinian, was descending from the mountain,
he affected, in a plaintive voice, to deplore the obstinacy and
ruin of that unhappy people; but the slaughter still raged with
unrelenting fury; and the city, at the command of a Barbarian,
was delivered to the flames. The cathedral of Antioch was indeed
preserved by the avarice, not the piety, of the conqueror: a more
honorable exemption was granted to the church of St. Julian, and
the quarter of the town where the ambassadors resided; some
distant streets were saved by the shifting of the wind, and the
walls still subsisted to protect, and soon to betray, their new
inhabitants. Fanaticism had defaced the ornaments of Daphne, but
Chosroes breathed a purer air amidst her groves and fountains;
and some idolaters in his train might sacrifice with impunity to
the nymphs of that elegant retreat. Eighteen miles below Antioch,
the River Orontes falls into the Mediterranean. The haughty
Persian visited the term of his conquests; and, after bathing
alone in the sea, he offered a solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving
to the sun, or rather to the Creator of the sun, whom the Magi
adored. If this act of superstition offended the prejudices of
the Syrians, they were pleased by the courteous and even eager
attention with which he assisted at the games of the circus; and
as Chosroes had heard that the blue faction was espoused by the
emperor, his peremptory command secured the victory of the green
charioteer. From the discipline of his camp the people derived
more solid consolation; and they interceded in vain for the life
of a soldier who had too faithfully copied the rapine of the just
Nushirvan. At length, fatigued, though unsatiated, with the spoil
of Syria, 6213 he slowly moved to the Euphrates, formed a
temporary bridge in the neighborhood 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.

62 (return) [ The invasion of Syria, the ruin of Antioch, &c.,
are related in a full and regular series by Procopius, (Persic.
l. ii. c. 5—14.) Small collateral aid can be drawn from the
Orientals: yet not they, but D’Herbelot himself, (p. 680,) should
blush when he blames them for making Justinian and Nushirvan
contemporaries. On the geography of the seat of war, D’Anville
(l’Euphrate et le Tigre) is sufficient and satisfactory.]

6211 (return) [ It is Sura in Procopius. Is it a misprint in
Gibbon?—M.]

6212 (return) [ Joannes Lydus attributes the easy capture of
Antioch to the want of fortifications which had not been restored
since the earthquake, l. iii. c. 54. p. 246.—M.]

6213 (return) [ Lydus asserts that he carried away all the
statues, pictures, and marbles which adorned the city, l. iii. c.
54, p. 246.—M.]

These hopes might have been realized, if the conqueror of Italy
had not been seasonably recalled to the defence of the East. 63
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 fevors 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 already succeeded in
forcing Chosroes to return with loss and precipitation; and if
the skill of Belisarius had been seconded by discipline and
valor, his success might have satisfied the sanguine wishes of
the public, who required at his hands the conquest of Ctesiphon,
and the deliverance of the captives of Antioch. At the end of the
campaign, he was recalled to Constantinople by an ungrateful
court, but the dangers of the ensuing spring restored his
confidence and command; and the hero, almost alone, was
despatched, with the speed of post-horses, to repel, by his name
and presence, the invasion of Syria. He found the Roman generals,
among whom was a nephew of Justinian, imprisoned by their fears
in the fortifications of Hierapolis. But instead of listening to
their timid counsels, Belisarius commanded them to follow him to
Europus, where he had resolved to collect his forces, and to
execute whatever God should inspire him to achieve against the
enemy. His firm attitude on the banks of the Euphrates restrained
Chosroes from advancing towards Palestine; and he received with
art and dignity the ambassadors, or rather spies, of the Persian
monarch. The plain between Hierapolis and the river was covered
with the squadrons of cavalry, six thousand hunters, tall and
robust, who pursued their game without the apprehension of an
enemy. On the opposite bank the ambassadors descried a thousand
Armenian horse, who appeared to guard the passage of the
Euphrates. The tent of Belisarius was of the coarsest linen, the
simple equipage of a warrior who disdained the luxury of the
East. Around his tent, the nations who marched under his standard
were arranged with skilful confusion. The Thracians and Illyrians
were posted in the front, the Heruli and Goths in the centre; the
prospect was closed by the Moors and Vandals, and their loose
array seemed to multiply their numbers. Their dress was light and
active; one soldier carried a whip, another a sword, a third a
bow, a fourth, perhaps, a battle axe, and the whole picture
exhibited the intrepidity of the troops and the vigilance of the
general. Chosroes was deluded by the address, and awed by the
genius, of the lieutenant of Justinian. Conscious of the merit,
and ignorant of the force, of his antagonist, he dreaded a
decisive battle in a distant country, from whence not a Persian
might return to relate the melancholy tale. The great king
hastened to repass the Euphrates; and Belisarius pressed his
retreat, by affecting to oppose a measure so salutary to the
empire, and which could scarcely have been prevented by an army
of a hundred thousand men. Envy might suggest to ignorance and
pride, that the public enemy had been suffered to escape: but the
African and Gothic triumphs are less glorious than this safe and
bloodless victory, in which neither fortune, nor the valor of the
soldiers, can subtract any part of the general’s renown. The
second removal of Belisarius from the Persian to the Italian war
revealed the extent of his personal merit, which had corrected or
supplied the want of discipline and courage. Fifteen generals,
without concert or skill, led through the mountains of Armenia an
army of thirty thousand Romans, inattentive to their signals,
their ranks, and their ensigns. Four thousand Persians,
intrenched in the camp of Dubis, vanquished, almost without a
combat, this disorderly multitude; their useless arms were
scattered along the road, and their horses sunk under the fatigue
of their rapid flight. But the Arabs of the Roman party prevailed
over their brethren; the Armenians returned to their allegiance;
the cities of Dara and Edessa resisted a sudden assault and a
regular siege, and the calamities of war were suspended by those
of pestilence. A tacit or formal agreement between the two
sovereigns protected the tranquillity of the Eastern frontier;
and the arms of Chosroes were confined to the Colchian or Lazic
war, which has been too minutely described by the historians of
the times. 64

63 (return) [ In the public history of Procopius, (Persic. l. ii.
c. 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28;) and, with some slight
exceptions, we may reasonably shut our ears against the
malevolent whisper of the Anecdotes, (c. 2, 3, with the Notes, as
usual, of Alemannus.)]

64 (return) [ The Lazic war, the contest of Rome and Persia on
the Phasis, is tediously spun through many a page of Procopius
(Persic. l. ii. c. 15, 17, 28, 29, 30.) Gothic. (l. iv. c. 7—16)
and Agathias, (l. ii. iii. and iv. p. 55—132, 141.)]

The extreme length of the Euxine Sea 65 from Constantinople to
the mouth of the Phasis, may be computed as a voyage of nine
days, and a measure of seven hundred miles. From the Iberian
Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river
descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is
traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream
become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of
Sarapana, five days’ journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the
same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The
proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least
the idea, of wafting the precious merchandise of India down the
Oxus, over the Caspian, up the Cyrus, and with the current of the
Phasis into the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. As it successively
collects the streams of the plain of Colchos, the Phasis moves
with diminished speed, though accumulated weight. At the mouth it
is sixty fathom deep, and half a league broad, but a small woody
island is interposed in the midst of the channel; the water, so
soon as it has deposited an earthy or metallic sediment, floats
on the surface of the waves, and is no longer susceptible of
corruption. In a course of one hundred miles, forty of which are
navigable for large vessels, the Phasis divides the celebrated
region of Colchos, 66 or Mingrelia, 67 which, on three sides, is
fortified by the Iberian and Armenian mountains, and whose
maritime coast extends about two hundred miles from the
neighborhood of Trebizond to Dioscurias and the confines of
Circassia. Both the soil and climate are relaxed by excessive
moisture: twenty-eight rivers, besides the Phasis and his
dependent streams, convey their waters to the sea; and the
hollowness of the ground appears to indicate the subterraneous
channels between the Euxine and the Caspian. In the fields where
wheat or barley is sown, the earth is too soft to sustain the
action of the plough; but the gom, a small grain, not unlike the
millet or coriander seed, supplies the ordinary food of the
people; and the use of bread is confined to the prince and his
nobles. Yet the vintage is more plentiful than the harvest; and
the bulk of the stems, as well as the quality of the wine,
display the unassisted powers of nature. The same powers
continually tend to overshadow the face of the country with thick
forests; the timber of the hills, and the flax of the plains,
contribute to the abundance of naval stores; the wild and tame
animals, the horse, the ox, and the hog, are remarkably prolific,
and the name of the pheasant is expressive of his native
habitation on the banks of the Phasis. The gold mines to the
south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient
profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and
Chosroes; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that a vein of
precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the
hills, although these secret treasures are neglected by the
laziness, or concealed by the prudence, of the Mingrelians. The
waters, impregnated with particles of gold, are carefully
strained through sheep-skins or fleeces; but this expedient, the
groundwork perhaps of a marvellous fable, affords a faint image
of the wealth extracted from a virgin earth by the power and
industry of ancient kings. Their silver palaces and golden
chambers surpass our belief; but the fame of their riches is said
to have excited the enterprising avarice of the Argonauts. 68
Tradition has affirmed, with some color of reason, that Egypt
planted on the Phasis a learned and polite colony, 69 which
manufactured linen, built navies, and invented geographical maps.
The ingenuity of the moderns has peopled, with flourishing cities
and nations, the isthmus between the Euxine and the Caspian; 70
and a lively writer, observing the resemblance of climate, and,
in his apprehension, of trade, has not hesitated to pronounce
Colchos the Holland of antiquity. 71

65 (return) [ The Periplus, or circumnavigation of the Euxine
Sea, was described in Latin by Sallust, and in Greek by Arrian:
I. The former work, which no longer exists, has been restored by
the singular diligence of M. de Brosses, first president of the
parliament of Dijon, (Hist. de la Republique Romaine, tom. ii. l.
iii. p. 199—298,) who ventures to assume the character of the
Roman historian. His description of the Euxine is ingeniously
formed of all the fragments of the original, and of all the
Greeks and Latins whom Sallust might copy, or by whom he might be
copied; and the merit of the execution atones for the whimsical
design. 2. The Periplus of Arrian is addressed to the emperor
Hadrian, (in Geograph. Minor. Hudson, tom. i.,) and contains
whatever the governor of Pontus had seen from Trebizond to
Dioscurias; whatever he had heard from Dioscurias to the Danube;
and whatever he knew from the Danube to Trebizond.]

66 (return) [ Besides the many occasional hints from the poets,
historians &c., of antiquity, we may consult the geographical
descriptions of Colchos, by Strabo (l. xi. p. 760—765) and Pliny,
(Hist. Natur. vi. 5, 19, &c.)]

67 (return) [ I shall quote, and have used, three modern
descriptions of Mingrelia and the adjacent countries. 1. Of the
Pere Archangeli Lamberti, (Relations de Thevenot, part i. p.
31-52, with a map,) who has all the knowledge and prejudices of a
missionary. 2. Of Chardia, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 54,
68-168.) His observations are judicious and his own adventures in
the country are still more instructive than his observations. 3.
Of Peyssonel, (Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, p. 49, 50,
51, 58 62, 64, 65, 71, &c., and a more recent treatise, Sur le
Commerce de la Mer Noire, tom. ii. p. 1—53.) He had long resided
at Caffa, as consul of France; and his erudition is less valuable
than his experience.]

68 (return) [ Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 15. The gold and
silver mines of Colchos attracted the Argonauts, (Strab. l. i. p.
77.) The sagacious Chardin could find no gold in mines, rivers,
or elsewhere. Yet a Mingrelian lost his hand and foot for showing
some specimens at Constantinople of native gold]

69 (return) [ Herodot. l. ii. c. 104, 105, p. 150, 151. Diodor.
Sicul. l. i. p. 33, edit. Wesseling. Dionys. Perieget. 689, and
Eustath. ad loc. Schohast ad Apollonium Argonaut. l. iv.
282-291.]

70 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxi. c. 6.
L’Isthme... couvero de villes et nations qui ne sont plus.]

71 (return) [ Bougainville, Memoires de l’Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 33, on the African voyage of Hanno
and the commerce of antiquity.]

But the riches of Colchos shine only through the darkness of
conjecture or tradition; and its genuine history presents a
uniform scene of rudeness and poverty. If one hundred and thirty
languages were spoken in the market of Dioscurias, 72 they were
the imperfect idioms of so many savage tribes or families,
sequestered from each other in the valleys of Mount Caucasus; and
their separation, which diminished the importance, must have
multiplied the number, of their rustic capitals. In the present
state of Mingrelia, a village is an assemblage of huts within a
wooden fence; the fortresses are seated in the depths of forests;
the princely town of Cyta, or Cotatis, consists of two hundred
houses, and a stone edifice appertains only to the magnificence
of kings. Twelve ships from Constantinople, and about sixty
barks, laden with the fruits of industry, annually cast anchor on
the coast; and the list of Colchian exports is much increased,
since the natives had only slaves and hides to offer in exchange
for the corn and salt which they purchased from the subjects of
Justinian. Not a vestige can be found of the art, the knowledge,
or the navigation, of the ancient Colchians: few Greeks desired
or dared to pursue the footsteps of the Argonauts; and even the
marks of an Egyptian colony are lost on a nearer approach. The
rite of circumcision is practised only by the Mahometans of the
Euxine; and the curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no
longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race. It is in the
adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that
nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty in
the shape of the limbs, the color of the skin, the symmetry of
the features, and the expression of the countenance. 73 According
to the destination of the two sexes, the men seemed formed for
action, the women for love; and the perpetual supply of females
from Mount Caucasus has purified the blood, and improved the
breed, of the southern nations of Asia. The proper district of
Mingrelia, a portion only of the ancient Colchos, has long
sustained an exportation of twelve thousand slaves. The number of
prisoners or criminals would be inadequate to the annual demand;
but the common people are in a state of servitude to their lords;
the exercise of fraud or rapine is unpunished in a lawless
community; and the market is continually replenished by the abuse
of civil and paternal authority. Such a trade, 74 which reduces
the human species to the level of cattle, may tend to encourage
marriage and population, since the multitude of children enriches
their sordid and inhuman parent. But this source of impure wealth
must inevitably poison the national manners, obliterate the sense
of honor and virtue, and almost extinguish the instincts of
nature: the Christians of Georgia and Mingrelia are the most
dissolute of mankind; and their children, who, in a tender age,
are sold into foreign slavery, have already learned to imitate
the rapine of the father and the prostitution of the mother. Yet,
amidst the rudest ignorance, the untaught natives discover a
singular dexterity both of mind and hand; and although the want
of union and discipline exposes them to their more powerful
neighbors, a bold and intrepid spirit has animated the Colchians
of every age. In the host of Xerxes, they served on foot; and
their arms were a dagger or a javelin, a wooden casque, and a
buckler of raw hides. But in their own country the use of cavalry
has more generally prevailed: the meanest of the peasants
disdained to walk; the martial nobles are possessed, perhaps, of
two hundred horses; and above five thousand are numbered in the
train of the prince of Mingrelia. The Colchian government has
been always a pure and hereditary kingdom; and the authority of
the sovereign is only restrained by the turbulence of his
subjects. Whenever they were obedient, he could lead a numerous
army into the field; but some faith is requisite to believe, that
the single tribe of the Suanians as composed of two hundred
thousand soldiers, or that the population of Mingrelia now
amounts to four millions of inhabitants. 75

72 (return) [ A Greek historian, Timosthenes, had affirmed, in
eam ccc. nationes dissimilibus linguis descendere; and the modest
Pliny is content to add, et postea a nostris cxxx. interpretibus
negotia ibi gesta, (vi. 5) But the words nunc deserta cover a
multitude of past fictions.]

73 (return) [ Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. iii. p. 433—437) collects
the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and travellers. If, in the
time of Herodotus, they were, (and he had observed them with
care,) this precious fact is an example of the influence of
climate on a foreign colony.]

74 (return) [ The Mingrelian ambassador arrived at Constantinople
with two hundred persons; but he ate (sold) them day by day, till
his retinue was diminished to a secretary and two valets,
(Tavernier, tom. i. p. 365.) To purchase his mistress, a
Mingrelian gentleman sold twelve priests and his wife to the
Turks, (Chardin, tom. i. p. 66.)]

75 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 765. Lamberti, Relation de la
Mingrelie. Yet we must avoid the contrary extreme of Chardin, who
allows no more than 20,000 inhabitants to supply an annual
exportation of 12,000 slaves; an absurdity unworthy of that
judicious traveller.]