Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 163.
kingdom of Armenia were restored and enlarged.
The acknowledged equity of the grounds on which
this treaty rested, secured a peace of forty years for the
Eastern empire, and, at the close of the war, Diocle-
tian and Maximian celebrated at Rome their suc-
cesses and those of their lieutenants, by a triumph,
the last that Rome ever witnessed. Indeed, as Gibbon
justly remarks, " soon after this time, the emperors
ceased to vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital
of the empire."
Into the legendary history of the great ruler who
followed, Shahpur II (A.D. 310-380), we need not enter,
nor need we discuss the question whether the diadem he
wore, much to his country's advantage, for the un-
usual period of seventy years, was actually prepared
for him by a submissive nobility, while he was yet
an unborn baby. They who care for such matters,
may consult the Zeenat-al-Tuarikh, or Sir J. Malcolm's
abridgment of it. Suffice it to say, that, when scarcely
more than a boy, Shahptir made strenuous resist-
ance to the Greeks, Tatars and Arabs, who, relyingon
his youth and inexperience, invaded his empire;
thus showing, from the very first, the metal of
\\hich he was made. Collecting his forces, we are
told, that he marched against the Arabs, drove them
out of his country, and chasing them across the
Arabian desert to Yathreb, massacred every one he
met. From the peculiar punishment he invented to
create terror among these wild tribes, he obtained his
distinguishing name of Zu'laktaf, or " Lord of the
shoulders V From Hedjaz he carried his arms into
1 Mirk bond says be was only sixteen, and that, in this war, be