Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA.
of the Persians, attacked their rear-guard,
1 75
in the
presence of Nushirwan himself, and pillaged his camp.
The Romans, too, on their side, were left masters of
the field, and their general Justinian, after attacking
Dara, was permitted to erect his standard on the shores
of the Caspian. This inland sea was now, for the first
time, explored by a hostile fleet, and seventy thousand
captives transplanted from the shores of Hyrcania to
the Island of Cyprus.
The reign of Nushirwan's successor, Hormazd,
is chiefly remarkable for the gallant conduct of
a rebel chief, who bore the time honoured name
of Varahran. Hormazd had allowed his father's empire
to fall into decay ; all the outlying provinces, Babylon,
Susa, Caramania, Arabia, India and Scythia, were in
revolt ; and the Romans, taking advantage
of these
dissensions, had made constant inroads into Mesopotamia
and Assyria.
But " Persia lost by a king, was saved by a hero."
Varahran, known before for his valour at the siege
of Dara, repelled the Tatar host near the Caspian
gates, but was less successful, when shortly afterwards
he was attacked by the veteran troops of Rome, under
the command of Romanus, the lieutenant of the emperor
Mauricius. Having on this occasion received an
insulting message from Hormazd, he threw off his
allegiance, with the ready assent of his troops and of
the people generally, to whom that ruler had made
himself hateful. A revolution, however, broke out at
Ctesiphon, and the son of Hormazd, Khosru II
(Parviz), ascended his father's throne (A.D. 591): but
in conflict with Varahran, he was hopelessly beater,