From Suron the invading army advanced to Hierapolis, without encountering the enemy, who did not dare to make any resistance in the open field, but sought the protection of walls and strongholds.  The defences of Hierapolis were in tolerable order; its garrison was fairly strong; and the Great King therefore prudently resolved to allow the citizens to ransom themselves and their city at a moderate price.  Two thousand pounds of silver was the amount fixed upon; and this sum was paid without any complaint by the Hierapolites.  Plunder, not conquest, was already distinctly set before the invader’s mind as his aim; and it is said that he even offered at this period to evacuate the Roman territory altogether upon receiving a thousand pounds of gold.  But the Romans were not yet brought so low as to purchase a peace; it was thought that Antioch and the other important towns might successfully defy the Persian arms, and hoped that Justinian would soon send into the field an army strong enough to cope with that of his adversary.  The terms, therefore, which Chosroes offered by the mouth of Megas, bishop of Berhcea, were rejected; the Antiochenes were exhorted to remain firm; Ephraim, the bishop, was denounced to the authorities for counselling submission; and it was determined to make no pacific arrangement, but to allow Chosroes to do his worst.  The Persian, on his side, was not slack or remiss.  No sooner had he received the ransom of Hierapolis than he advanced upon Berhoea (now Aleppo), which he reached in four days.  Observing that the defences were weak, he here demanded twice the ransom that he had accepted from the Hierapolites, and was only induced to forego the claim by the tears and entreaties of the good bishop, who convinced him at length that the Berhoeans could not pay so large a sum, and induced him to accept the half of it.  A few more days’ march brought him from Aleppo to the outskirts of Antioch; and after an interval of nearly three centuries the “Queen of the East,” the richest and most magnificent of Oriental cities, was once more invested by Persian troops and threatened by a Sassanian monarch.

A great calamity had fallen upon Antioch only fourteen years previously.  The entire town had been ruined by a succession of terrible earthquakes, which commenced in October, A.D. 525, and terminated in August of the ensuing year.  All for a time was havoc and disorder.  A landslip had covered a portion of the city, and in the remainder almost every house was overthrown.  But the liberality of Justinian, the spirit of the inhabitants, and the efforts of the governor, had effaced these disasters; and the city, when the Persians appeared before it, was in most respects grander and more magnificent than ever.  The defences were, however, it would seem, imperfect.  The citadel especially, which was on the high ground south of the city, had been constructed with small attention to the rules of engineering art, and was dominated by a height at a little distance,