The Persian prince seems to have paid but little heed to the denunciation.  He passed the winter in building and beautifying a Persian Antioch in the neighborhood of Ctesiphon, assigning it as a residence to his Syrian captives, for whose use he constructed public baths and a spacious hippodrome, where the entertainments familiar to them from their youth were reproduced by Syrian artists.  The new city was exempt from the jurisdiction of Persian satraps, and was made directly dependent upon the king, who supplied it with corn gratuitously, and allowed it to become an inviolable asylum for all such Greek slaves as should take shelter in it, and be acknowledged as their kinsmen by any of the inhabitants.  A model of Greek civilization was thus brought into close contact with the Persian court, which could amuse itself with the contrasts, if it did not learn much from the comparison, of European and Asiatic manners and modes of thought.

The campaign of A.D. 540 was followed by one of a very different character in A.D. 541.  An unexpected offer suddenly made to the Persian king drew him from his capital, together with the bulk of his troops, to one of the remotest portions of the Persian territory, and allowed the Romans, instead of standing on their defence, to assume an aggressive in Mesopotamia, and even to retaliate the invasion which the year before Chosroes had conducted into the heart of their empire.  The hostile operations of A.D. 541 had thus two distinct and far-distant scenes; in the one set the Persians, in the other the Romans, took the offensive; the two wars, for such they in reality were, scarcely affected one another; and it will therefore be convenient to keep the accounts of them distinct and separate.  To commence with.

I. The LAZIO WAR.—­Lazica had been a dependency of Rome from the time when Tzath, upon his conversion to Christianity, professed himself the vassal of Justin, and received the insignia of royalty from his new patron (A.D. 522).  The terms of the connection had been at the first honorable to the weaker nation, which paid no tribute, admitted no Roman garrison, and was troubled by no Roman governor.  As time went on, however, the Romans gradually encroached upon the rights of their dependants; they seized and fortified a strong post, called Petra, upon the coast, appointed a commandant who claimed an authority as great as that of the Lazic king, and established a commercial monopoly which pressed with great severity upon the poorer classes of the Lazi.  Under these circumstances the nation determined on revolt; and in the winter of A.D. 540-1 Lazic ambassadors visited the court of Persia, exposed the grievances of their countrymen, and besought Chosroes to accept their submission, and extend to them the protection of his government.  The province was distant, and possessed few attractions; whatever the tales told of its ancient wealth, or glories, or trade, in the time of Chosroes it was poor and unproductive, dependent on its neighbors