would soon have given way, had not the defenders employed against them the terrible agency of fire, showering upon them from the walls lighted casks of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha, which last was known to the Greeks of Colchis as “Medea’s oil.”  Uncertain of succeeding in this attack, the Roman general gallantly led a scaling party to another portion of the walls, and, mounting at the head of his men, attempted to make good his footing on the battlements.  Thrown headlong to the ground, but undeterred by his fall, he was about to repeat his attempt, when he found it needless.  Almost simultaneously his troops had in two other places penetrated into the town.  One band had obtained an entrance by scaling the rocks in a place supposed to be inaccessible; a second owed its success to a combination of accidents.  First, it had happened that a gap had shown itself in the piece of the wall which sank into the Roman mine, and a violent struggle had ensued between the assailants and defenders at this place.

Then, while this fight was going on, the fire which the Persians were using against the Roman battering-rams had been by a shift of wind blown back upon themselves, and the wooden structure from which they fought had been ignited, and in a short time entirely consumed, together with its inmates.  At sight of the conflagration, the Persians who stood in the gap had lost heart, and had allowed the Roman troops to force their way through it into Petra.  Thus fell the great Lazic fortress, after a resistance which is among the most memorable in history.  Of the three thousand defenders, seven hundred had been killed in the siege; one thousand and seventy were destroyed in the last assault.  Only seven hundred and thirty were made prisoners; and of these no fewer than seven hundred and twelve were found to be wounded.  The remaining five hundred threw themselves into the citadel, and there resisted to the last extremity, refusing all terms of capitulation, and maintaining themselves against an overwhelming force, until at last by sword and fire they perished to a man.

The siege of Petra was prolonged far into the winter, and the year A.D. 551 had begun ere the resistance ceased.  Could the gallant defenders have maintained themselves for a few more weeks, they might not improbably have triumphed.  Mermeroes, the Persian commander of two years previously, took the field with the commencement of spring, and, at the head of a large body of cavalry, supported by eight elephants, began his march to the coast, hoping to relieve the beleaguered garrison.  Unfortunately he was too late.  On his march he heard of the capture of Petra, and of its complete destruction by Bessas, who feared lest the Persians should again occupy the dangerous post.  Mermeroes had no difficulty in establishing Persian rule through almost the whole of Lazica.  The Romans did not dare to meet him in the field.  Archssopolis, indeed, repulsed his attack; but no other important