thinking and living shews itself in an altogether exceptional degree, since the Lazi are Christians of the most thorough-going kind, while all the Persian views regarding religion are the exact opposite of theirs.  And apart from this, salt is produced nowhere in Lazica, nor indeed does grain grow there nor the vine nor any other good thing.  But from the Romans along the coast everything is brought in to them by ship, and even so they do not pay gold to the traders, but hides and slaves and whatever else happens to be found there in great abundance; and when they were excluded from this trade, they were, as was to be expected, in a state of constant vexation.  When, therefore, Chosroes perceived this, he was eager to anticipate with certainty any move on their part to revolt against him.  And upon considering the matter, it seemed to him to be the most advantageous course to put Goubazes, the king of the Lazi, out of the way as quickly as possible, and to move the Lazi in a body out of the country, and then to colonize this land with Persians and certain other nations.

When Chosroes had matured these plans, he sent Isdigousnas to Byzantium, ostensibly to act as an envoy, and he picked out five hundred of the most valorous of the Persians and sent them with him, directing them to get inside the city of Daras, and to take their lodgings in many different houses, and at night to set these all on fire, and, while all the Romans were occupied with this fire, as was natural, to open the gates immediately, and receive the rest of the Persian army into the city.  For word had been sent previously to the commander of the city of Nisibis to conceal a large force of soldiers near by and hold them in readiness.  For in this way Chosroes thought that they would destroy all the Romans with no trouble, and seizing the city of Daras, would hold it securely.  But someone who knew well what was being arranged, a Roman who had come to the Persians as a deserter a little earlier, told everything to George, who was staying there at the time; now this was the same man whom I mentioned in the preceding pages[25] as having persuaded the Persians who were besieged in the fortress of Sisauranon to surrender themselves to the Romans.  George therefore met this ambassador at the boundary line between Roman and Persian soil and said that this thing he was doing was not after the fashion of an embassy, and that never had so numerous a body of Persians stopped for the night in a city of the Romans.  For he ought, he said, to have left behind all the rest in the town of Ammodios, and must himself enter the city of Daras with some few men.  Now Isdigousnas was indignant and appeared to take it ill, because he had been insulted wrongfully, in spite of the fact that he was dispatched on an embassy to the Roman emperor.  But George, paying no heed to him in his fury, saved the city for the Romans.  For he received Isdigousnas into the city with only twenty men.