words and Bonus was bidden to prepare for war. No success can have attended the Roman arms, for in a second embassy Targitius added to his former demands the payment of arrears by the Empire. Bonus was clearly incapable, argued Justin, and Tiberius was accordingly sent to arrange terms. After some military successes, it would seem, he concurred with Apsich in a proposal that land should be furnished by the Romans for Avar settlement, while sons of Avar chieftains should be pledges for the good faith of their fellow-countrymen. Tiberius went to Constantinople to urge the acceptance of these terms, but Justin was not satisfied: let Baian surrender his own sons as hostages, he retorted, and once more dispatches to the officers in command ordered vigorous and aggressive action. Tiberius returned to be defeated by the Avars, and when yet another mission reached the palace, the Emperor realised that the honour of Rome must give place to the argument of force. Peace was concluded, and the Avars retired (end of 570 ?). The course of the negotiations throws into clear relief the views and aims of Justin, while the experience thus gained by Tiberius served to mould his policy as emperor.
For the rest of the reign the East absorbed the whole energy of the State. In order to understand clearly the causes which led to the war with Persia it is necessary to return to the year 568, when Constantinople was visited by an embassy from the Turks. This people, who had only recently made their appearance in Western Asia, had some ten years before overthrown the nation of the Ephthalites and were now themselves the leading power in the vast stretch of country between China and Persia. The western Chinese kingdom was at times their tributary, at other times their ally; with a vision of the possibilities which their geographical position offered they aspired to be the intermediaries through whose hands should pass the commerce of West and East. Naturally enough they first appealed to Persia, but the counsels of a renegade Ephthalite prevailed: the Turks were, he urged, a treacherous people, it would be an evil day for Persia if she accepted their alliance. Dizabul however, Khan of the Western Turks under the suzerainty of the great Mo-kan,[1] only relinquished the project when he discovered that the members of a second embassy had been poisoned by Persian treachery. Then it was that his counsellor Maniach advised that envoys should be sent to the Roman capital, the greatest emporium for the silk of China. It was a remarkable proposal; the emperors had often sought to open up a route to the East which would be free from Persia's interference — Justinian, for example, had with this object entered into relations with the Ethiopian court — but no great success had attended their efforts, and now it was a Turk who unfolded a scheme whereby the products of East and West should pass and repass without
- ↑ Silziboulos (Šil-Čybul-baγa-qaγan).
