crown for himself but veiled his real plan under the pretext of championing the cause of Chosroes, Ormizd's eldest son.[1] At the same time a plot was formed in the palace, and Bahram was forestalled: the conspirators dethroned the king and Chosroes was crowned at Ctesiphon. But after the assassination of Ormizd the new monarch was unable to maintain his position: his troops deserted to Bahram, and he was forced to throw himself upon the mercy of the Emperor. As a helpless fugitive the King of kings arrived at Circesium and craved Rome's protection, offering in return to restore the lost Armenian provinces and to surrender Martyropolis and Dara. Despite the counsels of the senate, Maurice saw in this strange reversal of fortune a chance to terminate a war which was draining the Empire's strength: his resolve to accede to his enemy's request was at once a courageous and a statesmanlike action. He furnished Chosroes with men and money, Narses took command of the troops, and John Mystakon marched from Armenia to join the army. The two forces met at Sargana (probably Sirgan, in the plain of Ushnei[2]) and in the neighbourhood of Ganzaca (Takhti-Soleïmán) defeated and put to flight Bahram, while Chosroes recovered his throne without further resistance. The new monarch kept his promises to Rome and surrounded himself with a Roman body-guard (591). By this interposition Maurice had restored the Empire's frontier[3] and had ended the long-drawn struggle in the East.
In 592 therefore he could transport his army into Europe, and was able to employ his whole military force in the Danubian provinces. Maurice himself went with the troops as far as Anchialus, when he was recalled by the presence of a Persian embassy in the capital. The chronology of the next few years is confused and it is impossible to give here a detailed account of the campaigns. Their general object was to maintain the Danube as the frontier line against the Avars and to restrict the forays of the Slavs. In this Priscus met with considerable success, but Peter, Maurice's brother, who superseded him in 597, displayed hopeless incompetency and Priscus was reappointed.[4] In 600 Comentiolus, who was, it would appear, in command against his own will, entered into communications with the Khagan in order to secure the discomfiture of the Roman forces: he was, in fact, anxious to prove that the attempt to defend the northern frontier was labour lost. He ultimately fled headlong to the capital and only the personal interference of the Emperor stifled the inquiry into his treachery. On this
- ↑ There seems no sufficient evidence for the theory that Bahram Cobin relied on a legitimist claim as representing the prae-Sassanid dynasty.
- ↑ See H. C. Rawlinson, "Memoir on the site of the Atropatenian Ecbatana," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1840), pp. 71 ff.
- ↑ See maps by H. Hübschmann in "Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen," Indogermanische Forschungen, XVI. (1904), and in Gelzer's Georgius Cyprius.
- ↑ For the siege of Thessalonica in this year, cf. Wroth, op. cit. I. p. XXI.
