under the shelter of double galleries; and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on the summit of the towers. The exterior wall appears to have been less lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected by a quadrangular bulwark. A hard rocky soil resisted the tools of the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which advanced in the shape of an half-moon. The double and treble ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management of the river the most skilful labour was employed to supply the inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its founders, and to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly complained that this impregnable fortress had been constructed in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two empires.
The Caspian or Iberian gates Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos, Iberia, and Albania are intersected in every direction by the branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal gates or passes from north to south have been frequently confounded in the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The name of Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend,[1] which occupies a short declivity between the mountains and the sea; the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of iron. The Iberian gates[2] are formed by a narrow passage of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern side of Iberia or Georgia into the plain that reaches to the Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander, perhaps, or one of his successors, to command that important pass, had descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince of the Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor; but, while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the cost and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and Cabades- ↑ For the city and pass of Derbend. see d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807), Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9), Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (tom. i. p. 120), Olearius (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039-1041), and Corneille le Bruyn (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147): his view may be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be of shells and gravel hardened by time. [Cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, p. 261.]
- ↑ Procopius, though with some confusion, always denominates them Caspian (Persic. l. i. c. 10). The pass is now styled Tatartopa, the Tartar-gates (d'Anville, Géographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120). [In B. G. iv. 3, Procopius distinguishes the pass of Τξούρ (Armen. Cor) from the "Caspian Gates".]
