CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST DAYS OF JUSTINIAN: LITERATURE AND ART IN THE SIXTH CENTURY: SUMMARY AND REVIEW OF THE REIGN
IN the spring of 550, when the five years' truce with
Persia expired, Justinian became anxious to effect a further
pacification with Chosroes, and Peter Magister, with
whose diplomatic work we are already familiar, was entrusted
with the negotiations. The Shah, however, declined to
formulate any definite terms at the moment and dismissed
him with a promise that he would shortly send a plenipotentiary
of his own to the Byzantine Court, who should
have full powers to draft a treaty in accordance with the
best interests of both nations. He was as good as his word,
and the Persian embassy soon arrived at Constantinople,
headed by Isdigunas, a man insufferably pompous and
arrogant, who brought with him in his train such an immense
following that he seemed to be advancing to the
battlefield rather than conducting a peaceful mission. He
was accompanied by his wife, children, and a brother; and
also by two members of the highest Persian nobility, who
displayed themselves in public wearing golden diadems on
their heads. The Byzantines resented the overwhelming
magnificence of this legation, regarding it as an intolerable
assumption of superiority by the Orientals; and they were
