Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

NOSHIRWAN THE JUST 489
along the northern route, although it would appear that
he received notice of the ratification of the
treaty at
Edessa. As a result of this
flagrant breach of faith,
Justinian, for whom the entire position of affairs had
been changed by the
victory of Belisarius in
Italy,
denounced the
recently concluded
treaty and threw the
entire
responsibility for the
rupture upon Noshirwan.
The Great
King, who had
certainly shown to little
advantage in these
proceedings, spent the
following
winter in
building a Grecian
city on the model of Antioch
in the neighbourhood of Ctesiphon. According to
Tabari, so exact was the copy of the original
that the
Antiochene captives found their way to their new houses
without any difficulty !
The Campaigns in Lazica^ a.d. 540-557. — Reference
has already been made to Lazica, the ancient Colchis,
which in a.d. 522 had received Roman protection. As
time went by, an irksome commercial monopoly had
been imposed by the Roman Governor, who had
established himself at the port of Petra. At first there
had been no tribute demanded and no question had been
raised of admitting a Roman garrison. Consequently
the Lazic King felt aggrieved, and in a.d. 540 appealed
to the Court of Persia. Noshirwan, on this occasion,
displayed considerable imagination, if not insight. He
realized that to hold Lazica would impose a heavy drain
on his resources ; but he dreamed of the day when he
might launch a great
the Roman possessions, if not Constantinople itself, and
on this account he agreed to grant his protection
to the
suppliant King. Giving
fleet on the Black Sea and attack
out that he was summoned to
repel an invasion of the Huns in Iberia, he rapidly
marched through that country, and before it was possible
for Roman reinforcements to arrive he had besieged and
captured Petra, with the result that Lazica became for
the time being a Persian province and the Persian
Empire reached to the Black Sea. As may readily be
understood, the yoke of the Great King was soon found
to be heavier than that of Rome, more especially
as the
Lazic nation had been converted to Christianity.