The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK VI 311
21 When Chosroes became master of his own kingdom, he sent to
Gregory a cross that was bedecked with much gold and costly stones, to
honour the prize-winning martyrSergius.Theodora,the wife ofJustinian,
had dedicated this, but Chosroes had looted it along with the other treasures,
as has already been recorded by me. He also sent another golden
cross,and Chosroes inscribed the following onthe cross in Greek letters: 71
This cross do I give, I Chosroes, king of kings, son of Chosroes, 72
after we had come to Romania as a result of the devilish activity
and wickedness of the most ill-fated Barames Gusnas and the
cavalrymen with him, on account of the approach towards
Nisibis of the ill-fated Zadespram with an army for the seduction
of the cavalrymen in the district of Nisibis to rebellion and commotion;
we too sent cavalrymen with an o⁄cer to Charcas; 73
and through the fortune of the holy Sergius, the all-revered and
renowned, when we heard that he was a granter of requests, in
the ¢rst year of our reign, on the seventh of the month January,
we requested, that if [236] our cavalrymen should slay or overcome
Zadespram, we would send a gold bejewelled cross to his
house on account of his all-revered name; and on the ninth of the
month February they brought to us the head of Zadespram; and
so, having achieved our request, so that each thing is beyond
dispute, to his all-revered name this cross which is from us, together
with the cross sent by the Roman emperor Justinian to his
house, and which was conveyed here in the time of the estrangement
between the two empires by Chosroes, king of kings, son of
71 The text of the dedication is also recorded, with a few minor variations, by Theophylact
v.13.4^6, although he regarded Khusro’s message as a letter rather than an inscribed
text. For the di¡erences, for which the plausible explanation is that Evagrius copied the
actual inscriptions whereas Theophylact relied on a written version sent to Constantinople,
see Allen, Evagrius 259^61, who summarizes the debate between M. J. Higgins (BZ 48
[1955] 89^102) and P. Peeters (Me¤moires de l’Acade¤mie des Inscriptions et des Belles
Lettres 44 [1960] 99^119); also Elizabeth Fowden, Plain 133^40. For Khusro I’s attack on
Sergiopolis (Resafa) in 542 and the capture of Justinian’s cross, see Evagrius iv.28.
72 Khusro II was son of Hormizd and grandson of Khusro I; he deliberately ignores his
unpopular father.
73 This refers to an incident in January 591, when Vahram dispatched a supporter called
Zatsparham in an attempt to secure the loyalty of the troops at Nisibis, whom Khusro had
been courting (Theophylact v.1). This created a crisis for Khusro but, after appealing for
Sergius’ help, he managed to prevent Zatsparham from reaching the city.