124 ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABU. 



co\ered with flocks, the river with its crowded 

 barges, and the city with its busy population. " Of 

 what worth," he exclaimed, " are those fleeting pos- 

 sessions to me ! to-day they are mine ; to-morrow 

 they belong to another !" 



On his accession to the throne, Mondar I. led an 

 army of 40,000 men into Persia to assist his youthful 

 companion, Baharam-Gour, in recovering the crown 

 which had been factiously conferred on another. 

 His reign and those of his immediate successors are 

 barren of incident. The energy and admirable po- 

 litical regulations of the Persian monarchs, Kobad 

 and Nooshirwan, gave little cause for mutiny or 

 discontent in their tributary provinces. In India 

 and Arabia, from the Mediterranean to the Caspian, 

 and from the Euxine to the Jaxartes, the imperial 

 sway of the latter was acknowledged ; and it was not 

 till the sceptre fell into the hands of his unworthy 

 successor, Hormuz III., that the Arabs refused to 

 pay tribute or obedience. 



Mondar II. had proved a valuable ally to Kobad in 

 his wars against the Roman emperor Anastasius. 

 Mondar III. was defeated and taken captive by the 

 tribe of Beer, who raised Hareth to the throne ; the 

 Persian monarch being too much occupied in sup- 

 pressing the religious innovations of the impostor 

 Mazdak in his own dominions, to protect his vassal 

 or attend to the aff'airs of Hira. In 531, Mondar 

 joined Kobad in his successful invasion of the Ro- 

 man territories, and marched to his assistance with 

 an army of 150,000 men. He advised him, as we 

 learn from Procopius, to alter his plan of hostilities ; 

 and, instead of carrying on the war in Mesopotamia, 

 to penetrate directly into Syria, where there were 

 no fortified cities, and lay siege to Antioch, one of 

 the richest and worst-defended places in the Eastern 

 Empire. His counsel was accepted ; and an expe- 

 dition, which he himself conducted through the 

 desert, was despatched against the famous Belisa- 



