186 INAUGURATION OF KHOSROO PURYIZ. 
bosoms of Eerhaud and his Shirene; but that a huge thistle 
marked the accursed clay of their destroyer. 
These are the outlines of the poetic tale ; but graver history, 
we have found, represents her true to her royal husband in weal 
and woe, and that it was on his body she expired; thus proving, 
by her generous fidelity, that she was worthy of having been the 
daughter of the great emperor from whose disinterestedness 
Khosroo was placed on his throne. It is supposed that the 
group of three, above the equestrian warrior, commemorates the 
double gift of the Emperor Maurice to the Persian prince; his 
bride, and his crown. Khosroo, in his robes of inauguration, 
stands between the imperial pair; the princess on one side, 
holding a diadem, and the emperor on the other, presenting the 
new king with the crown to which the Roman arms had restored 
him. The two winged genii without the arch, seem emblematic 
of the same coronation, and they appear to hold the nuptial 
wreath over both king and queen. With regard to the equestrian 
hero below, the personal achievements, as well as the renown of 
his armies, give Khosroo Purviz a full claim to the memorial of 
having his image carved in complete armour ; and, most probably, 
the barbed steed on which he is mounted, was the effigy of his 
famous war-horse Shub-deez. The chase too, having been one 
of his favourite amusements, the bas-reliefs on the sides of the 
arch appear equally appropriate to his story; and the two leading 
personages may be intended for the king, and his benefactor and 
guest, the Emperor of the Romans. Gibbon’s description of the 
principal summer palace of the Persian monarch, agrees perfectly 
well with these representations, and the splendid accounts given 
by the native writers. “ Its paradise, or park,” continues he, 
“ was replenished with pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roe-bucks, 
