battle was fought with a similar result; and the Persian force, being demoralized, had to retreat; while Vajian, taking the offensive, established himself in Dovin, and once more rallied to his side the great mass of the nation.  Affairs were in this state, when suddenly there arrived from the east intelligence of the most supreme importance, which produced a pause in the Armenian conflict and led to the placing of Armenian affairs on a new footing.

Perozes had, from the conclusion of his treaty with the Ephthalite monarch (ab.  A.D. 470), been tormented with the feeling that he had suffered degradation and disgrace.  He had, perhaps, plunged into the Armenian and other wars in the hope of drowning the recollection of his shame, in his own mind as well as in the minds of others.  But fortune had not greatly smiled on him in these struggles; and any credit that he obtained from them was quite insufficient to produce forgetfulness of his great disaster.  Hence, as time went on, he became more and more anxious to wipe out the memory of the past by a great and signal victory over his conquerors.  He therefore after some years determined to renew the war.  It was in vain that the chief Mobed opposed himself to this intention; it was in vain that his other counsellors sought to dissuade him, that his general, Bahram, declared against the infraction of the treaty, and that the soldiers showed themselves reluctant to fight.  Perozes had resolved, and was not to be turned from his resolution.  He collected from all parts of the empire a veteran force, amounting, it is said, 50 to 100,000 men, and 500 elephants, placed the direction of affairs at the court in the hands of Balas (Palash), his son or brother, and then marched upon the north-eastern frontier, with the determination to attack and defeat the Ephthalites or perish in the attempt.  According to some Oriental writers he endeavored to escape the charge of having falsified his engagements by a curious subterfuge.  The exact terms of his oath to Khush-newaz, the Ephthalite king, had been that he would never march his forces past a certain pillar which that monarch had erected to mark the boundary line between the Persian and Ephthalite dominions.  Perozes persuaded himself that he would sufficiently observe his engagement if he kept its letter; and accordingly he lowered the pillar, and placed it upon a number of cars, which were attached together and drawn by a train of fifty elephants, in front of his army.  Thus, however deeply he invaded the Ephthalite country, he never “passed beyond” the pillar which he had sworn not to pass.  In his own judgment he kept his vow, but not in that of his natural advisers.  It is satisfactory to find that the Zoroastrian priesthood, speaking by the mouth of the chief Mobed, disclaimed and exposed the fallacy of this wretched casuistry.