Besides his coins, one other memorial of the reign of Perozes has escaped the ravages of time.  This is a cup or vase, of antique and elegant form, engraved with a hunting-scene, which has been thus described by a recent writer:  “This cup, which comes from Russia, has a diameter of thirty-one centimetres, and is shaped like a ewer without handles.  At the bottom there stands out in relief the figure of a monarch on horseback, pursuing at full speed various wild animals; before him fly a wild boar and wild sow, together with their young, an ibex, an antelope, and a buffalo.  Two other boars, an ibex, a buffalo, and an antelope are strewn on the ground, pierced with arrows.  The king has an aquiline nose, an eye which is very wide open, a short beard, horizontal moustaches of considerable length, the hair gathered behind the head in quite a small knot, and the ear ornamented with a double pendant, pear-shaped; the head of the monarch supports a crown, which is mural at the side and back, while it bears a crescent in front; two wings surmounting a globe within a crescent form the upper part of the head-dress.  On his right the king carries a short dagger and a quiver full of arrows, on his left a sword.  Firuz, who has the finger-guard of an archer on his right hand, is represented in the act of bending a large bow made of horn.”  There would seem to be no doubt that the work thus described is rightly assigned to Perozes.

CHAPTER XVII.

Accession of Balas or Palash.  His Relationship to Perozes.  Peace made with the Ephthalites.  Pacification of Armenia and General Edict of Toleration.  Revolt of Zareh, Son of Perozes, and Suppression of the Revolt with the help of the Armenians.  Flight of Kobad to the Ephthalites.  Further Changes in Armenia.  Vahan made Governor.  Death of Balas; his Character.  Coins ascribed to him.

Perozes was succeeded by a prince whom the Greeks call Balas, the Arabs and later Persians Palash, but whose real name appears to have been Valakhesh or Volagases.  Different accounts are given of his relationship to his predecessor, the native writers unanimously representing him as the son of Perozes and brother of Kobad, while the Greeks and the contemporary Armenians declare with one voice that he was Kobad’s uncle and Perozes’s brother.  It seems on the whole most probable that the Greeks and Armenians are right and we may suppose that Perozes, having no son whom he could trust to take his place when he quitted his capital in order to take the management of the Ephthalite war, put the regency and the guardianship of his children into the hands of his brother, Valakhesh, who thus, not unnaturally, became king when it was found that Perozes had fallen.