to entrust Vahan with the government, that the same head which had conceived the terms of the pacification might watch over and ensure their execution.  Antegan’s recommendation approved itself to the Persian monarch, who proceeded to recall his self-denying councillor, and to install Vahan in the vacant office.  The post of Sparapet was assigned to Vart, Vahan’s brother.  Christianity was then formally reestablished as the State religion of Armenia; the fire-altars were destroyed; the churches reclaimed and purified; the hierarchy restored to its former position and powers.  A reconversion of almost the whole nation to the Christian faith was the immediate result; the apostate Armenians recanted their errors, and abjured Zoroastrianism; Armenia, and with it Iberia, were pacified; and the two provinces which had been so long a cause of weakness to Persia grew rapidly into main sources of her strength and prosperity.

The new arrangement had not been long completed when Balas died (A.D. 487).  It is agreed on all hands that he held the throne for no more than four years, and generally allowed that he died peaceably by a natural death.  He was a wise and just prince, mild in his temper, averse to military enterprises, and inclined to expect better results from pacific arrangements than from wars and expeditions.  His internal administration of the empire gave general satisfaction to his subjects; he protected and relieved the poor, extended cultivation, and punished governors who allowed any men in their province to fall into indigence.  His prudence and moderation are especially conspicuous in his arrangement of the Armenian difficulty, whereby he healed a chronic sore that had long drained, the resources of his country.  His submission to pay tribute to the Ephthalites may be thought to indicate a want of courage or of patriotism; but there are times when the purchase of a peace is a necessity; and it is not clear that Balas was minded to bear the obligation imposed on him a moment longer than was necessary.  The writers who record the fact that Persia submitted for a time to pay a tribute limit the interval during which the obligation held to a couple of years.  It would seem, therefore, that Balas, who reigned four years, must, a year at least before his demise, have shaken off the Ephthalite yoke and ceased to make any acknowledgment of dependence.  Probably it was owing to the new attitude assumed by him that the Ephthalites, after refusing to give Kobad any material support for the space of three years, adopted a new policy in the year of Balas’s death (A.D. 487), and lent the pretender a force with which he was about to attack his uncle when news reached him that attack was needless, since Balas was dead and his own claim to the succession undisputed.  Balas nominated no successor upon his death-bed, thus giving in his last moments an additional proof of that moderation and love of peace which had characterized his reign.