perhaps a state necessity, and he may not have commanded it, or have been accessory to it before the fact; but his ingratitude towards his uncles, whom he deliberately put to death, is wholly unpardonable, and shows him to have been cruel, selfish, and utterly without natural affection, even in the earlier portion of his reign.  In war he exhibited neither courage nor conduct; all his main military successes were due to his generals; and in his later years he seems never voluntarily to have exposed himself to danger.  In suspecting his generals, and ill-using them while living, he only followed the traditions of his house; but the insults offered to the dead body of Shahen, whose only fault was that he had suffered a defeat, were unusual and outrageous.  The accounts given of his seraglio imply either gross sensualism or extreme ostentation; perhaps we may be justified in inclining to the more lenient view, if we take into consideration the faithful attachment which he exhibited towards Shirin.  The cruelties which disgraced his later years are wholly without excuse; but in the act which deprived him of his throne, and brought him to a miserable end—­his preference of Merdasas as his successor—­he exhibited no worse fault than an amiable weakness, a partiality towards the son of a wife who possessed, and seems to have deserved, his affection.

The coins of the second Chosroes are numerous in the extreme, and present several peculiarities.  The ordinary type has, on the obverse, the king’s head in profile, covered by a tiara, of which the chief ornament is a crescent and star between two outstretched wings.  The head is surrounded by a double pearl bordering, outside of which, in the margin, are three crescents and stars.  The legend is Khusrui afzud, with a monogram of doubtful meaning.  The reverse shows the usual fire altar and supporters, in a rude form, enclosed by a triple pearl bordering.  In the margin, outside the bordering, are four crescents and stars.  The legend is merely the regnal year and a mint-mark.  Thirty-four mint-marks have been ascribed to Chosroes II. [PLATE XXIII., Fig. 4.]

A rarer and more curious type of coin, belonging to this monarch, presents on the obverse the front face of the king, surmounted by a mural crown, having the star and crescent between outstretched wings at top.  The legend is Khusrui mallean malka—­afzud.  “Chosroes, king of kings—­increase (be his).”  The reverse has a head like that of a woman, also fronting the spectator, and wearing a band enriched with pearls across the forehead, above which the hair gradually converges to a point. [PLATE XXIV., Fig. 1.] A head very similar to this is found on Indo-Sassanian coins.  Otherwise we might have supposed that the uxorious monarch had wished to circulate among his subjects the portrait of his beloved Shirin.

[Illustration:  PLATE XXIV.]

CHAPTER XXV.