Victorious and respected among the princes of Asia, he gave audience, in his palace of Madain, or Ctesiphon, to the ambassadors of the world.

Their gifts or tributes, arms, rich garments, gems, slaves or aromatics, were humbly presented at the foot of his throne; and he condescended to accept from the king of India ten quintals of the wood of aloes, a maid seven cubits in height, and a carpet softer than silk, the skin, as it was reported, of an extraordinary serpent.

[91] [Footnote 89: Procopius represents the practice of the Gothic court of Ravenna (Goth.l.i.c.

7;) and foreign ambassadors have been treated with the same jealousy and rigor in Turkey, (Busbequius, epist.iii.

p.
149, 242, &c.,) Russia, (Voyage D'Olearius,) and China, (Narrative of A.
de Lange, in Bell's Travels, vol.ii.p.