line 211.
All the other authorities confirm Gibbon's account of the death of John by the hand of Stoza.

This poem of Corippus, unknown to Gibbon, was first published by Mazzuchelli during the present century, and is reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine writers .-- M] [Footnote 1002: This murder was prompted to the Armenian (according to Corippus) by Athanasius, (then praefect of Africa.) Hunc placidus cana gravitate coegit Inumitera mactare virum.
-- Corripus, vol.iv.p.

237--M.] [Footnote 2: Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in lively colors, the murder of Gontharis.

One of the assassins uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot: "If I fail," said Artasires, "in the first stroke, kill me on the spot, lest the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices."] That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.

The Moors, [3] though ignorant of justice, were impatient of oppression: their vagrant life and boundless wilderness disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and experience had shown, that neither oaths nor obligations could secure the fidelity of their attachment.