His aspirations had for a while been kept in check by Persia, and by Persia alone, the sole power in the world that he feared.

Since the 'endless peace' was made, he had felt himself free to give full vent to his ambitious greed, had commenced a course of aggression upon all the other conterminous nations, and had spread war and confusion on all sides.

He had destroyed the kingdom of the Vandals in Africa, conquered the Moors, deceived the Goths of Italy by professions of friendship, and then fallen upon them with all his forces, violated the rights of Armenia and driven it to rebellion, enslaved the Tzani and the Lazi, seized the Greek city of Bosporus, and the 'Isle of Palms' on the shores of the Red Sea, solicited the alliance of barbarous Huns and Ethiopians, striven to sow discord between the Persian monarch and his vassals, and in every part of the world shown himself equally grasping and restless.

What would be the consequence if Persia continued to hold aloof?
Simply that all the other nations would in turn be destroyed, and she would find herself face to face with their destroyer, and would enjoy the poor satisfaction of being devoured last.

But did she fear to be reproached with breaking the treaty and forfeiting her pledged word?
Rome had already broken it by her intrigues with the Huns, the Ethiopians, and the Saracens; and Persia would therefore be free from reproach if she treated the peace as no longer existing.