It was not till some years later that he was released, allowed to return into Armenia, and to resume, under certain restrictions, his episcopal functions.
The remaining circumstances of the reign of Varahran V.come to us wholly through the Oriental writers, amid whose exaggerations and fables it is very difficult to discern the truth.

There can, however, be little doubt that it was during the reign of this prince that those terrible struggles commenced between the Persians and their neighbors upon the north-east which continued, from the early part of the fifth till the middle of the sixth century, to endanger the very existence of the empire.

Various names are given to the people with whom Persia waged her wars during this period.

They are called Turks, Huns, sometimes even Chinese, but these terms seem, to be used in a vague way, as "Scythian" was by the ancients; and the special ethnic designation of the people appears to be quite a different name from any of them.

It is a name the Persian form of which is _Haithal_ or _Haiathleh_, the Armenian Hephthagh, and the Greek "Ephthalites," or sometimes "Nephthalites." Different conjectures have been formed as to its origin: but none of them can be regarded as more than an ingenious theory.