The Roman frontier would in this way have been thrown back to the Euphrates.

Chosroes must be understood as aiming at this grand result in the siege which he so pertinaciously pressed, and which Edessa so gallantly resisted, during the summer of A.D.544.

The elaborate account which Procopius gives of the siege may be due to a sense of its importance.

Chosroes tried, not force only, but every art known to the engineering science of the period; he repeated his assaults day after day; he allowed the defenders no repose; yet he was compelled at last to own himself baffled by the valor of the small Roman garrison and the spirit of the native inhabitants, to burn his works, and to return home.

The five hundred pounds of gold which he extorted at last from Martinus, the commandant of the place, may have been a salve to his wounded pride; but it was a poor set-off against the loss of men, of stores, and of prestige, which he had incurred by his enterprise.
It was, perhaps, his repulse from the walls of Edessa that induced Chosroes, in A.D.545, seriously to entertain the proposals for an arrangement which were made to him by the ambassadors of Justinian.
Throughout the war their had been continual negotiations; but hitherto the Persian king had trifled with his antagonist, and had amused himself with discussing terms of accommodation without any serious purpose.
Now at last, after five years of incessant hostilities, in which he had gained much glory but little profit, he seems to have desired a breathing-space.