This horrible disaster to the second city of the Roman East roused all Justinian’s energy; neglecting the Italian war, he sent all his disposable troops to the Euphrates frontier, and named Belisarius himself as the chief commander. After this, Chosroës won no such successes as had distinguished his first campaign. Having commenced an attack on the Roman border fortresses in Colchis, far to the north, he was drawn home by the news that Belisarius had invaded Assyria and was besieging Nisibis. On the approach of the king the imperial general retired, but his manœuvre had cost the Persian the fruits of a whole summer’s preparation, and the year A.D. 541 ended without serious fighting. In the next spring very similar operations followed: Belisarius defended the line of the Euphrates with success, and the invaders retired after having reduced one single Mesopotamian fortress. The war lingered for two years more, till Chosroës, disgusted at the ill-success of all his efforts since his first success at Antioch, and more especially humiliated by a bloody repulse from the walls of Edessa, consented to treat for peace [A.D. 545]. He gave up his conquests—which were of small importance—but regarded the honours of the war as being his own, because Justinian consented to pay him 2,000 lbs. of gold [£108,000] on the ratification of the treaty. One curious clause was inserted in the document—though hostilities ceased everywhere else, the rights of the two monarchs to the suzerainty of the kingdom of Lazica, on the Colchian frontier, hard by the Black Sea, were left undefined. For no less than seven years a sort of by-war was maintained in this small district, while peace prevailed on all other points of the Perso-Roman frontier. It was not till A.D. 556, after both parties had wasted much treasure and many men on the unprofitable contest, that Chosroës resigned the attempt to hold the small and rugged mountain kingdom of the Lazi, and resigned it to Justinian on the promise of an annual grant of £18,000 as compensation money. But although Justinian had brought his second Persian war to a not unsuccessful end, the empire had come badly out of the struggle, and was by 556 falling into a condition of incipient disorder and decay. This was partly caused by the reckless financial expedients of the Emperor, who taxed the provinces with unexampled rigour while forced to maintain at once a Persian and an Italian war.