286 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
would
have been quite unable to decipher the strange characters engraved on
the stones. They would most probably have supposed them to be Persian
characters, and would, therefore, have valued these stones no higher
than others in the Persian treasure. This can serve as an explanation
of the fact that no allusion to the breastplate with its adornment can
be found in the works of those Mohammedan writers, such as Tabari, who
treat of the overthrow of the Sassanian Empire. We may be sure that the
Persians themselves would have accorded no special honor to objects
connected with the Hebrew religion, since their own Zoroastrian faith
had no connection with it.
In
628, not long before the date of the Arab invasion, the most precious
relic of Christendom, the cross discovered by Helena, mother of
Constantine the Great, and believed to be the very cross on which
Christ died, was surrendered to the Greek Emperor Heraclius by Kobad
II, son of Khusrau II, on the conclusion of a treaty of peace between
the Eastern and Sassanian Empires. This cross was one of the sacred
objects borne away to Persia from Jerusalem by Khusrau in 615 a.d. It
is said to have been guarded carefully through the influence of Sira,
Khusrau's Christian wife. There is a bare possibility that other
objects of religious veneration, taken from Jerusalem, may have been
given up by the Persians at the same time, and that the unique
character of the most important relic so overshadowed all others that
historians have failed to note the fact. The cross was restored to
Jerusalem by Heraclius in 629, only to fall into the hands of the
Mohammedans when that city was taken by the Arabs under Omar, in 637.
Hence, if the jewelled breastplate had also been surrendered by Kobad,
it would probably have shared the same fate.
