Book 2

1.1. Not long afterward Chosroes, learning that Belisarius had begun to win Italy too for the Emperor Justinian, was no longer able to restrain his mind, but wished to devise pretexts by which he might break the treaty under some specious word.

1.2. Consulting about these things with Alamoundaras, he bade him provide causes of war.

1.3. And he, charging Arethas that he was using violence against him over the boundaries of the land, came to blows with him in time of peace, and on this pretext began to overrun the land of the Romans.

1.4. And he declared that he himself was not breaking the treaty of the Persians and Romans, since neither party had enrolled him in it.

1.5. And this was so. For no account had ever been made of the Saracens in the treaties, since they are comprehended under the name of the Persians and the Romans.

1.6. This country, which then was disputed by the Saracens of both sides, is called Strata, and is turned toward the south wind of the city of Palmyra, bearing neither tree nor any of the good things of the cornfields (for it is exceedingly burnt by the sun), but set apart from of old for the pasturing of certain flocks.

1.7. Arethas, then, insisted that the place was the Romans', inferring it from the name, which it chanced to have from of old among all (for Strata means the paved road in the Latin tongue), and using the testimonies of most ancient men.

1.8. But Alamoundaras by no means thought fit to contend over the name, but said that the owners of the flocks had from of old paid him rent for the pasture there.

1.9. Therefore the Emperor Justinian entrusted the arbitration of the disputed points to Strategius, a patrician and commander of the royal treasuries, and otherwise intelligent and well-born, and besides to Summus, who had been commander of the soldiers in Palestine.

1.10. This Summus was the brother of Julian, who a little before had gone on an embassy to the Ethiopians and the Homerites.

1.11. And of these two, the one, Summus, thought fit that the Romans should not abandon the country, while Strategius begged the emperor not, for the sake of a country small and of no account at all, but barren and altogether fruitless, to grant to the Persians, who desired war, pretexts for the war. The Emperor Justinian, then, took counsel about these things, and much time was spent on this arbitration.

1.12. But Chosroes, the King of the Persians, declared that the treaty had been broken by Justinian, who had lately displayed a great plot against his house, in that he had attempted to make Alamoundaras his ally in time of peace.

1.13. For he said that Summus, lately coming to him ostensibly for the arbitration, had got round him by promises of great sums of money, on condition that he should go over to the Romans, and he produced letters which the Emperor Justinian had written to Alamoundaras about these things.

1.14. And he insisted that he had also sent a letter to some of the Huns, urging them to invade the land of the Persians and ravage the places there as much as possible. This letter he said the Huns themselves had handed to him, coming into his presence.

1.15. These were the charges Chosroes brought against the Romans, purposing to break the treaty. Whether, however, in saying these things he chanced to be telling the truth, I cannot say.

2.1. Meanwhile Vittigis, the leader of the Goths, already worn down by the war, sent two envoys to him to persuade him to make an expedition against the Romans—not Goths, however, lest by being recognized at once they should confound what was being done, but Ligurian priests, led to this deed by ample sums of money.

2.2. Of these the one who seemed the worthier was set in the embassy, clothed with the appearance and name of a bishop, though it in no way belonged to him; and the other followed serving him.

2.3. And going by the road to the regions of Thrace, they made companion of a man from there who should be for them an interpreter of the Syrian and the Greek tongue, and escaping the notice of all the Romans they reached the country of the Persians. For, being established in time of peace, the Romans did not keep guard there exactly.

2.4. And coming into the presence of Chosroes they spoke as follows: "All other envoys, O King, for the most part chance to be set in the embassy for their own advantage, but us Vittigis, King of the Goths and the Italians, has sent to make the case on behalf of your empire; and consider that he himself, present, now speaks these things to you.

2.5. If anyone, O King, summing it up, should say that you have given over both your kingship and all men to Justinian, he would speak rightly.

2.6. For he, being by nature a lover of innovation and enamoured of what in no way belongs to him, and unable to remain within the established order, has desired to seize all the earth, and has been eager to encompass every realm.

2.7. Then (for he was not able to attack the Persians alone, nor, while the Persians opposed him, was he able to go against others) he resolved to deceive you with the veil of peace, and by forcing the rest to make great powers his allies against your empire.

2.8. Having already destroyed the kingdom of the Vandals and subdued the Moors, the Goths standing out of his way under the name of friendship, he comes against us with great sums of money and many men.

2.9. And it is clear that, if he should be able to destroy the Goths altogether, he will make an expedition against the Persians together with us and those already enslaved, neither having in mind the name of friendship nor blushing at any of his oaths.

2.10. While, then, some hope of safety is still left you, do us no further harm, nor suffer it yourself, but look in our evils at what a little later will befall the Persians, and consider that the Romans would never be well-disposed toward your kingship, but, becoming superior in power, will not delay to display their hatred toward the Persians.

2.11. Use, then, your power in season; do not seek it when it has ceased. For the height of opportunities, when relaxed, is by no means wont to return. And it is better, having anticipated, to be in safety, than, having come too late for the opportunities, to suffer the most shameful of all things at the hands of the enemy."

2.12. When Chosroes heard this, it seemed to him that Vittigis advised him well, and he was still more eager to break the treaty. For, held by envy toward the Emperor Justinian, he by no means resolved to reckon that these words came to him from men most hostile to the Emperor Justinian.

2.13. But by his wishing it, he came of his own accord to be persuaded. Which indeed he did a little later in the case of the arguments of the Armenians and the Lazi, as shall presently be told.

2.14. And yet they brought such charges against Justinian as might fitly be praises for a noble king: that he was eager to make his own kingship greater and far more illustrious.

2.15. For these things one might bring also against Cyrus the King of the Persians and Alexander the Macedonian. But justice is by no means wont to dwell with envy. For these reasons Chosroes purposed to break the treaty.

3.1. Meanwhile another thing befell, of the following kind. That Symeon, who had given over the Pharangium to the Romans, persuaded the Emperor Justinian, while the war was still at its height, to gift him with certain villages of Armenian men.

3.2. And having become master of the places, he was killed by a plot at the hands of those who had owned them of old.

3.3. The evil being accomplished, the perpetrators of the murder fled to the country of the Persians. They were two brothers, sons of Perozes. And the emperor, hearing this, gives the villages to Amazaspes, the nephew of Symeon, and set him up as commander over the Armenians.

3.4. This Amazaspes, as time went on, one of his intimates, Acacius by name, slandered to the Emperor Justinian, saying that he was doing mischief to the Armenians and wished to hand over to the Persians both Theodosiopolis and certain other towns.

3.5. Having said this, Acacius, by the emperor's purpose, killed Amazaspes by treachery, and held the command of Armenia himself, the emperor having given it.

3.6. Being wicked by nature, he had whereby he might display the dispositions of his soul. He became, then, the most savage of all men toward his subjects.

3.7. For he plundered their money with no account, and appointed for them a payment of tribute, never before existing, of four centenaria. And the Armenians (for they were no longer able to bear him), taking counsel together, killed Acacius and fled to the Pharangium.

3.8. Therefore the emperor sent Sittas against them from Byzantium. For Sittas was passing his time there, since the treaty with the Persians had been made for the Romans.

3.9. And he, coming to the Armenians, at first went slowly into the war, but hastened to tame them and to set the men back into their former dispositions, promising to persuade the emperor to remit to them the new payment of tribute.

3.10. But when the emperor reproached him much for his delay and reviled him, led by the slanders of Adolius the son of Acacius, then at last Sittas prepared the matters concerning the engagement.

3.11. First, then, by promises of many good things he attempted to persuade and win over some of them, that the mastery over the rest might become for him easier and less toilsome.

3.12. And the race of those called the Aspetiani, being great and populous,

3.13. wished to go over to him. And sending to Sittas in writing, they begged him to give them pledges that, if, in the engagement, abandoning their kinsmen, they should come into the Roman battle-line, they would remain altogether unharmed, holding their own.

3.14. And he, gladly writing in a little book the pledges as they asked, gave them, and having sealed the writing sent it to them.

3.15. Taking courage that through them he would master the war without battle, he went with his whole army to a place called Oenochalakon, where it chanced that the Armenians were encamped.

3.16. But by some chance those who had the book, going by another road, were by no means able to meet the Aspetiani.

3.17. A portion, however, of the Roman army, meeting a few of them and not knowing the agreement, treated them as enemies.

3.18. And Sittas himself, taking their children and women somewhere in a cave, killed them, either not understanding what had happened or holding the Aspetiani in anger because they did not come over to him as had been agreed.

3.19. And they, now held by anger, drew themselves up for battle together with all the rest. But since both sides were in difficult and precipitous ground, they did not fight in one place, but scattered among the foothills and glens. It chanced, then, that a few of the Armenians and Sittas, having not many followers, came very near one another, a glen being between them.

3.20. And both were horsemen. Sittas, then, with a few following him, crossing the glen against his adversaries, drove on, but the Armenians, withdrawing back, stood; and Sittas no longer pursued, but remained where he was.

3.21. And suddenly one of the Roman army, a Herul by race, who had made a pursuit against the enemy and was riding back from there in anger, came to those under Sittas. And it chanced that Sittas had planted his spear in the ground; this the horse of the Herul, falling upon it with much force, broke.

3.22. This grieved the general exceedingly, and one of the Armenians, seeing him, recognized him and insisted to all the rest that this was Sittas. For it happened that he had no helmet on his head. Therefore he did not escape the notice of the enemy, that he had come there with a few men.

3.23. Sittas, then, when he heard the Armenian saying this, and his spear, as has been said, broken off lay on the ground, drawing his sword, at once attempted to cross the glen.

3.24. But the enemy with much haste drove against him, and one, overtaking him in the glen, struck him on the top of the head with his sword, a crosswise blow. And he took off the whole crown of the head,

3.25. but the iron in no way touched the bone. And Sittas drove on still more than before; but Artabanes, the son of John, an Arsacid, falling upon him from behind and striking him with his spear, killed him.

3.26. And thus Sittas vanished from among men in no account, unworthily of his valour and of his deeds ever done against the enemy, a man exceedingly fair in body and valiant in war, and the best general of his time, second to none.

3.27. But some say that Sittas perished not at the hands of Artabanes, but that Solomon, a very obscure man among the Armenians, made away with the man.

3.28. On the death of Sittas the emperor bade Bouzes go against the Armenians; and he, when he came very near, sent to them, promising to reconcile all the Armenians to the emperor and asking some of the men of repute to come to a parley with him about these things.

3.29. The rest, then, could neither trust Bouzes nor were willing to accept his words. But there was a man most friendly to him, an Arsacid, John by name, the father of Artabanes, who then, trusting Bouzes as a friend, came to him together with Bassaces his son-in-law and a few others; and these, when they had come to a place and bivouacked where they were to meet Bouzes on the morrow, perceived that they had come into an encircling by the Roman army.

3.30. Bassaces, then, the son-in-law, much entreated John to take to flight. But when he could not persuade him, leaving him alone there, together with all the rest, escaping the notice of the Romans, he rode back again by the same road.

3.31. And Bouzes, finding John alone, killed him; and from this the Armenians, having no longer any hope toward the Romans concerning an agreement, nor being able to overcome the emperor in war, came to the King of the Persians, Bassaces leading them, an energetic man.

3.32. Of these the foremost, then coming into the presence of Chosroes, spoke as follows: "There are many of us Arsacids, O master, descendants of that Arsaces who chanced to be no stranger to the kingship of the Parthians, when the affairs of the Persians lay under the Parthians, and who became an illustrious king, second to none of his time.

3.33. We are now present before you, all having become slaves and fugitives, not willingly, however, but constrained as much as possible, in appearance by the Roman power, but in true word by your

3.34. judgement, O King; if indeed he who gives strength to those who wish to do wrong might justly bear also the blame of the deeds. And it shall be told a little further back, so that you may be able to follow all that has been done.

3.35. For Arsaces, the last king of our ancestors, ceded his rule of his own free will to Theodosius the Emperor of the Romans, on condition that all those who by descent should belong to him for all time should both live otherwise in freedom and never be subject to tribute.

3.36. And we preserved the agreement until you made these famous treaties, which, calling them a common ruin, one would not, we think, err.

3.37. For thenceforth, taking no thought of friends and enemies, your friend in word, O King, but in deed your foe, confounded and threw into confusion all human affairs.

3.38. Which you yourself also will not long after know, as soon as he is able to subdue the men of the West altogether. For what of the things forbidden before did he not do? Or what of the things well established did he not disturb?

3.39. Did he not appoint for us a payment of tribute not before existing, and enslave the Tzani, who were our neighbours and independent, and set a Roman commander over the king of the wretched Lazi?—a thing agreeing neither with the nature of things nor easy to explain in word.

3.40. Did he not send generals to the Bosporites, who were subject to the Huns, and appropriate the city, though it in no way belonged to him, and make alliance with the rulers of the Ethiopians, of whom the Romans had not even heard at all?

3.41. But he has also encompassed the Homerites and the Red Sea, and adds the Palm-grove to the Roman realm.

3.42. For we forbear to speak of the sufferings of the Libyans and the Italians. The whole earth does not contain the man; it is a small thing for him to rule all men together.

3.43. And he scans the heavens too and searches out the recesses beyond the ocean, wishing to acquire for himself some other inhabited world.

3.44. Why, then, O King, do you still delay? Why are you ashamed of a peace most wretchedly to perish, that he may make you the last morsel of all the rest?

3.45. If you wish to learn what sort of man Justinian would be toward those who yield to him, you have the example near at hand, from ourselves and from the wretched Lazi;

3.46. and if you wish to learn how he is wont to deal with those who are unknown and have done him no wrong at all, consider the Vandals and the Goths and the Moors.

3.47. The chief point has not yet been told. Has he not made it his work in time of peace to get round Alamoundaras, your slave, O most mighty King, by deceit and to detach him from your kingship, and has he not been eager lately to win over the Huns, in no way known to him, against your affairs? And yet no deed more monstrous than this has happened in all time.

3.48. For when he perceived, I think, that the subjugation of the West would all but reach its completion for him, he has now attempted to assail you of the East, since the power of the Persians alone is left him for a contest.

3.49. The peace, then, on his part is already broken for you, and he himself has put an end to the endless treaty.

3.50. For those break the peace not who first take up arms, but who are caught plotting against their neighbours in time of treaty.

3.51. For the charge has been committed by him who attempts it, even if success be absent. But how the war will turn out is plain to everyone, I suppose. For not those who furnish the causes of war, but those who defend themselves against those who furnish them, are ever wont to master the enemy.

3.52. Nor indeed will the contest be for us on equal terms of power. For it chances that the Romans have most of their soldiers at the extremities of the inhabited world, and of two generals, who were their best, we come having killed the one, Sittas, while Justinian will never again see Belisarius. For, neglecting him, he has remained in the West,

3.53. himself holding the Italian dominion. So that, as you go against the enemy, none of all will meet you, and you will have us too, with goodwill, as is likely, and with much experience of the places, leading the way for your army." When Chosroes heard this,

3.54. he was pleased, and calling together whatever was pure among the Persians, he brought out to all both what Vittigis wrote and all that the Armenians said, and set the matter of what should be done before them for counsel.

3.55. There, then, many opinions were spoken tending to either side, but in the end it seemed best that they should make war against the Romans at the beginning of spring.

3.56. For it was the autumn of the year, the thirteenth year of the Emperor Justinian holding the supreme rule.

3.57. The Romans, however, did not suspect this, nor did they think the Persians would ever break the so-called endless treaty, although they had heard that Chosroes both accused their own emperor of his successes in the West and brought against him these charges which I have just mentioned.

4.1. Then too the comet star appeared, at first about as large as a very tall man, but later much greater. And its end was toward the setting sun, its beginning toward the rising,

4.2. and it followed behind the sun itself. For the sun was in Capricorn, and it was in Sagittarius. And some called it the swordfish, because it was very long and had a very sharp point, others the bearded star; and it appeared for more than forty days.

4.3. The wise men in these matters, in no way agreeing with one another, foretold each different things to be signified by this star; but I, writing what came to pass, give to each to infer from the outcomes as he wishes.

4.4. At once a great Hunnic army, crossing the Ister river, fell upon all Europe, a thing that had happened often before, but never bringing so many evils in number or so great in magnitude to the men there. For from the Ionian Gulf these barbarians plundered all in succession as far as the suburbs of Byzantium.

4.5. And they took thirty-two fortresses in Illyricum, and subdued by force the city of Cassandria (which the ancients called Potidaea, so far as we know), not having stormed a wall before.

4.6. And holding the spoils and leading off twelve myriads of captives, they all withdrew home, no opposition meeting them.

4.7. And at a later time, often coming there, they did irreparable dreadful things to the Romans.

4.8. These also stormed the wall in the Chersonese, and forcing those who defended themselves from the wall, and passing over the rampart by way of the surf of the sea—the rampart which is by the so-called Black Gulf—and thus getting within the long walls and falling unexpectedly upon the Romans in the Chersonese, they killed many and enslaved nearly all.

4.9. And a few even crossing the strait between Sestos and Abydos, and plundering the places in Asia, and again turning back to the Chersonese, were conveyed home with the rest of the army and all the booty.

4.10. And in another invasion, plundering the Illyrians and the Thessalians, they attempted to storm the wall at Thermopylae, but the guards in the walls defending themselves most vigorously, searching out the circuits they found, beyond expectation, the path that leads to the mountain which rises there.

4.11. And thus, having destroyed nearly all the Greeks except the Peloponnesians, they withdrew.

4.12. And the Persians not long after, breaking the treaty, wrought upon the Romans of the East deeds which I shall presently relate.

4.13. Belisarius, having destroyed Vittigis the King of the Goths and the Italians, brought him alive to Byzantium. But how the Persian army invaded the land of the Romans I now go on to relate.

4.14. When the Emperor Justinian perceived that Chosroes desired war, he wished to make some exhortation and to draw him from the attempt.

4.15. There chanced to be at Byzantium one come from the city of Daras, Anastasius by name, having repute for intelligence, who had also put down the tyranny lately arisen at Daras.

4.16. This Anastasius, then, Justinian sent to Chosroes, having written a letter;

4.17. and the writing declared as follows: "It is the part of intelligent men, and of those who have sufficiently practised the things of God, to cut off with all their might the springing causes of war, especially toward men who are most friends; but of unintelligent men, and of those who most readily make the things of God hostile to themselves, to contrive occasions of battle and disturbance that in no way exist.

4.18. For to dissolve peace and go to war is no great matter, since the nature of things has held that the basest of practices are easy even for the most dishonoured of men.

4.19. But for men who have ordered war as they purposed to go again to peace is, I think, not easy.

4.20. And yet you charge us with letters not written for the purpose, and have been eager to interpret these now by your own self-willed judgement, not as we wrote them when we devised them, but as it seems to you, desiring to accomplish your designs not without some veil, will profit.

4.21. But it is in our power to show that your Alamoundaras, lately overrunning our land, wrought in time of peace irreparable deeds—captures of places, plundering of money, murders and enslavements of men so great in number—for which it will be needful for you not to accuse us, but to defend yourself.

4.22. For the deeds, not the intentions, declare to neighbours the charges of those who have done wrong. But though these things are so, we have resolved even so to hold to the peace, while we hear that you, desiring war against the Romans, are fashioning charges that in no way belong to us.

4.23. Reasonably; for those who are eager to set right the present shake off even the charges against their friends, pressing as they are, while those whom the law of friendship does not please are eager to provide even pretexts that do not exist.

4.24. But these things would seem to befit not even ordinary men, much less kings.

4.25. But you, leaving these, consider the measure of those who will perish on both sides in the war, and who would justly bear the blame of what shall befall, and reckon the oaths, which, having sworn and received the money, then dishonouring against need, you could not get round by any arts or sophisms; for the divine is by nature mightier than to be deceived by

4.26. all men." When Chosroes saw this brought to him, for the moment he neither answered anything nor dismissed Anastasius, but compelled him to remain there.

5.1. But when the winter was now abating, and the thirteenth year was ending of the Emperor Justinian holding the supreme rule, Chosroes the son of Cabades invaded the land of the Romans with a great army at the beginning of spring, and brilliantly broke the so-called endless peace. And he went, not through the country between the rivers, but keeping the Euphrates on the right.

5.2. On the other side of the river is the last Roman fortress, which is called Circesium, exceedingly strong, since the Aborrhas, a great river, having its outlet there, mingles with the Euphrates, and this fortress lies at the very angle which the meeting of the two rivers makes.

5.3. And another long wall outside the fortress, taking in the land between each river, completes there about Circesium a triangular shape.

5.4. Therefore Chosroes, neither wishing to make trial of so strong a fortress nor purposing to cross the Euphrates river, but to go against the Syrians and the Cilicians, without any delay drove his army forward, and having traversed a journey of about three days for an unencumbered man along the bank of the Euphrates, he came upon the city of Zenobia; which Zenobia once built and, as is likely, gave her name to the city.

5.5. Now Zenobia was the wife of Odonathus, the ruler of the Saracens there, who from of old were in treaty with the Romans.

5.6. This Odonathus recovered for the Romans the realm of the East, which had come under the Medes. But these things took place in former times.

5.7. Chosroes then, coming very near Zenobia, when he learned that the place was not worth account and perceived the country to be uninhabited and destitute of all good things, fearing lest some time spent there should be a hindrance to his great undertakings for no result, made trial of taking the place by agreement. But when nothing went forward, he quickly drove his army on.

5.8. And having again traversed so great a road, he came to the city of Sura, which is by the Euphrates river,

5.9. and coming very near it he halted. There it chanced that the horse on which Chosroes sat both neighed and struck the ground with its foot. The Magi, inferring this, declared that the place would be taken.

5.10. And he, encamping, led the army against the wall as though to storm it.

5.11. There chanced to be a man, Arsaces by name, an Armenian by race, commander of the soldiers there, who, having got the soldiers up onto the battlements and fighting from there most vigorously and killing many of the enemy, was struck by an arrow and died.

5.12. And the Persians then (for it was late in the day), as though they would storm the wall again on the morrow, withdrew to their camp; but the Romans, in despair, since their commander had died, purposed to become suppliants of Chosroes.

5.13. On the following day, then, they sent the bishop of the city to entreat and to beg off the place, who, taking with him some of his attendants bearing fowls and wine and pure loaves, came to Chosroes, and let himself down to the ground and in tears besought him to spare wretched men and a city most dishonoured for the Romans, and held of no account by the Persians, neither in former times nor ever to be hereafter; and he promised that the Surenes would give him ransom worthily of themselves and of the city in which they dwelt.

5.14. But Chosroes was harsh toward the Surenes, because, being the first of all the Romans to fall in with him, they neither received him willingly into the city, but, daring even to take up arms against him, killed a considerable throng of notable Persians.

5.15. He did not, however, bring out his anger, but hid it exactly beneath his face, so that, by making the punishment upon the Surenes, he might render himself terrible and invincible to the Romans. For thus he supposed that those who should ever be in his path would go over to him with no trouble.

5.16. Therefore with much friendliness he raised up the bishop, and receiving the gifts gave a certain impression that he would presently consult with the men of note among the Persians about the ransom of the Surenes and dispose the request well.

5.17. And thus he dismissed the bishop with his attendants, having no perception of the plot, and sent with him some of the notable Persians as escorts, ostensibly in word.

5.18. These he secretly bade go with him up to the wall, encouraging him and lifting him with good hopes, so that he and all those with him might be seen by those within rejoicing and fearing nothing.

5.19. And when the guards, opening the postern, should be about to receive them into the city, throwing some stone or wood between the threshold and the door, they should not allow it to be set, but should themselves stand for some time in the way of those who wished to set it; for the army would not long after follow them.

5.20. Having charged the men these things, Chosroes got his army in readiness, and bade them go at a run against the city whenever he himself should give the signal.

5.21. And when they came very near the wall, the Persians, having saluted the bishop, remained outside; but the Surenes, seeing the man returned overjoyed and escorted with much honour by the enemy, taking no thought of any difficulties, opened the whole postern and received the priest with his attendants, clapping and uttering many blessings.

5.22. And when all had got inside, the guards thrust at the postern as though to set it, but the Persians threw into the middle a stone which had been prepared for them.

5.23. And the guards, thrusting still more and forcing the postern, were by no means able to bring it to the threshold.

5.24. Nor indeed did they dare to open it again, since they perceived that it was held by the enemy. But some say that the Persians threw not a stone but a wood into the postern.

5.25. And while the Surenes had not yet quite perceived the plot, Chosroes was present with his whole army, and the barbarians, forcing the postern, flung it open, and in a short time it was taken by storm.

5.26. At once, then, held by anger, Chosroes plundered the houses, and killing many of the men and reckoning all the rest as slaves and burning the whole city, razed it to the ground.

5.27. And thus he dismissed Anastasius, bidding him report to the Emperor Justinian where in the world he had left Chosroes the son of Cabades.

5.28. After this, held either by humanity or by love of money, or gratifying a woman whom he had taken thence captive, Euphemia by name, and made his wedded wife, being enamoured of her with an extraordinary love (for she was very comely in appearance), Chosroes resolved to do some good thing for the Surenes.

5.29. Sending, then, to Sergiopolis, subject to the Romans, which is named after Sergius an illustrious saint, distant from the captured city a hundred and twenty-six stades and lying toward the south wind of it in the so-called barbarian plain, he bade Candidus the bishop there buy the captives, who were twelve thousand, for two centenaria.

5.30. But he (for he said he had no money) plainly shrank from the affair. Therefore Chosroes thought fit that he, having left in a little book his agreement to give the money at a later time, should thus buy for so little money so great a multitude of slaves.

5.31. And Candidus did accordingly, and agreed to give the gold within a year, having sworn the most dread oaths, and he appointed for himself this penalty: that if he should not give the money within the agreed time, he should give it double, and himself be a priest no longer, as having disregarded what he had sworn.

5.32. Candidus, having written these things in a document, received all the Surenes.

5.33. Of whom a few survived, but the most, not being able to hold out against the hardship that befell them, perished a little later. Having accomplished these things, Chosroes led the army forward.

6.1. A little before, the emperor had chanced to divide the office of General of the East into two, and leaving the part as far as the Euphrates river to the name of Belisarius, who before held the whole command, and entrusting the part from there to the Persian borders to Bouzes, he bade Bouzes take care of the whole command of the East, until Belisarius should return from Italy.

6.2. Therefore Bouzes, having the whole army following him, at first remained at Hierapolis. But when he learned what had befallen the Surenes, calling together the foremost of the

6.3. Hierapolites, he spoke as follows: "For those whose contest against the invaders is on equal terms of power, it is not at all unfitting to come to blows with the enemy straightway; but for those who chance to be far inferior to their adversaries by a great difference, it will be more profitable to get round the enemy by certain devices than, drawing up openly against them, to go into a foreseen danger.

6.4. How great is the army of Chosroes you hear, I suppose. But if he should wish to take us by siege, and we should carry on the war from the wall, it is likely that provisions will fail us, while the Persians will get everything from our land with no one opposing.

6.5. And the siege being thus prolonged, I think the wall will not even suffice against the plots of the enemy, which chances to be most assailable in many places, and something irreparable will befall the Romans.

6.6. But if with one portion of the army we guard the wall of the city, and the rest seize the foothills about the city, overrunning from there now the camp of the adversaries, now those sent out for provisions, they will compel Chosroes very soon to break up the siege and make his withdrawal in a short time, neither able to bring his assaults more fearlessly against the wall nor to provide any of the necessaries for so great an army."

6.7. So much Bouzes said, and seemed to speak what was expedient, but did none of what was needful. For having chosen out whatever was notable in the Roman army,

6.8. he went off. And in what part of the earth he chanced to be, neither any of the Romans in Hierapolis nor the army of the enemy was able to learn. So these things were carried on here.

6.9. And the Emperor Justinian, learning of the Persian inroad, at once sent Germanus, his own nephew, with much tumult, having three hundred followers, and promised that a great army would not long after follow him.

6.10. And Germanus, coming to Antioch, went around the whole wall in a circle, and found most of it strong (for the river Orontes flows past all the part in the level ground, making it impassable for assailants, and the parts in the high ground, held up by precipitous places, were by no means accessible to the enemy), but coming to the height, which the people there have been accustomed to call Orocasias, he perceived that the wall there was most assailable.

6.11. For there happens to be a certain rock there, sufficiently broad for a great extent, but in height a little less than the wall.

6.12. He bade them, then, either, cutting off the rock, make a deep ditch about the wall, lest someone going up from there should come onto the wall, or, building some great tower there, fasten the building from it to the wall of the city.

6.13. But to the architects of the buildings neither of these seemed to be done. For neither would it be completed in a short time, the inroad of the enemy being so pressing, and beginning this work and not coming to its end they would show the enemy nothing else than where in the world the wall should be assailed by them.

6.14. And Germanus, foiled of this idea, at first, awaiting an army from Byzantium, had some hope upon it.

6.15. But when, much time being spent, neither any army came from the emperor nor was it expected to come, he fell into fear lest Chosroes, learning that the emperor's nephew was there, should make it of more importance than anything else to take both Antioch and him, and from this, leaving all else, should go against it with his whole army.

6.16. These things being in the mind of the Antiochenes too, and counsel having been taken about them, it seemed most expedient to escape the present danger by giving money to Chosroes.

6.17. They send, then, Megas, the bishop of Beroea, an intelligent man (for he chanced then to be sojourning among them), to entreat Chosroes; who, dispatched thence, overtakes the army of the Medes not far from Hierapolis.

6.18. And coming into the presence of Chosroes he much entreated him to pity men who neither had wronged him at all nor were able to oppose the Persian army.

6.19. For it befitted a king least of all to trample upon and force those who withdrew and in no way wished to oppose, since not even of what was now being done would anything kingly or noble be wrought by him, in that, not granting the Emperor of the Romans some time for counsel, so as either to confirm the peace, however it should seem to each, or to prepare the matters of war by agreement, as is fitting, but coming thus inconsiderately against the Romans in arms, while their own emperor did not yet know what was befalling them.

6.20. Chosroes, hearing this, was by no means able through his ignorance to be set right in character by intelligent speech, but was lifted in mind still more than before.

6.21. He threatened, then, to subdue all the Syrians and Cilicians, and bidding Megas follow him, led the army to Hierapolis.

6.22. There arriving and encamping, when he saw that the wall was strong and learned that it had a sufficient garrison of soldiers, he asked money of the Hierapolites,

6.23. sending Paul as interpreter to them. This Paul had been reared in the land of the Romans and had gone to a schoolmaster among the Antiochenes, and was said to be a Roman by race from the beginning.

6.24. But they, most of all fearing for the wall, which encompassed a great country up to the mountain that rises there, and then wishing to have their land unravaged, agreed to give two thousand pounds of silver.

6.25. Then Megas, entreating Chosroes on behalf of all the men of the East, did not cease until Chosroes agreed both to receive ten centenaria of gold and to depart from the whole Roman realm.

7.1. Thus, then, on that day Megas, departing thence, drove on toward the Antiochenes, and Chosroes, receiving the ransom, went to Beroea.

7.2. Now Beroea lies between Antioch and Hierapolis, and is distant a journey of two days for an unencumbered man from each.

7.3. Megas, then, journeying with a few men, went more swiftly, while the Persian army always accomplished the half of the road.

7.4. And on the fourth day the one came to Antioch, the other to the suburb of Beroea.

7.5. And Chosroes, having sent Paul, at once demanded money of the Beroeans, not only as much as he had received from the Hierapolites, but double of these, since he saw that their wall was most assailable in many places.

7.6. And the Beroeans (for they had no confidence at all in the wall) with eagerness undertook to give all; but having given two thousand pounds of silver, they said they were not able to give the rest.

7.7. And Chosroes pressing them for this reason, when night came on, they all fled to the fortress which is in the acropolis, together with the soldiers who had been stationed there for guard.

7.8. On the following day some were sent by Chosroes into the city to receive the money, but coming very near the wall they found all the gates shut, and being able to meet no man, they reported to the king their present situation.

7.9. And he bade them, putting ladders to the wall, make trial of the ascent; and they did accordingly.

7.10. And no one opposing them, getting within the wall they opened the gates at their pleasure,

7.11. and received into the city the whole army and Chosroes himself. And the king, now held by much anger, all but burned the whole city. But going up into the acropolis, he resolved to storm the fortress.

7.12. There the Roman soldiers, defending themselves vigorously, killed some of the enemy, but a great piece of good fortune befell Chosroes through the folly of the besieged, who fled into this fortress not alone, but together with their horses and the other animals, and being thus outgeneralled by this pettiness came into danger.

7.13. For there being one spring there, since the horses and mules and other animals drank it out beyond what was needful, the water happened to be dried up. So matters stood for the Beroeans.

7.14. But Megas, coming to Antioch and announcing what he had agreed with Chosroes, by no means persuaded them to carry it out in deed.

7.15. For the Emperor Justinian chanced to have sent John the son of Rufinus and Julian the secretary of secrets as envoys to Chosroes. The Romans call this dignity asecretis; for they have been accustomed to call secret things secreta.

7.16. These, coming to Antioch, remained. And Julian, the one of the envoys, expressly forbade all to give money to the enemy or to buy the emperor's cities, and slandered to Germanus the high-priest Ephraemius, as being eager to hand over the city to Chosroes.

7.17. Therefore Megas withdrew unsuccessful. And Ephraemius, the bishop of Antioch, fearing the Persian inroad, went to Cilicia.

7.18. There Germanus too came not long after, taking a few men, but leaving the most there.

7.19. And Megas, coming quickly to Beroea and being exceedingly grieved at what had befallen, accused Chosroes of having wrought unholy deeds upon the Beroeans, in that, when he had sent him to Antioch as though for the treaty, he had plundered the money of the citizens, who had wronged him in nothing at all, and had compelled them to shut themselves up in this fortress, and thus, burning the city, had razed it needlessly to the ground.

7.20. To this Chosroes answered as follows: "Of these things, comrade, you yourself are the cause, having compelled us to spend time here; for not at the appointed time, but much later than this, have you now arrived.

7.21. And as for the perversity of your citizens, why should one make a long speech, most excellent man? For they, having agreed to give us a fixed sum of silver for their own safety, do not even now think they ought to carry out what was agreed, but thus unrestrainedly, trusting in the strength of the place, disregard us, who are compelled, as you see, I suppose, to undertake a siege of a fortress.

7.22. Whom, indeed, I have hope, with the gods, a little later to punish, and to accomplish upon the guilty the chastisement for the Persians who have needlessly perished before this wall."

7.23. So much Chosroes said, and Megas replies as follows: "If one should consider that, because you are a king, you charge these things upon men wretched and most dishonoured, there is need, gainsaying nothing of what is said, to agree; for to your other power there naturally follows also mastery in argument;

7.24. but if one were permitted, shaking off the rest, to choose the true word, you would have nothing, O King, justly to charge upon us. But hear all gently.

7.25. For I, when I was sent to declare what you enjoined upon the Antiochenes, coming into your presence on the seventh day (than which what could be quicker?), found these things wrought by you upon my fatherland.

7.26. And they, having now lost all their most precious things, then enter only into the contest for their lives, having become, I think, mightier than to bring you any more of their money.

7.27. For to pay something of what is not present would be for a man no device at all.

7.28. And long ago the names of things have been well and rightly distinguished by men; among which is this also, that weakness is separated from ill-will.

7.29. For the latter, going over into resistance through licentiousness of character, is wont, as is likely, to be hated; but the former, carried into this same thing through the impossibility of service, is naturally able to be pitied.

7.30. Allow us, then, O King, who have drawn the worst of all lots, to carry off at least this consolation: that we may not seem to have been ourselves the cause of what has befallen us.

7.31. And think that whatever money you have taken suffices you, measuring it not by your dignity, but looking at the resources of the Beroeans.

7.32. And force us no further, lest you ever seem unable for what you have undertaken; for what is excessive has ever been honoured by the impossible; but not to attempt the impossible is best.

7.33. Let this, then, be my defence for the moment on behalf of these men. But if I should be able to be with the wretched men, I might have something else, now unknown to me,

7.34. to say." So much Megas said, and Chosroes let him go up to the acropolis. And he, coming there and learning all that had befallen concerning the spring, came again in tears to Chosroes, and lying prone insisted that nothing at all of all their money was left to the Beroeans, but besought him to grant them their lives alone.

7.35. And Chosroes, moved by the man's lamentations, carried out the request, and swearing to all in the acropolis gave them pledges.

7.36. And the Beroeans, having come to so great a danger, left the acropolis unharmed and departed each where he wished.

7.37. But of the soldiers a few followed them, while the most came willingly as deserters to Chosroes, charging that the treasury owed them their pay for a long time, and afterward went with him to the country of the Persians.

8.1. And Chosroes (for Megas declared that he had by no means persuaded the Antiochenes to give money) went against them with his whole army.

8.2. And some of the Antiochenes, rising up thence with their money, fled each as he could. This same thing all the rest too purposed, had not, coming in the meanwhile, the commanders of the soldiers in Lebanon, Theoctistus and Molatzes, with six thousand men, encouraged them with hopes and prevented it.

8.3. There not long after the Persian army too came. And all encamped there, bivouacking by the river Orontes and not far from it.

8.4. And Chosroes, sending Paul to the wall, asked the Antiochenes for money, on condition that he would depart thence for ten centenaria of gold; and it was clear that he would receive even less than these at his withdrawal.

8.5. And then the envoys, coming to Chosroes and having said much about the breaking of the peace and heard much from him, withdrew.

8.6. On the following day the populace of the Antiochenes (for they are not earnest, but given enough to jests and disorder) insulted Chosroes much from the battlements and mocked him with unseemly laughter.

8.7. And when Paul came near the wall, advising them to buy themselves and the city for a little money, they all but shot and killed him, had he not, foreseeing it, guarded himself. Therefore, seething with anger, Chosroes resolved to storm the wall.

8.8. On the morrow, then, leading all the Persians against the wall, he bade some assault one part of the river, others another, while he himself, having the most and best, assaulted the height. For there, as I said before, the wall was most assailable.

8.9. There the Romans (for the building on which they were to stand and fight was very narrow) devised the following. Binding long beams to one another, they hung them between the towers, and thus made these spaces far broader, so that still more might be able to defend themselves from there against those storming the wall.

8.10. The Persians, then, pressing most vigorously, sent many arrows from all sides, and especially over the height of the rock.

8.11. And the Romans defended themselves with all their might, not soldiers only, but also many most daring young men of the populace.

8.12. And those storming the wall there seemed to enter the battle on equal terms with the enemy. For the rock, being broad and high and as it were set over against the wall, made the engagement as though on level ground.

8.13. And if anyone of the Roman army had taken courage to get with three hundred men outside the wall and, anticipating, to seize that rock and from there to defend himself against the assailants, never, I think, would the city have come into any danger from the enemy.

8.14. For the barbarians would have had no place from which to storm the wall, being shot from above both from the rock and from the wall. But now (for the Antiochenes had to perish by this Median army) this came into the mind of no one.

8.15. The Persians, then (since Chosroes was present with them and urging them on with a great shout), forcing themselves beyond their strength and giving the adversaries no opportunity to look about or guard against the shots of arrows, and the Romans defending themselves still more with much multitude and tumult, the ropes by which the beams were bound, not bearing the weight, suddenly broke, and together with the beams all who stood on them fell to the ground with a great crash.

8.16. When the other Romans who were fighting from the adjoining towers perceived this, and being by no means able to infer what had happened, but thinking that the wall there was destroyed, they rushed to flight.

8.17. The many young men of the populace, then, who before had been wont to be at faction with one another in the hippodromes, when they came down from the wall, by no means fled, but remained there, while the soldiers, together with Theoctistus and Molatzes, at once leaping onto their horses, which chanced to be prepared there, rode off to the gates, spreading the report that Bouzes was coming with an army, and that they wished quickly both to receive him into the city and together with him to defend against the enemy.

8.18. There many men of the Antiochenes, and all the women with their children, went at a great run to the gates; then, thrust by the horses, in much narrowness they fell.

8.19. And the soldiers, sparing none at all of those in their way, drove still more than before over the fallen, and a great slaughter took place there, especially at the gates themselves.

8.20. And the Persians, no one opposing them, putting ladders to the wall, climbed up with no trouble. And getting quickly onto the battlements, they were for some time by no means willing to come down, but seemed to be looking about and at a loss, suspecting, it seems to me, an ambush of the enemy in the difficult ground.

8.21. For the part within the wall, going straight down from the height, is uninhabited for a great extent. Very high rocks rise there and precipitous places.

8.22. And some say that the delay of the Persians came about by Chosroes' purpose.

8.23. For when he perceived the difficult ground and saw the soldiers fleeing, he feared lest by some necessity, turning back from their retreat, they should cause him trouble, and become a hindrance, should it so chance, to taking a city ancient and worthy of account and the first of the Romans of all the cities in the East, in wealth and size and population and beauty and all other prosperity.

8.24. For which, reckoning all else of less account, he wished to grant the Roman soldiers opportunity, that they might use their flight at their pleasure. Therefore the Persians, signalling with their hands to the fugitives, urged them to flee as quickly as possible.

8.25. The Roman soldiers, then, with their commanders, all departed by the gate that leads to Daphne, the suburb of the Antiochenes;

8.26. for from this gate alone, the others being seized, the Persians refrained; and a few of the populace escaped with the soldiers.

8.27. But when the Persians saw all the Roman soldiers gone forward, coming down from the height they got into the middle of the city.

8.28. There many young men of the Antiochenes, coming to blows with them, at first seemed to have the upper hand in the engagement. Some of them were heavy-armed, but the most were unarmed and used only casts of stones.

8.29. And thrusting back the enemy, they raised the paean and cried out for the Emperor Justinian as gloriously victorious, as though they had conquered.

8.30. Meanwhile Chosroes, sitting in a tower at the height, wishing to say something, sent for the envoys. And one of the commanders, Zabergan, thinking that he wished to come to a parley with the envoys about an agreement, came quickly into the king's

8.31. presence and spoke as follows: "You do not seem to me, O master, to have the same mind toward the Romans concerning their safety as they have. For they both before the danger insult your kingship and, defeated, dare the impossible and do irreparable deeds against the Persians, as though fearing lest some account of humanity should be left them with you; while you wish to pity those who do not think fit to be saved, and have been eager to spare those who in no way wish it.

8.32. And these men, having set an ambush in a captured city, are destroying the victors by certain snares, although all

8.33. the soldiers have long since fled from them." When Chosroes heard this, he sent many of the best against them, who, returning not long after, reported that nothing untoward had befallen.

8.34. For the Persians, forcing the Antiochenes by their multitude, had already routed them, and a great slaughter took place there. For the Persians, sparing no age, killed all in their way down to the boys.

8.35. Then, they say, two women of the notable Antiochenes happened to be outside the wall, and perceiving that they would come under the enemy (for already, going about everywhere, the Persians were seen), came at a run to the river Orontes, and fearing lest the Persians should do some outrage to their bodies, veiling their faces with their head-coverings and casting themselves into the stream of the river, vanished. So every kind of evil held the Antiochenes.

9.1. There Chosroes said to the envoys as follows: "I think the ancient saying is not far from the truth, that God does not give good things unalloyed, but mingling them with evils then furnishes them to men.

9.2. And on this account we do not even have laughter without weeping, but ever some misfortune is fastened beside our good fortunes, and grief beside our pleasures, not allowing anyone ever truly to enjoy the prosperity given.

9.3. For this city, said and being most worthy of account in the land of the Romans, I was able to take with the least trouble, God having improvised the victory for us, as you see, I suppose.

9.4. Yet seeing a slaughter of men so great in number, and the trophy dipped in much blood, no perception of pleasure from the deed has come to me.

9.5. And of these things the wretched Antiochenes are the cause, who, when the Persians stormed the wall, were not able to thrust them back, but against men already victorious and who had taken the city at the first shout, with senseless, death-seeking boldness resolved to grapple.

9.6. All the men of note among the Persians, troubling me much, thought fit that I should net the city and destroy all the captives; but I bade the fugitives rush still more into their retreat, that they might be saved as quickly as possible. For to trample upon the captured is not

9.7. holy." So much Chosroes said, playing the wonder-worker and dissembling to the envoys; yet he did not escape their notice for what reason he granted the opportunity to the fleeing Romans.

9.8. For he was the most clever of all men at saying things that were not and concealing things that were true, and at bringing upon the wronged the charges of his own misdeeds; and besides, ready to agree to everything and to confirm the agreement with an oath, but exceedingly readier to come to forgetfulness of what he had lately agreed and sworn; and for the sake of money ready without shrinking to let his soul down to every defilement, but a simple expert at fashioning piety with his face, and at disavowing in word the deed.

9.9. He who got round the Surenes too, who had done him no wrong at all before, by treachery, and destroyed them in the manner described, when, as the city was being taken, he saw a woman, decorous and not obscure, dragged by the left hand by one of the barbarians with much violence, but unwilling to let go a child which had just been weaned from her, and dragging it with the other hand as it fell to the ground, since it was not able to run with her this violent run—there too displayed his own character.

9.10. For they say that he, groaning ostensibly in word and giving an impression that he was in tears to those then present, both others and Anastasius the envoy, prayed God to punish the author of the evils that had happened.

9.11. And he wished to point obliquely at Justinian the Emperor of the Romans, knowing well that he himself was the most to blame of all.

9.12. Using so great a perversity of nature, Chosroes became King of the Persians (the demon having maimed the eye of Zames, who by his age bore the chief claim to the kingship, after Caoses, whom Cabades hated for no reason), and with no trouble mastered those who rose against him, and easily wrought upon the Romans whatever evils he devised.

9.13. For Fortune, wishing ever to make some man great, accomplishes at the fitting times what she has resolved, nothing opposing the rush of her will, neither considering the man's worth nor reckoning that anything unfitting may come to be, nor that many will blaspheme her for these things, mocking what has come to one beyond his desert who has obtained her favour, nor putting any other of all things in mind, provided only that what seems good to her be accomplished. But let these things be as is dear to God.

9.14. Chosroes bade the army take alive and enslave the survivors of the Antiochenes and plunder all the money, while he himself, with the envoys, went down from the height to the temple which they call a church.

9.15. There Chosroes found treasures of gold and silver so great in number that, taking nothing else of the booty except these treasures, he departed clothed with a magnitude of wealth.

9.16. And taking thence many marvellous marbles, he bade them be set outside the wall, that these too might be conveyed to the country of the Persians.

9.17. Having accomplished these things, he charged the Persians to burn the whole city. And the envoys begged him to refrain from the church alone, of which he had received sufficient ransom.

9.18. And he, having conceded this to the envoys, bade them burn all the rest, and leaving a few there to set fire to the city, himself with all the rest withdrew to the camp where they had bivouacked before.

10.1. Some time before this disaster God, displaying a portent to those dwelling there, signified what was to be. For the standards of the soldiers, who are settled there from of old, before standing toward the setting sun, of their own accord turned and stood toward the rising sun, and again returned to their former position, no one touching them.

10.2. These things the soldiers showed to many others very near at hand and to the paymaster of the camp's expense, while the standards were still shaking. This was a man, Tatian by name, most intelligent, coming from Mopsuestia.

10.3. But not even so did those who saw this portent know that from the emperor of the West to the emperor of the East the rule of the place would pass, so that, plainly, they might by no means be able to escape those who had to suffer what came to pass.

10.4. And I grow dizzy writing of so great a disaster and handing it down to memory for the time to come, and I cannot know what in the world God can wish in raising the affairs of a man or of a place to a height, and then again throwing them down and destroying them from no cause apparent to us.

10.5. For it is not lawful to say of Him that all things do not always come to pass according to reason—He who then endured to see Antioch brought down to the ground by a most unholy man, whose beauty and magnificence in all things not even now could be altogether hidden.

10.6. The church, then, was left alone when the city was destroyed, by the labour and forethought of the Persians on whom this task lay.

10.7. There were left too, about the so-called Cerataeum, many houses, not by any man's forethought, but since they lay somewhere at the extremities of the city, no other building joined to them, the fire was by no means able to reach them.

10.8. And the barbarians burned also the parts outside the wall, except the temple dedicated to Saint Julian, and the houses which chance to be about this temple.

10.9. For there it befell the envoys to lodge. From the wall, however, the Persians refrained altogether.

10.10. A little later the envoys, coming again to Chosroes, spoke as follows: "If the words were not made to you present, O King, we should never have thought that Chosroes the son of Cabades had come in arms into the land of the Romans, dishonouring the oaths lately sworn by you—which seems the last and strongest of all things among men, the pledge of mutual faith and truth—and dissolving the treaties, whose hope alone is left to those who through ill fortune in war do not live in safety.

10.11. For one might say that such a thing is nothing else than that the life of men has been changed into that of beasts.

10.12. For in never making treaties, war will be left altogether endless, and war that has no end is by nature wont ever to remove from their nature those who use it.

10.13. And what did you mean, writing a little before to your brother that he himself was the cause of the breaking of the treaties? Is it not clear that you agree the breaking of treaties to be a very great evil?

10.14. If, then, he wronged you in nothing, you do not now justly come against us; but if it chances that something of the kind was wrought by your brother, yet let the charge against you too have been accomplished thus far and no further, that you yourself may seem the better. For he who is worsted in evils,

10.15. this man would justly conquer in better things. And yet we know well that the Emperor Justinian has never opposed the peace, and we beg you not to work such evils upon the Romans, from which there will be no profit for the Persians, but you will gain only this, that you have needlessly wrought irreparable deeds upon those who have lately made a treaty with you." So much the envoys said.

10.16. And Chosroes, hearing this, insisted that the treaty had been broken by the Emperor Justinian, and recounted the causes which the latter had furnished, some of them worthy of account, but others paltry and fashioned for no reason; and most of all he thought fit to show that his letters were most to blame for the war, those written to Alamoundaras and the Huns, as I have said in the foregoing.

10.17. That a Roman man, however, had invaded the land of the Persians or displayed deeds of war, he could neither say nor show.

10.18. The envoys, however, in part did not refer the causes to Justinian, but to some of those who had served him, and in part fastened on what was said as not having happened so.

10.19. In the end Chosroes thought fit that the Romans give him much money, but advised that they should not, by furnishing the money for the moment only, wish to confirm the peace for all time.

10.20. For the friendship that arises among men on the basis of money is for the most part spent together with the money as it is consumed.

10.21. The Romans, then, must pay the Persians a fixed yearly sum. "For thus," he said, "the Persians will have the peace with them firm, themselves guarding the Caspian Gates and no longer vexed with them on account of the city of Daras, for which they too will be ever paid." "Then," the envoys said,

10.22. "the Persians wish to hold the Romans tributary for the payment of tribute." "No,

10.23. but the Romans shall have for the future their own soldiers, the Persians," Chosroes said, "furnishing them a fixed wage for the service; since you furnish to certain of the Huns and to the Saracens too a yearly gold, not being tributary to them, but that they may guard your land unravaged for all

10.24. time." Chosroes and the envoys, having discussed many such things with one another, came to terms afterward, on condition that Chosroes, having received for the moment fifty centenaria from the Romans and carrying off five others as a yearly tax for all time, should do them no further harm, but should himself, having received hostages from the envoys on this agreement, make his withdrawal with the whole army to his native land; and that there envoys sent by the Emperor Justinian should henceforth establish the compacts concerning the peace in security.

11.1. Then Chosroes went to Seleucia, a city on the sea, distant from Antioch a hundred and thirty stades, and there, neither finding nor harming any Roman, bathed alone in the water of the sea, and having sacrificed to the sun and to whatever others he wished, and invoked the gods much, rode back.

11.2. And coming to the camp, he said that he had a certain desire to view the city of the Apameans, being in the neighbourhood, for no other reason than for the sake of inquiry.

11.3. And the envoys conceded this too, unwillingly, on condition, however, that he, having viewed the city and carried off from there a thousand pounds of silver, should harm nothing else and ride back.

11.4. But it was clear to the envoys and to all the rest that Chosroes was setting out for Apamea for this reason only: that, taking hold of some pretext of no account, he might plunder both it and the country there. Then he went up to Daphne, the suburb of Antioch.

11.5. There he marvelled greatly at the grove and the springs of water;

11.6. for both are tolerably worth seeing. And having sacrificed to the nymphs, he departed, harming nothing else, but burning the temple of the archangel Michael together with certain other houses, for the following cause.

11.7. A Persian man, riding a horse, notable in the Persian army and known to King Chosroes, came to a precipitous place about the so-called Tretus with certain others, where there is a temple of the archangel Michael, the work of Evaris.

11.8. This man, seeing one of the Antiochene young men, on foot and alone, hiding there, pursued him apart from the others. The young man was a butcher,

11.9. Aeimachus by name. He, when he was about to be overtaken, suddenly turning, struck the pursuer with a stone, and hit him on the forehead at the temple by the ear. And he fell at once to the ground, but the youth, drawing his scimitar, killed the man.

11.10. And having stripped him at his pleasure of his arms and all his gold and whatever else he chanced to be wearing, and leaping onto the horse, he drove forward.

11.11. And whether by chance or using experience of the places, he was wholly able to escape the notice of the enemy and to flee.

11.12. Chosroes, learning this and exceedingly grieved at what had befallen, bade some of his followers burn the temple of the archangel of which I spoke before.

11.13. And they, thinking that this was that one, burned it together with the buildings about it, and supposed that they had carried out the commands of Chosroes. So these things were thus.

11.14. And Chosroes went with his whole army toward Apamea. Now there is in Apamea a piece of wood a cubit long, a part of the cross on which Christ in Jerusalem once endured, it is agreed, his not unwilling punishment, brought there secretly in ancient time by a Syrian man.

11.15. And the men of old, believing that it would be a great safeguard for themselves and for the city, having made a wooden case for it, deposited it, which they adorned with much gold and precious stones, and handed it to three priests, that they should guard it with all safety, and bringing it out every year they do obeisance to it on one day, all the people together.

11.16. Then, therefore, the people of the Apameans, when they learned that the army of the Medes was coming against them, were in great fear. And hearing that Chosroes by no means told the truth, and coming to Thomas the high-priest of the city, they begged him to show them the wood of the cross, that, having done obeisance to it for the last time, they might die.

11.17. And he did accordingly. Then a sight came to pass there mightier than word and belief. For the priest, bearing the wood, displayed it, and above it a gleam of fire was carried, and the part of the roof over it was lit with much light beyond the wonted.

11.18. And as the priest walked everywhere in the temple, the gleam went forward with him, ever keeping the place of the roof above it.

11.19. And the populace of the Apameans, from the pleasure of the wonder, were astonished and rejoiced and wept, and already all had confidence about their safety.

11.20. And Thomas, when he had gone around the whole temple, depositing the wood of the cross in the case, covered it, and the gleam suddenly ceased. And learning that the army of the enemy had come very near the city, with much haste he came to Chosroes.

11.21. And he, when he inquired of the priest whether the Apameans wished to oppose the Median army from the wall, Thomas answered that no such thing had come into the men's mind.

11.22. "Then," said Chosroes, "receive me into the city with a few men, all the gates being thrown

11.23. open." The priest said, "For to this very thing I have come to invite you." The whole army, then, encamped, bivouacking before the wall.

11.24. And Chosroes, choosing out two hundred of the best men among the Persians, rode into the city. But when he was inside the gates, he forgot of his own will what he had agreed with the envoys, and bade the bishop give not a thousand pounds of silver only, nor ten times these, but also the treasures that chanced to be deposited there, all the gold and silver, being prodigiously great.

11.25. And I think he would not have shrunk from enslaving and plundering the whole city, had not something divine manifestly hindered him.

11.26. So greatly did love of money astound him, and his desire of glory turned his mind.

11.27. For he thought the enslavements of cities a great glory for himself, making nothing at all of it if, disregarding treaties and compacts, he wrought such things upon the Romans.

11.28. This purpose of Chosroes will be declared by what he attempted about the city of Daras in this very retreat, holding the agreements in all disregard, and what he did to the Callinicenses a little later in time of peace, which shall be told in the books to follow. But God, as has been said,

11.29. preserved Apamea. And when Chosroes had taken all the treasures, and Thomas saw him now drunk with the abundance of money, bringing out the wood of the cross together with the case and opening the case and displaying the wood, he said, "O most mighty King, these alone are left to me of all my treasures.

11.30. The case, then (for it is adorned with gold and precious stones), there is no grudging that you take it together with all the rest; but this wood, which is saving and precious to us—this, I beseech you and entreat, give to me." So much the priest said. And Chosroes conceded it and carried out the request.

11.31. Afterward, using much ambition, he bade the populace go up into the hippodrome and the charioteers contend in their wonted fashion.

11.32. There too he himself went up and was eager to be a spectator of what was done. But since he had heard much before that the Emperor Justinian was extraordinarily devoted to the Blue colour, which is dark blue, wishing to go against him here too, he wished to fit the victory to the Green.

11.33. The charioteers, then, beginning from the starting-line, set to work, and some chance befell him who was clothed in Blue to drive past and go in front.

11.34. And he who was clad in the Green colour followed him in the same track.

11.35. And Chosroes, thinking this had happened on purpose, was vexed and with a threat cried out that the Caesar had needlessly gone in front of the rest, and bade the horses going in front be checked, so that for the rest they should contend behind; and when this had been done as he bade, so both Chosroes and the Green party seemed to win.

11.36. Then one of the Apameans, coming into the presence of Chosroes, accused a Persian man of having gone up into his house and forcing his daughter, who was a virgin.

11.37. And he, hearing this and seething with anger, bade the man be led off. And when he was present, he charged that he be impaled in the camp.

11.38. And the populace, learning this, cried out with all their might extraordinarily, begging the man off from the king's anger. And Chosroes agreed to release the man to them, but secretly impaled him not long after. Having accomplished these things, he rode back with his whole army.

12.1. But when he came to the city of Chalcis, distant from the city of Beroea eighty-four stades, again he came to a certain forgetfulness of the agreements, and encamping not far from the wall, he sent Paul to threaten the Chalcidians that he would take the city by siege, unless they should purchase safety by giving ransom and hand over to him as many soldiers as chanced to be there together with their commander.

12.2. And the Chalcidians, having fallen into great fear of each king, swore that no soldiers at all were dwelling among them, though they had hidden both others and Adonachus the commander of the soldiers in certain little houses, that they might not be manifest to the enemy; and having with difficulty collected two centenaria of gold, since they dwelt in a city not very prosperous, by giving Chosroes their lives they saved both the city and themselves.

12.3. From there Chosroes no longer wished to make his retreat by the way he had come, but to cross the Euphrates river and plunder as much money as possible from Mesopotamia.

12.4. Having, then, yoked a bridge about the place Obbane, which is distant from the fortress at Barbalissus forty stades, he himself crossed and bade his whole army cross as quickly as possible, intimating that he would loose the bridge on the third day, and fixing also the time of the day.

12.5. And when the appointed time came, it chanced that some of the army were left behind, not having yet crossed, but he, reckoning nothing at all, sent those who should loose the bridge.

12.6. And those left behind, each as he could, went up to their native land. Then a certain ambition came upon Chosroes to take the city of Edessa.

12.7. For a saying of the Christians urged him to this and gnawed at his mind, because they insisted that it was impregnable, for the following cause.

12.8. There was, in ancient time, a certain Augarus, toparch of Edessa (for so they then called the kings of each nation). This Augarus was the most intelligent of all the men of his time, and from this most friendly to the Emperor Augustus.

12.9. For, wishing to be in treaty with the Romans, he came to Rome, and coming to a parley with Augustus, so astonished him by his surpassing intelligence that Augustus no longer wished to let go of his company, but was straightway a burning lover of his conversation, and whenever he met him, by no means wished to part from him.

12.10. Much time, then, was spent by him in this absence from home. And once, wishing to go to his native land and being by no means able to persuade Augustus to let him go,

12.11. he devised the following. He set out as though to hunt in the places about Rome; for he chanced to have a certain earnest practice about these things. And going about much country, he hunted many of the wild beasts there alive, and gathering up earth from the ground, he carried it from each region; and thus he returned to Rome, having both the earth and the beasts.

12.12. Augustus, then, going up into the hippodrome, sat as he was wont, and Augarus, coming into his presence, showed him the earth and the beasts, recounting from what region each earth and each of the beasts was.

12.13. Then he bade them set the earth in different places of the hippodrome, and gathering all the beasts into one place, then to release them.

12.14. The attendants, then, did accordingly. And the beasts, separating from one another, went to that earth which chanced to be from the region whence each had been taken.

12.15. And Augustus watched what was done exactly for a long time, and marvelled that nature, untaught, makes its native earth desirable to the animals. And Augarus, suddenly taking hold of his knees,

12.16. said, "What mind, O master, do you think I have, who have a wife and children and a kingdom—small, indeed, but in my native land?"

12.17. And he, worsted by the truth of the word and constrained, conceded that he should depart, unwillingly, and bade him ask for whatever he needed.

12.18. And when Augarus had obtained this, he begged Augustus to build him a hippodrome in the city of Edessa. And he conceded this too. Thus, departing from Rome, Augarus came to Edessa.

12.19. And his citizens inquired of him whether he came bringing them some good thing from the Emperor Augustus. And he, answering, said that he brought the Edessenes a grief without penalty and a joy without gain, intimating the fortune of the hippodrome.

12.20. At a later time Augarus, having come far on in age, was seized with a certain grievous gout exceedingly. Distressed, then, by the pains and the immobility thence, he brought the matter to the physicians, and gathered from every land all the wise men in these things.

12.21. From whom afterward (for they were not able to find any cure of the evil) he stood off, and falling into helplessness lamented his present fortune.

12.22. And about that time Jesus, the Son of God, being in the body, was conversing with the men in Palestine, and by never sinning at all, but also accomplishing the impossible, was manifestly displaying that He was truly the Son of God;

12.23. for calling the dead He raised them as from sleep, and opened the eyes of those born thus maimed, and cleansed leprosies of the whole body and loosed maiming of the feet, and all the other afflictions which by physicians are named incurable.

12.24. These things being announced by those from Palestine sojourning in Edessa, Augarus heard, and took courage, and writing a letter to Jesus begged Him to depart from Judaea and from the senseless men there, and for the rest to live with him.

12.25. When Christ saw this brought to Him, He wrote back to Augarus, plainly refusing that He would come, but promising health by the letter.

12.26. And they say He added this too, that the city would never be taken by barbarians. This conclusion of the letter those who wrote the history of that time by no means knew; for they did not anywhere mention it; but the Edessenes say they found it together with the letter, so that indeed they have set up the letter thus inscribed instead of any other safeguard in the gates of the city.

12.27. The city, then, did come under the Medes at a later time, not taken, however, but in the following manner.

12.28. When Augarus received the writing of Christ, he became a little later free of evils, and living in health for a long time died; but whoever of his children succeeded to the kingdom, having become the most unholy of all men, both wronged his subjects in many ways and, fearing the punishment from the Romans, went over willingly to the Persians.

12.29. And much later the Edessenes, having killed the barbarian guards dwelling among them, handed over the city to the Romans.

12.30. And once a thought came to me, that if Christ wrote not what was said, but because men came to this belief, He wishes on this account to guard the city impregnable, that He might give them no pretext of error. But let these things be as is dear to God, and so be said.

12.31. To Chosroes, then, it seemed of importance for these reasons to take Edessa. And when he came to Batnae, a town small and of no account, distant a day's journey from Edessa, there he bivouacked that night, and at deep dawn drove with his whole army toward Edessa.

12.32. And it befell them, falling into a wandering, to bivouac on the next day in the same place;

12.33. which, they say, befell them even twice. And when Chosroes with difficulty came very near Edessa, they say that a flux fell upon his face and his jaw was swollen. Therefore he by no means wished to make trial of the city, but sending Paul asked the Edessenes for money.

12.34. And they said they feared not at all for the city, but, that he might not harm their lands, agreed to give two centenaria of gold. And he received the money and kept the agreement.

13.1. Then too the Emperor Justinian wrote a letter to Chosroes, agreeing to carry out the things agreed by him and the envoys concerning the peace.

13.2. When Chosroes saw this brought to him, he released the hostages and was preparing for departure, and wished to give back all the captives of the Antiochenes.

13.3. When the Edessenes learned this, they displayed an eagerness mightier than report. For there was no one who did not bring his ransom to the church for these captives, according to the measure of his substance.

13.4. And there were those by whom this was done even beyond measure. For the courtesans, taking off the adornment they had on their bodies, threw it there, and if any husbandman lacked furniture or silver but had an ass or a sheep, he brought it to the church with much haste.

13.5. There was gathered, then, a very great quantity of gold and silver and other goods,

13.6. but nothing was given for ransom. For Bouzes chanced to be present there, who undertook to hinder the thing, awaiting that some great gain would come to him from it. Therefore Chosroes, taking all the captives with him, went forward.

13.7. The Carrhenes met him, offering much money; but he said it did not belong to them, since the most were not Christians but happened to be of the old faith.

13.8. And indeed he received money even from the Constantinians, though saying that the city belonged to him from his fathers. For when Cabades took Amida, he wished to take Edessa and Constantina too.

13.9. But coming near Edessa he inquired of the Magi whether the city would be taken by him, showing them the place with his right hand.

13.10. And they said the city would be taken by no device, inferring that, by stretching out his right hand to it, he gave a sign not of capture or any other hardship, but of safety.

13.11. And he, hearing this, was persuaded and led the army against Constantina.

13.12. And coming there he charged his whole army to encamp as though to besiege it.

13.13. Now the priest of Constantina then was Baradotus, a man just and most dear to God, and from this having his prayer ever effective for whatever he wished; whose very face anyone seeing would at once have inferred that the man was most continually pleasing to God.

13.14. This Baradotus then, coming to Cabades, brought wine and dried figs and honey and pure loaves, and begged him not to make trial of a city which is of no account and has been much neglected by the Romans, having neither garrison of soldiers nor any other safeguard, but only its inhabitants, wretched men.

13.15. So he spoke; and Cabades agreed to grant him the city and gifted him with all the provisions which had been prepared for the camp for the siege, being prodigiously great; and thus he departed from the land of the Romans. Therefore Chosroes thought fit that the city belonged to him from his fathers.

13.16. And coming to Daras he undertook a siege. And within the Romans and Martin the general (for he chanced to be there) prepared for resistance.

13.17. The city is encompassed by two walls, of which the inner is great and simply worth seeing (for each tower rises to a height of a hundred feet, and the rest of the wall sixty); but the outer is much smaller, yet otherwise strong and worth much account.

13.18. And the space between has a breadth of not less than fifty feet; here the Darenes are wont to put their oxen and the other animals when the enemy press upon them.

13.19. At first, then, Chosroes, making an assault on the western part of the wall and forcing it by a multitude of arrows, burned the gates of the short wall.

13.20. None of the barbarians, however, dared to get inside. Then he resolved to make a tunnel secretly to the eastern part of the city. For there only can the earth be dug, since the rest of the wall was built by its makers on rock.

13.21. The Persians, then, beginning from the ditch, dug. And it being very deep, they were neither seen by the enemy nor gave them any perception of what was being done.

13.22. They had already gone under the foundations of the outer wall, and were about, getting into the space between each wall a little later and passing the great wall too, to take the city by storm; but (for it was not destined that it be taken by the Persians) one from the camp of Chosroes about midday came alone very near the wall, whether a man or something else mightier than a man, and gave to those who saw him an impression that he was gathering the arrows which the Romans had a little before shot from the wall against the troublesome barbarians.

13.23. And doing this and holding his shield before him, he seemed to mock those on the battlements and to jest with laughter. Then, declaring to them the whole matter, he bade all keep awake and take care of their safety as much as possible.

13.24. And having signified this he departed, and the Romans with much tumult and disturbance bade men dig in the space between each wall.

13.25. And the Persians, indeed, not knowing what was being done, none the less set to work.

13.26. The barbarians, then, making a straight path below toward the wall of the city, and the Romans, by the purpose of Theodorus, a man learned in the so-called mechanical science, making the trench crosswise and of sufficient depth, it befell the Persians, getting into the middle between the two walls, suddenly to fall into the Roman tunnel.

13.27. And the foremost of them the Romans killed, while those behind, fleeing quickly, were saved in the camp. For the Romans by no means resolved to pursue them in the dark.

13.28. Chosroes, then, having failed in this attempt and despairing for the rest of taking the city by any device, came to a parley with the besieged, and having received a thousand pounds of silver, went to the country of the Persians.

13.29. When the Emperor Justinian learned this, he no longer wished to carry out what had been agreed, charging Chosroes that he had attempted to take the city of Daras in time of peace. These things befell the Romans in the first inroad of Chosroes, and the summer was ending.

14.1. And Chosroes, having built a city in Assyria, in a place distant a day's journey from the city of Ctesiphon, named it the Antioch of Chosroes, and settled there all the captives of the Antiochenes, for whom he prepared a bath and a hippodrome and arranged that they should have all other luxuries.

14.2. For he brought with him both the charioteers and the craftsmen of musical works from Antioch and the other Roman cities.

14.3. And besides he fed these Antiochenes at public expense more carefully than befits captives for all time, and thought fit that they should be called royal, so that they should be subject to none of the magistrates but to the king alone.

14.4. And if any other Roman, having become a runaway, was able to escape to the Antioch of Chosroes, and someone called him a kinsman of those dwelling there, it was no longer permitted to the owner to lead this captive away, not even if the one who had enslaved the man happened to be among the very notable Persians.

14.5. For the Antiochenes the portent which befell in the reign of Anastasius ended in this outcome. For then a hard wind suddenly fell upon the suburb of Daphne, and the cypresses there, which were exceedingly tall, were overturned from their lowest roots and fell to the ground, which the law by no means allowed to be cut.

14.6. A little later, when Justin ruled the Romans, an earthquake exceedingly violent both shook the whole city and brought most and the fairest of the buildings at once to the ground, and they say that then three hundred thousand of the Antiochenes perished.

14.7. And in this capture the whole city, as I have said, was destroyed. So the suffering of the Antiochenes turned out thus.

14.8. And Belisarius came to the emperor at Byzantium summoned from Italy, and the emperor, when he had wintered in Byzantium, sent him as general against Chosroes and the Persians at the beginning of spring, together with the commanders who had come with him from Italy, of whom he bade one, Valerian, lead the troops in Armenia.

14.9. For Martin chanced to have been sent straightway to the East, and on this account Chosroes,

14.10. as has been shown, found him at Daras. Of the Goths, Vittigis remained at Byzantium, but all the rest made the expedition against Chosroes with Belisarius.

14.11. Then one of the envoys of Vittigis, the one who laid claim to the name of bishop, died in the country of the Persians, but the other remained there.

14.12. And the interpreter who followed them withdrew to the land of the Romans, and John, who commanded the soldiers in Mesopotamia, seizing him about the borders of Constantina and leading him into the city, shut him up in prison, who brought out to him there everything he inquired about what had been done.

14.13. So these things turned out thus. And Belisarius with his followers went quickly, being eager to anticipate before Chosroes should make another inroad into the land of the Romans.

15.1. Meanwhile Chosroes led his army against Colchis, the Lazi bringing him on for the following cause.

15.2. The Lazi at first dwelt in Colchis, being subject to the Romans, not, however, for the payment of tribute, nor obeying them in any other command, except that, whenever their king died, the Emperor of the Romans sent the tokens of rule to him who should succeed to the kingship.

15.3. And he guarded the borders of the country together with his subjects exactly, lest the hostile Huns from the Caucasus, which is their neighbour, journeying through Lazica should invade the land of the Romans.

15.4. And they kept guard neither receiving money or an army from the Romans nor making any expedition together with the Romans, but ever trading by sea with the Romans dwelling on the Pontus.

15.5. For they themselves have neither salt nor grain nor any other good thing, but furnishing skins and hides and slaves, they got their necessaries.

15.6. But when the affairs of Gourgenes the king of the Iberians came to be as I have said before, Roman soldiers began to sojourn among the Lazi, with whom these barbarians were vexed, and most of all with the general Peter, who was given to insulting those he met.

15.7. This Peter came from Arzanene, which is beyond the Nymphius river, subject to the Persians from of old, and had been enslaved by the Emperor Justin while still a boy, when Justin, after the capture of Amida, invaded the land of the Persians with the army of Celer. His owner, using much humanity toward him, sent him to a schoolmaster.

15.8. And at first he became secretary of Justin, and when, Anastasius having died, Justin received the kingship of the Romans, Peter, having become general, drove into love of money as no other did and used much folly toward all.

15.9. Later the Emperor Justinian sent other commanders to Lazica, and John whom they called Tzibus, a man come from obscure and inglorious origins, who had risen to a generalship for no other reason than that he was the most wicked of all men and most able to find unjust ways of money. He confounded and threw into confusion all the affairs of the Romans and Lazi.

15.10. He also persuaded the Emperor Justinian to build a city on the sea among the Lazi, Petra by name; and sitting there as in a citadel he plundered the affairs of the Lazi.

15.11. For the salt and all the other cargoes that seemed necessary to the Lazi the merchants were no longer allowed to bring to Colchis, or to buy them elsewhere thence, but he, establishing at Petra the so-called monopoly, became himself both retailer and overseer of all the business about these things, buying and selling everything to the Colchians, not as was customary, but as he was permitted.

15.12. And at the same time the barbarians were otherwise vexed that the Roman army, not wont before, was sojourning among them. Being no longer able to bear these things, they resolved to go over to the Persians and Chosroes, and at once secretly from the Romans sent envoys to them to accomplish this.

15.13. To whom it had been said that, having received pledges from Chosroes that he would never hand over the Lazi unwilling to the Romans, they should thus bring him with the Persian army into the country.

15.14. Coming, then, to the Persians and secretly to the presence of Chosroes, the envoys spoke as follows: "If ever any others in all time, having revolted in some way from their own people and gone over to wholly unknown men, Fortune, doing well, has led back beyond their hope most gladly to their former friends, consider, O greatest King,

15.15. that the Lazi are some such. For the Colchians, being allies of the Persians from the beginning, both wrought them many good things and themselves suffered; of which we have many memorials in writings, and in your palaces they are preserved to the present.

15.16. But at a later time it befell our ancestors, whether neglected by you or for some other reason (for we have nothing clear to know about these things), to become in treaty with the Romans.

15.17. And now both we and the king of Lazica give to the Persians ourselves and our land to use as you wish.

15.18. And we beg you to consider thus about us: if, having suffered no harm at the hands of the Romans, but held by ill-will, we have gone over to you, shake off at once this our supplication, thinking that the Colchians will never be faithful to you either (for the manner of friendship dissolved becomes a proof of that set up toward others after it);

15.19. but if in word friends of the Romans, but in deed having become faithful slaves, we have suffered unholy deeds from those who have tyrannized over us, receive us, your former allies, and gain as slaves those whom you used as friends, and hate a tyranny so bitter raised up near us, doing things worthy of the justice which it is ever native to the Persians to maintain.

15.20. For he who himself does no wrong is not just, unless he is also able, having it in his power, to rescue those wronged by others.

15.21. And it is worth saying some of the things the accursed Romans have dared against us. For to our king they have left only the appearance of kingship, and have taken from him the authority over deeds; and the king sits in the station of an underling, fearing the general who gives the orders.

15.22. And they have set over us a multitude of soldiery, not that they may guard the country from those who trouble it (for none of our neighbours except the Romans has troubled us), but that, shutting us up as in a prison, they may become masters of what is ours.

15.23. And reckoning to make the taking away of what is ours quicker, see, O King,

15.24. into what an idea they have come: of the provisions whatever chance to be superfluous among them, they compel the Lazi to buy against their will, and whatever Lazica is wont to bear most useful to them, these they think fit, ostensibly in word, to buy from us, the price being fixed on both sides by the purpose of the rulers.

15.25. And thus, together with the necessaries, they take all the gold from us, using the specious name of trade, but in deed forcing us as much as possible. And there is set over us a huckster ruler, who has made our want a kind of business by the authority of his office.

15.26. The cause of our revolt, then, being such, has justice on its side; and what will be expedient to you yourselves in receiving the supplication of the Lazi we will at once tell.

15.27. To the Persian realm you will add a most ancient kingdom, and you will have from it the dignity of empire extended, and it will befall you to have a share of the Roman sea through our country, in which, O King, building ships, you will reach the palace at Byzantium with no trouble. For there is no obstacle between.

15.28. And one might add that to plunder the neighbouring barbarians of the land of the Romans every year will lie in your power.

15.29. For that the land of the Lazi has till now been a bulwark to the Caucasus mountains you too, I suppose, well know.

15.30. Justice, then, leading, and advantage being present, we think it would be no good counsel not to accept these words." So much the envoys said.

15.31. And Chosroes, pleased with the words, agreed to defend the Lazi, and inquired of the envoys whether it was possible for him to go to the land of Colchis with a great army.

15.32. For from many reports, he said, he had heard before that the country was tolerably difficult of access even for an unencumbered man, being exceedingly precipitous and held together for a great extent by thick and dense trees.

15.33. But they insisted to him that the way there would be easy for the whole Persian army, cutting the trees and throwing them into the difficult ground of the precipices.

15.34. And they themselves agreed to be guides of the road and forerunners for the Persians in this work.

15.35. Lifted by this counsel, Chosroes gathered a great army and prepared the matters of the inroad, neither bringing out the plan to the Persians, except to those alone with whom he was wont to consult about secret matters, and charging the envoys to tell what was being done to no one, but he set out, ostensibly in word, for Iberia, as though to settle the affairs there; for he gave out that a Hunnic nation had attacked the Persian realm there.

16.1. Meanwhile Belisarius, being in Mesopotamia, gathered the army from all sides, and sent some to the country of the Persians on a reconnaissance.

16.2. And he himself, wishing to meet the enemy there, should they make another inroad into the land of the Romans, ordered and arranged the soldiers, who were for the most part naked and unarmed, cowering at the name of the Persians.

16.3. The scouts, returning, insisted that there would be no inroad of the enemy at present; for Chosroes had occupation with a Hunnic war elsewhere.

16.4. Belisarius, hearing this, wished at once to invade the land of the enemy with his whole army.

16.5. And Arethas came to him with a great army of Saracens, and the emperor, writing a letter, charged him to invade the enemy's land quickly.

16.6. Having called together all the commanders at Daras, he spoke as follows: "All of you, fellow-commanders, I know to be experienced in many wars, and I have gathered you at present, not that, reminding you or making some exhortation, I may urge your mind against the enemy (for I think you need no word to lead you to boldness), but that, taking some counsel among ourselves, we may rather choose what may seem best and most excellent for the emperor's affairs.

16.7. For war is wont to be set right by good counsel most of all. And those who enter into counsel must make their judgement altogether free of awe and fear.

16.8. For fear, ever astounding those who fall into it, does not allow the mind to choose the better, and awe, casting a shadow over what seem to be the better courses, carries the judgement to the opposite knowledge.

16.9. If, then, anything seems to have been resolved either by the great emperor or by me concerning the present, let this not come upon you.

16.10. For he, being far removed from what is being done,

16.11. cannot fit actions to the occasions; so that there is no fear for those who oppose him in working what will profit his affairs.

16.12. And it is impossible for me, being a man and come here after a long time from the West, not to overlook something of what is needful.

16.13. So that it befits you, awed in nothing by my judgement, to say plainly whatever shall profit ourselves and the emperor.

16.14. For from the beginning we came here, fellow-commanders, to hinder the enemy from making some inroad into our land; but now, things having turned out for us better than according to hope, it is in our power to take counsel about his.

16.15. For which, I think it just that you, having been gathered, say, hiding nothing, whatever may seem best and most expedient to each."

16.16. So much Belisarius said. And Peter and Bouzes bade him lead the army with no delay against the enemy's land. And the whole assembly at once followed their opinion.

16.17. Rhecithancus, however, and Theoctistus, the commanders of the soldiers in Lebanon, said that they too wished the same as the rest about the inroad, but feared lest, when they had left the regions of Phoenicia and Syria, Alamoundaras should plunder these at his pleasure, and the emperor be angry with them as not having guarded unravaged the country they ruled; and on this account they by no means wished to invade together with the rest of the army.

16.18. But Belisarius said that these two men by no means thought truly. For it was the time of the summer solstice. And in this season the Saracens, ever bringing for about two months an offering to their god, never use any inroad into a foreign land in this time.

16.19. Therefore, having agreed to release both of them with their followers in sixty days, he bade them too follow with the rest of the army. Belisarius, then, prepared the matters of the inroad with much haste.

17.1. Chosroes and the army of the Medes, when, having passed Iberia, they came to the borders of Lazica, the envoys leading them, cutting the trees with no one opposing—trees which, being there thick and terribly dense and high in precipitous places, made the country altogether impassable for the army—threw them into the difficult ground and wholly made the road easy.

17.2. And coming to the middle of Colchis (where the poets fable that the things about Medea and Jason took place), Gourgenes, the king of the Lazi, came and did obeisance to Chosroes the son of Cabades as master, giving over to him himself with his palaces and all Lazica.

17.3. Now Petra is a city on the sea among the Colchians, by the so-called Euxine Sea, which, being a paltry place before, the Emperor Justinian made strong by the wall and the other construction and otherwise notable.

17.4. There the Roman army, with John, learning to be, Chosroes sent an army and the general Aniabedes, as though to take them at the first shout.

17.5. But John, learning of the inroad, bade no one get outside the wall or appear to the enemy from the battlements, but arming the whole army he set it near the gates, charging them to keep silence, sending forth neither sound nor any voice.

17.6. The Persians, then, coming very near the wall, since nothing hostile was either seen or heard by them, thought the city empty of men, the Romans having left it.

17.7. Therefore they came still more about the wall, as though to set ladders straightway, since no one was defending.

17.8. And seeing and hearing nothing hostile, sending to Chosroes they declared their present situation.

17.9. And he, sending the greater part of the army, bade them make trial of the wall on all sides, and charged one of the commanders to use the ram, the engine, about the gates, while he himself, sitting on the hill which lies very near the city, became a spectator of what was done.

17.10. At once the Romans flung open the gates suddenly, and falling unexpectedly upon them destroyed most of the enemy, and especially those drawn up about the ram; the rest, with difficulty fleeing with their general, were saved.

17.11. And Chosroes, held by anger, impaled Aniabedes, as having been outgeneralled by John, a huckster and altogether unwarlike man.

17.12. But some say that not Aniabedes, but the commander who was set over those working the ram, was impaled.

17.13. And he himself, setting out with the whole army, came very near the wall of Petra and, encamping, undertook the siege.

17.14. On the next day, going around the wall, since he suspected it not very able to resist, he resolved to storm it. And leading the whole army there he set to work, and bade all shoot at the battlements.

17.15. The Romans, defending themselves, used both the engines and all arrows. At first, then, the Persians, though shooting very thickly, distressed the Romans little, and suffered much from them, being shot from above.

17.16. Then (for it was destined that Petra be taken by Chosroes) John, struck by some chance in the throat, died, and from this the other Romans came into a neglect of everything.

17.17. Then, indeed, the barbarians withdrew to the camp; for it was already growing dark. And on the next day they devised a trench to the wall in the following manner.

17.18. The city of Petra is in part inaccessible from the sea, in part from precipitous rocks which rise there on all sides; from which it has obtained this name.

17.19. It has one entrance on the level ground, and this not very broad; for extraordinary precipices hang over it on either side.

17.20. There, foreseeing this from the first, those who built the city, lest the part of the wall there be assailable for them, made long walls along each precipice of the entrance for a great extent.

17.21. And of these walls they built two towers on either side, not as was wont, but in another manner.

17.22. For they left no empty space at all in the middle of the building, but made the towers whole from the ground up to a great height with very large stones holding to one another, so that they might be least shaken by a ram or any other engine. So the wall of Petra stood.

17.23. But the Persians, secretly making a trench in the earth, got beneath one of the towers, and carrying out from there many of the stones, set in their place wood, which they burned a little later.

17.24. And the flame, rising little by little, broke through the strength of the stones, and shaking the whole tower brought it suddenly at once to the ground.

17.25. And the Romans who were in the tower perceived what was being done before only so far as not to fall together with it to the ground, but, fleeing, to get within the wall of the city.

17.26. And it was now in the power of the enemy, storming the wall on the level ground, to take the city by storm with no trouble.

17.27. Therefore the Romans, cowering, came to a parley with the barbarians, and having received pledges from Chosroes about their bodies and goods, handed over themselves and the city by agreement. Thus Chosroes took Petra.

17.28. And finding the money of John very ample, he himself took it, but of the rest neither he himself nor any of the Persians touched anything, but the Romans, holding their own, mingled with the army of the Medes.

18.1. Meanwhile Belisarius and the Roman army, having learned nothing of what was being done there, went in much good order from the city of Daras toward Nisibis.

18.2. And when they came to the middle of the road, Belisarius led the army to the right, where there were sufficient springs of water and a plain able for all to encamp.

18.3. And there he bade the camp be made, about forty-two stades from the city of Nisibis.

18.4. And all the rest marvelled greatly that he by no means wished to encamp very near the wall, and some by no means wished to follow him.

18.5. Therefore Belisarius said to those of the commanders about him as follows: "I had no wish to bring out to all what I know. For a word carried about in a camp does not know how to keep secrets, since, advancing little by little, it is brought out even to the enemy.

18.6. But seeing the most of you yielding to much disorder, and each one wishing to be himself supreme commander of the war, I shall now say among you what I ought to keep silent, having first premised this, that, with many in an army using their own self-willed judgement, it is impossible for anything needful to be done.

18.7. I think, then, that Chosroes, going against other barbarians, has by no means left his own land without a sufficient guard, especially this city, which chances to be the first and set as a bulwark of all his land.

18.8. In which I well know that he has established soldiers so great in number and so great in valour as to be able to stand in the way of our inroads. And the proof is near at hand for you.

18.9. For he has set over them Nabedes as general, who, after Chosroes himself, seems to be first among the Persians in repute and other dignity.

18.10. Whom I think will both make trial of our power, and will give us passage in no other way than being worsted by some battle at our hands.

18.11. If, then, the engagement should be very near the city, the contest will not be on equal terms for us and the Persians.

18.12. For they, coming out from the strong place and faring well, should it so chance, will take much courage to press on, and being worsted will easily escape our onset.

18.13. For the pursuit will be short for us, and the city will suffer no harm thence, which you see, I suppose, to be impregnable to those storming the wall, its soldiers defending themselves.

18.14. But if the enemy, coming here to blows with us, we conquer them, I have much hope, fellow-commanders, of taking the city.

18.15. For as the adversaries flee a long course, either, mingling with them, we shall, as is likely, burst in within the gates, or, anticipating them, we shall compel them to turn and flee to some other country, and shall make Nisibis, bereft of its defenders, easy for ourselves to take."

18.16. When Belisarius had said this, all the rest were persuaded and encamped with him and remained. But Peter, making companion of John, who commanding the troops in Mesopotamia had no paltry portion of the army, came not far from the wall, but about ten stades off, and remained quietly.

18.17. And Belisarius set those with him as for battle, and charged those under Peter to draw up as for engagement until he himself should give the signal, and to know well that the barbarians would attack them about midday, having plainly in mind that they themselves are wont to take food toward late afternoon, while the Romans take it about midday.

18.18. So Belisarius advised; but those under Peter, holding the commands of no account, about midday, distressed by the sun (for the place is tolerably parched), laid down their arms, and taking no thought of the enemy, going about in no order, ate the cucumbers growing there.

18.19. When Nabedes saw this, he led the Persian army against them at a great run.

18.20. And the Romans (for the barbarians did not escape their notice as they came out from the wall, since they were seen plainly going in the level plain) sent to Belisarius, calling him to defend them, and themselves, taking up their arms,

18.21. but held by disorder and tumult, went to meet them. And those under Belisarius, the messenger not yet having come to them, learning from the dust of the Persian inroad, came to the rescue at a run.

18.22. And the Persians, falling on, turned the Romans, who did not withstand the onset, to flight with no trouble, and pursuing destroyed fifty and seized and held the standard of Peter.

18.23. And they would have killed them all in this pursuit, seeing them look to no defence, had not Belisarius and the army with him, overtaking them, prevented it.

18.24. For the Goths, foremost of all, coming on with long and thick spears, the Persians did not withstand, but rushed to flight.

18.25. And the Romans, pursuing with the Goths, killed a hundred and fifty. For the pursuit being short, the rest got quickly within the wall.

18.26. Then, indeed, all the Romans withdrew to the camp of Belisarius, but the Persians on the following day set the standard of Peter on a certain tower instead of a trophy, and hanging sausages on it, mocked the enemy with laughter; they no longer, however, dared to come out, but guarded the city in safety.

19.1. And Belisarius, seeing Nisibis to be exceedingly strong, having no hope of taking it, hastened to go forward, that he might do the enemy some harm by a raid.

19.2. Setting out, then, with his whole army, he went forward. And having accomplished a day's journey, they came upon a fortress which the Persians call Sisauranon.

19.3. There was a multitude of inhabitants, and eight hundred horsemen, the best of the Persians, kept guard, over whom a notable man, Bleschames by name, was set.

19.4. The Romans, encamping very near the fortress, undertook a siege, and making an assault on the wall were repulsed,

19.5. having lost many in the battle. For the wall chanced to be exceedingly strong, and the barbarians most vigorously defended themselves from there against the assailants. Therefore, calling together all the commanders,

19.6. Belisarius spoke as follows: "Experience of many wars, commanders, has given us in the perplexities of affairs to foresee what shall befall, and to be able to choose the better before the dangers.

19.7. Know, then, how great an evil it is for an army to journey into a hostile land with many strongholds and many warlike men in them left behind.

19.8. Which has befallen us too at present. For as we go forward, some of the enemy following secretly from here and from the city of Nisibis will, as is likely, do us mischief in places suitable for an ambush or some other plot.

19.9. And if elsewhere another army should meet us and set itself to battle, we must of necessity draw up against both, and should thus suffer at their hands irreparable things. For I forbear to say that, stumbling in the engagement, should it so chance, we shall have no device of return to the land of the Romans for the future.

19.10. Let us not, then, using senseless haste, appear to have despoiled ourselves, nor by contentiousness harm the affairs of the Romans. For unlearned daring carries to ruin, but prudent delay is by nature ever sufficient to save those who use it.

19.11. We, then, sitting here, let us try to take this fortress, and let Arethas with his followers be sent to the regions of Assyria.

19.12. For the Saracens are by nature unable to storm walls, but most apt of all for plundering.

19.13. And some of the warlike soldiers will invade with them, that they themselves, no opposition appearing, may work irreparable things on those they fall upon, but if any hostile force should meet them, easily withdrawing they may be saved among us.

19.14. And we, having taken the fortress, if God will, then with the whole army let us cross the Tigris river, not fearing those who will do mischief behind, and knowing well how the affairs of the Assyrians stand."

19.15. Having said this, Belisarius seemed to all to speak well, and at once carried out the plan. He bade Arethas with his followers go against Assyria, and sent with them twelve hundred soldiers, of whom the most were of his own shield-bearers, setting over them two bodyguards, Trajan and John called Phagas, both good in war.

19.16. And he charged them to do everything obeying Arethas, and he bade Arethas, having plundered everything in his path, thus return to the camp and report to them what the affairs of the Assyrians were as to their power.

19.17. Those under Arethas, then, crossing the Tigris river, came into Assyria.

19.18. There, finding a good country and long unravaged, and this unguarded, plundering by a raid many of the places there, they encompassed great wealth.

19.19. Then Belisarius, having seized some of the Persians, learned that those in the fortress wanted provisions altogether.

19.20. For not, as in Daras and the city of Nisibis, are they wont to store the yearly food at public expense, but, an army of the enemy having fallen upon them unexpectedly, they had not had time to bring in any of the necessaries.

19.21. And suddenly, many having fled into the fortress, they were pressed, as is likely, by want of provisions.

19.22. Learning this, Belisarius sent George, a most intelligent man and one who shared his secrets, to make trial of the men there, whether somehow by some agreement he might be able to take the place.

19.23. And George, making an exhortation and saying much alluring to them, persuaded them, having received pledges about their safety, to hand over themselves and the fortress to the Romans.

19.24. Thus Belisarius, taking Sisauranon, released all the inhabitants, being Christians and Romans from the beginning, unharmed, but sent the Persians with Bleschames to Byzantium, and razed the wall of the fortress to the ground.

19.25. And the emperor not long after sent these Persians and Bleschames to Italy to make war on the Goths. So the affairs about the fortress of Sisauranon turned out thus.

19.26. But Arethas, fearing lest the booty be taken from him by the Romans, was no longer willing to turn back to the camp.

19.27. Sending, then, some of his followers ostensibly on a reconnaissance, he bade them, returning secretly as quickly as possible, signify to them that a great army of the enemy was about the crossing of the river.

19.28. Therefore he advised Trajan and John, going by another road, to return to the land of the Romans.

19.29. They came no longer to Belisarius, but, keeping the Euphrates river on the right, thus came to Theodosiopolis which is by the Aborrhas river.

19.30. And Belisarius and the Roman army, learning nothing about this force, were vexed, falling into a fear and suspicion neither bearable nor moderate.

19.31. And much time being spent for them in this siege, it befell many of the soldiers to be seized there by a difficult fever; for the Mesopotamia subject to the Persians is exceedingly parched.

19.32. Of which the Romans, being unaccustomed, and especially those coming from Thrace, having their dwelling in a place extraordinarily parched and in certain stifling huts in the summer season, so sickened that a third of the army lay half-dead.

19.33. The whole army, then, was eager to depart thence and to return as quickly as possible to their own land, and most of all the commanders of the troops in Lebanon, Rhecithancus and Theoctistus, seeing that the time of the Saracen offering had already passed.

19.34. Coming often to Belisarius, they begged him to release them at once, calling to witness that, having given over the regions of Lebanon and Syria to Alamoundaras, they were sitting there for no reason.

19.35. Therefore Belisarius, calling together all the commanders, set out counsel.

19.36. There rising first, John the son of Nicetas spoke as follows: "Most excellent Belisarius, I think that neither Fortune nor valour have in all time made such a general as you yourself are.

19.37. And this repute has prevailed not only among the Romans, but among all the barbarians.

19.38. This glory, however, you will most surely preserve, if you are able to bring us alive to the land of the Romans; for now our hopes are not in a fair state. For consider thus with me about this army.

19.39. The Saracens and the most warlike of the soldiers, having crossed the Tigris river, I know not how many days ago, came to such fortune that they could not even send a messenger to us; Rhecithancus and Theoctistus will depart, as you see, I suppose, very soon, thinking that the army of Alamoundaras is in the midst of Phoenicia, plundering all the places there.

19.40. And of those left, the sick are so many in number that those who would tend and convey them to the land of the Romans are far fewer than they in number.

19.41. And these things being so, if anything hostile should befall us, either remaining here or going back, no one could even report the suffering to the Romans in Daras.

19.42. For to go forward I think impossible even in word. While, then, some hope is still left, it will profit to take counsel and act for the return.

19.43. For those set in danger, especially such, not to consider their safety, but their plot against the enemy, is great folly."

19.44. So much John said, and all the rest praised it, and falling into a tumult thought fit to make the withdrawal quickly.

19.45. Therefore Belisarius, first putting the sick on the baggage animals,

19.46. led the army back. And as soon as they came to the land of the Romans, he learned all that had been done by Arethas, but was not able to take any vengeance on him, since he came no longer into his sight. So the inroad of the Romans came to this.

19.47. And to Chosroes, who had taken Petra, it was reported that Belisarius had invaded the land of Persia, and of the engagement about the city of Nisibis, and the capture of the fortress of Sisauranon, and all that the army with Arethas, having crossed the Tigris river, did.

19.48. And at once, setting a garrison in Petra, he rode off with the rest of the army and the captured Romans to the country of the Persians.

19.49. These things befell in the second inroad of Chosroes. And Belisarius, coming summoned to the emperor at Byzantium, wintered there.

20.1. At the beginning of spring Chosroes the son of Cabades for the third time invaded the land of the Romans with a great army, keeping the Euphrates river on the right.

20.2. And Candidus, the priest of Sergiopolis, when he learned that the army of the Medes had come very near, fearing for himself and the city, since at the agreed time he had by no means carried out what he had agreed with Chosroes, coming into the camp of the enemy, begged Chosroes not to be harsh with him on this account.

20.3. For he had never had money, and on this account had not even purposed at all to ransom the Surenes, but had entreated the Emperor Justinian much about these things and had been of no profit to himself.

20.4. But Chosroes held him in custody, and torturing his body most bitterly, thought fit to exact double money, as had been agreed.

20.5. And he begged him to send some men to Sergiopolis to receive all the treasures of the church there.

20.6. And when Chosroes did accordingly, Candidus sent with them one of his own followers.

20.7. The Sergiopolites, then, receiving those sent by Chosroes into the city, gave many of the treasures, insisting that nothing else was left to them.

20.8. But Chosroes said this by no means sufficed him, but thought fit to receive others more than these.

20.9. He sends, then, some ostensibly to search out exactly the money of the city, but in deed to seize the city.

20.10. And when Sergiopolis was not destined to be taken by the Persians, one of the Saracens, a Christian, ranked under Alamoundaras, Ambrus by name, coming by night to the wall of the city and reporting the whole matter, bade them by no means receive the Persians into the city.

20.11. And thus those sent by Chosroes returned to him unsuccessful, and he, seething with anger, purposed to take the city.

20.12. Sending, then, an army of about six thousand, he bade them undertake a siege and make assaults on the wall.

20.13. And they, coming there, set to work, and the Sergiopolites at first defended themselves vigorously, but then, giving up and cowering at the danger, took counsel to hand over the city to the enemy.

20.14. For they chanced to have no more than two hundred soldiers. But Ambrus, coming again to the wall by night, said that the Persians would break up the siege within two days, the water having altogether failed them.

20.15. Therefore they came to no parley at all with the enemy, and the barbarians, held by thirst, rose up and came to Chosroes. Candidus, however, Chosroes no longer released.

20.16. For it was needful, I think, that he, having disregarded what he had sworn, should be a priest no longer. So these things turned out thus.

20.17. When Chosroes came to the country of the Commageni, which they call Euphratesia, he by no means wished to turn to plunder or the capture of any place, since the things in his path as far as the Syrians he had chanced before either to take or to exact money from, as has been shown in the foregoing.

20.18. But he purposed to lead the army straight to Palestine, that he might plunder, among other things, all the treasures in Jerusalem. For he had heard by report that this country was exceedingly good and had inhabitants rich in gold.

20.19. And all the Romans, commanders and soldiers, by no means purposed to meet the enemy or to stand in the way of their passage, but, seizing the strongholds each as he could, thought it enough to guard these and themselves to be saved.

20.20. The Emperor Justinian, learning of the Persian inroad, sent Belisarius against them again. And he, riding on the public horses, which they have been accustomed to call veredi, since he had no army with him, came with much speed to Euphratesia, while Justus, the emperor's nephew, chanced to have fled to Hierapolis together with Bouzes and certain others.

20.21. And these, hearing that Belisarius had come not far off, wrote a letter to him;

20.22. and the writing declared as follows: "And now Chosroes, as you yourself know, I suppose, has made an expedition against the Romans, leading an army much larger than before, but where in the world he purposes to go is not yet clear, except that we hear he is very near, harming no place, but ever going forward by the road.

20.23. But come to us as quickly as possible, if you are able to escape the notice of the enemy's camp, that you may both be yourself safe for the emperor and may help us guard

20.24. Hierapolis." So much the writing declared. But Belisarius, not approving what was written, came to the place Europum, which is by the Euphrates river.

20.25. And from there, sending about everywhere, he gathered the army and established his camp there, and answered the commanders in Hierapolis thus: "If Chosroes is going against other men, but not subjects of the Romans, your counsel is well and most safely taken;

20.26. for those to whom it is in their power, remaining quietly, to be free of evils, it is great folly to go into some unnecessary danger; but if now this barbarian, having departed thence, shall attack some other country of the Emperor Justinian, and this an exceedingly good one, but having no garrison of soldiers, know well that to perish with valour is altogether better than to be saved without a battle.

20.27. For this would justly be called not safety, but betrayal. But come as quickly as possible to Europum, where, having gathered the whole army, I have hope, whatever God gives,

20.28. to work upon the enemy." When the commanders saw this brought to them, they took courage and left Justus with a few there to guard Hierapolis, and the rest with the army came to Europum.

21.1. And Chosroes, learning that Belisarius with the whole Roman army was encamped at Europum, no longer resolved to advance, but sent to Belisarius one of the royal secretaries, Abandanes by name, having a great repute for intelligence, to spy out what sort of man the general was, and ostensibly to complain that the Emperor Justinian had by no means sent the envoys to the Persians to dispose the matters of the peace according to the agreement. When Belisarius learned this, he did as follows.

21.2. He himself, choosing out six thousand men, tall and very fair in body, set out as though to hunt far off from the camp, and Diogenes the bodyguard and Adolius the son of Acacius, a man Armenian by race, who ever served the emperor in the palace in matters of quiet (the Romans call those on whom this honour lies silentiarii), and then commanded some Armenians, he bade cross the river with a thousand horsemen and go about the bank there, ever giving the enemy an impression that, if they should wish, having crossed the Euphrates, to go by the road to their own land, they would never permit it. And they did accordingly.

21.3. And Belisarius, when he learned that the envoy was very near, having pitched a tent of certain thick linen cloths, which they have been accustomed to call a pavilion, sat there, as in a desert place, intimating that he had come there with no preparation.

21.4. And he arranged the soldiers thus. On either side of the tent were Thracians and Illyrians, and after them Goths, and next to these Heruls, after whom were Vandals and Moors.

21.5. And they extended over a great part of the plain. For they did not stand always in the same place, but, standing apart from one another and making walks, they looked at the envoy of Chosroes carelessly and in no way earnestly.

21.6. And none of them had either cloak or any other shoulder-garment, but, clad in linen tunics and trousers, then girded up, they walked about.

21.7. And each had his horse-whip, but the weapon of one was a sword, of another an axe, of another bare bows.

21.8. And all gave an impression that, taking no thought of all else, they were eager to hunt.

21.9. Abandanes, then, coming into the presence of Belisarius, said that King Chosroes was indignant, because, as had been agreed before, the Caesar (for so the Persians call the Emperor of the Romans) had not sent the envoys to him, and on this account Chosroes had been compelled to come in arms into the land of the Romans.

21.10. But Belisarius, neither cowering, though so great a multitude of barbarians was encamped very near, nor falling into any disturbance at the word, but with a laughing and relaxed face, replies, saying, "Not in this way which Chosroes has now done is it customary for men to manage their affairs.

21.11. For all others, if anything is disputed between themselves and some of their neighbours, send embassies to them first, and when they do not obtain moderate terms, then go against them in war.

21.12. But he, getting into the midst of the Romans, then puts forward the arguments about peace." Having said so much, he dismissed the envoy.

21.13. And he, coming to Chosroes, advised him to depart as quickly as possible.

21.14. For he said he had met a general most brave and most intelligent of all men, and soldiers such as he himself had never seen, whose good order he marvelled at most of all, and that the contest was not for him and Belisarius on equal terms of danger, but it differed, that, conquering, he would conquer the Caesar's slave, but, worsted, should it so chance, he would bring great shame on his kingship and on the Persian race; and that the Romans, defeated, would easily be saved in their strongholds and their own land, but of themselves, if any reverse should befall, not even a messenger would escape to the country of the Persians.

21.15. Persuaded by this counsel, Chosroes wished to turn back to the country of the Persians, but was held by much helplessness.

21.16. For he thought the crossing of the river was being guarded by the enemy, and was not able to ride back by the same road, being altogether empty of men, since all the provisions had now failed them which they had first with them when they invaded the land of the Romans.

21.17. In the end, having reckoned much, it seemed most expedient to him, having risked a battle, to come to the land opposite, and to make the journey through a country abounding in all good things.

21.18. But Belisarius well knew that not even ten myriads of men would be sufficient to check Chosroes' crossing (for the river chances to be crossable by ships in many of the places there for a great extent, and the Persian army was otherwise mightier than to be shut off from the crossing by a few enemies); but he charged those under Diogenes and Adolius with the thousand at first to go about that bank, that they might throw the barbarian into a disturbance by some perplexity.

21.19. Whom, having frightened, as I have said, he feared lest there be some hindrance to his departing from the land of the Romans.

21.20. And it seemed to him worth much account to drive the army of Chosroes thence, having risked no battle against many myriads of barbarians with soldiers very few and simply cowering at the army of the Medes. Therefore he bade Diogenes and Adolius remain quietly.

21.21. Chosroes, then, having yoked a bridge with great speed, suddenly crossed the Euphrates river with his whole army.

21.22. For all rivers are crossable by the Persians with no trouble, since for them, going by the road, hook-shaped iron pieces are in readiness, with which, fitting long pieces of wood into one another, they improvise a bridge on the spot wherever they wish.

21.23. And as soon as he was on the bank opposite, sending to Belisarius, he said that he himself had granted to the Romans the withdrawal of the army of the Medes, but expected the envoys from them, who, it was worth saying, would be present not long after.

21.24. And Belisarius, himself too crossing the Euphrates river with the whole Roman army, at once sent men to Chosroes.

21.25. And they, when they came to him, praising the withdrawal much, promised that envoys would come to him from the emperor very soon, who would carry out toward him in deed the agreements made before concerning the peace.

21.26. And they asked to use the Romans, as friends, for their journey. And he undertook to carry this out too, if they should give him some of the men of repute as hostages on this agreement, that they would carry out the things agreed.

21.27. The envoys, then, returning to Belisarius, reported the words of Chosroes, and he, coming to Edessa, at once sent John the son of Basil, the most conspicuous of all the Edessenes in family and wealth, as a hostage to Chosroes, unwillingly.

21.28. And the Romans held Belisarius in praise, and the man seemed to them to have won more glory in this deed than when he brought Gelimer captive or Vittigis to Byzantium.

21.29. For it was truly worthy of much account and praise, when all the Romans were terrified and hiding in their strongholds, and Chosroes with a great army had got into the midst of the Roman realm, that a man, a general, with a few men, coming in the meanwhile at a swift run from Byzantium, should encamp over against the King of the Persians, and that Chosroes, unexpectedly, either fearing the fortune or the valour of the man, or deceived by certain devices, should no longer advance, but in deed flee, and in word desire the peace.

21.30. Meanwhile Chosroes, disregarding the agreements, took the city of Callinicum, no one at all defending it. For the Romans, seeing its wall rotten and altogether easy to take, ever pulling down a part of it, were renewing it with new building.

21.31. Then, indeed, having pulled down a part of it, and not yet built this remaining part, when they learned that the enemy were very near, conveying away the most precious of their goods, the well-to-do of its inhabitants withdrew to certain other strongholds, while the rest remained there without soldiers.

21.32. And a very great number of husbandmen chanced to have been gathered there. These Chosroes enslaved, and razed the whole to the ground.

21.33. And a little later, receiving the hostage John, he withdrew to his native land.

21.34. And the Armenians who had gone over to Chosroes, having received pledges from the Romans, came with Bassaces to Byzantium. These things befell the Romans in the third inroad of Chosroes, and Belisarius came summoned by the emperor to Byzantium, that he might be sent again to Italy, the affairs there being now altogether wretched for the Romans.

22.1. About these times a plague came, from which nearly all human affairs were all but extinguished. For all things that fall from heaven might perhaps have some account of cause given by daring men, such as those clever in these things love to fashion—causes by no means comprehensible to man—and to invent extravagant theories of nature, knowing well that they say nothing sound, but thinking it enough for themselves if, deceiving some of those they meet by their argument, they persuade them.

22.2. But for this evil there is no device, either to speak a pretext in word or to reckon one in thought, except indeed to refer it to God.

22.3. For it came not upon a part of the earth nor upon certain men, nor did it hold any one season of the year, whence one might be able to find sophisms of cause, but it encompassed the whole earth and harmed the lives of all men, although differing far from one another to the contrary, sparing neither nature nor age.

22.4. For whether by dwelling in places, or by manner of life, or by character of nature, or by pursuits, or by anything else by which men differ from men—in this disease alone the difference availed nothing.

22.5. And it fell upon some in summer, on others in winter, on others in the other seasons. Let, then, each say of these things as he knows, both sophist and meteorologist, but I shall go on to relate whence this disease began and in what manner it destroyed men.

22.6. It began from the Egyptians who dwell at Pelusium. And dividing in two, it went in part to Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, and in part it came to the Palestinians, neighbours of the Egyptians, and thence seized the whole earth, ever advancing by the road and walking at the fitting times.

22.7. For it seemed to go on by fixed terms and to have a fixed time of stay in each country, using the destruction carelessly toward no men, but scattering on either side to the extremities of the inhabited world, as though fearing lest some recess of the earth escape it.

22.8. For it left neither island nor cave nor mountain-top having men dwelling on it; and if it passed by any country, either not touching the men there or touching them somewhat, yet at a later time, returning there again, of the dwellers round about, on whom it had fallen most bitterly before, it touched none at all, but did not stand off from that country before it had rightly and justly rendered the measure of the dead, equal to that of those dwelling round it who had chanced to perish at the former time.

22.9. And this disease, ever beginning from the seacoast, thus went up into the inland country. And in the second year it came to Byzantium in mid-spring,

22.10. where it befell me too to be sojourning at that time. And it came about thus. Phantoms of demons in every human shape were seen by many, and those who fell in with them thought they were struck by the man they met wherever it chanced of the body, and at the same time they saw this phantom and were at once seized by the disease.

22.11. At first, then, those who fell in with them tried to turn them away, repeating the most divine of names and otherwise warding them off, each as he could, but they availed nothing at all, since the most, fleeing even into the temples, perished.

22.12. Later they no longer thought fit to give heed even to their friends calling them, but, shutting themselves up in their chambers, pretended that they did not hear, though the doors were beaten upon, fearing plainly lest it be one of the demons calling.

22.13. But to some the plague came not thus, but, seeing a vision of a dream, they thought they suffered this same thing at the hands of the one who stood over them, or heard a voice foretelling to them that they were enrolled in the number of those about to die.

22.14. But to the most, perceiving the coming thing neither waking nor in dream, it befell to be seized by the disease.

22.15. And they were seized in the following manner. They suddenly grew feverish, some roused from sleep, others walking about, others doing whatever they were doing.

22.16. And the body neither changed at all from its former colour nor was hot, as a fever having fallen on it, nor indeed did inflammation come, but the fever was so mild from the beginning until evening that it gave neither to the sick themselves nor to a physician touching them any impression of danger.

22.17. For none of those who fell into it seemed likely to die from it. But on the same day for some, on the following for others, and for others not many days later, a bubo rose, not only there where the part of the body which is below the belly is called bubo, but also within the armpit, and for some beside the ears and wherever it chanced on the thighs.

22.18. Up to this point, then, things befell nearly all alike who were seized by the disease; but from there on I cannot say whether the difference of symptoms came about in the difference of bodies, or wherever it pleased Him who brought on the disease.

22.19. For on some came a deep coma, on others a sharp delirium, and both suffered what was suited to the disease. For those on whom the coma lay, forgetting all their wonted things, seemed to sleep ever.

22.20. And if anyone tended them, they ate in the meanwhile, but some, being neglected, died at once for want of food.

22.21. But those seized by the evil of delirium were held by sleeplessness and much imagining, and suspecting that men were coming upon them to destroy them, they fell into disturbance and, crying out extraordinarily, rushed to flight.

22.22. And those who tended them, held by ceaseless toil, suffered irreparable things ever.

22.23. Therefore all pitied them no less than the suffering, not because they were pressed by the plague from approaching (for it befell neither physician nor private man to share this evil by touching the sick or the dead, since many, both ever burying or tending those who in no way belonged to them, held out in this service beyond expectation, while many, the disease falling on them without pretext, died at once), but because they were held by much hardship.

22.24. For when they fell out of their bedding and rolled on the ground, they set them back again, and they forced those who longed to throw themselves out of their dwellings, thrusting them and dragging them back.

22.25. And those by whom water chanced to be present wished to fall into it, not so much from desire of drink (for the most rushed into the sea), but the cause was most of all the disease of their minds.

22.26. And there was much toil for them about their eating too. For they did not easily take it. And many perished for want of one to tend them, either pressed by hunger,

22.27. or casting their bodies from a height. And those on whom neither coma nor delirium fell, their bubo mortified, and they, no longer holding out against the pains, died.

22.28. And one might infer that it befell all the rest in the same way, but since they were least in themselves, they were by no means able to perceive the pain, the affliction about their minds taking away their perception.

22.29. Some of the physicians, then, being at a loss through ignorance of the symptoms, and thinking that the chief of the disease was concealed in the buboes, resolved to examine the bodies of the dead. And cutting open some of the buboes, they found a terrible thing, a carbuncle grown within.

22.30. And some died at once, others many days later, and on some the body broke out in black blisters about the size of a lentil, who did not survive even one day, but all died straightway.

22.31. And many a spontaneous vomiting of blood, coming on, at once made away with.

22.32. This, however, I am able to declare, that the most approved of the physicians foretold that many would die, who a little later, beyond expectation, became free of evils, and insisted that many would be saved, who were going to perish very soon.

22.33. So there was no cause in this disease bearing on human reckoning; for to all some unreasonable outcome was for the most part borne, and the baths helped some, but harmed others no less.

22.34. And many, being neglected, died, and many beyond reason were saved. And again the matters of treatment went both ways for those who used it; and to say all, no device was found by man for safety, neither for one guarding himself beforehand not to suffer, nor for surviving when the evil had fallen, but both to suffer was without pretext and to survive was spontaneous.

22.35. And to women who were pregnant death was manifest when they were seized by the disease. For some died by miscarrying, others perished at once together with the very children they bore.

22.36. Three women in childbed, however, they say, survived though their children perished, and one, having already died in the birth, the child was both born and survived.

22.37. For those, then, on whom the bubo rose larger and came to pus, it befell to survive, being delivered of the disease, since plainly the height of the carbuncle had abated to this for them, and this was for the most part a sign of health; but those on whom the bubo remained in its former shape—on these came the evils which I just mentioned.

22.38. And to some of them it befell that the thigh withered, on which the bubo, having risen, by no means came to suppuration.

22.39. And to others it befell to survive not with the tongue whole, but to live either lisping or uttering with difficulty things unintelligible.

23.1. The disease, then, in Byzantium ran for four months, and was at its height for three most of all.

23.2. And at first there died a little more than usual, then the evil rose still more, and afterward the measure of the dead came to five thousand each day, and again to ten thousand and even more than these.

23.3. At first, then, each himself took care of the burial of the dead in his house, whom they even threw into the tombs of others, either secretly or by force; then all was confounded in all things.

23.4. For slaves remained bereft of masters, and men formerly very prosperous were deprived of the service of their household, who were either sick or dead, and many houses became altogether empty of men.

23.5. Therefore it befell some of the notable, through want, to be unburied for many days. And the care of the matter came, as is likely,

23.6. to the emperor. Distributing soldiers from the palace and money, he bade Theodorus take care of this work, who was set over the imperial responses, ever announcing to the emperor the petitions of suppliants and signifying again whatever might be the emperor's wish. The Romans call this honour referendarius in the Latin tongue.

23.7. Those, then, whose affairs at home had not yet fallen altogether into desolation, themselves each made the burials of their kin.

23.8. And Theodorus, both giving the emperor's money and spending his own besides, buried the neglected of the dead.

23.9. And when all the tombs that were before chanced to be filled with the dead, and they, digging up all the places about the city in succession and depositing there those who died each as he could, departed, and then those who made these graves, no longer holding out against the measure of the dying, went up into the towers of the wall which is in Sycae;

23.10. and taking off the roofs they threw the bodies there in no order, and heaping them up, each as it chanced, and filling them with the dead, so to speak, all of them,

23.11. then covered them again with the roofs. And from this an ill-smelling vapour, going into the city, distressed the men there still more, especially if some wind blowing favourably from there should breathe upon them.

23.12. And all the customs about burials were then overlooked. For neither were the dead carried escorted as was customary, nor sung over as was wont, but it was enough if someone, carrying one of the dead on his shoulders and coming to the parts of the city by the sea, threw him there, where, thrown into the boats in heaps, they were to be conveyed wherever it chanced.

23.13. Then too those of the populace who before had been partisans, laying aside their hatred toward one another, took care in common of the holy rites of the dead, and themselves carrying and burying the dead who did not belong to them.

23.14. But also those who before, standing by base and wicked deeds, rejoiced in them, these, shaking off their lawlessness in life, exactly practised piety, not having learned prudence nor having become lovers of virtue suddenly;

23.15. since for men whatever is fixed by nature or by long teaching is impossible to be changed so easily, unless some divine good breathed upon them; but then nearly all, struck by what befell, and thinking they would die very soon, by all necessity, as is likely, learned moderation for the occasion.

23.16. And so, as soon as they were delivered of the disease and saved and supposed they were now in safety, the evil having gone over to certain other men, they made a quick change of mind for the worse, and displayed the perversity of their practices more than before, conquering themselves most of all in wickedness and other lawlessness; since one would not say what is false in insisting that this disease, whether by some chance or by providence, having exactly selected the most wicked, let them go. But these things have been shown at a later time.

23.17. Then it did not seem easy to see anyone marketing in Byzantium, but all who chanced to be sound in body, sitting at home, either tended the sick or mourned the dead.

23.18. And if one was able to meet anyone going about, this man was carrying one of the dead. And all work ceased, and the craftsmen let go all their crafts, and all other works which each had in hand.

23.19. In a city, then, simply abounding in all good things, an exact famine reigned. To have bread or anything else in plenty seemed difficult and worth much account; so that for some of the sick it seemed to befall that the end of their life came untimely for want of necessaries.

23.20. And to say all, it was not possible to see anyone in Byzantium at all clad in a cloak, especially when the emperor chanced to be sick (for it befell him too that a bubo rose), but in a city holding the kingship of the whole Roman realm all, clad in garments in the manner of private men, remained quietly.

23.21. The matters of the plague, then, both in the rest of the land of the Romans and in Byzantium, stood thus. And it fell also upon the land of the Persians and upon all the other barbarians.

24.1. Chosroes chanced to have come from the Assyrians to a place of the Adarbiganians toward the north wind, whence he purposed to invade the Roman realm through Persarmenia.

24.2. The great fire-temple is there, which the Persians worship most of all the gods. There the Magi, guarding the fire unquenchable, both perform all other rites exactly and use an oracle for the greatest of matters. This is the fire which the Romans in former times called Hestia and worshipped.

24.3. There one sent from Byzantium to Chosroes reported that Constantianus and Sergius would come to him as envoys for the agreement very soon.

24.4. These two men were both orators and exceedingly intelligent, Constantianus an Illyrian by race, and Sergius from the city of Edessa, which is in Mesopotamia.

24.5. Awaiting whom Chosroes remained quietly. And in this journey, Constantianus having fallen sick and much time being spent, it befell that the plague fell upon the Persians.

24.6. Therefore Nabedes, then holding the generalship in Persarmenia, by the king's command sent the priest of the Christians in Doubios to Valerian, the general in Armenia, to charge with the slowness of the envoys and to urge the Romans toward the peace with all eagerness.

24.7. And he, coming with his brother to the Armenians and meeting Valerian, insisted that he himself, as a Christian, was well-disposed toward the Romans, and that King Chosroes was ever persuaded by him in all counsel; so that if the envoys of the Romans came with him to the country of the Persians, there would be no hindrance to disposing the peace as they wished.

24.8. So much the priest said; and the priest's brother, meeting Valerian secretly, said that Chosroes was in great evils. For his son, setting himself to a tyranny, had risen against him, and he himself, together with all the Persian army, was seized by the disease; therefore he now wished to come to the agreement with the Romans.

24.9. When Valerian heard this, he at once dismissed the bishop, promising that the envoys would come to Chosroes not long after, and himself referred the words which he had heard to the Emperor Justinian.

24.10. By which the emperor, at once moved, charged both him and Martin and the other commanders to invade the enemy's land as quickly as possible. For he knew well that none of the enemy would stand in their way.

24.11. And he bade them, all gathered into one, thus make the inroad against the Persarmenians. When the commanders saw this letter brought to them, all together with their followers streamed to the regions of Armenia.

24.12. And already Chosroes a little before, for fear of the disease leaving Adarbiganon, had gone off with the whole army to Assyria, where the suffering of the plague had not yet come. Valerian, then, encamped very near Theodosiopolis with the troops about him, and Narses ranged himself with him, having Armenians and some of the Heruls with him.

24.13. And Martin the general of the East, with Ildiger and Theoctistus, coming to the fortress of Citharizon, and pitching his camp there, remained; this fortress is distant a journey of four days from Theodosiopolis; where Peter too came not long after with Adolius and certain other commanders.

24.14. And Isaaces the brother of Narses led the troops there. And Philemuth and Verus came with the Heruls following them to the regions of Chorzianene, not far from the camp of Martin.

24.15. And Justus the emperor's nephew and Peranius and John the son of Nicetas, with Domnentiolus and John surnamed Phagas, encamped by the fortress called Phison, which is very near the borders of Martyropolis.

24.16. Thus, then, the Roman commanders encamped with their followers, and the whole army came together to thirty thousand.

24.17. All these neither were gathered into one, nor indeed came to a parley with one another. But the generals, sending to one another some of their followers, inquired about the inroad.

24.18. But suddenly Peter, having consulted no one, with his men inconsiderately invaded the enemy's land. When Philemuth and Verus, the leaders of the Heruls, learned this on the following day, they at once followed.

24.19. And when those under Martin and Valerian learned these things, they used the inroad quickly.

24.20. And all mingled with one another a little later in the enemy's land, except Justus and those with him, who, being encamped far off, as has been said, from the rest of the army, and learning of their inroad later in time, themselves too invaded as quickly as possible the enemy's land over against them, but by no means were able to mingle with their fellow-commanders.

24.21. All the rest together advanced straight to Doubios, neither plundering nor doing any other unkindness to the country of the Persians.

25.1. Now Doubios is a country good in other respects and having a sufficient healthiness of air and waters, distant a journey of eight days from Theodosiopolis.

25.2. And there are plains fit for horsemen there, and many very populous villages are settled very near one another, and many merchants for business dwell in them.

25.3. For from the Indians and the neighbouring Iberians and nearly all, so to speak, the nations among the Persians, and some of the Romans, bringing in their cargoes they trade with one another there.

25.4. And the priest of the Christians they call Catholicos in the Greek tongue, because he, being one, is set over all the places there.

25.5. And about a hundred and twenty stades from Doubios, on the right as one goes from the land of the Romans, is a mountain difficult of access and otherwise precipitous, and a certain village lying in a very narrow difficult ground, Anglon by name.

25.6. There Nabedes, as soon as he learned of the inroad of the enemy, withdrawing with his whole army and taking courage in the strength of the place, shut himself up.

25.7. And the village lies at the extremities of the mountain, and a strong fortress, of the same name as this village, is in the precipitous ground.

25.8. Nabedes, then, having blocked the entrances to the village with stones and wagons, made it still more difficult of access.

25.9. And in front, having dug a certain ditch, he stationed his army there, having set in ambush in certain old little houses ambushes of foot. The whole Persian army came together to about four thousand men.

25.10. These things, then, were being done thus. But the Romans, coming to a place distant a day's journey from Anglon, and seizing one of the enemy who was going on a reconnaissance, inquired where in the world Nabedes now was. And he said that the man had withdrawn from Anglon with the whole army of the Medes.

25.11. When Narses heard this he was indignant, and reviled his fellow-commanders, reproaching them with the delay.

25.12. And this same thing others too did, insulting one another, and for the rest, taking no thought of battle or danger, were eager to plunder the places there.

25.13. Setting out, then, without a general and without order, in no array they went forward, neither having any watchword among themselves, as is customary in such contests, nor distinguished anywhere in rank.

25.14. For the soldiers, mingling with the baggage-carriers, journeyed as though going to a ready plunder of great wealth.

25.15. But when they came near Anglon, they sent scouts, who, returning to them, reported the array of the enemy.

25.16. And the generals, struck with consternation at the unexpectedness, thought it shameful and altogether unmanly to turn back with so great an army in number, but, arranging as best they could from the present, divided the army into three corps and went straight against the enemy.

25.17. Peter, then, held the right wing, Valerian the left, and into the centre those under Martin were arranged. And coming very near the adversaries they remained quiet, keeping their order with disorder.

25.18. The cause was both the difficult ground, being exceedingly precipitous, and that, arranged on the spur of the moment, they set themselves to the battle.

25.19. And besides, the barbarians, drawing themselves into a small space, remained quietly, looking about at the power of the adversaries, it having been told them by Nabedes by no means to begin the fight, but, if the enemy should attack anywhere, to defend themselves as far as possible.

25.20. And first Narses with the Heruls and the Romans following him came to blows with the enemy, and a push having arisen he routed the Persians over against him.

25.21. And the barbarians, fleeing, went up to the fortress at a run, where they wrought irreparable deeds upon one another in the narrowness.

25.22. And then Narses himself, urging on those about him, pressed the enemy still more,

25.23. and the rest of the Romans set to work. But coming out suddenly from the little houses along the narrows, those who lay in ambush, as has been said, killed some of the Heruls, falling on them unexpectedly, and struck Narses himself on the temple.

25.24. And Isaaces his brother, when he was mortally struck, led him out of the fighting. And he died a little later, having proved a brave man in this toil.

25.25. And much disturbance, as is likely, from this falling upon the Roman army, Nabedes let loose his whole Persian army against the adversaries.

25.26. And they, shooting in the narrows into a very great multitude of enemies, both killed many others easily and especially the Heruls, who, having first fallen upon the adversaries with Narses, fought for the most part unguarded.

25.27. For the Heruls have neither helmet nor corselet nor any other safeguard, except a shield and a thick cloak, which, girt up, they set themselves to the contest.

25.28. The slave Heruls, indeed, go to battle even without a shield, and when they become brave men in war, then their masters allow them shields to hold before them in the engagements. So the affairs of the Heruls stand thus.

25.29. And the Romans, not enduring the enemy, all fled at full force, neither remembering valour nor having any shame or other good thing in mind.

25.30. But the Persians, suspecting that they had not turned to so shameful a flight, but were using some ambushes against them, pursued as far as the difficult ground and then turned back, not daring to fight in the open, few against many.

25.31. The Romans, however, and especially all the generals, thinking that the enemy were ever making a pursuit against them, fled still more, letting slip no opportunity, urging on their running horses with whip and shout, and throwing their corselets and their other arms to the ground with haste and tumult.

25.32. For they had no courage to take their stand and array against the Persians who were overtaking them, but had the hopes of safety in the feet of their horses alone; and, to say all, the flight became such that scarcely one of their horses survived for them, but when they stopped running, falling at once they perished.

25.33. And this was a great disaster for the Romans, such as never before befell. For many of them died, and still more came under the enemy.

25.34. And their arms and baggage animals the enemy took so great in number that the affairs of the Persians seemed to become richer from this deed.

25.35. And Adolius, passing through a fortress in this retreat lying in Persarmenia, was struck on the head with a stone by one of the inhabitants there and perished; and those under Justus and Peranius, having invaded the regions of Tarauna and plundered a few things, at once returned.

26.1. In the following year Chosroes the son of Cabades for the fourth time invaded the land of the Romans, leading the army against Mesopotamia.

26.2. This inroad of this Chosroes was made not against the Emperor Justinian, nor against any other of men, but only against the God whom the Christians worship.

26.3. For when, in the first onset, having failed of Edessa, he withdrew, much dejection had come upon him and the Magi, as having been worsted by the God of the Christians.

26.4. Consoling which, Chosroes threatened in his palaces to enslave all the Edessenes to the country of the Persians and to make the city a pasture for sheep.

26.5. With his whole army, then, coming near Edessa, he sent some of the Huns who followed him against the wall of the city which is above the hippodrome, to do no other mischief, but to seize the flocks which the shepherds chanced to have stationed in great number there by the wall, taking courage in the strength of the place, because it was exceedingly steep, and thinking the enemy would never dare to go so near the wall.

26.6. The barbarians, then, were already laying hold of the flocks, but the shepherds most vigorously prevented them.

26.7. And many Persians having come to the aid of the Huns, the barbarians were able to take off some herd from there, but, the Roman soldiers and some of the populace having come out against the enemy, the battle became hand to hand, and the herd returned of its own accord to the shepherds.

26.8. And one of the Huns, fighting before the rest, troubled the Romans most of all.

26.9. And some husbandman, hitting him with a sling on the right knee, struck him, and he fell prone at once from his horse to the ground, which encouraged the Romans still more.

26.10. And the battle, having begun in the morning, ended at midday, in which both sides, thinking they had the upper hand, parted.

26.11. And the Romans got within the wall, but the barbarians all encamped, bivouacking seven stades from the city.

26.12. Then Chosroes either saw some vision of a dream or some thought came to him, that, having attempted twice, if he should be unable to take Edessa, it would befall him to take on much shame.

26.13. Therefore he resolved to sell the withdrawal to the Edessenes for much money.

26.14. On the following day, then, Paul the interpreter, coming to the wall, said that the Romans ought to send some of the men of repute to Chosroes.

26.15. And they quickly choosing out four of the conspicuous among themselves sent them.

26.16. When these came to the camp of the Medes, Zabergan, meeting them by the king's purpose and frightening them with many threats, inquired of them which of the two was more to be chosen, the things leading to peace or to war.

26.17. And when they agreed that they would choose peace before dangers, "Then," said Zabergan, "you must buy this for much money."

26.18. And the envoys said they would give as much as they had given before, when, having taken Antioch, he came against them.

26.19. And Zabergan dismissed them with laughter, that, having deliberated most continually about their safety, they might thus come to them again.

26.20. And a little later Chosroes, sending for them, when they came to him, recounted both how many and in what manner he had enslaved Roman places, and threatened that more dreadful things would befall the Edessenes at the hands of the Persians, unless they gave him all the money they had within the wall; for thus alone would the army depart thence, he said.

26.21. The envoys, hearing this, agreed to buy peace from Chosroes, if he should not enjoin upon them the impossible; but the end of the danger, they said, was clear to none of all before the contest.

26.22. For war for those who wage it is never on the agreed terms. Then, indeed, with anger Chosroes bade the envoys depart as quickly as possible.

26.23. On the eighth day from the siege, wishing to raise an artificial mound against the wall of the city, since he had cut the trees with their very leaves from places somewhere near and set them in a square before the wall, where an arrow from the city could not reach, and heaping a great quantity of earth above the trees, he threw on a great mass of stones, not suited for building, but cut at random, caring only for this, that the mound might rise to a great height as quickly as possible.

26.24. And ever throwing in long pieces of wood between the earth and the stones, he made a binding of the work,

26.25. lest, having become high, it be weak. But Peter the Roman general (for he chanced to be there with Martin and Peranius), wishing to check those who were doing this, sent some of the Huns who followed him against them.

26.26. And they, coming suddenly, killed many, and most of all one of the bodyguards, Argek by name;

26.27. for he alone killed twenty-seven. But the barbarians for the rest keeping exact guard, no one could come out against them any longer.

26.28. And when the craftsmen of this work, advancing, came within bowshot, the Romans, now defending themselves most vigorously from the wall, plied both the slings and the bows against them. Therefore the barbarians devised the following.

26.29. Coverings of goat's hair, which they call Cilician cloths, having sufficient thickness and length, hanging them from long pieces of wood, they ever set in front of those working the agesta (for so the Romans called what was being done in the Latin tongue).

26.30. For there neither fire-bearing arrows nor the other missiles could reach, but, being repelled there upon the coverings, all remained.

26.31. And then the Romans, fallen into great fear, sent the envoys to Chosroes with much tumult, and Stephanus with them, learned among the physicians of his time, who, having once cured Cabades the son of Perozes when sick, had become master of great wealth from him.

26.32. He, when he came with the others to Chosroes, spoke as follows: "All from of old have held the humanity of a king to be the mark of a good one.

26.33. Then, O most mighty King, to you working slaughters and battles and enslavements of cities, it will perhaps be possible to obtain other names, but to seem to be good will never be.

26.34. And yet least of all ought anything paltry to befall the city of the Edessenes from you.

26.35. For from there I have come, who, foreseeing nothing of what was to be, reared you and became a counsellor to your father, that he should set you up as successor to his rule, and so became most to blame for the kingship of the Persians to you, and for the present evils to my fatherland.

26.36. For men for the most part fasten on themselves most of the misfortunes of what shall come.

26.37. But if any memory of such a benefit comes upon you, do us no further harm, giving me this recompense, from which, O King, it will befall you not to seem most savage." So much Stephanus said.

26.38. But Chosroes agreed that he would not depart thence before the Romans handed over to him both Peter and Peranius, because they, being his ancestral slaves, had dared to oppose him.

26.39. And if this were not pleasing for the Romans to do, but they were forced to choose one of two things, either to give him five hundred centenaria of gold, or to receive into the city some of his intimates, who, having searched out all the money, would come to him bringing all the gold and silver that chanced to be there,

26.40. but would leave the rest to the owners to have. These things Chosroes hurled out, having hope of taking Edessa with no trouble. And the envoys (for all that he announced seemed impossible to them), perplexed and exceedingly distressed, walked to the city.

26.41. And when, getting within the wall, they reported the things from Chosroes, the city became full of tumult and lamentations.

26.42. The construction of the mound, then, both rose to a great height and went forward with much haste. And the Romans, not knowing what to do, again sent the envoys to Chosroes.

26.43. And they, when they came to the camp of the enemy, saying they had come to beg about the same things, obtained no speech at all from the Persians, but, driven thence with insult and much tumult, went to the city.

26.44. At first, then, the Romans attempted to overtop the wall facing the mound with another building; but when this too the work of the Persians far surpassed already, they stood off from the building, and persuaded Martin to arrange the matters about the agreement in whatever way he wished. And he, coming very near the camp of the enemy, came to a parley with some of the commanders among the Persians.

26.45. And they, deceiving Martin, said that their king wished peace, but that he himself was by no means able to persuade the Emperor of the Romans, leaving off his contentiousness against Chosroes, ever to make peace with him;

26.46. since even Belisarius—who, that he far surpassed Martin in power and dignity not even he himself would deny—had lately persuaded the King of the Persians, who was indeed in the midst of the Romans, to depart thence to the country of the Persians, promising that envoys would come to him not long after from Byzantium and confirm the peace in security, but had done none of what was agreed, having been unable to force the judgement of the Emperor Justinian.

27.1. Meanwhile the Romans did as follows. Having made a trench from the city beneath the mound of the enemy, they bade those digging not let go of this work, until they should get under the middle of the mound. For there they purposed to burn this mound.

27.2. And the trench advancing about the middle of the mound, a certain noise came to the Persians standing above.

27.3. And perceiving what was being done, they themselves, beginning from above on either side of the middle, dug, so that they might catch the Romans doing mischief there.

27.4. When the Romans learned this, they refrained from it, throwing earth on the emptied space, but from the extremity of the mound below, which chanced to be by the wall, carrying out wood and stones and earth, they made as it were the shape of a little house, and threw in there dry stumps of the most easily burning trees, soaked in oil made of cedar and in much sulphur and pitch.

27.5. And they had these things in readiness, but the commanders of the Persians, often meeting Martin, discoursed such things as I have said, giving an impression that they would accept the arguments about peace.

27.6. But when the mound was now finished for them, and, approaching the wall of the city, rose high overtopping it greatly, they dismissed Martin, expressly refusing the agreement, and were about to set to work for the rest.

27.7. Therefore the Romans at once burned the stumps of the trees which had been prepared for this. And the fire having burned a part of the mound, but not yet been able to reach through the whole, it chanced that all the wood was consumed. For they ever threw other wood into the trench, letting slip no opportunity.

27.8. And the fire now working through the whole mound, a smoke appeared above everywhere on the mound by night, and the Romans, not yet wishing to give the Persians perception of what was being done, devised the following.

27.9. Filling small vessels with coals and fire, they sent these and fire-bearing arrows thickly everywhere over the mound; which the Persians, who had guard there, going about with all haste, extinguished, and thought that from this the smoke arose.

27.10. And as the evil advanced, the barbarians came to the rescue in great multitude, but the Romans, shooting at them from the wall, killed many.

27.11. There Chosroes too came about sunrise, and the greater part of the army followed him, and going up onto the mound he first got perception of the evil.

27.12. For he declared that the cause of the smoke was below, not from what the enemy were shooting, and bade the whole army come to the rescue quickly.

27.13. And the Romans, taking courage, insulted them, while of the barbarians some, throwing on earth, others water, where the smoke showed through, hoped to get the better of the danger, but were able to accomplish nothing at all.

27.14. For where the earth was thrown on, there the smoke, as is likely, was checked, but elsewhere not long after it gave out, the fire compelling itself to force its exit where it could; and the water, where it most fell, made the pitch and the sulphur work much more and brought the material in its path to a height, and ever led the fire forward, since within the mound it was by no means able to reach with so much water as to be able to quench the flame by excess.

27.15. And the smoke toward late afternoon became so great that it was manifest both to the Carrhenes and to certain others dwelling far beyond.

27.16. And many Persians and Romans having gone up over the mound, and a battle and push having arisen there, the Romans conquered.

27.17. Then too the flame, brilliantly given out, appeared above the mound, and the Persians refrained from this work.

27.18. On the sixth day from this, at deep dawn, with ladders they secretly assaulted a portion of the wall where the fortress is named.

27.19. And the Romans who had guard there sleeping a gentle sleep, since the night was going to its end, they quietly set the ladders against the wall and were already climbing up.

27.20. But one of the husbandmen, alone awake among all the Romans, with shouting and much tumult roused them all.

27.21. And a fierce battle having arisen, the Persians were worsted, and withdrew to the camp, leaving there the ladders, which the Romans drew up at their pleasure.

27.22. And Chosroes about midday sent a great portion of the army against the so-called great gate as though to storm the wall.

27.23. Whom the Romans, meeting—not soldiers only, but also husbandmen and some of the populace—and conquering in battle, routed the barbarians by far.

27.24. And the Persians being still pursued, Paul the interpreter, coming from Chosroes, reported among the Romans that Rhecinarius had come from Byzantium for the peace, and thus both sides parted.

27.25. Already some days before Rhecinarius had come to the camp of the barbarians.

27.26. But the Persians by no means brought this out to the Romans, plainly awaiting the plot against the wall, that, if they should be able to take it, they might seem in no way to transgress against the treaties, but, worsted, which happened, they might make the terms of the agreement, the Romans inviting them to it.

27.27. When Rhecinarius got within the gates, the Persians thought fit that those who would dispose the peace should go to Chosroes very soon, but the Romans said that envoys would be sent three days later; for now Martin the general was badly affected in body.

27.28. And Chosroes, suspecting that the word was not sound, prepared the matters of battle. And then he threw a very great quantity of bricks onto the mound, and two days later went against the wall of the city with his whole army as though to storm it.

27.29. And setting at each gate some of the commanders and a portion of the army, and surrounding the whole wall thus, he brought up ladders and engines against it.

27.30. And behind he arranged all the Saracens with some of the Persians, not that they should assault the wall, but that, the city being taken, they themselves might net and seize the fugitives.

27.31. With such a purpose Chosroes thus arranged the army. And the battle, having begun in the morning, at first the affairs of the Persians had the upper hand.

27.32. For many fought against very few, since most of the Romans were unaware of what was being done and altogether unprepared.

27.33. But as the engagement advanced, the city became full of tumult and disturbance, and all now, with the very women and little children, went up onto the wall.

27.34. Those in their prime, then, with the soldiers, defended themselves against the enemy most vigorously, and many of the husbandmen displayed marvellous deeds against the barbarians.

27.35. And children and women with the aged gathered stones for the fighters and rendered other service.

27.36. And some, filling many cauldrons with oil and heating them everywhere on the wall for a sufficient time and pouring the oil, exceedingly boiling, with certain sprinklers, distressed still more the enemy who approached the wall.

27.37. And the Persians now, giving up, threw down their arms, and coming into the king's sight said they were no longer able to hold out against the toil.

27.38. But Chosroes, held by much anger and urging all on with threats, drove them against the enemy.

27.39. And they with shouting and much tumult brought up the towers and the other engines to the wall and set on the ladders, as though to take the city at the first shout.

27.40. But the Romans shooting thickly and defending themselves with all might, the barbarians were routed by force, and the Romans mocked Chosroes as he withdrew, inviting him to storm the wall.

27.41. Only Azarethes about the gates called the Soenae fought with his followers, where they call the place Tripyrgia.

27.42. And the Romans there not being a match for them, but giving up against the assaults, the barbarians, having now broken through the outer wall, which they call the outwork, in many places, pressed most vigorously on those who defended themselves from the great wall, until Peranius with many soldiers and some of the Edessenes came out against them and, conquering in battle, drove them off.

27.43. And the storming of the wall, having begun in the morning, ended toward late afternoon, and both sides remained quietly that night, the Persians fearing for their palisades and for themselves, and the Romans gathering stones onto the battlements and making all other preparation, as though to fight on the morrow with the enemy when they should assault the wall.

27.44. On the following day, then, none of the barbarians came to the wall, but on the day after, a portion of the army, Chosroes urging them on, assaulted the gates called Barlaus, but the Romans meeting them, they were worsted by far in the battle and in a short time withdrew to the camp.

27.45. And then Paul the Persian interpreter, coming to the wall, called Martin, that he might dispose the matters of the agreement.

27.46. And thus, Martin having come to a parley with the commanders of the Persians, they came to terms, and Chosroes, having received five centenaria from the Edessenes, left them in writing the agreement to do the Romans no further harm, and burning all the palisades withdrew home with his whole army.

28.1. About this time two generals of the Romans died, Justus the emperor's nephew and Peranius the Iberian, Justus destroyed by disease, but it befell Peranius, having fallen from his horse in a hunt, to be burst.

28.2. Therefore the emperor, setting up others in their place, sent Marcellus, his own nephew just becoming bearded, and Constantianus, who a little before had been sent together with Sergius as envoy to Chosroes.

28.3. Then the Emperor Justinian sent envoys to Chosroes for the agreement, Constantianus and Sergius.

28.4. And they overtake him in Assyria, where there are two towns, Seleucia and Ctesiphon, built by the Macedonians who, after Alexander the son of Philip, ruled the Persians and the nations there.

28.5. And the Tigris river divides both these; for they have no other country between.

28.6. There the envoys, meeting Chosroes, thought fit that he give back the places of Lazica to the Romans and confirm with them most firmly the matters of the peace.

28.7. But Chosroes said it was not easy for them to come to terms with one another, unless, having first made some armistice, and thus ever going more fearlessly to one another, they should both dissolve their differences and establish the matters of the peace in security for the rest.

28.8. And he said that for the perpetual armistice the Emperor of the Romans must both give him money and send a certain physician, Tribunus by name, that he should pass a fixed time with him.

28.9. For this physician chanced to have rid him of a grievous disease before, and from this was his friend and most longed-for.

28.10. When the Emperor Justinian heard this, he at once sent Tribunus and the money, amounting to twenty centenaria.

28.11. And thus a treaty was made for the Romans and the Persians for five years, in the nineteenth year of the Emperor Justinian holding the supreme rule.

28.12. A little later Arethas and Alamoundaras, the rulers of the Saracens, waged war against one another by themselves, neither the Romans nor the Persians helping them.

28.13. And Alamoundaras, taking by a raid one of the sons of Arethas who was pasturing horses, at once sacrificed him to Aphrodite, and from this it was known that Arethas was not betraying the affairs of the Romans to the Persians.

28.14. After this both came to battle with their whole army, and those with Arethas conquered by force, and routing the enemy killed many. And Arethas came near to taking two of the sons of Alamoundaras alive, but did not take them. So the affairs of the Saracens stood thus.

28.15. But Chosroes, the King of the Persians, became manifest as having made the armistice with the Romans with a treacherous mind, that, taking them slack on account of the peace, he might work some irreparable thing.

28.16. For in the third year of the armistice he contrived as follows. There were among the Persians two brothers, Phabrizus and Isdigousnas, invested there with the greatest offices and otherwise the most wicked in reckoning of all the Persians, and having great repute for cleverness and ill-disposition.

28.17. Having purposed, then, to take the city of Daras by a raid and to drive all the Colchians out of Lazica, and to settle Persians as inhabitants in their place, he chose these two men to serve in both works;

28.18. for it seemed a windfall and worth much account to him, having appropriated the land of Colchis, to hold it in security of possession, reckoning that this would be expedient to the Persian realm in many ways.

28.19. For he would have Iberia in safety for the future, the Iberians no longer having any men to whom, having revolted, they might be saved;

28.20. for when the most notable of these barbarians together with Gourgenes the king resolved on revolt, as I have said before, the Persians neither conceded that a king should be set up for them for the future, nor were the Iberians of their own will subject to the Persians, but were held by much suspicion and distrust toward one another.

28.21. And the Iberians were manifestly most exceedingly indignant and would revolt not long after, if ever they should be able to take hold of some opportunity.

28.22. And by the Huns dwelling near Lazica the Persian realm would for ever be unravaged, and they could send them more easily and with less toil against the Roman realm, whenever it should be his wish; for the land of the Lazi is nothing else to the barbarians dwelling in the Caucasus than a bulwark.

28.23. And most of all in this he hoped the mastery of Lazica would profit the Persians, that, setting out from it, they would be able, with no trouble, overrunning by foot and by ships the places on the so-called Euxine Sea, to subdue the Cappadocians and the Galatians and Bithynians adjoining them, and to take Byzantium by a raid, no one opposing them.

28.24. For these reasons, then, Chosroes wished to appropriate Lazica, but he had no confidence at all toward the Lazi.

28.25. For when the Romans withdrew from Lazica, the multitude of the Lazi was tolerably vexed with the Persian realm. For the Persians are, if any others, of a solitary disposition and exceedingly hard in their way of life.

28.26. And their laws are difficult of approach for all men, and their commands by no means bearable. But toward the Lazi especially the difference both of disposition and of way of life appears great, since the Lazi are Christians most of all, but with the Persians all things concerning the divine are the opposite of theirs.

28.27. And apart from these things, salt is in no way produced in Lazica, nor indeed does grain or wine or any other good thing grow.

28.28. But from the Romans of the seacoast all things come in to them by ships, and these not giving gold to those who deal with them, but skins and slaves and whatever else chances to be there in great surplus.

28.29. Of which, as is likely, being shut off for the rest, they were distressed. When Chosroes perceived this, he was eager to anticipate in safety, before they should make any revolution against him.

28.30. And in his deliberation it seemed most expedient to him, having made away with Gubazes the king of the Lazi as quickly as possible, to remove the Lazi thence with all their people, and thus to settle Persians and certain other nations in this country.

28.31. Having resolved these things, Chosroes sends Isdigousnas as though on an embassy ostensibly in word to Byzantium, and sent with him five hundred Persians, chosen for valour, charging them to get into the city of Daras and to lodge in many houses, and to burn all these by night, and, the Romans being occupied about this fire, as is likely, all of them, to open the gates at once and receive into the city the rest of the Persian army.

28.32. For it had been said before to the commander of the city of Nisibis to have a multitude of soldiers in readiness, hiding very near. For thus Chosroes thought they would with no trouble both make away with all the Romans and, having seized the city of Daras securely, hold it.

28.33. But someone well knowing what was being done, a Roman man, who had a little before come as a deserter to the Persians, tells the whole matter to George, who then had his abode there, whom I have mentioned in the foregoing, as having persuaded the Persians besieged in the fortress of Sisauranon to hand over themselves to the Romans.

28.34. George, then, meeting this envoy at the borders of the Romans and Persians, said that what was being done was not according to embassy, and that never should so great a multitude of Persians lodge in a Roman city.

28.35. For all the rest must be left in the place Ammodios, and he himself, with a few, might enter the city of Daras.

28.36. Isdigousnas, then, was indignant and seemed distressed, as having been needlessly outraged, although sent on an embassy to the Emperor of the Romans.

28.37. But George, paying no heed to him in his savagery, saved the city for the Romans. For with twenty men only he received Isdigousnas into the city.

28.38. Having failed of this attempt, then, this barbarian came to Byzantium as though on an embassy, bringing with him his wife and two daughters (for this was for him the screen of the throng that had come together), and coming into the emperor's sight he was able to say nothing great or small about any serious matter, although he spent not less than ten months in the land of the Romans.

28.39. The gifts, however, from Chosroes, as is customary, and a letter he gave to the emperor, through which Chosroes thought fit that the Emperor Justinian should signify whether his body was in the best state of health.

28.40. This Isdigousnas, however, the Emperor Justinian saw with much friendliness, most of all the envoys we know, and held him in sufficient honour;

28.41. so that even when he feasted him, Braducius, who followed him as interpreter, he reclined with him on the couch, a thing that had never happened before in all time.

28.42. For no one ever saw an interpreter even of any of the lesser rulers, much less one made table-companion to a king.

28.43. But also more magnificently than befits an envoy he received and dismissed this man, although he had made the embassy for no purpose,

28.44. as I have said. For if one should reckon up the expenses and the gifts which Isdigousnas, departing, took thence, he will find them amounting to more than ten centenaria of gold. So the matter of the plot against the city of Daras came to this for Chosroes.

29.1. And to Lazica first he sent a great quantity of wood suitable for the making of ships, telling no one for what purpose he sent it, but in word he sent these to set up engines about the wall of Petra.

29.2. Then choosing out three hundred warlike Persians and setting over them Phabrizus, whom I just mentioned, he sends them there, whom he charged to make away with Gubazes as secretly as possible; for the rest he would take care of himself.

29.3. This wood, then, when it was conveyed to Lazica, chanced to be struck by lightning suddenly and reduced to ashes; and Phabrizus, coming with the three hundred to Lazica, set about how he might carry out concerning Gubazes the things enjoined by Chosroes.

29.4. There chanced to be one of the men of note among the Colchians, Pharsanses by name, who had offended Gubazes and had fallen into great hatred from him, and had no courage at all to come into the king's sight.

29.5. When Phabrizus learned this, sending for Pharsanses, he conferred with him and, bringing out the whole matter, inquired of the man how he should set about the deed.

29.6. It seemed, then, to them, taking counsel in common, that Phabrizus should be in the city of Petra, and should send for Gubazes there, that he might announce to him whatever might seem to the king to be expedient for the Lazi.

29.7. But Pharsanses secretly signified to Gubazes what was being done. Therefore Gubazes by no means came to Phabrizus, but openly looked to revolt.

29.8. And Phabrizus charged the other Persians to take care of the garrison in Petra with all power and to prepare the matters of a siege most securely, but he himself with the three hundred withdrew home unsuccessful.

29.9. And Gubazes, referring to the Emperor Justinian their present situation, begged him to be forgiving of what the Lazi had formerly done, and to defend them with all power, as they wished to be rid of the rule of the Medes. For the Colchians by themselves would not be able to repel the power of the Persians.

29.10. When the Emperor Justinian heard this, he was overjoyed and sent seven thousand men and Dagisthaeus as commander, and a thousand Tzani, to the aid of the Lazi.

29.11. And these, coming to the land of Colchis, together with the Lazi and Gubazes, encamping about the wall of Petra, undertook a siege.

29.12. And the Persians there defending themselves most vigorously from the wall, much time was spent in the siege, since the Persians had chanced to store provisions enough for themselves.

29.13. Disturbed by these things, Chosroes sent against them a great army of horse and foot, over whom he set Mermeroes as commander. When Gubazes perceived this, taking counsel in common with Dagisthaeus, he did as follows.

29.14. The Boas river issues very near the borders of Tzanica in Armenia, where they dwell about the Pharangium. And at first it flows for a great extent on the right, going small and becoming crossable for all with no trouble, up to a place where on the right are the borders of the Iberians, and over against it the Caucasus mountain ends.

29.15. There many other nations dwell, both Alani and Abasgi, Christians and friends of the Romans from of old, and Zechi, and after them Huns,

29.16. who are called Sabiri. And when this river comes to where the borders of the Caucasus and Iberia are, there, other waters coming to it, it becomes far greater, and is called Phasis instead of Boas from there, having become navigable as far as the so-called Euxine Sea, where its outlets chance to be, and on either side of it is Lazica.

29.17. But on the right the whole country for a great extent is inhabited by the men there as far as the borders of Iberia.

29.18. For the villages of the Lazi are all within the river there, and towns have been made for them there from of old, among which Archaeopolis, being most strong, and there are Sebastopolis and the fortress of Pityus, and Scanda and Sarapanis by the borders of Iberia. The most notable cities there, however, are Rhodopolis and Mochiresis.

29.19. On the left of the river is the border of Lazica up to a day's journey for an unencumbered man, and the country chances to be empty of men. Bordering this country are the Romans who are called Pontic.

29.20. In the borders of Lazica, then, where men in no way dwelt, the Emperor Justinian in my time built the city of Petra.

29.21. Where John, surnamed Tzibus, establishing the monopoly, as I have said in the foregoing, became the cause of the revolt to the Lazi.

29.22. And going straight from the city of Petra toward the south wind the borders of the Romans receive one, and there are populous places there, the so-called Rhizaeum and Athenae and certain others up to the Trapezuntines.

29.23. When, then, the Lazi brought in Chosroes, crossing the Boas river and keeping the Phasis on the right, they came to Petra, in word to provide that they should not be compelled to ferry across the Phasis river with much time and toil, but in fact not wishing to display their own dwellings to the Persians.

29.24. And yet Lazica is everywhere difficult of access, both within and outside the Phasis river.

29.25. For extraordinary crags on either side of the country make very long narrows there; the Romans call such roads clisurae, hellenizing the word.

29.26. But since Lazica then chanced to be unguarded, the Persians most easily came to Petra with the leaders of the Lazi.

29.27. Now Gubazes, learning of the Persian inroad, charged Dagisthaeus to send some to guard most strongly the narrows which is outside the Phasis river, but by no means to break up the siege, until they should be able to take both Petra and the Persians there.

29.28. And he himself with the whole Colchian army came to the extremities of Lazica, to guard the narrows there with all power.

29.29. And he chanced much before to have brought the Alani and Sabiri into alliance, who had agreed for three centenaria not only to guard the land unravaged for the Lazi, but also so to make Iberia empty of men that the Persians could no longer go thence. This money Gubazes promised the emperor would give them.

29.30. He himself, then, referring to the Emperor Justinian the things agreed, besought him to send the barbarians this money and to grant some consolation to the Lazi, much afflicted.

29.31. And he said that the treasury owed him too his pay of ten years, since, being ranked among the silentiarii in the palace, he had received nothing thence from the time Chosroes came to the land of Colchis.

29.32. And the Emperor Justinian purposed to carry out the request, but some occupation coming on him, he did not send the money at the fitting time. Gubazes, then, did these things.

29.33. But Dagisthaeus (for he was a youth by no means worthy to carry through a Median war) used the present circumstances unsuitably.

29.34. For when he ought to have sent the greater part of the army to the narrows, and perhaps even himself to be present at this work, he sent only a hundred men, as though disposing of some by-task; and he himself, besieging Petra with the whole army, accomplished nothing, although the enemy were few. For at first there were not fewer than fifteen hundred,

29.35. but, by the Romans and Lazi storming the wall for a long time and being shot at and displaying valour most of all whom we know, many died, and it befell them to be reduced to very few.

29.36. The Persians, then, fallen into despair and helplessness, remained quietly, while the Romans made a trench about the wall in a small space, and the wall there at once fell.

29.37. But it befell that within this place there was a building standing no distance from the wall, which reached along the whole fallen part;

29.38. and this, becoming for the besieged instead of the wall, set them in safety no less.

29.39. Which by no means disturbed the Romans. For knowing well that, doing this same thing elsewhere, they would most easily take the city, they became much more of good hope.

29.40. Therefore Dagisthaeus declared to the emperor what had befallen, and held out that the prizes of victory should be in readiness for him, signifying with how many things it was needful for the emperor to gift both him and his brother; for they would take the Persian fortress not long after.

29.41. The Persians, then, withstood the Romans and Tzani, storming the wall most vigorously, beyond expectation, although left exceedingly few.

29.42. And when the Romans, storming the wall, accomplished nothing, they turned again to digging. And they came to such a point of this work that the foundations of the wall were no longer on the ground, but stood for the most part on emptiness, about to fall, as is likely, very soon.

29.43. And if Dagisthaeus had at once wished to set fire to the foundations, I think the city would have been taken straightway; but as it was, awaiting the hopes from the emperor and ever delaying and spending the time, he remained quietly. So these things were being done in the Roman camp here.

30.1. But Mermeroes, when he had passed the borders of Iberia with the whole army of the Medes, went forward, keeping the Phasis river on the right; for he by no means wished to go through the places of Lazica, lest some hindrance there should meet him.

30.2. For he was eager to save the city of Petra and the Persians there, although a part of the wall had fallen suddenly.

30.3. For it was suspended, as I have said; and men of the Roman army to the number of fifty, going of their own will into the city, cried out for the Emperor Justinian as gloriously victorious.

30.4. And there led them a certain young man, Armenian by race, John by name, son of Thomas, whom they called by the surname Gouzes.

30.5. This Thomas built many of the strongholds about Lazica, the emperor having charged him, and commanded the soldiers there, and seemed prudent to the emperor.

30.6. John, then, when the Persians came to blows with them, being struck, at once withdrew with his followers to the camp, since no other of the Roman army came to defend him;

30.7. but a Persian man, Mirranes by name, who commanded the garrison in Petra, fearing for the city, charged all the Persians to keep guard most exactly, and himself, sent to Dagisthaeus, held out flattering and deceitful words, agreeing with no trouble to hand over the city not long after. And by this he was able to get round him, so that the city was not at once entered by the Roman army.

30.8. And those under Mermeroes, when they came to the narrows, there the Roman garrison, being a hundred, met them, and defended themselves vigorously, and checked those who made trial of the entrance.

30.9. But the Persians by no means withdrew, but, others ever receiving those who were killed, went forward, forcing the entrance with all might.

30.10. There die of the Persians more than a thousand, and the Romans, killing, gave up, and, the throng forcing them, withdrew and, running up to the heights of the mountains there, were saved.

30.11. When Dagisthaeus learned this, he at once broke up the siege, charging the army nothing, and drove to the Phasis river; and all the Romans followed, leaving their own things in the camp.

30.12. And the Persians, seeing what was being done, opened the gates and, coming out, went to the huts of the enemy, as though to take the camp.

30.13. But the Tzani (for they had not chanced to follow Dagisthaeus) came to the rescue there at a run, and routing the enemy with no trouble killed many.

30.14. The Persians, then, fleeing, got within the wall, but the Tzani, having plundered the Roman camp, went straight to Rhizaeum. And thence, coming to Athenae, through the Trapezuntines they were conveyed home.

30.15. And Mermeroes and the army of the Medes came there on the ninth day after the retreat of Dagisthaeus; where they found left of the Persian garrison, wounded and become unfit for fighting, three hundred and fifty, and unharmed a hundred and fifty only; for all the rest had died.

30.16. Of whom the survivors had by no means thrown the bodies outside the wall, but, choking with the foulness of the smell, held out beyond expectation, that they might give the enemy no eagerness for besieging, since most of them had perished.

30.17. And Mermeroes, mocking, said that the state of the Romans was worthy of tears and lamentations, for whom affairs had come to such a point of weakness that they had been unable by any device to take a hundred and fifty Persians without walls.

30.18. And he was eager to rebuild as much of the wall as had fallen; but since he had neither lime for the moment nor any other of the things suitable for building in readiness, he devised the following.

30.19. Filling linen sacks, in which the Persians had brought provisions for themselves to the land of Colchis, with sand, he set them in the place of the stones, which, being thrown there, became instead of the wall.

30.20. And choosing out three thousand of the warlike he left them there, for whom he stored provisions not for a length of time, charging them to take care of the building of the wall; and he himself with all the rest of the army rode back.

30.21. And since on the road as he went thence he had no provision of necessaries, having left in Petra all that the army chanced to be bringing from Iberia, he purposed to go by some other journey through the mountains there, where he learned men dwelt,

30.22. that they might be able to live by plunder. On this journey one of the men of note among the Lazi, Phubelis by name, ambushed the Persians as they bivouacked, bringing with him Dagisthaeus and two thousand Romans, who killed by a raid some of the Persians pasturing horses, and plundering horses made their withdrawal in a short time. Thus Mermeroes went thence with the army of the Medes.

30.23. And Gubazes, learning what had befallen the Romans both in Petra and in the narrows, was not even so afraid, nor did he leave the guard in the narrows over against him, thinking the head of their hope was there.

30.24. For he knew well that, even if the Persians, having forced the Romans outside the Phasis river to cross the narrows and to get to Petra, were able, they would from thence fasten no harm on the country of the Lazi, having no device to cross the Phasis, especially as no ships were present to them.

30.25. For this river has depth, if any other, most sufficiently, and extends in breadth for a great extent.

30.26. And its current has such force that, casting itself into the sea, it goes for a very long way by itself, in no way mingling there. And indeed drinkable water is at hand for those sailing there to draw in the midst of the open sea.

30.27. And the Lazi have made guard-posts within the river everywhere, that the enemy, even ferrying with ships, may have no landing onto the land.

30.28. And the Emperor Justinian sent to the nation of the Sabiri the money agreed, and gifted Gubazes and the Lazi with other money.

30.29. And he chanced much before to have sent another considerable army to Lazica, who had not yet arrived there. Rhecithancus from Thrace led them, a man intelligent and good in war. So these things stood thus.

30.30. And Mermeroes, having come into the mountains, as I have said, was eager to fill Petra thence with provisions. For he thought the provisions which they had chanced to bring in with them would by no means suffice the garrison there, being three thousand.

30.31. But since what came to their hands barely sufficed for the expense of this army, being not fewer than thirty thousand, and from this they were not able to send anything worth account to Petra, reckoning, he found it better for them that the greater part of the army should depart from the land of Colchis, but that some few should remain there, who were to bring much of the provisions they should meet into the garrison in Petra, and to use the rest themselves sufficiently;

30.32. choosing out, then, about five thousand men, he left them there, and set over them three other commanders and Phabrizus.

30.33. For it seemed not necessary to him to leave more there, no enemy being anywhere about. And he himself with the rest of the army, coming to Persarmenia, remained quietly in the places about Doubios.

30.34. And the five thousand, when they came nearer the extremities of Lazica, all encamped by the Phasis river, and thence, going about in small bands, plundered the places there.

30.35. When Gubazes perceived this, he charged Dagisthaeus to come to the rescue there with haste; for the enemy would be able to do them some great harm.

30.36. And he did accordingly, and went forward with the whole Roman army, keeping the Phasis river on the left, until he came to a place where the Lazi were encamped on the other bank of the river.

30.37. And there the Phasis chanced to be crossable, which the Romans and Persians, through inexperience of the places there, by no means suspected, but the Lazi, knowing it, crossed there suddenly and mingled with the Roman army; and the Persians, choosing out a thousand of the notable among them, sent them, lest anyone should go to do mischief to the camp.

30.38. Of whom two, going first on a reconnaissance and beyond expectation falling among the enemy, reported the whole matter.

30.39. Therefore the Romans and Lazi fell suddenly upon the thousand, and none of them was able to escape, but the most were destroyed, and some of them they took alive, by whom those under Gubazes and Dagisthaeus were able to learn both the measure of the army of the Medes and the length of the road, and how their present circumstances stood.

30.40. Setting out, then, with the whole army, they went against them, reckoning so that they might fall upon them far on in the night; and they were fourteen thousand.

30.41. The Persians, then, having nothing hostile in mind, slept a long sleep; for they thought the river uncrossable, and that the thousand, no one having met them,

30.42. were going somewhere very far by the road. But the Romans and Lazi, falling unexpectedly upon them at deep dawn, found some still taking sleep, and some just roused from sleep and lying naked on their bedding.

30.43. Therefore it befell none of them to look to defence, but the most, being overtaken, died, and some the enemy took alive, among whom it chanced was one of the commanders, and a few, escaping in the dark, were saved.

30.44. And the Romans and Lazi take the camp and all the standards, and plundered many arms and great wealth, and a great quantity of horses and mules.

30.45. And making the pursuit for a very long way, they came far into Iberia. There too, meeting some other Persians, they killed many.

30.46. Thus the Persians departed from Lazica, and the Romans and Lazi, finding there the rest of the provisions and a very great quantity of flour, burned all that the barbarians had brought from Iberia to bring into Petra.

30.47. And they left many of the Lazi in the narrows, that the provisions might no longer be able to be brought in to the Persians in Petra, and with the rest of the booty and the captives they turned back.

30.48. And the fourth year was ending of the Romans' armistice with the Persians, in the twenty-third year of the Emperor Justinian holding the supreme rule.

30.49. And John the Cappadocian had come summoned by the emperor to Byzantium a year before. For at that time there came upon Theodora the empress the day that ends life.

30.50. He recovered, however, none at all of his former dignities, but on his unwilling honour remained a priest; and yet a phantom had often come to the man that he would attain the kingship.

30.51. For the demon, which is wont to glamour men, loves to hang from greater and loftier hopes those whose mind chances not to stand on a firm nature.

30.52. And to this John, then, wonder-telling visions ever foretold many other things, and that he must put on the garb of Augustus.

30.53. Now there was a certain priest in Byzantium, Augustus by name, who had the guard of the treasures of the church of Sophia.

30.54. When, then, John, having had his hair shorn, was thought worthy of the priesthood by force—for he had no garment befitting a priest—from this Augustus, being near at hand, he was compelled by those set over the work to put on the chasuble and the tunic, and to this, I think, the prophecy was for him fulfilled.