Book 8

1.1. All that I have related up to this point has been written in the way that it was possible to do, dividing and arranging the accounts according to the regions in which the actions of war happened to take place; and these accounts, already published, have been made known everywhere throughout the Roman empire. But from here on it will no longer be composed by me in the manner described.

1.2. For I could no longer fit what happened afterwards into the books that have been published to the world at large; rather, all that came to pass in the course of these wars, and likewise concerning the nation of the Medes—since I have already brought out my earlier accounts—shall be written by me in this one book, and it will of necessity be a varied history of these matters.

1.3. Now all that took place down to the fourth year of the five-year truce which had been made between the Romans and the Persians has been related by me in the earlier books; but in the year that followed, a great host of the Median army invaded the land of Colchis.

1.4. Over them was set a Persian named Chorianes, a man very experienced in many wars, and there followed him many barbarian allies of the Alan nation.

1.5. When this army arrived in a district of Lazica which is called Mocheresis, they encamped in a suitable place and waited.

1.6. There flows here a river, the Hippis, neither large nor navigable, yet passable both for horsemen and for foot-soldiers; and on the right of it they made their stockade, not beside the bank, but at a considerable distance from it.

1.7. Now in order that the regions of Lazica may be clear to those who read this, and the various nations of men that are settled about it, and that they may not be forced, like men fighting against shadows, to discuss matters obscure to themselves, it has seemed to me not unseasonable to set down here in my account in what manner men inhabit the so-called Euxine Sea; for I am not unaware that these things have been written of by some of the older writers, yet I think that not everything has been told by them with accuracy.

1.8. For some of them have said that the neighbours of the Trapezuntines are either the Sani—who are now called Tzani—or that they are Colchians, while they give the name of Lazi to others, who even now are called by that name.

1.9. Yet neither of these is the case. For the Tzani, being as far as possible from the coast, dwell next to the Armenians in the interior, and many mountains hang between, exceedingly impassable and altogether precipitous, and a great deal of country forever empty of men, and ravines from which there is no exit, and wooded hills and impenetrable caverns—by all of which the Tzani are prevented from being a people of the sea.

1.10. And it is impossible that the Colchians should not be the Lazi, since they dwell along the river Phasis; and only the name 'Colchians' has now been changed to that of 'Lazi,' just as has happened with many other nations of men.

1.11. Apart from this, the great length of time that has succeeded those who recorded those matters, ever bringing changes along with events, has had the power to alter most of the institutions formerly established, through migrations of nations and through successions of rulers and of names.

1.12. These things it has seemed to me most necessary to measure out, not reporting the legendary tales about them or otherwise their antiquities, nor where in the Euxine Pontus the poets say that Prometheus was bound;

1.13. for I think that legend is far removed from history. But I shall go through with accuracy both the names and the facts, all those that now belong to each of those places.

2.1. This Pontus, then, begins at Byzantium and Chalcedon, and ends at the land of the Colchians.

2.2. And as one sails into it, on the right are settled the Bithynians, and next to them the Honoriatae and the Paphlagonians, who hold, among other places, the seaside cities of Heraclea and Amastris; and after them those called the Pontici, as far as the city of Trapezus and its borders. Here are settled other seaside towns, and Sinope and Amisus; and very close to Amisus is the place called Themiscyron and the river Thermodon, where they say the camp of the Amazons was. But concerning the Amazons it will be written by me not far hereafter.

2.3. The borders of the Trapezuntines extend to the village of Susurmena and to the place called Rhizaeum, which is distant from Trapezus a journey of two days through the coast-land for one going into Lazica.

2.4. And since I have made mention of Trapezus, I must not pass over a thing that happens here, most contrary to reason. For the honey in all the regions about Trapezus turns out bitter, here alone the reputation concerning it being in dispute.

2.5. On the right of these regions the mountains of Tzanica all rise up, and beyond them are settled the Armenians who are subjects of the Romans.

2.6. From these Tzanic mountains there comes down a river named the Boas, which, passing through very many thickets and circling about a hilly country, is carried very close to the regions of Lazica, and makes its outlet into the so-called Euxine Pontus—not, however, called the Boas.

2.7. For when it comes near the sea, it lets go this name and from that point receives another appellation, getting its name from what comes upon it.

2.8. For the natives henceforth call it the Acampsis, for this reason: that it is impossible for it, when mingled with the sea, to bend; for it makes its outlet with such force and swiftness of current, working a great disturbance of the surge in front, that, going very far out into the sea, it makes the passage there impossible; and those who sail in this part of the Pontus, whether sailing straight for Lazica or setting out from there, can no longer sail through in a continuous course.

2.9. For they cannot in any way bend the current of the river, but, putting out very far from the open sea there, and going to about the middle of the Pontus, in this way they are able to get clear of the river's outlet. Such, then, are the facts concerning the river Boas.

2.10. After Rhizaeum the borders of independent men succeed, who are settled between the Romans and the Lazi. And a certain village, Athens by name, is settled there—not because colonists of the Athenians, as some suppose, established themselves here, but because a certain woman named Athenaea was in early times mistress of the country, whose tomb is here even down to my own time.

2.11. And after Athens, Archabis is settled, and Apsarus, an ancient city, which is distant from Rhizaeum a journey of about three days.

2.12. This was anciently named Apsyrtus, having become of the same name as the man because of his calamity. For there, the natives say, by the plot of Medea and Jason, Apsyrtus was made to vanish from among men, and on this account the place received its name; for he died there, and the place was named after him.

2.13. But a very great length of time flowing on afterwards, and coming to its height through countless successions of men, has had the power to destroy the form of the matter from which this name is composed, and to change the appellation of the place into the manner now apparent.

2.14. And the tomb of this Apsyrtus is on the side of the city toward the rising sun. This city was anciently populous, and a great circuit of wall surrounded it, and it was adorned with a theatre and a hippodrome and with all the other things by which the greatness of a city is wont to be shown. But now nothing else of these is left, except the foundations of the structures.

2.15. So that one might with reason wonder at those who say that the Colchians are neighbours of the Trapezuntines. For in that case Jason, after he had plundered the fleece together with Medea, would not appear to have fled toward Hellas and his ancestral homes, but rather backward, toward the river Phasis and the barbarians of the interior.

2.16. They say, then, that in the times of Trajan the emperor of the Romans, registers of Roman soldiers were stationed both here and as far as the Lazi and the Saginae.

2.17. But at the present time men dwell here who are subjects neither of the Roman nor of the Lazic king, except indeed that, being Christians, the bishops of the Lazi appoint priests for them.

2.18. And they themselves, wishing to be at peace and on friendly terms with both, have agreed to escort continually those who are at any time sent from either side to the other; and this they appear to do down to my own day.

2.19. For in their own boats they convey, by sailing, the envoys sent from one king to the other. Tributaries, however, they have never become down to the present time.

2.20. On the right of these regions there hang very steep mountains, and a desert country extends a very great distance. And above it are settled those called the Persarmenians, and the Armenians who are subjects of the Romans, extending as far as the borders of Iberia.

2.21. From the city of Apsarus to the city of Petra and the borders of the Lazi, where the Euxine Pontus ends, is a journey of one day. And the Pontus, coming to an end here, makes the shore crescent-shaped.

2.22. And the passage across this crescent extends to about five hundred and fifty stades, and all the region behind it is Lazica, and so named.

2.23. And after them, in the interior, are Scymnia and Suania. These nations happen to be subjects of the Lazi. And the men there have rulers of their own kin; but whenever the appointed day of life comes upon one of the rulers, it is the custom that another be appointed for them in his place by the king of the Lazi, always.

2.24. On the flank of this country, close beside Iberia itself, are settled the Meschi, subjects of the Iberians from of old,

2.25. having their dwellings in the mountains. And the mountains of the Meschi are neither harsh nor barren of fruits, but they abound in all good things, since the Meschi are also skilful farmers, and there happen to be vineyards there.

2.26. Upon this country there lie mountains exceedingly high and dense and terribly impassable. And these extend as far as the Caucasus mountains; and behind them, toward the rising sun, is Iberia, extending as far as the Persarmenians.

2.27. Through the mountains that rise here the river Phasis comes down, beginning from the Caucasus, and it empties into the middle of the crescent of the Pontus.

2.28. And here some suppose that it separates the two continents. For the parts on the left of the descending current are Asia, and those on the right are named Europe.

2.29. Now in the portion of Europe it happens that all the dwellings of the Lazi are situated, but on the other side the Lazi have neither town nor any other fortress nor village worthy of mention, except that the Romans built Petra there in former times.

2.30. And somewhere in this portion of Lazica was stored away, as the natives say, that famous fleece, on account of which the poets tell the tale that the Argo was fashioned. But they say these things, in my judgment, with very little truth.

2.31. For Jason, I think, would not have got away from there unobserved by Aeetes, with Medea and the fleece, unless the royal palace and the other dwellings of the Colchians had been separated from the place where that fleece happened to lie by the river Phasis—a thing which the poets too who recorded such matters indicate.

2.32. The Phasis, then, flowing in the way I have described, empties into the very end of the Euxine Pontus. And of the crescent, at the one end, which is in Asia, the city of Petra happened to be; while on the opposite shore, in the portion of Europe, is the country of the Apsilii;

2.33. and the Apsilii are subjects of the Lazi and have been Christians from of old, just like all the other nations which I have mentioned down to this point in my account.

3.1. Above this country is the Caucasus mountain. And this mountain, the Caucasus, rises to such a height that neither rains nor snows ever touch its summits; for they happen to be higher than all the clouds. But the middle parts, up to the topmost snows, are full of snow continually.

3.2. And the spurs that descend from it happen to be exceedingly high, in no way inferior to the crags in the other mountains.

3.3. And of the spurs of the Caucasus mountain, those turned toward the north wind and the setting sun extend to the Illyrians and the Thracians, while those toward the rising sun and the south wind reach to the very passes which lead the Hunnic nations settled there into the land of the Persians and the Romans.

3.4. Of these passes the one is called Tzur, and the other was of old called the Caspian Gate. This country, which extends from the Caucasus mountain to the Caspian Gates, the Alans hold, an independent nation, who for the most part are allies of the Persians and march against the Romans and other enemies. Such, then, are the conditions about the Caucasus mountain.

3.5. And the Huns called Sabeiri are settled here, and certain other Hunnic nations. From here, they say, the Amazons set out, and encamped about Themiscyron and the river Thermodon, as I have just said,

3.6. where there is now the city of Amisus. But now nowhere in the regions about the Caucasus mountain is any memory or name of the Amazons preserved, although many accounts have been given of them by Strabo and certain others.

3.7. But those seem to me to have spoken most of all, in the matter of the Amazons, with the true account, who said that there never was a race of warlike women, nor did human nature in the Caucasus mountain alone depart from its own laws; but that barbarians from these regions marched into Asia with a great army together with their own women, and, making a camp about the river Thermodon, left their women there, while they themselves overran the greater part of Asia; and, the inhabitants there confronting them, they all perished from among men, and not one of them at all returned to the women's stockade; and thereafter these women, compelled by fear of their neighbours and by want of provisions, put on the manly garb, not willingly, and, taking up the equipment of arms left by the men in the camp, and armed with this as well as they could, displayed deeds of manly valour with excellence, necessity driving them to this, until it befell that they were all destroyed.

3.8. That these things happened in some such way, and that the Amazons campaigned together with men, I too believe, drawing my evidence from things that happened to occur in my own time.

3.9. For the practices of those who have gone before, passed on to their descendants, become an image of their nature.

3.10. For when the Huns had often overrun the Roman empire and come to blows with those who confronted them, it happened that some of them fell there; and after the withdrawal of the barbarians the Romans, examining the bodies of the fallen, found women among them.

3.11. No other army of women, however, has anywhere appeared as native to Asia or Europe. Nor indeed do we know by report that the Caucasus mountains have ever been empty of men. Concerning the Amazons, then, let this much be said.

3.12. After the Apsilii and the other end of the crescent, along the coast are settled the Abasgi, extending as far as the Caucasus mountains. And the Abasgi were subjects of the Lazi from of old,

3.13. and they always had two rulers of their own kin. Of these, the one was established in the western part of the country, the other in the part toward the rising sun.

3.14. And these barbarians, down to my own time, revered groves and woods; for in a kind of barbarian simplicity they supposed the trees to be gods.

3.15. And from their own rulers they suffered the most terrible things through the greatness of their love of money. For both their kings, whatever boys they saw in this nation who were comely of countenance and beautiful of body, these they would, with no hesitation at all, drag away from their parents and, making them eunuchs, sell them into the land of the Romans to those who wished to buy them, for great sums of money.

3.16. And the fathers of these boys they would kill at once, lest any of them should ever undertake to avenge upon the king the wrong done to their children, nor that any of the subjects there should be suspect to them. And so the comeliness of their sons turned out to their destruction;

3.17. for the wretched men were destroyed, having been afflicted with the deadly beauty of their children. And from this it came about that most of the eunuchs among the Romans, and not least those in the emperor's court, happened to be Abasgi by race.

3.18. But under the present emperor Justinian everything has come to be changed for the Abasgi to a gentler condition.

3.19. For they chose the doctrines of the Christians, and the emperor Justinian, sending to them one of the eunuchs of the Palace, an Abasgian by race, named Euphratas, forbade their kings expressly that anyone henceforth in this nation should be deprived of his manhood, his nature forced with iron. And this the Abasgi gladly heard,

3.20. and, taking courage from the command of the Roman emperor, they now hindered this deed with all their might. For each of them feared lest he should ever become the father of a comely child.

3.21. Then indeed the emperor Justinian both built a temple of the Mother of God among the Abasgi, and, appointing priests for them, brought it about that they were taught thoroughly all the customs of the Christians; and the Abasgi, deposing both their kings, immediately thought to live in freedom. These things, then, went thus.

4.1. After the borders of the Abasgi, by the Caucasus mountain are settled the Bruchi, being between the Abasgi and the Alans, while along the coast of the Euxine Pontus are settled the Zechi.

4.2. And for the Zechi the emperor of the Romans in old times used to appoint a king, but now these barbarians obey the Romans in nothing at all.

4.3. And after them the Saginae dwell, and a portion of their coast the Romans have held from of old.

4.4. And, building two seaside forts, Sebastopolis and Pityus, distant from one another a journey of two days, they stationed there from the beginning a guard of soldiers.

4.5. For formerly registers of Roman soldiers held all the regions along the coast from the borders of Trapezus as far as the Saginae, as I have said; but now only these two forts were left to them, where they held the garrisons even down to my own time, since Chosroes, the king of the Persians, when the Lazi had brought him into Petra, was eager to send an army of Persians there, both to hold these forts and to settle in the garrisons there.

4.6. But when the Roman soldiers were able to learn this beforehand, getting the start, they burned the dwellings and razed the walls to the ground, and, embarking with no delay in the boats, went straight to the mainland opposite and to the city of Trapezus, harming the Roman empire by the destruction of the forts, yet procuring for it a great gain, in that the enemy did not become masters of the country. For thereupon the Persians returned to Petra without accomplishing anything. These things, then, happened thus.

4.7. Beyond the Saginae are settled many Hunnic nations. And the country from there is named Eulysia, and barbarian men hold both its coastland and its interior, as far as the so-called Maeotic Lake and the river Tanais, which empties into the Lake.

4.8. And this Lake makes its outlets into the shore of the Euxine Pontus. And the men who are settled here were anciently named Cimmerians, but now are called Utigurs.

4.9. And above them, toward the north wind, are settled the boundless nations of the Antae. And beside the very place where the outlet of the Lake begins are settled the Goths called Tetraxitae, not many in number, who reverence and observe the customs of the Christians no less than any others.

4.10. (The natives call this outlet too the Tanais, which, beginning from the Maeotic Lake, extends as far as the Euxine Pontus, a journey, they say, of twenty days. But also the wind that blows from here they call the Tanaite.)

4.11. Whether these Goths were ever of the Arian doctrine, like the other Gothic nations, or whether some other thing was practised by them in the matter of doctrine, I cannot say, since they themselves do not know it; but in simplicity now and in great freedom from meddling they honour their doctrine.

4.12. These men, a little before—I mean when the emperor Justinian was holding the imperial power for the twenty-first year—sent four envoys to Byzantium, begging that a bishop be given them; for the man who had been their priest had died not long before, and they had learned that the emperor had also sent a priest to the Abasgi; and the emperor Justinian, most readily fulfilling their request, sent them away.

4.13. But these envoys, through fear of the Huns, the Utigurs, openly—since many were within hearing—uttering for what reason they had come, declared nothing else than the matter of the priest to the emperor, but, meeting with him as secretly as possible, told everything that was likely to be of advantage to the Roman empire, the barbarians who are their neighbours being forever at strife with one another. But in what manner the Tetraxitae, and from where they removed and settled here, I now go on to tell.

5.1. Of old a great multitude of Huns, then called Cimmerians, occupied these regions which I have just mentioned, and one king was set over them all.

5.2. And once a certain one of them held the rule, to whom were born two sons, the one named Utigur, the other Cutrigur.

5.3. These, when their father had measured out his life, divided the rule between themselves and gave their own names to their subjects;

5.4. for the one are called Utigurs, the other Cutrigurs, even to my own day. These all dwelt here, having all their pursuits in common, but not mingling with the men who were settled on the other side of the Lake and the outflow from it; for they never crossed these waters, nor did they suppose them to be passable, being afraid of the easiest of things, because they never made trial of them at all, but were wholly unpractised in the crossing.

5.5. But to one who crossed over the Maeotic Lake and the outlet from it, immediately upon its very shore the Goths called Tetraxitae dwelt of old, whom I have just mentioned; and far away from them were settled the Goths and the Visigoths and the Vandals and all the other Gothic races.

5.6. These too in earlier times were called Scythians, since all the nations that held those regions are called Scythian in common, while some of them were called Sauromatae or Melanchlaeni, or by some other name.

5.7. As time went on, they say—if the account is sound—some young men of the Cimmerians were occupied in a hunt, and a single doe, fleeing from them, leaped into these waters.

5.8. And the young men, whether held by some ambition or rivalry, or whether some divine power compelled them, followed after this doe, and let her go by no device, until together with her they came to the shore opposite.

5.9. And the thing that was pursued, whatever it was, immediately vanished (for it seems to me that for no other reason did it appear here than that ill might befall the barbarians settled there); but the young men failed of their hunt, yet found occasion for battle and for plunder.

5.10. For returning as quickly as possible to their ancestral homes, they made it plain to all the Cimmerians that these waters were passable for them. So, taking up their arms at once and crossing in full force, they were with no delay on the mainland opposite—the Vandals having already removed from there and settled in Libya, and the Visigoths having taken up their dwelling in Spain.

5.11. Falling, then, suddenly upon the Goths who dwelt in the plains here, they killed many, and put all the rest to flight.

5.12. And those who were able to escape them, removing from there with children and wives, left their ancestral homes, and, ferrying across the river Ister, came to be in the land of the Romans.

5.13. And they did many terrible things to those settled there, but afterwards, the emperor granting it, they settled in the regions of Thrace, and partly fought as allies with the Romans, receiving their pay, like the other soldiers, from the emperor every year, and being called foederati; for thus the Romans then called them in the Latin tongue, indicating this, I think: that the Goths had not been conquered by them in war, but were on certain terms in a state of treaty with them—

5.14. for the Latins call treaties made in war foedera, as I have explained in the earlier books; and partly they carried on war against them, on no plea at all, until they went off, departing into Italy, with Theoderic leading them. Such, then, was the course of the affairs of the Goths.

5.15. But the Huns, having killed some of them, and, as has been said, driven out others, held the country. And of these the Cutrigurs, sending for their children and wives, settled there,

5.16. where they dwell even to my own day. And many gifts they receive from the emperor every year, and yet, crossing the river Ister, they forever overrun the emperor's country,

5.17. being at once in a state of treaty and at war with the Romans. But the Utigurs, with their leader, returned home, intending thenceforth to settle there alone.

5.18. These, when they came near the Maeotic Lake, encountered there the Goths called Tetraxitae.

5.19. And at first the Goths, fencing themselves with their shields, took their stand opposite the assailants as if to defend themselves, trusting in their own strength and in the strength of the place; for they themselves are the bravest of all the barbarians there.

5.20. And the first outlet of the Maeotis, where the Tetraxite Goths were then settled, coming together into a crescent-shaped gulf, and surrounding them for the most part, provided to the assailants a single entrance against them, not very wide.

5.21. But afterwards—for neither did the Huns wish to waste any time there, and the Goths in no way hoped to hold out for long against the multitude of the enemy—they came to terms with one another, on condition that, mingling together, they should make the crossing in common, and the Goths should settle on the mainland opposite, close beside the very shore of the outlet, where they are now settled, and, being friends and allies of the Utigurs thenceforth, on equal and like terms, should live there for all time.

5.22. Thus, then, these Goths settled here, and, the Cutrigurs, as I have said, being left in the land on the other side of the Lake, the Utigurs alone held the country, causing the Romans as little trouble as possible, since they do not dwell near them, but, being separated from them by many nations that lie between, they keep clear of them through an involuntary inactivity.

5.23. Now to one who has crossed over the Maeotic Lake and the river Tanais, over the greater part of the plains there the Cutrigur Huns settled, as I have said; and after them Scythians and Tauri hold all the country there, a portion of which is even now called the Tauric land, where they say there was the temple of Artemis, over which once Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon presided.

5.24. And yet the Armenians say that this temple was in the country among them called Celesene, and that all the men there were then called Scythians, drawing their evidence from the things I have related concerning Orestes and the city of Comana in that part of my account.

5.25. But concerning these matters let each man speak as it pleases him; for of many things that have happened elsewhere, and perhaps have nowhere happened at all, men are fond of claiming them as their ancestral traditions, taking offence if all do not follow their own opinion.

5.26. After these nations a seaside city is settled, Bosporus by name, which became subject to the Romans not long ago.

5.27. And as one goes from the city of Bosporus to the city of Cherson, which lies on the coast and is itself subject to the Romans from of old, barbarians, Hunnic nations, hold all the country between.

5.28. And two other towns near Cherson, called Cepi and Phanaguris, were subject to the Romans both from of old and down to my own day. These, not long ago, certain of the neighbouring barbarians captured and razed to the ground.

5.29. And from the city of Cherson to the outlets of the river Ister, which they also call the Danube, is a journey of ten days, and barbarians hold all the country there.

5.30. And the river Ister flows from the Celtic mountains, and, going around the borders of Italy and being carried to the regions of the Dacians and the Illyrians and the regions of Thrace, empties into the Euxine Pontus. And all the country from there as far as Byzantium belongs to the emperor of the Romans.

5.31. Such, then, is the circuit of the Euxine Pontus from Chalcedon to Byzantium.

5.32. But how great is the extent of this circuit, I cannot say with accuracy in everything, since, as I have said, so great a multitude of barbarians are settled here, and there is no intercourse on their part with the Romans except what is by way of embassy, and perhaps not even that; for neither does it happen that anything accurate has been said by those who earlier undertook to measure these things.

5.33. This, however, is clear: that the parts of the Euxine Pontus on the right—that would be from Chalcedon to the river Phasis—are a journey of fifty-two days for a well-girt man; from which, not unreasonably drawing his evidence, one might say that the other portion of the Pontus too is not far from this measure.

6.1. But since we have come to this point in the account, it has seemed to me not unseasonable to set down all the disputes which those skilled in these matters wage with one another concerning the boundaries of Asia and Europe.

6.2. For some of them say that the river Tanais separates these continents, maintaining that the divisions must be natural, and drawing their evidence from this: that the sea, advancing from the western parts, is carried toward the eastern portion, while the river Tanais, carried from the northern regions toward the south wind, proceeds between the two continents; and conversely, the Egyptian Nile, going from the south toward the north wind, is carried between Asia and Libya.

6.3. But others, going contrary to them, maintain that the account is not sound. For they say that these continents were from the beginning separated by the strait at Gadeira, which issues from the Ocean, and by the sea advancing from there; and that the parts on the right of the strait and the sea are named Libya and Asia, while all the parts on the left were called Europe, as far indeed as the ending of the so-called Euxine Pontus.

6.4. These things being so, the river Tanais, born in the land of Europe, empties into the Maeotic Lake, and the Lake makes its outlets into the Euxine Pontus neither at its ending nor indeed at its middle, but still further on.

6.5. And the parts on the left of this Pontus are reckoned to the portion of Asia. Apart from this, the river Tanais issues from the mountains called the Rhipaean, which are in the land of Europe, as even those who recorded these matters from of old agree.

6.6. And from these Rhipaean mountains the Ocean happens to be very far distant. The parts, then, behind both these mountains and the river Tanais must of necessity be European on both sides.

6.7. From where, then, the Tanais begins to separate the two continents is not easy to say. But if some river is to be named as separating both continents,

6.8. this would be that Phasis. For, carried opposite the strait at Gadeira, it proceeds through the middle of the two continents, since the strait, issuing from the Ocean and making this sea, has these continents on either side, while the Phasis, going to about the very ending of the Euxine Pontus, empties into the middle of the crescent, manifestly receiving the section of the land from the sea.

6.9. These things, then, both parties advance and dispute. But that not only the former account, but also this one which we have just stated, has been embellished by length of time and by the opinion of certain very ancient men, I shall make plain—knowing this, that for the most part all men, if they have first gained their learning from some ancient account, are no longer willing to toil, dwelling in the search for the truth, nor to learn afresh some newer opinion concerning it, but always to them the older seems sound and honourable, while what belongs to their own day is thought contemptible and passes into the ridiculous.

6.10. Besides this, the inquiry now is not concerning anything intellectual or conceptual or otherwise unseen, but concerning a river and a country—things which time has been able neither to change nor in any way to hide.

6.11. For both experience is at hand, and sight is most sufficient for testimony, and I think that those who are eager to find the truth will be hindered in nothing.

6.12. Now Herodotus of Halicarnassus says in the fourth book of his Histories that the whole earth is one, but is reckoned to be divided into three portions and appellations, Libya and Asia and Europe.

6.13. And of these, between Libya and Asia is carried the Egyptian river Nile, while Asia and Europe are separated by the Colchian Phasis. And knowing that some held this opinion concerning the river Tanais, he added this too afterwards.

6.14. And it has seemed to me not unseasonable to insert into the account the very words of Herodotus, which are somewhat as follows: 'Nor can I conjecture for what reason, the earth being one, three names lie upon it, bearing the appellations of women, and the Egyptian river Nile and the Colchian Phasis were set as boundaries to it.'

6.15. 'And others say that the river Tanais the Maeetian and the Cimmerian ferries are the boundary.' But also the tragic poet Aeschylus, in his Prometheus Unbound, immediately at the beginning of the tragedy calls the river Phasis the boundary of the land of Asia and of Europe.

6.16. And this too let it be said by me at present, that of those skilled in such matters, some suppose that the Maeotic Lake makes the Euxine Pontus, and that part of it goes on the left, part on the right of the Lake, and that for this reason the Lake is called the mother of the Pontus.

6.17. And they say these things, drawing their evidence from this: that from the place called the Hieron the outflow of this Pontus comes down toward Byzantium like a river, and from this they suppose that this is the end of the Pontus.

6.18. But those who arraign the account declare that the whole sea is one, issuing from the Ocean and nowhere else ending, and extends to the land of the Lazi—except, they say, if one should call the difference in the names a difference of substance, in that from there the sea has been named the Pontus.

6.19. And if the currents come down from the so-called Hieron toward Byzantium, this is no matter. For the phenomena that occur in all straits appear to yield to no reason, nor has anyone ever been competent to explain them.

6.20. But also Aristotle of Stagira, a man wise above most, having gone for this very reason to Chalcis in Euboea, and observing the strait there, which they call the Euripus, and wishing to investigate accurately the natural cause—how and in what manner sometimes the currents of this strait are carried from the west, sometimes from the rising of the sun, and according to these all the ships there happen to sail; and if ever, the current going from the rising sun, and the sailors having begun from there to sail with the inflow of the surge, as was their custom, the current should come against them, which often is wont to happen there, these ships are turned back at once to where they set out, while the others sail from the west to the other side, although not even the slightest wind has blown upon them, but there is a deep calm there and a windlessness—these things Aristotle of Stagira, pondering and turning over for a length of time, in distress of mind through his perplexity, came to the measure of his life.

6.21. Nevertheless, in the strait too which separates Italy and Sicily, many things are wont to happen against reason. For the current seems to go there from the so-called Adriatic Sea,

6.22. and yet the advance of the sea is from the Ocean and Gadeira. But also frequent whirlpools suddenly there, from no cause apparent to us, destroy the ships.

6.23. And on this account the poets say that the ships are swallowed by Charybdis, all those that happen to be at that time in this strait.

6.24. And these men suppose that all these things, occurring most against reason in all straits, occur from the proximity of the mainland on either side; for they say that the surge, forced by the narrowness, proceeds into certain strange and unreasonable constraints.

6.25. So that even if the current seems to be carried from the so-called Hieron toward Byzantium, one would not reasonably maintain that the sea and the Euxine Pontus end here.

6.26. For this account does not stand upon any firm nature, but here too let the narrowness prevail. Yet this is not altogether so.

6.27. For the fishermen of these regions say that the current does not come down toward Byzantium as a whole, but that its upper parts, which are visible to us, go in this direction, while the parts beneath, where there is and is called the abyss, expressly go the opposite to the upper parts, and are always carried contrary to what appears.

6.28. Whereby, indeed, whenever in pursuit of a catch of fish they cast their nets somewhere here, these are always forced by the current to be carried toward the Hieron.

6.29. But in Lazica the land on all sides, beating back the advance of the sea and checking its course, makes it end there, first and alone—the Creator, evidently, having set their bounds for them there.

6.30. For the sea, touching the shore there, neither advances nor rises to any greater height, although it is forever flooded on all sides by the outlets of rivers numberless and exceedingly vast, but, retreating backward, it comes back again, and, measuring out its own proper measure, preserves the bound set for it, as though fearing some law, and constrained accurately by the necessity from it, lest it should appear to have transgressed any of the ordinances.

6.31. For all the other shores of the sea happen to lie not opposite to it but at an angle. But concerning these matters let each man know and say as is dear to him.

7.1. For what reason Chosroes was eager to lay claim to Lazica has been told by me before; but what carried him and the Persians most of all to this I shall now make plain, since I have described this whole country and made the account concerning it clear.

7.2. Often these barbarians, with Chosroes leading them, invading the land of the Romans with a great army, inflicted upon their enemies sufferings not easy to describe, which have been told by me in the books concerning them; but to themselves, carrying off no profit at all from there, it happened that they suffered loss both in money and in men; for they always withdrew from the land of the Romans after losing many.

7.3. Wherefore, returning to their ancestral homes, they reviled Chosroes most secretly, and called him the destroyer of the Persian race.

7.4. And once, returning from Lazica, when they had met there with certain incurable sufferings, they were about to combine openly against him and to put him to death by a most pitiable end, had he not, learning it beforehand, guarded himself, getting round the most notable men among them by much flattery.

7.5. And from this, wishing to make a defence against the accusation, he was eager to procure some great advantage for the empire of the Persians. At all events, having at once attempted the city of Daras, he was beaten back from there, as I have said, and came altogether to despair of mastering the place.

7.6. For neither could he take it thenceforth by assault, the garrisons there being so on their guard, nor indeed by besieging it did he hope by any device to get the better of them.

7.7. For both the other provisions are always purposely stored up in abundance in the city of Daras, so that they may suffice for a great length of time, and a spring, springing up close at hand in a precipitous spot, makes a great river which is carried straight for the city, those who desire to plot against it being unable either to turn it aside anywhere else or in any other way to force it, on account of the difficulty of the ground.

7.8. And whenever it comes within the circuit-wall, going round the whole city and filling the cisterns there, it then goes out, and, very close to the wall, falling into a chasm, it vanishes. And where

7.9. it issues forth from there has become clear to no one down to the present time. And this chasm did not happen to come into being in old times, but a long time after the emperor Anastasius built this city, nature, of itself, made it in the place; and on this account it befalls those who wish to besiege the city of Daras to be hard pressed by great want of water.

7.10. Failing, then, of this attempt, as I have said, Chosroes came to the thought that, even if it were possible to subdue some other city of the Romans, yet he could never settle in the midst of the Romans, with many strongholds left behind to the enemy.

7.11. For it was for this very reason that he razed Antioch to the ground when he captured it, and then departed from the land of the Romans. Wherefore, lifted up in his thought, he was borne to a longer hope, searching out impossible deeds.

7.12. For having heard by report in what manner, on the left of the Euxine Pontus, those barbarians who are settled about the Maeotic Lake overrun the land of the Romans without fear, he said that thus too, for the Persians who held Lazica, it would be possible with no toil, whenever they wished, to go straight for Byzantium, in no way ferrying across the sea, as the other barbarian nations settled here forever do.

7.13. For these reasons the Persians lay claim to Lazica. But I return to the point from which I made this digression.

8.1. Chorianes, then, and the Median army encamped about the river Hippis. And when Gubazes, the king of the Colchians, learned this, and Dagisthaeus, who commanded the Roman army, taking common counsel, they led the army of the Romans and the Lazi against the enemy.

8.2. And, coming to be on the other side of the river Hippis and encamping there, they took counsel about the present situation, whether it would profit them more to remain and receive the enemy as they came on, or whether they should go against the enemy, in order that, making a display of their own courage to the Persians, and making it plain to their opponents that they advanced upon them with contempt, and beginning the engagement themselves, they might be able to enslave the spirit of their adversaries. And when the opinion of those who urged advancing upon the enemy prevailed,

8.3. they all set out against them at once. Thereupon the Lazi no longer thought fit to be drawn up with the Romans, putting forward this: that the Romans entered the contest with no danger to their fatherland or their nearest kin, while for themselves the danger was on behalf of children and wives and ancestral land; so that they would even blush before their own women,

8.4. if it should befall them to be conquered by their adversaries. By this necessity, then, they expected to improvise on the spot the valour which they did not possess.

8.5. And first they themselves were eager to go against the enemy by themselves, in order that the Romans might not throw them into confusion in the work, since they were not equally eager for the danger.

8.6. When the Lazi had made this bold show, Gubazes, exceedingly delighted, called them together a little apart from the Romans and exhorted them as follows.

8.7. "An exhortation rousing to good courage, men, I know not whether it is needful to make to you. For those whom the necessity of affairs rouses to eagerness need, I think, no exhortation at all—which has befallen us also at the present moment.

8.8. For on behalf of wives and children and ancestral land, and, to speak simply, on behalf of all that is ours, is the danger, on behalf of which the Persians come against us.

8.9. And to those who would by force take away anything of one's possessions, no one of all men yields, nature compelling us to fight in defence of what belongs to us.

8.10. And you are not ignorant that for the Persians, who have come into the power of acting as they will, nothing stays their greed; nor will they merely rule us, or impose tribute, or in other respects make us subjects, if we have not forgotten what Chosroes attempted upon us not long ago, should they now get the better of us in the war.

8.11. But let not even the report of the attempt of the Persians advance beyond words to deeds for me, nor let the name of the Lazi fail. And the struggle against the Medes is not hard for us, men, since we have often come to blows with them and surpassed them in battle.

8.12. For to one accustomed to it the difficulty is in no way present, the hardship of the task having been spent beforehand through practice and experience. So that for this reason it will be needful for us to despise the enemy as men who have been conquered in engagements and are not equally bold against us.

8.13. For a spirit once enslaved is by no means wont to run back again. Reckoning these things, then, with good hope go against your adversaries."

8.14. Having said this much, Gubazes led out the army of the Lazi, and they were drawn up as follows. First the cavalry of the Lazi, drawn up, advanced opposite; and behind, not close at hand, but as far off as possible,

8.15. the Roman cavalry followed them. And of these Romans the leaders were Philegagus, a Gepid by race, an energetic man, and John the Armenian, exceptionally good in matters of war, the son of Thomas, whom they called by the surname Guzes, of whom I have made mention in the earlier books as well.

8.16. And behind followed Gubazes the king of the Lazi and Dagisthaeus the Roman general, with the foot-soldiers of both peoples, reckoning that, if it should befall the cavalry to be routed, they would most easily be saved by retiring upon them.

8.17. The Romans, then, and the Lazi were drawn up in this manner, while Chorianes, picking out a thousand men of his followers, cuirassed and otherwise armed as well as possible, sent them forward on reconnaissance, while he himself with all the rest of the army came on behind, leaving a guard of a few men in the camp.

8.18. But the cavalry of the Lazi, getting the start, dishonoured their promises by what they did, belying their former hopes in the actual deeds.

8.19. For, having encountered the enemy's advance-guard suddenly, and not enduring the sight of them, they at once turned their horses and, in no order, returned backward, and, pressing toward the Romans, mingled with them, not disdaining to flee for refuge to those with whom formerly they had shrunk from being drawn up.

8.20. And when both sides came close to one another, neither began the fighting first nor closed, but each, as the others advanced, drew back, and as they retreated, pressed on, and in retreats and renewed pursuits and quick-turning changes they wore away a great deal of time.

8.21. Now there was a certain man, Artabanes by name, in this Roman army, a Persarmenian by race, who had deserted long before to the Armenians who are subjects of the Romans—not simply, but by the slaughter of a hundred and twenty Persian fighting men he had given the Romans a sure pledge of his faith toward them.

8.22. For, coming into the presence of Valerian, who was then commanding in Armenia, he begged him to give him fifty Roman men; and obtaining what he wished, he went to a fort situated in Persarmenia,

8.23. where a garrison of a hundred and twenty Persians received him with his followers under the fort, not yet aware that, having changed his allegiance, he was setting about a revolution.

8.24. And he, having killed the hundred and twenty and plundered all the goods in the fort, which were exceedingly great, came to Valerian and the Roman army, and, appearing thereby trustworthy to the Romans, thenceforth campaigned with them.

8.25. This Artabanes, in this battle, taking two of the Roman soldiers with himself, came into the no-man's-land, where some of the enemy too arrived.

8.26. Against these Artabanes rushed, and one of the Persians, fairly great both in excellence of soul and in strength of body, he at once killed with his spear, and, hurling him from his horse, dashed him to the ground.

8.27. But one of the barbarians, standing beside the fallen man, struck Artabanes on the crown of the head with his sword, a blow not mortal. And the other of those who followed Artabanes, a Goth by race, this man, while his hand was still on Artabanes' head, hitting him on the left flank, dispatched him.

8.28. And the thousand, panic-stricken at what had happened, retired backward, and waited for Chorianes with the rest of the army of the Persians and Alans, and not long after mingled with them.

8.29. And now the foot-soldiers about Gubazes and Dagisthaeus too came to their own cavalry, and the battle was hand to hand on both sides.

8.30. Then indeed Philegagus and John, thinking themselves too few to bear the onset of the barbarian cavalry, and especially since they had given up hope of the Lazic force, leaping down from their horses, compelled all the Romans and Lazi to do the same.

8.31. And drawing themselves up in as deep a phalanx as possible, they all stood on foot, front to front, opposite the enemy, holding their spears extended before them.

8.32. And the barbarians, not knowing what to do—for they could neither ride down their opponents, who were now on foot, nor were they able to throw their phalanx into confusion, since their horses, distressed by the points of the spears and the clashing of the shields, reared up—all looked to their bows, confident in the hope that by the multitude of their missiles they would most easily turn the enemy to flight.

8.33. And the Romans with all the Lazi did this same thing. And from both sides frequent volleys of arrows went against one another, and on both sides many fell.

8.34. The Persians, then, and the Alans especially discharged their missiles much more continuously than their opponents. But most of them happened to be turned aside by the shields. And in this battle it befell Chorianes the commander of the Persians to be struck.

8.35. By whom this man was struck has become clear to no one; for by some chance, coming out of the throng, the shaft, fixing itself in the man's neck, dispatched him straightway, and by the death of one man the battle was turned and the victory passed to the Romans.

8.36. For he, falling from his horse upon his face to the ground, lay there, and at a great run the barbarians went toward the stockade, and the Romans with the Lazi, following after, killed many, hoping to take the camp of their adversaries at the first onset.

8.37. But a certain one of the Alans, well endowed in courage and bodily strength, and exceptionally skilled in shooting many arrows on either side, stood in the entrance of the stockade, which was very narrow, and proved, beyond expectation, an obstacle for a very long time to the assailants.

8.38. But John, the son of Thomas, alone, coming very close beside him, suddenly killed the man with his spear, and thus the Romans and Lazi gained possession of the camp. And of the barbarians very many were destroyed there, and the rest were carried off to their ancestral homes, as it was possible for each.

8.39. This invasion of the Persians, then, into the land of Colchis ended thus. And another army of Persians, having strengthened the garrison in Petra with an abundance of provisions and all other things, withdrew.

9.1. And meanwhile the following things happened. The Lazi slandered Dagisthaeus before the emperor, coming to Byzantium and bringing against him charges of treason and of Median sympathy.

9.2. For they maintained that he, won over by the Persians, had not wished, when the circuit-wall of Petra had fallen, to mount upon it, and that the enemy, filling sacks with sand in the meantime and using these instead of stones as their building-material, had repaired all the parts of the wall that had fallen there.

9.3. And they said that Dagisthaeus, whether brought to this by money or by negligence, had put off the attack to some other time, and let slip in the very instant the height of the opportunity, which he was no longer able to lay hold of.

9.4. Him, then, the emperor shut up and kept under guard in a building; and Bessas, who had come from Italy not long before, he appointed general of the Armenians and sent into Lazica, charging him to command the Roman army there.

9.5. There too Benilus, the brother of Buzes, with an army had already happened to be sent, and Odonachus and Babas from Thrace, and Uligagus, a Herul by race.

9.6. And Nabedes, invading Lazica with an army, accomplished nothing else worthy of mention, but, the Abasgi having revolted both from the Romans and the Lazi, frequenting them with this army, he received from them sixty boys of their notable men as hostages.

9.7. (And then Nabedes, making it a by-task of his journey, found Theodora, who had been married to Opsites—who was the uncle of Gubazes and king of the Lazi—among the Apsilii, and captured her, and carried her off to the homes of the Persians.

9.8. And the woman happened to be Roman by race, since from of old the kings of the Lazi, sending to Byzantium and meeting with the emperor's consent for an alliance by marriage with certain of the men from the senatorial council, used to bring women from there as wedded wives.

9.9. And Gubazes too, in fact, was by race the son of a Roman woman.) But for what reason these Abasgi looked to revolt, I shall make plain.

9.10. When they had deposed their own kings, as I have just related, the soldiers of the Romans, sent by the emperor, frequented them for the most part and thought fit to make the country part of the Roman empire, and laid certain new commands upon them.

9.11. With these, being too violent, the Abasgi were utterly vexed. Fearing, then, lest they should henceforth be slaves of the Romans, they set up rulers for themselves again, Opsites by name in the eastern part of the country,

9.12. and Skeparnas in the western part. For, having fallen into despair of good things, they exchanged, as was likely, what had formerly seemed evil to them for what came after as being worse; and fearing on this account the power of the Romans, they went over to the Persians as secretly as possible. When the emperor Justinian heard these things, he ordered Bessas to send against them an army worthy of mention.

9.13. And he, picking out many of the Roman army, and setting over them as rulers Uligagus and John the son of Thomas, at once sent them against the Abasgi by ship. Now one of the rulers among the Abasgi, Skeparnas by name, happened to be spending some time among the Persians;

9.14. for, summoned a little before, he had come to Chosroes. But the other, learning of the Roman attack, roused all the Abasgi and was eager to confront them.

9.15. Now there is a place after the borders of Apsilia, at the entrance into Abasgia, of this kind: a high mountain, beginning from the Caucasus and gradually diminishing and sloping off like some staircase, extends and ends at the Euxine Pontus.

9.16. And a fort, most strong and most worthy of mention as to its size, the Abasgi built of old in the foothills of this mountain.

9.17. Fleeing to it, they always beat off the attacks of the enemy, who can in no way force the difficult ground. And there is a single entrance leading both into this fort and into the rest of the country of the Abasgi, which happens to be impassable for men coming two together.

9.18. For there is no device by which one may go from here except man by man and on foot with difficulty. And above this path there hangs an exceedingly harsh ravine extending from the fort as far as the sea.

9.19. And the place bears an appellation worthy of the ravine, since the men there, speaking Greek, call it Trachea (the Rough Place).

9.20. Now the Roman fleet put in between the borders of the Abasgi and the Apsilii, and John and Uligagus, disembarking the soldiers onto the land, went on foot, while the sailors with all the boats followed the army along the shore.

9.21. And when they came very close to the Trachea, they saw all the Abasgi armed and standing in array along the whole ravine above the path which I have just mentioned, and they were held by great helplessness, having no way at all to deal with the situation before them, until John, reckoning much within himself, found a certain cure for the trouble.

9.22. For leaving Uligagus there with half the army, he himself, taking the rest, manned the boats. And rowing, they went round the whole Trachea and crossed it, and got behind the enemy there.

9.23. Raising, then, their standards, they went against them. And the Abasgi, seeing the enemy pressing upon them on both sides, no longer looked to defence, nor did they keep their array, but, turning to flight with much disorder, they pushed forward, so fettered by fear and the helplessness from it that they could neither any longer recognize their own native difficult ground nor easily go through it from there.

9.24. And the Romans, following after them on both sides and overtaking them, killed many. And at a run, coming with the fleeing men to the fort, they found the gate there still open; for the guards had no way to close the doors, but were still receiving the fugitives.

9.25. And the fugitives being mingled with the pursuers, all rushed for the gates, some in the desire of being saved,

9.26. the others of taking the fort. Finding, then, the gates open, they burst in through them upon one another. For the gatekeepers could neither distinguish the Abasgi from the enemy, nor close the gates, the throng pressing over them by force.

9.27. And the Abasgi, glad to be inside the circuit-wall, were captured together with the fort; but the Romans, thinking they had got the better of their adversaries, here met with a more troublesome task.

9.28. For, the houses being many and not very far from one another, but in the manner of a wall fenced together on all sides, the Abasgi, going up onto them and defending themselves with all their might, struck the enemy from above, held by toil and fear and pity for their children and wives and the helplessness from this, until it came into the mind of the Romans to set fire to the houses.

9.29. Kindling fire, then, upon them on all sides, they gained the complete mastery of this contest. Opsites, then, the ruler of the Abasgi, with a few men was able to flee, and withdrew to the neighbouring Huns and to the Caucasus mountain.

9.30. But the rest were either burned to ashes together with the houses, or came under the hands of the enemy. And the Romans took alive too the wives of the rulers with all their offspring, and razed the circuit-wall of the fort to the ground and made the country empty of men for the most part. For the Abasgi, then, their revolt ended thus; and among the Apsilii the following things occurred.

10.1. The Apsilii happen to be subjects of the Lazi from of old. And there is a certain fort in this country, exceedingly strong; the natives call it Tzibile.

10.2. And a certain one of the notable men among the Lazi, Terdetes by name, who held the office of the so-called magister in this nation, having quarrelled with Gubazes the king of the Lazi and being ill-disposed, agreed secretly with the Persians to hand over this fort, and, bringing an army of Persians for this enterprise, went into Apsilia.

10.3. And when they came near the fort, he himself, getting the start, with his Lazic followers came within the circuit-wall, since those who held the garrison there could in no way distrust the ruler of the Lazi, being held by no suspicion against him. And so Terdetes received the Persian army when it arrived at the fort.

10.4. And from this the Medes supposed that not only Lazica but also Apsilia was then held by them. But neither the Romans nor the Lazi, hard pressed by occupation about Petra and the Median army, were able to defend the Apsilii.

10.5. Now there was a certain wife of the ruler of the garrison there, an Apsilian by race, exceedingly comely of countenance. With this woman the commander of the Persian army, falling suddenly into an out-of-place passion, at first began to make trial of her; then afterwards, when nothing went forward for him on the woman's part, with no delay he undertook to do her violence.

10.6. At this the woman's husband, in sharp anger, killed by night both him and all those who had come with him into the fort, who had become the waste-offering of the ruler's lust, and held the fort himself. And the Apsilii on this account revolted from the Colchians, charging that, when they were being ill-used by the Persians, they had in no way been willing to defend them.

10.7. But Gubazes sent against them a thousand Romans and John the son of Thomas, of whom I have just made mention; and he, by much taming them, won them over without a battle and made them subjects of the Lazi again. So, then, the affairs concerning both the Apsilii and the fort of Tzibile went forward.

10.8. About this time it befell Chosroes that not even his offspring remained untouched by his own inhumanity. For the eldest of his sons, Anasozadus by name (and this means in the Persian tongue 'the immortal one'), happened to have quarrelled with him, having sinned in many other ways by his lawlessness in his manner of life, and especially by going to bed with his father's women with no hesitation at all. At first, then, Chosroes punished this son with exile.

10.9. And there is a certain country in Persia, Vazaine, exceedingly good, where there is settled a city called Belapaton, distant from Ctesiphon a journey of seven days.

10.10. There, at his father's command, this Anasozadus was spending his time. And then it befell Chosroes to fall most grievously ill, so that it was even said that he had vanished from among men; for Chosroes was sickly by nature.

10.11. In fact he often gathered physicians about himself from all quarters, among whom was Tribunus the physician, a Palestinian by race.

10.12. Now this Tribunus was learned and in the matters of the medical art inferior to none, and otherwise temperate and god-loving and reaching the height of fairness.

10.13. And once, having cured Chosroes when he was in a bad state of body, he departed from the land of the Persians, having received many gifts worthy of mention from the man.

10.14. When, then, this former truce was made, Chosroes asked the emperor Justinian to give him this physician to live with him for a year. And when his request had been fulfilled, as I have said before, Chosroes ordered Tribunus to ask whatever he wished.

10.15. And he asked for nothing of all riches except that Chosroes should release some of the Roman captives.

10.16. And Chosroes released to him three thousand others, and as many notable men among the captives as he asked for by name; and from this deed Tribunus won great fame among all men. These things, then, happened thus.

10.17. And when Anasozadus learned what had befallen Chosroes his father in the matter of his illness, aiming at the kingship, he was setting about a revolution.

10.18. And though his father had recovered, none the less, having himself caused the city to revolt and taken up arms, he went to war at the height of his power.

10.19. Hearing this, Chosroes sent an army and a general, Phabrizus, against him. Phabrizus, then, conquering in the battle and making Anasozadus subject, brought him to Chosroes not long after.

10.20. And he maimed his son's eyes—not taking away his sight, but turning the eyelids, upper and lower, inside out with much unsightliness.

10.21. For, having heated an iron pin red-hot, and with it smearing the outer parts of the boy's closed eyes, he thus was able to mar the comeliness of the eyelids.

10.22. And Chosroes did this for this reason only, that for his son the hope of the kingship might be cut off. For a man held by mutilation the law no longer permits to be appointed king of the Persians, as has been said in the earlier books too.

11.1. For Anasozadus, then, the matters both of his fortune and of his character ended thus; and the fifth year of the truce was completed.

11.2. And the emperor Justinian sent Peter, a man of patrician rank, who held the office of magister, to Chosroes, in order that they might altogether settle the treaty concerning the East.

11.3. But Chosroes sent him away, promising that a man would follow him not long after to arrange these matters in the way that would profit both sides.

11.4. And he sent Isdigousnas again not long after, a man arrogant and held by an unspeakable boastfulness, whose conceit and swagger seemed bearable to no one of the Romans.

11.5. And he brought with him his wife and his daughters and his brother, and a very great multitude of followers and attendants. One would have likened the men to those going into battle array.

11.6. And there followed him also two of the most notable men among the Persians, who even wore golden diadems upon their heads.

11.7. And it galled the men in Byzantium that the emperor Justinian thought fit to honour him not as an envoy, but much more, with both kindliness and magnificence.

11.8. Bradukius, however, did not come to Byzantium with him, for they say that Chosroes made him vanish from among men, bringing nothing else against the man except that he had been a table-companion of the emperor of the Romans.

11.9. "For," he said, "being an interpreter, he would not have come to such a height of rank from the emperor, unless he had betrayed the affairs of the Persians." But some say that Isdigousnas himself slandered him, on the ground that he had come secretly to a conference with the Romans.

11.10. Now at first this envoy, meeting with the emperor, said nothing small or great about the peace, but accused the Romans of having done wrong against the truce, saying that Arethas and the Saracens who are subjects of the Romans had injured Alamundarus during the truce, and bringing other charges not worthy of mention, of which it seemed to me by no means necessary to make mention.

11.11. In Byzantium, then, these things were being done. But Bessas, with all the Roman army, set about the siege of Petra. The Romans, then, were digging about the wall, at the place where Dagisthaeus too had formerly made his mine and brought down the circuit-wall there. But for what reason they dug at the same spot, I shall make plain.

11.12. Those who originally built this city set the foundations of the circuit-wall for the most part upon rock, but in places it happened that they lay over an earthen mound.

11.13. Now there was a certain portion of the wall on the western side of the city, not very wide, on each side of which they had built the foundations of the circuit-wall upon a certain hard and intractable rock.

11.14. This portion, then, Dagisthaeus formerly and now Bessas dug at alike, the nature of the place not allowing them to go further, but measuring out for them the length of the mine and reasonably determining it.

11.15. When, then, the Persians, after the withdrawal of Dagisthaeus, wished to rebuild this fallen part of the wall, they did not make the building in the former manner, but in the following way.

11.16. Filling the emptied space with gravel, they set thick beams above it, which, having very thoroughly smoothed and made altogether even, they joined together over a great breadth, and, making these the base instead of foundations of the circuit-wall, they skilfully constructed the building above them. And the Romans, not understanding this, supposed they were making the mine below the foundations.

11.17. And, emptying out the whole space from the beams which I have just mentioned over a great extent of the earth, they were able to bring down the circuit-wall to a great degree, and a portion of it suddenly fell; yet neither did this fallen part lean to one side, nor was any of the courses of stones thrown into confusion, but, sound and entire, by a straight descent, as if by a machine, going down into the emptied space, it stood, and kept its own place, not to such a height as before, but to something less.

11.18. For the whole space under the beams being emptied, it befell them to settle there together with all the building above them.

11.19. But not even so had the wall become passable for the Romans. For the throng of the Persians, when many came there with Mermeroes, putting a great mass upon the former building, constructed an exceedingly lofty circuit-wall.

11.20. The Romans, then, when they saw the shaken part of the circuit-wall standing again, were at a loss and held by great helplessness.

11.21. For they could neither dig any longer, the mine being shut off for them at this point, nor could they in any way use a ram, since they were assaulting the wall on rising ground, and this machine cannot be drawn except in a place level and very low.

11.22. But by some chance it happened that there were in this Roman army a few of the barbarian Sabeiri, for the following reason.

11.23. The Sabeiri are a Hunnic nation, and they are settled about the Caucasus mountains, being an exceedingly great multitude, but divided fairly into many rulerships.

11.24. And of these rulers some are acquainted of old with the emperor of the Romans, others with the king of the Persians. And each of the two kings used to send a fixed sum of gold to his own allies—not yearly, however, but whenever the need led him to this.

11.25. At that time, then, the emperor Justinian, calling upon those of the Sabeiri who were friendly to him for the alliance, sent a man to carry the money to them.

11.26. And he—since, the enemy being between, he could in no way go to the Caucasus mountains in safety, especially carrying money—came to Bessas and the Roman army, which was set about the siege of Petra, and, sending to the Sabeiri, ordered some of them to come to him as quickly as possible to receive the money; and the barbarians, choosing three of their rulers, at once sent them with a few men into Lazica; and these, coming there with the Roman army, took part in this assault on the wall.

11.27. These men, when they saw the Romans despairing and at a loss how to deal with the situation, devised a machine of a sort that had come into the mind of no Roman or Persian since men came into being, and yet a great throng of craftsmen has always existed, and now exists, in each state.

11.28. And often in all time both have had need of this machine, when assaulting strongholds situated in hard and difficult places; but to none of them had this device come which has now come to these barbarians. So always, as time goes on, the nature of men is fond of devising new contrivances along with new affairs.

11.29. For these Sabeiri improvise a ram, not in the way it was wont to be made,

11.30. but innovating in another manner. For they did not put into this machine beams, neither upright nor crosswise, but, binding together certain thick rods to one another and fitting them everywhere instead of beams, and covering the whole machine with hides, they preserved the shape of the ram, suspending only a single beam, in the usual way, by certain loose chains in the middle of the machine, the end of which, made sharp and covered with iron like the point of a missile, was to be driven frequently against the circuit-wall.

11.31. And they made the machine so light that it was no longer necessary for it to be drawn or pushed by the men inside, but forty men, who were to raise the beam up and drive it against the circuit-wall, being inside the machine and covered by the hides, carried the ram on their shoulders with no toil.

11.32. Three such machines these barbarians made, taking the beams together with the iron from the rams which the Romans, having in readiness, were unable to drag up to the wall; and getting under each of them, no fewer than forty Roman soldiers, picked out for their valour, set them as close as possible to the wall.

11.33. And on either side of each machine others stood, both cuirassed and with their heads accurately covered by helmets, holding poles whose ends had been fitted with hook-shaped iron pieces, prepared for this reason: that, whenever the impact of the ram against the circuit-wall should disjoint the courses of stones, they might be able with these poles to remove the loosened stones and throw them down.

11.34. The Romans, then, were at the work, and the wall was now being shaken by frequent blows, while those on either side of the machines, with the hook-shaped poles, threw down the stones loosened from the structure of the building, and the city was very straightway likely to be taken.

11.35. But the Persians devised this. A wooden tower, which had been prepared by them long before, they set above the circuit-wall, full of the most warlike men among them, who had girt their heads and the rest of their bodies with iron nails and cuirasses.

11.36. And, filling vessels with sulphur and bitumen and the drug which the Medes call naphtha, and the Greeks the oil of Medea, and kindling these with fire, they cast them upon the machines of the rams, which they nearly all but set ablaze.

11.37. But those standing beside these, as I have said, with the poles which I have just mentioned, most assiduously removing what was thrown and clearing it away, threw everything at once from the machines to the ground.

11.38. Yet they suspected they could not hold out long against this work; for the fire, wherever it touched, burned at once, unless straightway thrown off. These things, then, were being done thus.

11.39. But Bessas himself, cuirassed and having armed the whole army, brought up many ladders to the fallen part of the wall.

11.40. And after exhorting them only so far as not to blunt the edge of the opportunity, he assigned the rest of the encouragement to deeds. For a man more than seventy years old and already altogether past his prime was the first to mount the ladder.

11.41. Thereupon a battle and a display of valour took place between Romans and Persians such as I think happened nowhere in this period.

11.42. For the multitude of the barbarians came together to two thousand three hundred, while the Romans happened to be about six thousand.

11.43. And of these, on both sides, all who were not killed became wounded, almost; and it befell very few to survive with bodies unscathed. The Romans, then, forced the ascent with all their power, while the Persians beat them off with much toil.

11.44. And, many being killed on both sides, the Persians came not far from repelling the danger; for, much pushing taking place at the topmost rungs of the ladders, many other Romans were dying, fighting as they were against enemies above them, and Bessas the general fell and lay on the ground.

11.45. And then indeed, an extraordinary outcry arising on both sides, the barbarians, streaming from all sides upon him, struck at him; but his bodyguards rushed together eagerly around him, and, having helmets on their heads and all wearing cuirasses, and moreover, fencing themselves above with their shields and coming close to one another, they made the shape of a roof for him, and hid the general most safely, and beat off the missiles with all their might.

11.46. And there was much clatter of the missiles ever sent and shattering against the shields and the other arms, and each man was held by shouting and panting and toil.

11.47. And all the Romans, eager to defend the general, shot at the wall, letting no opportunity slip, and thereby checked the enemy.

11.48. Then indeed Bessas (for he could not rise, his armour resisting, and especially since his body was not well-knit, for this man was fleshy and, as has been said, an extreme old man), did not fall into helplessness, although he had come into such danger, but on the sudden contrived something by which he was able to save both himself and the affairs of the Romans.

11.49. For he ordered his bodyguards to drag him off by the foot and pull him as far as possible from the wall.

11.50. And they did accordingly. And some of them dragged him, while others retired with him, holding their shields above themselves over one another, and making just so much pace as he was dragged, so that he should not be uncovered and struck by the enemy.

11.51. And when Bessas was in safety, he rose and, exhorting them, went toward the wall, and, mounting the ladder again, started for the ascent.

11.52. And all the Romans, following after, displayed deeds against the enemy worthy of valour. And the Persians, becoming exceedingly fearful, begged their opponents to grant them some opportunity, so that, packing up, they might depart, giving up the city.

11.53. But Bessas, suspecting that they were contriving deceits, in order that meanwhile they might strengthen the fortification of the circuit-wall, said that he was unable to stop the engagement, but that those wishing to meet with him about the agreement, while the armies fought, might none the less go with him to some other part of the wall, and he showed them a certain place.

11.54. And, they not accepting the proposal, again a fierce battle took place and much pushing; and while the engagement was still in even balance, it befell the wall to fall suddenly elsewhere, at the place where the Romans had previously made their mine. There, then, many from both sides streamed together.

11.55. And the Romans, surpassing the enemy greatly in number, although divided in two, pressed much more vehemently upon their adversaries, both shooting and pushing most stoutly.

11.56. But the Persians no longer held out alike, being forced on both sides, but their scantiness of men, divided into both parts, was manifest.

11.57. And while both armies were still toiling thus, and neither the Persians being able to beat off the enemy pressing upon them, nor the Romans being altogether able to force the entrance, a young man, an Armenian by race, John by name, son of Thomas, whom they called by the surname Guzes, leaving the fallen parts of the circuit-wall and the pushing there, took a few of the Armenians who followed him through the precipitous part, where all supposed the city to be impregnable, and, forcing his way, mounted upon the guards there.

11.58. And, coming to be among the battlements, he killed with his spear one of the Persians defending there, who seemed to be the most warlike; and so it befell the Romans to enter in the following manner.

11.59. The Persians who stood in the wooden tower kindled a great mass of the fire-bearing vessels, in order that with what was left of the missiles they might be able to burn the machines together with the men, since the defenders could not push everything off with their poles.

11.60. But a wind of the south, harsh and exceedingly violent, suddenly falling upon them from the opposite quarter with much crashing, somehow caught one of the planks of the tower.

11.61. And the Persians there not understanding it at once (for all were held by toil and tumult and fear and boundless confusion, and necessity took away their perception), the flame, rising little by little, by means of the oil named after Medea and the other things with which it had been prepared, burned the whole tower and the Persians there.

11.62. And, charred to ashes, they all fell, some inside the circuit-wall, others outside it, where the machines and the Romans about them stood; and thus the rest of the Romans too, all those who were fighting at the fallen parts of the circuit-wall, the enemy yielding to them and having fallen into negligence, got inside the circuit-wall, and Petra was taken by storm.

11.63. Of the Persians, then, about five hundred, running up to the citadel and seizing the stronghold there, remained quiet, while the rest the Romans, all whom they did not kill in the engagement, took alive—being about seven hundred and thirty in number.

11.64. And of these they found eighteen unscathed, but all the rest happened to be wounded. And of the Romans too there fell many, and the best, and John the son of Thomas, struck on the head with a stone at the entrance into the city by one of the barbarians, after he had displayed wondrous deeds against the enemy.

12.1. On the following day the Romans, besieging the barbarians who had seized the citadel, made proposals, offering them their safety and agreeing to give them pledges concerning this, in this way expecting that the Persians would surrender themselves to them.

12.2. But they, not accepting the proposals, looked to resistance, although they thought they could not hold out long against the hardship, but were ready to die for valour's sake.

12.3. And Bessas, wishing to turn them from this purpose and set them instead toward the desire for safety, ordered one of the Roman soldiers to go as near to them as possible and make some exhortation to the men, indicating what he wished to say to them.

12.4. And he, coming very close, spoke as follows: "What have you suffered, best of the Persians, to strain so toward this destruction of your own selves, pursuing what is deadly with senseless eagerness and manifestly dishonouring the pursuits of valour? For it is not manly to resist the impossible, nor sensible to be unwilling to yield to the victors; nor indeed is it without honour to live in submission to the fortune that is present.

12.5. For necessity, even when it has met with no good hope, justly escapes dishonour, even if it be clothed with the most shameful of deeds; for forgiveness is wont to follow the evil that is unavoidable.

12.6. Do not, then, emulate desperation in manifest danger, nor exchange safety for boastfulness, but consider that it is impossible for the dead to come to life again, while the survivors will in time destroy themselves later too, if indeed this should seem to be the better course.

12.7. Take counsel, then, the last counsel, and look round for what is profitable, knowing this: that those would be the best of counsels in which it shall be in the power of the counsellors to repent.

12.8. For we pity you even while you struggle, and spare you when you would die, and think it right to have mercy on you as you balk and shrink before life, in accordance with the law of the Romans, who are Christians.

12.9. And nothing else will remain to you, except that, changing your allegiance for the better, you will have Justinian as master instead of Chosroes; for concerning these things we agree to give you pledges.

12.10. Do not, then, destroy your own selves, when it is possible to be saved. For it is not fortunate to dwell in dangers to no profit at all, since this is not to play the man, but to court death.

12.11. And he is noble who endures the most terrible things, when he expects something useful from it. For men do not praise voluntary death, where a hope greater than the danger in it lies; but the overthrow of life is a useless and rash folly, and senseless boldness toward death seems to the prudent no seemly mask for the energetic man.

12.12. And yet this too must be reckoned, lest you should seem also to be ungrateful toward the divine. For if it had wished to destroy you, men, it would not, I think, have handed you over to those who are eager to save you.

12.13. Such, then, are our offers; but you, clearly, will take counsel of what it befalls you to be worthy."

12.14. The exhortation was somewhat thus. But the Persians would not even so much as receive the words by hearing, but feigned deafness on purpose and pretended that they did not understand.

12.15. And then, at the general's command, the Romans cast fire into the citadel, thinking in this way the enemy would surrender their bodies to them.

12.16. And, the flame advancing greatly, the barbarians, the calamity being before their eyes, well knowing that they would very straightway be reduced to ashes, having no hope, nor knowing in what way they could be saved by defending themselves, yet not even so were willing to come under the hands of the enemy, but together with the citadel all at once, while the Roman army marvelled at what was being done, were burned up and destroyed.

12.17. And with what great eagerness Chosroes was then carrying on the affairs of Lazica became plain; for he had picked out the most notable of all his soldiers and stationed them in the garrison of Petra, and had stored up arms in such quantity that, when the Romans plundered them, there fell to each soldier the equipment of five men—and yet much had happened to be burned in the citadel too.

12.18. And there was found also a great quantity of grain and salted meats and of the other provisions, such as would suffice all the besieged for five years.

12.19. But wine the Persians had not happened to store up there, except sour wine and an abundant supply of beans.

12.20. And when the Romans found also water flowing in there from the aqueduct, they fell into great wonder and were at a loss, until they learned the whole account concerning the hidden aqueducts. And what this is I shall now make plain.

12.21. When Chosroes, having taken Petra, set up the garrison there, knowing well that the Romans would besiege it by every device, and would at once attempt with no delay to cut the aqueduct, he devised the following.

12.22. This water which was led into the city he divided into three parts, and, making a very deep trench, he constructed three aqueducts, the one below, at the bottom of this trench, covering it with dung and stones up to the middle of the trench; and there, having hidden the second, above it he built the third, which was above ground and visible to all; so that the aqueduct was secretly threefold.

12.23. And the Romans, not understanding this at the beginning of the siege, cut this visible aqueduct, and, not carrying further the toil upon the mine, but ceasing from the work before the loss from there, supposed that the besieged were short of water, the negligence that goes with shrinking from toil deceiving their judgment.

12.24. But, the siege being prolonged, the Romans, capturing some of the enemy, learned that the besieged drew their water from the aqueduct.

12.25. Digging, then, into the place, they find the second aqueduct lying there somewhere, and, cutting this, at once supposed that thereby they had altogether overthrown the power of the enemy, not even being taught the former lesson by the second instance in the instruction it gave.

12.26. And when, having taken the city, they saw the water flowing, as I have said, from the aqueduct, they marvelled and were held by great helplessness.

12.27. And, learning what had happened from the captives, they perceived, after the event, both the enemy's diligence in their works and their own negligence in the matter of toil.

12.28. All the captives, then, Bessas at once sent to the emperor, and razed the circuit-wall of Petra to the ground, so that the enemy might not again cause them trouble.

12.29. And the emperor praised him exceedingly for the valour he had shown and for his good counsel, in that he had razed the whole wall.

12.30. Bessas, then, again became, both for his successes and for the display of valour he had made, a man looked up to among all men.

12.31. For when he had been stationed at the garrison of Rome, the Romans had great hope in him as one who had passed his earlier life most bravely.

12.32. But when it befell him to fail there—Rome being thus captured by the Goths, as I have said in the earlier books, and the Roman race for the most part destroyed—the emperor Justinian, when he returned to Byzantium, thus appointed him general against the Persians.

12.33. And almost all, so to speak, disparaged the act and mocked the emperor's counsel, that he should commit the Median war to this Bessas, who had been utterly defeated by the Goths and had become an aged man at the grave's edge, at the setting of his life.

12.34. But, though almost all had thought this, it befell this general to enjoy such good fortune and such valour. So, then, human affairs are administered not in the way that seems good to men, but by the impulse from God, which men are wont to call fortune, not knowing for what reason events come forward in the way that becomes apparent to them.

12.35. For to what seems to be contrary to reason the name of fortune is wont to attach. But let these things seem to each as is dear to him.

13.1. But Mermeroes, fearing lest something untoward should befall Petra and the Persians left there through the length of time, set out with all his army and went there, since the season after the time of winter led him to this.

13.2. But meanwhile, learning all that had happened, he refrained altogether from this road, knowing well that, outside the river Phasis, there was no other place belonging to the Lazi than the one at Petra.

13.3. And turning back and seizing the entrances from Iberia into the land of Colchis, where the Phasis is fordable, and crossing it himself on foot, and likewise a river named the Rheon, which is not navigable there either, and coming to be on the right of the Phasis here, he led the army against a city named Archaeopolis, which is the first and greatest among the Lazi.

13.4. And they were all, except a few, cavalry, and eight elephants followed them, upon which the Persians, standing, were to strike the enemy from above, as from towers.

13.5. So that one might with reason marvel at the toil and ingenuity of the Persians in matters of war, who made the road leading from Iberia into Colchis—a road shut in everywhere by precipitous glens and difficult wooded places, and covered with woods so dense that even to a well-girt man it had formerly seemed impassable—so level that not only all their cavalry could go from there with no toil, but they could even campaign there bringing along as many of the elephants as they wished.

13.6. And there came to them also as allies twelve thousand Huns of those called Sabeiri.

13.7. But Mermeroes, fearing lest these barbarians, being so great a multitude, should neither be willing to obey him when he gave commands, but should even do some irreparable thing to the Persian army, allowed four thousand of them to campaign with them, and the rest, having presented them with much money, he let go to their ancestral homes.

13.8. And the Roman army was twelve thousand, but not all gathered into one; rather, in the garrison at Archaeopolis there were three thousand, whom Odonachus and Babas commanded, both good in matters of war;

13.9. while the rest, encamping within the outlets of the river Phasis, remained, with this purpose: that if at any point the enemy's army should make an attack, they themselves, rising up from there, might bring aid with all their power.

13.10. And these were commanded by Benilus and Uligagus; and with them was also Varazes the Persarmenian, just come from Italy, whom eight hundred Tzani followed.

13.11. For Bessas, as soon as he had taken Petra, was no longer willing to toil, but, withdrawing to the Pontici and the Armenians, gave his attention as much as possible to the revenues from his command, and by this petty avarice he again brought to ruin the affairs of the Romans.

13.12. For if, having conquered straightway then, as I have said, and taken Petra, he had gone to the borders of the Lazi and the Iberians and fenced off the difficult places there, no Persian army, it seems to me, would any longer have gone into Lazica.

13.13. But now this general, neglecting this toil, had all but handed over Lazica with his own hands to the enemy, caring little for the emperor's anger.

13.14. For the emperor Justinian was wont to be indulgent in most cases toward commanders who sinned, and from this they were for the most part caught transgressing the law both in their manner of life and in their administration.

13.15. Now there were two forts of the Lazi close to the very borders of Iberia, Scanda and Sarapanis, which, lying in certain difficult and altogether troublesome places, happened to be exceedingly hard of access.

13.16. These the Lazi anciently guarded with much toil, since there grows nothing edible there at all, but men, carrying the provisions on their shoulders, brought them in.

13.17. But the emperor Justinian, at the beginning of this war, having removed the Lazi from there, set up a guard of Roman soldiers.

13.18. And these, not long after, hard pressed by want of necessities, abandoned these forts, since they could in no way subsist on millet for a long time, like the Colchians, this not being their custom; and the Lazi, going a long road and carrying all the provisions to them, no longer held out.

13.19. And the Persians, seizing them, held them; and in the treaty the Romans got them back, making the exchange for the fort of Bolus and Pharangium, as all these things have been told by me in the earlier books.

13.20. The Lazi, then, razed these forts to the ground, so that the Persians might not have them as fortified posts against themselves. But the Persians, building one of them, the one which they call Scanda, again held it, and Mermeroes led the Median army forward.

13.21. Now there was a city in the plain, Rhodopolis by name, which was the first to confront those invading Colchis from Iberia, exceedingly easy of approach and most assailable.

13.22. Wherefore the Lazi, fearing long before the attack of the Persians, had razed it to the ground. And when the Persians learned this,

13.23. they went straight for Archaeopolis. But Mermeroes, learning that the enemy were encamping about the outlets of the river Phasis, marched against them.

13.24. For it seemed to him better, having first destroyed these, thus to set about the siege of Archaeopolis, lest they, going behind, should harm the Persian army.

13.25. And coming very close to the circuit-wall of Archaeopolis, he greeted, jesting with, the Romans there, and made some boastful threat that he would very straightway return to them.

13.26. For he said that he wished first to address the other Romans, who were encamped about the river Phasis.

13.27. And they, answering, bade him go where he wished, but maintained that, if he met the Romans there, he would never return to them.

13.28. When the commanders of the Roman army learned this, they were terrified, and, thinking themselves too few to bear the power of the assailants, embarking in the boats prepared for them, they all ferried across the river Phasis, putting into the boats such of the provisions present with them as they could carry, and casting the rest into the river, so that the enemy might not be able to revel in them.

13.29. Mermeroes, then, coming there with all his army not long after, and seeing the camp of the enemy altogether empty, was vexed and, being at a loss, was distressed.

13.30. And, burning the stockade of the Romans and boiling with rage, he turned back at once and led the army against Archaeopolis.

14.1. Archaeopolis lies upon a certain exceedingly hard hill, and a river flows past it, coming down from mountains which are above the city.

14.2. And of its gates the lower ones lead to the foothills of the hill, not inaccessible, however, but only that the ascent to them from the plain is not level; while the upper ones, leading out to the precipitous part, are exceedingly hard of access; for wooded places are before these gates, extending a very great distance.

14.3. And since the inhabitants there have no other water at all, those who built the city constructed two walls from it down to the river, so that they might in safety draw the water of the river. Mermeroes, then, eager and straining to assault the wall there with all his might, did the following.

14.4. First he ordered the Sabeiri to make a great number of rams, of a kind that men could carry on their shoulders, since he could in no way bring the customary machines up to the circuit-wall of Archaeopolis, lying as it did at the foot of the mountain; and he had heard what had been made by the Sabeiri, the allies of the Romans, against the wall of Petra not long before, and, following the contrivances, he pursued the benefit from experience. And they did what was ordered.

14.5. And they at once constructed many rams, in the way I have just said the Sabeiri made for the Romans. Then he sent the so-called Dolomitae against the precipitous parts of the city, ordering them to harass the enemy there with all their might.

14.6. Now these Dolomitae are barbarians settled in the midst of the Persians, yet they have never become subjects of the king of the Persians.

14.7. For, established in mountains steep and altogether impassable, being independent, they have continued from of old down to the present time; but, serving for hire, they always campaign with the Persians when these go against their enemies.

14.8. And they are all foot-soldiers, each man carrying a sword and a shield and three javelins in his hands.

14.9. And they know how to run exceedingly well both among the crags and over the heights of the mountains, as on a level plain.

14.10. And on this account Mermeroes set them to assault the wall there, while he himself with all the rest of the army went against the lower gates, bringing up the rams and the elephants.

14.11. The Persians, then, with the Sabeiri, shooting frequently at the wall and covering the air there with their arrows, came not far from compelling the Romans there to abandon the battlements.

14.12. And the Dolomitae, hurling their javelins from the crags outside the circuit-wall, distressed the enemy opposite them much more.

14.13. And everywhere the affairs of the Romans had become grievous and full of dangers, as they suffered the extremes of evils.

14.14. Then indeed Odonachus and Babas, whether displaying their valour or wishing to make trial of the soldiers, or whether some divine power moved them, left a few of the soldiers, whom they ordered to defend from the battlements against those assaulting the wall, and, calling together the most, made a brief exhortation and spoke as follows: "The present danger, fellow-soldiers, and the necessity that has encompassed us, you see.

14.15. And we must by no means yield to these evils. For those who have come into despair of safety—this alone could save them: not to be eager for safety; since for the man fond of life destruction for the most part is wont to follow.

14.16. And this too you will need to consider amid the present dangers: that if we defend against the enemy from these battlements, the matter of our safety will not lie on a sure footing, even if we carry through the contest most eagerly.

14.17. For a battle waged from separated positions allows no man to play the hero, but turns for the most part to the dominion of fortune.

14.18. If, however, the engagement should become a close one, eagerness will for the most part prevail, and victory will go with valour.

14.19. Apart from this, those fighting from the circuit-wall, even if they succeed in the engagement, would not greatly profit from their success, since for the moment it befalls them to beat off the enemy, but on the morrow the danger again comes to its height, and, gradually worsted, as is likely,

14.20. they are destroyed together with their fortifications. But those who have conquered their adversaries hand to hand will thenceforth have their safety in security. Considering these things, let us go against the enemy with all eagerness, bringing the help from above to our aid, and become of good hope from the very despair that has now fallen upon us.

14.21. For those who have no hope of safety at all in themselves the divine is always especially wont to save."

14.22. Having exhorted them this much, Odonachus and Babas opened the gates and led out the army at a run, a few being left behind there for the following reason.

14.23. One of the Lazi the day before—a notable man in this nation, but settled in Archaeopolis—was negotiating with Mermeroes concerning the betrayal of his fatherland.

14.24. And Mermeroes ordered him to do the Persians no other service except that, when they should set about the assault on the wall, he should secretly burn the houses where the grain and the rest of the provisions were stored.

14.25. And he gave these orders, reckoning that one of two things would happen: either the Romans, busy and wasting time about this fire, would let them mount the circuit-wall at will, or the Persians, wishing to beat off those defending the wall, would make light of these houses;

14.26. and, the grain and the other provisions being burned in this way, they would with no toil of siege take Archaeopolis in a short time.

14.27. With such a purpose, then, Mermeroes gave these orders to this Lazus; and he agreed to fulfil the command, whenever he should see the assault on the wall at its height, by kindling fire as secretly as possible in these dwellings.

14.28. And the Romans, seeing the flame suddenly rising, a few brought aid there, and with much toil quenched the fire, which had done some damage, while all the rest, as has been said, went against the enemy.

14.29. Falling upon them suddenly and confounding them by the unexpectedness, they killed many, who neither defended themselves nor dared to lift their hands against them.

14.30. For the Persians, having no hope at all that the enemy, being very few, would come out against them, stood separated from one another in disorder, as they had been drawn up for the assault on the wall.

14.31. And those who carried the rams on their shoulders were unarmed and unprepared for battle, as was likely, while the rest, holding their strung bows in their hands, had no device by which to defend against the enemy who pressed upon them in close array.

14.32. Thus the Romans, cutting them down, dispatched them as they wheeled about. And it happened then too that one of the elephants, having been struck, as some say, or thrown into confusion of its own accord, wheeled about in no order and reared, and threw its riders and broke the array of the rest.

14.33. And from this the barbarians drew back, and the Romans, more fearlessly, kept dispatching those ever in their path.

14.34. And one might here justly wonder, if the Romans, who knew well in what way they had to beat off the attack of the enemy by means of the elephants, did none of the things they should, plainly thrown into confusion by the present circumstances, while this befell them of its own accord. And what this is, I shall now make plain.

14.35. When Chosroes and the Median army were assaulting the circuit-wall of Edessa, one of the elephants, a great throng of the most warlike of the Persians having mounted upon it, coming near the circuit-wall, was likely, after a little, to overpower the defenders from the tower there—who were struck frequently from above—and to take the city.

14.36. For such a machine seemed to be a city-taker. But the Romans, hanging a pig from the tower, escaped this danger.

14.37. For the pig, being, as was natural, suspended, emitted a certain squealing from there, at which the elephant, distressed, reared and, drawing back little by little, retreated backward. So, then, that happened thus.

14.38. But now fortune was filling out what had been let slip by the negligence of the Romans. But since I have made mention of Edessa, I shall not pass over in silence the portent which happened there before this war.

14.39. For when Chosroes was about to break the so-called Endless Peace, a certain woman in the city was bearing a babe in other respects fairly of human form, but having two heads. And this became plain by the events that followed.

14.40. For Edessa and almost all the East, and toward the north wind the greater part of the Roman empire, became a thing fought over by two kings. These things, then, happened thus. But I return to the point from which I digressed.

14.41. When the confusion thus fell upon the Median army, all of them who had been drawn up in the rear, seeing the confusion of those in front, but in no way learning what had happened, were terrified and turned to flight with much disorder.

14.42. And the Dolomitae too, suffering this same thing (for, fighting from the heights, they saw all that was being done), fled a shameful flight, and the rout became brilliant.

14.43. And four thousand of the barbarians fell there, among whom three of the commanders happened to be, and the Romans took four of the Persian standards, which they at once sent to the emperor in Byzantium.

14.44. And they say that of their horses no fewer than twenty thousand perished, not shot or struck by the enemy, but having gone a long road, and met with much toil on it, and, when they came into Lazica, having by no means come to satiety of fodder, and so, hard pressed by famine and great weakness, having perished.

14.45. Failing of this attempt, Mermeroes withdrew with all his army to Mocheresis, since, failing also of Archaeopolis, the Persians for the most part held the mastery of the rest of Lazica.

14.46. And Mocheresis is distant from Archaeopolis a journey of one day, having many and populous villages—and this is especially the best of the land of Colchis; since here both wine and the other fruits grow good, although the rest of Lazica is not so.

14.47. A river flows past this country, Rheon by name, by which the Colchians had built a fort of old, the greater part of which they themselves afterwards razed to the ground, since, lying in an exceedingly low-lying plain, it seemed to them easy of approach.

14.48. And the fort was then named Cotiaeon in the tongue of the Greeks, but now the Lazi call it Cotais, corrupting the harmony of the name through their ignorance of the language. These things Arrian thus recorded.

14.49. But others say that the place was in olden times a city and was called Coetaeum; and that from there Aeetes set out, and that on account of this the poets call him the Coetaean and the land of Colchis the Coetaean land.

14.50. Mermeroes, eager now to rebuild this, since he had no preparation for the work, and at the same time winter was already pressing, having made of wood, as quickly as possible, such parts of the fort as had fallen, remained there.

14.51. And very close to Cotais is an exceedingly strong fort, Uthimereos by name, in which the Lazi accurately held a garrison.

14.52. And there shared with them in the guard of the fort also a few Roman soldiers.

14.53. Mermeroes, then, with all his army sat there, holding the fairest parts of the land of Colchis, and proving an obstacle to his opponents in bringing any provisions into the fort of Uthimereos, or going to the country called Suania and Scymnia,

14.54. although it was subject to them. For, the enemy being in Mocheresis, it befell the Lazi and Romans to be cut off from the road to the regions there. The armies, then, were thus carried on in Lazica.

15.1. And in Byzantium the envoy of Chosroes, Isdigousnas, conferring with the emperor Justinian about the peace, wasted much length of time.

15.2. And after much disputing they at last came to an agreement, on condition that there should be a five-year truce in the dominions of each king, and that, going to and fro to one another from both sides and treating without fear in this time, they should settle the differences concerning Lazica and the Saracens.

15.3. And it was agreed that the Persians should receive from the Romans, on behalf of the truce of these five years, twenty centenaria of gold, and on behalf of the eighteen months which happened to elapse in the interval after the former truce until this one, while each side was sending envoys to the other, another six centenaria;

15.4. for on this condition the Persians said they too had consented that the discussions about the treaty should take place.

15.5. And these twenty centenaria Isdigousnas thought fit to carry off at once, but the emperor wished to give four each year, for this reason: that he might have a pledge against Chosroes' transgressing the agreement.

15.6. Afterwards, however, the Romans gave the Persians at once all the gold agreed upon, in order not to seem to be paying them tribute every year.

15.7. For men are wont for the most part to be ashamed of the shameful names, not of the things.

15.8. And there was a certain man among the Persians, Berzabus by name, exceptionally notable and most dear to the king Chosroes.

15.9. Whom once Valerian, when he had fallen in an engagement in Armenia, took as a spear-captive, and at once sent to the emperor in Byzantium.

15.10. And much time was spent while he was kept under guard there. And it was Chosroes' wish to give a great amount of money for him, in order that he might see Berzabus returned to the homes of the Persians.

15.11. But now, Isdigousnas having asked for him, the emperor Justinian released the man; for this envoy promised the emperor that he would persuade Chosroes to remove the Persian army from Lazica.

15.12. And this truce was made between the Romans and the Persians while the emperor Justinian was holding the imperial power for the twenty-fifth year.

15.13. And at this treaty most of the Romans were fairly vexed. And whether they made their complaint with justice, or without reason, as is the way with subjects, I cannot say.

15.14. But they said that this agreement had been made while Lazica was most securely under the rule of the Persians, so that no one should trouble them for five years, but they might more fearlessly and with less toil dwell in all the fairest parts of the land of Colchis during this time.

15.15. Wherefore the Romans would have no device for all time to drive them out from there thenceforth, but Byzantium too would be easy of approach from there for the Persians henceforth. Considering these things, then, the multitude were grieved and, distressed, were at a loss;

15.16. and also that the Persians had now most strongly secured, in the name of the truce, what from of old had been their eager aim, but which had seemed impossible to attain either by war or by any other means—I mean, that the Romans should be their tributaries through the payment of tribute.

15.17. For Chosroes, having fixed a yearly tribute of four centenaria upon the Romans, of which from the beginning he had been plainly grasping, had now for eleven years and six months, under a specious pretext, received forty-six centenaria on the plea of the truce, giving the name of treaty to the tribute, although meanwhile he was using force and making war over Lazica, as has been said.

15.18. From which the Romans had no hope thenceforth of redeeming themselves in the time to come, but perceived that they had become tributaries to the Persians, not secretly.

15.19. These things, then, had been done thus. And Isdigousnas, having gathered to himself more money than any envoy ever, and having become, I think, the richest of all the Persians, was carried off home, since the emperor Justinian had honoured him exceedingly and, presenting him with great sums, sent him away.

15.20. And he alone of all envoys came to the trial of no surveillance, but he himself and all the barbarians who followed him, being exceedingly many, were for a length of time in great liberty to meet and consort with whomever they wished, and to make walks everywhere about the city, and to buy and sell whatever they wished, and to make all contracts and to busy themselves with the trade about these things in all freedom, as if in their own city, no Roman following or accompanying them at all or thinking fit to watch them, as was the custom.

15.21. In this time there happened to occur a thing of those that had not happened before, so far as we know. For it was autumn in the year, but there came a drought and a sultriness as in midsummer, wondrous how great; so that, in fact, a multitude of roses sprang up as if it were spring, differing in nothing at all from the usual.

15.22. And almost all the trees bore some new fruits again, and in the vines no fewer clusters formed, although the vintage had taken place not many days before.

15.23. From these things those skilled in such matters, drawing their conclusions, foretold that something great and unexpected would happen, some saying good, others the contrary.

15.24. But I think that these things happened by some chance, south winds for the most part, as is usual, having fallen, and from this much heat, contrary to custom and not in accordance with the nature of the season, having come upon the country.

15.25. But if it also signifies, as these men say, something that will happen contrary to expectation, we shall know most surely from the events.

16.1. And while these things concerning the treaty were being done in Byzantium between the Romans and the Persians, meanwhile in Lazica the following happened.

16.2. Gubazes the king of the Lazi was favourably disposed toward the Romans, since he had perceived that Chosroes was plotting his death, as I have said in the earlier books.

16.3. But most of the other Lazi, suffering irreparable terrible things from the Roman soldiers, and exceedingly vexed with the commanders of the army, for the most part inclined to the Medes—not that they welcomed the things of the Persians, but wishing to be rid of the rule of the Romans, and choosing, of the troubles, those that for the time being were not present.

16.4. And there was a certain not undistinguished man among the Lazi, Theophobius by name, who, conferring most secretly with Mermeroes, agreed to hand over the fort of Uthimereos.

16.5. And he, raising the man with great hopes, set him in motion toward this enterprise, maintaining that from this deed he would become most dear to the king Chosroes, and recorded among the Persians for his benefaction for all time, and that from this he would become great in fame and wealth and power. Lifted up by which, Theophobius hastened much the more to the deed.

16.6. And there was at that time no intercourse between the Romans and the Lazi, but the Persians went about in great liberty everywhere among the regions there, while of the Romans and the Lazi some lay hid beside the river Phasis, others, having seized Archaeopolis or some other of the strongholds there, kept hidden; and Gubazes himself, the king of the Lazi, remained quiet in the heights of the mountains.

16.7. With no toil, then, Theophobius was able to fulfil his promise to Mermeroes. For, coming into the fort, he told the Lazi and Romans who held the garrison there that the whole Roman army had been destroyed, and that the affairs of the king Gubazes and of all the Lazi about him had been ruined, and that all Colchis was held by the Persians, and that there was no hope at all for the Romans or for Gubazes ever to recover the mastery of the country.

16.8. For formerly Mermeroes had accomplished this by himself alone, bringing more than seventy thousand Persian fighting men and a great multitude of barbarian Sabeiri; but now the king Chosroes too, coming there with an unspeakable army, had suddenly joined them, and the land of the Colchians itself would no longer suffice this army.

16.9. Inventing these portentous tales, Theophobius brought the guards there into great fear and helplessness.

16.10. And they entreated him, beseeching him by their ancestral God, to settle the present situation as well as he could for them.

16.11. And he agreed to obtain for them from Chosroes pledges concerning their safety, on condition that they should hand over the fort to the Persians. And when this pleased the men, departing thence at once and coming again into the presence of Mermeroes, he told everything.

16.12. And Mermeroes, picking out the most approved men among the Persians, sent them with him to Uthimereos, both to give pledges concerning their money and their safety to the guards there, and to hold this fort.

16.13. Thus the Persians held the fort of Uthimereos and most firmly secured the mastery of Lazica.

16.14. And not only this part of Lazica did the Persians make subject, but also Scymnia and Suania, and from Mocheresis as far as Iberia all the regions there became, in this way, impassable for the Romans and for the king of the Lazi.

16.15. And neither the Romans nor the Lazi were able to defend against the enemy, since they did not even dare to come down from the mountains or the strongholds, nor in any way to go out against the enemy.

16.16. And Mermeroes, the season of winter pressing, built a wooden wall in Cotais, and, setting there a garrison of no fewer than three thousand of the warlike Persians, and leaving sufficient men in Uthimereos,

16.17. and rebuilding also the other fort of the Lazi, which they call Sarapanis, lying at the very last borders of Lazica, remained there.

16.18. And afterwards, learning that the Romans and the Lazi were gathering and encamping about the outlets of the river Phasis, he went against them with all his army.

16.19. When Gubazes and the commanders of the Roman army learned this, not withstanding the onset of the enemy, they dispersed and saved themselves as each was able.

16.20. And Gubazes, running up to the heights of the mountains, passed the winter together with his children and his wife and his closest intimates, struggling on the one hand against the necessity arising from the season by the helplessness of the present evils, but, on the other, taking courage from the hope of Byzantium for the time to come, and thus consoling the fortune then present, such as are human affairs,

16.21. and awaiting better things. And the other Lazi too, out of reverence for the king Gubazes, none the less wore out the season of winter in the crags, fearing no trouble there from the enemy, since for those plotting against them, especially during the winter, these mountains happen to be impossible and altogether inaccessible, but dying a hard death from famine and cold and other suffering.

16.22. But Mermeroes built many houses at will in the villages of Mocheresis, and, establishing provisions everywhere among the regions there, and sending some of the deserters around to the summits of the mountains and giving pledges, was able to win over many; to whom indeed, when they lacked necessities, he supplied many things, and he cared for them as his own, and managed all other matters in great freedom, as one who had become master of the country.

16.23. And to Gubazes he wrote thus: "Two things govern the life of men: power and prudence. For those who excel their neighbours in power both live themselves at will and ever lead the weaker where they wish; while those who, through weakness, are enslaved to the stronger, healing their want of power by their understanding, court the rulers with flattery, and none the less are able to live among their own people, enjoying by flattery all those things of which, through their weakness, it befalls them to be deprived.

16.24. And this is so not among some nations, while among others it is otherwise, but with men, so to speak, all, everywhere on the inhabited earth, it is, as it were, implanted by nature.

16.25. And you too, then, dear Gubazes, if you think to get the better of the Persians in war, neither delay nor let anything be an obstacle to you.

16.26. For you will find us withstanding your attack wherever you wish in Lazica, and arrayed against you on behalf of this country with all our power; so that it will be in your power, contending, to play the man against us.

16.27. If, however, being unable to set yourself against the power of the Persians, you yourself too know it, then, good sir, practise the second course, the 'Know thyself,' and do obeisance to your own master Chosroes as king and conqueror and lord.

16.28. And ask him to be gracious to you for what you have done, in order that henceforth you may be able to be rid of the evils that trouble you.

16.29. For I undertake that the king Chosroes will both be gracious to you and give you pledges, providing you with hostages, the children of the notable rulers among the Persians, so that, with all else, you may have your safety and your kingship secure for all time.

16.30. But if neither of these is your wish, then do you, departing into some other country, give the Lazi, who have become wretched through your imprudence, a chance to breathe at some time and to recover from the troubles that beset them, and do not wish to bring upon them this endless destruction, riding upon a treacherous hope—I mean the help of the Romans.

16.31. For they will never be able to defend you, just as down to this day they have not been able to." Mermeroes wrote these things.

16.32. But not even so did he persuade Gubazes, who remained in the hills of the mountains, awaiting the help from the Romans and, out of his hatred toward Chosroes, by no means willing to incline to despair of the Romans.

16.33. For men for the most part fit their thinking to the need of their wish, and ever incline to the argument that pleases them, and accept all things from it, not examining whether it be false; while to what grieves them, being ill-disposed, they refuse belief, not searching whether it be true.

17.1. About this time some of the monks who had come from the Indians, learning that it was the eager aim of the emperor Justinian that the Romans should no longer buy silk from the Persians, came into the emperor's presence and promised so to settle the matter of the silk that the Romans should no longer make this purchase either from the Persians, their enemies, or from any other nation;

17.2. for they had spent a length of time in a country which lies above the many Indian nations, which is named Serinda, and there had learned accurately by what device silk could be produced in the land of the Romans.

17.3. And when the emperor inquired most assiduously and questioned whether the account were true, the monks said that certain worms were the makers of the silk, nature being their teacher and continually compelling them to work.

17.4. But to bring the worms here alive was impossible, while their breeding was easy and altogether simple. And the breeding of these worms was eggs, countless from each.

17.5. And these eggs, a long time after the breeding, men cover with dung, and, having warmed them for a sufficient time, make them into living creatures.

17.6. When they had said this, the emperor, promising to reward the men with great benefits, persuaded them to confirm their word by deed.

17.7. And they, going to Serinda again, brought the eggs to Byzantium, and, contriving that they should turn into worms in the way described, fed them on the leaves of the mulberry, and from this they established that thenceforth silk should be made in the land of the Romans.

17.8. At that time, then, the affairs of the war for the Romans and the Persians, and those concerning the silk, stood thus.

17.9. And after the season of winter, Isdigousnas, coming to Chosroes with the money, reported the agreement made between them. And he, having received the money, with no delay set his seal upon the truce, but was by no means willing to give up Lazica.

17.10. But, with this very money making allies of a great multitude of the Sabeiri Huns, he at once sent them with certain Persians to Mermeroes. To him he gave orders to set about the work with all his might, and indeed he sent him also many elephants.

17.11. And Mermeroes, with all the army of Persians and Huns, rising from Mocheresis, went against the strongholds of the Lazi, bringing the elephants.

17.12. But the Romans in no way confronted him, but, about the outlets of the river Phasis, with Martin leading them, fortifying themselves most safely by the strength of the place, remained quiet.

17.13. And with them was also Gubazes the king of the Lazi. But this Median army, some chance befalling it, did no harm to any of the Romans or the Lazi.

17.14. For at first Mermeroes, learning that the sister of Gubazes was in a certain fort, led the army against it, to take it by every device.

17.15. But, the guards there defending most stoutly and the strength of the place by its nature aiding them, the barbarians, beaten off from there without accomplishing anything, withdrew; then they hastened against the Abasgi.

17.16. But the Romans in Tzibile, holding the garrison and seizing the passage there, which was, as I have said before, exceedingly narrow and precipitous and altogether without exit, became an obstacle to them.

17.17. Wherefore Mermeroes, having no way to force those who withstood him, led the army back and went to Archaeopolis, intending to besiege it at once. And, making trial of the circuit-wall, since nothing went forward, he turned back again.

17.18. And the Romans, following after the enemy as they withdrew, killed many in the difficult ground, among whom it befell the commander of the Sabeiri to fall.

17.19. And a fierce battle taking place about the corpse afterwards, the Persians, forcing their opponents about lamp-lighting time, routed them, and withdrew to Cotais and Mocheresis. These things, then, had been done thus by the Romans and the Persians.

17.20. But the affairs in Libya all stood well and fair for the Romans. For John, whom the emperor Justinian appointed general there, met with successes greater than word and hearing.

17.21. For he, making one of the rulers among the Moors his ally, Cutzinas by name, first conquered the others in battle, and not long after made Antalas and Iaudas, who held the power of the Moors in Byzacium and Numidia, subjects, and they followed him in the rank of slaves.

17.22. And from this no enemy arose against the Romans in this time, at least in Libya. But by the wars and seditions that had gone before, the country remained for the most part empty of men.

18.1. And while these things were being done thus, meanwhile the following happened in Europe. The Gepids, as I have said in the earlier books, happened to have made a treaty with the Lombards, who were their enemies.

18.2. But, being altogether unable to settle their differences with them, they supposed that they would have to make war not long after.

18.3. The Gepids, then, and the Lombards went in full force against one another, eager for war.

18.4. And the leader of the Gepids was Thorisin, and of the Lombards a man named Audoin, and each of them was followed by many myriads of men. Now the two armies had already come very close to one another, but the camps did not yet see each other.

18.5. But the so-called panic fears, falling suddenly upon both, carried them all off in flight backward from no cause, only the commanders being left there with a few men.

18.6. And these, attempting to draw them back and to check their retreat, accomplished nothing, using neither piteous flatteries nor fearful threats.

18.7. Audoin, then, becoming exceedingly afraid, seeing them dispersing thus in disorder (for he did not know that the enemy had been allotted the like fortune), at once sent some of his followers on an embassy to his opponents to ask for peace.

18.8. And they, when, coming to Thorisin the leader of the Gepids, they saw what was being done, perceived from what had happened among themselves what had befallen the enemy, and, coming into the presence of Thorisin, inquired of him where in the world was the multitude of his subjects.

18.9. And he, denying nothing of what had befallen, said, "They flee, with no one pursuing." And they, taking it up, said, "This same thing the Lombards too have suffered. For, since you speak the truth, O king, we will hide nothing of our affairs.

18.10. Therefore, since it is by no means the will of God that these nations be destroyed, and from this He broke up the battle-array, casting upon both a saving fear, come, let us too yield to the will of God, putting an end to the war." "So be it, let these things be done," said Thorisin. And so they made a truce of two years,

18.11. in order that, treating with one another meanwhile and going to and fro continually, they might accurately settle all their differences. At that time, then, both withdrew thus.

18.12. But during this truce, being unable to come to agreement with one another about the matters in dispute, they were about to go again to deeds of war.

18.13. And the Gepids, fearing the Roman empire (for it was likely that the Romans would draw up with the Lombards), planned to bring some of the Huns into alliance.

18.14. They sent, then, to the rulers of the Cutrigurs, who are settled on the near side of the Maeotic Lake, and begged them to share in carrying through the war against the Lombards.

18.15. And they at once sent them twelve thousand men, whom, among others, Chinialon led, a man exceptionally good in matters of war.

18.16. But the Gepids, vexed at present by the presence of these barbarians, since the season of battle was not yet at hand, but a year still remained to the truce, persuaded them to overrun, meanwhile, the country of the emperor, making their plot against the Romans a by-product of their own untimely occasion.

18.17. And since the Romans were guarding accurately the crossing of the river Ister in Illyria and in the regions of Thrace, the Gepids themselves ferried these Huns across the river Ister in the country about themselves and let them loose into the homes of the Romans.

18.18. And these plundered almost all the regions there, while the emperor Justinian devised this. Sending to the rulers of the Utigur Huns, who are settled beyond the Maeotic Lake, he reproached them and called their inactivity toward the Cutrigurs unjust, if indeed to look on while one's friends are being destroyed must be counted among the most unjust of deeds. For their neighbours the Cutrigurs,

18.19. he said, they had disregarded, and that too while receiving great sums of money from Byzantium every year, in no way willing to cease from their wrongdoing toward the Romans, but day by day overrunning and plundering them without reason.

18.20. And of these things they themselves gained no share, nor had any part of the booty allotted to them from the Cutrigurs, yet they took no thought of the Romans being ill-used, though they had been their friends most exceedingly from of old.

18.21. Having signified these things to the Utigurs, the emperor Justinian, both presenting them with money and reminding them of how many gifts they had often received from him before, persuaded them to make at once an attack upon the Cutrigurs who had been left behind.

18.22. And they, bringing two thousand of the Goths, their neighbours, who are called Tetraxitae, into alliance, crossed the river Tanais in full force.

18.23. And their leader was Sandil, a man most sagacious and experienced in many wars, and sufficiently endowed for strength and manliness.

18.24. And when they had made the crossing of the river, they came to blows with many of the Cutrigurs who confronted them. And, these defending most stoutly against the assailants, the battle lasted very long, but afterwards the Utigurs, routing their opponents, killed many. And a few, fleeing, as each was able, were saved. And their enemies, enslaving their children and wives, were carried off home.

19.1. And while these barbarians were thus fighting one another, as I have said, and the danger was at its height for them in the contest, it befell the Romans to enjoy great good fortune.

19.2. For all those of them who happened to be among the Cutrigurs in the rank of captives, coming together, they say, to many myriads, escaping notice in this turmoil and rising up from there in haste, with no one pursuing them, came to their ancestral homes, and reaped the fruit of another's victory in their direst need.

19.3. And the emperor Justinian, sending the general Aratius to Chinialon and the other Huns, ordered him to announce what had befallen them in their own land, and, presenting them with money, to persuade them to depart as quickly as possible from the land of the Romans.

19.4. And they, learning of the attack of the Utigurs and having received great sums from Aratius, agreed neither to do any further slaughter nor to enslave any of the Romans nor to do any other unkind thing, but to make their withdrawal as through friends, the men there.

19.5. And this too was agreed, that if these barbarians should be able, returning to their ancestral land, to settle there, they should remain there and thenceforth keep faith toward the Romans; but if it should be impossible for them to remain there, they should come again into the land of the Romans, and the emperor should present them with certain of the regions of Thrace, on condition that, settling there, they should be in a state of treaty with the Romans for all time and should accurately keep guard of the country from all barbarians.

19.6. And already two thousand of the Huns too who had been worsted in the battle and had escaped the Utigurs came into the land of the Romans, bringing their children and wives;

19.7. and their leaders were, among others, Sinnion, who had campaigned with Belisarius long before against Gelimer and the Vandals; and they became suppliants of the emperor Justinian. And he received them with all eagerness, and ordered them to settle in the regions of Thrace.

19.8. And when Sandil, the king of the Utigurs, learned this, he was provoked and exceedingly angered, that he himself, in punishing the Cutrigurs, who were of his own race, for their wrongdoing toward the Romans, should have removed them from their ancestral homes, while they, the emperor having received them, settling in the land of the Romans, would live far better; and he sent envoys to the emperor to reproach him with what had been done, not putting into their hands any letter (since the Huns are altogether without acquaintance of letters and unpractised in them down to this day, and have neither schoolmaster nor do their children grow up with any toil over letters), but to recite by mouth, in barbarian fashion, all that he charged them with.

19.9. Coming, then, into the presence of the emperor Justinian, the envoys said that Sandil bade them say through them, as in a letter, these things: "I know a proverb that I heard from boyhood, and if I have not forgotten any of it,

19.10. the proverb runs somewhat thus. The wolf, that beast, may perhaps be able to change something of his coat, they say, but his disposition he does not turn, since nature does not allow him to alter it even though he should refashion himself.

19.11. These things," speaking proverbially, says Sandil, "I heard from my elders, who indicated human affairs by a sidelong saying. But I know something too, having learned it from experience, such as it was likely a rustic barbarian should learn:

19.12. the shepherds, taking up the dogs while still at the teat, rear them at home not carelessly; and the dog is a creature grateful to those who feed it and most mindful of kindness. This, then, is done by the shepherds for this reason: that, when the wolves at any time come on, the dogs may beat off their attacks, becoming defenders and saviours to the sheep. And these things, I think, happen in every land.

19.13. For no one of all men has ever seen either dogs plotting against a flock, or wolves defending it, but nature, having ordained this as a kind of law for dogs and sheep and wolves, has established it.

19.14. And I think that even in your kingdom, where for the most part there is an abundance of all things, and perhaps even of the impossible, no alteration of these things takes place at all.

19.15. Either, then, show my envoys how I too may learn something of the unusual at the threshold of old age; or, if these things are everywhere fixed by nature, it is not seemly for you, I think, to take into your service the race of the Cutrigurs, troubled as they are, bringing in a fouled neighbour, and to make those whom you would not endure beyond your borders now dwellers within them.

19.16. For they themselves will display their proper disposition toward the Romans not long hereafter; and apart from this, neither will an enemy fail to harass the Roman empire, in the hope that, if worsted, he will fare better with you, nor will a friend remain to the Romans, ready at any time to be an obstacle to those overrunning your land, through fear lest, when fortune brings him its best, he should behold the conquered faring more conspicuously than himself among you, if indeed we have our dwellings in a country desolate and otherwise barren, while it is in the Cutrigurs' power to buy grain and to carouse over their wine and to choose all manner of side-dishes.

19.17. And surely they have a share of baths too, and these wanderers wear gold and are not without garments fine and embroidered and overlaid with gold. And yet the Cutrigurs,

19.18. having before enslaved countless multitudes of Romans, carried them off to their own land.

19.19. Over whom to lord it in everything in slavish fashion was no by-task to the accursed wretches, but to lay the lash even upon those who had done no wrong and to put them to death perhaps was ready at hand, and whatever else his disposition and his power permit to a barbarian master.

19.20. But we, by our own toils and dangers that touch the soul, freeing them from the fortune that then held them, gave them back to their parents, after they had become for us the spoils of war.

19.21. For which the recompense from you we have, each of us, received in opposite kind, if indeed we still enjoy our ancestral ills, while those who, through our valour, escaped enslavement to them, having an equal share of their country,

19.22. have their portion." Thus much the envoys of the Utigurs said. But the emperor, after much soothing of them and consoling them with a multitude of gifts, sent them away not long after. These things, then, happened thus.

20.1. About this time a war and battle arose between the nation of the Varni and the island soldiers who dwell in the island called Brittia, for the following reason.

20.2. The Varni are settled above the river Ister, and they extend as far as the northern Ocean and the river Rhine, which separates them and the Franks and the other nations settled there.

20.3. All these, who anciently dwelt about the river Rhine on either side, each had a name of their own, but in common they were all called Germans.

20.4. And the island Brittia lies in this Ocean, not far from the shore, but at a distance of about two hundred stades, opposite the outlets of the Rhine for the most part, and it is between Britain and the island of Thule.

20.5. For Britain lies toward the setting sun off the farthest part of the land of the Spaniards, distant from the mainland not less than about four thousand stades, while Brittia lies off the back parts of Gaul, the parts which are turned toward the Ocean—that is, toward the north wind, clearly, from Spain and Britain.

20.6. And Thule, so far as men know, lies in the farthest parts of the Ocean toward the north. But the matters concerning Britain and Thule have been told by me in the earlier books; while the island Brittia three exceedingly populous nations hold, and one king is set over each of them.

20.7. And the names of these nations are the Angiloi and the Frissones and those of the same name as the island, the Brittones.

20.8. And so great does the populousness of these nations appear to be, that every year, removing from there in great numbers with their wives and children, they go to the Franks.

20.9. And these settle them in the part of their own land that seems to be more deserted, and from this they say they lay claim to the island.

20.10. So that, in fact, not long ago the king of the Franks, sending some of his intimates on an embassy to the emperor Justinian in Byzantium, sent along with them men of the Angiloi, vaunting himself that this island too is ruled by him. Such, then, are the matters concerning the island called Brittia.

20.11. And of the Varni a certain man, Hermegisclus by name, ruled not long ago. He, eager to strengthen his kingdom, made the sister of Theudibert, the ruler of the Franks, his wedded wife.

20.12. For his former wife had died not long before, who had become the mother of one child, whom she left to his father, Radigis by name, to whom his father had betrothed a maiden, of Brittian race, whose brother was at that time king of the nation of the Angiloi, having given her great sums of money by way of betrothal.

20.13. This man, riding in a certain place with the most notable of the Varni, saw a bird sitting upon a tree and croaking much.

20.14. And whether he understood the bird's voice, or knew it by some other means but feigned to understand the prophesying bird, he at once said to those present that he would die forty days later.

20.15. For this, he said, the bird's prediction made plain to him. "I, then, foreseeing," he said, "how you may live most safely in freedom from trouble, have joined in marriage-alliance with the Franks, bringing from there the wife who lives with me, and have invested my son with the Brittian betrothed.

20.16. But now, since I suspect I shall die very straightway, and am without offspring, male or female, so far as concerns this wife, and besides, my son is even now unwedded and without a bride, come, let me communicate my purpose to you, and if it should seem to you not unprofitable, do you, when I come most quickly to the measure of my life, ratify it with good fortune and carry it through.

20.17. I think, then, that it will profit the Varni to make the marriage-alliance with the Franks rather than with the islanders.

20.18. For the Brittians are not able even to mingle with you, except late and with difficulty; but the Varni and the Franks have between them only this water of the Rhine, so that they, being your nearest neighbours and having advanced to a great degree of power, have it ready to hand both to benefit you and to injure you, whenever they wish;

20.19. and they will injure you altogether, unless the marriage-alliance prove an obstacle to them. For a power exceeding that of one's neighbours is by nature grievous to men and most ready for wrongdoing, since to a powerful neighbour it is easy to procure pretexts for war against neighbours who do no wrong.

20.20. Since, then, these things are so, let the island betrothed of this son be passed over by you, with all the money which she happened to have received from us for this very purpose, carrying it off as the wage of the outrage, as the common law of men wills; and let the son Radigis henceforth live with his stepmother, my own wife, as our ancestral law permits us."

20.21. He, having said this, on the fortieth day from the prediction fell sick and fulfilled his destiny. And the son of Hermegisclus, taking over the kingdom of the Varni, by the counsel of the notable men among these barbarians fulfilled the purpose of the dead man, and, at once renouncing the marriage with his betrothed, lived with his stepmother.

20.22. And when the betrothed of Radigis learned this, not enduring the calamity of the matter, she set out to avenge herself upon him for the outrage to her.

20.23. For chastity is so highly esteemed among these barbarians, that, the mere name of marriage having occurred among them, even though the act did not follow, the woman seems to have been violated.

20.24. At first, then, sending some of her intimates to him on an embassy, she inquired for what reason he had outraged her, when she had neither played the harlot nor done any other unkind thing to him.

20.25. But when she could accomplish nothing by this, taking up the manly garb she went to deeds of war.

20.26. Gathering, then, at once four hundred ships and putting into them an army of no fewer than a hundred thousand fighting men, she herself led the way against the Varni with this host.

20.27. And she brought along too one of her own brothers, to help her settle the present affairs, not, however, as holding the kingship, but as still ranking in the position of a private man.

20.28. And these islanders are the bravest of all the barbarians we know, and they go into the engagements on foot.

20.29. For they are not only unpractised in riding, but they do not even know what a horse is, since a horse in this island they do not even behold in a picture; for this creature never appears to have existed in Brittia.

20.30. And if ever it befall any of them, on an embassy or for some other reason, to visit the Romans or the Franks or anyone else who has horses, and there it be necessary for them to ride horses, they have no means at all of leaping upon them, but other men, lifting them up, set them upon the horses; and when they wish to dismount from there, again others, raising them up, set them down on the ground.

20.31. Nor indeed are the Varni horsemen, but they too are all foot-soldiers. Such, then, are these barbarians. And there was no supernumerary in this fleet, but all were rowers of their own oars. Nor do these islanders happen to have sails, but they always sail by rowing alone.

20.32. And when they had put in to the mainland, the maiden who ruled them, having pitched a strong stockade close beside the very outlet of the river Rhine, remained there with a few men, while she ordered her brother to lead all the rest of the army against the enemy.

20.33. And the Varni were then encamped not far from the shore of the Ocean and the outlet of the Rhine. There, when the Angiloi quickly came, both sides closed in combat, and the Varni were utterly defeated.

20.34. And of them many fell in this struggle, while the rest, with their king, all turned to flight, and the Angiloi, making the pursuit upon them for a little, as is fitting for foot-soldiers, withdrew to the camp.

20.35. And the maiden reviled them as they returned to her, and railed at her brother most bitterly, maintaining that nothing worthy of mention had been done by the army, since they had not brought her Radigis alive.

20.36. And, picking out the most warlike of them, she at once sent them off, ordering them to bring the man a spear-captive by every device.

20.37. And they, fulfilling her command, went about searching accurately all the regions there, until they found Radigis hiding in a dense wood; and, binding him, they brought him to the maiden.

20.38. And he stood in her sight, trembling and supposing he would very straightway die by a most pitiable death; but she, contrary to expectation, neither killed him nor did him any other unkind thing, but, reproaching him with the outrage to her, inquired of the man for what reason he, disregarding the agreement, had come to the bed of another woman, and that too when his betrothed had not played the harlot toward him.

20.39. And he, defending himself against the charge, put forward his father's injunctions and the eagerness of his subjects, and offered words of supplication and mingled his defence with many entreaties, referring the blame to necessity.

20.40. And he agreed to live with her, if it were her wish, and to heal by what should follow the things not justly done by him before.

20.41. And when these things pleased the maiden, Radigis was loosed from his bonds and was thought worthy of all other kindness, and he at once sent away the sister of Theudibert and married the Brittian woman. These things went forward thus.

20.42. And in this island of Brittia the men of old built a long wall, cutting off a great part of it; and the air and the soil and all else are not alike on the two sides of the wall.

20.43. For the parts of the wall toward the rising sun there is a healthfulness of air, changing with the seasons, in summer moderately warm, cold in winter;

20.44. and many men dwell there, living in the same way as the rest of mankind, and the trees flourish with fruits ripening in season, and the corn-lands bloom no less than the rest;

20.45. and the country, moreover, appears abundantly luxuriant with waters. But toward the setting sun all is the opposite, so that, in fact, it is not possible for a man to live there even half an hour, but vipers and serpents innumerable and all manner of kinds of other wild beasts have been allotted that place.

20.46. And, most paradoxical of all, the natives say that if any man, crossing the wall, should go to the other side, he dies straightway, not enduring at all the pestilential nature of the air there, and to the wild beasts going there death at once meets them and receives them.

20.47. But, having come to this point in my history, I am bound to mention an account most like a legend, which to me seemed by no means trustworthy at all, although it is forever brought out by countless men who maintained that they themselves had been the doers of the deeds and the hearers of the words; yet it is not to be passed over altogether, lest, in recording the matters of the island Brittia, I should win the reputation of a perpetual ignorance of what happens there.

20.48. They say, then, that the souls of men who die are always carried off to this place. But in what manner I shall now make plain, having often heard the men there relating it most earnestly, though I have judged what is bruited abroad to be referred to some power of dreams.

20.49. Along the shore of the Ocean opposite Brittia there happen to be very many villages. And men dwell in them who busy themselves with fishing and farming the land and sailing for trade to this island, being for the rest subjects of the Franks, yet never having paid them any tribute, this burden having been remitted to them from of old, on account of some service, as they say, which I shall now relate.

20.50. The men there say that the escort of the souls is laid upon them in turn. Those, then, who on the coming night must go to this task by the succession of the service, these, as soon as it grows dark, withdrawing to their own houses, sleep, awaiting the conductor of the matter.

20.51. And in the dead of night they perceive their doors being knocked, and they hear a certain unseen voice calling them together to the work.

20.52. And they themselves, with no hesitation, rising from their beds, go to the shore, not understanding what necessity leads them to this, but nevertheless compelled.

20.53. And there they see boats made ready, altogether empty of men—not their own, however, but certain others—into which, embarking, they lay hold of the oars.

20.54. And they perceive that the barges are weighed down with a multitude of passengers, sunk by the surge to the very edges of the planks and to the place of the oar-locks, lacking of the water no more than a single finger; yet they themselves see no one, but, rowing a single hour, they put in to Brittia.

20.55. And yet, when they sail in their own boats, not using sails but rowing, they scarcely cross there in a night and a day. But having put in to the island, after discharging the cargo, they depart very straightway, the barges becoming light suddenly and rising up out of the surge and sinking in the water in no other part except as far as the keel itself.

20.56. And they themselves see no man, either sailing with them or departing from the ship, but they say they hear a certain voice from there seeming to announce to those who receive them each one of those who have sailed with them, by name, reciting the dignities they formerly enjoyed and calling them by their fathers' names.

20.57. And if women too happen to have crossed with them, they recite the names of the men with whom they lived as wives.

20.58. These things, then, the men there say happen. But I return to the former account.

21.1. Thus, then, the matters of the wars in each country happened to come about. And the Gothic war was carried on as follows. The emperor, having summoned Belisarius to Byzantium, as I have said in the earlier books, held him in honour, and, not even when Germanus had died, did he think to send him to Italy, but, though he was general of the East, appointing him commander of the imperial bodyguards, he kept him there.

21.2. And Belisarius was first in rank of all the Romans, although some of them had earlier been enrolled among the patricians and had ascended to the very chair of the consuls.

21.3. But even so all yielded the first place to him, ashamed to use the law against his merit and to gird themselves with the right derived from it.

21.4. And these things pleased the emperor exceedingly. But John, the son of Vitalian, was wintering at Salona. And the soldiers of the Roman army, awaiting him in Italy at this time, remained inactive. And the winter was ending, and the sixteenth year was coming to a close in this Gothic war, the history of which Procopius has written.

21.5. And in the year that followed John was minded to rise up from Salona and lead the army as quickly as possible against Totila and the Goths.

21.6. But the emperor hindered him, and ordered him to remain there until Narses the eunuch should arrive. For he had determined to appoint him commander-in-chief of this war.

21.7. But for what reason these things were the emperor's wish became plainly clear to none of all men; for a counsel of the emperor is impossible to learn unless it be of his own free will. But what men, suspecting, said, I shall make plain.

21.8. A thought came to the emperor Justinian that the other commanders of the Roman army would by no means be willing to obey John, not thinking fit to be in any way inferior to him in rank.

21.9. And from this he feared lest, dissenting in opinion or playing the malingerer through envy, they should throw the operations into confusion.

21.10. And I heard also this account, related by a Roman man, when I was staying at Rome; and this man was of the senatorial council.

21.11. This Roman, then, said that once Atalaric, the grandson of Theoderic by his daughter, was ruling Italy, and a herd of oxen, about this time, came to Rome from the country toward late evening through the market-place which the Romans call the Forum of Peace;

21.12. for there somewhere the temple of Peace, struck by lightning, lies in ruins from of old. And there is a certain ancient fountain before this market-place, and a bronze ox stands upon it, a work, I think, of Pheidias the Athenian or of Lysippus.

21.13. For there are in this place many statues, works of these two men. And there too is another work of Pheidias; for so the letters on the statue declare.

21.14. There too is the heifer of Myron. For it had been the care of the Romans of old to make all the fairest things of Hellas the adornments of Rome.

21.15. And he said that one bull of those then passing by, leaving the herd and mounting upon this fountain, stood above the bronze ox.

21.16. And by some chance a passer-by, a Tuscan by race, who seemed to be altogether a rustic, putting together what was being done, said (for there are diviners among the Tuscans even down to my time) that a eunuch would one day overthrow the ruler of Rome.

21.17. And at that time both that Tuscan and his saying incurred laughter. For before the event men are always fond of mocking predictions, the proof not checking them, since neither have the events come to pass nor is the account concerning them trustworthy, but it appears like some ridiculous fable.

21.18. But now all marvel at this token (yielding to the events).

21.19. And on this account perhaps Narses was made general against Totila, either by the emperor's judgment aiming at the future, or by fortune presiding over what was needful.

21.20. Narses, then, having received an army worthy of mention and great sums of money from the emperor, was sent forth.

21.21. And when, with his followers, he came to be in mid-Thrace, he remained some time at Philippopolis, shut off from the road.

21.22. For a Hunnic army, falling upon the Roman empire, was carrying off and bearing away everything, with no one withstanding them. But when some of them went toward Thessalonica, and others toward Byzantium, he with difficulty got clear from there and went forward.

22.1. And while John was awaiting Narses at Salona, and Narses, hindered by the attack of the Huns, was going rather slowly, meanwhile Totila, awaiting the army of Narses, did the following.

22.2. He established other Romans, and some of those from the senatorial council, in Rome, leaving the rest in Campania.

22.3. And he ordered them to take care of the city as far as possible, showing that he repented of what he had earlier done to Rome, since he had happened to burn much of it, especially beyond the river Tiber.

22.4. But they, being in the position of captives and stripped of all money—not only of the public funds, but even of their own private property—were unable to take charge of it.

22.5. And yet of all men we know the Romans are most fond of their city, and are eager to preserve all their ancestral things and to keep them safe, so that nothing of the old adornment of Rome may be obliterated.

22.6. For even though they had been barbarized for a long age, they preserved the buildings of the city and most of its adornments, all that could, through the goodness of their making, hold out against so great a length of time and against neglect.

22.7. And moreover, whatever memorials of the race were still left, among them too the ship of Aeneas, the founder of the city, lies even to this day, a sight altogether incredible.

22.8. For, making a ship-house in the middle of the city, beside the bank of the Tiber, and laying it up there, from that time they have kept it. And what kind of thing it is, I, having seen it myself, go on to tell.

22.9. This ship is a single-banked one and exceedingly long, in length one hundred and twenty feet, and in breadth twenty-five, and in height it is such that it is not impossible to row it.

22.10. And there is no glueing of timbers at all there, nor by any other device of iron pins are the timbers of the vessel fastened to one another, but all are of a single piece, beyond word and hearing, and produced, so far as we know, in this ship alone.

22.11. For the keel, being of one growth, extends from the very stern to the prow, gradually and wonderfully receding into the hollow, and again from there, by good proportion, rising up to the straight and extended.

22.12. And all the thick timbers fitted into the keel (which the poets call dryochi, and others call nomeis) extend each one from one side of the ship to the other side.

22.13. And these too, settling down from each end, make a curve exceedingly handsome, so that the ship has been rounded out to be most hollow—whether nature, in accordance with the necessity of use, having cut the timbers and fitted them together beforehand, made this curvature, or whether by hand-wrought craft and some other device the bending of the ribs was contrived in due fashion.

22.14. And besides these, each plank extends from the very stern to the other end of the ship, being of a single piece and having taken on iron pins for this reason only, that, fitted to the beams, it may make the side.

22.15. Thus this ship, having been made, presents a sight beyond words, since the nature of things always sets before men those of its works that occur most contrary to reason as not easy to describe, but, surpassing the customary by its contrivances, prevails over speech too.

22.16. And of these timbers none either has rotted or shows any sign of being decayed, but the ship, being sound everywhere, as though just now built by its craftsman, whoever he was, is strong even to my time, a marvel how great. So, then, the matters concerning this ship of Aeneas stand.

22.17. But Totila, manning some three hundred long ships of the Goths, ordered them to go to Hellas, charging them to plunder all whom they fell in with, with all their power.

22.18. And this fleet, as far as the land of the Phaeacians, which is now called Corcyra, was able to do no unkind thing.

22.19. For in this passage there happens to be no inhabited island from the strait at Charybdis as far as Corcyra, so that often, when I have been there, I have been at a loss as to where in the world the island of Calypso could be.

22.20. For nowhere in this sea have I seen an island, except three, not far from the Phaeacian land, but at a distance of about three hundred stades, lying very close to one another, exceedingly small and having neither dwellings of men nor of beasts nor anything else at all. Othonoi are these islands now called.

22.21. And one might say that Calypso was here, and from this Odysseus, being not far from the Phaeacian land, on a raft, as Homer says, or in some other manner without a ship, crossed over from here. But let these things be said by us only by way of conjecture.

22.22. For to fit the true account accurately to the most ancient matters is not easy, since the great length of time is wont for the most part to change both the names of places and the opinion concerning them.

22.23. The vessel, indeed, which in the land of the Phaeacians, made of white stone, stands beside its shore—this some suppose to be that which brought Odysseus to Ithaca, when it befell him to be entertained there.

22.24. And yet this vessel is not of a single piece, but is composed of very many stones.

22.25. And letters are carved upon it, and they cry out expressly that one of the merchants in earlier times set up this offering to Zeus Casius.

22.26. For the men there once honoured Zeus Casius, since the city in which this vessel stands is even to this time called Casope.

22.27. And in this same manner, of many stones, was made that ship too which Agamemnon the son of Atreus dedicated to Artemis at Geraestus in Euboea, expiating thereby too the outrage to her, when, on account of the calamity of Iphigenia, Artemis granted the Greeks their voyage home.

22.28. And the letters on this vessel, carved either at that time or later, declare in hexameter verse. Of these, most have become effaced by the long time, but the first verses still appear even now, saying thus: 'Me, a ship of stone, Agamemnon set up here, a token of the army of the Hellenes as it sailed.'

22.29. And at the beginning it has: 'Tynnichus made me for Artemis Bolosia.' For so they called Eileithyia in olden times, since they used to name birth-pangs bolai. But I must return to the point from which I digressed.

22.30. When this fleet of the Goths arrived at Corcyra, they carried off and bore away the island in a raid, and all the other islands that lie near it,

22.31. which are called Sybota; and, crossing also to the mainland, they suddenly plundered all the regions about Dodona, and especially Nicopolis and Anchialus, where they say Anchises, the father of Aeneas, when Ilium was taken, sailing with his son, vanished from among men and gave his name to the place.

22.32. And, going about the whole coast and falling in with many ships of the Romans, they captured them all with their cargoes. And among them happened to be some of the ships which were carrying provisions from Hellas to the army of Narses. These things, then, happened thus.

23.1. And Totila had long before happened to send an army of Goths to the Picentes, in order that they might take Ancona; over whom he set as commanders the most approved among the Goths, Scipuar and Gibal and Gundulf, who had once been a bodyguard of Belisarius.

23.2. And some called him Indulf. To these he gave also forty-seven long ships, in order that, besieging the fort by land and sea, they might more easily and with less toil bring about its capture.

23.3. And, much time being spent in this siege, it befell the besieged to be hard pressed by want of necessities.

23.4. When Valerian learned this, being at Ravenna, and being unable by himself to defend the Romans in Ancona, he sent to John, the nephew of Vitalian, who was at Salona, and wrote thus: "Ancona alone is left to us within the gulf, as you yourself know, if indeed it is still left.

23.5. For so bitterly are the affairs of the Romans here besieged, that I fear lest, bringing aid, we be too late, our eagerness coming behind the opportunity, and our zeal on its behalf become stale.

23.6. But I shall cease. For the necessity of the besieged does not allow the letter to be longer, straitly confining the time upon itself, and the danger seeking aid swifter than

23.7. speech." John, having read this letter, although it had been forbidden him by the emperor, of his own accord dared to go, holding the straits arising from fortune more urgent than the orders given him by the emperor.

23.8. And, picking out the men he thought best of all in matters of war, and filling thirty-eight long ships with them, ships sailing most swiftly and most excellently made for war at sea, and putting some provisions in them, he set out from Salona and put in at Scardon. There too Valerian, with twelve ships, came not long after.

23.9. And when they had joined one another, conferring together and resolving on what seemed profitable to them, they sailed off from there, and, putting in to the mainland opposite, anchored at a place which the Romans call Senogallia,

23.10. not far from Ancona. When the commanders of the Goths learned this, they too at once manned with the notable men among the Goths the long ships they had, being forty-seven in number.

23.11. And leaving the rest of the army at the siege of the fort, they went straight against the enemy.

23.12. And of those who had remained at the siege Scipuar was in command, while of those in the ships Gibal and Gundulf were the leaders.

23.13. And when they came near one another, both held back their ships, and, bringing them together into a small space, made some exhortation to the soldiers.

23.14. And first John and Valerian spoke as follows: "Let none of you, fellow-soldiers, think that he is now contending only for this Ancona and for the Romans besieged in it, nor that this engagement will be decided for us only up to this point; but that the whole sum, so to speak, of the war stands here, and that wherever the battle inclines, with it too the issue of fortune will be allotted.

23.15. Consider the present situation in this way: a great inclination of the war depends upon supplies, and those who are short of provisions must of necessity be worsted by the enemy.

23.16. For valour knows not how to dwell with hunger, since nature does not endure both to starve and to play the man.

23.17. These things being so, no other stronghold is left to us from Hydrus to Ravenna, where the provisions for us and for our horses must be stored, and the enemy so command the country that no friendly place is left to us here, from which we may, even in small measure, procure any of the necessities.

23.18. But upon Ancona all our expectation has rested of being able, when men put in there from the mainland opposite, to land them safely and to have security.

23.19. Therefore, succeeding in the engagement today, and securing Ancona for the emperor, as is likely, perhaps we shall thenceforth have the other matters of the war against the Goths too in good hope.

23.20. But if we fail in this battle—we will say nothing else bitter, but may God grant the dominion of Italy to be lasting to the Romans. And this too is worth considering by us, that if we prove cowards in the work, it will not even be possible to flee.

23.21. For neither will you have the land, held by your adversaries, nor the sea passable, the enemy so commanding the sea, but the hope of safety has come to rest in our hands and changes with the deeds of the struggle.

23.22. Play the man, then, with all your power, reckoning this very thing, that, worsted at present, you will be allotted the last defeat, but, having conquered, you will be ranked with the very prosperous, together with glory."

23.23. John and Valerian said this much. And the commanders of the Goths made such an exhortation as this: "Since, driven out of all Italy, and for a long time not knowing in what nooks of the land or the sea these accursed men have been lurking, they have now dared to come to blows with us, and have come against us as if to renew the fight, it is necessary to check with all eagerness the boldness that has arisen in them from their imprudence, lest, if we yield, their madness should advance to a great degree.

23.24. For ignorance, not checked at the start, mounts to boundless daring, but ends in irreparable disasters for those it meets.

23.25. Show them, then, as quickly as possible, that they are Greeks and cowardly by nature and that, being worsted, they grow bold, and do not allow their venture to go further.

23.26. For cowardice despised is led on to greater boldness,

23.27. since by advancing courage becomes unhesitating. And do not think at all that they will hold out long against you as you play the man. For a spirit not measured to the power of those who possess it appears, before the deed, lifted up and at its height, but, the engagement once begun, is wont to flow away.

23.28. Since, then, these things are so, remember in what manner the enemy, having often made trial of your valour, departed, and reckon that they have not become better on the sudden in setting upon us, but, having dared the like to their predecessors, they will be allotted the like fortune now too."

23.29. Having exhorted thus much, the commanders of the Goths too, confronting the enemy, came to blows with no delay. And the sea-battle was exceedingly fierce, resembling a battle on land.

23.30. For both sides, setting their ships front to front, prow to prow, against those of their opponents, discharged their arrows at one another, and all of them who laid any claim to valour, coming very close to one another and closing hand to hand, joined battle from the decks, fighting with swords and spears as on a plain.

23.31. And the preludes of this contest were such. But afterwards the barbarians, through inexperience of sea-fighting, carried on this engagement with much disorder. For some of them so separated from one another that they gave the enemy the chance to strike them singly, while many, coming together into one place, were continually fettered by one another through the narrowness of the ships.

23.32. One might have likened the platforms of their ships to be laid together in a row. And they could neither shoot at the separated enemy, except late and with difficulty, nor use swords or spears, whenever they saw them pressing upon them, but with shouting and pushing among themselves they were continually engaged, ever colliding with one another and again thrusting one another off with poles in no order, and now jamming their front together by the narrowness, now drifting far apart, to the harm of their own side on both counts.

23.33. And each made his exhortations to those nearest with much outcry, not against the enemy, but that they might themselves make their distances apart from one another.

23.34. And, busied with the helplessness toward one another, they became most of all the authors of the victory against themselves for the enemy. But the Romans, handling the matters of the engagement bravely and the matters of the sea-fight skilfully, setting their ships front to front, and neither separating much from one another nor coming close together more than need was, but always making their meetings and separations duly measured, if they saw an enemy ship scattered from the others, sank it by ramming with no toil; and if they saw any confusion among the enemy, there they sent frequent volleys, and whenever they fell upon them—disordered as they were and worn out by the toil of their disorder—

23.35. they dispatched them hand to hand. The barbarians, then, despairing both at the adversities of fortune and at the errors that had befallen them in the battle, knew not how they should fight, neither as in a sea-fight, nor, however, as in a battle on land, standing on the decks, but, throwing away the struggle, they kept still in their danger, leaving it to fortune.

23.36. Wherefore the Goths turned to a shameful retreat with much disorder, and remembered no longer either of defence or of any seemly flight or of anything else leading to safety, but, scattered for the most part among the enemy's ships, they were at a loss.

23.37. And some of them escaped with eleven ships and, escaping notice, were saved, but all the rest came under the enemy.

23.38. Of whom the Romans destroyed many with their own hands, and many they killed by sinking them ships and all; and of the commanders, Gundulf with the eleven ships fled unnoticed, while the other the Romans took alive.

23.39. And afterwards those in the eleven ships, disembarking onto the land, at once burned their ships, lest they should come into the hands of the enemy, and went on foot to the camp where they were besieging Ancona.

23.40. And, telling them what had befallen, they straightway made their withdrawal together with them, leaving the camp to the enemy, and at a run and with much tumult ran up to the city of Auximum, which was near.

23.41. And the Romans, coming to Ancona not long after, took the camp of the enemy empty of men, and, bringing in provisions to those in the fort, sailed off from there.

23.42. And Valerian went to Ravenna, while John returned to Salona. This battle especially overthrew the spirit and the power of Totila and the Goths.

24.1. And about this same time the affairs of the Romans in Sicily stood thus. Liberius came from there to the emperor in Byzantium, having been summoned; and Artabanes, this being the emperor's decision, commanded all the Roman army in Sicily.

24.2. And he, besieging the Goths who had been left in the strongholds there, being very few in number, and conquering in battle those who came out against them, and reducing them to every want of necessities, afterwards took them all by surrender.

24.3. At which the Goths, becoming exceedingly fearful and grieving greatly at what had befallen them in the sea-fight, despaired of the war, having now become altogether of evil hope, reckoning that, shamefully worsted by the enemy at present and altogether destroyed, if any aid, even in small measure, should come to the Romans, they would in no way be able to hold out against them, even for a moment's space of time, or to stand in Italy. Nor indeed had they any hope of accomplishing anything by embassy from the emperor.

24.4. For Totila had often happened to send envoys to him. These, when they came into the presence of the emperor Justinian, set forth that the greater part of Italy the Franks had seized, while the rest had for the most part become empty of men through the war; and that of Sicily and Dalmatia, which alone had remained untouched, the Goths would withdraw in favour of the Romans, and agreed to pay dues and tribute for the rest of the land every year, and to fight as allies against whomever the emperor wished, and in other respects to be his subjects;

24.5. but the emperor, taking no heed at all of what was said, sent all the envoys away, being ill-disposed toward the name of the Goths, and determined to expel it utterly from the Roman empire. These things, then, happened thus.

24.6. And Theudibert, the chief of the Franks, had not long before vanished from among men by sickness, having made certain regions of Liguria and the Cottian Alps and most of Venetia subject to the payment of tribute on no good plea.

24.7. For the Franks, making the occupation of the combatants a fitting opportunity for themselves, were growing rich without danger from the possessions over which those others fought.

24.8. And to the Goths a few towns in Venetia remained, and the seaside places to the Romans; but all the rest the Franks made subject to themselves.

24.9. And, the Romans and the Goths carrying on this war against one another, as I have said, and being unable to gain new enemies, the Goths and the Franks came to a conference with one another, and it was agreed that, so long as the Goths should carry on the war against the Romans, each side holding what they had gained should remain quiet, and that there should be no hostility between them;

24.10. but if it should ever befall the emperor Justinian to get the better of Totila in the war, then the Goths and the Franks should settle these matters in whatever way should seem profitable to both. But these things were agreed thus.

24.11. And the rule of Theudibert was succeeded to by Theudibald his son. And the emperor Justinian sent Leontius, the son-in-law of Athanasius, a man of the senate, as envoy to him, both calling him to alliance against Totila and the Goths, and asking him to withdraw from the regions in Italy which Theudibert had unjustly been eager to occupy.

24.12. And Leontius, when he came to Theudibald, spoke as follows: "Perhaps some other men too have happened to meet with things contrary to their hopes; but such a thing as has now befallen the Romans from you has, I think, never happened to any of all men.

24.13. For the emperor Justinian did not enter upon this war, nor become apparent as wishing to make war upon the Goths, until the Franks, having received great sums under the name of friendship and alliance, agreed to share in the struggle with him.

24.14. But they not only did not think fit to do any of the things agreed upon, but even wronged the Romans in such a way as no one could easily have suspected.

24.15. For your father Theudibert undertook to occupy a country in no way belonging to him, of which the emperor, by much toil and the dangers of war, and that too while all the Franks stood aloof, had become master.

24.16. Wherefore I have now come to you, not to complain or accuse, but to ask and to advise what is likely to profit you yourselves.

24.17. And I mean, that you should most securely preserve the prosperity you have, and should permit the Romans to hold their own;

24.18. for those clothed with great power and with an unholy possession of a few things have often had the power to take away from men the good things long present to them, since prosperity and injustice are by no means wont to come together to the same point; and moreover, that you should help us carry through the war against Totila, paying your father's agreement.

24.19. For this would befit true sons most of all: to set right, if anything happen to have been done wrong by their parents, but to maintain and confirm whatever has been done best by them.

24.20. Since this too would be exceedingly to be wished by the most sensible of men, that their children should emulate the best of their pursuits, but, if anything has not been rightly done by them, that this should be set better by the children rather than by any other.

24.21. And yet you ought to have taken up this war with the Romans uninvited. For our struggle is against the Goths, who from the beginning have been enemies and altogether faithless to the Franks, warring against them without truce and without herald for all time.

24.22. And these now, through fear of us, do not disdain to be flatterers toward you; but if they should ever be rid of us, they will not long after display their disposition toward the Franks.

24.23. For evil men, being unable to change their character when fortunate, are able to do so when faring ill, and are wont for the most part to hide it in their hardships, especially if they have need of any of their neighbours, the need compelling them to cover over their baseness.

24.24. Considering these things, renew your friendship toward the emperor, and defend yourselves against those who are your enemies of old, with all your power."

24.25. Leontius said this much. And Theudibald answered thus: "You call us to alliance against the Goths neither rightly nor justly; for the Goths happen now to be friends to us. And if the Franks were unstable toward them, they would never be faithful to you either.

24.26. For a disposition once seen to be base toward friends is by nature wont always to turn aside from the just path. But concerning the regions you mentioned, we will say this much, that my father Theudibert was never eager either to do violence to any of his neighbours or to leap upon another's possessions.

24.27. And the proof: for I am not rich. He did not, then, take these regions from the Romans, but, Totila already holding them and expressly giving them up, he seized and held them; whereat the emperor Justinian most of all ought to rejoice with the Franks.

24.28. For he who sees those who have taken anything of his own private possessions forced by certain others, would with reason rejoice, thinking that those who wronged him had paid the penalty rightly and justly, unless he himself become envious toward those who used the force, since to lay claim to the rights of one's enemies men suppose for the most part to turn to envy.

24.29. Yet we are able to entrust the decision concerning these matters to judges, so that, if it become plain that my father took anything from the Romans, it will be necessary for us to pay it back with no delay. And concerning these things envoys will be sent to Byzantium by us

24.30. not long after." Having said this much, he dismissed Leontius, and sent as envoy Leudardus, a Frankish man, himself the fourth, to the emperor Justinian. And they, coming to Byzantium, transacted the business for which they came.

24.31. And Totila was eager to seize the islands belonging to Libya. Gathering, then, at once a fleet of ships and putting on board a competent army, he sent it to Corsica and Sardinia.

24.32. And they, at first sailing to Corsica, with no one defending it, held the island,

24.33. and afterwards seized Sardinia too. And both islands Totila made tributary to the payment of tribute. When John learned this, who commanded the Roman army in Libya, he sent a fleet of ships and a multitude of soldiers to Sardinia.

24.34. And when they came near the city of Caranalis, they encamped and planned to set about a siege; for they did not think they could assault the wall, since the Goths had a sufficient garrison there.

24.35. But when the barbarians learned this, coming out of the city and falling suddenly upon the enemy and routing them with no toil, they killed many.

24.36. And the rest, fleeing, for the moment saved themselves in their ships, and a little later, setting out from there, came with their whole fleet to Carthage. There they passed the winter and remained,

24.37. in order that at the beginning of spring, with greater preparation, they might campaign again against Corsica and Sardinia. This Sardo they now call Sardinia.

24.38. There happens to grow an herb of which, when men taste, a deadly convulsion at once comes upon them, and they die not long after, seeming, from the convulsion, to laugh a certain laugh, which, of the same name as the country, they call Sardonian.

24.39. And Corsica the men of old called Cyrnus. There, just as among men there are pygmies, so there are herds of certain horses, a little larger than sheep. These things, then, are such.

25.1. And a great throng of Sclaveni, falling upon Illyria, wrought there sufferings not easy to describe. And the emperor Justinian sent an army against them, of which, among others, the sons of Germanus were the leaders. These, by the multitude of the

25.2. enemy being far inferior, were in no way able to come to close quarters with them, but, always remaining in the rear of the barbarians, harassed the stragglers,

25.3. and killed many of them, and, taking some alive too, sent them to the emperor. None the less, however, these barbarians did terrible things.

25.4. And, wearing out a great length of time in this plundering, they filled all the roads with corpses, and, enslaving countless multitudes and plundering everything, with no one withstanding them, they were carried off home with all their booty.

25.5. For the Romans were not even able to lie in wait for them as they ferried across the river Ister, or to force them in any other way, since the Gepids, serving for hire, received them and ferried them across, having become highly paid; for the wage was a stater of gold for each head.

25.6. Wherefore the emperor was distressed, having no longer any way to check them either as they crossed the river Ister in order to plunder the Roman empire, or as they made their withdrawal from there with the spoils; and on this account he wished to come to some agreement with the nation of the Gepids.

25.7. And meanwhile the Gepids and the Lombards, eager again for war, went against one another. And the Gepids, fearing the power of the Romans (for they were by no means ignorant that the emperor Justinian had made a sworn alliance with the Lombards), were eager to become friends and allies of the Romans.

25.8. They sent, then, envoys at once to Byzantium, themselves too calling the emperor to alliance. And he, with no delay, gave them pledges concerning the alliance.

25.9. And, at the request of these envoys, twelve men too of the senatorial council, giving oaths, confirmed for them this agreement.

25.10. But not long after, the Lombards, in accordance with the alliance, asking for an army in alliance against the Gepids, the emperor Justinian sent one, bringing against the Gepids the charge that they had ferried certain Sclaveni across the river Ister, to the harm of the Romans, after the agreement.

25.11. And the leaders of this army were Justin and Justinian, the sons of Germanus, and Aratius and Suartuas, who had earlier been appointed ruler of the Heruls by Justinian, but, when those who had come from the island of Thule rose against him, as I have said in the earlier books, came to the emperor in flight and at once became general of the Roman registers in Byzantium; and Amalafridas, a Goth, the grandson by his daughter of Amalafrida, the sister of Theoderic the king of the Goths, and the son of Hermenefridus, who had ruled the Thuringians.

25.12. Whom Belisarius brought to Byzantium with Vittigis, and the emperor appointed a commander of the Romans, and betrothed his sister to Audoin, the ruler of the Lombards.

25.13. But of this army none came to the Lombards, except this Amalafridas with his followers. For the rest remained in Illyria about the city of Ulpiana, at the emperor's command, a sedition having arisen there among the inhabitants, on account of which the Christians fight with one another, as will be written by me in the books concerning these matters.

25.14. The Lombards, then, in full force with Amalafridas came to the homes of the Gepids, and, the Gepids confronting them and a fierce battle taking place, the Gepids were worsted, and they say a very great number perished in this struggle.

25.15. And Audoin, the king of the Lombards, sending some of his followers to Byzantium, announced to the emperor Justinian the good news that the enemy had been conquered, but complained that the emperor's army had not come to him in accordance with the alliance, although so great a multitude of Lombards had recently been sent that they might campaign with Narses against Totila and the Goths. These things, then, were carried on thus.

25.16. And in this time earthquakes, falling upon Hellas, exceedingly violent, shook Boeotia and Achaea and the regions about the Crisaean gulf.

25.17. And they razed countless places, and eight cities to the ground, among which were Chaeronea and Coronea and Patrae and the whole of Naupactus, where also there was a great slaughter of men.

25.18. And a chasm too came to be, the earth being rent in many places. And of the parts thus divided, some, coming together again to the same point, gave the earth back its former shape and form, while in some places they remained separated; so that the men there are unable even to mingle with one another, except by using many roundabout ways.

25.19. And in the strait which happens to be between Thessaly and Boeotia, there came suddenly an inrush of the sea about the city called Echinaei and Scarphea in Boeotia.

25.20. And, going far up the mainland and flooding the regions there, it razed them straightway to the ground. And much time was spent while the sea overspread the mainland, so that to men going on foot the islands which happen to be within this strait became for the most part passable, the surge of the sea, clearly, having abandoned its own place and overflowed, contrary to expectation, the land as far as the mountains which rise there.

25.21. And when it befell the sea to return to its own places, fishes were left on the land, the sight of which, being altogether strange to the men there, seemed to be a sort of portent.

25.22. These, thinking them edible, took them up to boil them; but, the heat from the fire touching them, it befell their whole bodies to dissolve into ichor and unbearable putrefaction.

25.23. And about the regions there, where the place is named Schisma, an earthquake too of surpassing greatness, taking place, wrought a greater slaughter of men than in all the rest of Hellas, especially since they happened to be celebrating a certain festival, and many had then gathered there from all Hellas for this purpose.

25.24. And in Italy the following happened. The people of Croton and the soldiers who held the garrison there, whom Palladius commanded, being most bitterly besieged by the Goths and hard pressed by want of necessities, often sent secretly past the enemy into Sicily, calling to witness the commanders of the Roman army there, and especially Artabanes, that, unless they brought aid as quickly as possible to them,

25.25. they would, not willingly, surrender both themselves and the city to the enemy not long after. But no one came from there to aid them. And the winter was ending, and the seventeenth year was coming to a close in this war, the history of which Procopius has written.

26.1. And the emperor, learning what was being done in Croton, sent to Hellas and ordered the guards in Thermopylae to sail to Italy with all speed and to aid the besieged in Croton with all their power.

26.2. And they did accordingly; and, setting out with much eagerness and meeting with a favouring wind, they put in unexpectedly at the harbour of the people of Croton. And the barbarians, suddenly seeing the fleet, falling at once into great fear, with much tumult broke up the siege.

26.3. And some of them fled with ships to the harbour of the Tarentines, while others, going on foot, withdrew to Mount Scyllaeum. And these events much further enslaved the spirit of the Goths.

26.4. And from this Ragnaris, a most approved Gothic man, who commanded the garrison among the Tarentines, and Moras, who was set over the guards in Acherontia, came to a conference with Pacurius the son of Peranius, the Roman commander of those in Hydrus, by the counsel of their followers, on condition that, receiving pledges concerning their safety from the emperor Justinian, they should hand over themselves to the Romans with their followers and the strongholds over which they had been set as guards. On this agreement, then, Pacurius was conveyed to Byzantium.

26.5. And Narses, setting out from Salona, went against Totila and the Goths with the whole Roman army, which was exceedingly great; for he had received fairly great sums from the emperor.

26.6. From which he was both to gather a most considerable army and to meet the other necessities of the war, and to discharge for the soldiers in Italy all the former arrears, in which the emperor had become overdue for them a long time, they not receiving from the treasury, as is the custom, the allowances appointed for them; and moreover, to overcome the minds of those who had deserted to Totila, so that they, having become tractable through this money, might repent of their choice concerning their allegiance.

26.7. For the emperor Justinian, having earlier carried on this war very negligently, made his preparation for it most considerable at the last.

26.8. For when Narses saw him eager that he should campaign into Italy, he displayed an ambition befitting a general, agreeing to serve the emperor at his command on no other terms than if he were to bring with him forces able to fight.

26.9. Money, then, and men and arms in this way were procured by the emperor worthily of the Roman empire, and Narses himself, displaying a most unhesitating eagerness, roused a competent army.

26.10. For from Byzantium he brought a great multitude of Roman soldiers, and from the regions of Thrace and from the Illyrians he gathered many.

26.11. And John too came with his own army and with that left to him by Germanus his father-in-law.

26.12. And Audoin, the leader of the Lombards, persuaded by great sums of money and by the compact of the alliance, picking out two thousand five hundred of his followers, men good in matters of war, sent them in alliance to him, whom there followed a retinue of more than three thousand fighting men.

26.13. And there followed him also more than three thousand of the Herul nation, all horsemen, of whom, among others, Philemuth was leader; and a great multitude of Huns, and Dagisthaeus with his followers, released from prison for this purpose, and Cabades, with many deserting Persians, the son of Zames and grandson of Cabades the king of the Persians, of whom I made mention in the earlier books, in that, by the diligence of the chanaranges, he escaped Chosroes his uncle and came long before to the homes of the Romans; and Asbadus, a certain young man, a Gepid by race, exceptionally energetic, having with him four hundred of his own race, men good in matters of war; and Aruth, a Herul by race, but who from childhood had loved the Roman manner of life and had made the wife of Mauricius the son of Mundus his wedded wife, himself most warlike and having many of the Herul nation as followers, most approved in the dangers of war; and John, surnamed the Glutton, of whom I made mention in the earlier books, bringing a throng of Roman fighting men.

26.14. Now Narses was most munificent and exceedingly quick to benefit those in need, and, being clothed with great power from the emperor, he used his judgment more fearlessly in the matters he was eager about.

26.15. And from this many in earlier times, both commanders and soldiers, found him their benefactor.

26.16. When, then, he had been appointed general against Totila and the Goths, each man most gladly wished to campaign under him, some wishing to repay old kindnesses, others awaiting, as is likely, to obtain great benefits from him.

26.17. And the Heruls especially and the other barbarians were favourably disposed toward him, having been exceptionally well treated by the man.

26.18. And when they came very close to Venetia, he sent a messenger to the leaders of the Franks who commanded the garrisons there and asked them to grant them passage as being friends.

26.19. But they said they would by no means grant this to Narses, openly not bringing out the cause, but hiding it as much as possible—that they made the hindrance for the sake of the advantage of the Franks or out of goodwill toward the Goths—and putting forward a pretext that seemed not very specious, that he was bringing along the Lombards, their bitterest enemies.

26.20. Upon this, while Narses was at a loss at the outset, and was inquiring of the Italians present with him about what was to be done, certain ones reported that, even if the Franks should permit them to make this passage, yet they would have no way to be conveyed from there to Ravenna, nor to make this journey except as far as the city of Verona.

26.21. For Totila, picking out whatever was approved in the Gothic army, and setting over them as general Teias the Goth, a man exceptionally good in matters of war, had sent them to the city of Verona, which was subject to the Goths, in order that he might hinder, so far as possible, the passage of the Roman army. And so it was.

26.22. And when Teias came to be in the city of Verona, he blocked off all the passage there for the enemy, contriving by hand-wrought necessity that the regions everywhere about the river Po should be without exit and altogether impassable, and in some places making thickets and trenches and ravines, in others guarding most accurately, for the Gothic army, the deepest marshes and certain swampy places, so as to come to close quarters with the Romans, if they should make any attempt at the road from there.

26.23. And Totila contrived these things, thinking that by the coast of the Ionian gulf it would never be possible for the Romans to make the journey, since very many navigable rivers, having their outlets there, render the regions there altogether impassable; and that they had by no means so great a multitude of ships as to ferry across the Ionian gulf all together with the whole army, while, if they should sail in small numbers, he himself, with the remaining Gothic army, would with no toil check those who at any time disembarked.

26.24. With such a purpose, then, Totila gave these orders, and Teias did them. But when Narses was exceedingly at a loss, John the son of Vitalian, being experienced in the regions there, advised him to go with the whole army along the coast, the men there being subject to them, as has been shown before, and to have some of the ships and many boats follow along.

26.25. For whenever the army should come to the outlets of the rivers, making a bridge from these boats over the surge of the river, they would more easily and with less toil make the crossing. John advised this, and Narses was persuaded, and in this way he was conveyed with the whole army to Ravenna.

27.1. And while these things were being done thus, meanwhile the following happened. Ildigisal, a Lombard man, of whom I made mention in the earlier books as being an enemy of Audoin, who ruled these barbarians (for Audoin held by force the rule which belonged to Ildigisal by descent), fled from his ancestral homes and was conveyed to Byzantium.

27.2. And when he came there, the emperor Justinian thought him exceedingly worthy of kindness, and appointed him commander of one of the companies stationed for the guard of the Palace, which they call the Scholae.

27.3. And there followed him men of the Lombard nation, good in matters of war, no fewer than three hundred, who first had one dwelling-place in Thrace.

27.4. Ildigisal, then, Audoin demanded back from the emperor Justinian, as being a friend and ally of the Romans, exacting from him, as the wage of friendship, the betrayal of his suppliant; but the emperor in no way gave him up.

27.5. And some time later Ildigisal, complaining that his honour and his maintenance were more scanty than according to his worth and the reputation of the Romans, seemed to be much distressed. This Goar perceived, a Goth, long before a spear-captive in this war from Dalmatia, who had come there when Vittigis the king of the Goths was carrying on the war against the Romans;

27.6. and being passionate and exceedingly energetic, he had continued struggling against the fortune present to him. And when the Goths, after the mastery of Vittigis, looked to revolt, taking up arms against the emperor, he was caught openly working mischief against the state. And, punished with exile, he was conveyed to the city of Antinous in Egypt, and much time was spent by him in this penalty.

27.7. But afterwards the emperor, pitying him, brought him back to Byzantium. This Goar, seeing Ildigisal vexed, as I have said, most assiduously admonishing him, persuaded him to use flight, agreeing to depart from Byzantium together with him.

27.8. And when this plan pleased them, they fled suddenly with a few men, and, coming to Apros, the Thracian city, mingled with the Lombards there. And, lighting upon the imperial horse-pastures, they brought along from there a great number of horses and went forward.

27.9. When the emperor perceived this, sending to all Thrace and Illyria, he gave orders to all the commanders and soldiers to confront these runaways with all their might.

27.10. And first a few of the Huns called Cutrigurs (who, having risen from their ancestral homes, as I have related a little before, the emperor granting it, settled in Thrace) came to blows with these fugitives.

27.11. And, being worsted in battle, some of them fell, while the rest, turning, no longer pursued, but remained there. And thus Ildigisal and Goar with their followers passed through all Thrace, with no one harassing them.

27.12. And, coming to be in Illyria, they found a Roman army gathered with care for their harm.

27.13. And of this army, among others, Aratius and Rhecithancus and Leonianus and Arimuth were commanders, who happened to have been riding the whole day.

27.14. And coming to a wooded place about lamp-lighting time, they halted, intending to bivouac and pass the night there.

27.15. These commanders, then, gave orders to the soldiers, among other things, to take care of their own horses and to refresh themselves beside the river flowing there, soothing the weariness of the road.

27.16. And they themselves, each taking three or four bodyguards along, secretly drank of the river; for they were held, as was likely, by grievous thirst.

27.17. And those about Goar and Ildigisal, being somewhere near and having sent scouts, learned these things. And, standing over them unexpectedly as they drank, they killed them all, and thenceforth more fearlessly arranged the matters of their journey as they wished.

27.18. For the soldiers, having become without commanders, were at a loss and, altogether helpless, marched back. Goar, then, and Ildigisal, escaping thus, came to the Gepids.

27.19. And there happened to be also a certain man of the Gepids, Ustrigotthus by name, who had fled to the Lombards in the following manner. Elemundus, who had been king of the Gepids, had not long before vanished from among men by sickness, and, only this Ustrigotthus, his son, being left, whom Thorisin, having done violence to him (for he was still a stripling), held the rule.

27.20. Wherefore the boy, having no way to avenge himself upon the wrongdoer, rising up from his ancestral homes, went off to the Lombards, who were enemies of the Gepids.

27.21. And there came to be a little later between the Gepids and the emperor Justinian and the nation of the Lombards a reconciliation, and they bound one another by most terrible oaths that they would thenceforth preserve an endless friendship toward one another.

27.22. And when the matters of the reconciliation had been most surely accomplished for them, the emperor Justinian and Audoin the leader of the Lombards, sending to Thorisin the ruler of the Gepids, demanded Ildigisal back as a common enemy, asking him to make the betrayal of his own suppliant a first display of his friendship toward them.

27.23. And he, conferring with the men of repute among the Gepids about the present matter, eagerly inquired whether he should do what was asked by the two kings.

27.24. But they outright forbade it, maintaining that it was better for the nation of the Gepids to perish very straightway, women and all offspring, than to become unholy by such an impiety.

27.25. Hearing this, Thorisin fell into helplessness. For he could neither, his subjects being unwilling, fulfil the deed, nor was he willing to renew war, which had been ended with much toil and time, against the Romans and the Lombards. Afterwards, however, he devised the following.

27.26. Sending to Audoin, he demanded back the son of Elemundus, Ustrigotthus, urging him to a like sin to his own, and calling for an exchange of the betrayal of the suppliants.

27.27. For he had hope that, by their shrinking from the like absurdity, he would check their demand; but Audoin would, with no delay, seize him by lawlessness and by the agreement.

27.28. And, these things being decided by them, knowing well that neither the Lombards nor the Gepids were willing to take a share of the pollution among themselves, they did nothing openly, but each by craft killed the other's enemy.

27.29. In what manner, however, I forbear to say; for the accounts about them do not agree with one another, but differ greatly, as is the way with the most secret of matters. The matters concerning Ildigisal and Ustrigotthus, then, ended thus.

28.1. And to those about Narses, when they came to the city of Ravenna, there were joined Valerian and Justin the generals, and whatever other Roman army had been left there.

28.2. And when a period of nine days had been spent by them in Ravenna, Usdrilas, a Goth, exceptionally good in matters of war, commander of the garrison in Ariminum, wrote to Valerian thus:

28.3. "Having seized everything with rumours, and having now held all Italy with phantoms, and putting on airs beyond what is human, and having thus, as you suppose, frightened the Goths, you then sit now in Ravenna, in order, I think, to be as little plain as possible to the enemy by hiding yourselves—still keeping up this spirit—but with a motley throng of barbarians wearing out a country that belongs to you from no quarter. But rise up as quickly as possible and lay hold of deeds of war at last, and show yourselves to the Goths, and do not hang us up with longer hopes,

28.4. awaiting the spectacle from of old." The letter declared this much. When Narses saw this, brought to him, laughing at the boastfulness of the Goths, he at once set about going out with the whole army, leaving a guard with Justin in Ravenna.

28.5. And, coming near the city of Ariminum, they found the passage from there not easy for them, the Goths having destroyed the bridge there not long before.

28.6. For the river which flows past Ariminum is scarcely passable for a single unarmed man going on foot over the bridge with toil and much hardship, and that too with no one harassing him or checking the passage; but for a multitude of men, and that too exceptionally armed, especially with enemies withstanding them, to cross there in any way is impossible.

28.7. Wherefore Narses, coming to be at the place of the bridge with a few men, at a loss for a long time, considered from where he might find some means for the matter.

28.8. Thither too Usdrilas came, bringing along certain horsemen, lest any of the operations should escape his notice. And one of those who followed Narses, drawing his bow, shot at them, and, hitting one of the horses, straightway killed it.

28.9. And those about Usdrilas then, departing quickly from there, came within the circuit-wall, and at once, bringing along others of their most warlike men, rushed against them through another gate, in order to fall upon them unexpectedly and dispatch Narses very straightway.

28.10. For he had already come to the other side of the river, searching out with the army the crossing. But some of the Heruls, by some chance meeting them there, killed Usdrilas, and, whoever he was, recognized by a Roman man, taking off his head, came to the Roman camp, and, showing it to Narses, encouraged all by their eagerness, who took from what had befallen the proof that the things from God were hostile to the Goths; since they who had laid an ambush for the general of the enemy had themselves, not by plot or any forethought, suddenly been deprived of their commander.

28.11. But Narses, although Usdrilas had fallen, who commanded the garrison in Ariminum, pressed the army forward. For he wished to harass neither Ariminum nor any other place held by the enemy, so that no time should be wasted for him, nor the most urgent business be hindered by an incidental matter.

28.12. And the enemy, since their commander had fallen, keeping quiet and no longer setting themselves as an obstacle, Narses, more fearlessly bridging the river, ferried his whole army across with no toil.

28.13. And, leaving the Flaminian road from there, he went on the left. For Petra, the so-called Pertusa, the strength of whose stronghold by the nature of the place I have described in the earlier books, having been seized by the enemy long before, the regions there, at least along the Flaminian road, happened to be impassable for the Romans and altogether without exit. Narses, then, on this account, leaving the shorter road, went by the passable one.

29.1. For the Roman army, then, the matters of the journey were thus. But Totila, having now learned what had happened in Venetia, awaiting at first Teias and the army with him, remained quietly in the regions about Rome.

29.2. But when they were present, and only two thousand horsemen were still left, Totila did not wait for these, but, setting out with all the rest of the army, went to confront the enemy at a suitable place.

29.3. And on this road, learning what had befallen Usdrilas and that the enemy had crossed Ariminum, he passed through all Tuscany, and, coming to be on the mountain called the Apennine, encamped there and remained near a village which the natives call Taginae.

29.4. And the Roman army, with Narses leading, not long after, encamping themselves too on the mountain Apennine, remained, about a hundred stades distant from the camp of their opponents, in a place level, but encompassed close about with many hills, where once they say Camillus, a general of the Romans, destroyed a host of the Gauls, having conquered them in battle.

29.5. And the place bears the name of this deed even to my time, and preserves in memory the calamity of the Gauls, being called Busta Gallorum; for the Latins call the remains from the funeral pyre busta.

29.6. And there are here very many earthen mounds, tombs of those dead. At once, then, sending from there some of his intimates, Narses gave orders to make an exhortation to Totila, to lay down war and to take counsel for peace at some time, reckoning that he himself, ruling over a few men, and these gathered hastily by no law, could not contend for long against the whole Roman empire.

29.7. And he said this too to them, that he, if they should see him wishing for war, would, with no delay, give command to fix some appointed day for the battle.

29.8. When, then, these envoys came into the presence of Totila, they did what was ordered. And he, talking big, made the boast that they must fight in every way; but they, taking it up, said, "But, good sir, set some fixed time for the engagement." And he at once said, "In eight days let us join battle."

29.9. The envoys, then, returning to Narses, reported the agreement made with them; and he, suspecting that Totila was contriving deceits, made ready as if to fight on the morrow.

29.10. And indeed he hit upon the enemy's thought. For on the following day Totila, of his own announcing, was present with all his army. And already both sides faced one another, distant no more than two bow-shots apart.

29.11. Now there was a certain small mound there, which both sides were eager to seize, thinking it to lie in a position suitable for them, both that they might be able to strike their opponents from above, and because, since wooded places, as I have shown, were somewhere there, it was impossible for any to encircle the Roman camp, going behind, except by a single path,

29.12. which happened to be beside the mound. Wherefore it was necessary for both to make much account of it, for the Goths, that, encircling the enemy in the engagement, they might place them between two fires, and for the Romans, that they might not suffer this.

29.13. But Narses, getting the start, picking out fifty foot-soldiers from a register, sent them in the dead of night to seize and hold it.

29.14. And they, with none of the enemy standing in their way, coming to be there, remained quiet.

29.15. And there is a certain torrent-bed before the mound, beside the path which I have just mentioned, and opposite the place where the Goths were encamped, where the fifty stood, coming close to one another and drawn up into a phalanx as in a narrow space.

29.16. And by day, seeing what had happened, Totila was eager to push them off. And he at once sent a squadron of horsemen against them, ordering them to drive them out from there as quickly as possible.

29.17. The horsemen, then, with much tumult and shouting rushed against them, as if to take them at the first onset; but they, drawn up in a small space and fencing themselves with their shields,

29.18. holding their spears extended, stood. Then the Goths, advancing eagerly, drove against them in confusion; but the fifty, by the pushing of their shields and the most close-packed and in no way disordered presenting of their spears, beat off the assailants most stoutly, and on purpose made a clatter with their shields, in this way ever frightening the horses, and the men with the points of their spears.

29.19. And the horses reared, distressed exceedingly by the difficult ground and the clatter of the shields and having no way out, and the men were worn down, fighting with men packed so close together and yielding in no way, and urging on horses that by no means obeyed. And, beaten off the first time, they retreated backward.

29.20. And, making trial again and suffering the same things, they drew back. And often having departed thus, they no longer harassed them, but Totila set another squadron to this work.

29.21. And these too departing like the former, others were set to the task. And Totila, having thus changed many squadrons, and after all of them having accomplished nothing, then desisted.

29.22. The fifty, then, won great fame for valour, and two of them especially distinguished themselves in this struggle, Paul and Ansilas, who, leaping out from the phalanx, made a display of valour above all others.

29.23. For, drawing their daggers, they laid them on the ground, and, drawing their bows, shot, aiming most effectively at the enemy.

29.24. And many men and many horses they dispatched, so long as their quivers still had shafts for them. And when all the missiles had now failed them, they, taking up their swords and holding their shields before them, defended themselves singly against the assailants.

29.25. And whenever some of their adversaries came riding against them with their spears, they, striking with their swords, at once cut off the points of the spears.

29.26. And often, as they thus checked the attacks of the enemy, it befell the sword of one of them (this man's name was Paul) to be bent by continual cutting against the wood and to be altogether useless. Which he at once dashed to the ground,

29.27. and, laying hold with both hands of the spears, kept taking them from the assailants. And, taking thus manifestly four spears from the enemy, he became most of all the cause of their giving up the enterprise.

29.28. Wherefore Narses thenceforth appointed him his own private shield-bearer for this deed.

30.1. These things, then, went thus. And both sides made ready for battle-array. And Narses, gathering the army into a small space, exhorted them as follows: "For those who set themselves to the contest against the enemy with a power equally matched, perhaps there would be need of much exhortation and of urging to eagerness, so that thereby, having the advantage over their opponents, they might come off from the battle-array most according to their wish; but for you, men, for whom both in valour and in numbers and in all other equipment, by a great difference, the battle is against inferiors, I think there is need of nothing else than to enter upon this engagement with God propitious.

30.2. Calling Him most assiduously to your alliance by prayer, then, with great contempt go for the mastery against these robbers, who, being slaves of the great emperor from the beginning, and having become runaways, and having set up for themselves a vulgar tyrant out of the rabble, were able, in a more thievish fashion, for a certain occasion, to throw the Roman empire into confusion.

30.3. And yet one would suspect that these men, reckoning what was likely, would not now even array themselves against us.

30.4. But they, courting death by some senseless boldness and displaying a mad rashness, dare to take up manifest death, not putting forward good hope, nor awaiting what may come to them from the unexpected and the unlooked-for, but being expressly led by God to the punishments of their political deeds. For those who are doomed from above to suffer something go of their own accord to their chastisements.

30.5. Apart from this, you set yourselves to this engagement contending for a lawful state, while they struggle on behalf of innovating against the laws, not expecting to hand on anything of their possessions to any successors, but knowing well that everything will perish together with them, and living with a hope that lasts but a day.

30.6. So that they are most of all worthy to be despised. For from those who set themselves up not by law and a good state all valour has departed, and victory has been discerned, as is likely, not being wont

30.7. to set itself against the virtues." Such an exhortation Narses made. And Totila too, seeing his followers amazed at the Roman army, called them together and himself spoke to them all as follows: "To make to you a last exhortation, fellow-soldiers, I have gathered you here.

30.8. For there will, I think, be no need of any other exhortation after this engagement, but the war will altogether be decided in a single day.

30.9. For so has it befallen both us and the emperor Justinian to be unnerved and stripped of all our powers, having met with toils and battles and hardships for a vast length of time, and having grown weary of the necessities of war, that, if we get the better of our opponents in the present engagement, they will by no means henceforth recover, but if we stumble in this battle, no hope will be left to the Goths of renewing the fight, but each side will have the defeat sufficiently as a specious pretext for quiet.

30.10. For men, despairing of the worst of their affairs, no longer dare to return to them, but even though need, perhaps very strongly, thrust them toward these, they are held back in their resolves, the memory of their evils frightening their souls.

30.11. Having heard this much, men, play the man with all your might, putting off the valour of your soul to no other time, and toil with all your strength, not husbanding your bodies for any other danger.

30.12. And let there be for you no sparing of arms and horses, as they will no longer be useful to you. For fortune, having worn out all else beforehand, has kept the very head of hope for this day alone.

30.13. Practise, then, good courage and prepare yourselves for daring. For those whose hope stands upon a hair, as now yours does, even the briefest moment of time it does not profit to be slack.

30.14. For when the height of the opportunity has passed, eagerness thenceforth becomes profitless, even though it be exceedingly excessive, the nature of things not admitting a stale valour, since, the need being past, what comes after must of necessity be out of season too.

30.15. I think, then, that it befits you to take the struggle in hand most effectively, that you may also be able to use its good things. And you know well that in the present case flight is most deadly.

30.16. For men flee, leaving their array, for no other reason than that they may live; but if flight is likely to bring manifest death, he who has undergone the danger will be much more in safety than the fugitive.

30.17. And the throng of the enemy is worth despising, gathered as it is from nations the most numerous possible. For an alliance contributed from many quarters carries neither faith nor power secure, but, being torn apart in its races, is divided also in its purposes, as is likely.

30.18. For do not think that Huns and Lombards and Heruls, hired for I know not how much money, will ever risk their lives for them unto death.

30.19. For their souls are not so cheap that they should hold even their lives second to silver; but I know well that, making the matters of battle a thing for the eyes, they will very straightway play the coward, either having received their wages, or having fulfilled the command of their own commanders.

30.20. For to men, even what seem to be the most delightful of things—not to say warlike—if they be not done according to their wish, but under compulsion or for hire or constrained by something else, no longer turn out to their liking, but, through necessity, appear grievous. Considering these things, with all eagerness let us go against the enemy."

31.1. Totila too said this much. And the armies came together for battle and were drawn up as follows. Front to front, all on both sides stood, intending to make the front of the phalanx as deep and as long as possible.

31.2. And of the Romans, the left wing Narses and John held, about the mound, and with them whatever was best in the Roman army;

31.3. for each of them, apart from the other soldiers, was followed by a multitude of bodyguards and shield-bearers and barbarian Huns, gathered for their valour;

31.4. while on the right Valerian and John the Glutton with Dagisthaeus and all the rest of the Romans were drawn up.

31.5. And foot-archers from the register-soldiers, about eight thousand, they set on both wings. And in the middle of the phalanx Narses set the Lombards and the Herul nation and all the other barbarians, dismounting them from their horses and making them foot-soldiers, in order that, if they should prove cowards in the work or play the malingerer, if it should so happen, they might not be the quicker to flight.

31.6. And the end of the left wing of the Roman front Narses set at an angle, stationing there one thousand five hundred horsemen.

31.7. And it had been ordered to five hundred of them, whenever any of the Romans should happen to be routed, to bring them aid in haste, and to the thousand, whenever the foot-soldiers of the enemy should begin the work, to come at once behind them and place them between two fires.

31.8. And Totila too in the same manner set the whole army opposite the enemy. And, going round his own array, he encouraged the soldiers and called them to daring by countenance and word.

31.9. And Narses too did this same thing, raising on poles bracelets and necklaces and golden bridles and certain other incitements to eagerness for the danger.

31.10. And for some time neither began the battle, but both remained quiet, awaiting the attack of their opponents.

31.11. But afterwards one from the Gothic army, Coccas by name, having a sufficient reputation for energy, riding out his horse, came near the Roman army and challenged, if anyone wished to come out against him to single combat.

31.12. Now this Coccas happened to be one of the Roman soldiers who had earlier deserted to Totila.

31.13. And at once one of the bodyguards of Narses stood opposite him, an Armenian by race, Anzalas by name, himself too mounted on a horse.

31.14. Coccas, then, rushing first as if to strike with his spear, came at his enemy, aiming at his belly.

31.15. But Anzalas, suddenly swerving his horse, made him fail of his own rush. And thereby, coming himself to the flank of the enemy, he thrust his spear into his left side.

31.16. And he, falling from his horse, lay a corpse on the ground; and an extraordinary outcry rose from the Roman army, yet not even so did either side begin any battle.

31.17. But Totila alone came into the no-man's-land, not to fight a single combat, but to baulk this opportunity for his opponents. For, learning that the two thousand Goths who had been left were coming up close by, he was putting off the engagement until their arrival, and did the following.

31.18. First he did not disdain to show the enemy who he was. For both the equipment of his arms, thickly overlaid with gold, he was wearing, and the adornment of his cheek-pieces and from his cap and his spear hung purple and otherwise kingly, a marvel how great.

31.19. And he himself, mounted on a surpassing horse, skilfully played the war-dance in the no-man's-land. For wheeling his horse in a circle, and turning him again to the other side, he made circular courses.

31.20. And, as he rode, he hurled his spear into the air, and, snatching it as it quivered from there, then passing it from hand to hand frequently on either side, and shifting it skilfully, he prided himself on his practice in such things, leaning back and bending sideways and inclining to either side, like one accurately taught from boyhood the matters of the dance.

31.21. And, doing these things, he wore away all the early morning. And, wishing to prolong the postponement of the battle to the utmost, he sent to the Roman camp, saying that he wished to confer with them. But Narses maintained that he was playing a trick, since, if he had wished to fight earlier, when there was opportunity to put forward proposals, now, having come into the no-man's-land, he would proceed to discussions.

32.1. And meanwhile the two thousand too came to the Goths; and Totila, learning that they had come to the stockade, since the time also was leading toward the midday meal, both went himself to his own tent and the Goths, breaking up the battle-array, returned backward.

32.2. And coming to be in his own halting-place, Totila found the two thousand already present. And, ordering all to take their meal, and changing the whole equipment of his arms, he armed himself accurately in the manner of a soldier, and at once led the army against the enemy, thinking to fall upon them unexpectedly and thereby to take them.

32.3. But not even so did he find the Romans unprepared. For Narses, fearing—which happened—lest the enemy should fall upon them unexpectedly, had forbidden all to take their meal or to sleep or even to take off their cuirasses, no one of them all, or to let his horse loose from the bridle.

32.4. Yet he did not leave them altogether without food, but ordered them to breakfast in their array and in the equipment of their arms, and thus, continually on the watch, to await the attack of the enemy.

32.5. In the same manner, however, they were no longer drawn up, but for the Romans the wings, on which the foot-archers stood by four thousands, turned to a crescent shape, by the counsel of Narses.

32.6. And the foot-soldiers of the Goths all stood in a mass behind the horsemen, in order that, if it should befall the horsemen to be routed, the fugitives, turning back upon them, might be saved, and both together at once advance. And it had been ordered to all the Goths to use neither bow nor anything else at all in this engagement except their spears.

32.7. Wherefore it befell Totila to be outgeneralled by his own imprudence; for he, setting himself to this battle, persuaded by I know not whom, presented to his opponents his own army opposing them neither in arms nor balanced in array nor matched in any other respect, since the Romans, each, used whatever was most effective in the work, either shooting, or thrusting with spears, or handling swords, or doing some other of the things ready to their hand and serviceable for the moment, some riding, others setting themselves on foot in the array, according to what was profitable to the need, and in some places effecting an encirclement of the enemy, in others receiving them as they came on and beating off the attack with their shields.

32.8. But the horsemen of the Goths, their foot-soldiers being left behind them, trusting in their spears alone, advanced with an inconsiderate rush, and, coming to be in the toil, reaped the fruit of their imprudence.

32.9. For rushing against the middle of the enemy, they unwittingly came to be in the midst of the eight thousand foot-archers, and, being shot at by them on both sides, they straightway gave up, since the archers were turning both wings of the front gradually to the crescent, as I have said before.

32.10. Many men, then, and many horses the Goths lost in this toil, before they had yet come to close quarters with their opponents, and, having made trial of many irreparable evils, late and with difficulty came to the array of the enemy.

32.11. Here I cannot single out any of the Romans or of the barbarian allies with them for wonder above the rest.

32.12. For there was one eagerness and valour and contending spirit in all, and each, as their opponents came on, receiving the onset most stoutly, beat it off.

32.13. And it was now toward evening, and both camps were suddenly set in motion, the Goths to retreat, the Romans to pursuit.

32.14. For when the Romans rushed against them, the Goths did not hold out against the enemy, but yielded as they advanced and turned in headlong flight, terrified by their throng and their good order.

32.15. And they looked to no defence, as if phantoms had fallen upon them, fearing them, or as if warred upon from heaven.

32.16. And in a little, when they came to their own foot-soldiers, the evil was raised much higher and went forward.

32.17. For not in order making their withdrawal did they come to them (to recover breath and to renew the fight with them, as is the custom, or to push off the pursuers, or to make a counter-pursuit or some other form of war), but so disorderly that some of them even were destroyed, the cavalry falling upon them.

32.18. Wherefore the foot-soldiers neither, opening their ranks, received them, nor stood firm to save them, but together with them all fled headlong, and there indeed they destroyed one another, as in a battle by night.

32.19. And the Roman army, enjoying their terror, with no sparing kept ever killing those in their path, who neither defended themselves nor dared to look them in the face, but offered themselves to the enemy to do with as they wished; so much did the terrors weigh upon them and the fear prevail.

32.20. And six thousand of them died in this work, and many gave themselves up to their adversaries. These the Romans for the moment took alive, but not long after killed. And not only Goths were slain, but very many too of the old Roman soldiers, those who had earlier renounced the Roman army and deserted, as I have said in the earlier books, to Totila and the Goths.

32.21. But those of the Gothic army to whom it befell neither to perish nor to come into the hands of the enemy were able to escape notice and to flee, as each of them had of horse or of foot or of fortune (or as occasion or place served to attain this).

32.22. This battle, then, ended thus, and it was now altogether growing dark. And as Totila fled in the darkness with men no more than five, of whom Scipuar happened to be one, some of the Romans pursued, not knowing that it was Totila; among whom Asbadus the Gepid happened to be.

32.23. He, when he came very close to Totila, set upon him as if to strike him on the back with his spear.

32.24. But a Gothic youth from the household of Totila, following his master as he fled, and indignant at the fortune then present, cried out loudly, "What is this, you dog? Are you rushing to strike your own master?" Asbadus, then, thrust his spear with all his might against Totila, but he himself, struck in the foot by Scipuar, remained there.

32.25. And Scipuar himself, struck by one of the pursuers, stood still, and those who had made the pursuit with Asbadus, being four, no longer pursued, in order to save him,

32.26. but turned back with him. But those who followed Totila, thinking the enemy were still pursuing them, none the less drove forward, although they were bringing along the man mortally struck and most surely fainting, necessity controlling their violent course.

32.27. And, having accomplished eighty-four stades, they came to a place named Caprae. There, keeping quiet thenceforth, they tended Totila's wound; and he not long after measured out his life.

32.28. And there those who had followed him, hiding him in the earth, withdrew. This was the end of the rule and the life of Totila, who had ruled the Goths eleven years, an end not coming worthily upon his former deeds, since both the affairs of the man had earlier gone forward, and his death came not according to reason upon his deeds.

32.29. But now too fortune, plainly displaying her charms and mocking human affairs, both the unaccountable that is her own and the unpleadable of her will, gave Totila prosperity, of itself, for a length of time, from no cause, but then, in this stubborn way, allotted the man cowardice and ruin.

32.30. from no fitting cause at the present time. But these things, I think, are neither comprehensible to man, nor ever will be later; yet they are forever spoken of and held in opinion, whispered abroad for all time, as is dear to each, the seemingly probable account consoling the ignorance. But I return to the former account.

32.31. The Romans, then, did not know that Totila had thus vanished from among men, until a certain woman, a Goth by race, told them and pointed out the tomb.

32.32. And they, hearing it, thinking the account not sound, came to the place, and, digging up the grave with no hesitation, brought out Totila a corpse from there, and, recognizing him, as they say, and having filled their desire with this sight too, hid him again in the earth, and at once reported the whole matter to Narses.

32.33. But some say that the matters concerning Totila and this battle did not happen thus, but in some other manner; which it has seemed to me not inappropriate to record.

32.34. For they say that the retreat of the Gothic army did not come about without cause or contrary to reason, but that, some of the Romans skirmishing, an arrow from a bow fell suddenly upon Totila, not by the forethought of the one who sent it, since Totila, armed in the manner of a soldier and arrayed somewhere in the phalanx unregarded, stood, not wishing to be plain to the enemy, nor in any way offering himself to a plot, but some fortune contriving these things for him and guiding the shaft to the man's body; and that he, mortally struck, becoming, so far as possible, in great pain, went out of the phalanx and, with a few, went backward little by little.

32.35. And as far as Caprae he drove his horse, enduring the hardship, but there, fainting, remained thenceforth to tend the wound, and not long after the appointed day of life came upon him.

32.36. And the Gothic army, being neither otherwise a match for their opponents, and their commander too having become, contrary to expectation, incapable of fighting, fell into amazement, that Totila alone, not from a plot of the enemy, should be mortally struck, and from this, becoming exceedingly fearful and dispirited, fell into a terror that had no bound and into a retreat thus shameful. But concerning these things let each man say as he knows.

33.1. And Narses, exceedingly delighted at what had happened, ceased not referring all things to God, which indeed was the true account, and managed the matters at hand.

33.2. And first, wishing to be rid of the absurdity of the Lombards who followed him (who, in addition to their other lawlessness in their manner of life, burned the buildings they fell in with, and forcibly approached the women who took refuge in the sanctuaries), he, having welcomed them with great sums, let them go to their ancestral homes, ordering Valerian and Damian his nephew, with their followers, to lead them on their way as far as the Roman borders, so that they should harm no one in their withdrawal.

33.3. And when the Lombards had departed from the land of the Romans, Valerian encamped about the city of Verona, intending to besiege it and bring it over to the emperor.

33.4. And the guards there, becoming afraid, came to a conference with Valerian, as about to hand over both themselves and the city by agreement.

33.5. But when the Franks who held the garrison in the regions of Venetia learned this, they hindered it with all eagerness, thinking fit to lay claim to the country as belonging to them. And from this Valerian withdrew from there with his whole army, accomplishing nothing.

33.6. And the Goths, all those who had fled from the engagement and been saved, crossing the river Po, held the city of Ticinum and the regions there, and appointed Teias as their ruler.

33.7. And he, finding all the money which Totila had happened to lay up in Ticinum, planned to bring the Franks into alliance, and disposed and arranged the Goths as well as he could from the present circumstances, gathering them all about him in haste.

33.8. Hearing this, Narses ordered Valerian, with all his followers, to keep guard about the river Po, so that the Goths might not be able more fearlessly to combine, while he himself, with all the rest of the army, went against Rome.

33.9. And, coming to be in Tuscany, he took Narnia by agreement, and to the people of Spoletium, who were unwalled, he left a garrison, ordering them to rebuild as quickly as possible such parts of the circuit-wall as the Goths had happened to throw down.

33.10. And he sent also some to make trial of the garrison in Perusia. And those who commanded the guards in Perusia were two Romans who had become deserters, Meligedius and Ulifus, who, having been a bodyguard of Cyprian before, persuaded by Totila who promised him much, then killed Cyprian by treachery, who at that time commanded the garrison there.

33.11. Meligedius, then, accepting the proposals of Narses, planned, with his Roman followers, to hand over the city; but those about Ulifus, perceiving what was being done, combined openly against them.

33.12. And Ulifus with those of his mind was destroyed, while Meligedius at once handed over Perusia to the Romans. To Ulifus, however, it befell that vengeance from God, clearly, fell upon him, in that he was destroyed in the very place where he had killed Cyprian. These things, then, went forward thus.

33.13. And the Goths who held the guard in Rome, when they learned that Narses and the Roman army were coming against them and were very close, prepared to confront them with what they could.

33.14. Now Totila had happened to burn many of the buildings of the city, when he first took it. . . . And at last, reckoning that the Goths, being reduced to a few, could no longer guard the whole circuit-wall of Rome, he, fencing off a small portion of the city about the tomb of Hadrian with a short wall and fastening it to the former wall, set up the shape of a fort.

33.15. And there, laying up their most precious possessions, the Goths guarded this fort accurately, but the rest of the wall of the city they neglected and disregarded.

33.16. Leaving, then, a few of themselves as guards in this place at that time, all the rest, coming to be about the battlements of the wall of the city, were eager to make trial of the enemy as they assaulted the wall.

33.17. Now the whole circuit of Rome, through its excessive size, neither could the Romans, attacking, surround, nor the Goths guard.

33.18. But, scattered, the one party attacked where they happened to come, the others defended as best they could from the present circumstances. And Narses, bringing along a great number of archers, made an attack upon a certain portion of the circuit-wall, while elsewhere John the son of Vitalian with his followers assaulted.

33.19. And Philemuth and the Heruls harassed at another part, and very far from them the rest followed. And they all assaulted the wall, being as far as possible from one another.

33.20. And against them the barbarians, gathering, received the attack. But the rest of the circuit-wall, where the Romans made no assault, was altogether empty of men, the Goths all gathering wherever the enemy should attack, as I have said.

33.21. And meanwhile, by the counsel of Narses, Dagisthaeus, having a great multitude of soldiers and bringing along both the standard of Narses and that of John and many ladders, suddenly attacked a portion of the circuit-wall altogether bereft of guard.

33.22. And at once setting all the ladders against the wall, with no one defending, with no toil he came inside the circuit-wall with his followers, and they opened the gates at will.

33.23. And the Goths, perceiving this at once, no longer looked to defence, but all fled wherever it became possible for each. And some leaped into the fort, while others went at a run to Portus.

33.24. And here a thought has come to me in my account, in what manner fortune mocks human affairs, not always going to men in the same way, nor regarding them with equal eyes, but changing with time and place, and plays a sort of game against them, by varying the worth of the wretched men according to the occasion or the place or the manner, if indeed Bessas, who earlier lost Rome, not long after recovered for the Romans Petra in Lazica, while conversely Dagisthaeus, having given up Petra to the enemy, recovered Rome for the emperor in a short time.

33.25. But these things have been from the beginning and will always be, so long as the same fortune is with men. And Narses then went with all his army to make war upon the fort.

33.26. And the barbarians, becoming terrified and having received pledges concerning their lives, surrendered to him at once both themselves and the fort, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of the emperor Justinian.

33.27. And thus, under the reign of this emperor, Rome was taken for the fifth time; and Narses at once sent the keys of its gates to the emperor.

34.1. Then indeed it was shown most plainly to men that to all, for whom it must be ill, even what seem to be good fortunes are turned to destruction, and, having fared according to their wish perhaps, by such prosperity they are destroyed together with it.

34.2. For to the senatorial council and the people of the Romans this victory happened to become, much more, the cause of ruin, in the following manner.

34.3. The Goths, fleeing and despairing of the dominion of Italy, making it a by-task of their journey, dispatched with no sparing the Romans whom they fell in with.

34.4. And the barbarians of the Roman army treated as enemies all whom they fell in with at their entrance into the city.

34.5. And besides, this too befell them. Many of those from the senatorial council, this being decided by Totila, had earlier remained in the regions about Campania.

34.6. And some of these, when they learned that Rome was held by the emperor's army, rising up from Campania, went to it. When the Goths learned this, all of them who happened to be in the strongholds there, searching out all the regions there, killed all the patricians. Among whom too was Maximus, of whom I made mention in the earlier books.

34.7. And Totila too had happened, when he was going from there to confront Narses, to gather the children of the approved Romans from each city, and, picking out about three hundred of them, whom he thought most beautiful of body, telling their parents that they would live with him,

34.8. but in true account being his hostages. And these Totila had then ordered to be beyond the river Po, and Teias, now finding them all there, killed them.

34.9. And Ragnaris, a Gothic man, who commanded the garrison among the Tarentines, although by the emperor's decision he had received pledges from Pacurius and had agreed to go over to the Romans, as I have said before, and had provided six Goths too in the rank of hostages to the Romans on this agreement, when he heard that Teias had been appointed king of the Goths and was both bringing the Franks into aid and willing with his whole army to come to close quarters with the enemy, changing his counsel was by no means willing to fulfil what had been agreed.

34.10. And, eager and straining to recover the hostages, he devised the following. Sending to Pacurius, he asked that a few of the Roman soldiers be sent to him, in order that they might be able to go in safety to Hydrus, and from there, ferrying across the Ionian gulf, to be conveyed to Byzantium.

34.11. Pacurius, then, far removed from what the man had planned, sent fifty of his followers.

34.12. And he, receiving them into the fort, shut them up at once, and signified to Pacurius that, if he wished to rescue his own soldiers, it would be necessary to give back the Gothic hostages.

34.13. Hearing this, Pacurius left a few men for the guard of Hydrus, and with all the rest of the army went at once against the enemy.

34.14. And Ragnaris, with no delay, killed the fifty, and, as if to confront the enemy, led the Goths out from Tarentum. And when they came to blows with one another, the Goths were worsted.

34.15. And Ragnaris, losing very many there, with the rest had recourse to flight. He was in no way able, however, to enter Tarentum, the Romans having surrounded it on all sides, but, coming to Acherontia, he remained there.

34.16. These things, then, had come about thus. And the Romans, not long after, besieging Portus, took it by agreement, and a fort in Tuscany which they call Nepa, and the stronghold in the place named Petra Pertusa.

34.17. But Teias (for he did not think the Goths a match for the Roman army by themselves) sent to Theudibald the ruler of the Franks, offering great sums and calling him to alliance.

34.18. But the Franks, having taken counsel, I think, of what was profitable, were willing to die neither for the advantage of the Goths nor for that of the Romans, but were eager to make Italy their own, and on this account were willing to undergo the dangers in war. And it happened

34.19. that Totila had laid up some of his money in Ticinum, as I have said before, but most of it in an exceedingly strong fort, which happens to be in Cumae in Campania, and had set guards there, and appointed as commander over them his own brother with Herodian.

34.20. These Narses, wishing to take, sent some to Cumae to besiege the fort, while he himself remained there putting Rome in order. And, sending others, he ordered them to besiege Centumcellae.

34.21. But Teias, fearing for the guards in Cumae and the money, and despairing of the hope from the Franks, drew up his followers to come to close quarters with the enemy.

34.22. Perceiving this, Narses ordered John the nephew of Vitalian and Philemuth with his own army to go to the regions of Tuscany, both to sit there and to check for their opponents the road to Campania, in order that those who were besieging Cumae might more fearlessly take it either by force or by agreement.

34.23. But Teias, leaving for the most part the shortest roads on the right, and making many and very long roundabout ways, going through the coast of the Ionian gulf, came into Campania,

34.24. escaping the notice of all the enemy. When Narses learned this, he sent for those about John and Philemuth, who were guarding the passage in Tuscany, and recalled Valerian, who was just then taking Petra the so-called Pertusa, with his followers, and gathered the forces together, and himself too, with all the army drawn up as for battle, went against the Campanians.

35.1. Now there is in Campania a certain mountain, Vesuvius, of which I made mention in the earlier books, in that it often sends forth a sound resembling a bellowing. And whenever this befalls it, it then belches up also a great quantity of boiling ashes. These things were said by me at that point in my account.

35.2. Of this mountain—as also of Aetna in Sicily—the middle parts, from the lowest to the summit, happen of their own accord to be hollow, where, below, the fire burns continually.

35.3. And to such a depth does this hollow extend, that to a man standing on the summit and daring to peer over from there the flame is not easily visible.

35.4. And whenever it befalls this mountain to belch up the ashes, as I have said, and the flame, breaking off rocks from the topmost parts of Vesuvius, lifts them above the peak of this mountain, some small, others exceedingly great, and, sending them from there, scatters them wherever it happens.

35.5. And there flows here a stream of fire too, extending from the summit down to the foot of the mountain and still further, all which things are wont to occur about Aetna also. And the stream of fire makes high banks on either side, cutting the lower parts.

35.6. And, carried at first along the channel, the flame is likened to a burning outflow of water; but when it befalls it to be quenched, the course is checked along the channel straightway, and the stream goes no further forward, and the sediment of this fire appears as mud resembling ashes.

35.7. And at the foot of this Vesuvius are springs of potable water. And a river issues from them, Dracon by name, which flows very close to the city of Nuceria. On either side of this river both sides then encamped.

35.8. And the Dracon is in its stream small, yet not passable either for horsemen or for foot-soldiers, since, gathering its current into a narrow space, and cutting the ground as deep as possible on either side, it makes its banks, as it were, overhanging.

35.9. Whether the nature of the land or of the water bears the cause of this, I cannot know. And the Goths, having seized the bridge of the river, since they encamped very close to it, and putting wooden towers there and making other machines and the so-called ballistrae there, in order that from there they might be able to strike the enemy from above as they harassed them.

35.10. It was impossible, then, for any engagement to take place hand to hand, the river, as I have said, being between; but both sides, coming as close as possible to the bank along it, used arrows for the most part against one another.

35.11. And there were also certain single combats, a Gothic man, if it so happened, crossing the bridge on a challenge. And a period of two months was spent by the two camps in this way.

35.12. So long, then, as the Goths commanded the sea there, bringing in provisions by ships, they held out, since they were encamped not far from the sea.

35.13. But afterwards the Romans took the ships of the enemy by the betrayal of a Gothic man who was set over all the vessels, and countless ships came to them from Sicily and from the rest of the empire.

35.14. And at the same time Narses too, setting up wooden towers on the bank of the river, was altogether able to enslave the spirit of his opponents.

35.15. At which the Goths, becoming fearful and hard pressed by want of necessities, fled to a mountain which was near, which the Romans call in the Latin tongue Mons Lactarius (the Milk Mountain); where the Romans could in no way follow them, the difficulty of the ground withstanding them.

35.16. But the barbarians, having at once gone up there, repented, since they were short of provisions much more, having no means by which to procure them for themselves and their horses.

35.17. Wherefore, thinking the overthrow of life in battle preferable to that by famine, they went against the enemy contrary to expectation, and fell upon them suddenly and unexpectedly.

35.18. And the Romans, as best they could from the present circumstances, stood to defend themselves, not arranging their array by commanders or companies or registers, nor in any other way distinguished from one another, nor about to listen to the commands given them in the engagement, but arraying themselves against the enemy with all their strength, wherever any chanced to be.

35.19. The Goths, then, first dismounting from their horses, all stood on foot, front to front, in a deep phalanx; and the Romans too, seeing this, let their horses go, and were all drawn up in the same manner.

35.20. And here a battle worthy of much account, and the valour of a man inferior, I think, to none of those called heroes, shall be recorded by me, which Teias displayed on this occasion.

35.21. The Goths were roused to daring by the despair of the present circumstances, while the Romans, though seeing them desperate, withstood them with all their power, ashamed to give way to inferiors; and both went against their neighbours with much fury, the one party courting death,

35.22. the other coveting valour. And the battle began in the early morning, and Teias, having become plain to all, holding his shield before him and brandishing his spear, stood first with a few others of the phalanx.

35.23. And the Romans, seeing him, and thinking that, if he should fall, the engagement would be broken up for them very straightway, combined against him, all who laid claim to valour, being exceedingly many, and all hurled their spears against him, some thrusting, others throwing them.

35.24. And he, covered by his shield, received all the spears upon it, and, charging upon them suddenly, dispatched many.

35.25. And whenever he saw his shield full of spears fixed in it, handing it to one of his shield-bearers, he took another.

35.26. Fighting thus, he continued through the third part of the day, and then indeed his shield held twelve spears fixed in it, and he could no longer move it where he wished and beat off the assailants.

35.27. And he called eagerly for one of his shield-bearers, not leaving his array, nor even so much as to a single finger's breadth, nor giving back, nor leading the enemy forward, nor turning round, nor resting his back upon his shield, nor indeed becoming sideways, but, as if fixed to the ground, he stood there with his shield, killing with his right hand and beating off with his left and calling the name of his shield-bearer.

35.28. And he came to him with the shield, and Teias at once exchanged the one weighed down with spears for it.

35.29. And in this interval, for a brief point of time, it befell his breast to become bare, and by some chance it befell him then to be struck by a javelin, and from this he died straightway.

35.30. And some of the Romans, lifting his head upon a pole, going round to either army, showed it: to the Romans, that they might take more courage, and to the Goths, that, despairing, they might put an end to the war.

35.31. Yet not even so did the Goths break off the engagement, but fought until night, although they knew well that their king was dead. And when it grew dark, both sides, parting, passed the night there in the equipment of their arms.

35.32. And on the following day, rising at dawn, they arrayed themselves in the same manner again and fought until night, and neither gave way to the other nor in any way turned or drew back, although many were killed on both sides, but, maddened by their pitiless conduct toward one another, they kept at the work, the Goths knowing well that they were carrying on their last battle, and the Romans disdaining to be worsted by them.

35.33. At last the barbarians, sending to Narses some of their men of repute, said that they had perceived that their struggle was against God; for they perceived the power arrayed against them; and, putting together what had befallen them, they understood the truth of the matter, and wished thenceforth to abandon contention and to leave the struggle—not, however, to obey the emperor, but to live as independent men together with some of the other barbarians; and they begged the Romans to grant them a peaceful withdrawal, not grudging them a prudent resolve, but even presenting them with their own money by way of journey-provisions, all that each of them had happened to lay up before in the strongholds in Italy.

35.34. Narses took these things under counsel. And John the son of Vitalian advised him to accept this request, and not to go on, by battle, against men who courted death, nor to make trial of a boldness that springs from despair of life, which is grievous both to those who hold it and to those who confront them.

35.35. "For it suffices," he said, "to the prudent to conquer, and the wish for too much might perhaps turn even to disadvantage."

35.36. Narses was persuaded by the advice, and they came to an agreement, on condition that the barbarians who had been left should, taking with them their own money, depart at once from all Italy, and should by no device carry on war against the Romans any longer.

35.37. A thousand Goths, then, in the meanwhile, rising up from the camp, went to the city of Ticinum and the regions beyond the river Po, of whom, among others, Indulf was leader, of whom I made mention before.

35.38. And all the rest, giving oaths, confirmed all that had been agreed. And thus the Romans took both Cumae and all the rest, and the eighteenth year came to a close in this Gothic war, the history of which Procopius has written.