DATE:
[X]491 A.D.
For this reason the Eruli were no longer able to tarry in their ancestral homes, but departing from there as quickly as possible they kept moving forward, traversing the whole country which is beyond the Ister River, together with their wives and children. But when they reached a land where the Rogi dwelt of old, a people who had joined the Gothic host and gone to Italy, they settled in that place. But since they were pressed by famine, because they were in a barren land, they removed from there not long afterward, and came to a place close to the country of the Gepaedes. And at first the Gepaedes permitted them to dwell there and be neighbours to them, since they came as suppliants. But afterwards for no good reason the Gepaedes began to practise unholy deeds upon them. For they violated their women and seized their cattle and other property, and abstained from no wickedness whatever, and finally began an unjust attack upon them. And the Eruli, unable to bear all this any longer, crossed the Ister River and decided to live as neighbours to the Romans in that region; this was during the reign of the Emperor Anastasius, who received them with great friendliness and allowed them to settle where they were. But a short time afterwards these barbarians gave him offence by their lawless treatment of the Romans there, and for this reason he sent an army against them. And the Romans, after defeating them in battle, slew most of their number, and had ample opportunity to destroy them all. But the remainder of them threw themselves upon the mercy of the generals and begged them to spare their lives and to have them as allies and servants of the emperor thereafter. And when Anastasius learned this, he was pleased, and consequently a number of the Eruli were left; however, they neither became allies of the Romans, nor did they do them any good.
But when Justinian took over the empire,[Y] he bestowed upon them good lands and other possessions, and thus completely succeeded in winning their friendship and persuaded them all to become Christians. As a result of this they adopted a gentler manner of life and decided to submit themselves wholly to the laws of the Christians, and in keeping with the terms of their alliance they are generally arrayed with the Romans against their enemies. They are still, however, faithless toward them, and since they are given to avarice, they are eager to do violence to their neighbours, feeling no shame at such conduct. And they mate in an unholy manner, especially men with asses, and they are the basest of all men and utterly abandoned rascals.
DATE:
[Y]527 A.D.
Afterwards, although some few of them remained at peace with the Romans, as will be told by me in the following narrative, all the rest revolted for the following reason. The Eruli, displaying their beastly and fanatical character against their own “rex,” one Ochus by name, suddenly killed the man for no good reason at all, laying against him no other charge than that they wished to be without a king thereafter. And yet even before this, while their king did have the title, he had practically no advantage over any private citizen whomsoever. But all claimed the right to sit with him and eat with him, and whoever wished insulted him without restraint; for no men in the world are less bound by convention or more unstable than the Eruli. Now when the evil deed had been accomplished, they were immediately repentant. For they said that they were not able to live without a ruler and without a general; so after much deliberation it seemed to them best in every way to summon one of their royal family from the island of Thule. And the reason for this I shall now explain.
XV
When the Eruli, being defeated by the Lombards in the above-mentioned battle, migrated from their ancestral homes, some of them, as has been told by me above, made their home in the country of Illyricum, but the rest were averse to crossing the Ister River, but settled at the very extremity of the world; at any rate, these men, led by many of the royal blood, traversed all the nations of the Sclaveni one after the other, and after next crossing a large tract of barren country, they came to the Varni, as they are called. After these they passed by the nations of the Dani, without suffering violence at the hands of the barbarians there. Coming thence to the ocean, they took to the sea, and putting in at Thule, remained there on the island.
Now Thule is exceedingly large; for it is more than ten times greater than Britain. And it lies far distant from it toward the north. On this island the land is for the most part barren, but in the inhabited country thirteen very numerous nations are settled; and there are kings over each nation. In that place a very wonderful thing takes place each year. For the sun at the time of the summer solstice never sets for forty days, but appears constantly during this whole time above the earth. But not less than six months later, at about the time of the winter solstice, the sun is never seen on this island for forty days, but never-ending night envelops it; and as a result of this dejection holds the people there during this whole time, because they are unable by any means to mingle with one another during this interval. And although I was eager to go to this island and become an eye-witness of the things I have told, no opportunity ever presented itself. However, I made enquiry from those who come to us from the island as to how in the world they are able to reckon the length of the days, since the sun never rises nor sets there at the appointed times. And they gave me an account which is true and trustworthy. For they said that the sun during those forty days does not indeed set just as has been stated, but is visible to the people there at one time toward the east, and again toward the west. Whenever, therefore, on its return, it reaches the same place on the horizon where they had previously been accustomed to see it rise, they reckon in this way that one day and night have passed. When, however, the time of the nights arrives, they always take note of the courses of the moon and stars and thus reckon the measure of the days. And when a time amounting to thirty-five days has passed in this long night, certain men are sent to the summits of the mountains — for this is the custom among them — and when they are able from that point barely to see the sun, they bring back word to the people below that within five days the sun will shine upon them. And the whole population celebrates a festival at the good news, and that too in the darkness. And this is the greatest festival which the natives of Thule have; for, I imagine, these islanders always become terrified, although they see the same thing happen every year, fearing that the sun may at some time fail them entirely.
But among the barbarians who are settled in Thule, one nation only, who are called the Scrithiphini, live a kind of life akin to that of the beasts. For they neither wear garments of cloth nor do they walk with shoes on their feet, nor do they drink wine nor derive anything edible from the earth. For they neither till the land themselves, nor do their women work it for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit. For the forests, which are exceedingly large, produce for them a great abundance of wild beasts and other animals, as do also the mountains which rise there. And they feed exclusively upon the flesh of the wild beasts slain by them, and clothe themselves in their skins, and since they have neither flax nor any implement with which to sew, they fasten these skins together by the sinews of the animals, and in this way manage to cover the whole body. And indeed not even their infants are nursed in the same way as among the rest of mankind. For the children of the Scrithiphini do not feed upon the milk of women nor do they touch their mother’s breast, but they are nourished upon the marrow of the animals killed in the hunt, and upon this alone. Now as soon as a woman gives birth to a child, she throws it into a skin and straightway hangs it to a tree, and after putting marrow into its mouth she immediately sets out with her husband for the customary hunt. For they do everything in common and likewise engage in this pursuit together. So much for the daily life of these barbarians.
But all the other inhabitants of Thule, practically speaking, do not differ very much from the rest of men, but they reverence in great numbers gods and demons both of the heavens and of the air, of the earth and of the sea, and sundry other demons which are said to be in the waters of springs and rivers. And they incessantly o
ffer up all kinds of sacrifices, and make oblations to the dead, but the noblest of sacrifices, in their eyes, is the first human being whom they have taken captive in war; for they sacrifice him to Ares, whom they regard as the greatest god. And the manner in which they offer up the captive is not by sacrificing him on an altar only, but also by hanging him to a tree, or throwing him among thorns, or killing him by some of the other most cruel forms of death. Thus, then, do the inhabitants of Thule live. And one of their most numerous nations is the Gauti, and it was next to them that the incoming Eruli settled at the time in question.
On the present occasion, therefore, the Eruli who dwelt among the Romans, after the murder of their king had been perpetrated by them, sent some of their notables to the island of Thule to search out and bring back whomsoever they were able to find there of the royal blood. And when these men reached the island, they found many there of the royal blood, but they selected the one man who pleased them most and set out with him on the return journey. But this man fell sick and died when he had come to the country of the Dani. These men therefore went a second time to the island and secured another man, Datius by name. And he was followed by his brother Aordus and two hundred youths of the Eruli in Thule. But since much time passed while they were absent on this journey, it occurred to the Eruli in the neighbourhood of Singidunum that they were not consulting their own interests in importing a leader from Thule against the wishes of the Emperor Justinian. They therefore sent envoys to Byzantium, begging the emperor to send them a ruler of his own choice. And he straightway sent them one of the Eruli who had long been sojourning in Byzantium, Suartuas by name. At first the Eruli welcomed him and did obeisance to him and rendered the customary obedience to his commands; but not many days later a messenger arrived with the tidings that the men from the island of Thule were near at hand. And Suartuas commanded them to go out to meet those men, his intention being to destroy them, and the Eruli, approving his purpose, immediately went with him. But when the two forces were one day’s journey distant from each other, the king’s men all abandoned him at night and went over of their own accord to the newcomers, while he himself took to flight and set out unattended for Byzantium. Thereupon the emperor earnestly undertook with all his power to restore him to his office, and the Eruli, fearing the power of the Romans, decided to submit themselves to the Gepaedes. This, then, was the cause of the revolt of the Eruli.
XVI
BELISARIUS and Narses came together with their two armies near the city of Firmum, which lies on the shore of the Ionian Gulf, and is one day’s journey distant from the city of Auximus. In that place they began to hold conferences with all the commanders of the army, considering at what particular point it would be most to their advantage to make the first attack upon the enemy. For if, on the one hand, they should proceed against the forces besieging Ariminum, they suspected that the Goths in Auximus would in all probability, taking them in the rear, inflict irreparable harm both upon them and upon the Romans who lived in that region; but, on the other hand, they were anxious concerning the besieged, dreading lest by reason of their lack of provisions they should suffer some great misfortune. Now the majority were hostile toward John, and made their speeches accordingly; and the charge they brought against him was that he had been moved by unreasoning daring and a desire to gain great sums of money to place himself in his present dangerous position, and that he would not allow the operations of the war to be carried out in due order nor in the manner prescribed by Belisarius. But Narses, who loved John above all other men, beginning to be fearful lest Belisarius should give way to the words of the officers and treat the situation at Ariminum as of secondary importance, spoke as follows:
“Fellow officers, you are not debating a question of the customary sort, nor are you holding this council regarding a situation about which one would naturally be in doubt, but in circumstances where it is possible even for those who have had no experience of war to make their choice offhand and in so doing to choose the better course. For if it seems to be true that each of these two alternatives offers to those who fail an equal degree of danger and evenly balanced possibilities of mischief, it is altogether worth while to deliberate and to go most thoroughly into the arguments, and only then to make our decision regarding the situation before us. But if we should wish to put off the assault upon Auximus to some other time, the penalty we shall suffer will involve in no way any vital interest of ours; for what difference could arise during the interval? But if we fail at Ariminum, we shall in all probability, if it is not too bitter a thing to say, shatter the strength of the Romans. Now if John treated your commands with insolence, most excellent Belisarius, the atonement you have already exacted from him is surely ample, since it is now in your power either to save him in his reverse or to abandon him to the enemy. But see that you do not exact from the emperor and from us the penalty for mistakes committed by John through ignorance. For if the Goths capture Ariminum at the present juncture, it will be their good fortune to have made captive a capable Roman general, as well as a whole army and a city subject to the emperor. And the calamity will not stop with this, but it will also have such weight as to determine the fortune of the war in every field. For you should reason thus regarding the enemy, that they are still, even at the present time, far superior to us in the number of their soldiers, and they have lost their courage only because of the many reverses they have suffered. And this is natural; for the adversity of fortune has taken away all their confidence. If, therefore, they meet with success at the present time, they will at no distant date recover their spirit and thereafter they will carry on this war with a boldness, not merely equal to ours, but actually much greater. For it is a way with those who are freeing themselves from a difficult situation always to have a better heart than those who have not yet met with disaster.” Thus spoke Narses.
At this time a soldier who had escaped from Ariminum by slipping through the guard of the barbarians came into the camp and shewed Belisarius a letter which John had written to him, conveying the following message: “Know that for a long time all our provisions have been exhausted, that we are no longer able either to hold out against the populace or to ward off our assailants, and that within seven days we shall unwillingly surrender both ourselves and this city to the enemy; for beyond this time we are absolutely unable to overcome the necessity which is upon us, and this necessity, I think, will be a sufficient apology in our behalf, if we do anything which is unseemly.” Thus, then, did John write. But Belisarius, on his part, was sorely perplexed and plunged into the greatest uncertainty. For while he was fearful concerning the besieged, he suspected, at the same time, that the enemy in Auximus would overrun the whole country round about and plunder it with never a fear, and also that they would ambush his own army from behind at every opportunity, and especially whenever he joined battle with his opponents, and would thus in all probability do the Romans great and irreparable harm. Finally, however, he did as follows. He left Aratius with a thousand men there, instructing them to make a camp by the sea, at a distance of two hundred stades from Auximus. These troops he commanded neither to move away from that position nor to fight a decisive action with the enemy, except in so far as to drive them off from the camp, if they should ever make an attack upon it. For he hoped by this course to make it certain that the barbarians, seeing Romans encamped close by, would remain quietly in Auximus and never follow his own army to do it harm. And he despatched by sea a very considerable army commanded by Herodian, Uliaris and Narses the brother of Aratius. But Ildiger was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition, and he was instructed by Belisarius to sail straight for Ariminum, taking care not to attempt putting in to shore near the city while the land army was still far behind; for they would be proceeding by a road not far from the coast. And he ordered another army under command of Martinus to march along the coast, keeping near these ships, and instructing them that, when they came close to the enemy, they should burn a greater number of cam
p-fires than usual and not in proportion to the actual numbers of the army, and thus lead their opponents to believe their numbers to be much greater than they actually were. He himself, meanwhile, went by another road far removed from the shore with Narses and the rest of the army, passing through the city of Urvisalia, which in earlier times Alaric destroyed so completely that nothing whatever has been left of its former grandeur, except a small remnant of a single gate and of the floor of the adjoining edifice.
Delphi Complete Works of Procopius Page 58