Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  Consequently, if the current does actually’ seem to flow from the place called Hieron to Byzantium, no one could reasonably maintain that the sea and the Euxine end at that point. For this view rests upon no solid basis of nature, but here again the narrowness of the channel must be considered the determining factor. Indeed not even this is all that happens here; for the fishermen of the towns on the Bosphorus say that the whole stream does not How in the direction of Byzantium, but while the upper current which we can see plainly does How in this direction, the deep water of the abyss, as it is called, moves in a direction exactly opposite to that of the upper current and so flows continually against the current which is seen. Consequently, whenever in going after a catch of fish they cast their nets there anywhere, these are always carried by the force of the current in the direction of Hieron.

  But at Lazica the land checks the advance of the sea on all sides and puts a stop to its course, and thus makes its first and only ending at that point, the Creator obviously having set bounds there for sea and land. For when the sea encounters that beach, it neither advances farther nor does it rise to any higher level, although it is constantly receiving the inflow of countless rivers of extraordinary size which empty into it from all sides, but it falls back and returns again and thus, while making the beach of normal width, it preserves the boundary set by the land as if fearing some law, and, through the necessity prescribed by this, checking itself with precision and taking care not to be found to have transgressed the covenant in any way. For all the other shores of the sea do not face it, but lie along its side. But concerning these matters let each man form his decision and speak as he wishes.

  VII

  Now the reason why Chosroes was eager to get possession of Lazica has already been stated by me in a previous passage, but that particular consideration which above everything else impelled him and the Persians to desire this I shall here set forth, now that I have given a description of this whole country and so made clear my statement of this matter. Many times these barbarians, under the leadership of Chosroes, had invaded the Roman domain with a mighty army, and while they had indicted upon their enemy sufferings not easy to describe, as has been told by me in the books on this subject, still they gained from these invasions no advantage whatsoever and had also to bear the loss of both treasure and lives: for they always J departed from the Roman domain having lost many men. Consequently, after they had returned to their own land, they would very privately rail against Chosroes and call him the destroyer of the Persian nation. And on one such occasion when they had returned from Lazica, seeing that they had suffered terrible losses there, they were actually on the point of combining openly against him and doing away with him by a most cruel death, and would have done so had he not learned in advance and guarded against it by winning over the most notable of them by assiduous wheedling. As a result of this incident he wished to remove the sting from the accusation, and to this end was eager to gain some great advantage for the Persian Empire.

  He accordingly made an attempt upon the city of Daras, but met with reverse there, as I have told, and came to a state of utter despair regarding the capture of the place. For neither could he thereafter capture it by a surprise assault, seeing that the guards of the city were so alert, nor indeed did he entertain the hope that he would by any device get the better of them in a siege. For there is always an abundant supply of all manner of provisions in the city of Daras stored away against a siege, so that it may last for a great length of time, and close by there is a spring placed by nature among precipices, forming a large river which flows straight towards the city, and those who seek to interfere with it are unable to turn it to any other course or otherwise do violence to it on account of the rough character of the terrain. But as soon as this river gets inside the circuit-wall, it flows about the entire city, filling its cisterns, and then flows out, and very close to the circuit-wall it falls into a chasm, where it is lost to sight. And where it emerges from there has become known to no man up to this time. Now this chasm was not there in ancient times, but a long time after the Emperor Anastasius built this city nature unaided fashioned and placed it there, and for this reason it comes about that those desiring to draw a siege about the city of Daras are very hard pressed by scarcity of water.

  So Chosroes, having failed in this attempt, as I have said, came to the conclusion that, even if he should be able to gain some other Roman city, he would still never be able to establish himself in the midst of the Romans while many strongholds were left behind in the hands of his enemy. Indeed it was for this reason that he razed Antioch to the ground when he captured it and so departed from Roman soil. Consequently his thoughts soared aloft and were carried toward more distant hopes as he sought after impossible things. For having learned by report how those barbarians on the left of the Euxine Sea who dwell about the Maeotic Lake overrun fearlessly the Roman domain, he kept saying that it would be possible for the Persians, if they held Lazica, to go, whenever they wished, straight to Byzantium with no trouble and without crossing the sea at all, just as the other barbarian nations who are settled in that region are constantly doing. For this reason, then, the Persians are trying to gain Lazica. But I shall return to the point where I made this digression from the narrative.

  VIII

  Chorianes, then, and the Median army had made their camp near the Hippis River. And when Gubazes, the Colchian king, and Dagisthaeus, who commanded the Roman army, learned this, they formed a common plan and led forth the Roman and Lazic army against the enemy. And when they had come to the opposite side of the Hippis River and had made their camp there, they began to consider the situation, debating whether it would be more to their advantage to wait there and receive the enemy’s attack or whether they should advance upon their enemy, in order, of course, that by displaying their daring to the Persians and by making it obvious to their opponents that they were filled with contempt as they went against them, they might, by assuming the offensive in the combat, be able to humble the spirit of the men arrayed against them. And since the opinion of those prevailed who urged an advance upon the enemy, the whole army straightway hastened toward them. Thereupon the Lazi would no longer consent to fight beside the Romans, putting forth the objection that the Romans, on the one hand, in entering the struggle, were not risking their lives for their fatherland or their most precious possessions, while for them the danger involved their children and their wives and their ancestral land; so that they would have to blush before their own women, if it should so fall out that they were defeated by their opponents. Indeed they imagined that under this stress they would improvise the valour which was not in them. And they were filled with zeal to engage with the enemy by themselves first, so that the Romans might not throw them into confusion during the action through not having the same zeal as they had in meeting the danger. After the Lazi had begun to shew this spirit of bravado, Gubazes became well pleased, and calling them together a little apart from the Romans he exhorted them as follows.

  “Fellow-men, I know not whether it is necessary to address any exhortation to you to impel you to be of good courage. For those men whose enthusiasm is upheld by the necessity of circumstances would, I think, need no further exhortation, and this is the case with us, in the present crisis at any rate. For it is your women and children and your ancestral land, and, to speak plainly, your all, which is involved in this danger, for it is to secure these that the Persians are coming upon us. For no one in the whole world gives way to those who are seeking by violence to rob him of any of his possessions, for nature compels him to fight for his property. And you are not ignorant that nothing stops the avarice of the Persians when they have come to have power in their grasp, and if at the present time they prevail over us in the war, they will not stop with simply ruling us or imposing taxes or treating us in other matters as subjects, — a statement which we can test by our own memory of what Chosroes attempted upon us not long ago. But let me not even so much as mentio
n the experience we have had with the Persians, and let not the name of the Lazi come to an end. And the struggle against the Medes, my fellow-men, is not a hard one for us who have many times grappled with them and prevailed over them in the fight. For a task which has become thoroughly familiar entails no difficulty whatever, the necessary labour having been previously expended in practice and experience. Consequently we shall be obliged because of this fact actually to despise the enemy as having been defeated in previous combats and having no such ground for courage as you have. For when the spirit has been humbled, it is by no means wont to mount again. Holding these thoughts then before your minds, advance with high hopes to close with the enemy.”

  After making such a speech Gubazes led out the army of the Lazi, and they arrayed themselves as follows. As a vanguard the cavalry of the Lazi advanced in order against the foe, while the Roman cavalry followed them, not at a short interval, but very far in the rear. This particular Roman force was under the leadership of Philegagus, a Gepaid by birth and an energetic man, and of John the Armenian, son of Thomas, an exceptionally able warrior who was known by the surname Guzes, and who has been mentioned already in the previous narrative. Behind these followed Gubazes, the king of the Lazi, and Dagisthaeus, the general of the Romans, with the infantry of both armies, reasoning that, should it come about that the cavalry were routed, they would be saved very easily by falling back on them. So the Romans and the Lazi arrayed themselves in this manner; Chorianes meanwhile selected from his army a thousand men equipped with the corselet and in all other respects most thoroughly armed, and sent them forward as a scouting party, while he himself with all the rest of the army marched in the rear, leaving behind in the camp a garrison of only a few men. Now the cavalry of the Lazi which had gone ahead shewed in what they did scant regard for their professions, denouncing by their actions the hopes which they had previously aroused. For when they came suddenly upon the advance party of the enemy, they did not bear the sight of them, but straightway wheeled their horses and began to gallop back to the rear in complete disorder; and pressing onward they mingled with the Romans, not declining to take refuge with the very men beside whom they had previously been unwilling to array themselves. But when the two forces came close to each other, neither side at first opened the attack or joined battle, but each army drew back as their opponents advanced and in turn followed them as they retired, and they consumed much time in retreats and counter-pursuits and swiftly executed changes of front.

  But there was a certain Artabanes in that Roman army, a Persarmenian by birth, who had, as it happened, deserted long before to the Armenians who are subjects of the Romans, not as a simple deserter however, but by the slaughter of one hundred and twenty Persian warriors he had given the Romans a pledge of his loyalty to them. For he had come before Valerian, who at that time was a general in Armenia and requested him to give him fifty Romans; and upon getting what he wished he proceeded to a fortress situated in Persarmenia. There a garrison of one hundred and twenty Persians received him with his company into the fortress, it not being as yet clear that he had changed his allegiance and gone over to the enemy. He then slew the hundred and twenty men and plundered all the money in the fortress — and there was an enormous quantity of it — and so came to Valerian and the Roman army, and having thus proved himself faithful to them, he thereafter marched with the Romans. This Artabanes in the present battle placed himself in the space between the armies, taking with him two of the Roman soldiers, and thither came some of the enemy also. Artabanes charged these men, and engaging with one of the Persians who was a man of high valour and great bodily prowess, he straightway slew him with his spear and throwing him from his horse brought him down to the ground. But one of the barbarians standing beside the fallen man smote Artabanes on the head with a sword, but not with a mortal stroke. Then one of the followers of Artabanes, a Goth by birth, attacked this man, and while he still held his hand at Artabanes’ head, smote him with a well-directed blow in the left flank and laid him low. Thereupon the thousand, being terrified at what had taken place, began to withdraw to the rear, where they awaited Chorianes and the rest of the army of Persians and Alani, and in a short time mingled with them.

  By this time the infantry under Gubazes and Dagisthaeus also came up with their cavalry and both armies closed to a hand-to-hand encounter.

  At this point Philegagus and John, thinking they were too few to bear the onset of the barbarian horse, particularly because they had no confidence in the power of the Lazi, leaped from their horses and compelled all to do the same, both Romans and Lazi. They then arrayed themselves on foot in a very deep phalanx, and all stood with a front facing the enemy and thrusting out their spears against them. But the barbarians knew not what to make of it, for they were neither able to charge their opponents, who were now on foot, nor could they break up their phalanx, because the horses, annoyed by the points of the spears and the clashing of the shields, balked; and so they all resorted to their bows, emboldened by the hope that by a multitude of missiles they would very easily turn their enemy to flight. The Romans likewise and all the Lazi began to do exactly the same thing. So from each side the arrows were flying in great numbers into both armies, and on both sides many men were falling. Now the Persians and Alani were discharging their missiles in a practically continuous stream and much faster than their opponents. However, the Roman shields checked the most of them.

  In the course of this battle Chorianes, the commander of the Persians, happened to be hit. But by whom this man was wounded was not clear to anyone; for some chance guided the shaft as it came out of a crowded mass of men, fastened itself in the man’s neck, and killed him outright, and by one man’s death the battle was inclined and victory fell to the Romans. For as he fell from his horse to the ground on his face and lay there, the barbarians went in a wild rush to their stockade, while the Rinnans with the Lazi followed upon their heels and slew many, hoping to capture with one rush the camp of their opponents. But one of the Alani, who was a man of great courage and bodily strength and who knew unusually well how to shoot rapidly to either side, took his stand at the entrance of the stockade, which was very narrow, and unexpectedly blocked the way for the oncoming Romans for a long time. But John, the son of Thomas, approached alone very close to him and slew the man with a spear, and thus the Romans and Lazi captured the camp. And great numbers indeed of the barbarians were destroyed there, and the remainder betook themselves away to their native land, each one as he found it possible to get there. So this invasion of the Persians into the land of Colchis ended in this way. Meanwhile another Persian army, after fortifying the garrison at Petra with an abundance of provisions and all other supplies, had departed on their way.

  IX

  IN the meantime the following took place. The Lazi began to slander Dagisthaeus to the emperor, going to Byzantium to do so, charging him with treason and Medizing. For they declared that he had yielded to the persuasion of the Persians in refusing to establish himself inside the fallen circuit-wall of Petra, while the enemy in the interval had filled bags with sand and laid courses with them instead of stones, and thus had made secure such parts of the circuit-wall as had fallen down. And they stated that Dagisthaeus, whether impelled to do so by a bribe or through negligence, had postponed the attack to some other time, and had thus let slip for the moment the precious opportunity which, of course, he had never again been able to grasp. The emperor consequently confined him in the prison and kept him under guard; he then appointed Bessas, who had returned not long before from Italy, General of Armenia and sent him to Lazica with instructions to command the Roman army there. Vendus, the brother of Buzes, had also been sent there already with an army, as well as Odonachus, Babas from Thrace, and Uligagus of the Eruli.

  Now Nabedes had invaded Lazica with an army, but he accomplished nothing of consequence beyond spending some time with this army among the Abasgi, who had revolted from the Romans and Lazi, and taking from them sixty childr
en of their notables as hostages. It was at that time that Nabedes as an incident of his journey captured Theodora, the consort of Opsites (he was uncle of Gubazes and king of the Lazi), finding her among the Apsilii, and he carried her off to the land of Persia. Now this woman happened to be a Roman by birth, for the kings of the Lazi from ancient times had been sending to Byzantium, and, with the consent of the emperor, arranging marriages with some of the senators and taking home their wives from there. In fact Gubazes was sprung from a Roman family on his mother’s side. But the reason why these Abasgi turned to revolt I shall now set forth.

  When they had removed from power their own kings, as has been told by me above, Roman soldiers sent by the emperor began to be quartered among them very generally, and they sought to annex the land to the Roman empire imposing certain new regulations upon them. But because these were rather severe the Abasgi became exceedingly wroth. Fearing, consequently, that they would be mere slaves of the Romans thereafter, they again put their rulers in power, one named Opsites in the eastern part of their country, and Sceparnas in the western part. Thus, because they had fallen into despair of good things, they naturally enough sought to regain the status which had previously seemed to them grievous in place of their later estate, seeing this had been worse, and in consequence of this change they were in fear of the power of the Romans and as secretly as possible went over to the Persians. When the Emperor Justinian heard this, he commanded Bessas to send a strong army against them. He accordingly selected a large number from the Roman army, appointed to command them Uligagus and John the son of Thomas, and immediately sent them by sea against the Abasgi. Now it happened that one of the rulers of the Abasgi, the one named Sceparnas, was away for some reason among the Persians; for he had gone under summons not long before to Chosroes. But the other ruler, learning of the inroad of the Romans, mustered all the Abasgi and made haste to encounter them.