Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  Now the Roman army numbered twelve thousand; they were not, however, all concentrated in one place, for there were only three thousand in the garrison at Archaeopolis under command of Odonachus and Babas, both able warriors, while all the rest were waiting in camp on the other side of the Phasis River, having in mind that, if the enemy’s army should make an attack at any point, they themselves would move out from there and go to the rescue in full force. These were commanded by Vendus and Uligagus; and Varazes the Persarmenian was also with them, having recently returned from Italy and having eight hundred Tzani under his command. As for Bessas, as soon as he had captured Petra, he was quite unwilling to continue the struggle, but withdrew to the Pontici and the Armenians and was giving the closest possible attention to the revenues from his territory, and by this niggardly policy he again wrecked the cause of the Romans. For if, straightway after that victory which I have described and his capture of Petra, he had gone to the boundaries of Lazica and Iberia and barricaded the passes there, never again, as it seems to me, would a Persian army have entered Lazica. But in fact this general, by slighting this task, all but surrendered Lazica to the enemy with his own hand, paying little heed to the emperor’s wrath. For the Emperor Justinian was accustomed to condone, for the most part, the mistakes of his commanders, and consequently they were found very generally to be guilty of offences both in private life and against the state.

  Now there were two fortresses of the Lazi almost exactly on the boundary of Iberia, Scanda and Sarapanis. These, being situated in extremely rugged and difficult country, were extraordinarily hard of access. They used to be garrisoned by the Lazi in ancient times with great difficulty, for no food at all grows there, and supplies had to be brought in by men who carried them on their shoulders. But the Emperor Justinian at the beginning of this war had removed the Lazi from these fortresses and substituted a garrison of Roman soldiers. These soldiers, then, not long afterwards, being hard pressed by the lack of necessary supplies, abandoned these fortresses because they were quite unable to live for any considerable time on millet, as the Colchians did, since it was not familiar to them, and the Lazi no longer persevered in travelling the long journey to bring them all their supplies. Whereupon the Persians occupied and held them, but in the treaty the Romans got them back in exchange for the fortress of Bolum and Pharangium, as I have told in detail in the preceding narrative. The Lazi accordingly razed these fortresses to the ground, in order that the Persians might not hold them as outposts against them. But the Persians rebuilt and held the one of the two which they call Scanda, and Mermeroes led the Medic army forward.

  There had been a city in the plain called Rhodopolis, which lay first in the way of those invading Colchis from Iberia, so situated as to be easily accessible and altogether open to attack. For this reason the Lazi had long before, in fear of the Persian invasion, razed it to the ground. When the Persians learned this, they proceeded straight for Archaeopolis. But Mermeroes learned that his enemy was encamped near the mouth of the Phasis River, and he advanced upon them. For it seemed to him better first to capture this force and then to undertake the siege of Archaeopolis, in order that they might not come from the rear and do harm to the Persian army. And he went close by the fortifications of Archaeopolis and gave a mocking salutation to the Romans there, and with something of a swagger said that he would come back to them at the earliest moment. For, said he, he wished to address his greetings to the other Romans first who were encamped near the Phasis River. And the Romans, by way of answer, bade him go wherever he wished, but they declared that if he came upon the Romans there he would never return to them. When the commanders of the Roman army learned this, they became thoroughly frightened and, thinking themselves too few to withstand the force of their assailants, embarked on the boats which they had ready and ferried across the Phasis River, every man of them, placing their supplies of provisions on the boats, as much at least as they were able to carry, and throwing the rest into the river in order that the enemy might not be able to revel in them. So when Mermeroes arrived there with his whole army not long afterward, and saw the enemy’s camp entirely abandoned, he was vexed and filled with resentment at the baffling situation. He then fired the Roman stockade, and boiling with fury turned back immediately and led his army against Archaeopolis.

  XIV

  The city of Archaeopolis is situated on an exceedingly rugged hill, and a river flows by, coming down from the mountains which are above the city. And it has two gates, one of which is below, opening on the base of the hill, but this one is not inaccessible except in so far that the ascent to it from the plain is not smooth; but the upper gate leads out to the steep slope and is extremely difficult to approach; for the ground before this gate is covered with brush which extends to an indefinite distance. And since the inhabitants of this city can get no other water, those who built it constructed two walls which extend from the city all the way to the river, in order that it might be possible for them to draw water from it in safety.

  Mermeroes, consequently, being eager and determined to assault the wall there with his whole strength, did as follows. He first commanded the Sabiri to built a great number of rams, of the sort which men would be able to carry on their shoulders, because he was quite unable to bring up the customary engines to the circuit-wall of Archaeopolis, lying as it did along the lower slopes of the hill; for he had heard what had been achieved by the Sabiri who were allies of the Romans at the wall of Petra not long before, and he sought by following out the method discovered by them to reap the advantage of their experience. And they carried out his orders, constructing immediately a large number of rams, such as I have said were recently made for the Romans by the Sabiri. Next he sent the Dolomites, as they are called, to the precipitous parts of the city, directing them to harass the enemy there with all their strength. These Dolomites are barbarians who live indeed in the middle of Persia, but have never become subject to the king of the Persians. For their abode is on sheer mountainsides which are altogether inaccessible, and so they have continued to be autonomous from ancient times down to the present day; but they always march with the Persians as mercenaries when they go against their enemies. And they are all foot-soldiers, each man carrying a sword and shield and three javelins in his hand. But they shew extra ordinary nimbleness in running over cliffs and peaks of mountains, just as on a level plain. For this reason Mermeroes assigned them to attack the wall there, while he with the rest of the army went against the lower gate, bringing up the rams and the elephants. So then the Persians and Sabiri together, by shooting rapidly at the wall so that they filled the air round about it with their arrows, came not far from compelling the Romans there to abandon the parapet. And the Dolomites, hurling in their javelins from the crags outside the circuit-wall, were inflicting still more harm upon the Romans facing them. On every side, indeed, the situation of the Romans had become bad and full of danger, for they were in an extremely evil plight.

  At that point Odonachus and Babas, either as making a display of valour or wishing to test the soldiers, or it may even be that some divine influence moved them, left only a few of the soldiers where they were, directing them to ward off the assailants of the wall from the parapet, and meanwhile called together the greater part of them and made a short exhortation, speaking as follows. “Fellow-soldiers, you perceive the danger which is upon us and the necessity in which we are involved. But it is incumbent upon us not to yield in the least to these evils. For those who come into a situation where safety is despaired of could be saved only by not courting safety; for a fondness for life is wont in most cases to be followed by destruction. And you will be obliged to consider this fact also in our present stress, that by simply warding off the enemy from this parapet your safety will by no means be firmly established, even though we carry forward the struggle with the greatest zeal. For a battle which is waged between armies standing apart gives no one opportunity to shew himself a brave man, but the issue as a general thing i
s determined by chance. If, however, the conflict becomes a hand-to-hand struggle, enthusiasm will in most cases prevail, and victory will appear where valour lies. And apart from this, even in the case of success in the conflict, men fighting from the wall would reap no great benefit from this success, because, while they have for the moment succeeded in repulsing the enemy, the danger will again be acute on the morrow, and, on the other hand, if they fail even by a little, they are naturally destroyed along with their defences. But once having conquered their opponents in hand-to-hand combat they will thereafter have their safety assured. Let us then with these thoughts in mind advance against the enemy with all zeal, calling to our aid the assistance from above, and with our hopes raised high by that desperate situation which has now fallen to us. For God is ever wont to save those men above all others who find no hope of safety in themselves.” After Odonachus and Babas had thus encouraged the soldiers, they opened the gates and led the army forth on the run, leaving a few men behind for the following reason. One of the Lazi, who was a man of note in this nation, an inhabitant of Archaeopolis, had on the previous day negotiated with Mermeroes for the betrayal of his native land.

  Now Mermeroes had sent word to him to render the Persians only this service, that, whenever they began the assault on the wall, he should secretly set fire to the buildings where the grain and the rest of the provisions were stored. And he directed him to do this, reasoning that one of two things would happen, either that the Romans being concerned about this fire and devoting their attention to it would give his men opportunity to scale the circuit-wall unmolested, or that in their eagerness to repulse the Persians storming the wall they would pay no attention to these buildings; and if in this way the grain and other provisions were burned, he would with no difficulty capture Archaeopolis in a short time. With such purpose did Mermeroes give these instructions to this Laz; and he, for his part, agreed to carry out the order when he saw the storming of the wall at its height, by setting fire as secretly as possible to these buildings. And when the Romans saw the flames rising suddenly, some few’ of them went to the rescue and with great difficulty quenched the fire, which had done a certain amount of damage, but all the rest, as stated, went forth against the enemy.

  This force, by falling upon them suddenly and terrifying them by the unexpectedness of their attack, slew many, for the Persians offered no resistance; indeed they did not even dare raise a hand against them. This was because the Persians, having no expectation that their enemy, who were few in number, would make a sally against them, had taken up positions apart from one another with a view to storming the wall and so were not in battle array. And those who were carrying the rams upon their shoulders were quite naturally both unarmed and unprepared for battle, while the others, with only strung bows in their hands, were entirely unable to ward off an enemy pressing upon them in close array. Thus the Romans, slashing and turning from side to side, kept destroying them. At that moment also it so happened that one of the elephants, because he was wounded, some say, or simply because he became excited, wheeled round out of control and reared up, thus throwing his riders and breaking up the lines of the others. As a result of this the barbarians began to retreat, while the Romans continued without fear to destroy those who from time to time fell in their way. And one might wonder at this point that the Romans, though knowing well by what means they ought to repel a hostile attack by elephants, did none of the necessary things, being obviously confused by the situation, and yet this result was achieved without effort on their part. And what this is I shall now make clear.

  When Chosroes and the Medic army were storming the fortifications of Edessa, one of the elephants, mounted by a great number of the most warlike men among the Persians, came close to the circuit-wall and made it seem that in a short space he would overpower the men defending the tower at that point, seeing they were exposed to missiles falling thickly from above, and would thus take the city. For it seemed that this was, in fact, an engine for the capture of cities. The Romans, however, by suspending a pig from the tower escaped this peril. For as the pig was hanging there, he very naturally gave vent to sundry squeals, and this angered the elephant so that he got out of control and, stepping back little by little, moved off to the rear. Such was the outcome of that situation. But in the present case the omission due to the thoughtlessness of the Romans was made good by chance. But now that I have mentioned Edessa, I shall not be silent as to the portent which appeared there before this present war. When Chosroes was about to break the so-called endless peace, a certain woman in the city gave birth to an infant which in other respects was a normally formed human being, but had two heads. And the meaning of this was made clear by the events which followed; for both Edessa and practically the whole East and the greater part of the Roman empire to the north came to be fought for by two sovereigns. Thus did these things happen. But I shall return to the point from which I strayed.

  When confusion thus fell upon the Medic army, those stationed in the rear, seeing the confusion of those before them, but having no real knowledge of what had happened, became panic-stricken and turned to retreat in great disorder. And the Dolomites also experienced a like panic (for they were fighting from the higher positions and could see everything which transpired), and they too began to flee in a disgraceful manner, so that the rout became decisive. Four thousand of the barbarians fell there, among whom, as it happened, were three of the commanders, and the Romans captured four of the Persian standards, which they immediately sent to Byzantium for the emperor. They say, moreover, that not less than twenty thousand of their horses perished, not from wounds inflicted by their enemy’s missiles or swords, but because in travelling a great distance they had become utterly exhausted and then had found no sufficiency of fodder since the time they had come into Lazica; and so, they say, under the stress of both starvation and weakness they succumbed.

  Having thus failed in this attempt, Mermeroes withdrew with his whole army to Mocheresis; for, even though they had failed of getting Archaeopolis, the Persians still held the mastery of the greater part of the rest of Lazica. Now Mocheresis is one day’s journey distant from Archaeopolis, a district which includes many populous villages. And this is really the best land in Colchis; for both wine and the other good things are produced there, though the rest of Lazica, to be sure, is not of such a sort. Along by this district flows a river called Rheon, and on it the Colchians in ancient times built a fortress, but in later times they themselves razed the greater part of it to the ground, because, lying as it did in a very flat plain, it seemed to them easy of access. In those times the fortress was named Cotiaion in the Greek language, but now the Lazi call it Cotais, having corrupted the true sound of the name because of their ignorance of the language. Such is the account given by Arrian. But others say that the place was a city in ancient times and was called Coetaeon; and that Aeetes was born there, and as a result of this the poets both called him a Coetaean and applied the same name to the land of Colchis.

  This place Mermeroes was now eager to rebuild, but, since he had no equipment for the task, and because at the same time the winter was already setting in, he replaced with wood as quickly as possible such parts of the fortress as had fallen down and remained there. But very close to Cotais is an exceedingly strong fortress, Uthimereos by name; in this the Lazi were maintaining strict guard. And a small number of Roman soldiers also were sharing with them the defence of the fortress. So Mermeroes settled there with his whole army, holding the fairest part of the land of Colchis, and preventing his opponents from carrying any provisions into the fortress of Uthimereos, or from going into the district of Suania and Scymnia, as it is called, though this was subject to them. For when an enemy is in Mocheresis, the road into this region is thereby cut off for both Lazi and Romans. Thus were the armies engaged in Lazica.

  XV

  In Byzantium, meanwhile, Chosroes’ envoy Isdigousnas, in conferring with the Emperor Justinian regarding the peace, wasted a va
st amount of time.

  And it was only after long-continued debates that they finally reached an agreement that for five years the truce should be observed in the realms of both sovereigns, while envoys passed back and forth from each country to the other, fearlessly carrying on negotiations for peace during this period until they should settle the points of disagreement regarding both Lazica and the Saracens. It was further agreed that the Persians receive from the Romans for this five-year truce twenty centenaria of gold, and for eighteen months which had elapsed between the expiration of the former truce and the time when they had commenced negotiations with each other in the present case, six centenaria more. For the Persians declared that only on this understanding had they permitted negotiations for the treaty to proceed. Isdigousnas further demanded that he should receive these twenty centenaria on the spot, but the emperor wished to give four each year, his purpose, of course, being that he might have surety that Chosroes would not violate the agreement. Later, however, the Romans gave the Persians outright the entire amount of gold agreed upon, in order not to appear to be paying them tribute each year. For it is the disgraceful name, and not the fact, which men are wont as a general thing to be ashamed of.

  Now there was a certain man among the Persians named Bersabus, a person of especial note and a very close friend of King Chosroes. Valerian had once happened upon this man in a battle in Armenia, and he took him prisoner and immediately sent him to the emperor at Byzantium. And a long time passed while he was being kept under guard there. Now Chosroes was willing to advance a great amount of money for him, in order that he might see Bersabus returned to the land of Persia. But on the present occasion the Emperor Justinian released the man at the request of Isdigousnas; for this ambassador promised the emperor to persuade Chosroes to remove the Persian army from Lazica. Thus this armistice was arranged by the Romans and Persians in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of the Emperor Justinian. Now the majority of the Romans were thoroughly displeased with this treaty; but whether the reproach they made was in some measure justified or as unreasonable as the complaints of subjects commonly are, I am unable to say. [553 A.D.]