Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  XXV

  A great throng of Sclaveni now descended upon Illyricum and inflicted sufferings there not easily described. And the Emperor Justinian sent an army against them commanded by the sons of Germanus with others. But since this army was far outnumbered by the enemy, it was quite unable to engage with them, but remained always in the rear and cut down the stragglers left by the barbarians. And they slew many of them but took some few prisoners, whom they sent to the emperor. But nevertheless these barbarians continued their work of devastation. And spending as they did a long time in this plundering expedition, they filled all the roads with corpses, and enslaved countless multitudes and pillaged everything without meeting any opposition; then finally they departed on the homeward journey with all their plunder. Nor could the Romans ambuscade them while crossing the Ister River or harm them in any other way, since the Gepaedes, having engaged their services, took them under their protection and ferried them across, receiving large payment for their labour. For the payment was at the rate of one gold stater per head. At this the emperor was grievously vexed, seeing that for the future he had no possible means of checking the barbarians when crossing the Ister River in order to plunder the Roman domain, or when taking their departure from such expeditions with the booty they gained, and he wished for these reasons to enter into some sort of treaty with the nation of the Gepaedes.

  Meanwhile the Gepaedes and the Lombards were once more moving against each other determined to make war. But the Gepaedes, fearing the power of the Romans (for they had by no means failed to hear that the Emperor Justinian had made a sworn alliance for offence and defence with the Lombards), were eager to become friends and allies of the Romans. They accordingly straightway sent envoys to Byzantium inviting the emperor to accept an offensive and defensive alliance with them also. So he without any hesitation gave them the pledges of alliance. And at the request of the same envoys twelve members of the senate also furnished them with a sworn statement confirming this treaty. But not long after this, when the Lombards according to the terms of their alliance requested an army to fight with them against the Gepaedes, the Emperor Justinian sent it, laying the charge against the Gepaedes that after the treaty they had transported certain of the Sclaveni across the Ister River to the detriment of the Romans.

  Now the leaders of this army were, first, Justinus and Justinian, the sons of Germanus; second, Aratius; third, Suartuas, who had previously been appointed by Justinian ruler over the Eruli (but when those who had come from the island of Thule rose against him, as told by me in the previous narrative, he had returned in flight to the emperor, and immediately became general of the Roman forces in Byzantium); and, lastly, Amalafridas, a Goth, grandson of Amalafrida the sister of Theoderic. king of the Goths, and son of Hermenefridus the former ruler of the Thuringians. This man had been brought by Belisarius to Byzantium with Vittigis, and the emperor had appointed him a Roman commander and betrothed his sister to Auduin the ruler of the Lombards. But not a man of that army reached the Lombards except this Amalafridas with his command. For the others, by direction of the emperor, stopped at the city of Ulpiana in Illyricum, since a civil war had arisen among the inhabitants of that place concerning those matters over which the Christians fight among themselves, as will be told by me in the treatise on this subject.

  So the Lombards in full force and accompanied by Amalafridas came into the lands of the Gepaedes, and when the Gepaedes encountered them a fierce battle ensued in which the Gepaedes were defeated, and they say that a vast number of them perished in this engagement. Whereupon Auduin, the king of the Lombards, sent some of his followers to Byzantium, first to announce the good news to the Emperor Justinian, since the enemy had been vanquished, and, secondly, to reproach him because the emperor’s army had not been present in accordance with the terms of their alliance, although such a host of Lombards had recently been sent to march with Narses against Totila and the Goths. Such was the course of these events.

  It was at this time that extraordinary earthquakes occurred throughout Greece, both Boeotia and Achaea and the country on the Crisaean Gulf being badly shaken. And countless towns and eight cities were levelled to the ground, among which were Chaeronea and Coronea and Patrae and all of Naupactus, where there was also great loss of life. And the earth was rent asunder in many places and formed chasms. Now some of these openings came together again so that the earth presented the same form and appearance as before, but in other places they remained open, with the consequence that the people in such places are not able to intermingle with each other except by making use of many detours. But in the gulf between Thessaly and Boeotia there was a sudden influx of the sea at the city called Echinus and at Scarphea in Boeotia. And advancing far over the land it deluged the towns there and levelled them immediately. And for a long time the sea thus visited the mainland, so that for a very considerable period it was possible for men on foot to walk to the islands which are inside this gulf, since the water of the sea, obviously, had abandoned its proper place, and, strange to say spread over the land as far as the mountains which rise there. But when the sea returned to its proper place, fish were left on the ground, and since their appearance was altogether unfamiliar to the people of the country, they seemed a kind of prodigy. And thinking them edible they picked them up to boil them, but when the heat of the fire touched them the whole body was reduced to a liquid putrefaction of an unbearable sort. But in that locality where the so-called Cleft is located there was a tremendous earthquake which caused more loss of life than in all the rest of Greece, particularly on account of a certain festival which they happened to be celebrating there and for which many had gathered in that place from all Greece.

  In Italy the following took place. The people of Croton and the soldiers who constituted the garrison there, commanded by Palladius, were being very closely besieged by the Goths; and hard pressed as they were by scarcity of provisions, they had many times sent to Sicily without being detected by the enemy, calling to witness the commanders of the Roman army there, especially Artabanes, and saying that, if they did not relieve them at the earliest possible moment, they would, little as they wished it, surrender themselves and the city to the enemy not long thereafter. But no one came from there to assist them. And the winter drew to a close, and the seventeenth year ended in this war, the history of which Procopius has written. [552 A.D.]

  XXVI

  But the emperor, learning of the situation at Croton, sent to Greece and ordered the garrison of Thermopylae to sail with all speed to Italy and bring all the assistance in their power to the besieged in Croton. And they acted accordingly, setting sail with great haste; and chancing to find a favouring wind, they put in unexpectedly at the harbour of Croton. And the barbarians, upon seeing the fleet all of a sudden, were plunged immediately into great fear and in wild confusion broke up the siege. Now some of them made their escape by ship to the harbour of Tarentum, while others, going by land, withdrew to Mt. Scylaeum. And this event humbled the spirit of the Goths still more. In consequence of this Ragnaris, a Goth of very great note, who commanded the garrison at Tarentum, and Moras, who commanded the guards in Acherontia, opened negotiations, by the wish of their soldiers, with Pacurius son of Peranius, commander of the Romans in Dryus, and agreed that, on condition they should receive pledges for their safety from the Emperor Justinian, they would surrender themselves with their commands to the Romans together with the strongholds they had been set to guard. In order, then, to confirm this agreement Pacurius journeyed to Byzantium.

  Narses now set out from Salones and moved against Totila and the Goths with the whole Roman army, which was an extraordinarily large one; for he had received from the emperor an exceedingly large sum of money, with which he was, first, to gather a very formidable army and meet the other requirements of the war, and, after that, to pay the soldiers in Italy all the money which was due to them from the past; for the emperor had been delinquent in this matter for a long time, since the soldiers were
not receiving from the public treasury, as was usual, the pay assigned to them; furthermore, he was to bring pressure to bear also upon those soldiers who had deserted to Totila, so that they would be rendered tractable by this money and reverse their choice of allegiance.

  Indeed, though the Emperor Justinian had previously conducted this war very negligently, he made the most notable preparation for it at the last. For when Narses saw that he urgently desired him to lead an expedition against Italy, he displayed an ambition becoming to a general, declaring that on no other condition would he obey the emperor’s command than that he should take with him forces sufficient to the purpose. So by taking this position he obtained from the emperor money and men and arms in quantities worthy of the Roman empire, and he himself displayed a most tireless enthusiasm and so collected an adequate army. For he not only took with him a great number of Roman soldiers from Byzantium, but he also collected many from the lands of Thrace and Illyricum. And John, too, with his own army and that left by his father-in-law Germanus, accompanied him. Moreover, Auduin, ruler of the Lombards, having been won over by the Emperor Justinian by the use of much money and in accordance with the treaty of alliance, selected twenty-five hundred of his followers who were capable warriors and sent them to fight with the Romans; and these were also attended by more than three thousand fighting men as servants. And he also had with him more than three thousand of the Erulian nation, all horsemen, commanded by Philemuth and others, besides great numbers of Huns. Dagisthaeus too was there with his followers, having been released from prison for this purpose, also Cabades, with many Persian deserters (this man was son of Zames and grandson of Cabades the Persian king, and has been mentioned in the previous narrative as having escaped from his uncle Chosroes by the efforts of the “chanaranges” and having come long before to the land of the Romans). There was also Asbadus, a young man of the race of the Gepaedes and an especially active man having with him four hundred men of his race who were capable warriors. Besides these there was Aruth of the nation of the Eruli, who from boyhood had admired Roman ways and had made the daughter of Mauricius son of Mundus his married wife, being himself a most valiant fighter, and bringing with him a large number of Eruli who were especially distinguished in the perils of war. Finally there was John surnamed the Glutton, whom I have mentioned in the preceding narrative, bringing a large force of able Roman soldiers.

  Narses, for his part, was a man of princely generosity and extraordinarily eager to help those who needed it, and being clothed with great power by the emperor he exercised his judgment the more freely regarding those matters in which he was interested. Consequently many commanders and soldiers as well had in former times experienced his generosity. Naturally, then, when he was appointed General against Totila and the Goths, each and every one desired most eagerly to serve under him, some wishing to repay him for old favours, and others probably expecting, as was natural, to receive great gifts from his hand. But the Eruli and the other barbarians were particularly well disposed towards him, having been especially well treated by him.

  When they had reached a point very close to Venetia, he sent a messenger to the rulers of the Franks who commanded the fortresses there, demanding that they allow his army free passage, as being friends. But they said that they would by no means concede this to Narses, not openly revealing the real reason, but with all possible care concealing the fact that it was in the interest of the Franks or because of their good-will toward the Goths that they were barring his passage, and putting forward a kind of pretext which did not appear very plausible, by saying that he came bringing with him Lombards who were their bitterest enemies. Narses was at first puzzled by this and enquired of the Italians who were with him what should be done, but some men brought the news that, even if the Franks permitted them to pass through this country, they would still be utterly unable to get on from there to Ravenna, nor could he march that way any farther than the city of Verona. For Totila, they reported, had gathered whatever was notable in the Gothic army, and appointing as General over them Teïas the Goth, a conspicuously able warrior, had sent him to the city of Verona, which was subject to the Goths, for the purpose of preventing, as far as in him lay, the Roman army from passing by. This was in fact the case.

  By the time Teïas entered the city of Verona, he had shut off entirely the road by which his enemy must pass, having by artificial means made the land which borders the Po River such that it was altogether out of the question to travel in it or through it; for he had in some places constructed brush entanglements and ditches and gullies, in others sloughs of the greatest depth and certain expanses of swampy ground, while he himself with the Gothic army was maintaining close guard so as to engage with the Romans if they should make any attempt to pass by that road. Now Totila had devised these things with the idea that the Romans would never be able, on the one hand, to make the inarch along the coast of the Ionian Gulf, for a great number of navigable rivers have their mouths there and make the route entirely impassable; and, on the other hand, he thought that they certainly did not have ships in such numbers as to ferry the whole army in a body across the Ionian Gulf, while if they should sail in small groups, he himself with the remainder of the Gothic army would with no trouble stop the disembarkation on each occasion. Such was the purpose of Totila in giving these orders, which were being duly executed by Teias.

  Narses thus found himself completely bewildered, but John, the nephew of Vitalian, being familiar with these regions, advised him to proceed with the whole army along the coast, the inhabitants of this district, as previously stated, being subject to them, while some of the ships and a large number of small boats accompanied them. For whenever they should come to the mouth of a river, they would throw a bridge of these boats across the river’s current, and thus render the crossing comparatively easy. Such was the advice of John, and Narses was persuaded, and in this way made the journey to Ravenna with the whole army.

  XXVII

  While these things were going on as described, the following took place. Ildigisal the Lombard has been mentioned in the preceding narrative as a personal enemy of Auduin, who was the ruler of these barbarians (indeed the kingship belonged to this man by birth, but Auduin had taken it from him by violent means); he now escaped from his native land and set out for Byzantium. And when he arrived there the Emperor Justinian treated him with very particular consideration and appointed him commander of one of the companies of guards assigned to the palace, which they call “scholae.” And he was followed by no fewer than three hundred able warriors of the Lombard nation, who at first lived together in Thrace. Auduin accordingly demanded Ildigisal from the Emperor Justinian on the ground that he was a friend and ally of the Romans, claiming as payment for his friendship the betrayal of the suppliant to him. But Justinian refused absolutely to give him up.

  Later on, however, Ildigisal began to make the complaint that both his rank and his maintenance were not commensurate with his worth and the good name of the Romans and appeared to be exceedingly dissatisfied. Now this was observed by Goar, a Goth, who had long ago come there from Dalmatia as a captive taken in this war, at the time when Vittigis, king of the Goths, was carrying on the war against the Romans; and being an impetuous and exceedingly active fellow, he was in constant rebellion against the fate which was upon him. But when the Goths, after the overthrow of Vittigis, planned a revolution and took up arms against the emperor, he was clearly caught working against the state. And being condemned to exile, he proceeded to the city of Antinous in Egypt, where he spent a long time under this punishment. But later the emperor, moved by pity, brought him back to Byzantium. This Goar, then, seeing Ildigisal in a state of discontent, as I have said, kept after him without interruption and tried to persuade him to take to flight, promising that he would leave Byzantium with him. And since this plan pleased them, they fled suddenly with only a few followers, and upon reaching the Thracian city of Apri, they joined forces with the Lombards who were there. Next t
hey came by chance upon the imperial horse pastures and took from them a great number of horses, which they took with them as they proceeded.

  But when the emperor learned of this, he sent into all Thrace and Illyricum and instructed all commanders and soldiers to use every means in their power to check these runaways. And first of all a small number of the Huns called Cutrigurs (men who had migrated from their ancestral abodes, as I have stated not long since, and settled in Thrace with the emperor’s permission) came to an engagement with these fugitives. But they were defeated in battle and some of them fell, while the rest were routed and did not continue the pursuit, but remained where they were. Thus Ildigisal and Goar with their followers passed through the whole of Thrace, not molested by anyone. But upon reaching Illyricum they found a Roman army carefully gathered to oppose them. Now’ this army was commanded by Aratius, Rhecithangus, Leonianus, Arimuth, and others, all of whom happened to have been riding the whole day. And upon reaching a wooded place about nightfall they had stopped, intending to bivouac and so pass the night there. So these commanders gave their soldiers the usual orders, instructing them to care for their horses and to refresh themselves beside the river which flowed by, thus repairing the fatigue of the journey. They themselves meanwhile took with them three or four bodyguards each and in a concealed place began to drink from the river; for they were naturally suffering from severe thirst. But the men of Goar and Ildigisal who were near by had sent out scouts and found this out. So falling unexpectedly upon them as they drank they slew every man of them, and thereafter they conducted their march as they pleased without further fear. For the soldiers, finding themselves without commanders, fell into a state of perplexity, and being completely at a loss began to withdraw. So Goar and Ildigisal made their escape in this way and came to the Gepaedes.