Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  XI

  [550 A D.] As for Anasozadus, then, his fortune and his character brought him to this. And when the fifth year of the truce had now come to an end, the Emperor Justinian sent Petrus, a patrician and holding the office of “Magister,” to Chosroes, in order that they might arrange in every detail the treaty for the settlement of the East. But Chosroes sent him away, promising that after no long time he would be followed by the man who would arrange these matters in a manner advantageous to both parties. And not long afterwards he sent Isdigousnas for the second time, a man of pretentious demeanour and filled with a kind of unspeakable villainy, whose pompous puffing and blowing no one of the Romans could bear. And he brought with him his wife and daughters and his brother, and was followed by a huge throng of retainers. One would have supposed that the good men were going out for battle. In his company also were two of the most notable men among the Persians, who actually wore golden diadems on their heads. And it irritated the people of Byzantium that the Emperor Justinian did not receive him simply as an ambassador, but counted him worthy of much more friendly attention and magnificence.

  But Braducius did not come again with him to Byzantium, for they say that Chosroes had removed him from the world, laying no other charge against the man than that he had been a table-companion of the Roman emperor. “For,” said he, “as a mere interpreter he would not have achieved such high honour from the emperor, unless he had betrayed the cause of the Persians.” But some say that Isdigousnas slandered him, asserting that he had conversed secretly with the Romans. Now when this ambassador met the emperor for the first time, he spoke no word either small or great about peace, but he made the charge that the Romans had violated the truce, alleging that Arethas and the Saracens, who were allies of the Romans, had outraged Alamundarus in time of peace, and advancing other charges of no consequence which it has seemed to me not at all necessary to mention.

  While these negotiations were going on in Byzantium, Bessas with the whole Roman army was entering upon the siege of Petra. First the Romans dug a trench along the wall just where Dagisthaeus had made his ditch when he pulled the wall down there. Now the reason why they dug in the same place I shall explain. Those who built this city originally placed the foundations of the circuit-wall for the most part upon rock, but here and there they were allowed to rest upon earth. And there was such a portion of the wall on the west side of the city of no great extent, on either side of which they had constructed the foundations of the circuit wall upon hard, unyielding rock. This was the portion which Dagisthaeus on the previous occasion and now Bessas likewise undermined, the character of the ground not permitting them to go further, but quite naturally determining the length of the trench for them and controlling it naturally.

  Consequently when the Persians, after the withdrawal of Dagisthaeus, wished to build up this part of the wall which had fallen down, they did not follow the previous plan in its construction, but did as follows. Filling the excavated space with gravel, they laid upon it heavy timbers which they had planed very thoroughly, making them entirely smooth, and then they bound them together so as to cover a wide space; these then they used as a base instead of foundation stones, and upon them they skilfully carried out the construction of the circuit-wall. This was not understood by the Romans and they thought they were making their ditch under the foundations. But by excavating the entire space under the timbers which I have just mentioned and carrying their work across most of the ground they did succeed in damaging the wall seriously, and a portion of it had actually dropped down suddenly, but nevertheless this fallen part did not incline at all to either side nor was one of the courses of stone deranged, but the whole section descended intact in a direct line, as if let down by a machine, into the excavated space and stopped there, keeping its proper position, though not with the same height as before, but somewhat less. So when the whole space under the timbers had been excavated, it came about that they settled into it with the entire wall on them.

  But even so the wall did not become accessible to the Romans. For when Mermeroes had come there with his great throng of Persians, they had added a great deal to the earlier masonry and so built the circuit-wall exceedingly high. So the Romans, when they saw the part of the wall which had been shaken down still standing, were at a loss and found themselves involved in great perplexity. For neither could they mine any longer, seeing their digging had brought such a result, nor were they able at all to employ the ram, for they were fighting against a wall on a slope, and this engine cannot be brought up to a wall except on smooth and very flat ground.

  Now by some chance it so fell out that there were in this Roman army a small number of the barbarians called Sabiri, for the following reason. The Sabiri are a Hunnic nation and live in the region of the Caucasus, being a very numerous people and properly divided among many different rulers. And some of the rulers from ancient times have had relations with the Roman emperor, and others with the king of Persia. And each of these two sovereigns was accustomed to pay a fixed amount of gold to those in alliance with him, not annually, however, but only as need impelled him to do so. At that time, accordingly, the Emperor Justinian, by way of inviting those of the Sabiri who were friendly to him to a fighting alliance, had sent a man who was to convey the money to them. But this man, seeing that, with enemies between, he could in no wise travel in safety into the Caucasus region, particularly when carrying money, went only as far as Bessas and the Roman army that was engaged in besieging Petra, and from there he sent to the Sabiri, bidding some of them who were to receive the money to come to him with all speed; whereupon the Sabiri selected three of their leading men and straightway sent them with a small escort into Lazica. These, then, were the men who, upon arriving there, had entered into the attack on the wall with the Roman army.

  Now when these Sabiri saw that the Romans were in despair and at a loss how to handle the situation, they devised a contrivance, such as had never been conceived by anyone else of the Romans or of the Persians since men have existed, although there have always been and now are great numbers of engineers in both countries. And though both nations have often been in need of this device throughout their history, in storming the walls of fortresses situated on any rough and difficult ground, yet not to a single one of them has come this idea which now occurred to these barbarians. Thus as time goes on human ingenuity is ever wont to keep pace with it by discovering new devices. For these Sabiri improvised a ram, not in the customary form, but using a new method which was their innovation. They did not put any beams into this engine, either upright or transverse, but they bound together some rather thick wands and fitted them in place everywhere instead of the beams; then they covered the entire engine with hides and so kept the shape of a ram, and hung a single beam by loose chains, as is customary, in the centre of the engine, and the head of this, having been made sharp and covered over with iron like the barb of a missile, was intended to deal repeated blows to the circuit-wall. And they made the engine so light that it was no longer necessary that it be dragged or pushed along by the men inside, but forty men, who were also destined to draw back the beam and thrust it forward against the wall, being inside the engine and concealed by the hides, could carry the ram upon their shoulders with no difficulty.