Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  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 is 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.