[Col. 519] A ...and at once, without any delay or postponement, to write an encyclical letter throughout all your jurisdiction, that every iconographic painting, whether on panels or by mosaics on walls, or in sacred vessels and altar coverings, and whatever else of this sort is found, should be erased and utterly destroyed in all the churches of the Christians; and not only so, but also whatever in the marketplaces of the cities exists for the sake of order and beauty in any likeness whatsoever. And moved by a satanic wickedness, the false prophet added that any likeness that was visible should also be displayed, contriving to manifest his hatred toward us.
3. The wretched tyrant, yielding to this with lightness and giving credence to it, sent and removed the holy icons and the remaining figures from every province under him. And in this manner, he stripped the churches of God of their ornamentation through the sorcerer Hebrew, indiscriminately, throughout all his cities and places, before the evil could reach these shores. And since the most religious Christian men refused to destroy the holy icons with their own hands, those who were sent for this purpose—the Amira—pressed into service the God-hated Hebrews and the wretched Arabs; and thus they burned the sacred icons, and the houses of the churches they in places plastered over, and in others scraped away.
4. Having heard these things, the false bishop of Nacolia and those with him imitated the lawless Jews and the impious Arabs, and insulted the churches of God.
5. I judge it worthy to bring to your holy ears also what kind of end that wretched man and sorcerer Hebrew met. For when Ezidus, the chief counselor who did this, had lived for no more than two and a half years after the perpetration of this act, he died and departed into the eternal fire. And the icons were restored to their ancient foundation and honor; but his son, Ulidus by name, indignant that the sorcerer had, as it were, slain his own father, ordered him to be put to death by a most shameful execution, judging him to have received the wages worthy of his false prophecy.
NOTICE [NOTICE]
To the Narrative of John Cameniata on the Sack of Thessalonica
The destruction of the famous city of Thessalonica, under the most illustrious leader and pirate Leo of Tripoli, while Leo son of Basil was emperor, was a sight that not one of the annalists of his age allowed to pass without recording it in clear memory. Yet, as is the nature of annals, they touched upon it only briefly, so that beyond the slaughter of the city, the great massacre of the citizens, and their exportation into slavery, they recorded nothing in particular. John Cameniata alone, being present at the events, and noble among the spoils along with his father, uncle, mother, and brothers, recorded everything accurately and brought it before our eyes as if it were present. He described so vividly the spirits of the citizens, the concern of the emperor, the weakness of the forces against the enemy, and the city not sufficiently prepared to sustain the sudden—or nearly sudden—assault of a most powerful enemy—an enemy against whom no forces equal in strength appeared anywhere in the empire. Indeed, the royal city itself feared greatly and dreaded its own destruction, attributing it to the divine Numine and counsel that Leo had not dared to attempt the siege through the straits of the sea. Cameniata reveals that his father was the exarch of all Greece and Achaia, of a dignity nearly episcopal; and that he earned a ransomed life (though not liberty) for all manner of people.
ADMONITION TO THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN CAMENIATES CONCERNING THE CAPTURE OF THESSALONICA
...with precious furniture: when he himself and his companions were saved in that manner, when they, together with other captives, had to be exchanged for an equal number of Saracens in Tarsus of Cilicia, according to custom. Leo Allatius had given this in his *Symmicta*: I myself composed the version in my own style, and I did not think much more needed noting, given the clarity of the narration.
There was another matter that occurred in Thessalonica, a city that was, through these times (and earlier ones as well) the eye of the empire and a city of secondary dignity, even by the estimation of the emperor himself; namely, that I should set forth here that great account of the Archbishop John of Thessalonica, under the emperors Justinian the Great and Maurice, in its own Demetrian context, and subsequently other things brought forth by another author in later centuries, by whom the city was not once tested—at one time even by the Chagan, a most formidable enemy to Maurice himself—besieging it with every effort and abundance of reinforcements; it was liberated by divine rather than human aid, through the open miracles of the great Demetrius: of such a kind that not even the most stubborn and incredulous could easily deny the faith. To which task the industry of that most holy man, Archbishop John, excels remarkably. Although there is no lack of stratagems on both sides, nor of military deeds famously performed. Which, perhaps, all being taken together, will have to be produced on another occasion by me—as also the final conquest of the same city, remarkably described by John Anagnostes. But here I must spare the bulk of the book, by which, so that I might not wander outside my bounds, I have imposed a law upon myself; and so that I might merely sample one chapter from that dense work, which touches upon this very history of the destruction of the city of Thessalonica at its extreme limit. But why Demetrius, having once saved his city from such and so many enemies in so many ways, allowed it to be plundered once and again by the enemies of Christ, and finally to come into their firm possession by right, these are the deep judgments of God, of which we too ought rightly to be afraid.
FROM THE MIRACLES OF THE TRIUMPHANT MARTYR DEMETRIUS, NARRATED INDIVIDUALLY
A 1. I proceed to narrate another of the wonders of the great martyr B (auditors): which itself, of those things that have been said, might perhaps appear to yield to none. Indeed, how many years ago the city of Thessalonica was captured and cut down by the sword by the children of the handmaid (i. e., Agar), while Leo held the scepters of the empire (which, O Lord, you alone know by your ineffable judgments, looking down upon such things, and disposing that matters should come to pass in such a way, by some certain plan of counsel, on account of our sins), both other volumes entirely written on the subject teach, and the memory flowing down, even now, lamentably weeps over the things that then occurred.
2. At that very time of the capture, certain Italians, having set out from their own homes and country for the sake of a vow, and to visit the venerable shrines and temples that exist in various places. And they, having intended in their mind the living monument itself, were heading straight for the martyr’s church. And because it happened that they had crossed the Thessalian Tempe, a certain man, previously unknown to them and whom they had not yet seen, is seen joining them as a companion of their journey, himself gray-haired, with a cheerful visage, in grave and modest attire; and who from his very mouth presented a most venerable and mild appearance. And then another man, an equestrian, is discerned, occurring to them from the front; he was indeed handsome, as much as his appearance conveyed, and by his nature very pleasant and possessing many graces; but a diffused sadness covered the pleasantness of his face, and almost extinguished it, and as if by a certain inconsolable grief, his light had collapsed in the habit and gesture of one mourning; to whom, also uttering a voice akin to [his emotion], he addressed the old man in the grave age (calling him Achilleus) and asked where he was going.
A Then the old man, in turn embracing him with joy (calling Demetrius himself the great athlete and master of the contests and struggles), himself also immediately inquired what was the cause of his countenance being so overcast with sadness and of such great gloom and grief. To whom the martyr said: "My fatherland has perished, and now it has been condemned and cast away by the Judge of all. Murderous and barbaric hands have led away my clansmen and tribesmen into captivity. My temple is now washed about with the blood of the citizens; holy things are trodden under by impure and profane feet and are held in contempt. And I indeed, as was my custom long since, was beseeching God with suppliant prayers, appealing again and again to the mercy of the miserable; and I was begging that He might be led again by compassion, and that He might not suffer the Church, which He Himself had acquired with His own blood, to be torn apart and scattered by the hands of Barbarians, who B trust only in their own strength and not in God. But He Himself (whose judgments are indeed inscrutable!) allowed His own inheritance to be subjected to the cruelty of the Barbarians." As the martyr finished speaking these things, the priest of sacred rites, Achilleus, broken by the grief of a compassionate heart, and both cried out: "Great are Thy works, O Lord, and there is no one who is sufficient to attain to the understanding of Thy providence!"
3. Narrative of the Italian soldiers
3. Now, the Italians beholding these things with inexpressible [G] shock, one of them, who was in a low voice not ignorant of the Greek tongue, said, "But come now, O soldier, tell me, I pray, of which city are you speaking these things, and what is that city which has been handed over to the Barbarians?" And the great Demetrius said, "My own most unfortunate fatherland, Thessalonica, has been handed over to the Barbarians." And immediately both, the old man of grave age and the great Demetrius, disappeared, and were seen no more to proceed with their companions. But they (the Italians) standing apart, were asking one another what on earth he had heard from them, and who those men were who had thus been companions on the journey. And he, wondering and standing in awe, told them each thing, and signified the apparition of the great martyr, who had clearly explained the evils of the fatherland and had warned them to place their own matters in safety.
4. Escape of the refugees to Constantinople
4. That they might not themselves also become spoil D of the enemies, they led themselves far away from Thessalonica; and not long after, they heard from those who had fled the destruction each of the things that had occurred, and the men understood clearly that it was that great Demetrius who had departed from the fatherland, and that he had been cast down and grieving at the events that had befallen it, and was suffering more severely for its evils. But when they were brought to the royal city itself, they recounted whatever they had seen with their own eyes, and explained the martyr’s compassion for his fatherland and his devoted love for the citizens; by which it is even now still guarded and cherished, and under him, as its second founder and guardian, it has risen back to its former happiness. For he indeed even now, like an unshakeable and firm bulwark, holds back the rush of the most wicked Scythians, casting his own invincible right hand before them as a wall, and rendering his own city and fatherland safe from their invasion and superior to their incursion.
JOHN THE CLERIC AND CUBICULARIUS, OF CAMENIATA, ON THE SACK OF THESSALONICA
A How excellent is the pursuit of praiseworthy things, and how it demonstrably claims for itself the possession of every virtue! And your own such pursuit, noble and most learned Gregory—amongst the other endowments in which you excel magnificently—is manifest both in the letters you write to us and in what you seek to learn from us through your correspondence. For it is no sign of small virtue, but rather an indication of diligent labor, to desire to acquire knowledge of many things, especially those through which the soul conceives the fear of God, and from this, as if by certain appropriate opportunities, introduces it into the contemplative part of the mind, whereby it learns to turn away from sin as the author of death, and to cling to virtue, the end of which is eternal life for those who embrace and love it.
B Now, I had hitherto seemed to delay fulfilling your command for two reasons: firstly, because I judged it burdensome to write to you—a man of such stature, whose words guide his actions, and whose actions, in agreement with his words, render to one another that which is perfect and exact (for already report proclaims your perfection to all, and even if you are silent, it has carried it to our ears); and secondly, because I felt unable to discourse well upon the subjects about which you made inquiry, putting forward my own ignorance as a seemly excuse, so as not to appear to violate or diminish through my speech the brilliance of the things you have inquired of me—things that have, so to speak, filled the whole world under the sun with their report.
C But since this thought also came to my mind along with those already mentioned, lest in addition to other debts I should also be held liable for disobedience—a passion by nature terrible and destructive, and which persuaded our first parents from the beginning to despise the divine law itself—I now come to fulfill what was requested, relying on your candid friendship, which is so full of kindness. For I well know that neither by your artificial methods, nor by the subtle scales of your true and great wisdom...
A will the account of these things I am about to relate be found indecorous or inconsistent, but rather, as a true narrative, free from all falsehood, artifice, blame, or stain, you will find it entirely clear.
2. You asked to learn through this letter the manner in which we are held in the prison of the barbarians, to whose hands we were surrendered, and on what account we exchanged a foreign land for our own, what our fatherland is, and what is its condition. For you said that you inferred from that brief conversation we had, when we met briefly at Tripoli during your travels, that we harbored a heart burdened with a long story, and that the things which had already happened to us, as well as those we expected in the future, were of such a dire nature as to be more tearful than any tragedy. For you too, wandering in a misfortune equal to ours, were being led there along with certain captives whom you claimed were your fellow countrymen, the Cappadocians, with whom you were also being sent to the city of Antioch, B saying that you could find no rest from your evils; and when you saw us, as you yourself testify, bearing both the recent mourning and the marks of past fear expressed upon our faces, such that, even by our silence, the very color of our countenances shouted out our calamity. But if I were to wish to recount each of these things in detail, the discourse would be too long, and not sufficiently necessary, as it would exceed the law of moderation; not to mention that I might weary your ears, which might be dull from apathy, even if, out of a desire to hear, you turn your mind to the things that are to be said by me. Since, therefore, you have promised from the beginning to listen attentively, I proceed to relate our story in this manner.
3. We, O friend, are from the country of Thessalonica; for I shall first make it known to you, through which it was granted to me to know many things I had not known before; and since I have now come into your acquaintance, I am compelled by duty, as it were, to provide C an accurate account of it in accordance with your wishes. Indeed, it is a great city that I must explain, holding the primary rank among the Macedonians, famous in other respects by which cities pride and adorn themselves, and in no way yielding to any of the neighboring cities—while contending for equality in fame with them all—but excelling them all in that piety which it received from the beginning and, having received it, has preserved inviolate to this day. For Thessalonica boasts that it has Paul himself, the vessel of election, as the teacher of its piety, who, journeying in a circuit from Jerusalem and as far as Illyricum, having encompassed the world with his evangelical preaching, more than elsewhere D sowed in it the seed of the knowledge of God and labored with all diligence for the fruit of faith to grow there in abundance. After him, the great one among the martyrs and worthy of admiration among the victors, Demetrius the myrrh-flowing (that is, the one flowing with unguents), also labored greatly for piety (for, among the other triumphs of his virtue, he was also distinguished by divine teachings and adorned with precision regarding the doctrines, from which his fame was spread even more to the ends of the earth); then the...
A prelates who followed him were all firm assertors of the saving doctrine, by whose work, while it was always being perfected and guided and educated by a more divine discipline, it dismissed B to their own worshippers the demonic and impure errors, and the opinions, and the idle fables, and the vanities of the idols; and while it sealed the faith with orthodox teaching, and never mixed any tares-like, or heretical, or foreign plant with the divine seed, it preserved piety pure and uncorrupted. Of which, while there are many other tokens from which fame, taking its start, proclaimed her bright name, this one thing was first and most especially demonstrated: that she was and was called orthodox, and that she prided herself in this more than in other ornaments. But since you have C diligently sought to learn from me the affairs of that very city, and because to provide this is difficult for me and not very consistent with the plan of the present discourse, I shall turn to our own calamity after adding to the narrative a few details through which you might best seem to behold with your own eyes the things that are to be said.
4. D For it is, as has been said, a great and wide city, fortified with walls and frequent bulwarks, and providing as much security to its inhabitants as their construction allows, having a sea gulf stretched out from the south, by which, being washed on the lateral side, it provides an easy approach for those flowing in from every side. For a certain wondrous harbor is hollowed out there, securely opening an entrance to sailors, calm against the disturbances of winds, and making the bay waveless. The craftsman separated it from the rest of the sea; for having blocked the influx of waters by a certain wall in the middle, he likewise blocked the force of the waves and the tempest which is dashed against it from the neighboring sea and the blowing of the winds. For the sea, swollen in the deep gulf and rushing toward the land, being obstructed by the barrier of the wall here, having nowhere to vent its threats, rolls toward the sides of the wall; and the water, sliding down in a slow manner, preserves such a harbor free from all surge and tide. B Moreover, the gulf cut off from the great sea by a certain neck, like a cubit projected and shown to the waters for a very long distance (which the local inhabitants call *Ecbolon*, because it is cast out far into the sea), and narrowed toward the opposite mainland by the ingenuity of this neck, creates another harbor within the open sea, from which, naturally, by that elbow shape and curvature up to the very wall of the city, it mimics a most beautiful circle, spreading wide on both sides and contracting gradually toward the city.
A And the gulf faces the remaining sea from the south, while the harbor likewise faces this, and the city faces the harbor. But the harbor is encompassed by four corners, whereas the gulf is circular, having a depth that extends through most of its expanse, while at its far ends and well before the mainland, the greater part of the waters contract.
5. But in these matters, that part of the city which looks to the south is accessible, while that which looks to the north is very rough and nearly impassable. For a mountain hangs over the hills, rising up high, elevating no small part of the city above the rest of the land, so that one part of it lies on the plain, suitable for the needs of the inhabitants, while the other stretches upward to the mountain ridges and the summits of the hills. B Yet the extension of the mountain does no harm to the city, as if it allowed enemies to leap down from the heights and attack the walls; for that mountain slope provides a little leisure for the guarding against any treachery, having repelled an easy approach through the intervening space. From there on, the mountain extends for a great distance and stands high, growing rugged with hills and ravines, pushing itself into the middle from the east, as much as it is drawn obliquely from the ground lying beneath on either side. For on the two slopes of this mountain, that is to say, the one toward the south and the one toward the north, plains are spread out, C accessible and useful, bestowing every opportunity for a good life upon the citizens; of which the one toward the south of the mountain, and toward the east of the city, is extremely beautiful and desirable. For it is adorned with dense trees, varied gardens, and countless waters—some from springs, others from rivers—with which the thickets of the mountain, by favoring the plain, also welcome the sea itself. For vines planted in alternating rows crown the fields, and invite the beauty-loving eye to joy through the abundance of their fruits; and many frequent monasteries of monks, that religious training-ground, inhabit both the slope of the mountain and the ground lying below the rest, and, established in the most delightful places, they present a new spectacle to strangers and even to the citizens themselves. D But the plain on the left side of the mountain is also spread out to a great length and widens as far as other mountains; in its midst, two fairly wide lakes stagnate, occupying the greater part of it, which themselves exist as no small utility. For they nourish both small and large fish, of diverse kinds and innumerable in quantity, providing a most abundant banquet for the neighboring villages and for the city itself. For it seems as if the lakes were competing with the sea in their bounties, and striving with each other regarding which of them might provide more. Yet the one is surpassed by the other, nor does the one that prevails have anyone to whom it may—
C ascribe the disgrace of defeat. The remainder of the fields is yielded to the use of the farmers; it also indulges the animals, both those that obey human arts and have become tame, and those that wander with free step through the mountains. For stags, having left the mountains and being refreshed, as if by the waters of the lakes, both enjoy the abundant drink and, gathering together in that same place with the cattle, feed upon the common fodder.
6. But having sufficiently described the regions to the east and north of the city, and indeed even those to the south, let us relate, as best we may, the position of the land that inclines toward the west. There is another plain, beginning from the very wall of the Ecboli, D clinging to the right side of the mountain and bordering the sea on the left, which lures the eyes of those who see it with a beauty that no one can sufficiently grasp. For it is watered by springs in the part where it boasts of the proximity of the city and the sea, and is crowned by vines, dense trees, fish-ponds, and gardens; it is also adorned with dwellings and very many venerable shrines, most of which have been divided among the swarms of monks, men who cultivate every kind of virtue and live for God alone, toward whom they hasten, and for whose sake they have abandoned the turmoils of the world and have chosen the one path that leads and tends toward Him. But where it extends from there deep into the land, it is obscured by almost no growth of forests or shrubs, but offers soil suitable for the industry of farmers. It runs toward the rising of the sun, stretching out until it reaches other high and great mountains, where a city named Berrhoea has also been founded, itself also most illustrious for the density of its inhabitants and for everything else in which cities are accustomed to boast. The plain contains within its middle circuit some mixed villages, of which some are subject to the city — those called the Drugubitae and Sagudati — while others pay tribute to the neighboring nation of the Scythians, which is not far off. Nevertheless, the villages are situated near to one another, and this also contributes not a little to the interests of the Thessalonians, namely, to be mingled with the Scythians through commercial methods, especially when they are on good terms with one another and do not stir up arms that exacerbate conflict—a state of affairs diligently sought and practiced by both parties from very ancient times—they exchange goods with one another according to the common needs of life, keeping a certain wonderful and deep peace among themselves. Certain very great rivers also, bursting forth from the region of the Scythians and dividing the aforementioned field among themselves, provide the city itself with much abundance, both by the supplies of fish and by the transport of ships ascending the sea through them, by which a varied income of things conducive to the needs of life, flowing together along with those waters, has been devised.
7. But I have realized, as I extended my discourse on these matters further than I had promised at the beginning, that I have gone too far. The love for my homeland has caused this, D and has led me, as if drawn along gladly by memory and thinking myself to be present in those very images...
to seek out the eager and inquisitive nature of your desire for knowledge, which you promised from the beginning to lay entirely before us, with nothing else distracting you or pulling you away from this narrative. And so these things stand. For the things that are loved and desired always have the power to bind both the speaker and the listener in bonds of necessity, so that neither the sight is easily turned away from the most pleasant spectacles, nor the ear from the sweetest sounds, nor is the rush of a pleasant discourse interrupted, until it has reached the end toward which it strove from the beginning. Nevertheless, if it pleases you, let us return again to that city itself. For how long shall we fashion the statue as if in a mirror, and try to represent the archetype with various colors sought from elsewhere, when it is possible to approach the very things themselves through a timely narrative, so that what is indicated in an obscure manner may be made clearer? For having promised at the beginning to describe Thessalonica in speech as she is—and as she was before, and into what she has since been reduced—we have been carried away by the beautiful things that adorn her circuit; and by lingering, as one might say, on the outward descriptions, we run the risk of becoming sluggish in narrating the things that are most critical. It is, therefore, worth our while to return to her again in our discourse, and to understand first her beauty and splendor, and then, in turn, to relate the magnitude of the ruin and destruction she has suffered, so that by as much as she seemed to excel other cities beyond comparison, by so much should she be judged worthy of being lamented and pitied by all. C
8. We said that the city is wide and great, and that it encompasses much space within its boundaries. But the wall facing the mainland is most secure and fortified by the thickness of its structure, and is guarded on all sides by an outer wall and a bastion as a safe fortification; it is filled throughout with bulwarks and battlements, and provides the inhabitants with no reason for legitimate fear. But the part toward the south is low and completely depressed, and clearly useless for war; for I believe the architect, because he did not dread any aggression of enemies from the seashore in ancient times, neglected its construction. It is said, moreover, by an ancient rumor that has reached our times, that the city lacked any wall or hedge on that side for many years, until, due to the fear of Xerxes, the king of the Medes—he, of course, who had made the land navigable and declared war against Greece with copious armies—the ruler of the Roman state at that time, with a small and improvised embankment, enclosed that part; which very embankment has remained until this present age, since he thought that no harm or suspicion of such a terrible event would ever come from that direction. For although the city has frequently endured many and most cruel wars, both in the D
A from the Barbarians and also from the neighboring Scythians, who devised every kind of defensive engine against it and poured in like the sand in the multitude of their army—and although they fought with unyielding threats (for in truth they were unchecked in their onsets and shielded by a manifold panoply)—the battle was, so to speak, terrestrial, and the city escaped their snares by the security of its wall, avoiding their assault. It entrusted its own salvation to its customary and fervent protector, I mean the most glorious martyr Demetrius. For this preserver of the fatherland rescued it from many dangers, and often, even before it had experienced B war, he compassionately bestowed victory upon it. But leaving these things to be explained in the books that exist concerning his miracles, let us proceed to the things that follow.
9. The city, therefore, was secure from every danger because of the aforementioned causes. For from the time that the fount of divine baptism conformed the Scythian nation to the Christ-named people [B, pg 525] and shared the milk of piety with both in common, the strife of the cities had ceased; the sword that practiced slaughter had been turned from its work, and the things foretold by the most vociferous of the prophets, Isaiah [(2, 4)], were actively fulfilled among us. For our swords were transformed into sickles and our lances C into plowshares; war was nowhere, and peace presided over the entire surrounding region. There was no opportunity for a more comfortable life of which we did not enjoy an abundance; thence came the fertility of the crops, and thence the resources of commerce. For land and sea, having been ordered from the beginning to perform service for us, offered their grace and gift, rich and cost-free, for every individual. For whatever the land did not provide, or was not sufficiently suitable to produce of itself, the sea—by the skill of trade and imported by ships—abundantly supplied D that which was lacking to those in need.
And what should I say first regarding those arriving from everywhere, and how we, as citizens, received them in a friendly manner, giving our own things and receiving theirs in return? For since a public highway leading from the west to the east passed through the middle of this city and necessarily compelled travelers to linger in it and procure what was for their own use, we both harvested and acquired every kind of good thing from them. From this, a mixed multitude of people was always circling the streets, both of the indigenous inhabitants and of those otherwise received as guests, so that it would be easier to count the sand of the sea than to register those who occupied the market and those who were engaged in transactions. Hence, vast and abundant treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones became common to the many, and silken garments were devised just as others are made of wool. Furthermore, of other...
materials, of copper and iron, of tin A and lead and glass, by which arts involving fire sustain and cherish life, I think it superfluous even to make mention, so great is their abundance that another city could be built and completed from them.
10. Thus, then, with the city flourishing on all sides and abounding in prosperity, adorned by the techniques of craftsmen, and proud of the magnificence of its buildings, could it be said that it was inferior to others in the observance of laws, or in the order of civil affairs, or in the glory of rhetoric and learning? By no means; for knowledge was as much a concern to them as sight is to the eyes, and justice as the very business of life. You could have seen the youthful flock of children B spending their time in nothing else but studies and literature, from which sciences and arts derive their strength. But as for the harmonic music of the songs, or the most sweet melodies of the singers, and the endeavors of those dedicated to the praises of God and the clergy, I truly do not know how I might express them. For up to this point in my narrative, I know not how, I was swept along by the impetus of speech, and, as if forgetting my own lack of skill and simplicity, I strove moderately—and as no other person, however ignorant and stupid of all things, would have done—to set down in writing and explain the things you requested of my virtue. C But from this point on, and especially because the mention of the sweet songs and melodies has occurred to me, I know not where to turn, or toward what line of discourse I should lead; what, moreover, of those very sweet and well-ordered modulations of songs should I omit, with which men sang in unison and celebrated festivals together with the heavenly powers? For if anyone wished to liken that harmony, which all, gathered together with one mouth, sent up to God in divine songs at public assemblies, to the sounds of the applauding angels—where is the dwelling of all who rejoice—he would not stray even in the least from the truth or the mark.
11. For there were certain churches of immense size and great beauty, D adorned with varied decoration, standing in the middle of the city and exposed to view, as if they were common propitiatory offerings to the Divine, and above all, and preeminent among them, the church of the all-creating and divine Wisdom of the supersubstantial Word, and the church of the Ever-Virgin all-pure Mother of God, yet also that of the aforementioned most glorious and triumphant martyr Demetrius, where he finished his divine struggles and received the palm of victory. These, by gathering the entire populace into themselves on the recurring days of the annual feast-day solemnities, used to bestow ineffable gladness and spiritual joy upon those who gathered. For there were assigned to each of these churches ranks of priests, through whom the mystical worship and sacred rites are performed, and companies of readers, through whom the psalmody of the songs is practiced, shouting the verses in alternation, and with the movements of their hands…
arranging the modulations of the sounds, they organize a certain great and worthy-to-be-seen chorus; then, by the appearance of their glittering vestments, they charm the eyes of beholders, and by the artful lyre of the psalms, they delight their hearing. For what, if you consider these anthems, were the mythical Orpheus or the Homeric Muse or the ravings of the Sirens, arranged by the falsehoods of fables, in which there is no true account of praise, but false rumors leading astray the race of mortals and enslaving them to error? A In vain, therefore, do the Greeks boast in these matters with clamoring mouths, they who lack the true knowledge of things and have armed themselves against themselves with the empty words of their superstition. But for us, both the Divinity is true, and the very thing which we sing and attend with the service of praise is truthful.
12. Here, then, a sense of wonder and horror and stupefaction comes over me when I reflect in my mind how such and so great a modulation—surpassing in magnitude all other sacrifices which are offered to God—suddenly fell silent and vanished into nothingness, departing like a dream. For I truly consider this: that, being in sins according to the sentiment of the Psalmist (Ps. XLIX, 16), we were declaring the divine B decrees, and the wickedness of our own ways made this illustrious and venerable worship reprobate, the Divinity judging it unworthy to be praised and honored by profane and impure lips. For how long, pray, shall we not bring into the midst the true cause for which all this weight of evils was brought upon us, so that future generations may know for themselves by our example how the living and true God must be worshipped, and how they may keep themselves immune from all destruction, lest by falling into similar transgressions of wickedness as we did, they draw down the divine indignation upon themselves? For C there is no other cause for that great threat, from whose mere recollection I depart from my senses, that we experienced, except for our perverse and evil disposition, whether through the dissonant and diverse customs and characters or institutions of those flowing into the city from every nation and place, each bringing in various evils and communicating them to their neighbor. For on account of the abundant supply of the necessities of life that we have mentioned, the inhabitants of neighboring regions and cities were changing their abodes and taking up residence in this city; and especially those who had survived the D ravages of the impure Agarenes after their islands were already captured, were fleeing to it, being anxious no further, as it seemed to them, for any concern of enemies, and were transferring their means there. Or again, because of soft indulgences and a mind not engaged in any studies, our character became inclined toward every lust—as our habits encouraged it—and we came to a kind of oblivion of God, separated from Him by a long and inextricable error of paths. And as the Apostle says, each one of us was following his own desires
running toward all license for evils, and holding of no account the way that leads to virtue.
A 13. For what kind of wickedness, if we must speak the truth, was not practiced among us? Fornications, adulteries, impurities, hatreds, lies, thefts, strifes, contentions, revilings, rages, greed, injustices; and envy, the leader of all evils, was a common, daily, and public occupation. For there was not one among us who was eager to do good to his neighbor; rather, each one madly devised how to inflict some unwanted evil upon him. Nor was there any who intended to share his own goods with the needy, fulfilling what is of mercy; but each struggled against his own kin to increase his own substance from another’s, slandering one another, striking one another, B defaming one another, discovering every possible evil within themselves, strangling orphans, encroaching upon the borders of widows, and weaving enmities. And what is the end of all these things? My soul is numbed, and I shudder to let my tongue loose upon the magnitude of these events, and I would not have endured to recall those painful things that we have already suffered. But since it is impossible to escape the memory of such accounts, through which we have been left as some new and terrifying message to the world, I come now to narrate the magnitude of the danger, so that you too may know what the wages of sin are (Rom. vi, 23). For when we were lost to luxury, melting with pleasure and flowing with softness, and leading our lives in all wicked practices; when, as the Psalmist sings (Ps. xiii, 3), all had turned aside, and together had become useless, and there was no one who sought God, C then we experienced that terrifying weight of threats, or rather, to speak more truly, of overthrow or just retribution.
14. And consider here also the philanthropy of God, Who does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should repent and live (Ezech. xxxiii, 11). For knowing the unrestrained and wretched propensity of our mind toward evil, what does He contrive and what counsel does He take to curb that ruined frenzy and introduce a cause for our conversion? First, He caused the aforementioned neighboring city, I mean Berrhoea, to be shaken by an earthquake along with its entire vicinity, so much so that many were caught there and perished. D What did He intend and provide for by this? Namely, that we, having perceived the sense of the evils inflicted by divine vengeance upon others, might at last, even if late, abstain from our own evils and direct our actions toward virtue. Then, since even after this event we did not abate the old custom that prevailed in us, He passed on to another kind of device, showing in others beforehand a specimen of the disaster that was about to befall us, while we were still committing sins without repentance. For Demetrias, as it is called, another city of Greece, not far removed from us, both in the number of its inhabitants and in other things in which cities are accustomed to think highly and boast, being exalted above its neighbors, not long before our own capture...
C came under the power of the Barbarians. For being besieged and captured, so that almost all who were in it fell by the sword, it presented nothing else to the mind than the thought that we who continued in our evils would receive a like retribution, and that we might read, as if on a living pillar and monument, the dire calamities which were our due.
15. Let no one, however, believe that I mean by saying this that these cities endured the experience of fearful things for our sake. For they were owed, I think, the danger on account of their own wickedness, just as, after them, it was owed to us, with God inflicting punishments upon each according to what they had done. But in these cases it was also easy for us to find no small opportunity for turning toward the better and for salvation, by making their downfall our own security. Yet because He who searches the hearts (Ps. VII, 10) saw that our mind was with all zeal held by that which leads to destruction, and that we lacked no salutary commandments or corrective disciplines, through which a sensible and sober soul relearns what is good, avoiding the deeds of the worse sort, for which, as the Apostle says, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience (Ephes. V, 6), and because it was necessary for malice to be eradicated, lest it progress further and harm others, for this reason He allowed that fearful and dreadful plague to be inflicted upon us, so that what we had not learned from the sufferings of others, we might become an example and lesson to others by undergoing it ourselves.
16. But what is the need to prolong my speech? For it is already time to address the necessary moments of the events, and to recount in words the manner in which we endured that dire siege, so that it might be a subject of admonition and a discourse of clear instruction for those who come after. For while our affairs were in this state, a certain swift courier messenger came from him who held the reins of the Roman scepter, the most pious emperor Leo, announcing the incursion of the Barbarians—I mean those of ill-omened name, the Hagarenes—and as they were suddenly arming themselves. He said that some fugitives from those very Barbarians had arrived and had foretold to the emperor their plan, namely, that they had directed their whole assault against this city, being confirmed by many already captured and subjugated by them that it was unfortified on the side facing the sea and easily assailable by battles from ships. This evil news having been announced, a clamor arose through the whole city, and fear and agitation seized everyone, as an unprecedented and fearful matter first fell upon our ears. Our plans were turned, alas, to how we might safeguard our own salvation, and that we might prepare everything for the repelling of the enemies, and be stirred in spirit to sustain the war. But
A the very fact that we were inexperienced in war and did not know how to conduct its initial stages—and, moreover, that the wall where we expected the attack was unsuitable—sank the souls of all into despair. Indeed, this was truly a matter of concern not only for us, who were inexperienced in war and unarmed, but even for those who were already trained and possessed prior knowledge of the causes of such events.
17. We therefore decided that if any work was to be done, it should be undertaken on the wall itself, and that we should first provide for its security and its restoration to a better state. But the man who had brought us the message from the Emperor (his name was Petronas, a man enrolled in the catalog of protospatharioi, who had been commanded to linger B a short while in the city, to impart his help, and to provide the necessary aid for the situation) did not approve of this plan. He claimed to have found another scheme, most wise, highly effective, and salutary, had not our own sins, which were paving the way for our destruction, dissipated that too. For since the man surpassed others, and especially in experience of such matters, while examining within himself whether care should be applied to the construction of the walls, he saw that it would both cause labor for the city and would be of no more benefit than what those before him had considered. He therefore turned his mind to another mode of security (and observe how fit and appropriate it was). C For knowing that the southern side of the city is entirely washed by the sea, and that if the Barbarians were to launch an attack from there, they could easily accomplish whatever they wished, as there would be nothing to prevent them from scaling the wall, since it was low and near the ground, and for the further reason that the sterns of their ships stood higher, and from that elevated position they could shoot down those who were on the battlements, he decided to conceal a certain barrier and artificial ambush in the waters themselves, so that both safety for the city and an obstacle to the enemies might come about through this. For there were many tombs carved from a single stone toward the eastern and western parts of the city, in which the Greeks who formerly inhabited it used D to bury their own dead. These he gathered, and by a miraculous method of which he alone was the author, he sank them into the sea, placing them in the water at short intervals and arranged in a row; thus, he was truly constructing a maritime and strange fortification, stronger and more secure than the wall that was raised to the height on the landward side. And indeed, the work would have been completed, providing total security to the city so that the ships would not have been able to approach at all or inflict damage, had not this too been blocked by our own wickedness and come to nothing.
A For when the fence of the dangerous sea barrier had almost reached the halfway point, and was cutting off every fearful and wicked suspicion of ours, there arrived another man, also sent by the emperor, who promptly recalled Petronas, the one previously sent for this purpose, and took upon himself the entire care of the city. He was called Leo, having been appointed commander of the whole surrounding region, and having assumed all oversight of the arrangements being readied for the battle. It seemed good to him to desist for the time being from the care of this project, and to finish the construction of the wall. For as soon as he arrived, he immediately transferred the entire workforce assigned to this task to the hauling of the materials needed by the craftsmen, so that with an abundance of hands and supplies of the necessary items, the work intended might be brought to completion. The work of construction was again in full swing. But in proportion to the height the wall was being raised to deflect the malice of the enemy, an equal amount of fear and suspicion of danger was felt by us citizens regarding the portion that remained. For it was not possible for the whole thing to be repaired, as it extended to such a great length, so as to remove from us all fear of the disaster expected from it hereafter; and time itself testified that the enemy’s incursion was imminent, while B the building had not yet even reached the midpoint of the space [P. 332] from which we suspected that the harm and destruction would originate. For reports more terrible and frequent than the previous ones were deafening the ears of us all, declaring that the Barbarians were already closing in, having completed the greater part of their voyage. For there was nothing to delay them even in the slightest, since they had already ravaged most of the islands, and the seaside cities, in their terror at the mere report of them, had turned to flight; nor was there anything capable of withstanding their onslaught or resisting the density of their forces. For they reported that no fewer than fifty-four barbarian ships in total were together, each one of them equaling a city in size and other equipment; in them was being carried a motley, deranged, and maddened crowd, consisting of those inhabiting Syria, the Ishmaelites, and those living on the borders of the Egyptians and Ethiopians—all bloodthirsty men with the mentality of wild beasts, highly trained in the skills of slaughter and long practiced in pirate-like designs for murder, such that no one could even endure the report of them, but each man hurried to flee from his native land, judging it better to live among wild beasts in the mountains than to be captured by them and suffer a wretched death and unbearable torment.
C 19. Yet, while matters were in this state, another messenger arrived, more terrifying than those already mentioned, announcing to everyone that the approach of the Barbarians was even closer. This man was called Nicetas, a commander in rank and in counsel for ordering the city’s affairs.
A He had come promising to bring aid to the city—for he said that it was for this purpose that he had arrived—and if there were anything to be done, he professed himself ready for everything. However, while we were in that state of suspense awaiting the enemy, an event occurred by the cunning design of the author of scandals, the most wicked demon. The previously mentioned commander, having happened upon this Nicetas who had just arrived (at the time when he was busy with the construction of the wall), while he himself was riding a horse, thought he should complete the customary greeting to his friend. But while he was seated on his horse, and not holding the reins with sufficient care, he suffered a grave accident that warrants many tears. The horses became disturbed, and particularly the one that the commander himself was riding; struck by a natural frenzy, it arched its neck, raised its mane stiffly, and rearing up on its hind legs, cast him off. Sliding over the tail and thrown to the ground, he suffered a crushing injury to his right thigh and the limbs surrounding the hip joint, becoming so pitifully afflicted that he despaired of his very life. B The soldiers of his military unit immediately lifted him up with their hands and carried him home, for, as was fitting, he would be able to give no further care to the matters at hand. The man lay there, struck by unbearable pains, not knowing to what he should first apply his mind. For the concern of the impending danger kept drawing him, wondering how and by what means he might save the city from the invasion of the Barbarians; but, on the other hand, the intense pain and the fracture of his limbs—which threatened death—drew him back and insisted that he prefer his own safety and abandon everything else. Thus, placed between two evils and exhausted by both, he was utterly incapable of attending to any of the necessary work. Nevertheless, C under the pressure of the crisis, we constructed and placed certain wooden towers on the part of the wall that had collapsed, and by this means we provided ourselves with a small bit of relief and a glimmer of hope, thinking that from a higher position we might be able to push back those attacking from the sea and not allow them access to the wall or to execute their wicked designs. But these were the clever inventions of those in a hurry, for fear and necessity had prompted the mind to devise such empty things; even if, as a certain wise man said, everything under pressure becomes ingenious and resourceful. For there was no one among us who could deliberate with firm reasoning against the future or the evils that were expected to happen. D 20. But since, with the commander injured, all concern for us was transferred to the aforementioned Nicetas, he too began to display, to the best of his ability, what pertained to his duties. He said that a great multitude of the neighboring Slavs—both those who were under our jurisdiction and those under the power of the commander of the Strymon—had been ordered to assemble in the city, men most skilled in the art of archery, so that we might not happen to be found insufficiently prepared for the equipment and power of the enemy, but that we might have the means with which to repel their first assault. This, he [P. 334] concluded, would ensure success.
And indeed he busied himself with the task; for he drew up and dispatched letters to the entire surrounding region, urgently pressing those in the neighborhood of the Sclaveni to come to our aid as quickly as their personal capacity for arming themselves allowed. From this, it resulted that a few meager numbers did arrive, though not as many as the necessity of the situation required, but rather those who could be most easily counted and were utterly unprepared for battle. This happened because those entrusted with command over them were difficult and most wicked men, who regarded their own private advantage above the common good, who were accustomed to plotting against their neighbors, who were mad for bribes, and who cared for nothing else but continuing in that acquisition. For although the aforementioned Nicetas sought to intimidate the governor of the Strymon B time and again, and many times over through letters, accusing him of procrastination and asserting solemnly that if the city suffered any grievous harm from the danger present, the cause would be laid at his door alone and he would be held accountable before the Emperor, nonetheless he did not become any better nor did he desist from his customary and malicious counsel. Instead, having cast off first the fear of God and thereafter the fear of men, and caring nothing for the destruction of so great a city, he determined neither to come himself nor to send another from those under his authority to bring us aid, even though we were hemmed in by the greatest straits. But, mocking us with the expectation that he would never fail to arrive, he kept us in suspense until the final day of the war, thereby completing the plot against us and laughing a great and elegant laugh over the destruction to which we were surrendered.
21. Thus having been tricked out of the hope we had from our allies, the Sclaveni, although we ourselves were not easy to number, but fulfilled the need with a vast multitude and far exceeded the forces of the Barbarians, C yet the fact that we possessed no experience of war, nor had we ever applied our minds to the study of it, made their assault something formidable and full of consternation for us. Furthermore, the fact that we had not managed to devise any defense for this situation seemed disastrous to us. And while to save ourselves by flight was for the time being burdensome—for if we were to turn and flee, the city was destined to be laid waste, and the ornament of those aforementioned venerable houses—what I mean by gold, silver, and the rest of the necessary material—was to be stolen away, or even the houses themselves, which were to be treated with every reverence, were to be consumed by fire—at the same time, while avoiding the harm from the Barbarians, we did not know how we might avoid the wrath of the Emperor against us. But these things were D tolerable and entirely consistent with survival, even if, at the time, merely coming to the thought of such things—when we had not yet made trial of the evil—seemed more grievous than any death. For us, who had no previous training for being oppressed by such calamities, accustomed only to a delicate and luxurious life, and not yet exercised in military struggles, it cast us into fear and trembling.
A Since, however, there remains for those in difficulty only this—a course we were already pursuing—to invoke the unspeakable compassions of divine mercy and the intercessions of the saints, we gathered at the aforementioned most beautiful house of the most glorious martyr Demetrius. All of us who inhabit the city, along with those from foreign lands who were sojourners there—people of every dignity and age—formed mournful choirs and cried aloud to the martyr, entreating him to be our protector against the threatened menace of the barbarians.
"You have shown, O noble martyr," we said, "the fervor of your protection in many dangers that have often beset your city, and you have dismantled all the schemes of our adversaries, keeping it untouched by any destruction. B Show us now, O most compassionate one, your boundless care for us, and do not let barbarian and foreign nations who do not know God boast against us. Do not allow this house—which the whole world possesses as a common medical dispensary and a ready refuge—to be profaned by impure and impious men, who mock our faith, despise our worship and religion, and charge us with this one crime: our piety toward God; and who threaten us with an untimely and ruinous death. For even if we are deserving of countless punishments for the sins we have committed on earth, and are liable to this very destruction and ruin that is impending, we know no other God but the One who crowned you, through whom you fulfilled your divine labors, whom you glorified by the imitation of your passion, from whom you received the grace of many miracles, and who has granted you to us as a strong wall, an immovable support, and a pillar, to whom you daily pour out prayers for us, entreating what is beneficial for our cause. C Look, therefore, now also upon the helplessness and bewilderment of this people, and, hearing our petition, stand with bold intercession on behalf of us, your servants, and rescue us from the expected gathering of enemies, so that the children of the bondwoman Hagar may not boast against us, nor say, 'Where is their protector?' For you yourself see, O most benevolent one, that we have not relied upon spears, but have entrusted the sum of our affairs to your powerful intercession, hoping once again to be made participants in your providence and care."
Offering these supplications to the martyr night and day with anguish of heart, and watering the floor of the temple with our tears, we remained in suspense at the expectation of the enemies, while our sin, like some most firm wall, stood over against us D and rendered the martyr's intercession ineffectual, failing to incline the divine benevolence toward us through a propitious deity. For it was fitting that it be said even to him, just as it was said of old to the prophet Jeremiah when he poured out prayer for Israel, which was in no way worthy of divine compassion:
to obtain, because "Do not pray for this people; for I will not listen to you." For it was indeed necessary that the destruction decreed against us should be carried out, so that all who persist in sins might know that nothing so draws the divine ear to prayers offered by the saints as the straightening of one's life and the careful performance of excellent deeds. B
23. While these things were being done by us in vain, someone arrived to announce that the barbarian ships had already approached the neck of the aforementioned Ecbolus. It was dawning on a Sunday, the 4th of the Kalends of August, in the year from the creation of the world 6412. Fama, therefore, immediately spread through the whole city; everyone was in an uproar, wavering and trembling; one shouted one thing and another another, consulting about the present crisis, arming themselves as best they could, and rushing to the wall. And before they could be dispersed along the battlements of the wall, look, the barbarian ships appeared from the aforementioned headland, having their sails spread wide. For by some concurrence of events, it happened that at this time a wind blew with such good fortune for them in their course, that to many it seemed they were being carried not over the water but through the air on high. For as we said, it was the month of July, when more than on other days this wind enters the bay, blowing from the ridges of the Olympian mountain of Greece, and from the morning of each summer day until the ninth hour, it strikes the city, clearing and agitating the air. Finding this wind as their accomplice, the enemies approached close by, while the day was still in its early stages. At first, indeed, when they came near the wall, they lowered their sails and carefully observed what sort of city it was. For they did not initiate the battle immediately upon anchoring, but allowed themselves a little leisure, both to first test our strength and spirits for the battle, and to exercise themselves for this very undertaking. They stood, therefore, for a time fearful, having nothing among the things they had seen to which they could compare the spectacle before them, for they were contemplating a city spread out to a great and vast extent, with the entire wall surrounded by a multitude of people. Whence, being all the more astonished, they refrained for a little from battle, so that we too, having become a little more daring from those delays and this leisure, might recover our spirits. C
24. While we were in this state, it seemed good to the leader of the barbarian army to go around the entire wall, as much of it as is washed by the sea. This man was wicked and most vile, and in the similarity of his name to that of the beast, he displayed a character to match, possessed of a ferocity and unbridled impulse of spirit in no way inferior to that of the beast. Indeed, you too know the man entirely from the reputation which proclaims the perversity and wickedness of this man everywhere among the nations, such that none of those who have ever been celebrated for the name of impiety has exceeded his inhumanity and excess, whose insatiable...
A fervor for shedding human blood is such that nothing is held by him to be of greater value or more esteemed than the slaughter of Christians. For when he himself had once been born again by the salutary baptism and had been formed by its teaching, and had been instructed in the mysteries of our religion, having been captured by those same Barbarians, he exchanged the pious faith for their impiety; and he considers nothing more pleasing to provide them than to confirm what is merely a name by his very deeds, exhibiting the bloody crimes of a deserter and a pirate, and taking magnificent pride and pleasure in them.
This untamed deserter, Leo, therefore, sailing around by sea, was inspecting the wall and wickedly and maliciously deliberating at which point he might launch an attack. The rest of the fleet had been drawn up at the eastern shore and was engaged in preparing its equipment. The citizens themselves also donned their armor, and having been distributed among the ramparts, they mutually encouraged one another for the struggle that lay before them. For it was truly a struggle, and a famous one, one of the great contests—not the struggle of some wrestler B exerting his bodily strength against an opponent in order to solicit the praise of spectators, nor one where the prizes proposed to the victor are merely trivial things providing brief amusement, nor, on the other hand, one where the loss of the victory brings upon the defeated nothing more than individual disgrace and ruin—but one in which either the incomparable glory of liberating so great a city from such great danger might come to the one who delivers it, or, should it suffer any of the threatened evils, it would bring an inconsolable wound.
25. When that beast saw the entire wall, and observed that the strait of the harbor was fortified on all sides by an iron chain and sunken ships, he decided to launch the attack from a place C where neither the barriers of the submerged monoliths could prevent the assault of the ships, nor indeed, could the engines of war from the already erected wall hinder them for long, but [rather] where the water of the sea, being deeper at that point, strikes against the lower wall. Having marked the spot, and having returned to his companions, he gave the signal for battle. They, having quickly spread out with their ships through the designated places, and having raised a barbaric and harsh shout and roar, and with their ships spurred on by the rowers, and with drums made of hide sounding horribly, and by many other terrors frightening those who were on the ramparts, they rushed against the wall. The citizens, on the other hand, and those who were standing at the wall, lifting up a shout louder and more piercing, invoked the salutary armor of the cross against the hostile fleet of the enemy. And the force of their shout broke out with such intensity that the Barbarians, having heard that howling of an immense multitude, more terrifying than any sound they had ever heard, stood hesitant as if struck with vertigo, and despaired of the outcome, inferring from that roar the multitude of armed men in the city, and [judging] that they could not easily prevail in a battle begun against such numbers, nor easily plunder D a city to which no other similar example from the past could be compared. Nevertheless, in order that they might not appear struck with fear and beaten by that first aggression, not without
A trepidation, and yet not again with the madness they subsequently employed, but rather with a frenzy mingled with fear, they approached closer and pressed upon their adversaries with a thick cloud of arrows. Afterward, however, they began to attack even more impudently and to contend with force at a closer range, just like barking dogs exciting their own rage, and becoming savage at the objects cast down upon them from the wall. For the townspeople had not neglected the art of archery, but were using it more energetically and skillfully, having stationed all the Sclaveni who had flocked in from the neighboring region in those places where nothing was so easy as to take aim correctly and strike the mark, while letting nothing withstand the momentum of their own missiles.
26. B In this manner, while both sides were dealing and receiving blows, and showing that the battle was falling out evenly, certain of the Barbarians, more bold and audacious than the rest, as is to be expected, leaped from their ships into the sea, bearing with them a wooden ladder which they were pushing through the waters, attempting by means of it to ascend to the wall, paying no account to what was being sent down against them from above. For until they were at close range they covered their bodies, swimming in the water and protecting their heads with shields. But when they had arrived near and had emerged from the water, they resisted more stoutly, struggling against the blows, while carrying only their shields upon their heads. Then, the ladder having been most swiftly applied to the ramparts, they attempted to ascend by it and make their way inside. But death forestalled their design, and before they could accurately contemplate how to complete their plan, they were released from life: for hardly had they placed their footprints upon the steps when a dense force of stones, like hail, was cast down upon them and drove them off, at once into the sea and into destruction. C Upon these events all the ships retreated, not having the boldness to attempt anything else similar for the time being; but only with clouds of arrows, which obscured the very air, were they attacking from a distance, while they themselves were nonetheless being attacked by missiles that were skillfully aimed and strayed little from the mark, and by stones emitted from balistae and catapults, of which even the mere sound generated through the air struck stupor into the Barbarians.
27. D For already the aforementioned Nicetas, sent by the Emperor, was running along the whole wall, animating the people: "Men," said he, "Thessalonicans, I had other opinions of you before this, and I did not judge you to be so noble and bold for the work of war, as you have neither attempted nor performed anything of such a kind in the past. But now the crisis of the situation has permitted me to have no ignoble hopes concerning you. For I see you all both vigorous in body and brave and strenuous in soul, and alert and eager in the business, you who insult the enemies and overturn their machines with robust effort."
A And you do nothing inconsistent; for the struggle is about you yourselves, men precious both in physical and mental endowments, and about the rest of the city, which is surpassed in renown by no other place of note. For if you emerge superior to the present danger, the praise owed by all will accompany you; but if any of those things that are shunned—and of which the Barbarians have threatened—should occur, there is nowhere to estimate the calamity or the magnitude of the shame. For this reason stand nobly, securing the victory for both the fatherland and yourselves, and do not turn your backs to the hands of the enemy, nor leave a strange tale to the world, having exchanged such a great danger for a little slackness. With these exhortations he encouraged the people, and having instilled no small courage into their souls, he went making the rounds. The commander-in-chief too, as if forgetful of his own pain, although that fall of which we spoke was severe and provided pain greater than his strength, did not go on foot, but having climbed upon a mule, not riding astride but sideways—as the pains of his broken limbs allowed—he also went about, positioning the most spirited of the archers in certain necessary places of the wall, so that, according to what happened to each of them, they might excite the nearby ones to imitation and arrange matters for the war.
C 28. The Barbarians, however, not once only, but many times throughout that whole day, having renewed their assault—or rather, having been struck more than before—retreated; and leaving off the battle which is by the water according to an arranged signal, they withdrew to the ships and anchored at the shore which is on the east of the city. Then, disembarking from the ships, they again used their arrows against those who held their station in the higher part of the wall, where a gate protrudes toward the sea, called Rome, adjacent to the water. There they fought until deep into the night. Then, as if exhausted by the struggle, they remained in silence on the ships, perhaps deliberating how they might attack us the following day, and preparing other machines for themselves.
Now, as we also were relieved a little from the labor of the battle, another care again began to overtake us: that those stationed on the ramparts should keep watch everywhere around the city and look out for the Barbarians, lest by any night-time tunneling or ambush they might secretly creep up the wall and, having gained it, finish everything. For they are naturally ingenious for such things, and at the same time as they decide, they proceed to the work, deterred by no fear of danger, and looking to this one thing alone, that they may attempt what has seemed prudent. And even if perhaps the result of the matter turns out contrary to what they imagined, they count it for glory that by reckless daring and boldness they have attempted even the impossible. Therefore, for this whole night, remaining alert, and no longer [P. 341]
A complaining of the past, we felt such boldness that even the leader of the Barbarians himself was brought to wonder, and counted it of great importance to learn later the reason how we so bravely resisted every attack, and how his expectations regarding us were overturned.
29. But since dawn, the herald of the second day of the war, had arrived, and the Barbarians had devised things even more grievous than what had been done against us before, a new labor devolved upon our leaders to stir up the spirits of each man and to offer what was in their power with zeal. So, when the sunlight had flooded the air, the Barbarians, B disembarking from their ships, launched an attack, surrounding the wall. Dividing their cohorts at certain points and flowing together more especially at the exits of the gates, they fought against us with every might of their arms wherever they could. For some of them made use of javelins, others of the thunder of stones which they threw by hand; most, standing at the balistae and catapults, cast those immense hailstorms of rocks with high force. And the death that threatened us from them was multiform, and the assault rushing in from all sides gave a terrifying test to those whom it struck. For against the single gate I mentioned, they had erected seven catapults, packed and fortified all around, C which they had prepared beforehand for this very task while passing through Thasos. Furthermore, applying some wooden ladders opposite the wall at that point, they attempted to climb through them, protecting themselves with the stones thrown by the catapults so as to ensure their safety; for by continuously hurling stones, they did not allow anyone to lean out safely from the high part of the wall. And indeed, their plan would have reached its goal, and the ladder already applied to the battlements of the outer wall, had not some divine power strengthened certain men of D bold spirit to rush to that place, who, striking the Barbarians with spears and casting them back along with the ladder, proved stronger in their effort. Seeing that this attempt of theirs had also come to nothing, and that they had abandoned the ladder by taking to flight, we increased our spirits to such a degree that we even moved to laughter at them, and with greater alacrity than the day before we hurled javelins and rolled stones back from the machines, and we did not allow them to approach the walls even in the slightest, although they themselves, stirred by a more savage rage, sharpened their teeth like wild swine and, if it were possible, wished to tear us living to pieces. For how tremendous was their fury against us? How did they betray the surpassing force of their anger? Indeed, they inwardly fumed in their souls, and by the foam driven from their mouths they indicated the demon lurking within them, not even indulging themselves with food for that whole day, but in the insatiable heat of battle, that most grievous craftiness, not even perceiving if their bodies were
A oppressed by exhaustion and scorched by the sun hanging over their heads; having only this concern: either to sack the city and sate their fury against us, or, if this did not succeed, to cast away their lives and finish themselves off with weapons. For once the barbarian fury is kindled, it will not cease from the demented impulse that stirs it until it sees the shedding of its own blood or that of the opposing foe.
30. Indeed, because it was not safe for them to approach the wall, they entrusted everything to javelins and catapults. For having drawn themselves up in line, and having stood back at just such a distance as their shots might reach the city without their strength yet waning, B they stood, shielded by their bucklers and wholly intent upon the business of war, no differently than certain statues cast in bronze or fashioned from some other harder material, enduring and contending in the struggle with a limitless and indescribable patience. For when the sun was driving through the middle of the day, and was burning the air with a cast of rays greater than at other hours, at the height of the heat, as if they had kindled their natural madness and further incited that irrational rage by their despair, they transferred their assault to another kind of siege (and consider how dire it was!). For since there were four gates opening onto the eastern part of the city, they decided to consume two of them with fire—the one we C mentioned, the "Roman" gate, and the one they call the "Cassandreotic" gate—calculating this, of course, that if it were possible for them, while those gates were burning, to penetrate inside the outer wall and steal up under the high wall, they would without doubt inflict harm on those things within, and, driving everyone into the city to a man, having posted shrewd and skilled archers opposite, they would not allow any of the townsfolk to look out or emerge safely through the continuous hail of missiles.
31. And thus they began the scheme. Having found wagons, they placed upside down upon them the smallest D fishing boats, of the kind our fishermen are accustomed to use for fishing, and besides these, they piled up a quantity of other wood and brushwood, which they sprinkled with pitch and sulfur. Then, getting under the wagons, they turned the axles, drawing them with their hands until they reached the very gates. Then, having set fire to that material, and retreating under the cover of their shields and withdrawing back to the archers, they accomplished their intended work while we were almost unaware. For the fire, having seized the material and, fanned by the kindling into a larger flame, made the outer face of the gates—which was entirely covered in iron—glow with heat, and, drawing the flame into the interior, made the gates through their heat to be from every side...
A consumed, so that shortly thereafter they collapsed, causing no small alarm to everyone. For since the burning of the gates was proclaimed throughout almost the whole city, it struck into the hearts of all like a sword; it rendered the people anxious and trembling, changing their countenances and suddenly casting away every hopeful expectation. For those who but a short while before were leaping upon the walls and encouraging one another to the struggle of battle, showed themselves in reality more timid than hares. For the very fact that this engine had achieved a favorable outcome gave everyone a certain prediction of the final result.
We, however, with the outer gates consumed by fire, protected the inner ones with a newly constructed wall, and kept a supply of water in vessels upon the battlements, in case the enemy should attack those as well; so that if they were to try this piece of mischief again, we would have at hand the means to extinguish the fires and keep the gates free from their traps and immune to harm. Realizing this, they did not carry out this specific piece of mischief further; yet they were planning to inflict upon us other, B more terrible and violent, disasters, for which there would no longer have been any way left for us to fend them off, given the force, energy, and effort they were exerting, such that it surpassed all of our machinery. Thus, when the fire had ceased, the remainder of the day was spent with catapults and javelins, until the night darkness yielded to the light, and the spreading gloom forced even those who did not wish it to refrain from the struggle of the battle.
32. Then, when they had finished the fighting, they boarded their ships and, having rested a little, began the project which they had devised in their own ingenuity. This was the sort of test they were bringing to bear: if by means of it C they could succeed in capturing the city, it would be well, since no other method of siege seemed as capable or as effective as this—especially when the battle is launched from the water and there is no dry land intervening to interrupt the operation. But if this, like the others they had attempted, were to result in nothing for them, they would put to the sword those who had instigated the plan and had deceptively led them to undertake such a long voyage, after which they would return to their own lands.
Having held this deliberation among themselves, then, just at the beginning of the night, they began that varied and multifaceted engine. For lighting fires everywhere, and joining all their ships in pairs, so that one held fast to the other, and binding their sides D with sturdy ropes and iron chains so that they would not easily be separated, they raised, by means of the rigging attached to the prows, the timbers projected in the middle, which it is the custom of sailors to call masts. Then, the necks of both ships were joined by these—
A raising them into the middle of the air; and by extending their yards out from the prow section and beyond the diameter of the ships, they devised a strange and extraordinary apparatus of complete craftiness through such a scheme. For, as I said, the necks having been raised on high, they laid upon them long timbers, one after another in order, and by filling the space between with earth in this clever machine, and fencing the edges all around with planks, and securing the ends of the necks at the stern sections with other very strong cables, they fashioned by this ingenuity towers more useful than those erected on the wall toward the mainland; upon these they stationed certain armed Barbarians, men of robust body and daring disposition and spirit, who would execute upon us their final and ultimate military scheme. For they had received orders that some should attack with javelins those who were stationed on the inner part of the wall, while others were to shower down upon those who were rushing against them immense stones, others fire, and that very substance prepared by craft and made ready beforehand in earthenware vessels. And all these things were active and suitable for them because they no longer crawled upon the ground, but by that wicked contrivance of art, the very structures of the machines now stood out with a superior mass, and all the force of their engine yielded to them conveniently as if from a higher position.
33. Since, therefore, all these things were brought to the work by the impious on that very night, B and nothing of what they had done had hitherto escaped us—inasmuch as they themselves, as has been said, had lit many lamps and the shore was not far away where they had been diligently preparing what they had planned against us—fear and consternation seized everyone, and they had no way by which they might henceforth preserve their safety. For one might have seen the whole populace trembling and at a loss, at one time baffled in another way and endangering life itself. For they were not anxious in their minds about how each one might repel the impending necessity, but were cut to the quick by thoughts of how and with what degree of torment they would meet death. For flight was no longer either easy or safe, since the Barbarians had walled in the fortifications and were lying in wait at the gates; yet on the other hand, to remain was not permitted, because the danger was passing before their very eyes. Therefore, all hope of safety having been cast aside, they went about the wall like mutes, struck dumb by the enormity of the misfortune. Yet it seemed good to some, in whom a spark of brave spirit was not entirely extinguished, while the enemies were still awaited, to prepare something upon the wall to repel their onslaught. And these things were pitch and torches and lime and some other things by which the speed of fires is nourished; in vessels of earth C
A disposed, they prepared these, so that if by chance ships should arrive, they might use these against them, and by hurling these into their midst, might drive them back from this very assault and render their efforts vain.
34. But when these were the actions and plans of men in desperation, and now the light of day was dispelling the darkness of night, behold, the ships, as they had been equipped, distributed through many places, rushed upon the wall and offered to the eyes of all a new and incredible spectacle. For each pair B of ships carried that clever construction of wooden towers, which topped the masonry of the wall by a great measure; from which the barbarians leaping down, like bulls goaded by a gadfly, threatened destruction to all. Then truly, then, those of the city's people who had scorned death—which was inevitable and certain, and, as they say, hanging before their eyes and pupils—had flared up with the whole ardor of the struggle, and providing a specimen of a brave spirit by the very magnitude of the danger, they stood fighting nobly in the war, and each of them showed what he could do. For they did not allow the ships to approach completely, but some by a thick hail of missiles, others by launching fire, kept them from approaching the wall and exerting their own efforts. But as for those who were struck in their soul by cowardice, and through utter helplessness of mind could not even gaze upon the experience of evil with eyes facing it, they gradually withdrew themselves from the walls and fled to the hills and higher places of the city, and from then on made the enemies more bold. C For when they saw that the structure of the wall at a certain point had crumbled more than elsewhere, where we ourselves had previously set up wooden ramparts, and they discovered that the water of the sea in a deeper gulf washed against the city at that very place, bringing a pair of the linked ships there, they pushed them little by little with oars until the very prows of the linked ships touched the ramparts. And then, when those who were positioned in the wooden ramparts began to cast stones at them, the Barbarians, standing atop the aforementioned machines, raised a great and hideous clamor and howling, and casting stones—no longer those that could be held in the hand, but most immense ones, the impact of which no one could have withstood—and having blown fire through siphons into the air, and having launched other vessels (themselves also full of fire) inside the wall, they struck such terror and stupor into the guards stationed there, that they leapt away as quickly as possible, turned in flight, and abandoned the whole area of the wall empty. But when they saw that they had become masters of their wish (for all were falling to the ground like leaves shaken by the wind, D and not by ladders, but as the terror swept them away), they sent in a certain bold barbarian, and, as it seemed, one more frenzied than the rest, in color most black, to the ramparts. He, brandishing the sword which he carried in his hands, and leaping onto the wall, and delaying not at all in it, was observing the force of the multitude, whether
perhaps they were turning aside from there not for deception, but for a true flight. For they were suspicious A that the inhabitants of the city might have some hidden ambush in the streets, through which they might be treacherously harmed after being divided into many groups, and they were hesitating for a while, fearing lest they might proceed into the city in such an unlooked-for manner and effect their purposes. But when the air, glittering with the frequent brandishing of the barbarian sword, made the entrance of the enemies manifest throughout (for it was indeed the third hour of the day), B then, truly, all who beheld the outcome of the evil turned, one this way and another that, driven by fate, while dire death pressed upon them all, and no counsel or reason remained thereafter by which they might repel it.
35. Afterwards, when the barbarians saw that the wall was denuded, and understood that no danger remained for them from the irresistible flight of the multitude, they immediately poured out from the ships and, leaping onto the battlements and breaking open the gates, made known to the other ships the end of the things done; and these also, having quickly pulled up near the passages of the streets, were sending the barbarians into the city—men naked in body, covering their privates with only a small garment, C and holding swords in their hands. Having entered the city, they first slaughtered those whom they found still lingering about the wall—whether struck by fear and unable to move, their bodies having been loosened by terror, or again those whom I was mentioning, broken by the aforementioned calamities and destitutes of all hope of consulting for their flight; they slaughtered them with all speed. Then they dispersed through the streets and squares; and the urban multitude, divided into many parts, was in an uproar D and screaming, and was confined in the narrow places, when no way of salvation or of repelling the calamity was at hand. For one could see then the people like vessels destitute of any helmsman being carried this way and that by the storm—a miserable spectacle—men, women, and infants collapsing into one another, hanging upon one another, giving that most pitiable and last kiss and greeting. If by chance some old father among them, rushing upon the neck of his son, was mourning sorrowfully, unable to be separated, but holding the limbs of his dearest one, and before the sword being pricked by natural pain and affection, he was composing his own lament: "Woe is me, my son," he would say, "in what circumstances are we now involved! What are these things that I behold with my eyes? Is it for this that I reared you with diligent care, and for this that I handed you over to masters, and expended effort and expense so that you might shine among your peers with greater prudence, and when I fully expected to be an object of emulation on account of the happiness of my offspring, and to provoke envy with your glorying, and furthermore to be more blessed than other common parents, as one who was endowed with such a most honorable son, the body itself"
A in its stature, and yet more lovely in the aspect of its face, and even more so in the form and beauty of its soul, I should then see with my eyes this calamitous and most wretched separation from you? Was it for this that I have been brought to this miserable gray age, to see your body being ravaged by Barbarians, and my most beloved and much-desired limbs being inhumanly torn asunder by the sword of the executioner? Woe is me! Whither shall I turn? With what eyes shall I look upon these things? What lamentation shall I make over you? If only I might find such an executioner who would strike me down first with the sword, so that, not being taken by a slower death, I might not experience pains more bitter than the sword upon you. To this one blood-stained torturer I would give thanks, if, leading the stroke from my aged neck, he would then offer your blood to mingle with my gore. For thus, by such an effort, you would have taken away the greatest part of my pain.
36. And these things, indeed, this man said. But elsewhere, another, meeting his wedded wife, having sighed a deep and great sigh, and shaking his head and changing his countenance, running to her and embracing her, lamented their dire fate with a mournful voice: "Farewell, wife, and forget your husband. For that great force of love which we established between us by the social bond of nature is severed this day, and the sword cuts through our union, and untimely death separates our marriage. No longer shall we pass our life in the fellowship of existence. No longer have we any concern for the begetting of children. If only we had not seen with our eyes these infants who now encompass us, from the beginning. If only they had been given to the tomb by our own hands, and not kept for this wretched slavery to these wild beasts." Then, mingling with their children and raising a lamentation as in a chorus, they awaited their separation. Brother again meeting brother, and friend meeting friend, the one bewailed the bond of blood, the other their long-standing habit. And, in a word, everything was filled with the immeasurable intensity of their individual laments and unintelligible cries, as if sheep gathered for slaughter were emitting a mingled sound. For some of them were running back to their houses, others were watching the roads; some were being driven toward the venerable shrines, others were hastening to reach the gates of the city. Others, indeed, wished to climb the wall but were unable, their natural strength having collapsed under the expectation of the terrible things; for they did not know how to brace themselves against the evil, but wherever they happened to be in the city, they found death meeting them face to face, so that no counsel remained for them by which they might safely look to their affairs.
37. But how, most learned of men, shall I recount to you the calamity that has befallen us, or the continuous succession of so many evils? Which of these shall I mention first, to subordinate the others to it?
A Shall I yield? On whom shall I move my tongue to speak, or stretch forth my hand to write? For the memory of the events deprives my mind of its seat; and as I seem to see before my eyes the very things I am about to relate, I clearly perceive how arduous an account of them this must be. For the mental realization of the events—as it presents a likeness of the danger to the soul through memory and fashions the things in the imagination—compels me to restrain the impulse to speak. For what were the things being done at that time? Some, fearing the ruin of the soul more than that of the body, bore death heavily, seeing that the separation from the body was the beginning of the punishments of the age to come. Others, fixing their knees to the ground and bathed in a fountain of tears, implored God that they might be deemed worthy of the calling through such a death. Others, wounded in their conscience by the memory of their sins more sharply than by any sword, lamented the time spent in vain and called it back with sorrowful repentance. Others, being able to perform nothing of this kind and having surrendered their reason to distress, stood trembling, awaiting the blow like inanimate trees. Others, struck by fear as though by a gadfly, could not be contained; and many of them, acting without deliberation, rushing outside the wall, either finished their lives by falling or surrendered themselves to the Barbarians stationed there. B 38. But what shall I recount first regarding the women, who compelled even the very air to lament with them, namely the cries, the wailings, and the embraces of their children? No longer wishing to maintain decorum, having been overcome by the passion, nor desiring to withdraw themselves from the sight of men, but behaving shamelessly, with disheveled hair and oblivious to all that makes for modesty and shame, they ran about like those possessed, with plaintive clamor and groaning against the danger. Among them even virgins, not yet accustomed to go out from the house, but who were safely being kept for marriage and had been taught all modesty—having banished shame from their faces and not even reflecting through fear that they were women—wandered through the middle of the forum, joining the other women in the lamentation and wailing terribly. The monks themselves and the nuns, as many as in the very flower of their age and being young, had cast off the affection of the secular life for the love of virtue, living for themselves alone and for God, went out from their monasteries and, scattered through the streets of the city, mournfully bewailed the common destruction. C Hence I am greatly astonished and stunned, when I consider in my mind the manifold and diverse kind of virtue of those Nazarenes, which they cultivated in solitude—namely, the all-night singing of psalms, the sacred virginity, the constant prayer, and the incessant tear—how they did not reconcile the divine compassion to us? How did they not secure the city, how did they not find as the reward of their virtue the escape from the danger? D
A But they were taken like sheep without a shepherd, all having been made subject to the sword and sharing in the slaughter destined for the wicked. Nevertheless, I believe that the death of these ones, as the Psalm says, has become precious before the Lord—in this matter, too, the Wisdom of God having honored His own servants, so that, along with the rest of their virtue, they might also carry away the martyr's prize and as though to lavish upon them the rewards of endurance and the recompense of those ineffable good things. But the multitude of our transgressions has caused not only their intercessions, but even the prayers of the martyrs, to be rendered unavailing, so that, now that we have suffered what we have already suffered, all those who despise divine ordinances might be able to understand that those who grow wealthy in wickedness will be unable, by any saving help, to exempt themselves from the Lord’s threat and his just vengeance.
39. For as the Barbarians, having entered, dispersed throughout the entire city, every age and every race of men was at once slain by them. For there was no pity in them for any, as they had long been raging and thirsting for our destruction. Both the old man and the man still in the prime of life, and the youth, and everyone encountered was, by the blade, put to death. Nor did they strike them with a lethal blow at once, but in order to torment them longer with pains, they hacked at the parts about the back and thighs, forcing them to delay in their dying. And yet, not even so was the fury of those besieging them sated; rather, they were distressed in their madness that they could not die many times over. B For that they might sate that beastly and indomitable lust of theirs, they spared neither women at the beginning of the calamity, nor the children themselves, whose untimely age often forces even the eyes of wild beasts to compassion. But C there was an equal slaughter for all, just as in a lush meadow, mowing down everything in its path, so that in a short moment of time the city, which a little while before was scarcely not cramped with inhabitants and teeming with crowds, was deserted and laid waste. As we have said before, one portion of the people had seized the summits of the hills up to what is called the acropolis, or what they call the vicinity of St. David (for this part rises higher than the rest of the city, and there was also a multitude of monks, all men famous for virtue and deemed worthy of the heavenly way of life). Another portion, again, had flowed to the two gates facing the west of the city, all having one single goal: to escape the blade's cutting. But they fared no better than the others, since the Barbarians were lying in wait outside the gates, and it was not easy for them to pass through even otherwise, as they pressed one another in the crush and obstructed the exit.
40. For what a calamity had occurred at the so-called
A Golden Gate! How those of the people who had gathered in that place, when they wished to open it even slightly, failed in their attempt! For no sooner had they separated the gates from one another than they were forced by their own crowding to rush back together again. When the enemy came upon them thus packed together, they no longer slaughtered them one by one with their swords, but as they saw them compressed and clung to one another, unable to turn aside, they struck them in the face with their swords, so that after the blow the head of the victim would be split, and similar parts would fall aside here and there; nor even after death were they committed to the earth, but were held in an equal heap with the other bodies, until all were slain, and—as if supported by the life of all, I mean, having fled—they were joined together both in death and in the blood they shared.
41. This same thing occurred also at the other gate, which they call the Litaean Gate. For as we said, the Barbarians had occupied the gates leading to the sea before the others, while we ourselves had beforehand closed those looking toward the East, suspecting in them also the engine, the damage and ruin of which we had experienced at the gates outside the outer wall. And since escape was thus blocked from everywhere, the people merely rolled about in the streets and everywhere ran into the nets of death. For very few, and those, as is natural, extremely easily counted, leaped from the walls at the western part of the harbor and escaped the danger. Others, moreover, secretly slipping away from the gate that is toward the acropolis (that is, the fortress), provided for their own safety before the calamity had arrived. These were the leaders of the Slavs, who had meditated flight long before and had previously stolen B the keys to those gates for that very purpose. Whom it behooved, once they had observed the extent of the evil, to allow the exit to anyone who happened by; for in that way many who were there might have avoided slaughter before the Barbarians arrived. But they could not endure to bring any such thing to mind, but always looking out for their own affairs, and contemplating with attentive minds how they might ward off the danger from themselves, they opened the gates slightly and made their escape quickly, leaving one person behind at that place to close them again after they had gone out. In such a way did they plot against the safety of all, even then contriving a deceitful pretext, as if they were not turning to flight, but were rather going out to receive their Strymonian allies, as the commander had supposedly ordered.
42. Not much time had passed, and the Barbarians with drawn swords were standing at the gates, and it was no longer possible for anyone safely even to look outside, let alone avoid the danger. C For I myself, with my father and brothers (two of whom are younger than me, D
A and who were partakers of my captivity and current sufferings) found ourselves at that very hour in that place along with not a few others from the city. And as soon as we had endured that wicked ambush (for after the pretense had been enacted, we recognized what had happened), we all turned back, each of us rushing as quickly as possible toward the city, scattering in different directions as the force of the evil drove us—a spectacle of fear—and as the feeling from that event distracted one person and then another. It therefore seemed good to my father and to us, since the Barbarians had not yet reached us, to escape for the time being into a certain tower located on the inner wall and not to mix with the crowd, so that if the enemies were perchance to arrive, we, separated from the others and alone, might more easily encounter them upon the battlements, present some embassy to them, and save our own lives. B And this, by divine providence, is what happened; but now I am setting out to tell how, and by what miraculous power, this occurred.
43. We ascended the wall, running with speed toward a certain projection opposite the venerable shrine of the first-called of the Apostles, Andrew. We were five in all together—my father and I, along with the two brothers I mentioned, and another person too who was related to us by affinity—all of us clerics, and distinguished by the rank of lector. When we had remained quiet there for a little while, and were considering within ourselves the C impending finality of the sword, we began our lamentations, each of us deeply sighing for his own soul and for our separation from one another. But before all, my father, who was already advanced in age and well-practiced in the arts of speech, began his mourning in this way: "Woe is me," he said, "my children, subject to many hardships, in which I am now caught, and to whom this wretched and miserable life of mine was left! That I should see the death, in a single moment, of those whom I had brought forth at different times and had received as children, nor did I have even as much time left to me as is granted to unbelievers, to lament in a manner D equal to such a catastrophe. For I would have called even inanimate things to this common and inconsolable grief, to share with me in my pain and misfortune. For not all the citizens feel otherwise than I do, as each one, while grieving bitterly for one of his own, is in need of the compassionate sympathy of others. But two evils have befallen me at the same time: the danger to my soul, as one who has spent his life in sins, and this unexpected separation from you, which I had never imagined would happen this way—for my prayers were always that these eyes of mine, heavy with grief, might be closed by you, so that, resting in your hands, I might be handed over to the burial place of my ancestors, and leave you in safety to care for the old age of your mother and for those who are still quite young and in the early stages of their lives...
A destined to provide the necessities of life for your two brothers. But now all hope of this kind has been taken from me, and caught in the midst of evils I await your untimely death. Has the abundance of my sins indeed preserved me and kept me for this day, that I might see before my eyes my most beloved children cut down by barbarian swords, and their most longed-for limbs cruelly torn apart by the hands of the executioners (oh, the pain!), and not even have the assurance that the murderous wretch will release me, miserable that I am, from life first? For by comparison of evils, that which concerns me would have been tolerable; but I am suspicious because of your youthful age, and the blooming state of your faces B makes me divine that the enemy, having sated themselves on your slaughter first, will later, after I have endured many deaths and entered into new struggles for each one of you, mingle me in this way with your blood. But I have surely carried myself away, my dearest children, far from what is fitting, distracted and lamenting things I ought not to have uttered. For I have been overcome by the evil, and the public calamity and the times and the circumstances have forced me, even against my will, to wail and cry out. For who, even if he were of stony heart, carried away by the bitterness of such a dire fate, would not lament himself and those with him caught in such a great evil? But there is nothing that God wills and does among men that is not ordained C toward a useful end. For perhaps it was decreed because of our immense wickedness that we should die in this way; and behold, before my eyes stands the repayment of life, violently severing our souls with swords. But He who has permitted these things to be suffered is not unjust, nor is the violent separation of the soul from the body, nor that He permits us to pay here the penalties for our sins which were to be exacted in the coming judgment. Therefore stand firmly, placing all your hope in Him alone, who has the power to forgive sins upon earth. And even if it be necessary to suffer something painful for the sake of faith in Him, let us endure it with closed eyes, and let us not fear this destruction of death; for even if not in this manner, it is nevertheless strictly necessary that one suffer it in another way, and pay what is owed to nature and fate. Let the deprivation of life, therefore, be for us a cause for thanksgiving, so that we may not only die, but also face death in the hope of the blessedness hereafter. D 44. By saying these things, he was training each one of us for the death by the sword, and providing us with the eagerness not to shrink from the consummation.
45. While he was saying these things to us, and we were falling upon one another and bidding our final farewells, behold, a band of barbarians also appeared, in no small number, Ethiopian in complexion, with naked bodies, having their swords drawn, leaping about in a terrible manner and [showing their madness like the grinding of teeth].
showing their maniacal state after the manner of their own swine. A Then, when they had come to the place, they first slaughtered those who had returned with us and, having been shut out of the gates by a malicious and harmful design, were huddled there by the wall. These people had no other care beforehand than merely to offer their necks to the executioner's right hand and to position themselves for the blow. It was possible to see this happen, and it was a sight full of stupor and horror. For if the killer, affected by the submissiveness of a man yielding himself and inclining toward death, felt any sense of pity and was pricked by conscience, he would deal a lethal wound and free him of his pains more swiftly; but if his heart were not softened like stone, but he preferred to revel in his madness, provoking his fury all the more by the misfortunes of the captives, he would hack the body that fell into his hands limb by limb and defile it, inflicting the force of many deaths upon the wretched man in a single disaster. And in such a vast and crowded multitude, there was nothing to be heard but the clashing of swords and the roar of the torrents of blood gushing forth.
46. Not much time passed before all were lying there, a spectacle truly worthy of many tears and laments. But when the slaughter reached even us (for they had seen us cowering on the wall), they rushed forward with one accord just like a ready prize. Yet when they had reached nearby, they checked their momentum. B For there was the tower mentioned before, between us and them, through which they intended to pass to reach us. Long ago, its entire floor had been covered with timber, but in time this had rotted and fallen away, offering no safe passage from that direction; for only two logs remained suspended in the middle, over which those who crossed would make their way in terror. The Barbarians, therefore, observing the sheer edge of the dangerous place, suspected lest, while they were in the middle of the logs, we might have prepared some trick C inside the tower, and they might be plunged from it—for it was built to a great height and threatened a grievous fall. God, the worker of wonders, put this thought into their minds; for had they dared to cross the gap immediately upon arriving, we would have suffered no less a destruction than those who had already been slain. Meanwhile, out of the respite of their indecision, each of us, shaking off the fear in our souls, began to turn our minds toward whatever might be useful to do in such a crisis. So, acting with what speed I could, I leaped up, disdaining death and not even putting into my mind the danger that stood directly over my head. Having arrived at the very entrance of the tower, I was intending to go across the logs toward the Barbarians. Seeing me thus D marching toward them so boldly of my own accord, a man unarmed and carrying nothing for defense, but having something important to say, they themselves also stood in a line, arranging themselves in order, and raising their right hands, and making a show of aiming their swords at my head. But not even this...
A fear deterred me (for I had my whole mind fixed upon what I wished to say). One of the Ethiopians, the bravest and most daring of them, and taller than the rest, approached me [P. 356] and attempted to bring his sword down upon my forehead. I raised my hands and said, "Do not do this, for you will deprive yourself and those around you of much wealth."
47. Thus it happened that I spoke, and by this bold gesture and demeanor, I restrained the fury of the Ethiopian from striking the blow. Putting my left hand into my bosom, I quickly drew out some golden ornaments and placed them in his palm, saying, "Let these be the pledges for my life. But if you desire to obtain far greater things than these, turn your attention to my father, my brothers, and also to my father's brother (pointing with my finger to the place where they were hidden at that time), and promise them that they will not die; and I will provide you with useful gifts, which we have deposited in certain hidden places, awaiting your arrival—places which we alone know, and which we will readily show you once we have secured our safety. If we should die, these things too will be lost, having escaped your hands and vanished from the account and use of men along with our lives." By these words, I suppressed the Barbarian’s fury, and by the distribution of these ornaments B, I brought him to understand, as far as possible, the meaning of what I was saying. For this purpose, I fashioned myself with various gestures and postures of supplication; for the Barbarian understood nothing of what I was speaking to him, but seemed only to marvel at my boldness and the ingenious skill I employed in every way to ensure his trust.
48. Meanwhile, another person approached from nearby and cried out, "Why are you doing this, and why are you detaining the Ethiopian with your supplications, when you could speak to me? If there is any need, I will help you." I, emboldened by this man's presence and having shifted to a more hopeful state of mind, shouted out, "Save me, whoever you are, sent to us by God in these straits, and rescue me from this present necessity! You shall receive from us, in return for this favor, a ransom worthy of the life you have saved—a ransom such as will not be found elsewhere in all this city that you are plundering." He then said, "Take heart, banish the thought of death, and compose yourselves with a more cheerful spirit. I," he said, "will convince the Ethiopians themselves to make the same agreement with me, and I will lead you up to the leader C and commander of the entire army, so that you may receive from him assurance regarding your lives, provided only that you yourselves intend to fulfill what you have promised. For if any of the things you have mentioned are not brought to effect, these swords will judge you." As he was saying these things, the father D of my own, with the two aforementioned brothers, approached us, and bowing their heads to his feet...
they begged to receive the same assurance that had been given to me, confirming that they would promptly fulfill everything I had previously stated. A That man, therefore, immediately deposited into the ears of the others all that he had heard from us, especially telling everything one by one to the man whom I had encountered at the beginning, and having persuaded them to offer us a sworn oath, he exhorted us to fear nothing from that point on.
49. Taking us under their guard and bringing us down from the wall, they led us, surrounded in the midst of their company, toward the sea, walking over the corpses of those who had already been slain. Upon entering the inner gate of the city, we did not continue straight on our path, but turning toward the slope of the hill that is there, we were carried downward. B There we caught sight of certain other Ethiopians ascending, who themselves were also carrying swords in their hands. They, too, seeing us being led by those who had already captured us, were stirred by their natural savagery and rushed forward shamelessly, showing from afar the intensity of the fury that moved them. But when they had come near us and understood that those who had already anticipated them were ensuring that no harm should befall us, they dispersed amongst themselves and withdrew. However, one of them, who was more shameless and bolder than the rest, as is to be expected, followed like a rabid, barking dog, and schemed to strike one of us with his sword by treachery. For, pretending to be one of our captors, C he was unnoticed—I know not how—as he drew me aside from the others and proceeded to attempt to kill me once I was a little distance from the assembly. I immediately cried out; and my father, disturbed and turning around (for I happened to be walking with him), when he saw that I was close to death and that the executioner was gnashing his teeth and was about to plunge his sword into my throat, holding me by the hair, he poked with his hand the man who had only recently saved us from the previous danger, who was nearby, and anxiously revealing the scene, he said: "What is this, and for what reason, having forgotten your promises, do you sentence my son to death, as if he were condemned to capital punishment? D If he is taken away by death, life will be of no use to us. Therefore, save him from his oppressor, if you have any concern for us at all. If not, then also make a libation of us with his blood. For we cannot bear to suffer death apart one from another." Moved by these words, he immediately ran over, and approaching the spot, he held back the barbarian’s hand, which was already stretched out and brandishing the sword. But he, although constrained in his attempt, as one to whom it was not permitted to carry out the murder he had intended, flared up with greater fury, and gnashing his jaws, rolling his eyes, and grinding his teeth (for this is the custom 556 of barbarians), with a bloody and savage look, he attempted to tear himself away from the one holding him and to rush at me again; but he who had been sent by God to be our savior at the opportune time did not allow him to do so, but by gently persuading him from his purpose...
and finding that no further success followed from this, he, being all the more stirred up in his anger and spewing forth slaughter, took the chance to steal up behind my back and swiftly strike with his sword, inflicting a blow full of madness—one that even now reveals the intensity of his right hand. A Then that admirable man, suddenly changing himself to a fiercer disposition and resolutely pushing back the Ethiopian, snatched me up as I had already fallen at his knees, soaked with the blood from the wound, and swiftly made his way to our companions.
50. B When, therefore, I was once again among the multitude and, with that evil having been escaped, was offering thanksgiving to God, I had time to contemplate the wound on my back, when suddenly I felt a second blow struck, more painful than the first. For that man—audacious and reckless—I know not from where he had come, suddenly drove his sword into my side from behind, howling terribly and manifesting the uncontrollability of his nature by the loudness of his voice, such that I said to the man who was defending me and was present with me: "Why, pray tell, have you neglected my life alone and handed me over to death to the barbarian?" (turning and pointing to the Ethiopian). C "Know this for certain: if all of us, to whom you pledged your faith under oath, are kept immune from death, then the end will come to what we promised; but if, through your negligence, it should happen that even one of us is lost in a way that you cared less about, we shall all perish by his fall, and you will not obtain any of those things you hope for. D Therefore, if you have not pledged your faith through deceit, but with a true oath, secure our safety with every effort; and know well that we, too, will fulfill everything we have agreed upon with you." Having heard these words and told them to those around him, he persuaded them all to set upon the hostile man and drive him far away; and from then on, they surrounded us and began to walk more slowly.
51. We came to a certain place where there is a monastery of women practicing religion, which has long been called that of Acrullius. Encountering yet another guard of Barbarians at the vestibule, the Barbarians who were with us spoke with them for a short while and decided to enter, thinking they might find something worthy of estimation there. We followed them, casting our eyes upon the present thresholds, not yet recovered from the dizziness of our former mental state. Having therefore entered the vestibules of the temple (it was that which is consecrated in the name of the martyr George), we saw a certain Barbarian sitting on a stool with an arrogant air, holding a drawn sword, while those around him, with their eyes intent upon him, signaled by their gesture and nod that they were prepared in obedience to do whatever he might command. So, when we reached him, he asked those who were our guides who we were and for what reason...
we had escaped death. They explained everything in a few words, and taking us by our shoulders, they threw us prostrate on the ground at his feet. But he, A holding the sword he happened to have in his hands, turned it around, using the blunt edge so that it could not cut, and lightly struck each of our heads one by one. He then ordered us to stand up and be of good cheer, and, "Having this as a pledge of your safety," he said, "I counsel you to fear no evil in the future." He then commanded the Barbarians who were standing by to unlock the doors of the temple, which had been closed, and springing up from his seat, and holding my father with his left hand and one of my brothers with the other, he entered that venerable sacred building. It was full of the miserable people who had been thrown in there sometime before, who, as was later reported to us, numbered nearly three hundred. B
52. But a no small crowd of murderers also entered with the enemy. But he, immediately leaping up, climbed onto the sanctified altar upon which the mystical sacrifice and divine services are performed by the priests. There, with his feet entangled and crossed one over the other, as is the custom among Barbarians, he sat, full of rage and madness, and looking around at that multitude of men, and, using the cunning and treachery of his mind, arranging what he wished to see done, he took my father and brother in both his hands, and since he had also commanded us to be kept by those who had captured us near the entrance, he signaled with a nod to the Barbarians to slaughter them all. They, indeed, quickly, like untamed wolves C that have seized their prey, thus eagerly and pitilessly cut down the wretched men. While they were still boiling with rage, they looked toward that terrible judge, waiting to see what he might wish them to do with us. But he restrained them for the time being from the attack against us; yet it appeared to us, who were being kept there, that my father and brother had been killed with those whose corpses lay slaughtered, and that he had spared us alone; and it occurred to those who were being kept near the altar to think the same thing concerning us. Nor was there any way to put an end to that mutual anxiety regarding one another. For as the slaughter of those wretched people came to an end, and the whole floor was filled with dead bodies, and between them D a flood of blood was beginning to pool, since that murderer had no way to get out, he commanded that the corpses of those lying there be piled one on top of another in the colonnades surrounding the temple on both sides. This having been done, he immediately jumped down from the altar, and again embracing my father and brother with both his hands, he came as far as us. But so great was the darkness of those spectacles which terrified our souls—both those which we saw them do at that time and those which we suspected in our own minds—that even though we alone had escaped death in such a great massacre, we were affected by no less sadness, but merely, as if stunned, with our faces fixed upon one another, we were prevented by the enormity of the deed from even uttering a sound.
A That arrogant and ferocious man, having dismissed the greater part of the Barbarians, leaped onto a horse that was standing by and flew from our midst, ordering them to take us up and hasten quickly to the city's harbor; for he said that he himself was hurrying to the same place.
53. Thus they took us and led us as quickly as possible, ensuring our security on every side. We frequently encountered along the way many throngs of Barbarians who were gathering, all of them breathing slaughter. It was no small task to escape their notice, even though the Ethiopians who had first captured us were men of very robust bodies, and there was nothing by which they could be frightened or persuaded to abandon their B attack. Nevertheless, with no little labor and anxiety, we reached the aforementioned harbor of the city. For the leader and commander of the enemy fleet was stationed there; to him the Barbarians who were with us reported our situation, explaining the cause of why we alone had been saved from all those whom they had encountered. He at once ordered one of his attendants to rise and stand upright, and passed this judgment concerning us: if indeed those things which we had promised the Barbarians C on the wall were found to be true, and if we performed the stipulations by our actions, we were to be spared and brought back to him again. But if they discovered that nothing of the kind had truly been said, and that we had invented everything based on a lie—either because the money had been badly squandered beforehand or out of fear of death, and that we had craftily devised this deception because necessity so pressed us to avoid the first onslaught—each one of us was to be cut limb from limb and consigned to death there on the spot.
Immediately, therefore, they surrounded us again and ordered us to be led to the place where we had previously said the money was stored; at the same time, they proclaimed the sentence passed against us, and that if by chance any of what was said was not carried out in reality, the matter would be decided by the swords with which they were girded. Therefore, fear seized us even more than before, lest perhaps one of the servants or those who had previously D been unaware of the place, having fallen into a similar necessity and wishing as well to escape the destruction of death, might have already pointed out the abundance of the hidden things, and we might be found to have been striving in vain by such schemes and plans to preserve our lives.
54. But while we were not yet able to see these things for certain, we arrived at the place, and we showed it to be just as we had marked it at the time when the items were hidden. For in one hidden room, whoever of us were united by the bond of blood and were kin had, as if divining what was to happen, decided in a not imprudent manner that each should store his own things. Having shown the entrance of this to the Barbarians—which was closed off by a stone slab—we stood by, having unburdened our minds of many anxious thoughts. For now there was nothing that needed to be feared regarding the promise; on the contrary, however...
we obtained indulgence through the abundance of things provided. For just as they had obtained those hidden riches, they straightway turned from a cruel and savage disposition to cheerfulness and ordered us to be of good courage. "For by these things," they said, "you have redeemed your safety, and through them the gifts of life are granted to you this day. But let us go to the leader of the army and the commander, so that from him you may receive pledges of perfect security." B Therefore, they led us back from there again to him, but we encountered certain terrible and strange sights. For the bodies of the slain still lay there, dripping with gore—a fearful spectacle! People of every age had been condemned by a single sentence to death by the sword, and, like the others, were deprived of burial. The wine was poured out and flowed through all the streets of the city, and, mixing with the blood of the fallen, it intoxicated the whole foundation of the city. As we were near, we scrutinized them, and if we ever recognized any old acquaintances or friends among the other corpses, C we indicated this to one another only quietly with groans. There was no leisure to lament them or to bestow anything useful from our former friendship; but, grieving in vain for the one lying there, we were again forced to turn our concern and our minds toward our own affairs.
55. But when we had already arrived at the harbor, we were brought to the tyrant, at the time when he had called the commanders of the ships to an assembly and was performing the impious worship of what they call prayer. When he had finished that ceremony, he ordered us to be brought before those who stood by. When we were led in, he asked my father, "Are you," he said, "the bishop of this city?" For he conjectured, as far as could be seen from his vesture, that he lacked nothing of that dignity. D He replied, "I am not, but a cleric, and one who has need of the blessing of bishops." But another man standing nearby, who was a leader of the other army, said to him: "This man is indeed not a bishop, but he has attained a rank in no way different from theirs; for we know him to be the exarch of all Attica, failing in no way in honor compared to the bishops." "But who is this?" he asked, pointing to me with his finger. "He is his son," the one standing by replied again, "also a cleric himself, and one of those assigned to the clerical ranks of the palace." "These two are his brothers," he continued, indicating those who were following me, "both sons of this leader here, though born of him at different times, and they are of different ages." "But who is this old man who is with them?" the cruel judge asked again. Picking up the word, my father answered, "He is my brother," teaching him by a gesture that he should also confirm it. When he heard these things, he ordered everyone to sit down, and after sending others away, he said to us calmly and quietly: "I wish you to be far from all evil suspicion. For then..."
the fact that you fell unarmed into the hands of those who seized you, and the fact that the sum of money now exposed before my eyes spared your lives, which is hardly to be expected by the common people, have granted you life. Henceforth there will be no fear for you of death from treachery, nor any suspicion; nor will you be harmed by any other injury at the hands of my subordinates. But go, taking counsel for your own benefit and cherishing good hopes. For in this way it shall come to pass that we arrive in Syria, and I will send you straightaway to the city of Tarsus in Cilicia, to be kept there with those who are held captive until the time of the expected exchange. And the price of your redemption shall be our fellow-tribesmen, the Agarenes, who are not infrequently captured by the Romans in various expeditions; upon whose arrival you too shall be freed from your bonds and each of you shall return to your own homes." He spoke, and returning to his own men, he began to recount matters concerning us, speaking for the most part in a barbarian tongue. B Nothing, however, remained hidden from us, since he who had preserved us from the beginning was still with us and leading us about, from whom we learned all things. Furthermore, he ordered us to be kept safely while sitting in a certain place surrounded by the sea. This being done, we first drew our souls completely away from the fear of impending death, and we entrusted what was to come to divine providence.
56. Then, however, cares for our near and dear ones began to steal into our thoughts, just as if we were contemplating the beginning of our misery for the first time, piercing our hearts more sharply than the swords surrounding us, wondering how and in what manner they had been put to death, or whether some of them had escaped the danger and been condemned to abduction similar to our own. Yet we could not know anything certain about them, because the enemy had just occupied and entered the city, and everything was full of indistinct shouts and tumult, and a great multitude was milling about in the harbor—both citizens who were being captured, and the Barbarians themselves—some praising the spoils, others forcibly dragging women and nursing infants C from every place and every house, who were wailing piteously and mourning in sorrow at the loss of their mothers, while others were cruelly dragging away some of the nobles or those of prominent wealth who had escaped destruction through an indulgence or promise similar to ours. For by now, even Nicetas himself, who had been sent by the emperor, as well as the governor and commander of the surrounding region, had fallen into the power of the enemy and were being kept under guard in certain Barbarian ships. Therefore, we were no more able to care for or be anxious about our loved ones than we had been before, nor did any results follow.
57. But indeed, besides those savage sights of the enemy, it was possible to see something else more unusual and marvelous, namely the sun's rays turned aside from their natural course and D by the heat of the trials...
A and the aggravation of the time, the faces of men in a brief moment were livid and darkened, taking on a different appearance by reason of their misfortune. And all, equally burning with desire, longed for a single drop of water, and were not even masters of that. Men in the prime of life, youths, and those still quite young, demanded nothing else but to temper their thirst with some small refreshment, and they did not obtain even that. Thus, to be sure, all that day was passed, with all of them herded together by order of the ill-omened beast into different places, over whom guards were set to glare at them B throughout the whole night, so that no one might be able to steal away from the midst and escape. And for us too, in the place where we were kept, about fifty of the captured men were ordered to be mingled, most of whom happened to be wounded, carrying the marks of death upon their bodies, and not having the hope of anything milder in store; for taking ten from among them, they slaughtered them, and for these there was no security in the hopes for life, but they were disturbed and wavering, awaiting the same sentence as those who lay fallen. But since, as has been said, the night interrupted these matters and they were not able to sufficiently finish the business through it, some of the barbarians went about-making noise with certain cymbals and howling—until the morning again arrived, bringing with it a painful expectation C for those who feared they were to be handed over to death. Yet, nothing more than the sword or the corruption of thirst was consuming everyone, by which being fiercely pressed, we begged those who were with us to at least allow us to partake of the waters flowing through the place and to share in some slight respite. They, however, refused this, not that they felt any pity for us (for how could those who reveled in slaughters and breathed death?), but because that water, being the effluent of the entire city's sewers, was of itself sufficient to bring destruction to those who drank it, without any other poison mixed in. Nevertheless, as if it were pure and sweet drink recently melted from snow, each of us brought that rot to his mouth D with pleasure and, in his mind, deemed that cup of foul stench to be full of honey.
58. In the midst of this, a decree was again brought out by the tyrant, containing as follows: "If any of those taken have money stored away, let him come forth into the midst and redeem his safety with it; but if any be found having no ransom for his own life, let him be beheaded and removed from the number of the living." He ordered this having heard from the barbarians that they had spared no one [P. 365] when they first burst into the city, unless they were persuaded by those very people that they had in hiding money capable of escaping every search. All, therefore, among the captives of those things which were hidden
A they at once rendered manifest, urging the gift as a ransom for their lives. But those who recognized that they had nothing of the sort in their possession, yet had only invented agreements in vain hope, awaited the execution that had been undoubtedly decreed for those who were lacking. Therefore, certain of the barbarians were assigned to this task, so that those who wished to offer their own possessions would take them back to their own houses; and if they were of such value as to be worthy of satisfying a greedy eye, they would be granted their lives and listed once again among the prisoners; but if they were some cheap and petty things, and such as would not seem pleasing to the one who sent them, they would be dispatched by the sword. There was, therefore, not a small danger again from this for those who had not been captured, as many were distinguished from those who possessed some wealth B or other worthy of being sought after. These things continued for ten full days and nights, the multitude of money being constantly carried out of the city, and the rest of the necessary material, as much as was elegant in silken clothing or that which, made of linen, vied with spiders' C webs, so that heaps of these things matched mountains and hills, others being piled upon others and filling the underlying space. For they did not consider at all the copper or iron utensils or wool-woven garments, holding the possession of them to be superfluous. But if any imprudent person brought such a thing, they threw it into the sea, punishing by this also those who had escaped the danger, so that they too, feeling the many and varied losses of things, might become partakers D of the destruction and evil for that time.
59. There was among the rest of the multitude of captives a eunuch of the emperor who had been seized, one of the notables, whose name was Rhodophylus. He had chanced, shortly before the danger, to have been sent to the West, and having returned to the city for certain necessary reasons, he was trapped by the same turn of events as we were and became a participant in the evils that have been mentioned. For he was carrying a great amount of gold, which he said he was conveying for the sake of some relief for the army in Sicily, which was constantly engaging with the barbarians in Africa and thus was in need of much help in its affairs. This man, therefore, on the night that preceded the danger, the trial of which we all experienced, had secretly—I do not know how—carried that gold out of the city with some of those who served him, and sent it to the commander of Strymon, having written a letter containing an order to keep this safely until the end of the war. Captured, therefore, he was led before the face of the tyrant. The latter, having changed his appearance, and having addressed him with more severity and force than he had before, questioned him: "Where, tell me," he said, "is the emperor’s gold, the two talents which you were ordered to take to Sicily?" But Rhodophylus [said]: "This very thing, in which I also find myself—fearing the destruction of the city, and because I myself, being present, could not depart when such great danger was turning, nor could I perform what was my duty, while all the [responsibilities] were upon me"
I carried that gold secretly out of the city (for I could not precisely conjecture about things unknown), and today I stand before you a prisoner of war, ready to be the source of many other riches for you, if you spare me alive and unharmed." The arrogant man, stirred by these words and bearing them ill, and displaying the fury that possessed him both through his eyes and his voice, roared from the depths of his heart: "Since," he said, "this fellow from the women’s quarters has not learned from what is before him that the sentence of death cannot be escaped by those who do not offer their own money as a ransom for their lives, but instead performs like one on a stage, putting forward a mask of lying as if it were some great and admirable matter for his own salvation, let his hips and the parts about his B back be struck with rods, so that he may at last know for the first time whom he stands before and what he is talking about, and that he may not, by wrangling over other people's money, bring danger upon his own life." The ministers of unjust slaughters, therefore, as soon as they saw him—having heard that sentence pronounced by the man standing there with a dragging voice and madness—more quickly than words could express, threw him to the ground, and struck him with so many blows that the poor man’s body could not endure for long; but, divided into many pieces, and having filled the underlying ground with streams of blood, and being unable to withstand such sharp pains and tortures, he gave up his soul. When, therefore, he had failed and was clearly dead to those cruel executioners, who struck him with blows even after death, the implacable beast, having with difficulty C finally allayed the anger that possessed him, said: "Let him, too, perish along with that gold; for it would have been useless, it seems, even if it had been found; it would have shown nothing to our advantage."
7. He commanded the leaders of the ships to prepare for departure, by first embarking upon the vessels the young portion of the multitude, both male and female, not according to kindred, but separately, so that even in this way, by an involuntary separation of relatives from one another by nature, no light punishment might accrue to them; then [he commanded them] to collect the money and whatever else of their gathered possessions seemed useful, and to load the ships with a sufficient burden of cargo. And so the whole of the young generation D was led away, having this as their only accusation: that they were in the flower of their age or of handsome and beautiful appearance. For although the confusion of the calamities caused all to appear in sorrow, the natural character still showed the nobility shining in them; and the very ray of beauty, gleaming in their misfortune, was the cause for more than a few to be given over to evils. But which of these shall I recount first? Or which shall I deem more pitiable by a just and worthy reckoning? For when a mixed and mighty lamentation arose, as nature was being rent asunder, [and] kinfolk [were separated] from one another...
calling out and lamenting the separation. For it was possible to see those confounded by the suffering—men, women, and blooming children—all together crying aloud, rending themselves, and no longer able to contain their anguish at such great distresses, but revealing the disposition of their hearts by their wailings, as if their whole being were consumed by the flames of trial. For as they were violently separated from one another and shoved in confusion into the ships—which were indeed spacious and capable of holding many, yet not so arranged in order, nor, one might say, assigned sufficient space for the bulk of the bodies of those who had entered, so that each might have a place—but rather, as each was once thrown in, he was left exactly there, and could not, in all the days that followed, B find even a span of ground to recline upon and give his body even a brief rest.
61. Furthermore, all the ships were filled in this manner, being—as we have said—fifty-four in number. Yet the crowd of people was still redundant, and judged worthy by them of being taken away into exile. Therefore, the Barbarians collected the city’s ships which our merchants used at times to transport wheat, and which we had also sunk in the sound of the harbor by some ruse; these they drew up by means of a certain machine—which they perfected by using iron rings fixed into the ropes and which was highly expedient for the task they had envisioned, pulling up whatever was underneath by a certain artifice of winding ropes and suspending them. In this way, they gained an abundance of other ships and brought everyone on board, so that not a single one of those who were designated for this was left behind C. Among all of these, I do not know if even one male appeared who had the down of hair upon his chin, or among the women, any who had reached maturity; for everyone of both sexes was of a youthful age, and among them, most especially, were newly born infants. Whoever might have counted them one by one would have been broken in spirit, unable to bear looking upon the misfortunes of each of them.
62. But against those of us who, for different reasons, had escaped the sword, another decree was again promulgated by the tyrant: namely, that those of our number, especially those who seemed able to endure the inconveniences of the voyage, should be divided among the leaders and five introduced into each of the barbarian ships, to be kept there for the sake of being sent to Tarsus for the aforementioned exchange. As for the rest, since they could provide nothing useful D if they were taken away, and, what is more, would be a useless burden, it was decided that they should be released into the city. Yet this was not decreed out of any gentleness of spirit or humanity, nor was it meant to offer anything to God, as some foolishly contend that the Barbarians do; rather, this too was done with a certain method and wicked artifice, so that nothing might appear not to have been planned for their own calculations and gain.
A For knowing accurately that the redemption of the captives by means of an exchange would come about before long, he cleverly contrived that they should not obtain their liberty casually and just as it happened. And consider the cunning of the drama. For when some people came after the destruction of the city, having escaped its ruin and catastrophe in any way possible, and were purchasing back their own captive kin, there accompanied them a man named Symeon, a man distinguished for his mature prudence and experience in many affairs; he had been sent by the Emperor not long before to the city for a certain necessary purpose, concerning which it is not necessary to speak now. B To these men, who came frequently every day until the time of the departure of the ships, this formidable Leo communicated his plan against those already mentioned, saying to them: "I," he says, "being moved by hatred against you from the beginning, had determined to grant no one of the captives their life. For what reward is there from God, when victory favors, to grant death to enemies who themselves were eagerly contriving it against us? However, since some utility presses, whereby it is necessary that they be kept alive in this way—if indeed the affair should reach a fortunate conclusion—deliberate among yourselves concerning this. For I am in a hurry, as the time now calls me to return to my own country. C Are you therefore able to lay claim to these two hundred in number by a written guarantee, so that we may receive in exchange for them, at the time of the swap, an equal number of our own (that is to say, Hagarenes), and persuade the one who holds the scepter of the Romans to offer no ambiguity about this matter, but to give his consent to those things that will have been agreed upon by you? Or are you afraid to give a pledge, as if it were not within your power, and as if you had it as uncertain whether or not he will hold it valid—and do you consider a matter of no account to be so great an evil, to simply procure the destruction of your own people through your lack of zeal and kindness toward them? D Tell us, therefore, which of these you choose, so that by casting our vote in one direction, we may either keep these men alive or put them to death by right of victory." Then the said Symeon, as one who excelled the others in dignity, said to him: "I alone take this guarantee upon myself, as one who has surely learned of the humanity of our most merciful Emperor in all things, and that he will certainly, without any discussion or dispute, contribute as many captured Hagarenes as there are captives whom you have here as spoils; these I will lead to Tarsus myself, so that the guarantee may be dissolved upon me, and you may have nothing to bring against me once I have discharged the debt. Only let these men enjoy some salvation, so that they may collect and give burial to the bodies of the departed, which lie all over the city and draw the very air itself to mourning by the dire sight of the thing." Upon hearing these words, that most wicked man, having persuaded the same Symeon to confirm those agreements with a written document and an oath, gave orders to release all those of us who exceeded the established number.
A 64. When he had also brought this matter to a successful conclusion for his own advantage, and had safely established his fraud, he devised another plot, with no less cunning than the first. For he ordered the entire city to be set on fire, so that from this also he might derive no small profit. This was not without reason: he knew that those who were ransoming the captives would never allow such a thing, and would certainly prefer to see them burned by the flames than even hear of such a proposal. For before the fire had been carried by the Barbarians through the middle of the city, and while they were still only burning the houses near the sea, those citizens who were present immediately reached a firm mutual agreement to pay the price for the city. From that point, orders were again spread everywhere that the fire was to be kept away from the houses, since this scheme also had succeeded according to his wishes. For those men who accompanied the aforementioned Symeon, having no other source from which to pay the sum, promised the two talents of gold which the eunuch—beaten with clubs—had sent off to the Strymon. These, having been quickly brought back to us by fast couriers from the place where they had been hidden, and paid over to the Barbarians, by this means preserved the city unharmed from the fire.
65. But when this too had reached its end, and there remained nothing more that could serve as a pretext for the extortion of gold by those insatiable eyes, and since there was no reason for him to remain there any longer, but rather a need to be anxious about the outcomes of the voyage—as was the custom for those sailing at that time—then indeed, when the sun was holding the midpoint of the sky’s axis, on the tenth day of the destruction, we sailed out from the harbor and were brought to the aforementioned Roman Gate, where we spent the remainder of the day. B We were five in number, just as we had been captured, on a certain ship belonging to the commander of the Egyptian fleet. My father had requested of him, through an interpreter (since he did not know how to speak our language), that he send his guards to bring to us all those who were related and allied to us, wherever they might be scattered. And this was very nearly accomplished, had not the multitude of our misfortunes also stood in the way of this, making those who had been sent to search for them more remiss. For they quickly brought to us from where they were my mother, one of my other brothers who had not been captured with us at the beginning, and also my brother’s wife. C But my own wife, with three infants, and—last among us all—the sister who was born after us, along with the rest of the throng of our relatives, they neither wished to find, nor, if they did find them, did they perhaps deign to bring them to us; but they were mixed up here and there in the common crowd, weighed down by the storms of our separation. We endured, however, as those who had met with such dire calamities, this further affliction—that we were separated from one another—even though our circumstances surpassed every kind of anguish and distress.
A 66. When they were preparing to set sail, the Barbarians placed certain twisted cords and wedges upon the feet of every one of us, packing us into the ships like some lifeless, inanimate weight. They did not grant us the ability to breathe even a little free air, but pressed that out too, by the constant suffocation. For they bound us to one another in such a way that the entire multitude appeared as one indivisible body, not even in the smallest degree separated or broken apart by that constant compression. But since the sun was already setting and the light of day was giving way to the darkness of night, they struck up a song of victory with cymbals and drums, and, flashing the air above our heads with the whirling of their swords, they departed from the land, having pulled up the anchors of the ships after a long, indistinct, and harsh howling had been kept up deep into the night. You could have heard the multitude, some silently lamenting only for their fatherland, others—each of us, in the secret chambers of the heart—sending up a voice to God, praying that He might restore to their fatherland those whom it pleased Him, having chastened them healthfully through such trials, and that, having not abandoned them to the end, He would not allow them to remain in such despair of liberation.
67. B As we had by now begun to navigate at the dawn of the night, many other hardships pressed upon us: hunger, thirst, and the very compression itself—resulting in physical bruising (for in that single ship in which we were carried, the number of captive souls was eight hundred, besides the two hundred Barbarians who were also in it). In addition to this, there was the pitiable outcry of the very young children, who were in no way able to endure the intensity of those miseries, but for whom nothing was hastened save an untimely death. But more than all these, the need of the belly, for which there was no way to find a remedy, as natural necessity compelled an emptying; for many, valuing modesty more than the necessity itself, and not being able to endure the violence, not infrequently fell into danger. C But when the day was dawning, having sailed past the promontory of the aforementioned Ecbolus, we arrived, when the day was already declining into late evening, at a place they call Bolbus, where some horsemen appeared, coming to us from the land. These were the ones who had also come earlier into the city, wishing to purchase certain matrons; the Barbarians swiftly brought these women out of the ships and handed them over, having received a great amount of gold for them. D Having set sail again from there, we lingered near the end of the island called Pallene, and having rested there a little while, the wind being favorable, as evening approached the sails were pulled again, and, being stretched by the violent force of the wind, they bore us, as we were being carried along violently, until at the beginning of the following day we found ourselves at a place called "Diadromoi" by those who sail, which has two islands extended in length on either side, facing one another, between which the sea flows past like a river, dividing the islands by a space of only one stadium. As we arrived here—
A we chanced upon an unfortunate ship laden with grain, and so suddenly, due to the unexpected nature of the event, those sailing in it could make no move to provide for their own safety. Although they seemed to have driven the ship toward the adjacent island and attempted flight, they gained no advantage from this; for the Barbarians, having disembarked most swiftly, seized them and, with the exception of only one man, slaughtered them all and led them to their deaths. Departing from there once more, we coasted for two days and nights along the great island of Euboea, and steering our sails toward its more northerly sea, we reached the lower reaches of Andros with a most violent whistling of the winds. For we were not sailing in a straight course, nor toward any specific destination, but rather, as it seemed good to the ship's masters, we kept making shifts and shifts of direction, now here and now there. For they feared lest B the Roman fleet should happen to be stationed somewhere and, having plotted some wicked scheme, might bring some disastrous ruin upon them unawares. For this reason, we were carried about among various islands, just like wanderers.
58. Wandering in this manner, we arrived at a certain island called Patmos; where we remained for six days, enduring trial of every affliction. For the place being waterless, thirst ravaged the captives. For water was not given to us in such measure as sufficed for the sustaining of life, but only enough to delay for a little while death, which was already looming; and he who drank it, unless during the very tasting he held his nostrils shut, so as not to perceive the foul odor from the start, could in no way swallow it, since even before the draught, the very sight of it offended one's nature and caused distress. Moreover, our food was merely a crust of bread, and that rotten, destructive of life and deadly. For the provisions which the enemies had brought from home for their own use, when they proved superfluous and were entirely spoiled by rot, so that not even any of the brute animals could even look upon them, these were set before us for food, full of such graveolence and unpleasantness as cannot be told, teeming with worms and covered in much mold, and having absolutely no strength for sustaining the body. From this, one could conjecture that an almost infinite multitude was being driven every day to death by the injury of thirst and famine, and that the bodies of the dying were being cast from the ship into the sea, and for a long time were carried bobbing among the waves C and, more than the rest, the wretched race of infants, since their nature was not yet established, were afflicted by more varied inconveniences and evils. The living, in turn, were not far removed from the dead, and anticipated a like destruction for themselves. Among all of these, we who were bound in twisted ropes were scorched by a sharper torment. For sitting one beside another like empty sacks, and wounded D by the wedges to which we were attached, and
pressed together, such as no one in words could speak or relate, we endured anguishes, in which it was not permitted even to stir in the least or to catch at any consolation, unless simply to lift our heads a little, if at any time we wished to draw some free air into our nostrils, lest amidst the heap of all other evils we should inhale the horrid stench of present things. B An immense force of lice also, another most wicked kind of evil: for no differently than a creeping death, they were feeding upon the life of all, so that from this the countenances of all were altered, and we seemed to live in appearance, not in reality. But how many blows they inflicted, raging insanely against us, or with what reproaches and injuries they burdened us hour by hour and moment by moment, in which they especially seemed to store up their wrath from the fight in battle, what speech will suffice to narrate? Who indeed, hearing of it, could endure the tragedy of this thing? For me, a distraction possesses me, as often as there comes to mind alone those innumerable evils to which we were subject throughout the whole period of that voyage, how human bodies could endure such a multiform hardship and injury, having been previously accustomed to luxury and overflowing with delights, and in no way used to the vexations which are accustomed to be inflicted by brigands; and how they endured the unbearable and double burning, both that from the flame of thirst, and that from the summer season drying up the natural moisture, and—what is more miserable than these—in what way the soul was held fast and remained within us, when at night they spread out leather hides over all the ships and locked us all, miserable as we were, inside, so that they begrudged us the use of light, as they did of other things; so that by darkness and heat, a double inevitable evil, the debt of life was demanded from us. C But I believe that the divine providence, which exercises care for the things of this universe, granted us strength and vigor beyond all human estimation to endure all these things, so that in the future, understanding from what evils we were then delivered beyond all hope, we might correct both ourselves and others by the example.
69, 70. Verumtamen, when the time was now pressing for the Barbarians to return to their fatherland, we set sail from there again and were carried to a certain island named Naxos, tributary to the Cretans. When we had arrived there, the islanders received the ship-captains with gifts and offerings, especially those D which they knew they needed for the purpose of the voyage. Having lingered there for only two days, we directed our course toward Crete; for a most favorable wind invited us, until we came to a place called by the inhabitants Zontarion (as if you were to say "Vivarium" or "Life-enclosure"), but known to us by the contrary truth. For thus, the place named after life delivered many of our number, exempt from life, to death. For while they were putting in there, fearing no harm to themselves from the South and Southwest winds, the Barbarians, than in the ship-yard of the city, were anchored
A. When we had been brought into the harbor, the Cretans recognized us (for they had been watching us from the sea from far off), and they first spotted the Roman fleet approaching the island, which made them fearful because they were not prepared for war. But afterwards, when we had come near, and they had recognized certain identifying marks of the ships, they reached the place B and welcomed those with them with great joy, and, as they showed their sincere mutual affection through this communion of customs—for, as the saying goes, like ever runs to like—they came forth. Then, truly, all the Barbarians disembarked from their ships, and they deigned to grant us some release from the cramped confinement among one another; they also shared with us the water of that place, which was abundant and flowed forth in plenty, cascading into the waves of the sea. And so, having rested that whole night from our continuous labors, we thought that with the coming light we would enjoy a respite for a little while, because the island was wealthy and well-stocked with the necessities of life. But we did not know that we were to be harassed by evils equal to our former ones, or even more bitter, and therefore we were received by them so that through those things we might be preserved for these more atrocious ones.
71. D For when the shadows of the night had already dispersed and the light was beginning to make the dawn rise, as the Lord's Day was breaking, a shouting was heard on every ship; the Barbarians were raising a certain pleasing and joyful sound in unison and beating their cymbals, so that the whole area seemed to shake and be disturbed by the clamor of the crying. Then, after that indefinite and most fearful noise, they began to discharge the cargo and burden of the ships onto the land, having divided the area below into sections according to the number of the ships, so that they might bring the cargo of each ship, whatever it might be, separately and distinctly from the others, so that the wealth and substance of each one might stand in no way mixed with the others. They spent, therefore, that entire day unloading the ships. On the following day, the ship-captains themselves also disembarked, and again divided in other parts both the multitude of captives and the copious and ample harvest of spoils, at the wonder of which the Cretans were struck dumb, having no example with which to compare what was set before their eyes. Since, however, this was the first thing determined by the Barbarians, that the population of those unfortunates should be mixed, so that those who were bound by any right of affinity and the closeness of blood might recognize one another again, then indeed a horrible and confused wailing was heard, as all, as if from a single source, poured forth rivers of tears, and kept whispering, if only they might find somewhere any of their dearest ones, lest the time allotted for searching for their own slip away, and they might remain uncertain as to what hope they should entertain of being comforted and enjoying an embrace; and because of this, they thought they had discovered an indulgence. The miserable women went about, their hair loose, looking everywhere
A and turning their eyes, wet with tears, to see which of their children they might first encounter. And the children themselves, those who had escaped the terrors of the sea, wailed in a piteous and sympathetic tone, just like tender calves when they are taken away from the breast, some wandering in one part of that general dispersion and calling for their mothers. The miserable mothers, often encountering them, would pour out their natural affection upon them, embracing their necks, kissing all their limbs, and washing them with tears, deeming this alone a great and wondrous consolation, as if, amid such evils, something beyond hope had been saved and their dearest pledges had been restored to them alive. And this, indeed, was the case for those who already had their children in their hands and who, by their own experience, had learned that their situation was safe. But what should I say about the others, whose infants had perished in the waters and whose outcome was unknown to them; how they rent their tunics, unable to endure the inner turmoil of their hearts; how they could not remain in any one place, but were carried about uselessly by the mindless surge of their emotion, turning their eyes in every direction, if they might see some one of those they desired, or hear from someone who knew for certain and had seen what happened, so that they might soothe the heat of their soul with that consolation? They would do this for two or occasionally three days, until, when they were much exhausted by the labor, B some of their acquaintances would inform them of what had happened to those they were looking for, namely that those sweetest heads had mostly perished from hunger or thirst. Wherefore, they, being further exasperated by greater pain, would receive the news of their departed ones with louder lamentations and other forms of agony. But why do I labor in vain to describe these things in writing, when I would not be sufficient to represent even the smallest portion of what was done then? For it would be necessary for that very person to be present who wrote the Lamentations of Jerusalem, the most sacred Jeremiah, so that he might pour out inconsolable tears over such a people so oppressed by such pains and evils. For Rachel did not thus lift up her voice in Rama when she lamented the loss of her children, as the Scriptures say, in the way that that valley, in which these things were being carried out, increased the pains and evils of the captives.
72. For what evil, again, was accomplished by these God-hating men? For, as we have said before, they first reasoned that if the captives of the multitude were mixed together according to their relationships and affinities, and if they were given over to slavery while their many pains were being relieved—so that, as in the midst of evils, they might lead a life that was in some way tolerable—they would see them joined together by bonds of affinity and holding onto one another like an unbreakable chain, C and it would be difficult to separate them, in so far as they were about to assign them to the sections of each ship. They decided
upon a wicked plan A that was also contrary to nature. For they ordered those who had once been united to be separated, and if any mother, they say, had among them an infant in need of milk, the impious men decreed that this one alone could remain with the parent—as it could contribute nothing to its own subsistence—while the rest of the kinsmen and relatives were to be separated once more and assigned by lot, promiscuously and without any distinction. For what speech could recount the misfortune of such a calamity? What tongue of orators could express that diverse and multiform savageness of the pains, B when nature itself was being torn into many pieces by this strange and irrational decree, having as its only crime the communion of kinship and the innate connection of those who were united? For indeed, the son was being torn from the father, the daughter from the mother, and the brother from the brother. What can one conclude all those people were suffering, when they were being led into slavery in a foreign land, where the worship of our faith is abused as execrable, and the most irrational passions are honored; where fornication is held in high esteem and madness is celebrated, and shamelessness is deemed worthy of great honor; where the male sex is perverted into female use, and the creation is violated, and everything is full of confusion and turned toward evil? Which of all these things did they lament first? In which did they not choose to hang themselves? Yet they bore everything, with God providing souls and constancy in all things, and disposing each one individually by the nod of His own will.
73. But when, again, by this decree they were divided from one another's kinship, they sat under guard in various places until a new decree was issued C that all should be numbered, and that in accordance with each person's appearance and age, the unique rank of each ship should be identified, so that no ship might be burdened with an excessive load or diminished, but that, according to the multitude of those who were in the ships of the Barbarians, the portions should be made equal, and nothing more or less than what was just should be distributed to them. Thus, first of all, the entire multitude was numbered; the total was twenty-two thousand heads. Among all of these there was not even one (excepting ourselves, who were kept for exchange) whose chin was covered with hair, nor in so many thousands of women was there any who had passed puberty. For the people D were a chosen group, conspicuous for their youth, and they seemed to vie with one another, each surpassing another either in the bloom of their age or the beauty of their form, even though the continuous force of their afflicted circumstances compelled them to depart from their natural state and appearance. But after they had all been distributed into parties and, together with the spoils, had been packed back into the ships (for these, too, had been divided along with the multitude), the Barbarians who inhabited Crete purchased not a few of them, not refusing to pay much gold for them, and not simply or incidentally.
A For they knew that they would receive back many times over what they had given when the time for exchange arrived, and they would receive their own fellow tribesmen who had been taken prisoner by the Romans. For the redemption of captives in these regions is not conducted as it is in the parts of Syria, but here an ancient custom, confirmed by time, has prevailed, that they should bring back the Barbarian, whoever he may be, in place of the one they hold, and demand double the price given for him. For this reason the Cretans purchased many of the captives, having devised the calamity that befell us as a contribution to their own profit. These things were carried out over the course of ten full days, as the customary ships were always transferring those who had been bought and carrying them off to their own cities. Among these it happened that my brother’s wife was also sold, which caused us no small grief. But my mother and my wife, along with two children (for the third had died and been thrown into the sea), as well as my miserable and wretched brother, and my sister, the youngest of all, were saved by some divine providence in one of the Sidonian ships, to be carried off to Syria. But we all, whom the Barbarians were keeping for exchange while we were still scattered, they gathered together and brought into one warship that had been pulled away from the shore, and they shut us in, having placed over us guards from among their own people who were experienced in their affairs.
B And so they prepared to set sail after one more day; for the season was already pressing them and did not permit them to linger in that place, as the weather was turning toward winter. The commanders of the ships, therefore, having mounted horses which they had in readiness, along with the tyrant himself, arrived at the city, both to demonstrate to the Cretans the notoriety of their deeds against us, and to perform their own abominable rites, and to be received kindly by the inhabitants of the place, and to relax their minds somewhat from the labors they had endured. There they spent another day and then returned in haste, and with the wind now favorable, they urged on the voyage. C And when the twelfth day was already beginning, I mean the day of our arrival in Crete, we began our voyage. We were carried over to the opposite island, which is called the island of Zeus; and having been carried thence again, we anchored at the extremity of the island. There we took on water and waited a short time in that place, and when I saw that the wind had become aft, they sailed from there, steering through the middle of the open sea. We were all, as has been said, on one Roman warship, which was a bireme. The Barbarians who were traveling with us claimed the upper deck for themselves, while they left the lower part to us, D full of great darkness and stench; and what else should one call it but a grave moving upon the waters?
A For if I wished to recount one by one all the things we endured during that period of the voyage and the straits in which we found ourselves, I would seem to the majority to be telling fables and to be deviating from the truth, which at the beginning of this account I promised to set down in writing for everything. For this reason, leaving out for the most part of my own will the events to which I might seem to have been able to apply my mind—having dwelt on these until now in order to provide thee, O Gregory, most wise of men and most studious, with certainty in all things—I shall in the same manner continue to recount the rest. These also, I believe, are sufficient to soften any heart, however hard and implacable, not to mention thine, in which, among other virtues, this sentiment of compassion shines forth most uniquely; and, obeying this sentiment, thou didst urge me to undertake this writing and didst constrain me to dare such a task, which exceeds my own power.
B 75. But as we were struggling against various types of misfortune, a great storm arose, and the sea, churned up by the tempest, brought us into grave danger of our lives. From this, all the ships were scattered far from one another and divided by the violence of the wind, and they were unable to maintain a straight course. I know not by what evil demon it came to pass that Leo, of ill-omened name, who was sailing near us on the left, was being carried along, seated on the poop of his own ship and instructing his helmsmen in the skill of navigation. Alongside them C another ship pulled, weaker than the others, which had been broken in the middle by the force of the gale and threatened those on board with the very death of the waters. From this ship, the Barbarians who were on board cried out: “Save us by your presence, O leader of the troops, and do not let such a multitude of Hagarenes perish, whom until this moment thou hast kept free from all danger,” explaining briefly what had happened. He, straightway ordering the ship to be steered toward them, inquired more closely. They cried out again with one voice, and pointing to the damage of their ship, they pleaded that all of us who were prisoners should be thrown into the sea, so that they might be transferred into our ship, saying that it would be a shameful thing for us to be saved in such great peril while they perished in the shipwreck of the sea, and for their lives not to be preferred to ours. D To this he agreed most swiftly, and commanded the ship to be brought to a halt, and that we be thrown into the sea from our ship, and that they be transferred into it. While these things were being done, we gradually drifted further away; for we were being carried by a violent and raging impulse, driven by the waves, so that not only a cry, but not even thunder could be heard from the place from which we had become separated from them. As soon as they saw that we had drifted far away, by a mere nod they commanded the Barbarians who were with us to wait. Yet they, whether because they did not understand what they were being told to do, or because they did not care, since they seemed in no way to pay attention to what those men were doing—or perhaps (which is more likely) instructed by an ineffable instinct of God’s providence toward us and taught by divine power—continued the voyage.
paying no heed to what was behind them, but with all diligence contriving their own salvation and ours in so violent and monstrous a tempest.
A 76. When, however, they saw us far distant and noticed that their schemes were coming to naught, and perceived that they themselves were brought into present mortal danger by the ship being nearly submerged, they made another request to the tyrant: that he should receive them into his own ship, but allow those who were with them—along with the spoils being carried—to be given over to the sea. He, for his part, was again ready to comply with this, even though the time did not permit it, but rather served to increase the despair of all, and his ship was already sufficiently burdened by the previous cargo and load. B Yet it did not seem advantageous to him to abandon the captives to the abyss of the sea while the Barbarians were saved; rather, deliberating within himself under the pretext of mercy—perhaps egged on by the madness of his avarice, and not moved by any pity for the destruction of our people (for how could he be, he who but recently had seemed to take delight in unjust slaughter?)—he ordered that they too be taken aboard along with the Barbarians, so that he might thereby swell his purse all the more and satisfy his gold-hungry madness, even though the undertaking was perhaps a heavy and foolishly bold one. C But when everyone had been moved with the utmost speed into his ship, the other vessel was swallowed by the waters while the Barbarians looked on, and the very shipmasters themselves were being kept safe in the tyrant’s own ship. These same men later recounted these things to us, marveling at the all-seeing and philanthropic power of divine providence. For they declared that there were more than a thousand souls in that ship, both Barbarians and captives taken aboard at Crete, and finally those who had been added for the reasons mentioned, so that the vessel was only a palm’s breadth away from being submerged. But the Lord, the knower of hidden things and examiner of what is secret, did not permit this. D Yet when He saw the hearts of all, having now abandoned every hope of a happy outcome, and showing their helplessness to Him alone who is able to do all things simply by willing it, He turned His eyes toward them, and having calmed the storm into a mild breeze, and having settled the roughness of the waves into a tranquil sea, He delivered them from such great danger, making it plain to all, and showing by the facts themselves as if shouting, that the God of wonders is able to liberate those who call upon Him in truth and fear.
77. After the fifth day of the voyage we reached the island of Cyprus at the harbor of Paphos, where we rested a little while the Barbarians went out of the ships to bathe in the nearby waters. Then, setting sail from there after one day and night, we arrived at Tripoli...
A on the very day on which the saving wood of the Cross is exalted, so that we too were about to be delivered for the first time from the perils and evils of the sea. When we had come near the wall, the whole barbarous multitude of the townspeople, receiving their own and marveling at us, poured out to the naval station. For as soon as it happened that all the ships of the city were gathered and brought into the harbor, then from each of them a great quantity of money and other spoils—as if from cities of vast capacity—was brought out and conveyed into houses prepared for this purpose beforehand, so that in a short interval the city was filled with the reception of these things. They led us also, bringing us forth like a trophy of victory, and triumphing over us in the eyes of everyone, they made our misery and calamity a spectacle on the stage of the world. For with how many shoutings did they use us, and with what leaps did they insult us at the entrance of the city, when we came to it, taking our reproaches and injuries as a sign of great pleasure for themselves! B This caused us even greater pain than the rest, as we could not bear those evil and repeated reproaches and the greatest of disgraces. When, however, after that triumph was finished, houses were assigned to us in which we were held, confined under the custody of the Barbarians until we should set out for Tarsus, then indeed, released from many labors, and pressing our heads to the ground, we prayed to God with tears that He might finally at last put an end to our evils and no longer let such whirlwinds of troubles be directed against us, the mere hearing of which would make the soul shudder, since they even exceeded the nature of every painful thing. [P. 382] C 78. But these things concern us, who were kept for the sake of exchange, and the other captives who had the lot to be with us at Tripoli. But those of us who had been separated in Crete were scattered in other ships along the entire maritime coast of Syria; merchants bought them and sold them again in different places, trading them among themselves up to the present day, so that some of them have even reached Ethiopia and the Barbarians who dwell at the furthest south. If anyone should attempt to record the evils and tribulations of these, he would seem like one who foolishly thought he could count the sands of the seashore. For indeed, you yourself, most studious of men, if you have encountered any of them in Damascus and the cities around it—for I know that you have encountered many there, because all the Tyrian ships carried their captives into those regions— D not to mention that even our own sojourn in Tripoli, when we first became briefly known to you as you were passing through there, has sufficiently informed you about these matters, and even while we were silent, the events themselves portrayed [our state] and revealed the pain of our souls by the appearance of our faces. Wherefore, you too, having felt compassion at that time, and having become a sharer and partner in our misfortune by that very fact—in that you made much of learning the whole series of these events—have quite clearly manifested
the sequence, you showed yourself wounded by grief beyond measure and pained in your heart beyond what is moderate. However, having been worn down by those many and infinite storms of trials, and finding nothing better, even in Tripoli itself, throughout the time we spent there, but rather—at least as far as I am concerned—having been oppressed by evils even worse than those before, since there I was orphaned of my good father, having found his loss to be, as it were, a new beginning of evils; nevertheless, not long after your departure, by order of the tyrant, we were all again put on the previous ship, with some Barbarians as fellow passengers, and arrived at this prison of Tarsus. And now we are tossed, overly anxious, between two expected outcomes: either to gain the redemption B long whispered of through a saving exchange, or to be sent to death, which is present daily with its frequent illnesses and, furthermore, is a constant neighbor to those who are held in prison. Yet we cannot know with certainty which of these we shall encounter first.
79. I, for my part, have already fulfilled your command, greatly admiring your virtue, and how you have applied your mind to the investigation of these matters, so that you even induced me through your letters to make clear to you all the events concerning the sacking of our city. I have decided that it is right to fulfill your request, not for any other reason, but that you might have, as a memorial of your friendship toward us, this calamity of ours, which may continually stir you with the memory C of sad events and incite you to a zeal for good things. For the memory of painful things is naturally inclined, in some way, to lead the minds of the diligent toward virtue, and the narration of terrible matters is accustomed to provide security for the soul. But do not, by paying attention to the simplicity of the writing, despise the profit contained within it; rather, considering that it is fitting for one to trust in what is said because it is composed without artifice and is unadorned, be eager to repay me for this undertaking with your prayers, entreating the common Master either to remove these evils from us or, for those of us who bear them courageously, to grant the reward of patience on the day of His just judgment.
The end of the memorable history of the lord John Cameniatas, D cubuclesios of the most holy metropolis of Thessalonica, which everyone, but especially a Thessalonian, ought to read through diligently and intelligently, as it is, as far as the benefit of the soul is concerned, most excellent and most profitable.
PREFACE OF FR. COMBEFISIUS TO THE MONODY OF DEMETRIUS CYDONIUS
As long as we are occupied with affairs in Thessalonica, and its former destruction under the Emperor Leo, son of Basil (by whose efforts all that ruin and desolation of that city was almost restored), before taking my hand from the tablet, I have felt inclined...