COMPENDIUM CHRONICUM OF LORD CONSTANTINE MANASSES FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD UP TO LORD NICEPHORUS BOTANIATES.
The soul that loves learning gapes after material things, and strives for everything to attain its desire. But you, queenly soul, most philosophic, always thirsting for knowledge, word, and culture, are ever bent over books, delighting in discourses, and for you the entirety of your life is the word. Since, therefore, you have longed, being a foster-child of the word, for a summary and clear composition to be prepared for you, plainly teaching the ancient histories, and who held rule from the beginning and until what point they reached, and over whom they reigned, and for how many years; A we shall take upon us the weight of the labor, even if the matter is difficult, burdensome, and arduous. For our toils in the word are comforted by your great gifts and your love of honor, and your frequent generous, refreshing gifts mitigate the heat of the labor and the weariness. And these things shall stand for me here and up to this point, lest the speech appear too flattering to some, and, leaving the goal, be heard to run elsewhere. Many indeed have recorded history and written chronicles, and have striven to speak rightly and tell the truth,
B Just as the soul that is desirous of worldly things keeps its attention fixed upon them, and leaves no stone unturned to be able to attain its desire, so you, my lady, endowed with a royal spirit and most studious of learned culture, always longing to know and perceive something, are bent over books, deriving pleasure from the writings of the learned, and, in short, spend your whole life in the liberal disciplines. Since, therefore, as a foster-child of learning, you have requested that a book be written for your use, summary and easy to understand, which may clearly set forth the deeds performed in the ancient centuries, and who from the beginning have held authority over things, how far they progressed, over what nations, and how long they presided over the empire, it sets forth; truly we accept this burden upon ourselves, although we know it is a difficult, grave, and laborious task to undertake. For your munificence and liberality recreate our labors in completing this commentary, and your frequent gifts mitigate the heat of weariness and distress like the sprinkling of some dew.
And let this be said of these things thus far, lest the speech seem composed for the sake of flattery, or lest, the goal being abandoned, it be held to wander elsewhere. But since many have committed histories and annals to letters, and have indeed striven to recount all things rightly and truly,
and having selected those who seem to hold most to accuracy and to speak the truth most, we shall fulfill [our task] for you to the best of our ability.
The all-perfect Word of God, the Creator of the world, brought forth the starless heaven from the beginning, shining with immeasurable beauty of divine brilliance, and the earth, the nourisher of all, and with it the light. A The earth, however, was unadorned and invisible, and deep darkness lay upon its surfaces. But when the light shone and was poured out everywhere, and the white-robed, light-bringing day had come to pass, the things formerly unseen were revealed, and the gloom of the darkness was put to flight by the torch of the lightning-beams.
And a third [day] dawned again, and again the Craftsman, the all-contriving Wise One, turned his attention to other works. For since all the water that was under the heaven was poured out over the whole earth, moving about, covering its entire face in a flood, he gathered all the fluid mass together at once, as if someone were to condense a drop of sweet-juiced milk with rennet and turn out a round of cheese. And so, the veil that formerly obstructed [the view] having been removed, the face of the earth was seen, its form appeared, and [the shapes] of the rocks, and mountains, and deep-cliffed hills. In these things, then, the first of the days passed by. B
When the eyelid of the second day had shone forth, he fashioned the second heaven into a sphere with all wisdom, creating it as a roof covering all things on earth. God the Craftsman named it the firmament, a sphere different from the first, which had no stars. Then, too, he divided the all-pouring nature of the waters, and of these, the part from above he lifted lightly to an inconceivable height; the part he left upon the earth, he stationed between them as a barrier, as a solid wall. The pupil of the second day was thus closing.
From there, the entire system of the waters he named the Sea; but the nature of the dry land, as much as was stony and rich-soiled, God the Craftsman and all-worker called Earth. Showing forth the power within it that surpassed his own, even though the rays of the giant sun had not yet shone, he commanded all manner of vegetation to grow—part for the pleasure and delight of the eyes, and part for the nourishment of animals and the usefulness of those dwelling on the earth. C Then for the first time the earth was adorned with decorations more splendidly than a tender maiden recently betrothed, shining in a garment interwoven with gold and pearls. The sweet-scented violet shone, the rose shone in response. Irises of every color smiled from everywhere, some deep blue, some purple, others reddish-yellow. D
A Some roses were seen to be deep purple, others were whitening and shining with a sweet glow. There were snow-white lilies and pimpernel. The hyacinth rose up, and there was the beauty of the narcissus, and every first-fruit of the graces of spring. Ears of corn, heavy with grain, were bending low. Ivy crept along, shaking clusters of black berries. All things were beautiful, dewy, and abounding with beauty B and the earth breathing forth uniform scents. Soft, green grass was spread out upon the ground, pasture for cattle, for horses, and for sheep, dewy and meadow-like. Such a multi-colored garment did the earth wear; such an easy-flowering, finely-woven mantle did it enjoy. There were also ranks of plants, and there grew up trees, limbs fair of leaf and fair of hair, heavy with fruit. There was a budding branch of a fruit-bearing apple tree, flourishing olive trees, sweet-tasting fig trees, the resinous pine, the fir, the oak, the elm. The wind beat upon the petals of the pine, C and produced a sweet whispering in the leaves. There also was the beautiful cherry and the honey-sweet palm, the vine, mother of clusters, and fences of vine-twigs, and a nectar-flowing grape-cluster hung from the vines. All things were full-fruited, all things were entirely perfect; for nothing ungracious or imperfect was brought forth.
On the Fourth Day
A In these events, the light of the third day set, and the face of the day after it shone, and again there was a beginning of works, and a command of the Creator B that the heaven should become a crown with the stars. Then the heaven was adorned with the beauty of the stars like a mantle strewn with pearls, like a cloak studded with gold, like a fabric adorned with flashing stones. Then first shone the eye of day, the great giant, the sun, the life-nourishing lamp, a fountain of light unexhausted, the home of immaterial fire. Then first, the moon, the gray-shining and light-bearing sphere, began to torch the night—having just completed its circle, entirely full of light, shining, perfect. B Then first the heaven saw the great stars, beautifully spherical, contending with one another and adorning it just as flowers adorn the meadows. Saturn was rather black, leaden in appearance; Jupiter shone like silver; Mars was seen as flame-colored; the sun glittered brightly like pure gold. The sphere of Venus shone in response like tin, and Mercury shone like red-glowing brass; the moon shone transparent as glass. Thus the mantle of heaven was seen to be all-colored. Saturn looked blue, like the color of a hyacinth.
Such was the floral hue that adorned the heaven; such was the multicolored, charming, brightly-shining delight that settled upon the faces of the sky. He fashioned the sky as a garden planted with stars, of which A God is the gardener. And as plants and shoots, as multi-colored flowers, so were the lights of the stars. Then for the first time the sun, having shone forth and radiated light, appearing as the ornament of the heaven and the beauty of the day, served the command of Him who made it, and in a closed eye completed the fourth day.
Thus, then, were perfected the matters concerning the stars, and the sun was set as the emperor of the day, and the eye of the moon illuminated the night. But no living creature moved upon the plains of the earth, neither water-traversing, nor land-walking, nor air-flying. But God, the all-perfect, infusing into the nature of the waters vivifying strength and procreative power, commanded living souls to burst forth from thence, as from the womb of a woman in labor, B burdened with the birth of a fully formed infant. For the command of God, falling like seed, made the humid streams to be highly prolific. Hence, long-winged birds, sky-traversers, had free wing for forceful flights, and lightly rose toward the swampy regions of the air, fluttering around its thin-flowing currents. Some were large-winged, with great hooked beaks, having claws like darts, sharpened beyond blades, for which flesh was destined to be for food and the things of carnivory were to be natural nourishment—the eagle, emperor of birds, flesh-eating hawks, and all to whom fire is not useful, as they eat flesh. Thence also chattering little birds, herb-eaters, small-winged, short-lived, chirped in various ways and twittered in the thickets and frequented the trees—goldfinches, melodious larks, siskins, starlings, and every bird that runs about the herbs of the fields C and gathers from thence abundant unworked food. Then also terrible beasts were seen upon the earth: shaggy-necked lions, bears, leopards, tigers, and boars with tusks, the broad-chested elephant, and dogs with jagged teeth, swift hares: and in short, every winged creature and every land animal, as many as are in the dry land, as many as are fellow-dwellers in the sea, as many as inhabit the mountains. When the all-wise Architect of the global roof had filled the water and the land with such animals; and indeed the air, the un-worked tunic which He had woven with the subtle work of his own divine fingers, having spread it out D like a fortified and wide city—
B From one part it began to show a dark blue hue, and from another it smiled back. The day finished the course of the fifth. The sixth day dawned again, rose-colored, And God planted a garden of fine trees, Not with diggers' hands, nor with those who till the earth, Nor with planters' palms, but by word alone. And every tree sprouted there with fair shoots, Fragrant, thick-leafed, broad-petaled, sweet-smelling. Who, I ask, could bring the beauty of Eden before one’s eyes A? From that place there were orchards of fruit-bearing trees, There a phalanx of fragrant, ever-blooming trees. From there, nectar-pouring fruit sprang up, Here for delight trees stood tall, reaching the heavens, The plane tree fed by water, the peak-growing fir, Towering pines, cypresses, elms. The petals of the trees fell upon one another, The branches approached, the shoots met together. The leaves of the trees seemed, in very truth, To embrace one another in closer coils. The sun glittered, and falling upon the plants, It flowed under them quietly and sparsely, Insofar as the dense roof of leaves permitted. The beauties of roses shone, the color of lilies radiated; And at that time the roses were without thorns. As much as was purple-hued and bright-white among the roses, It rose up from the ground like a star shedding its rays. Here the face of the earth grew green with grasses, With the dew-drenched, many-colored hues of the flowers B. A zephyr with a soft breath blew from every side, And filled the air with the scent of the flowers. In the midst of these, the tree of life had sprouted, Laden with graces, fair-leafled, beautiful. A fountain, mother of water, gushed up from below, And was watering the beautiful garden of Eden, And was tending the roots and trunks of the plants; And it was grafting the tender orchards of flowers. From there, dividing into four sources, It becomes the mother of the greatest rivers. But the rivers, in the voice and language of the Syrians, Are called Phison and Geon, Phorad the third among these, The fourth is Eddekel; but according to the Greek tongue, Ganges and the great Nile, Euphrates and Tigris. And the Ganges traverses the borders of the land of Evilath (There gold is found, and the green stone, And the gold is pure and shining and reddish), But the Nile, white-flowing, circles the land of the Ethiopians, And waters the fat-soiled fields of the Egyptians With fertile streams and makes them fruit-bearing. And the Tigris, borne like a dart with a rushing sound, And creating noises and deep-thundering eddying whirlpools, Runs toward the borders of the land of the Assyrians.
A A heavy-footed, short-tailed, horn-striking bull. After He had planted such a delightful tabernacle and adorned it with trees, He fashioned also the man with all-working B hands, Out of earthly and miserable and clay-mixed weight; And having placed within the earthen flesh the breath of life, And having created man perfect and animated, And having made him compound of soul and body, And having gifted him with the grace of spontaneous will, And having fashioned him according to His own likeness and image, He settles him in the beautifully planted region of Eden As a pearl in a chamber, another world within the world, Small indeed in appearance as regards the bulk of its size, But in its preciousness far superior to the world. This man Adam, as one formed from red dust, The Potter of the earthen substance named. And having placed him as the first citizen of the beauty of Eden, He commanded him to eat the fruit of all the trees, But to the tree of knowledge not to stretch forth his hands. Then also every tame animal and every one that lives in the home And every animal that ranges into the many-wooded thickets A He brought to Adam, the earth-dweller, the air-traverser, That they might receive names from him suitable to their natures. There was led the tawny, maned, bull-slaying lion, The grim-eyed bears, the all-spotted leopards, The dappled deer, the bushy-tailed fox, The broad-browed elephant, shaking its trunk, There was led the partridge, red of foot and beak. The black-winged starlings kept flapping their feathers And bearing certain hail-like spots of whiteness. The peacock with golden wings displayed its beauty. It shone with many dyes, it made the feather golden, The purple color shone in the same peacock; The gold blossomed in the middle like a glittering eye, And the creature made a feather-planted garden. They circled B around Adam just as slaves around a master. They fawned upon, they ran up to, they wagged their tails before the progenitor. And he stroked with his hands the fierce beasts As if they were newborn lambs feeding on milk, And he feared no dangers at all from them. For pride and wicked and hot-working malice Had not yet danced within that heart of his. Thus nothing can boast itself against the passionless soul, No beast, no fire, no audacity of a great-roaring river. If you are king of the passions, if you rule over sin, You shall even step upon basilisks and terrible scorpions, And you shall humble the lion, and you shall tame the tiger. In these things Adam fell asleep, but a sleep of bitterness, A sleep that was the beginning of the destruction and all-devouring ruin. C The Creator touched his side as he slept, He took it, he fashioned from it the woman. And Adam the earth-formed, the first among men, D [remainder of page corresponds to Latin column]
[LATIN COLUMN] that with its horn strikes the bull. There was brought the partridge, having both feet and beak red, with starlings having black wings, which were flapping their feathers and bearing white spots like hail. The peacock showed its beauty, having golden wings: it shone with many colors, and rendered gold in its feathers. The purple color gleamed in the same, with gold interspersed, like a brilliant eye. All things surrounded Adam, as slaves their master: they fawned upon, they ran toward, they flattered the author of our race. But he stroked with his hands the fierce beasts as if they were newborn lambs, which feed on milk; and he feared no danger at all from them: for petulant evil and audacious wickedness did not yet have a place in his own heart. Thus there is nothing that has any power against the passionless soul: not fire, not a rushing river. If you will be king of the affections of the mind and lord of sin, you will walk upon basilisks and truculent beasts, you will humble the lion, you will tame the tiger. After these things Adam was lulled into a most bitter sleep, a sleep which was the beginning of the undoing and of the all-destroying envy. The Creator himself touched the rib of him as he slept: he took it; he fashioned thence the woman.
A And the First-Father [p. 231] was created from dust, that prince of men, the father of Eve, the first mother, fashioned in respect to his rib. Both lived in a farm of delights, as if they were unproductive, untouched by any passion for gross things, and unburdened by any heaviness of the body. God prescribed a law to both of them: "O earth-born ones," He said, "and first-citizens of this Eden, all these things have been produced for your sake, for your use. For your enjoyment the trees bear fruit. Therefore, be sated with all, take delight in all things. But this tree of knowledge alone is harmful; this and this alone you must avoid, do not touch it for me. The touch brings corruption, and the taste brings gall. If you taste of this one alone, you shall fall into a great ruin, for it causes bitter fruit and brings forth death. If you keep this for me, you shall avoid the sting of fate and shall gain the expanse of an unending life."
These things were so, and the ancestors feared the word, they trembled at the threat, they shuddered at the saying, and they loathed the tree from their soul as most hateful. But Satan was envious, he gnashed his teeth, he was enraged like a foamer, like a wild B boar. He could not bear to see them living like angels. And so he finds the serpent, the crafty and crooked, as an instrument of his evil scheming. He flatters the first mother, he shows her the fruit, beautiful to behold, desirable, nectar-like to taste. She saw the fruit; the fruit was fair, C and it seemed to pour forth a soul-charming sweetness. Satan showed this, and he smeared the cup of deceit with the sweet honey of flattery. The terrible dragon crept, he hissed D craftily. "If you taste of this," he says, "of the fruit-bearing tree, if you only bring the fruit to your mouth, the circles of your eyelids shall be opened, and you shall become as gods, and you shall know all things." The woman heard these things, she gave attention to the flattery, she was overcome by the one flattering, she was overcome by the graces, with which the face of the fruit was gleaming in its beauty. She took, she tasted, she gave to her yoke-fellow.
A Both ate from the fruit, they partook of the produce, they disobeyed the commandment, they ate from the tree, and immediately the evil followed them. Their eyelids were opened, they beheld the shame, they came to know their nakedness and their disgrace. From there they began to enter the deep-shadowed thickets, they ran into the dense and thick trees, they stitched together girdles of thick-leaved foliage, they fled under the tree, they ran for cover, they prayed for the earth to open its wide mouth for them. The Creator of the well-tended trees perceived these things.
A He stood before the fugitives, the progenitors of the race; he reproached their folly, he censured their error. And what need is there of many words? He drove them from that place, he punished them with burdensome and heavy labors. He threatened that the earth, the nourisher of life, would bring forth thorns to prick them, and briars with sharp points; he cursed Eve, the first mother, she who first suffered, with severe and painful pangs of childbirth.
And so that most wretched and ill-fated progenitor, having unfortunately been driven from that place in disgrace, took up residence opposite the place of luxury. And having put on a garment of skin, the antitype of the flesh, and having known Eve in passion, he begot Abel and Cain. Now Cain applied himself to the furrowing of the fields and made haste to make the lands subject to the ox, while Abel, the younger, practiced husbandry. Each then brought the first-fruits of his labors. God accepted the gifts of Abel as one who had offered correctly and had acted with devotion, but to the gifts of Cain he gave no heed. From this, the countenance of Cain fell; he looked upon Abel with fratricidal eyes, and he planned to lay murderous hands upon one who had in no way embittered or grieved him. For he had the furnace of envy burning hot within his heart. This, indeed, he even dared to do, oh, inhuman mindset! And not respecting the bonds which even wild beasts revere, he sent his brother into the jaws of death.
Wrathfully B God looked upon the fratricide, and subjected him to the most dire curses. Driven thence from his first dwelling-place, Cain traversed much of the earth and pitched his tents where it seemed most favorable to his eyes, and he first devised cities fortified with towers. But when the race of humans had become numerous, he would set upon travelers, engage in robberies, despoil, plunder, and stain his hands with murder.
And as the progenitors were in inconsolable mourning because Abel had perished by the hands of a fratricide, God granted them in return the righteous Seth, who bestowed names upon the heavenly stars.
From this point, mortal nature, like a tree with deep roots, having increased and expanded more and more, was dispersed over the entire face of the earth, and running everywhere, it filled the whole world. But having subsequently rolled into lawless deeds, it was carried toward every evil as a horse into a field, or as a wheel rushing to a decline, as toward water. And this continued until, having collapsed into the pit of impious error, it began to deify and worship the elements, and to offer the honor due to God to created things.
There was a certain righteous man, Noah, among the descendants of Seth, the ninth from the seed of Adam, the first-formed.
He was studious of virtue and lawful actions, and since he held in hatred and fled from vices with all his heart, he strove to bring the wicked and the impious to temperance. Since he could not persuade them to abstain from their evil ways, he moved from the land where he was first born, and becoming a stranger in foreign borders, he was ordered to construct the celebrated ark and to enclose within it every animal, both of the land and of the wild, that he might act as a seed and a spark of the race. Noah obeyed God and did what was commanded. He constructed the hull of the ark with wooden decks, carrying inside ten thousand labyrinthine windings. And Noah placed the animals in the ark, those born of the sea, those born of the land, the winged ones, and those that walk. And God, having opened the coverings of the heavens, brought down from there whole seas of rain; He covered the peaks of the deep-ridged hills, He hid the face of the earth, He covered the fields. All things were mingled together at once, all things were made common. The trunks of the trees were submerged in water; fish approached the high-crested mountains. The lion was drowned in water, the tuna was on the land; every animal that breathes was, at that time, water-borne—the air-traveler, the land-dweller, the winged one, and the walker. And all, laboring together under the deep-flowing rains, breathed out their lives in the waters, piteously meeting their death A and exhaling their own souls into the damp.
To speak simply and in brief, as if under darkness, the face of the earth again became invisible; the primordial chaos of light again prevailed, and the life-nurturing earth was again bathed in water. Beasts were carried dead, overwhelmed by the sea; and the whole race of mud-born men, having gulped down the vast, measureless water and having been submerged, drifted like a ship traversing the waters, like a sea-faring vessel, like mute dust upon the backs of the waters. But Noah alone, having entered the life-bearing shelter, sailed within it like a sailor who is not of the sea, preserving the seed of the race in a small piece of wood, bringing neither oars, nor cables, nor sails. And with Noah sailed his sons and daughters, his wife, the wives of his sons, and the grooms of his daughters. The names of the sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When the former downpour of rains abated, and the plains that had been previously flooded were again seen, Noah leaped forth from the ark with his children, and every animal [[11]] that was sheltered with him went out with Noah. And again a second world, again another patriarch of the race, and again every soul began to increase. From the first formation of Adam, the first-born, to the flood that happened in the time of Noah, two thousand two hundred years passed. B C D
With other forty and two most perfect ones. A Descendants of Noah the just were born, with other high-minded grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Mesrem, the second-born son of Ham, the son of Noah, and Nebrod the giant, great in the strength of his hand. Mesrem indeed inhabited the land of Egypt, from whence they say Egypt was named (for Mesrem in Hebrew signifies Egypt), but Nebrod dwelt in the northern region, which was called Assyria from Assur the son of Shem. This man was the author of the humans’ rejecting the Creator, and he was the first to commit transgression against Him who made him, and first to rage against the living God, and the honor belonging to God, as is right, he foolishly wished to transfer to himself. And he became a counselor for the building of the tower, so that he might defend B himself against God, if He should wish again to bring a flood upon the race of men. They, therefore, having been persuaded by his vain counsels, began to build the tower of Chalane, above the clouds, airy, exceeding great in height, approaching almost to the lunar sphere itself. But they did not finish the work of vain labor; for C God confounded the tongues of the builders, and from thence they were scattered, one to one place, another to another. Eber alone remained free from this punishment, for he did not assent to the vain-doers.
D The place itself, therefore, from what had happened, chanced to be named Babylon, that is to say, confounded; for “Babel” in Hebrew signifies confusion; for there the tongues of the tower-builders were confounded. And when the race of men had reached a multitude, soon after, a king arose among the Egyptians, and the Egyptians were the first of those on earth to begin to be ruled by a king, and to pay tribute. The ruling of them by a king had its beginning, as the story goes, seven generations only having passed for humans after the flood, by which all things were destroyed. From thence the race of men transgressed, and looked toward lawless deeds and abominations, slaughters of men, murders, and debaucheries. They rejoiced in robberies, delighted in adulteries, and practiced every invention of wickedness; they plundered, seized, stole, committed adultery, and at last looked toward idolatry.
Seruch was the first to begin to use carved images and A pillars, being the eighth descendant of Noah the just. This Seruch, then, was the first to honor the ancients as discoverers of good things, as strong in battles, as leaders of wisdom, and as experienced in war; he fashioned icons, statues, and pillars, supposedly as a memorial of the good things that came from them. Which, not understanding, many of those who came later,
A having not grasped the Serouch of the mind, honored the inanimate pillars as gods, and bowed down to the works of human hands. B From there, having turned aside into a strange religion, they devised other cults for other gods. The Egyptians strayed further than all the others, leading their religion even to the point of turning it into a farce; thence they came to worship cats and apes, ibises and he-goats, bulls, dogs, and crocodiles, and the rest of the loathsome things born of their folly. But above all other forms of worship C they revered Apis, a bull that appeared in many colors; for when such a bull was born among them, bearing upon its tongue and on its tail certain marks, and on its forehead an image of the bisected moon, they danced, feasted, and kept festivals, as if a new and most strange god had arrived. And this beast they would feed with abundance of delicacies, while they themselves would pass the days in drinking and dancing. As this insane idolatry kept increasing, the whole nation fell into the ultimate error. But I must resume what I said concerning the kingdom. Among the Egyptians, the first king who presided over all was… and Divine Scripture bears witness to the fact.
A For when a famine had seized the land of the Chaldeans, divine Abram, the great one, became a wanderer, and leaving his kindred, set out for Egypt B to avert the lethal pincers of famine, having encountered life-sustaining abundance there. And with him accompanied his wife on the journey to a foreign land, Sarra, graceful of face and most beautiful. The attendants who were then ministering to the king there (Abimelech was king of the Egyptians at that time), beholding Sarra shining with incomparable beauty, and surpassing the Egyptian women as much as the rose surpasses all other flowers, brought her to the king, who had been taken by desire. And Abimelech, having seen her, was caught by her entirely, and quickly would he have defiled the bed of the just man, had not God, having regard for the honor of his worshipper, struck the king with heavy blows by night, along with his kinsmen and his bodyguards. D And not many generations after the beginning of the kingdom of the Egyptians, in the days of Abraham, Belus ruled over the Assyrians, a robust man, a strong-handed giant, whom the deluded people honored as a god and renamed Saturn. And this Saturn had for a wife Semiramis, who was called Rhea. Therefore, the dominion of the Egyptians and the royal power and authority...
lasted for one thousand full years, and for three and sixty years in addition to six hundred. Moreover, the reign of the Assyrian race also counted one thousand years, and with it three hundred years passed until Sardanapalus.
A Saturn, therefore, living with his wife Rhea, along with many other children, fathered Ninyas, whom they say was the founder of the fabled Nineveh. A little while later, Saturn, having left Assyria, ran off to the land of the Africans on the western side. And Ninyas took his own mother as his wife and consort out of erotic mania, having become sick with a base and unnatural love; and Semiramis herself consented to this. From which a law also arose among the Assyrians to marry mothers and to confuse the bonds of nature. And this vile and abominable practice, having originated from the Assyrians, passed even to the Persians.
But the king of Egypt, Sesostris, having been magnified and strengthened in those days beyond all those who came before, did not consider it sufficient to rule Egypt alone. And so, having gathered an army from every tribe—spearmen, peltasts, archers, armor-bearers, and martial men—and having taken up as allies by gifts a whole race from the nation of the Huns, he overran all the earth, and more especially Asia.
B And he forced everyone to offer him tribute. And having struck down the local dynasts and satraps and the strong and mighty commanders, he brought them under the yoke of his own authority. And he filled his allies with booty and spoils. To the Huns, however, he gifted the land of the Assyrians, and he renamed the Huns—that is, the Scythians—the Parthians. And he departed as a victor in nine years, having subdued the entire ethnarchy of Asia.
Because of this, the royal power of the Assyrians lost for a little while the dominion it once possessed. But when death snatched Sesostris from life, at the Assyrians the kingdom flourished again, C like a tree frozen by the bitter winter, and withered and dead, and blossoming again once the terrible season of winter has passed. Therefore, the rule of the Assyrians reached its former prosperity once again, until Sardanapalus ruled the Assyrians. A man of belly and debauchery, lecherous and effeminate, who, having rendered himself soft and having shut himself up with women, used to paint his face, dyed his eyebrows, D and shaved his beard down to the very skin. He displayed his cheeks covered in white lead, and his whole face he had generally transformed; and he was wanton and soft, vain and womanish.
A Others, however, do not write of the affairs of Sardanapalus in this way. They say that the neighboring Chaldaeans, having heard that the ruler of the Assyrians, the son of Anacyndaraxes, was of such a character that he lived in the manner of swine and beasts, an addict of dancing and games, living in a womanish fashion, and having come to despise him as a soft-hearted man, came with a strong force on an expedition. Having engaged the army of Sardanapalus—for he, having learned of the boldness of the Chaldaeans, did not endure it, but sent men capable of fighting—they routed the general and defeated him decisively. And the general, having been conquered, fled with all his might. When the wretch learned of this, being utterly at a loss, he lit a pyre, having fed it with abundant woods, and having gathered together the golden and jewel-encrusted couches, and the various ornaments, and talents of gold, and simply every royal item, as much as was in garments, B and as much as was in golden vessels, in stones, in pearls, he threw everything of many timbers onto the pyre, and finally himself. And from that point on, the Chaldaeans, with great freedom, ruled over the Assyrians and transferred the authority and power to themselves. After the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans held power for a while, and the play of fortune and the gamble of affairs, having sufficiently mocked others, shifted to other hands. C When these things were happening to the Assyrians, Ozias, the king, was ruling over the Hebrews, being the seventh from David, the most prophetic.
Vers. 650
Others do not write thus regarding the affairs of Sardanapalus; but they say that after the Chaldaeans, neighbors of the Assyrians, had heard that Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, was a man of such a kind that he lived like swine and beasts, and was a devotee of dancing and games, and mimicked women, they, having despised him as one possessed of a soft heart, embarked on an expedition with a strong army, and, having joined battle with Sardanapalus’s soldiers, put them to flight and achieved victory over the adversary by force. When the wretch understood this, being deserted by all, he set fire to a dense pyre, nourished by copious material, and, having collected the D golden and gem-studded beds, as well as various garments and talents of gold, and finally the entire royal collection of garments, golden vessels, and gems, and pearls, he cast everything onto the pyre constructed of much wood, and finally laid himself upon them. Thenceforth the Chaldaeans ruled the Assyrians without any fear, and transferred the kingdom and power to themselves. And in this manner, after the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans held the state of affairs; and when the mockery of fortune and the game of affairs had sufficiently cheated others, it inclined toward others. At the time when these things were happening to the Assyrians, Ozias was reigning over the Hebrews as king, being the seventh from David, the greatest prophet.
A Among the Chaldeans, along with other kings, reigned the proud Sennacherib, both over the region of the Assyrians and the nation of the Babylonians and the race of the Medes. He, having embarked on a proud expedition against Judea and having blasphemed against God in the madness of his heart, and having used most arrogant words, reaped the rewards of his senselessness. For an angel sent by God during the night destroyed the entire army without a sword, which army consisted of one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in total. Therefore, he who was formerly haughty, he who was formerly lifted up, became like a hare, swift-footed in flight.
After the passage of time, Nabuchodonosor was king. B This man, as fortune acted favorably toward him, dominated all the nations in Asia and brought them all under annual tribute—the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Babylonians. He also made the race of the Jews a subject people, and he enslaved their most illustrious metropolis, Jerusalem, and first appointed its kings as vassals. But when they revolted, he came at last with ten thousands of weapons (for the army of Nabuchodonosor was more numerous than the sand) and leveled that prosperous city to the ground. And he took all those of the royal blood and lineage as captives and transported them to the land of Babylon, so that they might be his chamberlains. Among them was Daniel, the great one among the prophets, and the three children with him, along with other nobles.
A little later, Nabuchodonosor became puffed up and, not being able to bear the favor of fortune, from there he tumbled into the deepest madness (for he was deifying himself out of insanity); he was humbled by God with a terrifying humiliation, being turned from a human form into the likeness of a pig, and suffering this punishment for his pride.
But to lead the discourse back to the beginning: Nabuchodonosor reigned over the Chaldeans, and after him Merodach, and after him Baltasar, both offspring of Nabuchodonosor. B Baltasar, then, reveling in the greatness of his rule, invited his grandees as his drinking companions and entertained them with sumptuous tables. And wishing to show off the abundance of his wealth, he used costly vessels made of stone and gold. Along with everything else, he brought in the vessels of the temple, which Nabuchodonosor had previously taken away when he despoiled the beauty of Jerusalem. Using these fearlessly for his service (for, being drunk on his circumstances, he did not dwell at all on the fact that God is angered by the violation of such things), he beheld a hand writing upon the wall. The letters said: Mane, Thecel, Phares.
A Since no one else was able to explain it, B Daniel interpreted it clearly and truthfully: "The Creator has divided and partitioned your power; He has cut down and harvested the years of your reign. Therefore, your dominion shall be transferred, And the royal throne to another sovereignty." These things the prophet said before Baltasar, Without holding back at all, and without shuddering in the least. Not long afterward, Darius the Mede attacked With a great force—he whom the children of the Greeks Who wrote Persian histories call Astyages. He brought down the arrogant Baltasar the Chaldean, And bent the stiff-neckedness of Babylon, And made it a tributary of Median power. And from that time, the Medes held sway over Asia. But the royal power did not remain with them either For many suns, but passed away quickly. How the dominion of the Medes flew away from them, The story will now relate clearly and in the course of its narrative. There was to the king of the Medes, Astyages, a daughter, Beautiful, fair-cheeked, blooming, and most comely; The one who begat her named the maiden Mandane. The father, then, entertained feelings of jealousy toward her, Having been agitated by strange nocturnal dreams. He thought he saw the maiden Mandane urinating, And that the fluid poured forth was so great As to be able to cover the face of the Asian land. This was the first dream; and the second was again this: A He thought he saw a vine growing forth from the womb of Mandane, From which all Asia And the race of Medes and Persians were overshadowed. Being troubled by such dreams, the king Nurtured secret hostility against Mandane, And turning over many thoughts regarding what must be done, He resolved to outwit fate by a scheme. He joins the maiden to a certain man, Cambyses (Now this Cambyses was of lowly birth and of the humbler sort), So that he might dim the expected glory, Having clouded the brilliance of her lineage with base birth. When, therefore, he learned that she was pregnant and near her time, He sat watching for the opportunity, awaiting the birth. After a little while, a male child sprang from Mandane, And the king, having taken and swaddled what was born, Hands it to Harpagus, so that it might be consumed. He gives the infant to a herdsman to destroy, To be exposed and become food for mountain beasts. What happened after this? B What did the herdsman do? He took it, Led it into his house, and found his wife Just then bringing forth dead a child from her womb. He shows her what he was carrying and asks what must be done. Having consulted together, they throw away the dead one, And they raise the one given to them as their own child. And what follows is a marvelous thing! Cyrus grew up, He played with other boys, he was chosen to be king, He commanded his peers as each of them wished. Now all of them carried out what was ordered with all speed;
A but the only son of Artembares, being a playmate of his, he sacrificed in a barbarous manner, like a lamb, most pitiably. B Having been disobeyed, he suffered the consequences of disobedience, having been insulted and subjected to fierce torments. But Artembares was a nobleman and of the elite. The boy, having suffered the insult, approaches his parent, tells his father of the insult, and reports what had happened. A fierce rage immediately seized Artembares, and he approaches the king and reports the insult. Cyrus, the boy, is summoned, and when questioned closely with heavy threats, he confesses everything with a free mouth. The king was astonished at his audacity, and he was about to subject the cowherd to torments—he who was thought to be the father of Cyrus—so that he might reveal whose son Cyrus was. That cowherd did not bear the threats, and he immediately makes known to the king everything that had happened. Astyages shares these things with the wise men and the Magi. But, as it seems, divine power misled them, and they said that the brilliance formerly anticipated for them had been fulfilled in the boy's games. This, indeed, soothed his heart, but another thing irritated it: for he hated Harpagus, the miserable man who had saved Cyrus and had not destroyed or made him disappear, as an enemy. And he summons him—Harpagus, that is—to a banquet, together with his son. After he had come, the miserable man is served the flesh of his son by Harpagus upon a dish. C He, not knowing what had happened, ate until he was sated. Immediately after the banquet, the head and hands of the son who had been sacrificed were brought to Harpagus. He realized what had been perpetrated; but, not knowing what he might do, he was smoldering against himself, loathing Astyages. But after Cyrus had departed to the Persians from the Medes, and had reached manly age, the unfortunate Harpagus did not cease doing everything and contriving everything, and inciting Cyrus to take vengeance upon Astyages and to remove him from power, until he urged him on to raise an army and to attack and engage his grandfather forcefully. D What happened after this? Cyrus wins brilliantly, the King of the Medes is defeated, he is captured at the last, and the power is subsequently transferred to the Persians. Thus, therefore, Cyrus girded himself with the kingdom, and he held Croesus, the wealthy leader of the Lydians, having engaged him in battle, as a living captive. But since, having arrived here, I have made mention of Croesus, I will also make mention of the fortune of the Lydians, even though it has not become great or illustrious, as was the fortune of the Medes, the Persians, and the Assyrians. Candaules reigned over Lydia and Phrygia, drawing his lineage, as they say, from Heracles.
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[COL 251] He lived with a wife of exceptional beauty, bright-faced, delicate, and rosy-cheeked. He burned with such desire and love for the woman that at one time he wished to make his desire and love clearly manifest to his attendant (Gyges was the attendant) and wanted him to be a spectator of his wife, madly, as it seems, sharpening the sword of Fate against himself and hastening toward his own destruction. Candaules hid Gyges by the door; she stripped, and Gyges delighted in the naked beauty of the body of his own mistress. The woman saw Gyges, and she was moved with a woman’s wrath. B She was terribly indignant, calls for Gyges, and gives him a choice of two things: either to kill his master and gain both the power and that wife, or to be subjected to the executioner's penalties for death. For it was a shameful thing among the women of the Lydians to be seen uncovered and naked by foreign men. Gyges chose life, killed his master, and immediately ascends to the heights of kingship. He who a little before was humble suddenly appeared: a king from a private citizen, a master from a slave. This Gyges, as they say, castrated women so that he might always use them for mating while they remained intact and youthful. From this line of Gyges, Croesus was also king, whom Cyrus captured, having been persuaded by the suggestions of the prophet Daniel. For the latter feared Croesus as being wealthy, and thought of fleeing, C fearing the prosperity of the audacity of Croesus. But Daniel encouraged him, saying the prophecy which the most resonant prophet Isaiah had spoken many generations before concerning Cyrus. This Cyrus granted freedom to the Hebrews who were in captivity, and permitted them to rebuild their metropolis, which Nebuchadnezzar had razed from the foundations. Cyrus having died, Cambyses, son of Cyrus, received the affairs of the government and the scepters of power. And after him reigned Darius, son of Hystaspes. But it is worth saying how this came to pass. The King Cyrus had a son named Smerdis, spirited and strong, valiant and noble. Cambyses was angry with him, as with a man powerful in his hands, because he was able to draw the bow a little which the envoys had brought from Ethiopia; and besides, he was jealous because of certain dreams. D For he seemed in his dreams to see a kingly throne, high and boundless in its height. And in this throne he saw a brilliant man sitting, touching the heavenly stars with his head. And when he asked someone whose the throne might be, he heard that it was the throne of Smerdis which he saw, and that he who sat upon the throne was Smerdis. From these things, therefore, not being well-disposed toward Smerdis, he prepared the abomination of murder against the wretched man. And the murder of Smerdis escaped the notice of the many.
C After Cambyses had drained the cup of death, the Magi who were guardians of the royal house—of whom the one was called Smerdis and the other Spathines—drew onto themselves the power and authority. And a rumor and report spread among the Persians that Smerdis held the reins of the Persian empire; they themselves, however, were not seen, fearing the multitude. For a great and inviolable law prevailed among the Persians, not permitting them to be ruled by another race nor to have another lord until the entire royal lineage should be uprooted by death. When this malicious scheme was at last recognized by the many, and the deceit of the Magi was gradually revealed, the first among the seven Persians meeting together for discussion, and having deliberated much and made preparations—(for Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was one of the seven)—they set upon the Magi and pierced them with swords. Having deliberated much regarding the kingship, they finally decreed that whoever’s horse, upon the sun, the bringer of light, just rising over the earth, should be the first to whinny before all others, he should rule over the Persians and be their leader. These were the agreements. Darius, however, had as his horse-groom a man clever at managing such schemes. He, having learned and discerned which mare the horse of Darius loved more than all the others, after the mating of the two, took the urine of the mare and with it smeared the nostrils of the horse. A And at the same time they rode out, and the first of Darius, stirred by the scent of the mare’s urine, was seen whinnying and snorting. And a new and wondrous thing occurred, that a thundering noise and lightning flashes terrified those present. They, when they saw these things, dismounted their horses and rendered obeisance to Darius, as is the custom among the Persians.
Darius, therefore, having received the reins of the empire, acquired many islands surrounded by the sea and continental cities and all of Asia. And having sent a countless host against the Greeks, he risked everything, for they all perished there. After Darius, his son Xerxes ruled over the Persians, who, having attacked the Greeks by land and by sea, with naval forces, cavalry, and every variety of ingenuity, B lost his army, and having barely fled and escaped in a boat, he returned home in disgrace. After Xerxes, Artaxerxes Longimanus reigned, and in succession there were many other Persian rulers, and they brought many of the nations into servitude, until Alexander the Great, the Macedonian, having come, dissolved the Persian empire and seized the dominion, which had lasted from the first Cyrus for two hundred and thirty years, as is recorded in the books of those of old. He mastered the Persians, he ruled over the Indians; to him were subjected Syria and Phoenicia and every nation, and the governors of regions and satraps of every land.
B But nothing, it seems, is lasting in this life, and since this man was human by nature, he had to pay the debt of mortal nature; a poison prepared from the earth snatched him away. The magnitude of his kingdom was transferred to ten men of great courage, these being the first of the bodyguards of Alexander, divided and distributed into ten parts. For one became master of Syria and Phoenicia, another ruled the land of the Thracians, another Paphlagonia, while Asia fell to another. But Ptolemy alone appropriated the land of Egypt, from which Egypt again held the beginning of power. Fortune looked upon this man with gentle eyes, and everything turned out according to the mind of this Ptolemy. He ran through many lands and Palestine, and became wealthy and was teeming with riches. Those who ruled Egypt after him, therefore, envying his fortune and glory, all wished to be called Ptolemies from him. When the first Ptolemy left this life, Egypt had as its leader the one after him, surnamed Philadelphus, who first of kings established Alexandria as the mother of many books. For they say he collected an infinite number of books, reaching a total of four hundred thousand. The Ptolemaic power existed so fortunately, and again Egypt had the glory of a kingdom. B But neither wealth, nor royal power, nor dominion; for along with other rulers of the land of the Egyptians, and when Cleopatra had become queen of Egypt, the power was taken away by the Roman hand, after Augustus Caesar had captured her. And from then the scepters of Egypt faded, which had flourished at their peak for two hundred and ninety years in all. Nor did the hands of the Romans seize only Egypt, but also the whole earth under the moon. And these things have been recounted as far as possible in the discourse, cursorily and clearly, as I convince myself; but it seems fitting to me—and not unskilled in the art—to mention shortly the affairs of the Greeks, and to grant the tongue passage to those things concerning the Hebrews. C Famine once gripped the Chanaanite land, and the fire-bearer of that evil grazed upon all, and besides others, it pressed upon the entire household of Jacob. And this divine Israel (for so he was thereafter called), hearing in part that Joseph, born of Rachel, was overseer of the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, and in part contriving to find a release from the suffering, decided to leave his own land and migrate there. Having gathered, therefore, his own, his servants, his sons, his grandsons, being in all seventy-five souls, he proceeds straight to Egypt, is looked upon lovingly by Pharaoh and
A his subjects, and—above all the rest—the great Joseph looks upon him with sweet eyes. He is settled in the land of Goshen, a region of Arabia. He enjoys the good things, is fed to satiety, and escapes the destructive hunger. And what happened after this? The thrice-aged patriarch Jacob dies, having reached the end of his life, and after him Joseph, and with these Pharaoh as well. Another arises, a bitter ruler for the Egyptians; this one, too, is called Pharaoh. For among the Egyptian rulers, it was a source of glory to be called Pharaoh, as the claim to the name of Pharaoh, the first governor of the Egyptians, was kept as their own by these rulers. Just as the Roman emperors in later ages wished to call themselves all "Caesars," leading their own lineage and fortune into the name of the first Caesar who held the monarchy alone. This Pharaoh, therefore, seeing the race of the Hebrews increasing greatly in number like the blossoms of trees or the sand of the sea, and harboring ill-will against them, wove snares for them. At first, he instructed the midwives to kill those who were just now emerging from the maternal chambers. But when this conspiracy did not succeed according to his intent, he devised another plan and forced the Hebrews to make bricks and build fortified cities. The task, then, was as commanded; they labored, they endured patiently, they were building the cities. There were also cruel overseers of the works over them; they burdened, they oppressed, they increased their sufferings; to speak simply, they treated the wretched ones like enemies. Therefore, the most long-suffering and miserable Hebrews cried out with pitiable voices to the living God, and prayed for Him to become the redeemer from their necessities. God, therefore, is moved by their groanings, He sees the heavy toil, He takes pity, He is implored, and He sends to them Moses, the great one, the seer of God, to deliver them from their necessities, to lighten their labors, and to bring them out of bitter and hateful Egypt. Moses descends, therefore, and declares to Pharaoh what was commanded by God, and urges him to send the Israelites away from there and no longer to hold them. B Pharaoh is not moved by the words of the prophet, he does not fear the almighty hands of God; but as often as he promises, so often he breaks his word, and becomes like a multi-colored chameleon. From this, the prophet, the seer of God, is compelled—God having so commanded—to bring on punishments. But that viper-like Pharaoh, that foster-child of wickedness, when the scourges were sternly applied to him, would be humbled and would fervently entreat Moses to assent to the relief of the calamity and the burden of his pains. He would repent and appease God with lamentations, and would promise to grant liberty to the Hebrews; but when the blows were relaxed, he would become stiff-necked,
A unchanged, and no longer the same man he was before. At length, shaken by the heavy scourge—more grievous than all others—by the bitter death of the firstborn, he grants liberty to the race of the Hebrews. Yet he repents again, and having armed a host, with charioteers, cavalry, and heavy-armed infantry, he himself mounting a gold-adorned chariot, he pursued them from behind as though they were fugitives, so that he might turn the Hebrews back toward Egypt. Thence occurred the striking of the Red Sea and a most novel parting, and the crossing of the people as if upon dry land, and the drowning of the commanders of the arrogant-faced, and of Pharaoh himself, hot-tempered and daring of heart—a water-laid tomb of military might. They all sank into the depth, the captains and the charioteers; they became food for the fish living in the sea. For not even a messenger of the disaster was left remaining. Thence there were triumphal dances to God; God was magnified, and Moses was praised. And the light of joy began to dawn for the Hebrews, while shadows of disasters made the Egyptians dark. The Israelites who were fleeing Egypt at that time were sixty myriads in number, without counting infants, women, and beardless children. Moses, therefore, led this great multitude, and bore the murmurings of the seditious crowd, and endured the bitterness that came from them with a stout heart. Moses led them through trackless and inaccessible deserts, B as God had commanded and had determined was expedient. He caused water to gush from a rock, rained down the flesh of birds, provided manna, and fed them with the food of angels; as an eagle, he sheltered his fledgling, wingless brood. They journeyed therefore unswervingly toward the promised land, and from Egypt to the borders of the land of Palestine they traveled for forty full years. And every nation, invincible and terrible, every race of aliens, filled with impiety, they harvested from the roots as reapers harvest wheat. But the divine Moses departs from life, leaving behind great longing for himself among his kin, and having given the law written by God on tablets, he was hidden under the earth like a star that shines by day. After Moses, Joshua the son of Nun is confirmed B as leader and protector of the Hebrew C people. He allotted to them the land of Palestine, which God had promised to their divine forefathers, and he divided to each of the tribes its proper share, except for the tribe of Levi; for to them, instead of an inheritance, the things of God and God himself were allotted. He rooted out the Chanaanite lords and all those dwelling round about, with a mighty arm. And when he too had crossed the salt sea of life, judges held the people in their power and directed all things until Eli and Samuel the most prophetic. So long as they remained fixed in the divine laws
and worshipped God with unwavering hearts, they were held superior to every nation and race, and their whole life was carried along with the stream. But when they were carried off toward idolatry and devoted themselves to soulless and vain gods, they were immediately delivered as slaves to their enemies. Thus, judges ruled over them up to Samuel; but after these things, a king was given to those who asked for one, Saul, the offspring of the tribe of Benjamin, son of Kish. And after him, David, the great one among the prophets, becomes the ruler of the race, then tending his flocks, and then thirteen in succession down to Jechoniah, under whom Nebuchadnezzar, having come a third time, burned the city and the divine temple, and transferred the people to the land of Babylon.
A Now, David having just begun his rule over his countrymen, the war against the Trojans was stirred up by the Greeks on account of Helen, who was the wife of Menelaus. I, wishing to record this war just as it is written by those who have recorded it, and intending to tell it not as Homer writes it, shall beg pardon from those of good will. For Homer, honeyed in his tongue and using clever methods to entice, arranges his accounts, but in some places he twists and turns many things. But indeed I must now relate these things: Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, was the wife of Priam, the son of Laomedon who ruled over the Trojans, and was mother of many children by him. Now she, being pregnant and near to giving birth, was struck by the terrors of nocturnal dreams. For she seemed to see a burning coal-torch coming forth from her pudenda, and burning down the whole city at once, along with the forests of Ida. Priam hears this and communicates it to the seers. He learns that it would be useful for him and for the city if that which was to be born were exposed to wild beasts or cast into the scorching fire for destruction. After a little while, Alexander was brought to light, a lovely infant, handsome and fair of face. Priam ought, therefore, to have had no regard for him and to have destroyed the infant immediately upon his emerging from the womb—for he was destined to destroy the whole country entirely.
B But, overcome by nature, he spares the one who was born. Thinking he could outwit the cunning of fortune, he exposes him in a field to be raised by others. This field was called "Parian" from Paris himself. He was thus cast out negligently; shepherds found him, took pity, and lifted him up. They cared for the infant and reared him in the manner of children, having named him Paris. Now when he had already approached the age of youth, Priam receives him into his own house, thinking that he had escaped the harm imminent from him. But the threads of fortune were unchangeable, and what had once been decreed could not be undone. For when Alexander had killed a certain one of his kinsmen, C he—not indeed according to the intent of his soul, but—[lacking the rest of the sentence due to page turn].
A Scarcely had he moored at one of the mouths of the Nile, called Canopic in later times, where a temple of the hero Heracles had been built, which offered asylum to men fleeing thither. Into this temple, therefore, those who had fled with Paris and sailed with him, having taken refuge for fear, poured forth many insults and reproaches against him, treating with tragic emphasis the dire deeds he had committed, the insolence, the impiety toward the host, the abduction of the woman, and, indeed, of the treasures.
[It was] not by voluntary impulses, though nevertheless having committed murder, that he departed from Troy for Sparta toward Menelaus. The latter receives him kindly as a friend, shows him affection, acts as his guide, and extends him hospitality in every way. There is your plaything, O tyrant of all, Love; there is your plaything and the seed of enmity, from which you kindled the bright furnace of war. Menelaus travels abroad; Paris is left alone. He sees the wife of Menelaus in the house. The woman was surpassingly beautiful, high-browed, of fair complexion, exquisite of cheek, fair of face, ox-eyed, snow-skinned, B heavy-lidded, graceful, a grove abounding in charms, white-armed, tender, beauty itself alive. Her face was purely white, her cheek rose-colored, her countenance charming, her eyelid lovely; beauty unstudied, spontaneous, of natural color. A rosy, reddish hue tinged the whiteness, as if one should dye ivory with brilliant purple. Her neck was long and white, whence the fable was fashioned that graceful Helen was born from a swan. Alexander beholds her; he is captured by her beauty. And why must much be said or written? He carries her off, willing though she is, and departs as a fugitive. And being unable to arrange his flight otherwise, he boards a sea-going ship and sets sail for Phoenicia, having swerved from the course leading toward Troy; for he suspected that those he had wronged would pursue him. Being caught by violent and tumultuous winds, he arrives at the city which was situated at one of the mouths of the Nile, which in later times was called Canopic; where the temple of the hero Heracles had been built, which granted security to men fleeing thither. Into this temple, having taken refuge out of fear, as many as had fled together with Paris and sailed from home poured into it many insults and reproaches, exaggerating in tragic fashion his heavy deeds, the injury and impiety toward his host, the abduction of not only his wife but also his wealth.
25 The commander who presided over that place hears these things; Proteus, the king of the Egyptians, hears them as well. And so Paris is summoned to him with the woman, with the treasures, and with those who accompanied him. The king inquired who this woman was and whose she was, and from whom she had been taken that he should wander about thus. Alexander concocts a false story. But Proteus, having been informed of all that concerned Helen, used these words toward Alexander: "Were it not established and ordained for me by oath to kill none of the guests who are severely tossed by the waves and cast hither, I would have punished you with great and dire torments, you who have proven yourself ungrateful toward your benefactor and have trampled underfoot the laws of hospitality." Now, however, as for your treasures and this woman, I will not surrender [them], even if... C
you use many flatteries; I will preserve them for the Greek whom you have wronged. As for you, depart from Egypt and flee." Proteus, therefore, drove Paris away with threats; he returned to his homeland with empty hands, having tasted pleasure only with the tip of his finger, and having ignited a fire that reached up to the heavens.
B Thus happened the flight of Paris from Sparta and the abduction of Helen. Menelaus returns from his travels, learns what had occurred, and tears his garments; and with him, Tyndareus, the father of Helen, does the same. They arrive among the foremost of the Greeks, with blackened faces and wearing mourning clothes, and remind them of those dread oaths which all the Greeks together had sworn: that if it should happen that Helen were abducted by anyone, all would fight for her with their own bodies. Thus, having supplicated much and shamed them, they persuade the Greeks to make war against the Trojans. And indeed, many come running from the islands and from the continents, those dwelling by the sea and those living far from the salt water, the indigenous from Athens, from all of Euboea, from Thessaly, from Achaia, from all of Greece.
There were also allied islands: Ithaca, Rhodes, Scyrus, C Salamis, and along with them the thrice-great Crete. The Corinthians came together, the Argives fought as allies, and a fleet of ten thousand ships of theirs was organized. There was Menestheus from Athens, Nestor from Pylos, Odysseus from Ithaca, Ajax from Salamis, Idomeneus from Crete, Tlepolemus from Rhodes, all drawing their lineage from noble blood, distinguished, heaven-born, brave, high-born, noble, lion-hearted, all men of noble blood. And the Phthian Achilles shone above them all, a man of war, valiant, strong-handed. And so, having equipped the thousand-ship fleet, they appoint Agamemnon as admiral and general, a noble and good man, a robust hero, D outstanding in beauty and the strength of his arms. They depart from their homelands and friends and parents, and with a brave spirit steer the fleet toward the enemy soil. After deliberating in common, they decide it is necessary to pillage and ravage the regions neighboring Troy, so that they might obtain a supply of provisions and that the strength of the Trojans' allies might be broken. Achilles is therefore sent, along with others of the best, and they attack the islands and lay waste to the continents, and they completely destroy everything belonging to the enemy. Now, the Greeks had heard the news concerning Helen.
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as to what had happened—namely, that King Proteus had taken her from Paris, and all her possessions were being guarded by him. Yet they strove, it is said, to prevail over Troy, as a report prevailed among them that it abounded in gold treasures and was laden with great wealth. They also wanted to take vengeance on those who had previously harmed them, for they considered it unmanly, soft, and base not to exact the appropriate penalties for the insults offered. When, therefore, the Trojans saw such a great fleet and observed the multitude that had arrived, having gathered allies for themselves from every side—Carians, Lycians, Mysians, Maeonians, and Phrygians, and having formed an alliance with every nation of Asia, as many as were inland and as many as were on the coast—they led out a swarm of troops against the Greeks, numberless as a hive of bees. And a long time was spent in the war. Now the inhabitants of the city of Troy itself numbered over fifty thousand men. At first, indeed, they armed themselves mightily for battle, breaking through the phalanxes with manly clashes; but when they had experienced B the onslaught of Achilles, though late, and saw his fiery and hot agility, and his manliness and bold spirit, they sat huddled within their walls, in no way daring to sally forth against the Greeks, until she who turns all things and complicates all things—namely, envy—the mother of all evils, blunted the active impulse of Achilles and encouraged the Trojans while he was angered. And the cause of the grief that embittered him was the murder of Palamedes, who had perished unjustly. I shall tell how it happened, and who contrived it. The islander Ulysses nursed in his heart implacable hatred and envy against Palamedes, because among the Greeks the fame of Palamedes was great, and all cherished a heartfelt love for him, as though they were looking upon a god. For he had foreseen the fire-bearing dart of the plague and had forewarned all the Greek commanders, and while all of them were being bitterly oppressed by this evil, he alone kept the Greeks unharmed, partly by advising and correcting them with words, and partly by teaching them what was advantageous through deeds. From this, therefore, Ulysses was consumed with envy, seeing Palamedes beloved by all, while he himself was considered as one of the crowd. From then on he prepared deceits and machinations, and concocted schemes full of slander. For as long as the strong-handed Achilles was present, the designs of the son of Laertes were ineffective, and everything that was being cooked up and machinated against Palamedes was like a spider's web; but when Achilles had been sent away with other heroes,
A to wage war against certain defenders of Troy, and they had Palamedes following along with him (for he desired in every way to be always with him), then that most daring man, having seized an opportunity that involved no danger, first preys upon the fickleness of Agamemnon; and pretending to be his great friend, he says, "The strong-armed Achilles, O King, covets the rule of the Greeks; for youth is a goad. And he takes Palamedes, as one skilled in speaking and flattery, as a pander and his collaborator in this. A little later, after the battle has been concluded, they will bring to you herds of cattle and flocks of animals, but they themselves will steal away whole chests of money, with which they will win over the powerful men among the Greeks and stir them up against you, so that you may fall from your authority." The King heard these things, was persuaded, was carried away, and employs the fabricator of deceit for his counsel. B Straightway Palamedes is summoned, and being left alone, he falls into the snares of envy. He is slandered to the Trojans as betraying the Greeks, and he is pelted with stones (alas, what do you do, Envy!), having uttered nothing else but this word: "O unhappy truth, I mourn and lament for thee; for thou hast perished before me and hast been put to death."
A The son of Thetis returns with brilliant trophies; he learns what had happened, he pities Palamedes, is indignant, grieves heavily, is enraged at the Greeks, and desists from fighting and aiding them. Hence came boldness to Hector and his allies. B And they join fierce battles against the Greeks; hence came slaughters and killings and the shedding of blood, homicides and cries and pools of gore. And the swarms of the Greeks fall like ears of corn, and they are humbled, and being caught in countless evils, they come to repentance for the things wherein they had sinned. Those who were formerly arrogant now begged Thetis' son with suppliant words C to be reconciled to them. But Achilles paid no heed to these, nor was he swayed, until Patroclus, whom he dearly loved, fell, having been killed by the heroic hands of Hector. Then indeed they compelled him to run against the Trojans. Achilles, therefore, sets out to battle, breathing fire. And he breaks through the phalanxes, and kills the champions, and with them Hector, the pillar of Troy, D a man heavy, warlike, reared in arms, showing on his chest countless scars, which he had received from grappling with wild bulls before the Greeks had come and engaged in battle. [Being drawn up against foreign-speaking nations.]
When Hector was destroyed, who had been endowed with a daring heart
Priam summoned the Amazons as allies. And again a fierce battle happened, and they were all killed. Deprived, therefore, of everyone, the old Dardanian sends to David, the king of Judea, asking for military aid from there. But David does not grant it, whether because at that time he was engaged in battle against foreign nations, or because he was disgusted with Greeks and Barbarians alike as not knowing God but worshipping idols, and [fearing] lest the Jews might incline to error if auxiliary forces were sent by him to the Trojans, since they were already by nature prone to vice. Therefore, Priam supplicates Tantan, the king of the Indians, and Memnon is sent with an infinite multitude. The army was Indian, all of them black-skinned; and when the Greeks saw them, endowed with a foreign color, and feared their appearance and armor, and were terrified of the beasts that India breeds, they thought of fleeing by night and leaving Troy. But nonetheless, they drew up in battle array A against the dark-skinned ones; and they reddened the fields with the blood of the Indians, and they dyed the streams of the Scamander with gore.
In these circumstances, therefore, the festival of offerings for the Greeks, and indeed for the Barbarians too, took hold, and for all there was a truce from wars and labors.
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B The Greek army and the Trojan host were mingling with one another, daring to do nothing against each other. Now, there was a temple before the walls of the high-towered Troy, where Achilles, frequenting it, saw Polyxena and rekindled the torch of love for her. For he had already seen her among the ransoms for Hector, and although he could have kept her, he did not wish to. But when he saw her then, he was smitten, and sent words to her father Priam, seeking Polyxena for marriage. And he pretended to consent, but Deiphobus and Paris were doing these things with treachery. As they entered, therefore, into the temple of Apollo Alpheus C to confirm with oaths the matters concerning Polyxena, Deiphobus, drawing near, kissed the son of Peleus, calling him the dear bridegroom of his sister. But Alexander, standing near, dealt a lethal wound, and having struck him, fled away with Deiphobus. Achilles, brought low by the blows, was in his final moments. Ulysses perceived these things, for he was accompanying him, and with him the god-born Ajax, son of Telamon. Both, therefore, having leapt into the temple together, found the hero lying there defiled in blood, and at the point of expiring, barely moving his tongue and about to have his eyes covered in darkness. D When they saw him, then, they cried out, and Great Ajax, having fallen upon his chest, said in lamentation to the son of Peleus: "You were, then, O troubler of battle and giant with mighty hands…"
who could kill you, gifted with a lion's heart?" A And he, in a dim and broken voice, uttered this: "Deiphobus and Paris killed me by treachery." Having said these things, the hero of such stature breathed his last. And Ajax, having placed the corpse of Achilles upon his shoulders, brought it with bitter lamentation to the naval station.
Straightway they sent for Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus by name, whom he had by Deidamia. And once more came slaughter and killings, once more murders, and once more the plains of Troy were steeped in blood, and once more the streams of the Scamander were stained with gore, until the seers delivered oracles to them, that it was not fated for Troy to be taken by war, nor by hands nor by swords, but by guile alone. They fashioned that wooden horse, and having brought armed men inside it, they made a show of sailing off toward their homelands. And they left the horse there by the naval station, while they themselves lay at anchor with their ships at the island of Tenedos. The Trojans saw what had happened; they saw the harbors deserted. Seeing only the horse, they were at a loss, and were astonished. B And at first, supposing the whole thing to be a deception, they were eager to destroy the horse, to deliver it to the fire, or to cast it down from the rocks into the depths of the sea. Then—for it had been decreed that Troy would be taken at that time—it seemed fitting to them to bring the horse into the city as an image and a trophy from their enemies.
They brought it in, and having given themselves over to drinking and dancing, they fell into a deep and unwakable sleep. But the men who were hidden inside it by treachery emerged in silence and lit a great signal fire. Seeing this, the Greeks who had formerly sailed away returned to Troy faster than a word, and with the gates having been opened by those who had entered first, they poured in like a rushing flood of water. C Troy, with its sturdy towers, having thus been taken, women were snatched from their new marriage-beds, the ground became like a lake with the blood of those falling, and an infant held in the arms was dashed against the wall. To say it simply and briefly, wailing filled everything, and every calamity and every bitterness overwhelmed the city. Hands dripped with gore, swords were stained with blood, the floor was turned red, and infants were trampled underfoot. At last, when they were sated with plunder and slaughter, they delivered the city to the fire and burned it from its very foundations—the city that had previously been splendid and celebrated everywhere.
In such a manner was this war conducted. D But Fortune, having once become indignant at Menelaus, oppressed the wretch with other new labors. Again he is forced to sail, a different voyage, and new toils succeed the old ones. And along the Hellespontine voyage, he encounters the Egyptian seas. He departs for Egypt, measures out the terrible seas, and having been buffeted by storms and waves by heavy-blowing winds...
he barely touches land. A He makes his way to Proteus, and there in the city of Memphis he happens upon his wife. Having been received hospitably and honored, he takes back Helen, and after many toils he reaches his homeland, eight years after the fall of Troy in his wandering toward Proteus. He finds there his brother unhappily destroyed by the wiles of a most wicked woman, a viperous adulteress. He finds his nephew Orestes, who had destroyed the one who had defiled his father’s bed and lineage, and with him his shameless mother, Clytemnestra.
Thus have the events concerning Troy been recounted by me cursorily and clearly. It remains now to write of the strong and mighty prosperity of the Romans, from whence they started and gained mastery over the whole earth. B After the fall of Troy, Aeneas, son of Anchises, whether fleeing or released by the enemy, emigrated with his whole family to the land of Italy, which some have recorded was so named after Italus, who ruled over the Hesperian regions, while others said it obtained this name for the following reason. The great hero Hercules had rounded up the oxen of Geryon and was leading them from Erytheia. One of those cattle from the herd, they say, having bounded away from the drove, swam across the intervening expanse of sea and managed to make passage into Italy. With the hero everywhere inquiring of those whom he encountered, they, not understanding the Greek language, called the heifer in their own tongue *outoulon*. C Accordingly, from this animal, the entire region that the ox had traversed was named Vitalia, a name which, by the course of time, was changed into Italy.
Aeneas, therefore, with the Trojans who sailed with him, having received oracles, sailed toward Italy. The oracles commanded him to sail toward the West until he should reach a region where they might consume their own tables; and when this should happen, using a four-footed beast as guide of the journey, to build a city there D where the animal should come to a stand, exhausted from the journey. Having received these oracles, they arrive at Laurentum. Laurentum is a plain in Italy. Having pitched their tents there, they dined on the ground. The floor was all covered with celery, and this served them in place of tables. When, therefore, what had been set out was consumed, one tasted of the celery, then another after him, and after him his fellow-feaster, and next to him his neighbor. And some cried out, "Our tables have been consumed along with our food!" A din arose at this, as the oracle had reached its end among them. Then, intending to offer sacrifice, they were creating an altar...
and setting out the sow for sacrifice, which, being pregnant, was not far from giving birth. And as those who were to sacrifice were about to begin with the sow, she, slipping from the hands of her keepers, ran away and rushed toward a certain hill. A Aeneas followed with slower steps, remaining a little ways behind her intentionally, so that the animal should not be disturbed by the rapid pace and turn aside from its heaven-sent course; for he understood that the oracle had referred to this four-footed creature. So it sat down, having tired itself with much running (for it had run twenty-four stades). Aeneas—seeing that the prophecies had been fulfilled, but that the place was unsuitable for building a city—began to bring great accusations against those who had uttered the oracle. While he was thus reviling them and complaining, a voice from somewhere in the darkness was heard, proclaiming that he should stay and build a city there; for this was to be their lodging for now, but after a time and an equal number of years to those in which the sow would give birth to piglets, they would have another, more magnificent one. And so the sow brought forth a whole litter of thirty, and as many years later, after the descendants of Aeneas, the city of Alba became bright and thrice-blessed. Then Aeneas, persuaded by the divine voice, began to build there the city of Lavinium.
A And a miraculous and noteworthy thing happened. First, a fire was spontaneously ignited in the thicket; then a wolf, leaping from the forest somewhere, took hold of dry wood in its mouth and placed it on the fire. An eagle, a large-winged bird, fluttering its wings, fanned the fire and kindled it. A cunning fox, however, jealous of these, set itself against those who were lighting the fire, and strove to extinguish it and bring about its decay, soaking its tail in the river’s streams and, with it, sprinkling the wood-eating flame. Sometimes those wishing to light the fire prevailed, and other times the one wishing to extinguish it had the advantage; in the end the former won, and the latter fled away. Seeing this, Aeneas prophesied that the city would be an object of envy, and that after being much tossed about by turbulence, and with great and successive labors, it would at long last prevail over those who conspired against it. B And these things took place while Aeneas was still alive. When he departed this tumultuous life, his legitimate son, Ascanius by name, born of Creusa the daughter of Priam, built the city of Alba with those who were left behind. Amulius reigned over this, among others, having snatched the scepter from Numitor, to whom it rightfully belonged. And Numitor was the elder brother of Amulius, who, wishing to utterly extinguish his family, C had, in the case of his daughter Rhea, made a devotee of the temple of Vesta...
It was ordained by law that such priestesses should remain chaste, remaining virgins and pure, and untried by marriage. Once, as she was walking toward the grove of Ares, someone lay in wait and attacked her, and having defiled the maiden, rendered her pregnant. When this became known to her uncle the king, she was kept under guard until the pangs of labor and the time of the birth of the infants. And when the time had arrived that nature had determined, she delivered the burden of her womb; the infants were twins. The king, having locked her up securely, held her fast, and for the newborn babes he pronounced death, and orders the wretched things to be cast into the waters. The unfortunate children were cast having been placed inside a basket. B Here, divine Providence was made manifest, and thy active power, the strength of thy hand. The basket is overturned, the infants are thrown out, and there they lay, whimpering and covered in mud. A she-wolf appears from somewhere, newly delivered and swelling, her breasts heavy with a flow of milk, and she brought her nipples to the mouths of the infants, and with her tongue she kindly licked away the mud, for the beauty of their faces was clear to see. A shepherd perceives what has happened, saves the infants, and bears them to his wife. He finds her despondent C because she had brought forth a dead child; he consoles her with these, and gives her these infants to nurse as her own. She nursed them maternally and genuinely, and beyond her hopes she became a mother to twin infants, she who a short time before had not even been permitted one. Others say that it was not a she-wolf that raised the children, but the very wife of Faustulus the shepherd. She, making common use of the beauty of her body, was called *lupa* in the native tongue, which in the Greek dialect means a harlot. And since it is customary to call both a she-wolf *lupa* and a woman of vice by that name, some, having learned of the woman's wantonness, said that a she-wolf had nursed the infants with her breasts. When they had been nourished and had grown to some extent, the boys were given the names Remus and Romulus, D and they lived the rustic life of swineherds and cowherds. Through ignorance they caused harm to the sheepfolds of Numitor—who the story has already said was their maternal grandfather—and they were caught while plundering, having been ambushed by some men. When they were brought to their grandfather, and were recognized and recognized him, they strip Amulius of the kingdom of the Albans, and finding him unguarded, they slaughter him with the sword, and restore the scepter to their maternal grandfather. The grandfather, having bestowed upon them an abundance of wealth and everything needed for support, sends them out to found a colony.
Romulus then, proceeding to a small town called Palatium after the founder Pallas, traces there the outline of the city, yoking a powerful bull and a heifer. The bull looked outward toward the field, but the heifer yoked with him looked toward the city. By these things, Romulus was symbolically praying that the men might be formidable to those outside, but that the women within might prove fruitful, remain faithful, and be house-keepers and guardians of the things inside. Afterwards, taking a clod from the outside with his hand, he throws it inside the city, praying that the affairs of the city might increase from those of others. Having performed these things, he signals with a trumpet the summoning of the city and names it Rome. And having collected a multitude from the surrounding region—men, women, boys, old men, and youths—he makes them all fellow-citizens and settles them. B
And thus he is established as the first king of the Romans, and after him Numa, and after him Tullus, and after them an Ancus named Marcius (for he had a disability in the curvature of his foot, which is called *ancyle* in Greek), and after him Tarquinius, the fifth from Romulus, who received the kingdom having no right to it; for it was owed to the children of King Marcius. Tullius, the son-in-law of Tarquinius, succeeded after him; who, as they say, from infancy and his earliest age was named Servius since he was born of a bondwoman, for the word *servius* can mean "slave" among the Romans.
A He joined his own daughters in marriage to the grandsons of the king, Lucius Tarquinius, by whose treacherous and murderous scheme the miserable man was deprived of both his life and his rule. And after him Tarquinius Superbus began to reign, who, acting cruelly and with great haughtiness towards both the senate and the common people, was called Superbus; B for in their language this word denotes a proud man. To this Tarquinius came a woman bearing nine books of the Sibylline oracles, and she wished to sell the books to the king. But because he would not give the price demanded, she burned three in the fire and, approaching him again, offered the remaining ones for the same price. But this seemed unreasonable to those present, and again three of the books were consumed by fire. She came a third time to him, and for the same price she offered the remaining three. The king, having marveled at these things and having inquired of reputable seers, ordered the gold to be given to the woman. She, having received what was given and having told him to keep the books with care, was never seen by anyone again; yet the books became the salvation of the city.
While this man wished to build a temple in Rome, and when already, for the underground foundations, a great depth had been reached in the digging, there was found below a head of a man recently slain, showing fresh and warm blood. C
and a face resembling those that are alive. A Having learned this, a reputable soothsayer among the Tyrrhenians said that the city would become the head of many nations, but only through swords, slaughters, and pools of blood. From this, the Tarpeian hill was renamed, from the head that appeared, the Capitoline hill; for "caput" is "head" in the Roman tongue.
A He puts him [Marcius] to the sword, and with him his son, who was noble and handsome and to be admired in all things, and who displayed the bearing of a stout-hearted soul, who, even had he remained alive, would not have endured not to avenge his father upon his slayers. B Tarquinius thus kills Marcius himself, and translates his entire estate into the royal halls. This Brutus, then, being the son of Marcius, and having seen the most unjust slaughter of his father, and having wisely observed that he would share the danger with his father and brother and die with them, forms a noble plan: he feigns folly and contrives madness, and by this means avoids the threatened evil, the doom from the sword. B For this reason, he was named "Brutus" by those who did not know better: for the word signifies one who is dull and damaged in his senses.
For a long time, then, the city of the Romans, the great city, was under kings. But when the son of Tarquinius acted lawlessly and shamed the most temperate Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, a most noble man, then all the Romans, having gathered together, voted for the dissolution of the royal power, and decreed that they should appoint "consuls" yearly—which in Greek signifies councillors or provisors—whom the Greeks subsequently named *hypatoi*, having considered the magnitude of their dignity. D When, therefore, the tyrants had been driven from Rome, the first of all to receive the consular dignity were L. Tarquinius, the husband of Lucretia, and L. Junius, whom they called Brutus. But I must tell what concerns Brutus.
There was a certain nobleman in Rome, Marcius, excelling both in wealth and in honor. C The terrible Tarquinius, having envied him his wealth, D translates this man into his palace, pretending to care for his kinsman and one of the same blood—Brutus—and ostensibly pitying him, but in truth wishing to grant him as a playmate to his own children for the sake of amusement, with whom, by spending time, he might provide them with mockery and games. And when the children of Tarquinius were sent to Delphi by their father to inquire about the pestilential disease, Brutus was also sent along to amuse them with his jests. They indeed graced Apollo with gifts, C handsome, and lovable to all, and already providing certain evidence of the fortitude of his spirit; which very thing had brought death upon him, for Tarquinius feared that, if he were left alive, he would by no means restrain himself from taking vengeance upon his father's murderers. In this way, when Tarquinius had removed Marcius from the midst, he transfers his wealth into the royal house. Now Marcius had another son, Brutus, who, having contemplated the most unjust slaughter of his father, and likewise having wisely perceived that he would undergo the same danger of death as his father and brother, adopts a plan much the best. For, by feigning stupidity and madness, he escapes the evil that was impending. D Hence among the ignorant he was called Brutus, which word signifies a fool and one out of his mind. Tarquinius brought him to himself in the palace, pretending indeed to care for Brutus, whom he pitied because of the closeness of their lineage (for they were sprung from the same blood), but in reality, he wished to give him to his sons as a playmate, from whose custom they might derive pleasure. And so he lived among the royal children, and supplied them with material for playing and laughing. But when at some point the sons of Tarquinius were sent away by their father to Delphi, to inquire of the oracle of Apollo about the pestilential disease that was then spreading, Brutus was also added to them, that he might exhilarate them with his ridiculous behavior. When they entered Delphi
Brutus had hidden a solid gold staff inside a hollow wooden rod, and he had consecrated this as a gift to Phoebus. But they, not at all recognizing the resourceful wisdom of Brutus and his steadfast and powerful nature, mocked, derided, insulted, and jeered at him for offering such a gift to the oracle-giver. And as they were about to depart from the Delphic temple, they asked Apollo which of the Romans would rule. Apollo replied clearly: "He who shall be the first to embrace his mother, he shall rule." Brutus understood, but they did not know what was meant by the oracle. Wishing to share the power and the crown in common, they agreed to embrace their common mother as soon as they returned. And indeed they did embrace her; but Brutus, immediately upon stepping out of the ship, fell prostrate upon the ground and kissed it. A Brutus had thus feigned madness. But when the incident concerning Lucretia was noised abroad, he made everything public, and having first instigated the people and armed them with words, he had the strength to bring about the destruction of the tyrants—I mean Tarquin and his children. Thus, after the destruction, Brutus and Collatinus were established as the first consuls of the Romans, and after them others, and after them all kinds: Cassii and Cicerones and Luculli and Catuli, Catones and Scipiones, Pompeii and Scauri.
B Such, then, was the power and such the might, thus governed for four hundred and sixty-four years until Gaius Caesar, who transformed the consulship into a kingdom and dominion. And if ever the instability of affairs and their volatility and the harshness of fortune required it, the Senate and the consuls would convene, and a single dictator was appointed as commander-in-chief (the term denotes an unaccountable office and the imperial administration of all things). When the storm of affairs had been settled, he would lay down the power of the dictatorship. Gaius, having become dictator and commander-in-chief, and having overthrown countless nations, and having extended the power of the Romans as far as Gades itself and as far as the rising sun, being envied after his victories and triumphs, and having learned from certain people (O, how you weave, Envy!) that a most unjust decree had been passed against him, compelled by circumstances, he moved toward tyranny. And having joined battle with those who advanced against him with great strength, and having defeated and mastered all, he girt himself with the power of the dictatorship. This Caesar, while still a boy, thought in his sleep that he saw a matter indicating the future, that he was having intercourse with his mother and acting shamefully. And a monster was born in his stables.
A horse with its feet armed with ox-like hooves, A which would only accept Gaius as a rider, just as the horse Bucephalus [accepted] only Alexander.
To this Caesar a strange thing happened. There was a beautiful woman, Julia, who was joined to a husband, Nero; he was her husband, and she was Julia. After she had borne a child to her husband Nero, and she was again with child, and her womb had become full, and she was in the sixth month of her pregnancy, Caesar desired to take her into the communion of marriage, and he urged Nero to betroth his wife to him and to provide her away in marriage as a father would. Nero obeyed, though he did not willingly give up his wife. When the time arrived, she gave birth to a male child. And from this a popular proverb arose: "For those who are fortunate and illustrious, even three-month children [are born.]"
Having related these things concerning this Caesar, I must now go on to tell from where he was called Caesar. Some say that when his mother was with child and had not yet reached the time to give birth, but had passed away, her relatives cut open her womb, and having taken out the embryo alive and breathing from there, they named him Caesar because he was cut out. Others again say that the hair of the head is called *caesaries* by the Romans, and that Gaius was called Caesar because he was well-tressed, or rather because he was thick-haired. Others, writing Roman histories, say that he was rendered a thrice-victorious hero, when the Romans were engaged in battle with the Carthaginians, and with a timely spear he struck the antagonist riding upon a broad-backed elephant, and brought him down to the ground together with the elephant; and from there he received the beginning of the glorious title of Caesar, for elephants are called *caesares* by the Phoenicians. From that ancestor, therefore, who had performed such a feat, his successors were called Caesars, procuring from this great honor for themselves.
But enough of these matters; we must return to the thread of our discourse. For when that victorious and stout-hearted Caesar was about to die, B his wife dreamed that she saw the roof fall upon his head, and her husband, bathed in blood, fall most piteously into her lap. He was, in fact, slaughtered wretchedly in the middle of the forum, by the treacherous attack of Cassius and Brutus.
When Gaius Caesar had thus perished, his adopted son, he who was called Caesar Augustus, took up the scepter; he who was referred to as Octavius as a master from infancy, but after that was called Augustus, as one who had been increased. He became sole ruler, and both his life and his reign extended to the ends of the earth.
While his mother was pregnant with him, she saw in a dream her own entrails snatched up and flying into heaven. Just as he was emerging from the maternal womb, his father, in his sleep, dreamed he saw the sun, the delight of mortals, the great master of the day, shining from his wife's bosom. And when he went out from the house later that day, he met an astrologer and asked the reason for his delay. When the astrologer heard of the birth of the child and the great dreams he had been told, that eminent astrologer sighed deeply and cried out from the depths: "Man, what have you done? You have begotten a master and king for us!"
When the child was growing up to manhood and living on the farm with his parents, and was amusing himself with the reapers and the sheaf-binders, and was carrying bread in his hands to eat, suddenly an eagle swooped down with a great noise, snatched the bread, and flying up into the air with a flutter of wings, then swooped down again and returned the bread.
When he had risen to imperial heights, he was irascible, short-tempered, angry, and impetuous, but again he became changeable and mild. Once, when he was sitting in judgment and deciding the fates of many men, a certain wise man from Mytilene, not being able to approach and admonish Caesar (since the crowd kept him away), A trusted his words to a parchment, marked with a seal. The writing said: "Executioner, cease your judging." He aimed well and cast the parchment. Caesar saw it, opened the tablet, and upon reading what was written, he rose from his throne and declared all the sentences passed to be void.
There was with him a teacher, an Alexandrian by birth, Athenodorus by name, full of all wisdom and most capable in regulating manners and teaching. Since he knew that Caesar was enslaved to love, and was utterly wanton, and worse than others, B lusting for women joined to husbands, and commanding their spouses to serve his impurity in a despotic and tyrannical manner, he sought to lead him away from the madness of that passion. Since Caesar would not abandon his wicked life, the wondrous teacher devised a plan. He saw a man of the senatorial rank, of noble fortune and clear reputation, lamenting and weeping (for he had been commanded to enclose his wife in a covered litter and send her to the ruler). He urged him not to mourn or bear it so heavily, but to enclose himself in the litter in his wife's place, and send it to Caesar; for this, he said, was the necessity. He persuaded him, though with difficulty. What happened after this? Athenodorus enters the litter, entering bearing a sword. He is sent to Caesar, marked with a seal.
A Caesar receives it, breaks the seals. Athenodorus goes out brandishing the sword. Caesar is terrified at the sight, and freezes with fear; he binds himself with oaths to do this no more, nor to be defiled by others' beds henceforth. He, having spent much time with Caesar, and being about to depart for his native land, since he saw Caesar was irascible and quick-tempered and quick to pass punishing sentences, but also quick to extinguish the fire of his anger and change his ways to more humane ones, leaning to his ears as if to kiss him, "O Caesar," he said, "O Augustus, this alone is lacking for you: do not pass sentences before you say to yourself B the number of the twenty-four letters." He, sighing from the depths and looking at him, "I still need your noble training," he said, "and stay with me again, and Rome shall hold you." This Caesar drove away the idle talkers, honoring only the wise with fitting honors. He was so beloved by his subjects, that when the Roman man was about to depart this life, he ordered his children and successors to offer thanksgiving sacrifices to the gods, because, he says, I leave the Augustus alive. And as Caesar himself was about to depart from things here, A presenting the citizens and consuls to himself, "A muddy one," he said, "I found the city of the Romans, I have made it fair-towered, stone, and firm. But since I am also departing from the turmoil of affairs, I wish many to clap at my death and to use jests and to clap hands as at the death of a mimic or a player." And he ordained these things, mocking his own life. Having held power for fifty-six years in all, he paid the debt and discharged the tribute. While this Caesar's authority held the scepter, C in the forty-second year, the Word—co-eternal with the Father and Creator of the world—entering the pure womb of a virgin untainted, fashioned his flesh from her blood, and with her and through her shone forth to men, perfect in divinity and mortal in nature. But when the Augustus Caesar had departed this life, Tiberius took the lead; who at first was mild and gentle and of a generous disposition, but later drifted into a bloodthirsty character and an evil-minded D and filthy spirit. But recently, having come to the empire, he was so beloved by all those under his hand, that without guards or sentries or bodyguards he walked wherever he pleased, by night and by day. And to those he appointed as city prefects or tax collectors,
he did not remove them A within a short time from their offices, answering those who inquired about the reason with that well-known and common saying: that there was a man who was very ill, having ulcerated feet, filled with many foul-smelling humors that were difficult to heal. Flies were accustomed to fly to his wounds B and drain out those putrefactions. Though this caused pain to the sick man, he did not chase away those persistent and bold flies. But when someone, moved by pity for the man's calamity, wished to chase the flies away, the sick man shouted: "Let them be, I beg you, my friend, lest by chasing them away you become the author of greater pain for me. For these, having been sated on my rotting limbs, will cause me little further trouble, but if others fly in, by attaching themselves more violently, they will torment me more." C These things Tiberius used to say about the tax collectors, advising that they should be tolerated for a longer time, so that, having been sated at last, they might treat more gently those from whom tributes must be exacted. But if he learned that any tax collector had exceeded the measure prescribed to him, so that he was reported to be burdensome to his subjects, he punished the man with more painful penalties, crying out and shouting another proverb: "I wish you to shear the wool of the sheep, but not to shave them cruelly down to the skin." Such was he at the beginning, but he did not persist in this intention to the end; for he also punished many of the innocent bitterly, D becoming so heartless and murderous, and so hated, that he was called mire mixed with blood. For he even took the head of a man who was of consular rank and among the more noble, and with it his wealth, saying only this: that "he carried my coin in his bosom," and in filthy and dung-filled places, having walked there, he emptied the burden of his stomach.
When this Tiberius was ruling the Romans, the Jews and Pilate nailed my sweet Jesus, the steward of life, to the cross. But after the overthrow of that hateful death, and the rising of the Creator from the grave, and after the bodily assumption from the lower realms, Mary Magdalene ran as far as Rome, denouncing with her tongue those who had committed crimes A and stirred up such great anger in Tiberius that he condemned all the priests and scribes, and Pilate as well, to a most heavy and bitter fate. But when Tiberius was snatched away by death, having reigned for twenty-three years, the Roman power passed to Gaius, who was the grandson of Caesar Tiberius by his daughter. Being also filthy in his life and murderous in his ways, he violated his own true-born sisters while they were still virgins; he played with gamblers until daybreak. And once, while dicing in Gaul with some companions B and faring poorly and suffering misfortune in this game, and seeing the treasurer upset...
A because the whole of the treasury’s gold had been emptied, he rose up and ordered those who were heavy with gold and prospering in wealth to be reaped by the sword. From then on, he drained whole lakes of gold.
This man, having once seen mud in a narrow street of Rome, ordered it to be cast into the bosom of Vespasian, who was most skilled in generalship; for he was then an aedile.
After Gaius was slaughtered in the midst of the palace after having held the imperial power for four years, B Claudius took over and received the power; he was so cowardly and fearful that he ordered those visiting him to be searched, lest someone happen to be hiding a sword in their garment. And if he ever held a festive banquet, armed guards used to stand around him. And after twelve years of holding the emperorship, Claudius, being most cowardly, is taken off by poison.
Upon Claudius being poisoned, Nero, the matricide, most wickedly crept into the Roman scepters. He was lascivious and filthy and full of debauchery, a slave to his gut and his belly, a lover of wine and a lover of drink. He brought many to most bitter deaths, including his own mother. One might justly say C that he brought such an evil into the world. He offered up his own wife to death alongside her, and by accumulating evils upon evils, and adding worse, he betrothed a eunuch to himself for the bed. He delighted in citharodes and women who were buffoons, and with dancers, jesters, mimes, and charioteers, he filled up every evil and every shameful act while performing them in secret. Then too, the Parthians drew the authority of Persian power unto themselves, having enslaved the Persians.
But when the foul Nero had given many to the sword, D acting as a man like a pig, as a drunkard swilling wine, he was hated by the entire populace to the utmost degree, and all turned away even at the sight of him; for he would perform every shameful, total act in the midst of the theaters. The Romans, therefore, not enduring to look upon these things, and not bearing to be slaves to a charioteer who was a mime, came upon him to kill him. Nero, learning of this, did away with himself, having said this at the end: “How great a citharode, O Zeus, the world is losing!”
Having held [power] for fourteen years in total. Galba ruled after him, and after him Otho; the one tasted of the power for only seven months, and the other governed for not even three months. And after them Vitellius, who by published edicts ordered the astrologers to depart from Italy; but they, having published, in turn, their own response, wrote: “Depart, Caesar, from life.” And they indicated the very day on which he would be killed. Having held power for eight months, he was seen [to perish] by the work of the sword.
COMPENDIUM CHRONICUM
A When these men had finished their rule and with it their life, the army voted the power to Vespasian, who at that time was shearing away the beauty of Judaea. He himself departed, having traveled by ship to Rome, but he left his stout-hearted son, Titus, with the army to besiege Jerusalem, having proclaimed him Caesar and successor to the empire.
Who, after many labors and the slaughters and the seas of frequent blood and the murders, by which the plains of Sion were reddened and spears and swords became stained with gore, and shields were blood-drenched, and hands dripping with slaughter—finally, having mastered the opulent city, he made the fortified buildings and the towers with their fine battlements a fuel for fire, and razed the temple, having often groaned and wept over it many times, and he rendered the most beautiful and populous city scorched and blackened with smoke, so that that great bravery was turned into a helpless and, as they say, Scythian wilderness.
But when the emperor had reached the end of his life from old age and had dissolved his life and his power by disease, having reigned for no more than nine years, Titus succeeded him, a divine and gentle man, a man most generous, lavish with money, and worthy of rule and command.
And they indicated the very day on which he would be killed. Having held power for eight months, he was seen [to perish] by the work of the sword.
A Even if there were other more numerous authorities and kingdoms, A / B and he was worthy to direct and hold these together. This is that famous and wonderful saying of his: “I have not been emperor today, nor ruler, for I have not poured out benefits on anyone with streams [of wealth].” This is that well-sung and noble saying of his: “It is not right that he who has looked upon the face of an emperor should return sad with a gloomy countenance.” But the destructive plague snatched away before his time the all-noble one, who had reigned for two years.
B The unstable rotation of the wheel and the game of fortune badly committed the power to Domitian, who was born from the same seeds as Titus, but bore nothing in common nor [anything] brotherly with Titus, so that the common saying was true: “A chamber pot and a drinking cup from the same glass, A foot-washing basin and a goblet from the same clay.” For he was a lover of money, a huckster of affairs, thirsty for blood and slaughters, a butcher of men, distributing flesh without sympathy, roaring like a lion.
To him, a certain wise man and observer of the stars foretold when and how he would die, and who would rule after him. And he, having summoned the astrologer near, said: “But to you, man, how much time of life is there remaining? And how and when do you reach your end, and what is your conclusion?” And as he spoke clearly and truthfully the things which the course of the stars taught him, the emperor, wishing to convict the man as an impostor, [ordered] a pyre of rich wood...
to be ignited, and the star-gazer, having been firmly bound with his arms constricted, to be thrown onto it. The furnace had been lit, the flame rose up on high, it threatened in a terrifying manner and caused fear even from afar; the fire roared dreadfully and lit up the air all around; but the star-gazer, having been bound, lay there without trembling at all. What, I ask, happened after this? A great cloud arose from somewhere, covered the heaven, and darkened the entire air. It was murky, black, damp, and rain-bearing; one would have imagined it to be pregnant with certain rivers of water. Then a thunderclap broke forth and a bellows-like sound echoed, and all were out of the way; they fled with all their might—the emperor, the spectators, the people, the guards, and the executioners who were feeding the furnace. Finally, a great downpour of rain fell from heaven and extinguished the fire, and dogs coming upon him, having gnawed through the bonds, released the star-gazer, who was praying fervently for divine aid. And such things were accomplished regarding this man. But he himself, that beast with a lion’s ferocity, when he was about to make an end of his life, seemed in his sleep to see, as it were, a black horse which he was mounting in imperial fashion, being clad in armor, but as his armor had fallen off him of its own accord, he miserably believed that he was being cast down into a chasm and abyss of the earth, along with his horse and his attire, and finally he vanished.
And thus, after this man had violently breathed out his soul, having held power for five years plus another ten, A Nerva receives the imperial scepter, a good man, gentle, a garden of many graces, who, having been disgusted by the castration of human cylindrical members, did not allow Romans to be castrated, but even banished those who performed the castrations, punishing them. And he would constantly offer naked swords to those in authority, in appearance indeed so that they might see if the swords were sharp, but in reality so that he might show that he did not fear that he might be killed on the spot, for he said he was conscious of no evil done to himself. But even this man, death quickly snatched away, having held power for one year and four months, and established Trajan in the empire, a man most strategic, a multiple victor, hardy, stout-hearted, noble, a stubborn combatant, a most steady balance of the justice of his judgments. This man bent the unbending necks of the Celts; this man checked the onsets of the war-loving Parthians. For at that time, having been driven into expansion, they had distributed themselves over all the mountains of Asia, and they had overrun all the land, killing and burning, and pitched their tents as far as the streams of the Euphrates. Trajan, having learned of these things just recently dared, and having fully learned the boldness of the Parthian onset, quickly moved from the ends of the earth to the opposite ends of the earth, and having engaged them and broken their phalanx-commanders, and having shown those plains there strewn with bodies, he forced them to remain within their own borders, and having gathered up and narrowed the boundaries of the Parthians.
he returned home, having achieved no small triumph with a signal victory. He was by nature so constituted that he grieved for the afflicted, was moved by the miseries of the sick, was kind to strangers, comforted his friends, and bore all manner of abuse with patience—saying that an emperor ought to be like God and to endure the insolence of a foul mouth with composure. In the presence of the senate and the magistrates, he handed a drawn sword to the prefect of the city of Rome, saying: “Take this sword, and if I conduct myself unjustly in my rule, use it against me myself and do not spare my life; but if I rule lawfully, rightly, and justly, consider that it has been entrusted to you for my defense.” B Trajan died, adorned with many victories, having reigned for nine years and seven months, with his son-in-law Hadrian having been designated as his successor.
That man took pleasure in books and delighted in the study of literature, and whomever he knew to be a man of letters he would frequently reward with magnificent gifts. He also kept learned men in his retinue with him, in camps just as well as in leisure and on journeys. In the same way, he exercised munificence toward all others. Consequently, he was dear to the whole senate and plebs. He set out against the mad Hebrews, who had revolted and shaken off the yoke of the Roman empire, and having marched against them with an army, he slaughtered them to the last man, and having utterly destroyed them all by famine, sword, and fire, he razed the city of Jerusalem to its very foundations and subsequently named it Aelia. A But let the discourse now pass on to others.
After Hadrian had departed this life, having been extinguished by dropsy, having reigned for twenty-four years, the scepter passed after him to Antoninus, who was named "the Pious" on account of his goodness of character and the gentleness of his disposition. Having directed the scepter for twenty-two years, he was deprived of life and died. And after him Marcus Antoninus held power. He had been nurtured in all wisdom and learning, and was adorned with the graces of every virtue, and was embellished with the forms of all virtues; wherefore he also behaved honorably toward all wise men and watered them with constant great gifts. B They say, as those who wrote ancient history record, that when countless enemies were overrunning the land in many places and were ravaging the entire Roman territory, he was in want of money and constrained by poverty, and since he had no means of arming an army, he displayed the royal finery in the marketplace for sale—every gold-woven furnishing, purple-edged robes, crowns adorned with pearls, stone-inlaid beds, and the very brilliant imperial stola itself—and offered it publicly to any who wished to purchase the aforementioned goods with no fear at all. Those who wished bought them, and he then D possessed money...
The emperor, having distributed the gold to the army, went out to meet the enemy, and having joined battle, he overcame the adversaries with great ease; and having put everyone to flight and killed and plundered them, he acquired from there entire treasures of wealth. Once again, having brought the money into the middle of the market, he proclaimed that anyone who wished could take the gold and, if he so desired, restore the property he had purchased. He also sent Lucius, his son-in-law and partner in power with him, to fight against the war-loving Parthians; the ruler of the Parthians at that time was Vologesus. Now this Lucius was handsome in body and mind, tall, fair-looking, pleasant, blonde, and rosy-skinned. Having joined battle with the enemies, who were exceedingly arrogant regarding their numbers, their army, and their archery, he ultimately defeated that bow-bearing nation. A But as I have come this far in my course and my account, I marvel at the vicissitudes of the human race and how children do not turn out like their own fathers. For the lion always brings forth a lion-hearted whelp, and the leopard a like-minded leopard, and the tigress her very own tiger; but among men, children are unlike their parents. And it is clear that the choice of these is the cause.
Why I have said these things, and what is the goal of the account
Marcus, indeed, submitted to the laws of nature and returned the clay to the nature that had lent it, having ruled for nineteen years in total. B His son, Commodus, succeeded to the power—a youth who in no way resembled his father, nor did he bear any resemblance to the Marcus who had begotten and educated him. For he always delighted in mimes and the spectacles of gladiators, and in women, and in base men, and in drunkards; and he possessed a sword ready for the slaughter and sacrifice of the powerful, the eminent, and the wealthy. Whence he also found an end befitting his life; for by poisons he let go of his blood-guilty soul and cut his life short prematurely and before time, having held the imperial power for twelve years. C Pertinax, a man of great age, ruled over the Romans after him, who was lawlessly murdered before he had even managed to bring his children or his wife into the imperial palace. D There was also a certain Julianus, called Didius; this man, as the story goes, purchased the crown as a commodity, having corrupted the commanders of the army with money. But he did not enjoy the fortune of the empire, for when Severus the Libyan rose up against him, he became the work of the sword and perished miserably, not having even tasted, so to speak, of the honey of power, having encountered the empire for only two months.
A But fortune, which is so covetous, having abandoned him, smiled upon Severus and looked upon him with a cheerful face. I hear that he built the bath of Zeuxippus, B that great and renowned wonder of the city of Byzantium, and this indeed as a theatre of pleasure, sufficient to accommodate whole cities and nations, in which horses race in competition for the sake of human delight. Severus, having lived sufficiently in the empire and having lasted for ten whole years with others, plus one, falls into a terrible disease, and being about to die, leaves the sceptres to his children, the first of whom was given the name of Antoninus, whom they called Caracallus, and the one after him had been named Geta by those who gave him birth. These, having held power for six years and two months, are deprived of their authority and their lives. The draughts-piece of the sceptres, therefore, shifting A frequently with others, granted the empire to Diocletian, the most lawless of men, who, having taken as his associate the like-minded Maximian Herculius, the son of Satan, had him as a partner in power. Oh, your patience, O Word of God! And with two such great evils running together, what calamity was absent, what was not dared? Slaughters and pains everywhere, and a pool of blood. And the darkness of the prison held many captive, A and more so those who had derived their name from Christ. For blowing more fiercely than heavy-sounding winds, they strove with singular zeal to root up from the foundations the newly planted plant of piety, as a newly grafted branch, as a tender sapling. Hence, tortures and bonds, the sacrifice of men, and flesh being torn asunder as in a slaughterhouse. But having fought madly and unreasonably against this, and having barked in vain like raging dogs, yet unable to extinguish the name of Christ, the thrice-wretched men, having gone mad, cast away their crowns and bring themselves down to a humbler fortune, and they become caretakers of gardens, and planters of trees, and diggers of the earth, and vegetable growers. And wishing to recover power again, they failed in their purpose and their desire, and they tore their souls apart by the most grievous deaths, having reigned for twenty-two years. B These men take husbands for their daughters and proclaim them Caesars as if they were their own children; the first, Galerius, for Valeria; and Maximian, Constantius, the son of Claudius, who had just recently braced himself to the power of authority. But Constantius had at that time as a wife the blessed Helena, from whom the great victor Constantine proceeded. But being ashamed of the alliance with the tyrant, and casting her away, he unites with Theodora,
A daughter of Maximian, of whom he begat children, among whose number was Constantius, father of Gallus and of the transgressing and impious Julian, the profane and most accursed.
Constantine, therefore, having received that portion of the empire which had fallen to Constantius as a paternal right, and seeing the affairs of the Romans miserably agitated by recurring storms, as the empire was divided into several principalities (for Maxentius, and with him Severus, Maximinus, and Galerius were ruling over it), he stirs up wars against them, routs all of them, and becomes king and sole autocrat; and he becomes a lamb of Christ’s holy flock, the first of princes to cling truly to Christ. He tore down altars and closed the shrines where the Greeks were offering sacrifices to demons, and he decreed a cessation of the base pollutions and foul orgies and all abomination. And he became a clear silver trumpet, sounding and crying out from the ends of the earth to its ends, and everywhere proclaiming B the faith in the Creator.
But wishing to act as a founder of a city, he took hold of the city of the blind Chalcedonians. And having begun to build, he observed a strange thing. For large-winged birds, having flown up, snatched the stones and carried them away thence to the most beautiful city of Byzantium. Constantine, therefore, guarded by God, having recognized that this which happened regarding the stones had not occurred by chance nor by accident, turning his mind away from there, he shifts his entire purpose toward the most happy city of the Byzantines, and raises up for it a city of bliss, a great city, a city of the new Rome, a Rome without wrinkles, never aging, always youthful, always renewing itself, a Rome from which streams of grace flow forth, which the continent embraces, and the sea in turn receives; the hands of Europe pleasantly embrace it, and the mouth of Asia kisses it back from the other side.
But the praises with which this empress city boasts itself would be for another place and time to recount and write. But we must return again to the narrative. For that most serene and great Constantine ruled for twelve years C over the elder Rome and twenty-two over Byzantium. But when, as a man born from the earth, he was about to lay aside the dust and return to the clay the earthen vessel of the tabernacle which had lent it to him, he proclaims his second son, Constantius, emperor of the whole East. D
A And to the other children—for they were named Constans and Constantius—he entrusts the western regions, and Rome, and the Gauls. But these perished quickly and before their time, having unfortunately plunged into civil war against one another, each desiring to snatch the other’s empire. Thus, the entire power devolved solely upon Constantius, who first honored with the rank of Caesar his own cousin, the son of Constantinus, Gallus. But when he learned that he was aspiring to the kingdom and hastening to tyranny, and was devising every scheme to gain his desire, he forestalled all his attempts and had his head cut off. Then he adorned Gallus’s brother, that filthy swine, Julian, with the Caesar’s crown; regarding whom the Apostate, jesting as it were, and showing his own garment of purple, used to say to those near him that famous saying: "A purple death and fate have overtaken me," as if Gallus had died in a purple cloak.
But after a short time, he apostatizes from God and the Emperor, denies the respect he had for the Creator, and attaches himself to the thrice-accursed demons; with blood, alas! he washes away the divine bath, moves arms and war against the One who had saved him, and confers upon himself the empire. Learning of this, Constantius, boiling with rage, B is afflicted by a grievous illness, and after a short time dies, having held the kingdom for twenty years. These three wicked acts done by him he lamented bitterly, carrying them on his tongue: the slaughter of Gallus, which was done unjustly; the subversion and innovation of the faith; and the proclamation of that most God-hated man.
But justice did not slumber for long, nor did the all-seeing eye close any further. Instead, it raised its eyelid and saw the Apostate; it beheld the pollutions and the animal sacrifices, the rivers of blood, the homicides, and every base and foul thing, full of impiety, done by him. And, loathing his madness, it delivered the mud-spattered swine to the Persians as if to wild lions to be torn to pieces bitterly. And the impious one falls, having appeared as the work of the sword, having troubled and confounded the glorious power of the kingdom for seven months and two years wickedly. But the earth does not receive the corpse of the profane one; instead, with an earthquake and a shaking from below, it spews out him who had shaken all creation with the earthquake of impiety. C And again the bright grace of faith shines, as it accepted the crown of Jovian as the authority. But after he, too, had tasted of fortune for a short time and had quickly departed from the earth, the empire was bestowed upon Valentinian. He appointed his brother Valens as emperor.
A (For he held rule over the Romans for eight months) And when his yoke-fellow had reached the end of life, the scepter passed to Valentinian, who placed the crown upon his brother Valens, and declared him master of the East. The good Gratian, of the elder Rome, was born to him by his wife Severa.
Valens, that impious man, having joined himself to Arius, who raged wickedly against my Lord, and having embittered and oppressed the pious people, was not long after consumed by ravenous fire, when, in flight from the Scythians, he had taken refuge in a hut filled with straw, having held rule over the East for fourteen years.
The good Gratian, upon the death of Valens, and when now the entire empire had devolved upon him (for Valentinian had already paid the debt of nature, he who had been the cause of his coming into the light, a man worthy, God-fearing, and valiant in battles, having held rule over the Ausonians for twelve years), sent the first Theodosius to rule the East—a man of weight, martial, born in Spain—not having granted him the empire unthinkingly, but having given it as a prize of victory which the noble man, guarded by God, had achieved against the barbarians who crossed the seashore like grains of sand. B The emperor Gratian, therefore, having made him emperor, and having installed him as monarch over the eastern nations, kept for himself the western regions and Rome.
They say that this emperor, when a certain woman approached and accused her husband, saying that he frequently inflicted upon her blows and lashes, responded aptly: "This is nothing to do with me, woman." But when she added that her husband was also plotting against Gratian himself, he replied again: "What is this to you, woman?" They say that Gratian was so skilled in archery that his shafts were considered to be endowed with mind.
When he was most miserably slaughtered by a certain tyrant, C the Emperor Theodosius took possession of Rome, punished the murderer, and transferred the rule of Rome to the younger Valentinian, the brother of the late emperor Gratian. And again another tumult, again another heavy and horrible tempest, strove to sink the ship of the empire. A certain Eugenius usurped the tyranny, and the emperor, having met a painful death by strangulation, lost his life. And again Theodosius [moved] against the blood-guilty one. The tyrant, therefore, is captured, bound in fetters; he pays the penalty for his audacity and his crimes, and miserably falls from both his life and his empire. D And Honorius is proclaimed emperor of the elder Rome by his father, he who was born to Theodosius by Placilla. And when Theodosius himself had left this life, having directed the empire for seventeen years, Arcadius took hold of the helm of the East, having sprung from the same seed as Honorius.
A At that time, scorning them as faint-hearted, the blood-thirsty Goths, a bellicose nation, difficult to overcome, and rejoicing in slaughter, of the ruler of the West, ran across the borders of ancient Rome. And Alaric takes the royal wealth, and Placidia, who was the sister of the emperor. She, having fled immediately from the hands of the Barbarians, runs with haste to her brother Honorius, who had fled to Ravenna, a strongly fortified city, and is joined to Constantius, who had saved her; from whom was born the younger Valentinian, who was afterwards proclaimed emperor of Rome. But when Arcadius had laid aside the earthen weight of his body—having reigned auspiciously for thirteen years—Theodosius, whom the emperor Arcadius had by Eudoxia, sits on the thrones of the East. This Theodosius sends his own daughter to Valentinian for the fellowship of marriage. But indeed the addiction to pleasure of this young man, and his unrestrained madness for carnal cravings, deprived him of life and of imperial power, and led the partner of his bed into insult. How this happened, it shall be briefly told.
Maximus was a consular man in Rome, holding the first rank. There resided with him a woman who was lovely to behold, possessing beauty beyond description, a veritable garden of beauty; and modesty adorned the woman even more. The emperor, having seen this, is captivated by her beauty, B and pulls every rope to achieve his desire. So, dicing with the husband of the woman, Maximus, and having appeared superior, and [Maximus] not having gold, he takes his golden ring, which was to be the pledge of the debt. He sends the ring to the woman as a sign, which would cause her arrival at the palace. The woman trusts in these things, recognizes the sign, and reaches the palace. What follows these things? The emperor, having received her, dishonors her by force. Maximus learns of these things, his heart is set on fire C, he arms himself for vengeance, he brews all sorts of deceits, and finally he kills the emperor with a sword, after first depriving him of his best guard commanders. He also dishonors his wife, Eudoxia. The empress is in great pain, groans at the insult, and sends to Gizerich, leader of the Vandals, urging him to come against Rome. Gizerich came, took control of Rome, enslaved it bitterly, and took as prisoners of war both the empress herself and her daughters. And Rome, having been ruled by emperors for a little while longer, had the royal power taken away at the end, and gave way to the rulers of the Barbarians and to the ethnic leaders, D and was unfortunately humbled by their hands.
Maximus then, having seized the tyranny at that time, reigned, and after him Anthemius, Olybrius the most excellent, Major, Glycerius, and after him again A Nepotianus and Orestes; and after Orestes, the child of Romulus laid hold of the rule as the last. And the city of great renown, the city of the Romans, having had Romulus as its lawful king at the beginning, and having brought the power again to a Romulus, no longer had a government by emperors; but having submitted to the Barbarians and been trampled by them, and having been captured through supreme misfortune, it obeyed their kings and the princes of the nations and their satraps; and being despoiled of consuls and commanders, and of dictators and the Senate, and indeed of the patricians, it bore the yoke of the Barbarians upon its shoulders. And it, which was formerly an untamed heifer empty of the yoke, became obedient to princely plowmen, and was condemned to have its very soil overturned by the plow. And these things happened to the elder Rome.
But our own [Rome] flourishes, increases, holds sway, grows young—and may it increase until the end, O King of all, I pray, especially since it now possesses such and so great an emperor, shining widely with his rays like Lucifer, the greatest king of the Ausonians, B master of six hundred victories, Manuel Comnenus, the golden rose of the purple, whose power ten thousand suns might measure.
But let our discourse return again to the path, and bring the remaining course of the history to its goal. Arcadius, the father, established the young Theodosius, while he was still but a child and in his tender, early age, upon the imperial throne, and appointed as guardians of the empire for him those who were foremost in the senate and those who were most sagacious. And with them [he appointed] the ruler of Persia, Isdigerdes; who, having learned of a plot being woven against Theodosius by certain men desirous of tyranny, threatened to march as far as Byzantium C with ten thousand valiant, armed warriors. Those, therefore, who had plotted against the emperor, being shaken in their souls by the fear of the Persian, cast off their ill-will and their evil intentions, and desisted from the council and their enterprises. For thus it is, that even among the Barbarians, honest character exists, and a man of a different tongue knows how to keep friendship unblemished and brotherly love—for the good is by nature implanted in all.
Now there was a sister to this emperor Theodosius, endowed with chaste morals, of serious and modest life, Pulcheria by name, and she shone with the beauty of a fair face. D
A And she, having determined to keep herself a virgin, and to guard the meadow of her chastity inviolate, abstained once and for all from the company of men. She rejoiced in a pure and modest life, and showed a great fervor for all virtuous deeds. She did not only adorn her own life in this way, but also shaped her brother, through all kinds of arts and cleverly devised methods, toward virtue and noble character. It was she, too, who joined to him in the communion of marriage Eudocia, who shone with every kind of beauty. This woman, who bore a meadow of beauty in her face, originated from the much-famed city of Athens, but having arrived at the illustrious city of Byzantium to accuse her own kin, who would not share with her their share of their father's property, she found something far more profitable; but how this came to pass, I shall relate in a brief account.
There was in Athens a certain man, Leontius by name, who had reached the pinnacle of all philosophy, both of logic and of physics and of astronomy. To him, by one wife, were born three children: two were male, and a third a daughter, a daughter of radiant beauty and most graceful. The girl was named Athenais by her father. So when the one who had begotten her was about to depart this life, having composed a final, deathbed will, he left to his sons his livelihood, as much as was in clothing, as much as was A in houses, in livestock, in utensils, in slaves (for he was indeed very wealthy and a man of deep possessions). But to his daughter he ordered—even though he loved her—that only one hundred gold coins be provided as her inheritance, claiming that the very bright fortune of her beauty was sufficient for her, surpassing the happiness of all women. Having said this, he drained the cup of death. But the brothers of the girl, having shown themselves to be base in character, usurped all the paternal wealth and rendered the young woman entirely disinherited. At which, suffering greatly and having been wounded in her soul, the maiden Athenais goes to her aunt, shares her situation, weeps over her misfortune, and with passionate sighs dramatizes her suffering. The aunt pities the mourning maiden, her heart is inflamed for her niece, and with her and in her company, as she was able, she arrives at the great city, the city of the empire. She approaches Pulcheria, who was adorned with grace, and asks for aid, begging that assistance be given to the maiden who was being unjustly deprived of her own property. The queen admires the beauty of the young woman, is struck by the radiant graces of her face, and marvels at her sensible and noble-mindedness. She asks if her virginity is intact, and having learned that the maiden was inexperienced in the marriage bed and was keeping the good of her chastity unadulterated, C [she...]
has her cleansed in the holy laver, changes her name, calls her Eudocia, and joins her to the emperor in marriage, with Paulinus, a man who held a preeminent place among the emperor’s friends, contributing much to this. From her, Theodosius fathered Eudoxia, whom he sent to Rome to be the companion in life for Valentinian, who was holding the scepter of the elder city.
But, as it seems, there is no happiness in life A devoid of storms and grief, nor is there any prosperity that does not have something coupled with it that bites. For even the fragrant rose bristles with dense thorns, and clouds darken the eye of the sun; envy, too, grows upon those who practice virtue, and every bright and noble prosperity of life carries its own misfortune mixed in with it. But why do I need this prelude to my story? The empress was sailing the brine of life, borne along by fair and calm breezes; she was traversing the voyage of good fortune untroubled, B just like a merchant ship sailing with a favorable wind. But suddenly envy began to blow like a squall, a turbid cloud burst and brought on a winter storm; it shook and agitated the small craft like a leaf, and stirred up terrible roars and a heavy, deep tumult. It shattered the ship, and to her who was being transported, it opened a terrible maw, a chasm from which there is no escape. From that point on, the empress was filled with bitterness and struggled with most grievous tribulations. What had befallen her? History shall tell.
A certain man of humble fortune had presented a beautiful, large apple to Emperor Theodosius, her husband. C He, having admired the appearance of the fruit—its color and size—sent the apple to the empress as a gift. This became the spark for great trials, no less than the apple of envious Eris, which brought ruin upon those who were sacrificing at the wedding feast of Thetis and Peleus. For what came to pass because of this apple! The empress admired the beauty of the fruit, thought the object of the apple was beyond nature, and because she was graciously disposed toward the handsome Paulinus—as he had assisted her in rising to the imperial dignity—she gifted the man with the bitter-making apple. D He, in turn, sent the gift back to the emperor, not knowing, as it seems, where it had originated; for he had not been present at that time.
When Theodosius received the apple, a bitter fruit, one might say, a deadly produce, of which Hades is the gardener and planter. The sovereign sees the apple, recognizes the fruit, hides the apple by his side, keeps it in silence, asks his spouse where the apple might be; she, claiming she has eaten it, binds her words with oaths. She, however, to her bitter fortune, as it seems, stumbling, swears in return that she has eaten it. What follows from this? The sovereign falls into evil suspicions, shows what was hidden, convicts her of lying, is enraged, rages, hates, and loathes the empress. From there, the wave of temptations surged, and the sea of calamity and the billow of evils; from there, O sun, you witnessed an unbearable tragedy. Paulinus thereupon harvested death, and a blood-stained sword was made drunk with the slaughter; the empress, having learned of the emperor's hatred, hastens with speed to the city of Jerusalem, and having there fulfilled the remainder of her life, she pays the debt of nature to this earthly existence. This Theodosius was in other respects pleasant, graceful, magnanimous, always devoted to books, but alongside his excellences there grew some evil weed, as is the way of human life. For if anyone presented a document to him, A he would mark it in red letters, without having looked into or learned what was written. Thus there is nothing sound in human nature, nothing free from the stain of failings. Pulcheria, therefore, crowned with grace and divine, showed great concern for the emperor, wishing to free him from this sin. But since, after weaving many and continuous admonitions and having set him right with corrective words, she achieved nothing, she contrives something of this sort and hunts for a clever device to use on her brother. She fashions a document as if it were from the emperor himself, giving the empress over to her as a servant. She gives this to her brother and asks the emperor to sign the document with imperial letters. B He agreed to her request as she pleaded, and taking up the pen immediately with the emperor's hands, he confirmed the document with purple ink. She, having received the signed writing as a prize, dragged the empress away like a bought slave. When he complained that he was being greatly insulted by this, she produced the emperor's document, and from that, she said she was justified in doing so. The emperor then understood, felt shame, was mortified, and refrained thereafter from this folly. And this matter came to a good end, as it is truly a thrice-lucky part of good fortune.
To live among benevolent men and those who love in purity, And who do not stain the things of mutual love. While this emperor was still holding the scepter, Awakened from a very long sleep, there appeared [the] Seven most enduring young martyrs. For, fleeing the madness of the impious Decius, Having entered together into a cave naturally roofed, Lying adjacent to the boundaries of the Ephesian city, They had been sleeping a deep and long-lasting sleep. Awakened then, and recognized by the faithful, And honored by them and by the emperor, They fell into their unwaking and final sleep. But when earthquakes in succession were moving the earth from its roots, And shaking and trembling the souls of men, And the multitude of the pious was appeasing God, Suddenly a child, caught up to the sky above, Heard the Thrice-Holy hymn from the angels. And being brought back down (alas for the terrifying power!) In the midst he cried out how one must weave the hymn, For they had not long before been mistaken about this. This Theodosius, by Chrysaphius Deceived and embittered against Pulcheria, Many times over pricked with the thorns of temptations Her who was adorned in all modes of virtues. Now Chrysaphius was a eunuch, an avenging spirit, malicious, Most abominable and murderous and loathsome in his ways; Whose wickedness the ruler later recognized, Confiscating the goods of the accursed one and making him a pauper, A He banished him to a harsh, faraway land, and justly so. But when Theodosius had already paid the common debt, And had deposited the clay of his body into the earth, Having reigned for thirty-three years, The power passed to the noble Pulcheria, Who, having deliberated wisely and very prudently, As the Roman state had need of an emperor, Immediately summons the good Marcian, A man excelling in solemn and God-loving ways, And having bound him with terrifying and most heavy oaths To preserve her purity inviolate, And finding the man agreeing to this, She placed the crown of the kingdom upon him, And she brings Chrysaphius to a bitter death. It is by all means not inopportune, nor far from the craft, B To speak concerning Marcian, from where and who he was. He was poor and humble, but good in his ways, And not being of glorious lineage, nor of those in high position, He had been enrolled in the ranks of the soldiers. But recently, when a cloud of strong battle had burst forth, And was bringing the Romans against the proud Persians, Marcian, having been seized by a disease threatening death, In a certain village of the bright province of the Lycians, Remained for the sake of bodily care and healing. Where, having secured friendship with some kindred souls, He lived and spent his time as a friend among friends, And was deemed worthy of the necessary care from them.
A Marcianus once accompanied them when they went hunting, intending to share in the pursuit of game. When, therefore, they had become soaked in much sweat from running up difficult hills that were full of wild beasts, and from rushing through thickets and searching busily, they lay down upon the earth and slept a sweet sleep. But one of the brothers, having awakened quickly, sees Marcianus still sleeping and bearing the deepest sleep upon his eyelids, and an eagle, a broad-winged bird, a bird of prey, having spread its own air-traversing wings and granting him the pleasure of a shade. B Such a great and holy thing is the empire, deemed worthy of honor even by the unreasoning animals; thus is he most revered by carnivorous birds who is foreordained by God to gird himself with it. He sees, he marvels at the event, he wakes his brother, he shows him the miracle; both are struck with awe, and when Marcianus had recovered a little from his sleep, they proclaim to him the scepter of the empire, and they beseech him to remember them, the man. He nods in agreement and promises them good things. And indeed, when they had given him sufficient gold, with which he also sailed away against Gizerichus.
Gizerichus was then the ruler of the Libyan Vandals, C against whom Aspar was waging war from the sea, with cavalry, with infantry, with sailors, and a fierce battle of the Libyans having taken place, and the Roman phalanx having turned to flight, Marcianus was captured along with many others, not a few, and was imprisoned along with them in the house of Gizerichus. Wishing, therefore, Gizerichus to see his captives, he stood above from a high place and surveyed the men, and he sees a thing unbelievable: Marcianus sleeping and a shade being skillfully fashioned for him by the wings of an eagle. D Having seen this, he is struck with awe; he considers the man to be someone divine and worthy of the rule of the Romans and of the power. Therefore, he judges it inhuman to kill such a man, who had been projected from on high to the height of empire. (For who of mortals would have strength to destroy, before his time, him whom the mighty hands of God protect? If the mighty hand of God should protect you, you will not fear iron nor dread the sword, neither fire, nor a barbarian heart, nor a bloodthirsty soul.) Summoning him, he binds him with oaths, that if he should attain the power, he would rule the Romans. Having set out for the most glorious city of Byzantium, he approached Ardaburius, who was most wealthy. Now the ruler Ardaburius was commander of all the regiments, and having Aspar as a fellow-general and fellow-commander, he had gone to make war against the Libyans and to engage in battle.
A Thus even a barbarian man reveres the imperial power, And he respects those honored by God and of beastly character, Bestowing upon them a humane look. Released from Gizericus, therefore, he returns again To Constantinople, and after Theodosius had departed from the earth, He is proclaimed sovereign by the judgment of Pulcheria, And head of the Romans and ruler and emperor. He was a good and prudent man, refined, a philosopher, A tree well-planted, a grove of virtuous character. Having directed the scepter well for six years, He rendered earth to earth, his soul to the Lord. But when nature demanded the earth back from him And closed the earthly flesh in a tomb, The senate, together with Aspar, who was then patrician, Transfers the scepter-rule to Leo, The overseer and administrator of Aspar’s affairs, Who had promised him that he would adorn the head Of one of his sons with the emperor’s crown; For it was not possible for Aspar to grasp the power Possessed as he was by the madness of the impious Arius. Thus lucre often makes men submissive, Thus hopes beguile the minds of men. To this Leo, while he was piously flourishing, A man who was a treasury of wisdom was maligned as a Greek, Isocasius by name, a quaestor by rank.
A From there, stripped of both honor and wealth, He is handed over to the Eparch of the city for judgment. As he was led in naked like a slave for scourging, Like a prisoner with hands bound and arms pinioned, The judge shouted out, mocking his misfortune: "Do you recognize, Isocasius, whence you have been tumbled, And where the dice of fortune have now brought you?" But he, with a free posture of heart, Made clear-cut replies to him: "I know the manifold wanderings of unstable fortune, And I am aware that nothing new has befallen me; For, clothed in a mortal and earthly essence, I have fallen under the sufferings of human nature. But you, having recognized the cylinder and wheel of life, Deliver upon me, who am being judged, such a sentence B As you would wish to have passed upon yourself in judgment." The crowd standing by, therefore, having marveled at the man, And having been struck with wonder at his wise answer, As being both free-spirited and full of boldness, Seized him from there in his very fetters, And with a shout of acclamation, they lead him To the holy church and perfect him with the divine bath. Thus indeed does the quality of virtue inspire awe in everyone, Alien, native, Greek, foreigner, Scythian; For it alone is able to adorn its lovers and save them. Isocasius, therefore, was thus rescued from evils. But Aspar, grasping the imperial chlamys—
A seized it with singular impudence and said: "It is not fitting, emperor, for one clothed in the purple chlamys to lie and propose empty words. Fulfill the promise for me which you long ago pledged, agreeing to raise one of my sons to the height of Caesar and the glory that follows from it." To which the emperor wisely countered: "It is not fitting for one clothed in the purple chlamys to be ruled by anyone, or to play the part of a slave."
This sovereign, having found vast treasures—whole seas, one might say, or rivers of wealth—declared a self-imposed B war and a dreadful battle. He gathered a fleet of ten thousand ships and a seafaring host, a swarm moving on the water and a multitude sailing the sea, against the Libyans and Gizerich, and he appointed as leader and master of the war the brother of his spouse Berine, Basiliscus. The command of this fleet terrified even those far away; it covered the sea with the sails of the ships and straightened the liquid path for the sea-going vessels. There were archers, shield-bearers, sailors, infantry, exceeding the sand in number, and in courage exceeding wild beasts. But the power of gold is more tyrannical; it is more potent than ten thousand armies. This can uproot a city with high towers from its foundations, this can destroy houses, and in wars it can invent the destruction of entire nations, and can stir, turn, and confound all things. It is an inescapable dart; it strikes at the heart, C and it is an unloosenable shackle, a wooden block for the feet that cannot be broken. It can make a silent tongue very talkative, and turn a very clear mouth to silence. Using this as an ally, Gizerich the Libyan was able to sink such a great fleet. For Basiliscus, having been corrupted with much gold, was the first, according to the secret agreement, to look to flight, and from that point the affairs of the Romans were overturned. And the formidable fleet, which had terrified the Indians and those in Britain and every nation and every land, the mere glitter of gold was able to destroy and abolish without hands, without missiles, without weaponry.
And these things happened to the Romans in Libya. But the Roman emperor himself, this very Leo, not having had the good fortune to be the father of a male child, joined his daughter to the patrician Zeno, who drew his origins from Isauria. The daughter of Leo had the name Ariadne. D From her, a male child was born to Zeno, named Leo, sharing the name with his grandfather. Taking this grandson, the emperor and grandfather, overlooking Zeno and the love for his daughter, entrusted the scepters of the empire to his grandson. For he was seized by dysentery and passed away with the disease, having reigned over the Romans for eighteen years. But he, having tasted of the power for but a short time, departed from the earth all too soon, leaving Zeno, the boy's father, as his successor to the empire. This Zeno did not hold sound views regarding the faith,
Compendium Chronicon
A and indeed he inflicted many grievous calamities upon the whole body of the pious flock. At that time, many similar sufferings fell upon many of the kings in different places. Cabades in Persia, Nepos in the West, and Zeno among the Romans were cast down from their power. But Zeno was able to seize once again the high-throned authority, and indeed so was Cabades; as for Nepos, he did not see with favorable eyes the reversal of the fortune that had plotted against him. That most gold-loving Basiliscus, having poured out the venom of his malice against Zeno, and having become more bitter than a basilisk in his deeds, B and having gathered to himself allies and defenders, marched against Zeno, seething with the fire of his rage. Zeno, gripped by fear and shaken in his mind, fled with his wife Ariadne to Isauria; for he was running for his life, and not for wealth. For indeed, there is nothing more precious to men than life: not royal power, nor seas of wealth. Basiliscus, having entered without labor (for there was no one to stop him), placed the crown upon his head and took the title of emperor. But affairs do not often endure long for those who wish to seize them; rather, they quickly depart and flee from them, as if recognizing their masters over time. For when that terrible Basiliscus had reigned alone for two years, and Zeno had returned—
A and had enticed everyone with generous hopes, and with them the general (this was Harmatius, whose son he had sworn to crown as Caesar), being at a loss in every way, not knowing what to do, he fled with his wife Zenonis to a divine church. Zeno the Emperor drew them out from there, and after binding himself beforehand with the most fearful oaths that he would not bring a murderous sword against their necks, he placed them in an outlying, fortified castle. There, having locked them in a solid little tower and blocked up the entrance with huge stones, he caused the evil men to perish miserably by famine and thirst. Having firmly secured the kingdom for himself, he sent Harmatius to a pitiable death because he had shown himself a treacherous conspirator against his master. B Yet he fulfilled his promise, and crowned his son with the most brilliant diadem of Caesar. Not long after, having shorn the boy’s hair, he forcibly installed him as high priest for the Cyzicenians. Once, an astrologer predicted to this emperor that he would die shortly, and that a man from the senate would take his empire and his wife. Upon learning this, the emperor destroyed most of the senators, the illustrious and the more fortunate ones. But no man born of earth will be able to prove the invincible power of God’s providence to be vain or ineffectual.
A Having reigned for another six years, he was snatched away by death. For when Zeno left this life and his crown, the Roman empire passed to Anastasius, who was called Dicorus because he happened to have one pupil of his eyes black, and the other of a sea-green color. Having married Ariadne, the previous empress, and having appeared to be most law-abiding regarding the faith, after a short time he broke forth the offspring of his wickedness and brought all his malice into the open. For from the beginning he had held in his heart the seeds of the heresy of Eutyches, that thrice-accursed man. Hence, a dark whirlwind and a fierce tempest and heavy billows, and gusts and storms, shook the vessel of orthodoxy. Hence, pious high priests were driven from their own thrones like criminal thieves. Hence, there were constant ululations and lamentations, everywhere cries and groans, everywhere beatings of the breast. When the multitude of the pious saw such wickedness, they reviled the emperor and insulted him. Thus does not a pious man know how to stand in awe of kings, when danger rushes upon piety, nor does he show partiality, nor does he tremble before powerful men. Therefore Anastasius, having eagerly desired to add the poison of impiety to the thrice-holy hymn, and having seen the whole multitude immediately rebelling and driving the prefect out of the church with stones, and setting fire to the houses of the impious nobles, A and slaughtering many of the guards of the heresy, he ceased, whether willing or unwilling, from his vehemence and his audacity, just as some hard-mouthed horse, panting from ferocity and tamed if it feels a heavier bridle.
This man, while sleeping, thought he saw in his dreams a terrifying man holding a document in his hands, and having opened it and found the name of Anastasius, he said to him with severity: "God, having looked upon the piety of Hezekiah, granted him a longer life and deliverance from his enemies and an expansion of his days; but having loathed your wickedness and profanity, He has cut off the path of your life and has shortened it by fourteen years." And having said these things, he erased them from the document. The emperor, therefore, struck by a lethal plague and appearing struck by lightning, changed his state of life, having held the scepter for twenty-seven years. When he was shut up in the tomb, after some days he sent forth an ululation from beneath the tomb and a bitter groan from the anguish of his heart, calling for mercy from those guarding [the tomb], and beseeching them to be brought up from there. When they said that another emperor now held the power, he replied in turn: "That is of no concern to me; only let this gloomy tomb be opened for me, that I might see the sweet lamp of the morning star." But there was no one who was touched by compassion for him. For indeed, all men are angry at the wicked even in death. Not long after,
it came to pass that the tomb was opened, and the wretched corpse was revealed to all, a miserable spectacle indeed, and one worthy of tears; for it was found that he had devoured the toes of his feet, as well as his own arms, as if they were those of another. Some, however, say that these things happened to Zeno, for they say that he was frequently possessed by the falling sickness and, having been thought dead, would often come back to the living. A For not all things in men are evil, but sometimes the best are mixed with the worst. For this emperor, though he appeared profane and impious, yet he rooted out a plant from the whole Roman dominion, whose fruits were bitter and whose root was deadly; so that if the stumbling block concerning religion had not overshadowed his brilliance like a thick and turbid cloud, this one glorious deed might have sufficed to cover over all his filth and impurities, and might have healed all his festering sores as a present remedy. For that most depraved man was adorned by the perpetual abolition of a certain fraudulent tax, which the publicans called the *chrysargyron* (that is to say, silver-gold). What it was and of what kind, the account shall narrate. Every man and woman, girl and boy and infant, beggars, freedmen, slaves, freemen—in the name of dung and of the stench of urine, they paid one silver coin into the treasury. B This same burden was laid upon beasts as well, namely, upon oxen, mules, and horses; for regarding every dog and donkey, the owner of the dog or donkey paid six *folles*. Anastasius, therefore, moved by the intercessions and prayers of men living a solitary and holy life, abolished such a burden and sin, uprooting the shoot of base gain from the foundation and consigning it to the obliterating fire.
After, then, the evil Anastasius had perished a miserable death, the first Justin, of this name, took charge of the helm of the empire without bloodshed. For having received, as they say, much gold from Amantius (that Amantius was a *praepositus*), and having been commanded by the divisions to distribute it so that they might secure the empire for Theocritus, who was of the same blood as Amantius, C he purchased the empire for himself with alien wealth, having bought, a most profitable thing, with others' money. Thus is the power of the scepter desirable to all, so that here alone one would not hesitate to do wrong, even if in other matters he might be found just and temperate. Now this elder Justin was pious and wise, and burning with zeal for the pious religion, he waged an implacable war against the Manichaeans. The same man [waged] the most grievous of all persecutions, which have been recorded in the monuments of literature, against
those who maintain the rotten fallacies of Nestorius. He held the empire for A nine years.
But when it was necessary for him also to pay the debt of mortal nature, the empire passed to Justinian, who was more magnificent than the former emperors, and who built that temple which is by far the greatest. He was the legitimate nephew of Justin. And immediately, at the beginning of his reign, he stirred up a war against the Vandals and their king Gelimer, who was most tyrannical. For he had cherished a pure friendship even before his reign with Hinderichus, the king of the Vandals, who was rich. But having received letters [informing him] that the wicked Gelimer had risen up against him, and having shut [him] B up—keeping both Hinderichus himself and his wife and children—and had stripped him of his entire authority, the emperor, learning these things, and being deeply wounded at heart and greatly distressed on behalf of the one who had met with such misfortune, sent a fleet of ten thousand men against Gelimer. He appointed as leader of the fleet and general of the war the great Belisarius, that hand of the Romans, who surpassed all generals and commanders in the firmness of his mind and his excellent counsel. Having collected a multitude of marines and foot soldiers, light-armed troops, shield-bearers, horsemen, slingers, and those who were eager and zealous to risk their lives for his sake, and refraining from violent and unjust plunder, C and making everyone hold fast to justice, he routed the entire tribal leadership of the Libyans and bowed the stiff neck of the Vandals, as the hostile Libyans themselves came over to him and were eager to be ruled by Belisarius. Thus indeed is justice a thing difficult to fight against, and it knows how to make friends of those who were formerly hated, and it draws enemies to itself like a magnet draws iron.
A demonstration of his goodness and humane way: Someone from the army snatched a domestic chicken. The one who had been despoiled by the injury raised a riotous clamor. Belisarius heard of this and was vexed by what had happened. He found the plunderer. Burning with zeal, he exacted a great punishment for a small [offense], D for he ordered the wretch to be impaled and to suffer this penalty for his greedy mindset. For although he conducted himself toward the masses with humanity and tempered his words with sweet honey, yet he knew that experienced physicians, who are most skilled in their art, are accustomed sometimes to mix in bitter medicine. From this, a great fear came upon the army, and terror froze the hearts of the multitude; but from the Libyans, the enemies, love was added, and all praised the general no less than a god.
A From then on he prevailed mightily over the fortified strongholds and every splendid, well-towered city. He himself opened the gates of that thrice-blessed city of the Carthaginians, for all loved Belisarius wholeheartedly, as children love a father. Finding the palace of Gelimer there, he drained seas of wealth and rivers of riches, and distributed the spoils generously to the army. Having engaged with Gelimer himself many times, and having left the plains of Libya soaked in blood, and having shown every sword stained with gore, and having covered the land with the corpses of the barbarians—appearing as a body-strewn field from the slaughtered—after many battles and slaughters, after many clashes and cavalry fights, and the breaking and shattering of spears and shields, finally he took Gelimer himself, with his wife and child, as captives in a pitiable state. From there, the victor of ten thousand battles, the general, the most excellent general, excelling in many victories, set out. The Emperor of the Ausonians, well recompensing him, had him engraved on his own gold and silver coinage as a man-at-arms with a drawn sword, and prepared a triumph for him who was thrice-supreme in battle, in which Gelimer walked before him. Chosroes, the ruler of the Persians, shuddered at his spear-point B and his great-heartedness and manly spirit; for he had engaged with him in fierce battles and had struck him with such terror that he desired to exchange war that destroys men for peace with Chosroes. And he recovered Rome, the first city, the older Rome, saved for the Romans after it had been captured by the hands of the Goths; and he captured their king, the great, the mighty, the fearsome one, and kept him in iron shackles. But the Emperor himself, who was about to be in danger and miserably lose both his life and his reign, he snatched from the hands of the seditious mob. For the baser part of the multitude, having mutinied—at the time when the charioteers were yoking horses and inciting the race to competitive fury—uttered C abusive shouts against the ruler, and spat out foolish, endless chatter. Adding greater evils to lesser ones, they even put forward a ruler, showing as Emperor of the Ausonians the patrician Hypatius, a man of note, a relative of Anastasius who had reigned. At this, Belisarius’s heart is inflamed; he takes courage mightily, draws his sword, and with many valiant and high-spirited guards, and with Narses, his right-hand man and a most strategic leader, he rushed like a bold-hearted lion into their midst, and mowed down the swarm of the foolish people as Moses did the Midianites, and as Joshua did the Hittites. He satiated his own sword with blood, and the pleasantness was turned into boundless grief.
The day of the festival became a day of mourning; A for the multitude of those fallen was found to be thirty-five thousand in all. The crowd, thus humbled, desisted from its madness, and the ruler escaped the dangers that were almost at his feet. This achievement of his was more brilliant than those of the past, and great Belisarius was at the height of his strategy. But these things did not please Envy, that most wicked thing. Thence it looked with bilious eye upon the commander’s glory, and drove with every urge against his fame; for Envy, as they say, knows not what is beneficial. Thence the most wealthy, the great commander, who terrified Chosroes, the fearsome Persian prince, B who had brought kings under the yoke of slavery, who had subdued so many Libyan nations by the sword, he, the terror of war, previously a lion in spirit in the midst of battle, circumvented in strategy by that cruel beast, Envy, without army or fighters or archers, has fallen in a state of misery, worthy of tears. Alas! he has become wretched, stripped bare and exposed. Alas! he has drained the cup of calamities to the brim; he was stripped of his own possessions like a fugitive slave; he sat, (O what suffering!) awaiting the executioner, when he would sever his neck with the sword. O Envy, cruel beast, robber, murderer, persecutor, thousand-stinging scorpion, man-eating tiger! C You are a poisoning she-dragon, a deadly herb, a weapon without iron, a point sharper than any cutting edge; what things you do and what wickedness you enact! What terrible things you devise! The suffering overcomes me, the mourning confuses me, and it draws tears from my eyes. How long, destroyer, will you thus prevail? Until when, O wicked one, will you agitate life, O tyrant of evil schemes, bloodthirsty one, grasping at all things? For I too, as I should not have, fell into your hands, and having experienced your shafts, I lie here still breathing a little.
And these things have been said by us by way- of digression D, for the bitterness of the soul compels one to speak. The emperor, however, being a zealot for piety, stirred up war against those who held impious opinions, and more so against the buffoonish error of the Greeks, even if he was later deceived by certain profane men, and fell into the impiety of those who approve the opinion of the Incorruptibles. He built that most brilliant and great temple, the sanctuary of my God, the earthly heaven, which I believe even the Seraphim wonder at with veneration. For if God deigns to dwell in things fashioned by human hands, He surely dwells in this one; indeed, where else? If, then, one were to compare the city of the blessed, the city of Constantine, to the celestial sphere, and the holy temples to the brightness of the stars,
A I do not think one would miss the mark of what is proper. For all of them shine forth with abundant beacons, and glitter with graces, and enlighten the creation, and they exist as radiant stars to those upon the earth. But the sun rose from the most beautiful lake, and the torches of all the stars were hidden. For there shines forth brightly—as if among little stars—another giant sun upon the holy precincts: the God-built temple, the beauty of the whole earth.
Joined to this emperor was his wife Theodora, of the same zeal, the same character, and most magnificent. She raised from the foundations, for the disciples of the Lord, a temple after the first, which one might call a blue-glowing moon among the temples, second in beauty to the radiant sun. But though the emperor abounded in such graces, he had no daughter, no son, no succession of his lineage. Hence, about to die and depart from the earth, he looked upon his nephew Justin, and designated him Sovereign of the Ausonians and emperor, having guided the fair-prowed ship of the empire for thirty-nine years.
Now, the young Justin was good and just, hating what is unjust and evil, a lover of beauty, a lover of order, noble-minded, urbane, a despiser of money, and hating stinginess. B A proof of his splendor and magnificence was the golden and delightful house in the palace, which still preserves the name of its founder, glittering with the beauties of graces and radiating on every side.
The emperor was thus temperate and mild, and he boasted of a mind that was against evil and just. But the great toil of his illness, and the fact that he was frequently struck by successive diseases, cut short his intention of doing justice. For he did not go out from the palace continuously, so that those who wished to have an audience with him and to denounce rapacious and unjust men did not have the opportunity; instead, his bed and his room held him, ailing.
Like some noble tree, laden with beautiful fruits and offering an abundant autumn harvest to all, but then harmed by a storm and cold air, and hindered from ripening its fruits and bringing them to maturity—from this, those who were zealous in their unrighteous mind to enjoy the property of others and to increase their wealth, because of the scarcity and solitude of those who would prevent such things, would turn their greedy eyes to the possessions of their neighbors. They would plunder, they would seize, they would sack the belongings of their peers, and there was confusion everywhere, and a sound of wailing, lamentations, and groaning, dirges, and breast-beatings. The city was at once full of frequent incense, but at the same time it was overfilled with paeans and tears.
A When the sovereign heard this, he was smitten in his soul, and not having any means to act—for his illnesses held him bound—he frightened the wicked only with threats, just as B a beast of advanced age, worn out by time and old age, if it sees its own cubs being cruelly snatched away, and being able to defend them from nowhere else, sends forth fearful roarings from the depths of its heart. But the emperor achieved nothing at all by these things. For a covetous and base mind does not revere the laws of mutual love, does not fear the eyes of God, does not respect sovereigns, and does not pity the constraint or the crushing of a heart. So when wickedness prevailed more and more and stretched its hated snares everywhere, and the mouth of evil was devouring everyone, the sovereign groaned, was troubled, and was distressed. One of those in authority came forward into their midst with boldness, C and cried out: "O King, if it be your will to rescue your own people from the hands of the wicked, entrust the sword of vengeance to me. If I cut off the heads of avarice and the ways of the rapacious man even as Hercules did the heads of the Hydra, thanks will be owed to me by you and by your subjects. But if not, do not spare me, O King, but as one who has shamed you, cut off my neck justly." D He praised the man for his humane sentiment, and gives the noble man absolute power (habit calls one who holds this the Eparch), and urges him in every way to take care of justice. He then girded himself with such authority, and filled with greater zeal, he applied himself to his duties. It happened not long after that something occurred, worthy of note and memory and fitting to be recorded. A poor woman approached, having endured widowhood, with lamentation, with shouting, with vehemence, denouncing one of the illustrious and glorious men, who was a person of rank related to the emperor, the office of Magister, and accusing his unjust manner, as he had plundered all her substance. That zealot of justice heard this, he heeded her wailings, he pitied the woman, and sends to summon the Magister to judgment. The Magister does not obey, he despises the trial, he laughs at the judge, he mocks the judgment. And as the sovereign was holding a grand dinner and inviting many, he goes off to feast with him along with others. What then followed, and how? The judge is angered, he hastens to the palace, he appears before the sovereign, he sees him at the middle of the sumptuous banquet, he sees that man, who reeks of the filth of avarice, reclining together with the guests.
He is inflamed with singular fervor of heart, and with most free speech he addresses Justin: B “If you persist, O Emperor, in the things that have once been decreed and ratified by you, and you wish rapacious men to be punished, I for my part am eager and ready to perform what I long ago promised I would perform. But if you, who have entrusted to me the office of prefect, repent of what has been done, see, you have the opportunity to take it away from me in turn. For I truly wish to be free of guilt, when you make friends of piaclar and wicked men, and admit those who are perverse and most ingenious in doing harm to your banquets and tables.” C To these things, that most placid and mild Justin, having drawn a sigh from the depths of his heart, says, “If it is evident that I myself have done something insolently, strike me down at once from the imperial throne. But if any of the guests who are reclining here with me has been injurious to anyone, you may at once do what you have long ago settled in your mind.” Oh, the greatness of your serenity and kindness, O best of emperors, most mild guardian of justice and equity! The emperor had scarcely spoken these words when that master was taken by force from the gathering of the guests and sumptuous tables by the judge, dragged to the tribunal, and brought in to pay the penalty for the injury inflicted. He stood before the tribunal trembling and D terrified, he who not long before was exulting with an elated mind. The woman again set forth her accusation, describing what she had lost through robbery, and convincing the man of his crime. He, on the contrary, previously fierce and insolent, stood there mute, and had, as the saying goes, an ox upon his tongue. Thus, indeed, the mouth of the malefactor was deprived of the liberty of speech. When, therefore, the most prudent judge and guardian of justice and equity, having investigated the matter accurately and curiously, had found that the woman had suffered indignities and had been unjustly despoiled of her properties, he ordered that that illustrious man be beaten with raw ox-sinews out of insults, and be scourged so severely that scars from the lashes appeared over his whole body. Then he bared his chin to the skin, and having shorn the hair of his head and disfigured his face, he placed him backward upon an ass, proclaimed his crime in the middle of the streets, and ordered that he be paraded about to his greatest ignominy as if in a triumph and be subjected to insult. Finally, he assigned his properties to the woman who had been oppressed and treated bitterly by him. Thus, nothing can be compared to a mind studious of liberty; thus a man alien to avarice, and enslaved to no thing, but noble, accepts no person; he does not fear those conspicuous in high place, he dreads no one; one would say he is a bird, a swift eagle, seeking lofty things, addicted to no earthly affairs, if you have a pure mind and [are superior to] gains.
A You will not tremble before kings, you will not be ashamed of the people, you will not fear those who are exalted or who possess great power. But I must return to the course of the history. This event brought fear to many, and held many in check. From that time on, many refrained from inflicting injuries and from desiring what belonged to others, since the inexorable mind of the judge, stern in its judgments, had struck terror into the hearts of all. Hence, instead of storm and grim tempest, serenity of the observance of justice and equity spread everywhere. Instead of waves and tumults, a calm smiled, and the sea of life was sailed without agitation. For the Spirit of God was blowing directly, a sweet breeze, and was calming the terrible and turbulent storms.
The emperor had as his wife Sophia, a woman of manly spirit, magnanimous, and most munificent. When she learned that the common people were lamenting and suffering in misery, being burdened by debts as if by inescapable chains, she gathered all the documents of their debts, burned them, and took care that from her own resources the creditors were paid what was owed to them. By these other good deeds and great liberality, the emperor and the empress made the cities prosperous. It is possible for one to learn from these few things: for indeed even a tiny taste reveals the whole jar, and the woven fringe reveals the whole garment, and the magnanimous lion is known by his claws.
A 1. Now, since they had neither daughter nor son, the emperor adopted Tiberius as a son, a man who was excellent in strategy. First, he adorned him with the crown of Caesar, and after a short time, having gathered together the crowd, the priests, the senate, and all who were in authority, and having instructed them with many divine exhortations, he handed over the scepters of the empire while he was still alive and surviving, and not yet breathing his last, having held the scepter for thirteen years and three months. But indeed, he slept for a short while, surviving only to sleep the sleep that is waking-less and common to all, that of death, and a stone covered such a man. For nature does not feel awe of the beautiful or the experienced, but casts all indiscriminately into the tomb.
B When Tiberius had now attained to power, from the first line, as they say, he demonstrated that the hopes of the one who had chosen and appointed him were not in vain. For he repaid the munificent empress Sophia with countless good deeds, and he caused streams of beneficence to gush forth to his subjects, and opened up abundant golden veins. Moreover, for the relief of those aging in sickness and those suffering from sorrowful and painful old age, he erected many houses and poor-houses. And he was the first to lay the foundations of the temple of the victorious forty martyrs of Christ.
A Since he swayed his life upon two daughters, he joined Maurice to one of them in marriage, a man most energetic, Cappadocian by birth. And as he was about to celebrate the nuptial feasts of the maiden, he proclaimed his daughter's bridegroom Caesar. And after a little time he died, before his time, before the hour, not having touched old age, nor having seen the crop of his life ripe and in need of the sickle, having steered the imperial power for four years. Immediately Maurice took hold of the scepters, Tiberius having judged the man fit to rule. He had as a brother-in-law, in his sister, Philippicus, a man noble, bold, great in generalship, and abounding in wealth and shining with prudence, who had lately left radiant Rome, the elder, and had moved to Constantinople. This man, having become brilliant by his victory and having loosened the proud arrogance of the Persians and having bested them in fearsome battles, Maurice began to suspect as one indeed about to rule and wanting to snatch the empire away. B And there was a secondary cause for this suspicion for him, because certain of the meddlesome and those foretelling to Maurice offered some old wives' tales, that he was destined to be deprived of life and of rule by one having the letter 'phi' in his name. From thence the resplendent one, the great one in battles, alas! being caught in the midst of nets of envy, is transformed, putting on a grim garment instead of a bright one, and iron dances upon the hairs of his head, of the most blessed, the famous, the stout-hearted. But indeed the minds of earth-born men were fickle, and the pupils of their thoughts blind concerning things to come. Into what then he arrived and what end the divination and charming deceit of the tellers of monsters held, will be known to those following and to those things about to be said. But the Chagan, having attacked the fortresses of the Romans (the Chagan was the king of the northern Scythians) and having captured well-towered cities by assault, and having pillaged all the region neighboring the Ister, and having shown the streams of the river blood-drenched, and having washed clean every sword and every spear in the slaughters, finally having gathered a great swarm of captives, amounting to twelve whole thousands, sends to Maurice, the emperor of the Romans, exhorting him to redeem the captives and to exchange the multitude for money. But neither did the madness and frenzy of Scythian cruelty, nor the wild-spirited impulse of the barbarian Chagan, nor the grief, nor the lamentation, nor the tear of the captured, bend his hardness of mind; for he held avarice as an unbreakable bond. And again that thrice-barbarian one, the Chagan, sends to Maurice more moderate words, C yielding and lowering the sum of money. But as the emperor was like an asp stopping his ears and not enduring to hear the voice of those chanting, he grew angry, alas! like a leopard, like a tiger, the Chagan, and decrees a bitter fate for the multitude, and mows down, alas! with the swords the multitude, so great.
And he covers the whole face of the earth with their corpses; he shows the plains there blood-soaked, having strewn a heap of the dead like logs of pine. O gold, persecutor, tyrant, daring in all things, weaver of snares, A citadel of all evils, fortress of perdition, destroyer of cities, overthrower of ramparts, tearer apart of walls, shaker of cities, shatterer of houses, with what evils do you bankrupt and wear out the earthborn! Nothing in human affairs competes with you, nothing among all earthly things rivals you. You soften the unsoftenable, you harden the soft; you open a dumb tongue, you muzzle the talkative. You make the swift-runner slow, the slow-footed bird-swift. You test, and you bring allurements to hearts, and you bewitch the senses with inescapable lures, but your fair-colored face is venomous like a viper. You trample on laws and customs, and you banish modesty. You are a grave-robber, a wall-breaker, you sell [everyone] out, you betray. It is nonsense and a fable, as it seems, that blood alone softens adamant; for what is more effective than you, even to soften stones? And what escapes your overmastering power? Let these things stand thus for me, but what of the things that follow? The king learns of the murder of the ten thousand, B he calculates the misfortune, he groans at the suffering, and he is struck in his soul with most heavy repentance. Hence frequent tears from his eyes and heavy sighs from the midst of his heart, and a loud-sounding beating thumping his breast, cries and groans and entreaties to God that the punishments be not stored up for him for the life to come, but that here the penalties for the offense might be exacted. C God is moved to pity by these laments, He is inclined, He pities the ruler who entreats Him fervently, and He quickly assents to his petition, and appears in a dream with numberless armies, and commands him to surrender to the murderous Phocas. These things happened, and after a short time the most wicked Phocas stands before the royal palace from the army, requesting something from the king; and having been scourged and driven away for the things he had babbled, he turns back, and appears to the captains and the leaders of the phalanxes breathing rage and anger, and spitting out nonsensical words, breathing forth a scent of ignorance, and belching forth the madness of a barking dog. The army is distressed, having been deceived in their hopes, D and because they are frustrated in their expectation, the commanders of the forces and of the provinces are gathered together into one, and they declare this furious Cerberus emperor (O impious crime!), the wicked one, I say, the robber, the wrathful one...
the murderer, the impetuous one. A And when Maurice learned of the defection, and that the vengeful Phocas was reigning—alas!—over the Romans, he hastened to steal his salvation through flight, but he was unable to escape with his all-powerful hands; for he wasfated to drain the cup of wrath and of righteous judgment down to the very dregs. Therefore, he was captured while fleeing, together with the empress and the shoots that had blossomed forth from him, adorned with purple. And that God-detested, man-slaying dragon, having gathered them all together before the eyes of Maurice, savagely beheads first the children, those in their prime and the new-borns, then the empress, and after them Maurice (O the patience of yours, O Word!) who had ruled the Romans for twenty whole years. To this end, therefore, did the prattle and the oracular outpourings of those who philosophize to excess come to nothing.
And when Phocas had taken hold of the power and the scepters, B he immediately, from the start, as they say, revealed the beast that was hidden within, the one of bitter spirit. C For in his ways he was murderous, moist with vice, and maniacal; a drinker of strong wine, a drunkard, hot-tempered, and a wine-bibber. From this, he thought it pleasant—sweeter than nectar—to lap up blood like a heavy-hearted lion, and to feed on the flesh of men. This man turned Narses the general, the miracle of the Romans, into food for the fire; and, according to the proverb, he deprived the beautiful young maiden of her eyes, and having thus caused the Romans the loss of such a general, and having cut off a vital part from the whole, that most evil of men consigned the most excellent of men to a furnace; him who was worthy of life, if it were possible, he—worthy of thirty thousand bitter deaths—reduced to coals and ash. But the earth itself, swamped with slaughter and being stained with blood at every hour, uttered pitiful cries from its mouth, even though it was mute, and accused that frantic tiger-leopard. God opened His eyes, beheld the wickedness, and, taking pity on the slaughters of those being butchered,
And this was the outcome of those illusions and prophecies which had proceeded from men who occupy themselves with overly curious arts. After Phocas had seized the empire, he at once revealed—from the first, as they say, starting-line—the fierce beast that had been hidden within him. For he was endowed with a bloodthirsty character and nature, delighting in a life of excess, furious, insatiable, immoderate in wine, irascible, and a drunkard. Hence it came to pass that he would lap up blood in the manner of a savage lion, and take pleasure in feeding on the flesh of wealthy men as if it were sweet drink, and even sweeter than nectar itself. That Narses, the leader of the armies, who was a miracle of the Romans, he burned with fire; and by this act he deprived the beautiful young maiden, as the proverb goes, of her eyes. Alas, what a leader he took away from the Romans, having destroyed such a man! For he cut off the most useful member from the whole body of the state, and that most wicked of men, having earned endless and most bitter deaths, committed that best of men to coals and ashes, a life worthy of eternal punishment, if that were possible. Indeed, the earth itself, stagnant with slaughter, mourned, and, stained with the dripping of blood at every hour, looking upon the man, uttered plain, miserable voices from a mute mouth, and accused that raging tiger-leopard. Wherefore God opened His eyes...
and, perceiving the wickedness of man, the wretched slaughter of those who were being torn asunder, He destined such punishment for him, that what he himself had designed, that might in turn be suffered by him at the hands of others. And so the nobles and illustres and certain men of senatorial rank, when they beheld men being butchered most miserably like lambs, proscribed cruelly, and lacerated in a pitiable manner, and this fire spreading most widely so that it reduced even illustrious houses to ashes, and finally this monstrous beast feeding cruelly upon slaughter, yet not being satisfied but rather thirsting more, they began to be troubled for themselves and feared the imminent dangers; they signify by letters to Heraclius, the Duke of Africa, that he should equip a powerful fleet and set his son Heraclius A over it against the wicked emperor. Having learned this, Heraclius prepares himself for war. And now the fleet, having occupied the sea, was making its way directly and swiftly. Having learned of this movement, Phocas in turn also draws up his own troops and prepares a most swift fleet to be set against the enemy. But God Himself and the sea were waging war against the tyrant. And when that most wicked man had joined battle with the enemy, he is defeated in a fierce combat, is put to shame, and is finally captured alive by the pursuing adversaries. Being brought to Heraclius, he is slaughtered by just right, after having first been subjected to various reproaches. Thus C that voracity which attempted to swallow the whole world, that throat engulfing all things, the minister of death, the friend of the Furies, D relinquished his bloody soul, having held the tyranny by force for eight full years.
Immediately, however, the power passed to Heraclius, whose fatherland was that most happy region of the Cappadocians, and whose lineage was from illustrious men flourishing in ample fortune. He was most skilled in military affairs, brave, endowed with a lion-like spirit, most tolerant of labors, ready of hand, and robust. He received a son, Constantine, a man by no means degenerate, from his first wife, who, having been removed from human affairs, he joined Martina to a life of companionship. This woman was the emperor’s cousin on his uncle's side, from whom was born to him a son, Heraclonas. Heraclius himself was subsequently surrounded by wicked men and assented to their decrees and errors, who trifled that there is one will in Christ.
At that time Chosroes, the most arrogant king of the Persians, having plundered and despoiled all of Asia, arrived as far as Byzantium itself, leading with him truly proud and insolent forces, namely the mail-clad, the archers, the spearmen, and others skilled in fighting, collected from every warlike nation, from the Medes, the Chaldaeans, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Bactrians, and the Parthians; all of whom used golden helmets, were elegantly equipped, armed with quivers, and mounted upon noble horses, who, as the emperor saw that it was impossible to engage...
A in battle with the armies of Chosroes (for they were more numerous than the sand), he devised a plan both drastic and full of sagacity. He commends the city to the Virgin, the Mother of God, together with his son and the people. Departing from there himself, and having gathered an army from both land and sea, consisting of light-armed soldiers, cavalry, and shield-bearing infantry, he invades the Persian land and attacks their B fortified castles, strongholds, and mighty towers. He ruins, destroys, and pillages all that is under the Persians, most wisely using his skill to draw them away from Byzantium and thereby divert the forces of Chosroes. Thus, the beauties of the Persian cities were mown down; fields became food for the fire and for plenty of wood; those in their prime, the first-born, women with beautiful hair, young girls, the aged, and children carried in arms, and even suckling infants were cruelly taken into slavery. The sword of the Romans was bathed in blood, herds were seized, mothers were bereaved of their children, and groaning and lamentation seized upon the Persian land; for a winged sword of vengeance hastened along, and the sword of wrath consumed every city. The haughty king of the Persians heard of these things, C and learning what was happening, he withdrew from Byzantium. Heraclius advanced into the midst of Persia, while the Persian leader hastened toward him from the rear. And when a hard-fought battle had taken place between the two, ten thousand corpses fell on both sides; yet, nevertheless, the Roman side prevailed. Persia saw then that a sword from Byzantium—a two-edged reaping blade, a winged sickle—was destroying cities and ravaging fields. And again the emperor devised another clever plan; for he was experienced in war, resourceful, and a master of generalship. By slowing his pace slightly, he cut off the path, and once the Persian army—along with Chosroes—had rushed past and D moved beyond the Roman army, he himself followed closely behind the fugitives. Having engaged them in battle innumerable times and shattered the swords of the Persians against their bones, he did not cease pursuing and suffocating the barbarian, until his own kindred, the Persian nobles, his allies, all the commanders of the phalanxes, and his own first-born son, Siroes—loathing the cursed and detestable Chosroes—bound him fast in strong chains like some whale, like a fierce lion, like a wild panther, and oppressed him with famine until he finally died. Thus, in the six-year circuit of the sun, Heraclius, having ravaged the Persian and Median lands, returned as a conqueror to the Queen of Cities. These events came to pass in subsequent years; but while Heraclius was still staying in Persia,
B and the Persian army was besieging the Byzantine city in such a way that it was utterly panting to devour it, another grievous storm arose, which threatened to sink that very ship. For to the Persian armies there were added the forces of the Scythians, and phalanxes of the monstrous Avars equal in number to the grains of sand; surging forth like roaring torrents, they rushed with a great din towards the city, as if into a ravine. C The Persians had positioned their camps opposite the city (for their swarms had spread as far as Damalis and Chalcedon, wailing with a deep-throated roar), while the Avars and Scythians kept watch at the walls; and every terrible and ghastly thing seemed present to the eyes. From one side, the Scythian Scylla resounded with a fearful noise; from the other, the gullet of Charybdis gaped open; and the ship of the city was tossed in the midst of it, and from every side came danger, and from every side a surging swell. The time, as it seems, was contentious, resolved to leave behind no greater evil for man; it stirred up every surrounding nation; one would justly call them a myriad-winged locust. For the leaders of the wild-hearted Tauroscythians, D having fastened together sea-going vessels and put an infinite multitude of men onto the boats, rushed forward, covering the back of the sea with their crowded skiffs, their vessels made of single logs. In this way, troubles were numerous from every side, and the affairs of the Queen City were pressed in on every hand. The Persian was like a sharp, stinging scorpion; the fierce Scythian nation was like a virulent viper; the Tauroscythian was like a foot-and-wing-walking locust. The city of the Byzantines wrestled with so many evils, and from everywhere the hope of succor seemed impossible. But a mightier arm stood in its defense, A and an iron-strong hand was its champion. And so, a fierce-blowing wind arose, and stirred up waves and many-turning whirlpools, and plunged the whole vast fleet to the bottom. They sank like lead into the salt sea, those who had previously skimmed lightly over the water-paths, just as once happened to the haughty guards of Pharaoh. Then the Romans, who had previously been struck with great terror, poured out from the city; and those who had been shut up within the walls handled the barbarians born in the crags just as the Seleucides [storks] are wont to deal with locusts, or as the ibises are seen to do with serpents. B And they shouted a song of victory, chanting hymns, and offering appropriate odes to the Generaless. Thus, the giant is not saved by the multitude of his strength, nor does the prince of a powerful people defend himself by his own might. For if
God does not set the foundations of the houses, and if He does not hedge the buildings with a firm fence, the works of art are useless, and the labors of toil are vanity. Such was the outcome of these matters for the Romans. Having held power for thirty years, Heraclius departed, leaving behind both his crown and his life. When nature forced Heraclius to yield the earth back to the earth which had lent him his body, his son Constantine took up the scepter, A a monarch and emperor known for but a short while; having tasted of power for a year from the time of his crowning, he slipped away, dying before his time, having said or done nothing worthy of memory, his stepmother, as men say, Martina, and Pyrrhus, having mixed for him a deadly poison. And Pyrrhus was then the high priest of Byzantium, B a pestilent man, impious, a sorcerer, and a conjurer. When Constantine therefore had left the life below, Martina insinuated herself into the scepter-holding power, and with her, her son Heraclonas, but only for a little while; for almost before they could even speak of reigning, they drank the cup of divine vengeance, gaining nothing else but to appear as villains. For Heraclonas having had his nose cut off, and Martina her tongue, they were sent into exile, and after them the empire was entrusted to Constans, son of that Constantine who had reigned but a little while before him.
A Nourishing evil roots from the beginning in his heart, of that impious sect, or rather madness, of those who teach that one must speak of a single will in Christ, it bore fruit then, but fruits of bitterness, B from which many indeed ate, but only so far as to realize how astringent and bitter those fruits boast themselves to be. But Maximus, the silver-tongued, that golden trumpet, Nilus, the golden-flowing stream of Orthodoxy, C partook of that bitterness to the very last satiety; for his right hand was cut off by the sword, and his honeyed tongue, alas, was torn away, which poured forth the streams of divine nectar. This Constans, a vile man, punished with perpetual exile Martin, the bishop of the elder Rome, whom the Roman tongue is accustomed to call the Pope. And mimicking Cain in fratricide, and having slain Theodosius, born of the same furrows D and the same seeds as himself, he sailed away to fertile Sicily, wishing to despoil the royal city and grant the sovereignty to thrice-old Rome, just as if one were to strip an adorned bride and deck out some three-crowned crone as if she were a young maiden. But the counsels of men are vain, unless God co-operates and gives His assent; for while the emperor was refreshing his flesh with warm waters for his pleasure, he drank there the cold cup of death, having obtained for himself twenty-seven years of rule.
A And Mizizius, a man from Sicily, a man of lovely eyes and handsome appearance, exercised tyranny. Yet he did not enjoy this fortune for long, B but rather escaped it all the more quickly, appearing only to be hidden, as when a rose might bud and immediately wither. For the son of Constans, having just taken up the scepter (the emperor’s name being Constantine from infancy), occupied the island of the Sicilians with a heavy fleet, and justly slaughtered all the perpetrators and evildoers C who had killed the emperor and his father, including Mizizius, who had seized the tyranny. The common rabble and the mixed crowd of the populace called this emperor "Pogonatus," because, they say, when he launched his fleet against Mizizius he was a beardless youth with a tender face, but from there he returned a full-grown man. He, having gathered an assembly of god-inspired men, eradicated the paternal impiety from its roots, being corrected by the planters of the pious dogmas. He directed the empire for seventeen years. D And when he was about to die and return to dust, he declared his son, Justinian, emperor and appointed him sole ruler of the land of the Romans. He raised up from the foundations, from the very roots, the great and splendid house in the palace; he brightened its walls with the golden shimmer of mosaics, and its floor with beautifully colored marbles, which still preserves the name of its founder.
But the emperor, being hated by officials, private citizens, the crowds in the marketplace, and those in the palace, as hard-hearted, as perverse, as one who took pleasure in murders, and furthermore as self-willed, out of self-satisfied opinion—for he was also conceited and full of folly, and in his counsels he had no partner nor assistant, thinking he possessed the knowledge of all things that can happen to men—consequently, being hated by all, he found the reward of his wickedness: namely, the loss of his empire. For a certain noble man from the senate, a patrician in rank, Leontius by name, finding the multitude sharing his views and in agreement (for all were nourishing hatred toward Justinian), set upon the emperor with his allies. When that lovely and light-bearing eye was sinking and all were in their beds, he captured him like a beast in a net and sent him across the sea to the city of Cherson, having first cut his nose and disfigured his face. But the eye of justice did not close; rather, it looked rightly, and repaid the one who had rebelled in equal measure. For when the borders of Africa were being plundered by certain robbers who were Arabs, of the race of the Hagarenes,
and who were harming and despoiling the entire coastline, the emperor, deeply distressed, prepared a heavy fleet and sent it against these sea-faring robbers. The naval forces of the Romans joined battle with them—and though they fought with remarkable ferocity, like foaming boars, they finally drove the enemies from that place and preserved the city of the Carthaginians for the Romans. But those monstrous beasts could not rest, and having gathered a vast fleet, they renewed the war; they attacked the Romans with a greater number of ships, sending both the fleet commanders and the naval soldiers into flight, and they captured the flourishing city of the Carthaginians, plundered it, leveled it to the ground, and cut off the golden curl of all Libya.
Therefore, the naval multitude and the commanders of the fleet, unable to bear the bitter shame of the defeat and healing one evil with a greater evil, produced the seeds of rebellion and moored at the thrice-great island of Crete. Having come to an understanding and sworn oaths among themselves, they exerted the weight of their boldness there, and choosing one of their partners, a man named Apsimarus, they established him as emperor. He, having besieged the city with them and by their efforts, successfully betrayed it and took control of Byzantium. And first, he renamed himself Tiberius. A Then, bringing Leontius into the center, and having measured out his punishment by the cutting of his nose, he shut him away in inescapable custody in a bitter prison, him who had held authority over the Romans for only three years.
Apsimarus, therefore, held the power of the Romans, and he was carried by the soft-blowing winds of fortune. Only one thing troubled him, one thing disturbed him: that Justinian might again reach the scepter and return to the throne—the man who had previously been punished, and with him, his nose. Thus, he suspected the man as a beast of uncertain danger, especially as he listened to predictions and the proclamations and boastings of the astrologers. B He began, therefore, to devise schemes and to dig up ideas, so that he might hinder those fortunes that were moving toward the better for him. Having learned, then, that Justinian had married Theodora, his own sister, to the Chagan, the prince of the Chazars, and that he was camping and living with him, he sent an embassy to that terrible barbarian, the Chagan, promising him entire seas of wealth if he would bind Justinian in unbreakable chains and sell him to him like a slave, or at least cut off his head and send it. That barbarian Chagan heard these things and his heart was set on fire by the desire for wealth (for what would a thrice-barbaric, Scythian-minded Chagan not do?); he conceived an inhuman and beastly plan. C
plotting within himself how to betray the wretched Apsimar, who was seeking it. O gold, O betrayer, O perverse tyrant, O evildoer, O seller of friends, O slayer of your own race, what is this matter? Why do you fight against yourself, having changed your plan? Why do you make men inconsistent? Why do you change into a different guise the minds of those who were created by God as simple and free from variety? But indeed, that which is to be, when once divinely decreed, neither an iron wall, as they say, nor the maw of fire can hinder. For Justinian, having fully learned of the Chagan’s deceits and plots, escapes from there, and, having attached to himself—by way of most ample promises—Terbelis, the prince of the Bulgarian A nation, he reaches the Byzantine land with him, bringing with him myriads of Bulgarian legions. He confided the plan to but a few of those around him, and, having crept into a conduit with them, he cunningly steals the entry into the city through the water-channels, and for a second time he takes the lead and girds himself with the empire. And who shall represent in speech the calamities that followed upon these things? He fulfills his promises to the Bulgarian prince and repays him with much more bountiful gifts, but he gives over many of the houses of the most illustrious B to fire; and he plunders wealth and, like a beast of the field, he most piteously slaughters the greater number of the magnates. And indeed he also kills Leontius alongside Apsimar, as if they were robbers and plunderers of his sovereignty.
Thus are the wicked subject to the eyes of justice; even if for a moment they escape the things of punishment, later they suffer greater torments. And he caused the avenging sword to fall not only upon these leaders of the tyranny for what they had dared, but also, after he had outraged and mocked Callinicus, who was then serving as high priest of this royal city, and after he had set upon him the insult of foolish children, he finally extinguished the lamps of his body. For he was indeed a co-conspirator, a perpetrator, and a confidant of the things that had once been dared against Justinian. Moreover, the emperor, calling to mind C how he had been treated by the inhabitants of the Pontic Cherson, back when he lived among them after being cast out of the empire (for they would at times mock him with gibes, at times curse him, at times sting him with the arrows of slanderous tongues, at times devise wily plans in the dark, as if they might either dip their swords into his very entrails or send the wretched captive to Apsimar),—these things, therefore, Justinian inscribing upon his own thoughts, and reflecting upon and painting them in his mind, and being embittered against them as if they were barbarians, he sends a naval army, commanding them to slaughter the whole race of those who had grieved him, from the youth upwards, and to spare neither women nor those at the breast,
A neither old, nor young, nor those of more advanced age; so heavily did his wrath seethe against them. The suffering of the Chersonites was indeed worthy of lamentation, and it moved even the more humane to wail; it surpassed even the deeply sorrowful pains of Bethlehem, and the grievous groans and loud-voiced cries of misery. For there, only the infant and sole childhood age was subjected to murderous hands for the slaughter, but here, men of thrice-five years, those in their prime, the youth, soft-skinned women, maidens, and young men were shredded all together as if in a butcher shop. Everywhere there was wailing and sharp-voiced lamentation. The hills echoed back the mournful cries of the mourners, and the wave-beaten shores groaned terribly in return. Thus, then, was the populous Cherson suddenly transformed into what they call the Scythian desert; it became the capacious, wide-gaping belly of Hades, a grave for ten thousand dead, and the very gate of death.
But the emperor, having heard that there was some pity felt for the tender and newborn infants, flared up all the more in anger and burned with fury. A rage most heavy-minded, therefore, fell upon those who had spared them, and a decree of punishment against them followed immediately. Again, there was an outfitting of swift ships, and a ten-thousand-strong army as if against an enemy land, and with it was Philippicus, whom they also called Bardanes, to lead the army and to adorn the people, B as if to pierce through with swords even the infants, even those who had only just beheld the beauty of the day, and who were being fed on milk with nursing-bottles, and who might plow all the highways with oxen, and furrow the plains about them, and turn the previously prosperous city into a desert, its streets into a field heavy with grain, and its populous city into a plain of obliteration.
This became the cause of evils for the ruler, and again there were pirate raids, and again a storm; and the waves of wild-breathing C force surged up. For the fighting force that had been sent by sea, having abhorred the inhuman intent of that man—as if he were a wild-spirited tiger or a blood-sucking wolf—and having found the surviving Chersonites, they rebelled against him and turned to sedition. They considered his commands as mere trifles (for they did not wish to be defiled with so many stains) and they make Philippicus emperor and ruler, and place the crown of sovereign power upon him. The emperor Justinian, therefore, being distraught with fear, D and taking their slowness and delay as an ominous sign, being sharp-witted himself, proceeds by land as far as Sinope, bringing with him an infantry army, so that those who had sailed out before might not attempt a revolution. And having gazed out upon the sea at the swift-winged ships
and vessels sailing the deep, swift-faring and carried by favorable winds, his mind is stirred and his soul is troubled, and he runs back at once to return, mounting swift, wind-footed horses, wishing, if it were possible, to become winged as well. But the favorable wind of swift-sailing fortune caused the sea-faring boats to sail rapidly. Philippicus, then, using a swift-winged fleet, arrives at the Queen of Cities in haste, and having taken possession A and passed within the palaces, he puts upon himself the crown of the empire. But the other, the slit-nosed one, arriving later, as if worn out by difficult and impassable roads and by places full of ravines and steep hills, encamps opposite toward the hilly mountains, which by custom we call Damatrys. And so Philippicus sends out his commanders to engage him in direct combat; they, seeing the lion’s pelt—the strength from the troops—not extending to cover the whole body of this war, stitched onto it something of fox-skin, from their deceits, and softening the people who were with him with promises, they capture the thrice-wretched man. And what was done after this? They slaughtered him like a voiceless ox at the manger, and they emptied all the seething of their anger and the force of their wrath upon him, surrounding him in a circle, like a lion, one might say, having seized a fawn. A And having caught his son Tiberius, who had fled for refuge to the temple of the Mother of the Maiden, they dragged him from the temple (alas, the most fearful thing! And Tiberius was still but a small child) and dashed him against the doorpost like a puppy, and they scattered the seams of his head like wheat. His brain fell to the ground—a thing hard to bear to behold—and splashed the pavement like water flowing out. Thus it was well and wisely said by the ancients: "Nothing beyond measure; symmetry is a beautiful thing." For indeed Justinian, having stoked the furnaces of his wrath sevenfold against those in Cherson, ignited a flame of hatred against himself among his subordinates. For they say that God himself hates excessive zeal. Seven years, then, Apsimarus held power, in middle time; B and Justinian, with six others, ten. But King Philippicus, nourishing impiety and the seeds of all kinds of wickedness in his heart, did not escape the eyes of God, which behold all things. Hence, having had the circles of his eyes gouged out, he was another wretched Oedipus, groping in darkness, lamenting the loss of both light and rule, living on for but a short and brief time in his power; for he tasted of the crown for only two years. Philippicus having thus unfortunately fallen, the senate sets up Artemius as Ausonarch, having a second name as a doublet; and from that point on they called Anastasius, Artemius.
A He was a man of gravity and action,
nurtured in books by the imperial secretary, whom they call the asekretis.
And thus, applying himself more energetically to the affairs of the state, he appeared as the avenger and punisher of Philippicus, meting out punishment to those who had put out his eyes. Having learned that the Agarene pirates—those land-beasts, and bears of the sea—were wandering about with their fleets, he constructed triremes and swift-sailing scaphs B and sent them out to join battle with those from Hagar. These, having sailed straight for the Hellespont (for they were running straight with gentle breezes), stirred up a sedition there; for, as the saying goes, "Nautical turbulence is more violent than fire." First, they pierced their fleet commander with swords, and then, seizing Theodosius—who was there as a tax collector—against his will, they made him emperor and brilliantly adorned him with the signs of the sovereign power; a man soft-hearted, sluggish in his deeds, faint-hearted, cowardly, and unworthy of the scepters. And with him, and accompanied by him, they set out with hymns of praise, journeying back toward the blessed city. The Emperor Artemius (for the sedition had been reported) stationed a fleet of guards and stout naval commanders at the blessed and royal city, while he himself, having deliberated as he thought for the better, departed from Byzantium, and having reached Bithynia, shut himself within the walls of Nicaea, C hoping that they would not yield to the hands of executioners. For indeed, the vicissitudes of shifting fortune had driven from that man's soul and mind that: "Unless God guard the wall-girded city, in vain the watchman of its walls has labored." For a short time, those with Theodosius did not achieve their intended goal, as the tower guards fought stoutly and kept them at bay; but after they were exhausted by long and continuous toil, they intoxicated the guards of their hopes with the wine-cups and, having taken to themselves gold, the unassailable destroyer of cities, they became superior to their opponents, and at night, having rushed in through the gates like wild beasts, they despoiled the property of every splendid house and showed the inhabitants, from being wealthy, to be paupers, from being rich, needy, and from being adorned in fine robes, naked. D They firmly established the power for Theodosius, who—having sent to Artemius oaths full of dread, that he would keep him untouched by any suffering—meted out this punishment as long as he first sheared the hairs from his head, adding exile to the penalty. But not even this man was able to enjoy the glory and pleasure of the empire for long. For there was Leo, beast-named, from Isauria, who was beast-like in soul, in name, and in manners, enriching himself with the dignity of the patriciate and the leadership of the eastern military commands.A He plots revolt against Theodosius, having found as a fellow-worker and accomplice in his deceitful schemes Artabasdos, a man of note, with whom he even joined his daughter in marriage, once the beast had invaded the Roman scepters, giving this as a reward to the co-worker of his power. And the emperor Theodosius, fearing the audacity and the beastly-minded heart of Leo, cedes the throne and the crown to his enemy, yielding willingly yet unwillingly, without battle or combat, and dons a black garment instead of the purple, having merely touched the honey of rule with his lips, but unable to bathe his palate in its sweetness, having tasted of the power for only two years. B When therefore the affairs of the Romans passed to the most wicked Leo—alas for the judgments of God!—the serpent-natured, God-hated Hebrews, now that they had consulted among themselves and reached an understanding, C for it is not inappropriate to say who, and whence, and from what root the abominable Leo sprouted forth. He drew the line of his lineage from the Isaurians, born of parents of humble fortune and living by the labor of their own hands, and exhausted by the wasting fires of famine. From the Isaurians came this viperous offspring. He passed over his incomplete and earliest years and engaged in a peddling, mercantile life. It happened one day as he was passing by, driving an ass laden with merchandise, that he chanced upon some Jewish merchants. After sharing the road with those crooked men and resting from his fatigue, he slept. The Hebrews, having communicated among themselves and carefully considered, foretold to him the rulership and the power, whether through some learning or wicked art, or by inferring the matter from certain signs, and requested of him, as a reward for their prediction, whatever they might ask once he had attained the empire. The all-daring fellow heard these things and immediately gave his consent, to the ruin of his soul and the fortune of the Romans. Having thus become known to the provincial authorities and those who rule the regions, and having gradually revealed his bold heart, he was made patrician and great commander of the troops. A heavy swell of a terrible, wildly-blowing tempest surged from there against the Church, and again a cloud, pregnant with deadly violence, and again a murky cloud, pregnant, as it were, with a spirit of slaughters of men and corruption, shedding blood instead of rain. For this thrice-accursed, self-declared emperor Leo was in labor, as it seems, with monstrous schemes against Christ and His precious images; but not having the power to bring the fruit of his wickedness into the light (for his lack of authority forced him to hold back), as soon as he seized the opportunity and freedom of speech, he brought forth the birth; for the womb was rent, and the viperous offspring proceeded into the light. D For when the abominable Leo, that viperous offspring, had burst forth from there, he began to plot revolt against Theodosius, having found as an accomplice and fellow-worker in his deceitful schemes Artabasdos, an illustrious man, with whom he joined his daughter in marriage, as soon as, like a beast, he had already invaded the Roman empire. But the emperor Theodosius, fearing Leo’s audacity and ferocity, yielding willingly and yet unwillingly, ceded the empire without battle and without arms, and exchanged his imperial purple for a black garment, having only dampened his lips with the honey of the empire, but having been unable to bathe his palate in its sweetness, for he had tasted it for only two years. Affairs then being delivered to the most wicked Leo (alas, what are the judgments of God!), a heavy tempest seized the Church, joined with the great slaughter of men. For the execrable emperor Leo was indeed laboring under, as is natural, absurd and new counsels against Christ and His venerable images; but he was in no way able to bring the fetus of his wickedness into the light, for his timid spirit kept him from his project. But finally, having seized the opportunity and taken up audacity, he brought forth the fetus; for the womb was rent, and the offspring of the viper came into the light. [Vers. 4221] Nor indeed will it be foreign to our purpose if we have explained what, who, and from what lineage this abominable Leo was begotten. He had his origin from Isauria, born of parents of meager fortune, living by the labor of their own hands. After his first years, he turned to the work of a merchant, buying things at a price and selling them again for the sake of profit. It happened once that while traveling with other merchants, driving an ass before him laden with wares, he fell in with some Jewish merchants; with whom he continued his journey, and finally, exhausted by fatigue, he gave himself to rest. The Hebrews, having conferred among themselves and considered diligently, prophesied the empire to Leo, inferring what was to come either from some sort of learning, or wicked art, or from certain signs. At the same time, they asked for a reward to come to them from him for this prediction, such as they might wish to demand when he himself had already reached the empire. Having heard these things, the most ferocious man agreed, to the ruin of his own soul and the happiness of the Romans. Hence, gradually proving his audacity, when he became known to the regional governors, he was created patrician, commander of the forces, and (do you not join your groans with mine, O Justice?) finally emperor. The Hebrews, having learned of the proclamation of Leo, straightway at the emp-
And lastly the emperor: "Do you not sigh, O Justice?" The impious Hebrews, who had heralded the imperial power for him, learned of the proclamation. A Having arrived with wingless feet to appear before the tyrant, they seek to have the terms of their promise fulfilled. Yet they ask not for gold, nor silver, nor precious stones, nor anything else of humble or worldly things, but the destruction of venerable iconographic images, but the overthrow of divine and most worshipful steles, an outright ruin of the impious religion, tearing down its towers from their foundations. The crooked evildoer heeds these evildoers, the offspring of the viper heeding the brood of the asp. And having summoned the one offering the holy sacrifice (Germanus was at that time the protector of piety) B and having communicated to him his own perverse designs, because he would not consent to his impiety, but rather rebuked his audacity and madness, he drives him from the Church—alas, the wolf against the shepherd, the rabid Cerberus against the gentle leader of the flock! And having immediately taken to himself wolves that devour the sheep, he rends—alas—the flock, and destroys the icons of the Virgin Mother and of the martyrs of Christ, ungraces the temples, and strips the sanctuaries. He sheds a dark gloom over them and pours out a sorrowful and most black day. As much, then, as he spewed forth of bitter and venomous saliva against Christ and His martyrs, from which a deadly herb has sprouted, and with how many vexations, C like some other Baltasar, he afflicted those who were living a life devoid of marriage in solitude, books and the commentaries of the ancients sufficiently declare. I, for my part, having selected from among all these to make known the Persian of the cloak and the twisted chain, and the croaking raven of the black ink.
Near the sanctuary of the Wisdom of God, a splendid house had been built for the emperors of old, a garden, one might say, delicate and full of book-bearing trees, a grove splendidly planted with every kind of wisdom. For books were stored up in it, reaching to thirty thousand, and in addition to others, three thousand—reaching to three thousand, five hundred. And the care and custody of such a garden and such a grove had been entrusted to a divine man, excelling in wisdom D and shining forth more than all others with the rays of knowledge, another, one might say, an inspired Adam—a tree-cultivator, delighting in the beautifully blossoming branches of Eden and a farmer of plants that do not wither. Other men were with him and lived together with him, like lieutenants to a brave general, bright stars opposite and bearers of light in the night. They fulfilled the number of the signs of the zodiac. They were unpaid teachers to those who were lovers of the word. For they used to remove the veil of darkness, both of the amount of Greek nonsense and rot, and of that which is most holy among us. But he himself shone among them all like a giant sun.
A Such was the abundance of virtue in those men, that not even the emperors themselves thought it right to introduce some novelty or to do anything strange and beyond the usual, unless those men had been made party to the counsel and the judgment. The emperor, therefore, thirsted to capture within his nets such men, who were both reverend and grave, and who flowed as if in a sea with all manner of graces, and to make them participants of his impious madness. But when, having set all his contrivances in motion, he was repelled—for he could not persuade them by fear or threats, and even when he made use of gold, an ally otherwise invincible, he realized he was chasing an eagle or trying to strike the stars—at the last, being in despair, but how, I pray, can I express it? he took a counsel savage, absurd, and impious, which not even a wild Scythian, nor yet a Massagete, would have conceived. He heaped up a pile of brushwood in a circle around the house, dry, easily kindled sticks and fagots, and lit a thick fire, and burned all those men, alas! those holy men, and with them their books. B O soul that hates what is beautiful! Alas, O beastly mind! From his claws, the terrible Leo was surely recognized. There were the most beautiful of all studies, and one extraordinary volume made from the intestine of a dragon, having the Homeric books inscribed upon it—I speak of the Iliad and the matters of the Odyssey.
After that for twenty years he had enjoyed the rule, A the beast, the evil-contriving, flesh-devouring Leo—with five others impiously, or rather having tyrannized (for evil things are long-lived and flow away with difficulty)—was about to be hidden in the tomb and in the earth that receives all things. Hopes, indeed, not ignoble, dawned upon the men of that time that the successor to the rule would appear equitable, more moderate in mind, and not a shedder of blood. But, as it seems, nature, like the Euripus, loves to return into its own channels. For indeed, while Leo was sleeping in the arms of the grave, the leopard leaped forth far more irascible, and when the root of the foul juice was covered in the earth, a branch bearing far more bitter fruit sprang up: that foul-named Constantinus, from the viper, an asp—as one might aptly say—from the hellebore hemlock, from the scorpion a dragon. Another shameless Baltasar from Nabuchodonosor! There began, therefore, the abominable blood-drinker, the wolf. O sun that sees all things, and emperors, and laws! A man, a magician, a sorcerer, taking pleasure in the slaughter of animals and in the abominable rites of liver-divination, a hog living in the mire and eating filth. This slave of his belly and of intemperance, what did he not devise to harass men? What, discovered by others, did he not attempt to augment? The bride, gold-adorned and tender, whom Christ the pure bridegroom had betrothed,
A he snatched—alas!—from the very bridal chambers, widowed her, disfigured her with wrinkles, and covered her with black garments. In like manner, a boar leaping out from some wood—wherefrom, who can say?—with its tusks uprooted entirely the vine that was bursting with fair-clustered grapes, and plundered its beauty. He cut down the sacred icons from the churches, and in their place he had engraved in colors and mosaics the amusements of the hunt and horse-racing. Nor was that abominable man content with these crimes; but, tracking down those who lived in solitude like a dog, he slaughtered them like sheep that offer no resistance. Monasteries were dismantled as if they were dens of thieves; prisons were utterly cramped due to the multitude of monks shut away; and everywhere the black garb was driven out as if it were some defilement. B Seeing such things, that Artabasdus, whom the thread of our discourse has already made known as having been joined in marriage to the daughter of Leo, and who hated that savage and barbarian tyranny, joins battle with him, reveals his flight, and is proclaimed emperor of the Roman land. And again the rays of piety flash forth, and again the fire-gleaming glimmers of grace, and again the Word of faith has sprung up. The holy things are restored, the images of the martyrs and of Christ and of the one who bore Him shine forth. C But Belial again sought to sift the elect Israel like wheat (for not yet, as it seems, had they been sufficiently chastised), and again he campaigned to afflict the pious, just as Chusarsathem, the satrap of the Syrians, once vexed the Israelites. What occurred, and what kind of event is it, the discourse shall narrate. The dragon cannot bear the loss of his power. He is pained, he suffers, he communes with his commanders, he employs flattery, he inflames them with hopes, he draws to his side the provincial governors. Having acquired a heavy force of armies, he joins a fierce battle, puts to flight his opponents, defeats Artabasdus, captures him alive, and pours out the entirety of his wrath, rage, and the vigor of his fury upon the unfortunate and long-suffering man, and extinguishes the light-bearing lamps of his eyes. D And again the God-hater wears the purple. Again the beast wields the scepter, again he rules the Romans, and he becomes more bitter than Nebuchadnezzar. What is this reversal, O unstable wheel of life? The rose scarcely blooms and quickly sheds its petals, yet the thorn-bearing bramble flourishes for a long time. Titus merely looked upon the meadow of the empire and was snatched away too soon, and could not partake of the autumn fruit; but this most defiled one, the excrement of the human race, lived a long life—O unequal fortune!—and harvested the fruit of the empire to the full.
This thrice-cursed man led forth from life A the holy Stephen, the crown of monks; for he was a steadfast champion of the holy icons, and he pierced the wild beast skillfully, shooting at its heart with the arrows of his refutations. B But the impious one, having mingled the bones of the victorious martyr Euphemia with the bones of oxen and dogs, committed them to the fire. Where was the bolt of lightning? Having reigned for thirty-four years, he is justly sent down to the punishments of Hades.
When he had finally breathed out his bloodstained soul, Leo, the son of the abominable one, takes up the scepter. But Leo also departs from the earth quite quickly, having ruled the land for only five years, 58 leaving Irene his spouse and the child he had from her, Constantine, as most lawful sovereigns. For they, having gathered together God-bearing men, plucked out by the root the thorn of iconoclasm which had stung pious hearts, and in the fields of souls that had run wild, they cast the seed of orthodoxy. Both, then, son and mother, ruled for a sufficient time, and the mother was, as David says, delighting in her son. But when the boy, the emperor, had reached maturity and was a handsome youth, beginning to grow a beard (for he had been left a tender child by his father),
A there crept into him those evil flatterers, and they consumed his heart with flatteries, just as wood-eating worms consume sweet-juiced trees. He grows arrogant and boastful against the empress; and thinking himself alone sufficient for affairs, he makes his mother an outcast from the palace, and with her, the worldly peace of the peace-bringer. From there he rolls down toward lawless deeds, and he shaves the most temperate companion of his house, putting in her place the union of another woman. For, indeed, a continuous drop hollows out a hard rock, and caterpillars consume the leafy foliage of trees, and flatterers consume men possessed of small souls. But he came to his senses late, at last, from his extreme self-love; he understood that he was caught in the midst of extreme evils, B and he entreats the empress mother again to steer the beautiful-prowed ship of the empire. Empress Irene is moved by the words of her son, and again she was with her son, and with him she managed the power and the affairs and the fortune of the Romans—for she was also by nature fond of command and thirsted to rule. But he who whispered murmurs into the ears of Eve, and vomited the poison of malice into her soul, and persuaded her to taste of the fair-fruited tree, and brought death instead of eternal life, and turned sweetness into utter bitterness, and the pleasant into gall, and the soothing into pain,
A and hail descended, congealing from slaughter. And he, the most wretched, lay writhing, a sight, alas, piteous, persuading even stones to mourn, there having his eyes gouged out, there having his pupils extinguished, where first he beheld the sun's lamps—"Porphyra" they call that little chamber. Who ever heard of such heavy-hearted madness, a mother's madness against her son? Oh, the passion for power! A leopard does not rave against its cubs in this way; nor does a tiger, nor a shark, nor a rabid dog grow so savage against its whelps. They say only Medea plotted against her children, and she, too, from Scythian barbarity. I hear only of the sea-dwelling tuna, which, when hungry, devours its own offspring, but no other creature, whether water-borne or land-dwelling; for the very Eileithyiai [goddesses of childbirth] inspire awe in mothers. The flashes of the morning star were extinguished then; the lamp, all-manifest, gave no bright-shining light; the light-bearing head closed its eye; deep darkness spread over many days; for the very elements mourned the calamity. Oh, passion to be pitied piteously even by inanimate things! And B having done this, she, that audacious woman, takes the lead and reigns as monarch (for this is what she desired), and alone girds herself with the empire. Then even Rome, the brilliant, the aged Rome...
Vers. 4490
...like crows plucking out [his] eyes, they burst into the emperor’s chamber and extinguish the light of his eyes (oh, foul deed!). Presently the pupils of his eyes fall out, bloody drops stain the robes, the gore congeals like hail, the most calamitous emperor himself is cast to the ground and faints—a spectacle (alas!) miserable, that would strike pain into the stones themselves. And indeed, he lost his sight, with his eyes gouged out, in that very place where he had first beheld the rays of the sun. Now they are accustomed to call that house Porphyra, that is, the purple [chamber]. Who ever heard tell of such fury, which a mother has vomited forth against her son? Woe to the lust for ruling! Not so does the leopard rage against its young, not so does the tiger, the boar, or the rabid dog act savagely against its offspring. They maintain that only Medea plotted against her children, and that because of Scythian inhumanity. I hear only of the tuna, a sea fish, that if it is hungry, it devours its own offspring; nor is there any other animal, either aquatic or terrestrial, that performs such a thing. For the very pangs of birth have a singular efficacy in producing reverence in mothers toward their offspring. At that time, both the brightness of the sun vanished and the moon failed, and for many days there was a vast D darkness: truly the very elements were deploring Constantine’s calamity. Alas, a crime miserable even to inanimate things!
A matter worthy of account and memory came to pass. There was officiating in [Rome] the sacred sacrifices Leo, the first of the other high priests, who is called Pope in the language of the Romans. Certain men in Rome, kinsmen of Hadrian who had not long before been Pope, envied him bitterly, and having stirred up a heavy-laden surge of sedition, they drove him in flight from the throne and the city. He, having signaled these things in a letter to the Empress and having besought her for favor, as he learned that everything he was contriving and doing was in vain—and that he was, as the saying goes, trying to write on water—and despairing on every side, fled for refuge to Charles. (Now that Charles was the chieftain of the Franks; the Franks know how to call those who rule over them "kings.") He asks for his hand as one of great power, so that he might assist him against those who were doing him injustice. Charles receives him (for he was from forefathers and ancestors called by Christ and revered Christ’s laws), he respects the supplicating high priest, gives him a vastly strong hand as an ally, and reinstates him again into the city and the throne. From there, making recompense to Charles, Leo A proclaims him Emperor of the elder Rome, and places a crown upon him as the laws of the Romans dictate. However, employing also the laws of the Jews, he anoints him with oil from head to foot, I do not know by what reasoning or by what devices. Thus the former bond of the cities was broken; thus a sword fell between mother and daughter, dividing and severing with the fury of a blade the fair-faced maiden, the newer Rome, from the wrinkled and old and thrice-ancient Rome. And these things reached such an end; but the Empress Irene, being very eager to wipe away that thrice-barbarous madness and the defilement which she had committed against her son, emptied entire treasuries of wealth for the city, and turned the winter of debts into fair weather, pouring forth a golden spring of great bounty. But He who sees hidden things and understands all, the all-seeing Eye, who judges the hearts, heeded, saw, looked upon, became jealous, and was angered; and for the one who had tasted for a brief moment the pleasure of rule, He mixed a bitter, wormwood-filled cup, and the dregs of wrath for her who had acted lawlessly. For upon someone from the senate rising up against her, a man most brilliant and well-known, by name Nicephorus, B [she was cast down].
She was cast out from the flourishing garden of authority, A Instead of luxury, she harvests heart-biting pains, Pains, not the pains of childbirth, but stings of misfortune, And she drinks the brine of affliction like a poverty-stricken widow. Such are the things the reversals of life bring to pass; Thus does God repay those who act unjustly. She alone, then, had attained the sovereign power for a short time, 78 And with her son Constantine for seventeen years.
The wheel of power, therefore, having been trundled B From others to others, and having revolved in uneven paths, Reaches at last, having lifted him on high, Nicephorus, A man most bloodthirsty, perverse, and malicious, A slave to gold, gold-mad, a miser and niggard, Straightway a Midas, once the ruler of Phrygia, Who made the offices of the cities things to be bought, Distributing honors not by merit, but by wealth. He had gold upon his lips, he had an ox upon his tongue, Gold upon his table; he dreamed of gold. And while to others he appeared sour and downcast, If anyone brought a heavy weight of gold in his bosom, Then, truly then, he would show a pleasant gaze, And the mist of sourness was not upon his face. Thence he would undermine all stratagems and ways, And he would lay traps for all with malefic wiles, To see if perhaps gold might be found, might be drained, And carried off to him. O this love of money! This man, too, laid a heavy burden upon the Byzantines, Not light, nor easy to bear, nor simple to carry, For the sake of the renovation of the aged walls, Which his tax-collectors call "the two-horned tax." He would lock everything with keys, and let nothing C Go forth—neither silver nor gold nor well-woven robes; And this, as it is said in Aesopic fables, Showing many traces of riches entering, But of them exiting, never, nor of their being spent, He even deprived the army of their due pay. Thence arose an ominous murmur and deadly sedition, And ill-omened chatter and abusive tongues. And having rushed together to the same place with a confused clamor, They besought Bardanius, who was then commanding the army, To become their emperor, offering him also violence. But he, not knowing the turn of fortune’s balance And trembling at its precarious will, Goes to a divine man, one filled with God And illuminated with the rich rays of the Spirit. He reveals what was hidden, and tells everything, The sedition, the uproar, and the violence of the people. The old man hears these things, grey in his mind and hair, The swan of the Spirit, who sings the divine things; He forbids him, he counsels him to attempt nothing new, "Lest," he says, "you also be pierced in the pupils of your eyes, And lose everything, and destroy everything." The old man sees Bardanius downcast in spirit, He sees those pulling his horse by the rein, And having called back the commander again, "You, most brilliant," he says, "most mighty commander, You will not attain the rule, even if you endure ten thousand trials; But some of those stationed under your hand D
A will gird themselves with the belt of sovereignty. Behold those three attendants of yours,"—Leon, Thomas, and Michael are the names of the men. Of these, Leon shall be the first of the men to lead, and after him the power shall descend to Michael. The third, Thomas, shall indeed struggle with all his heart, and shall draw the name of emperor to himself, but he shall not have the strength to bring his desire to an end, and he shall have his eyes extinguished.
And these things came to pass in their own times, as the spirit-moved trumpet had prophesied. The most parsimonious sovereign Nicephorus, having joined a fierce battle with the Bulgarians living near the Ister, became the work of the sword, the food of the spear, leaving the scepters to his child Stauracius. But indeed Stauracius also perished quickly, having appeared in that battle struck by a spear, and having become one who had fallen, drained of blood, wounded; and to Michael, who is called Rangabe, the husband of Nicephorus' daughter Procopia, the power turned itself with a smile. Then Byzantium saw a day of freedom, without blood and slaughters, violent plunderings, unclouded, unstained, not darkened by a gloomy and tumultuous cloud of manslaughter. Byzantium saw then suns of benevolence and rays of graces and gifts. For Michael was shining with all sorts of fine qualities, and was a man who loved freedom, and was calm and gentle, B not delighting in blood, nor rejoicing in murders, but a grove planted by God, but a meadow of graces, a garden cultivated with streams flowing from God.
But then again the rose withered before its time, as grass nurtured by dew it cooled and passed away, as a flower, as they say, quickly passing, as smoke, as a dream, having blossomed for four years and nine months. An acherdus grew up, bristling with thick thorns, and a rhamnus, cruelly stinging and wounding hearts, when Leon, of ill-omened name, leapt upon the power, that terrible carnivore of the sheep of Christ. The sovereign Michael, therefore, having learned of the bully’s daring and his impulse and his apostasy, of his own will withdraws from the much-desired throne, fulfilling in this also the divine laws of Christ, and appearing to the persecutor clearly as another castor. For they say that the ancient books of the painters [say] that there is an animal living both on land and water named the castor, and its testicles are useful for the casting off of wretched and hard-to-evade passions; which, knowing this, the many of the hunters pursue the animal with linen nets, and using as fellow-workers the swiftest-running dogs. The castor, therefore, having perceived the cause of the battle, and having seen that the traps of the hunters are inescapable, having bitten off his seed-bearing and offspring-producing testicles, C bestows them upon those who want them, and he himself runs away, fleeing. D
A Thus Michael willingly cedes the crown to the beast-like Leo, to him of ill-omened name, who was an evil shoot from the borders of Armenia. Again the bitter root of the former thorn sprang up; again it brought forth shoots more stinging than those before. It threatened to throttle the golden crop, and once again the tail of the dragon was set in motion—the abomination, I mean, of the iconoclasm. As a great, terrifying, yawning dragon it crept, and hissed, and strove to swallow the Church again, like the fledgling chicks of a small-winged sparrow. The images of the saints and of Christ were blackened, daubed with soot, and consumed by fire. Caves were searched out, as were the dwellings of sanctuaries, and the retreats of souls who lived according to the angels; and every worshipper of the holy icons was hunted down. At that time Sion, the daughter of God, mourned, and shedding tears, she wore a sack of mourning instead of a bridal garment, a tunic of widowhood. At that time the choir of the heavenly stars also mourned, and looked down toward the earth with darkened eyelids.
This man, in his pursuit to wipe out the kin of Michael, severed the child-bearing parts of his son, Nicetas, B lest he ever beget children and through them take revenge. Therefore the son of Michael, having thus become a eunuch so that the wheel of imperial power might not fall to him, was confined by the emperor in a labyrinth-like prison. He pondered in his mind how he might consume this man. But all men are weak when compared to the hands of God; indeed, a feeble strength is that of earth-born men. But God is of great power and mighty of arm, and who shall contend against His dominion?
Michael, however, trusting in the things prophesied to him by the eloquent elder, that greatest of seers, reveals, makes manifest, and uncovers what was hidden. He approaches the guardian of the household in the palace (we call him *papias* in the language of the Romans), and together with him, and through him, he arranges the plot and prepares the cup of treachery for the sovereign. C And so, by night, they lead in at the time of the psalm-singing certain armed, sword-bearing men. Falling upon that most wicked beast while he was performing the office of the matins hymns, they pierce him with their swords and slaughter him like a lamb, he who had reigned for seven years and five months. And Michael is established as emperor, in place of a prisoner.
D It was later, in the transition of his life, that Ignatius appeared, the high priest of the new Rome. This man, the cruel beast, the roaring Leo, pondering to himself the sacred predictions of that wondrous elder, that swan with golden wings, and fearing Michael, who was from Amorium, lest perchance the wheel of empire devolve upon him, concluded the man, shackled, in a prison not unlike a labyrinth, further considering within himself how he might remove him from the midst. But in truth every man is weak if compared with the hands of God; for God can do much and has most robust arms. Who is there, in fact, who can oppose His power?
Meanwhile, Michael, relying on the prophecies of the eloquent elder and greatest of seers, exposes, reveals, and opens the secret to him who was the guardian of the royal house, called in the language of the Romans, *papias*. At the same time, together with him and through him, he composes the whole affair and lays an ambush for the emperor. At night, therefore, with the chanters of the Psalms, certain armed men are introduced who, having attacked the most savage beast as he was performing the holy matins hymns, pierce him with swords, and as a lamb...
A freed from the guard-house, he becomes emperor. And having inflicted every heavy injury upon them, and done these things—but what follows, what is it like? Michael, to be sure, detested the holy icons, yet he was not embittered against those who venerated them, nor did he scourge their bodies with whips. B Therefore, having met with failure in not a few battles, he appeared as a butt and a laughingstock to those from Agar, who, constantly tearing apart the Roman phalanxes and leading away their commanders as prisoners of war, called the ruler a coward and a soft-hearted man. From this Michael felt pains at his heart, and spirit-gnawing calamities and bitter afflictions; for he had introduced the terrible and base impiety which cut him off from the eyes of God. Therefore, as one evil after another fell upon him, surging against him like a multi-wavy sea, a more terrible, great-crested roar flared up and shook his heart like a merchant ship. For that Thomas, of whom mention was made before, a man of many devices, blazing in his daring, having gathered military strength from ten thousand places, soldiers blood-thirsty, brave, stout-hearted, murderous, Arian, bold, and contentious, leaped upon Michael with violent momentum, just as a boar from the forest and a wood-heavy thicket, or a mountain-bred cub of a blood-thirsty lioness, and having encircled every Thracian city with naval forces and infantry hand-to-hand, having reduced them in every way C to servitude, destroyed and mangled them, he rushed even as far as the blessed city of Constantinople itself. But if God, who is all-powerful, opposes mortals, every counsel and deed is plainly nothing else than a spider's web. Therefore, since Thomas was not defended by the divine power, he was building the towers of his treachery upon sand, and fixing his foundations upon a weak thing. And from there, the structure being built was overturned from the roots, and having stained his own war-loving hands with murders, and having made every spear dipped in blood, at the last, having been taken alive, his eyes are gouged out, and the bright-shining lamps of his eyes are quenched, and after this he is terribly hewn in pieces by swords. The emperor Michael, however, being about to leave this life, having reigned over the Romans for eight full years, hands over the scepter to his son Theophilus; who, in all other matters navigating the salt-sea of life unhappily and precariously, not calmly, found this one good thing alone, paradoxically: the all-venerable D among women and divine Theodora, like a snow-white pearl, like a carbuncle stone. Having her then as a partner, having joined her in marriage, he became a father of children, sowing into a fertile field, and he was more fortunate than Adam, the first-formed. For indeed, the rib-born and first mother Eve led him out of the delights of the trees of Eden;
A she brought her companion and partner of life to the right-hand and saving portion. Only here did the lyre of David, otherwise sweet, sound a discordant note for him, even that one which charms the stones. For the one declares, as he plays for God: "God settles the solitary in a house." But here, dung and fragrant myrrh met, and the red-leaved rose with the thorn-bearing wild pear, and the color of gall with an imperial purple dye. For she was a grove planted with all virtues, and a garden blossoming with graces, and a tree of every elegance and modesty; but he was a field directly opposite, filled with the thistles of impiety, and a thorn-bush with needle-like prickles, and a bramble that tears the vitals. For he was hostile to the holy scriptures B and the icons of Christ and the martyrs, and he tormented with unbearable and terrible tortures those who rendered to them the relative honor due. Moreover, those who shone in life and word brighter than the stars, brighter than the radiance of the sun—the holy Theodore, the divine Theophanes—he compressed with the application of grievous tortures, and having flayed the skin of their bodies with bull-hide whips, he branded even their foreheads down to their eyebrows, and carved upon them iambic verses. These men, therefore, wore that forehead-branding like a crown resplendent with pearls and gleaming with precious stones; but the emperor Theophilus, regarding the icons and the inscriptions of the holy faces, C behaved with such savage, wicked, and malicious intent.
Yet in other respects he was high-minded and noble, and a guardian of righteousness and of the just laws. A most clear sign of his magnificence D is the ingenious manufacture of gold-beaten musical instruments, from which, by a mechanism, the spirit sent forth reflected sweet and delightful melodies, and a piercing musical sound flowed forth trickling down. Along with these were the gold-plated and far-gleaming trees, appearing ruddy from afar with the greenness of gold, in which musical birds made of gold were perched, as if on the branches of a pine or a tall fir, pouring forth from a mechanism a honey-sweet twittering. Thus, the hands of men, ingenious in their crafts, nearly rival the nature that brings forth living things.
But if anyone wishes to learn more accurately of his high-mindedness and his love of beauty, let him look at the sea-side walls which protect the brilliant city among cities. For a fierce winter once descended, deep and heavy, and turned the brine into ice to an immense depth, and solidified the liquid element, robbing it of its capacity for flow, and the biting cold turned the sea into a shell-like stone. A little later, however, the warmth of the sun’s rays, shining down, broke up the continuity of the frozen brine, and from thence were torn away fragments of crystals, and stones surpassing in size those that fill a wagon. One might say that they were like the summits of deep-gorge hills.
torn away from a height with a great roar, A and tumbling down, while the wall-shattering stones flew, circling and making the light air whistle with their motion. And so, descending from the Euxine Sea, they struck against the seaside walls and shook the solid structures of the towers. When the Emperor saw the bruises and the frequent fractures, or rather the shatterings, his soul was moved at what had happened. Desirous of displaying a wealth of magnificence, he poured out gold as if squandering useless pebbles, and having strengthened what was fragile and raised up what had fallen, he inscribed his own name upon the walls. These things, indeed, are worthy of a tongue that sings of praise; but I am completely astonished at his righteous dealing and his mind, which was no respecter of persons in its judgments. Let there be set before me a small example of his manner of life, as if a cup drawn from the sea, or a taste from a cask, or a tiny spark from a forest-fed furnace. A poor woman approached this Theophilus, crying out against a certain Petronas, a man of high dignity—for he was a *droungarios* of the Watch, as the Romans might say—and he was of the same stock as Theophilus. She cried out passionately and shed tears, entreating that the Emperor become an avenger and stay the hands of the giant-handed Petronas. B For Petronas, having acted from a love of litigation, was obscuring her wretched little dwelling; and she, not being able to bear such great darkness, left the house, as they say, to be wind-swept by the gusts. The Emperor heard these things, investigated the matter, and learned of the malicious conduct of the accused. He demolished that house down to the very foundations, making it a lodging fit for the woman, and, having led Petronas into the middle of the public thoroughfare, he had his flesh darkened with ox-hide scourges. This is a small proof of the soul of Theophilus, capable of manifesting the rest—for even Bocchoris, they say, the king of the Egyptians, was able to discern the most ancient of all languages from the babbling of a single newborn infant. C And his free-heartedness toward shameful gains and his unwillingness to possess gold [gained] from huckstering will be able to confirm what is about to be said. It happened that he was standing up high in the royal palace, where snow-white marble, skillfully carved, represents a cow of vast flanks, and a lion leaping upon the cow and drinking of the slaughter; and these carvings gave the name to the place. There, then, the Emperor stood, directing his eyes toward the sea (for a calm was smiling), and while delighting his sight with the graces of the view, he observed a ship, heavily laden, approaching the shore. D
A As the sun flashed forth the rays of a life of holiness. B While the divine Methodius was still kept in confinement, those heaven-inspired men, with their revered faces branded—whose memory the discourse has already preceded and established—being violently driven toward foreign territory, found a certain fisherman casting his nets and wrote to the righteous man a brief composition in iambic meter. Thinking it not good to allow such a thing to perish in some way, I bestow these iambs themselves upon the reader: « To him who is a living corpse and a corpse-bearing life, Dwelling on earth and treading upon the vault of heaven, The branded captives write to the captive. » To whom he himself, having inscribed in return a reply, writes: « The one living in death addressed as fellow-captives Those who write with the books of the heavens And have their brows chastely branded. » These, indeed, are the golden words of the eloquent men, Distilling straightway the drops of divine nectar. But the noble athlete, the great Methodius, Having endured in that bitter and dark-guarded dwelling, And having had his teeth knocked out and his jaws crushed, And having endured every other form of punishments, Through which the impious struck him inhumanly, Like smiths hammering upon an iron anvil— C Finally, like a day-shining sun, like a lamp, He emerged from that place as if from some horizon, The One who beholds the abysses—as it seems—having willed it, And who sits above the Cherubim and Seraphim.
The West wind blew with gentle-breathing gusts, The sails were stretched out, catching the breeze, And they urged the vessel toward the calm harbors. One might have conjectured, even from far off the brine, That the ship that was approaching was heavily laden; For up to the third belt of the cargo ship, Its weight of merchandise pressed it down into the sea. As he saw it, he inquired whose and what the craft might be. "Of the empress," he heard, "is the ship and the cargo." And he felt a heart-piercing grief within his soul; But, summoning her and having learned about the ship, "Alas, alas, Empress," he says, "to what a life have I arrived? What a fortune—and for what a prosperous one—have I exchanged! The Emperor of the Romans is a seller of goods, And I have become a merchant—alas!—worse than the traders!" And having said these things, he ordered the ship, With its ten-thousand-fold cargo, to be consumed by fire And devoured by the all-consuming flame. B
This same Emperor, having placed the great Methodius In exile on a certain small island, Shut him into a cave as into a tomb like a corpse, As a pearl within a shell, as a rose among thorns, And with him and beside him, two brigands, evildoers. When one of these robbers had departed this life And, by the inevitable necessity of nature, had poured forth That foul-smelling putrefaction and the corruption therefrom, That stout-hearted athlete endured it therein, Which not even an adamant could have withstood. But the other, having been released, did not wish to leave, But remained in that same dark cavern, And having become a zealous follower of the godly life, And having endured every other form of punishment Through which the impious afflicted him inhumanly, Like smiths hammering upon an iron anvil— Finally, like a day-shining sun, like a lamp, He emerged thence as if from some horizon, The One who beholds the abysses and sits above The Cherubim and Seraphim having willed it, as it seems. C
to place this notable man like a fortified city on a lofty mountain, lest so great a virtue, like a lamp under a bushel, should lie hidden in a sad and darksome cave. For it happened that the Emperor Theophilus, always occupied with reading books, whence he fashioned cells of knowledge just as a diligent bee from the flowers of the meadows, encountered certain things like riddles and labyrinths, so that no one, even though there were six hundred men famous for their learning with him, could rightly interpret those hard things or illuminate the obscure ones. Since, therefore, this matter was very troublesome to the Emperor and vexed his mind, one of the nobles and chamberlains approached and preached Methodius, pointing out his gifts, the magnitude of his learning, his store of knowledge, ready and abundant, his prudence and wisdom touching heaven itself with its summit, whether he was moved to do this by God, or was cherishing a secret love toward a man heavenly-minded and full of divine spirit. The Emperor, hearing these things, summons the sacred Methodius, brings him out of the cave like a pearl from a shell, like a star from a cloud, a man shining with most brilliant rays and dispersing the darkness and gloom of ignorance, and calls him to himself. And when he had tasted of the tongue of Methodius, he assigned the illustrious man a dwelling in the palace, placing him as if a great-value and splendid gem, glittering and lucent, in inviolable and inaccessible treasuries; and sitting there frequently by that gold-flowing Nile, he drank plentifully of the sweetest waters.
A Drawing bountifully from the sweet-flowing streams. But when he was about to cross the river of changeable essence, which it is necessary for all who are surrounded by thick mortal flesh to cross—for nature, that swift ferrywoman, compels it, demanding the debt—now in the twelfth year of his reign, he adorned with the crown his son Michael, still a boy tender in age. And since this tender age was, not without cause, suspect to the father, he made the mother a partner in the empire, as one who would be in the place of a guardian to her son. She, who until then had had nocturnal discipleship and was worshipping the sacred images in secret, like Nicodemus, one might say, faint-hearted and timid, then cried out clearly and with boldness, B and sounded forth as a clear, golden trumpet, or rather, as a sweet-voiced bird, raising its young, calling together the flightless birds from all sides, which had hidden themselves until the fowler should pass by. And having held most excellent seeds in her heart, like a fertile field, a rich furrow, she did not put forth a sprout while the winter was raging; but when the bitterness of the winter season had passed, and the spring smiled and the sadness was dissolved, then, indeed, then she both brought forth a multi-colored sprout and a crop full of ears of corn, and full of fruitfulness, waving in the soft-blowing zephyrs. Vers. 4983
A B Having therefore gathered together men who might be called 38 "cultivators" — one might say, industrious and proven — she plucked out the thorn of iconoclasm. 16 Having fervently besought these divine men to entreat the Deity on behalf of him who had been her husband, and having persuaded them and received full assurance that Theophilus had been delivered from the torments there, she partook of a meal with these holy men, providing a rich and sumptuous feast. C Among them was Theophanes, he of the golden tongue, he who held the bitter branding on his forehead, being at that time the chief-shepherd of the city of the Nicaeans. As Theodora was gazing intently at him, seemingly struck with admiration at the man's endurance, he, understanding, spoke harshly and bitterly: "Dost thou see, O Empress, these marks upon my brow? Because of these, I shall contend against thy husband in that court where the universal Judge judges impartially, neither accepting a person, nor taking bribes, nor feeling awe for a purple chlamys." At these words, that woman, so celebrated among women, having wailed passionately from the center of her heart, and having placed her tear-choked face in her hands, like some dark-watered fountain from above onto the rocks, pouring forth the stream of her veins' wellsprings, broke out with a pitiable cry, a token of the storm within. D "Dost thou, too, and all the choir, so declare?" At this point, the honey-tongued divine Methodius, shepherding the holy flock of the New Rome, rebukes the great boldness of Theophanes, consoles that noble empress, artfully obstructs the rivers of her tears, calms the heavy tempest of her heart, instilling words as oil, softening to the soul.
So long as the emperor was still a young boy, the empress and mother Theodora stayed with him and managed everything skillfully, steering the heavily-laden ship of the imperial rule with decorum. But when Michael had already reached his prime and began to manage the magnitude of imperial affairs alone, he proved in deed that the fable was true. For, immediately, like another youth, a Phaethon, having mounted the chariot, he drove the fire-breathing horses and ruined the entire Roman territory; he himself was unseated from his grandfather's and father's rule, and fell headlong, striking his head and back. For he turned into another Nero, living a life of dissolute indulgence, given to wine, effeminate, unchaste, drunk, pouring out whole abysses of money upon his boon companions, jesters, and filthy charioteers, and mimes. From the first light of day they were given over to drunkenness, and lived a Sybaritic, pleasure-loving life, seeking greedily delicious foods and sweet morsels, spending all their days among shamelessly...
A seeking out pleasures of tasty foods, and living day by day with licentious women, drinking and playing and doting on women, such as was formerly Sardanapalus, the king of Nineveh. Living with such corrupted men, drunkards, perpetrators of unspeakable things and evil deeds, leaders of the rites of vice, he became a companion of the thyrsus-bearing Maenads, and reveled in Dionysian bacchic rites. Hence there were carousings and dances and drunkneness and mixing bowls, and the echoes of indecent and harlot-songs, and mocking contortions and all uncleanness. Fables say that Actaeon, the hunter of wild beasts, was torn apart by his hounds, which had gone mad, as if he were a beast; but the flatterers who surrounded Michael, their beards shaved off, painted with white lead, into what abyss of vice did they not cast him? Hence that notable Emperor of the Romans himself used to mount golden-rimmed chariots, and sat on four-horse carriages and golden thrones. And the treasuries of money were drained from every side, and the affairs of the Romans were reduced to dire straits, while the flatterers abounded in lavish wealth and delicate tunics and garments inwoven with gold. Thus tenderly and softly did Michael live. And often, when no necessity pressed upon him, B without guards or escort, without bodyguards, he moved alone through the midst of the crossroads, unseemly, obsessed with the theater, rejoicing in chariot races. And he became a father of children in the spirit: the infants of mimes and charioteers, as a loving father, he bore in his arms, taken from the font of divine regeneration. Hence (for the veins of gold did not suffice, being exhausted for so many filthy channels) the gold-wrought robes of the emperors of old, and the golden trees, and the chirping birds, and the hammered lions made of gold, and simply everything royal that shone in the palace, which formerly Theophilus had zealously fashioned to be a brilliant splendor for the Romans, were delivered to the furnace, and wickedly poured out into abominable and filthy pipes, riddled with holes. Nor did that swinish creature dare only these things, but, advancing day by day to a worse life, the basest man raved against the holy and venerable mysteries, even to the Seraphim, and pouring sharp mustard juice into the chalice, he went through the motions, in sport, of the fearful liturgy, playing, as they say, with things not meant for play, C and laughing at things which are in no way laughable. Seeing Michael living thus, and becoming a laughing-stock to the Emperor of the Romans, his mother felt her innards churn and her soul was inwardly shaken, and she sought to chasten him with words, to correct him, to advise him, and tried to lead him away from his abominable and shameful deeds.
but was, as the saying goes, conversing with the dead, chanting exhortations to one who is deaf. A There was an uncle of his named Bardas, a man of wicked devices, guiding and turning everything, who, having crept into Michael like a worm into sweet wood and having consumed his heart and left it hollow, persuaded him to drive out the empress Theodora, to cast out her who had given him birth from the palace, and to adorn him with the title of Caesar. Having thus taken the wretched man, now alone and abandoned, and having—as the common saying has it—like the madmen of men, cut off his right hand with his left, or rather, to speak more truly, having rendered him powerless and handless, or, according to the Aesopic fable, having made him like a demented sheep that, by the advice of the wolf, has driven off the dogs, he drew the power from the emperor to himself and did everything he wished as a very autocrat. B Yet more, he had even rolled himself into a lawlessness such as no Scythian, no Persian, no Sarmatian has ever perpetrated, cohabiting openly with the wife of his legitimate son (alas for such licentious intent!) as if she were his own bedfellow. The great Ignatius heard of this terrible thing—he who at that time was governing the royal city—for this abomination was being spoken of everywhere in the streets and in houses, and the scandal was running into everyone’s ears. And so he sought to bring to his senses the Caesar Bardas C with words, with terrors, and with threats of future punishments; he rebuked, he corrected, he censured, he admonished, setting in motion every device for the cutting off of the passion. But in all of this, the true saying of Solomon was fulfilled, which tells us to refrain from reproving the wicked. For reproofs are like lashes to the ungodly, and they strike perverse hearts like arrows. For the Caesar, being embittered by the reproachful words with which the God-bearing man had rebuked him, not only took no heed of his exhortations, but nurtured a grudge against him who gave the advice, acting just as if those who are ill and are being treated by someone, instead of fleeing, were to grow even more savage against their benefactor. D Hence, when Bardas one day approached the mysteries and did not obtain that divine gift (for sweet-smelling ointments are not entrusted to a putrid vessel), he was inflamed with wrath like a roaring lion; like a leopard he sprang upon the righteous man and snatched and pulled him from the helm, and set up Photius in his place (alas, what a man in place of what a man!). From that point on, the brine of piracy surged up, vying to sink the holy Ignatius. For the Caesar blew like the deep-roaring north wind, like the wild Euraquilo, like the foul-breathing north-northeast wind; and heavy storms and tempests were raised up. But who shall be able to portray the afflictions Vers. 5145
which Photius and Bardas inflicted upon him, so that he might indicate in his own handwriting that he wished to lay aside the sacred vesture? A They uproot his teeth, they crush his cheeks, alas! and break his jaws. And just like some criminal, a ringleader of robbers, whom they delight to punish, they lay him out naked and bound (O sun and earth!) in a cold marble sarcophagus, stinking and defiled with dung, which contained the detestable corpse of Copronymus. But the bold hand did not remain hidden from God unto the end. The deviser of evils paid the penalty, and the contriver of these miseries drank the cup of divine wrath. For Bardas, while digging a pit of slaughter for the Emperor, fell headlong into it himself by a just judgment, and the evildoer Photius is cast out from the throne. Thus nothing escapes the eyes of God, thus God recompenses the proud, as the most melodious lyre of David sings.
The Emperor Michael, taking delight in chariot-racing B and doting demonically upon his beloved equestrian exercises, consorted and spent time with those who were mad for the theater, himself filling the role of a charioteer. And once, when he was skillfully maneuvering his four-horse chariot, and was hailed by someone with the title of "Little Basil" (Basiliskos), he rewarded the one who praised him not with gold or gems, but bestowed upon him imperial dignity.
A When the great Basil the Macedonian saw this—he who had been promoted to be Emperor by this very Michael—and when he perceived the instability of the man's purpose, he determined that he must anticipate and forestall him. Hence he mixes a cup of slaughter for Michael, who had reigned for fourteen years, and he becomes the sole ruler and master, holding the scepter. For neither daughter nor son was born to Michael; for the seed of those who are prone to the orgies of Aphrodite, the wise say, lacks the power of generation. B They say that when Theodora, who was an Empress in soul and fortune, once saw this, she spoke thus to Michael: "O Emperor and son, do you see this great and robust man, whom you honor and who constantly lives with you? This man, alas! will consume our family like a dragon, and will raid and kill and utterly destroy them, just like the helpless fledglings of an unhappy hen."
But it is worthwhile to speak of the things concerning Basil, whence he sprang, and who were his progenitors. He originated from a humble village close to the queen of cities, the brilliant city of the Macedonians, which once bore the name of Orestes before the Emperor of the Romans, Hadrian, having rebuilt it, bestowed upon the city his own name. And the parents and the cultivators of this fair-branched tree
A were not noble by birth, nor reared among flocks, nor boasting in acres of land, but were self-supporting laborers, poor and living by the work of their hands. When these had departed this life and migrated from the earth, and the prince of the Bulgarians at that time, Krum, had overrun the whole of the Roman territory and filled his army with spoils, having extinguished the entire flower of the youth and reduced many to slavery, Basilius too was captured by the Bulgarians like some fair-winged bird by a cruel fowler. But having escaped the savage snares of the Bulgarians, he returned again to the borders of the Romans, and having hired himself out as a poor man for service, and having endured suffering and labored through many toils, and knowing that he was casting the fruits of his labor into barren ground, he departs from his kinsmen and the land of his birth, and deeming all other things small and lowly, he was borne toward his goal, the city of Byzantium. And when he had entered within the tower-girt city, there one must observe his resourceful counsel, how he had laid the roots of affairs long before, and how venerable is the status of the empire. Basilius was sleeping B thus neglected, wrapped in tattered rags, not having brought gold or silver from home, but looking only to his own hands, and bearing them as his only resource for a life of much sorrow. He was sleeping, then, on a bed of brick—near the gate of the church of the divine Diomedes. But then a white-winged dream flew down upon this scene. It quickly awakens the verger there and urges him to bring the Emperor inside. The verger leaps from his own bed, walks quickly to the vestibule, and finds Basilius sleeping lithely, lying on the ground, with unwashed feet, wretched, and clad in rags. He thinks the vision was a delusion and turns and leaves. And again sleep fell upon his eyelids, and again the same dream, and this up to the third time. The verger barely understood and discerned it; he makes Basilius a guest at once and deems him worthy of proper care. Now Basilius was handsome, noble, possessed of giant hands, a hero broad-chested and strong-armed. C From that time on, gradually having made his strength known, he was on the tongues of all the magnates. And why pursue the matter at long and unnecessary length? He became known to Michael, and at first was honored with the post of superintendent of the horses; then became *parakoimomenos*—a great office among the Romans—and finally Emperor, and he spoke with him. But having condemned the reigning one as a drinker and a drunkard and one rejoicing in revels and theater-mania, he drove the sword through his vitals and seized the power of the state before the time. D Immediately he thrusts Photius from the Church and restores the throne to Ignatius.
A Desiring also to distribute money to the common people, and having searched through the gold-guarding treasuries which formerly held stores of wealth, when he saw them all parched and containing not even a drop, he grieved, bore it heavily, came, and was distressed. He did not know what to do; he was at a loss on all sides. For an emperor in need of immense wealth is just like an aged eagle, decrepit and thrice-old, stripped of its wings, its talons, and its beak. Hence Basil was troubled and distressed. For the emperor Michael, having emptied everything and squandered it on miming playmates and boon companions, had not only caused golden griffins to be melted down, but also that golden plane tree with its broad shade, in which all kinds of golden birds were perched, and which chirped a melody as if from a living tongue, and filled those who heard them with astonishment, as they marveled at the novelty of that device. And the account comes now, welling up with sorrow and lamentations and tears, about to groan heavily.
Leo, the most learned among philosophers, had crafted for the beauty-loving emperor Michael, son of Theophilus, a marvelous instrument of privilege, by which he enabled the emperor, as he spent time in the midst of the imperial palaces, to see at any hour if some innovation were being attempted among the Arabs or Syrians. When Michael was one day performing chariot races, the news was brought to him from someone that a Syrian army had set out with a heavy, fierce, and violent rush. Hearing this, Michael—fearing that the multitude, disturbed by what was heard, might abandon the theater—immediately ordered the device to be smashed. Alas for his boorishness! Alas for his madness! Alas, alas! What a treasure of the Romans the man destroyed—a filthy man, a drunken, beast-like sot! B And these things have been sufficiently lamented by me in this account.
But the emperor Basil, having now perceived the fortune of the Romans, alas, sinking to its knees and in danger of falling wretchedly upon its face, or rather, to speak more accurately, failing and drawing its last breath, determined that he must employ imperial wisdom and provide for its salvation, for it was all but dead and ready to be committed to the tomb. Thenceforth: constant toils and cares and labors, breastplates worn about the chest and iron accoutrements, bloodthirsty wars and constant anxieties, a life shielded by armor, and helmets and spears, and eyelids drawing not to the fill of sleep. Thenceforth he revived the state for the Romans, and the fortune of the empire, which had grown old and wrinkled, he made again like a blooming and lovely maiden. Then the barbarians recognized the beast that had previously been asleep, now vigorously aroused against those who did him wrong; and all, trembling, fled into the thickets. And again the rod of the Romans prevailed. And when the waves of flight...
had brought him to the harbor of the heavens, that deep-thinking Photius, always thirsting for the throne, and ever hastening to obtain power in the Church once more, devised a certain profound and crooked scheme. He takes only the first letters of the names of the Emperor, his sons, and the Augusta, and he composes the word "BECLAS," and having explained this to the learned men of that time, and having caused them no small trouble, he seemed to the Emperor to be a man of great wisdom, and so he was again settled upon the much-coveted throne.
But the mind is a slippery thing for all mortals, and certain innate fates accompany mankind. For this ruler, who was quite profound in understanding, having been persuaded by certain snake-like men, who weave deceits and construct plots and separate those most dear from their fathers—daughter from mother, bridegroom from bride—such as that wretch Santabarenus, imprisoned his own son, Leo, as if he were supposedly setting snares of death against his father—a man most philosophical, full of all knowledge, and trained from childhood in all branches of learning, whom the furnace of calamities and the crucible of evils proved to be gold, ringing with no hint of alloy. Here there were lamentations and weepings of a mother beseeching and begging the father for her wretched son; but he was inflexible and as unyielding as stone, and as another hard adamant towards natural affection.
There were there mourning women and those who sing monodies, bitterly bewailing that calamity. That house was a house of mourning and groaning. There was also a musical bird there in the house, where bitter lamentation and wailing echoed. This bird, hearing constantly the voices of those mourning, and having learned those sad cries, joined its voice with them in crying out for the young man, and brought forth the name of Leo, and would join in the lamentation. Basil, once hearing this bird talking and carrying the name of Leo in its mouth, and seeing those present shedding warm tears (there was a sumptuous supper of good food at that time), he yielded; his hardness of heart was softened, ashamed, as it seems, lest he might appear in regard to natural affection to be more unsympathetic than a bird. He leads him, therefore, out of the prison, and looks upon him with a fatherly gaze. And now, about to die and come to the tomb, he transfers the imperial power to him.
Once, when this Emperor was making a procession and had arrived at the church of the martyr Mocius, a certain wild man, similar to those possessed by demons, a man unstable in his bearing and his gaze, pounces—
and with a staff he strikes a fatal blow upon his head. Being captured and forced under torture to declare those whom he had as accomplices in this crime, he could say nothing, as disease was severely vexing the man. When a certain holy man, who was able to foresee future events by the divine spirit and was adorned with various gifts, named Marcus, observed the emperor gripped by severe pain and thinking that some greater evil was about to befall him, he applied medicine to him with words, as if with a soothing balm, and uttered a prophecy of this sort: "Do not, I entreat you, emperor, expect the end of your life to be upon you, nor let the thought of death enter your mind. For ten years of life and reign have been granted to you by the hand from above." A He who had spoken thus fell silent, and the emperor was immediately relieved of both the wound and the distress. The prediction of Marcus did not come to pass in vain.
This Leo was joined in marriage to four wives, not overcome by lust, but longing and striving to see children born of his own loins. From the fourth and last, therefore, he begets a purple-born son, to whom the name Constantine was given. But it seemed most absurd to the ministers of God that the emperor had done this, namely, to introduce a fourth marriage and to defile the incorrupt and pure bride, the Church. And therefore Nicolaus, who was the first among the chief pastors and was governing Constantinople at that time— B speaking the testimony of God before kings, and neither cowering nor trembling at the threats from them. Thus the fear of God casts far away the fear of powerful men and those in authority. From this he is driven out from the flock and the throne, and the sentence of exile is passed upon him. Another is brought in instead, a man very learned in divine things, who from his tenderest years and from earliest childhood having taken upon himself the yoke of the monastic life, had his dwelling on Olympus in Mysia, and shone forth with gifts of foretelling the future. This man, at God’s command, unites the Church, which had been torn into many schisms and divisions over the transgression of the fourth marriage.
The most philosophical among emperors, Leo, having fallen into the natural necessities of the body and being tossed by a disease that threatened danger, C having already governed the imperial power and the fortune of the Romans for twenty-six years, and seeing death and the dissolution of his frame approaching, he appoints as emperors and absolute sovereigns Alexander his brother and his son Constantine, declaring this alone with his final breaths: "I see Alexander also as a bringer of evil time after thirteen months," speaking this openly. D Acting as a mouthpiece for the testimony of God before kings, and neither cowering nor trembling at the threats from them. Thus the fear of God casts far away the fear instilled by powerful men and those in command. Therefore, he is driven out from his flock and throne, and a sentence of exile is passed upon him. Another is substituted in his place, a man most learned in divine matters, who from his earliest youth and first age had led a solitary life on Mount Olympus in Mysia and was endowed with the gift of prophecy. This man, by divine mandate, brought the Church to unity, though it had been multiplied and divided into parts because of the transgression of Leo’s fourth marriage.
When Leo, the most learned among emperors, was seized by a disease which threatened the danger of life, having now administered the Roman empire for twenty-six years, and perceived that death was imminent for him, he creates Alexander, his brother, and Constantine, his son, emperors; as he was in his final gasps and already giving up the ghost, he pronounced only this: "I see Alexander also (alas, for the sparing and malicious time) after thirteen months have passed." He wished to signify the reign of Alexander as—
a duration of time; and this utterance of Leo was by no means vain or false. For Alexander, diverted by pleasures and over-indulging in carousing, and devoted only to the titillations of the body, having performed or said nothing worthy of such an empire, nor even conceived of such in his mind, withered away like a flower through the strength of the sun, and was quickly consumed by disease. And so, upon the death of Leo, Constantinus alone obtained the empire, a boy still of tender age, little fit for the steering of the empire, immature in years, having in fact reached only his seventh year at that time; a state of affairs which provided occasion for many evils and miraculously afflicted the emperor, although it had a happy outcome as time went on. For just as a freshly planted tree, which on account of its still tender roots cannot yet endure the cold winter, nor the most savage blasts of winds, nor more violent showers, nor burning heats, nor hailstorms and flying tempests, if, when harassed from anywhere by rising winds or hail, it nevertheless escapes their more serious force and emerges unharmed, it becomes more hardened, since the tree, exercised by the winds and the sun, is said to possess much natural strength: A so also this Constantine, son of Leo, having obtained the empire in his first childhood, after he had with difficulty survived many years of continuous calamities, troubles, and afflictions, gained a much firmer prudence, like a sailor tossed by heavy storms and with difficulty brought into a tranquil port. For first that most strong Constantine, whom they say was born to Andronicus Ducas as father, having gathered a great, well-equipped, and arrayed hand of armed men, suddenly attacked the emperor, despising, of course, his childlike age. But truly a deceptive thing, as David sings, is a fierce, agile, swift, and snorting horse for salvation. For Constantine was thrown from his equestrian saddle and fell headlong to the ground, and was immediately run through by the sword. When this heavy storm had scarcely passed, another arose, far graver than it. For Leo Phocas, holding the rank of magister, a man distinguished by the stature of his body and his strength, to whom all the Roman armies were entrusted, when he saw that the emperor had received the old man Romanus Lacapenus, a drungary of the naval force, already long harboring designs of tyranny, and having restrained his impulse because the occasion was not yet offering itself, then finally having found the opportunity, as
he thought, he gave vent to the burden of his grievous birth, and brought out the viper from his belly into the light; and having long been nursing within himself a spark of malice, he then ignited the pyre of a roaring furnace. And so, pretending that he was exerting himself for the emperor and doing everything to his advantage, as if he had been deceived by Romanos, he armed himself with an army that flowed in from many places: from the Lycaonians, from the Thracians, from the Colchians, from the Iberians, from the Pamphylians, from the Mysians, from the Syrians, from the Cilicians, and having gathered phalanxes like the sand of the sea A, noble fighting men, all of them archers, breathing fire in their battles, men skilled in close combat, he pitched his camp at Chrysopolis, situated opposite the city of the Byzantines, which if one were to call "Ouranopolis" [Heavenly City], he would not be mistaken. And he filled the plains with martial men, and all the earth was bronze-clad. The spears flashed, the helmets shone, the shields clattered, the air shimmered with the lance-points. There were the golden-shielded, there were the archers, the fine-horsed, the bronze-clad, all of them bearing iron. Even giants would have shuddered at such an encampment. But he himself, while reigning and contriving everything against the ruler, did not remain hidden in the end.
C Then, seeking a pretext for Romanos, he pretended to be campaigning against Romanos himself and to be moving such a large military phalanx, stitching on the fox-skin with exceeding craftiness; for he did not everywhere manage to reach [the skin of] the lion. For the old man, Romanos, being commander of the fleet and from that position possessing no small strength, seeing the power being tossed here and there and wallowing miserably like a ship which winter storms and savage gale-winds and swirling gusts shake and toss, and the affairs of the Romans falling in confusion and ill-fatedly, as if held in the hand of a newborn child, he approached the attendants and chamberlains of the emperor, those who seemed to be more favorably disposed toward the ruler, and having communicated to them more secret counsels, and having deliberated with them and woven a plot together, and having devised, with deep-counseling schemes, varied contrivances, he set himself to dare a violent tyranny, and to bring, for this purpose, a whole fleet D, so that a wild, ill-boding swell of rumor from then on might thunder and roar against the emperor, and all be shaken by the surge of fear, until the shifting, ever-turning wind of fortune drove Romanos to the very courts of the rulers, as if into the calm arms of a harbor of sheltered winds. For, persuaded by the chief counselors, or rather the conspirators, the emperor treats Romanos as a friend and establishes him as guardian of his life and his authority.
Constantine Manasses
One might say not ineptly, nor ungraciously, that the crocodile is to the sandpiper, and the pinna scallop to the crab. Thus Leo Phocas, whom I have mentioned before, learning that Romanos was managing the emperor and, like a servant, was carrying and turning the king—that tender shoot of the purple—wherever he pleased, feigned that he was suffering on his behalf and leading his army to defend him out of good will, while in truth he was drawing the power to himself. A But he who catches the wise in their own craftiness, and turns aside their plans, and knows what is hidden, turns the schemes of Leo to the contrary effect, and Leo was revealed to be a wolf gaping to no purpose. For, persuaded by the counsels of Romanos, the emperor sent a letter, signed in red, to the army, accusing Phocas of manifest tyranny and bearing further witness to the goodness of Romanos. From this, a cacophonous confusion and tempest arose in the army, and Leo Phocas was a strangely-feathered crow; for, reverencing the emperor's letter, I suppose, all fled, leaving the wretched man alone. Thus Phocas is taken alive, his horns are extinguished, and he is blinded of the lanterns of his eyes; and once again Romanos was leading and carrying all things.
Yet, trustfully made guardian of the [young] emperor, suddenly he appeared as a hostile stepmother instead of one of good will; and this, as the saying goes, is like scaring away the wolves A only so that he himself might tear the sheep to pieces and devour it. For the sovereign, believing Romanos to be well-disposed and a guardian of his life and preserver of the empire, first honors him as *magistros* and great *hetaireiarch*, then, adding yet greater glory to that honor, and exalting him from a lowly station to the height of pride, makes him father and guardian of the empire. And, drawing Romanos further into ties of affection, he bestows upon his daughter the promises of a wedding. And now, about to host the marriage feast and sacrifice for the bride, he even crowns the father-in-law of the emperor. These things the emperor would do for Romanos, drawing him in, as he thought, to ties of affection. B But the deep-thinking Romanos, having planned much in his heart and secured the affairs of the state to himself on every side, having betrothed his daughter to the emperor as if to a king, from the four-horse chariot of his authority, alas! he—the grandfather—casts down his purple-born son-in-law, his superior, and granting the unfortunate man only the name of emperor, and having used him most unfortunately, he himself takes hold of the reins of government, and Romanos is the emperor even on the tongues of all. And Constantine is nowhere; for fortune hindered him and covered him like a cloud over a star. Nay, having partaken of such ambrosia to satiety, he did not stop the gluttony of his mind at these points.
A He poorly snatched the bread of another and fed his own with it, leaving the one to whom the bread truly belonged to starve; for he proclaimed his own children, and with them Christopher the son of his own child, emperors and sovereigns of the Ausonians. And that which was more painful and caused greater bitterness, touching even their very bones and hearts, was that he placed them all before Constantine in his proclamations, in his writings, and on thrones. He was, then, a many-headed hydra in the palace, and a crop was growing up in the face of the emperors, just as the myth recounts of the earth-born sowers, men sprung from a dragon with teeth that grew, and in their midst the long-suffering ear of the purple was like a rose choked by sharp-pointed thorns. But when Romanus had finished securing everything B and had vaulted a wall in the manner of Semiramis, or had pitched a giant-built tower of Chalane with asphalt, then, falling upon his head and back, he was broken and, having been rolled out of his throne, the wretch was cast into Tartarus. For the purple-born sovereign Constantine, having already entered into a vigorous, manly age—when the torch of prudence shines upon men—having taken to himself good counselors, as Hercules took Iolaus and Theseus took Pirithous, he cut off the serpentine heads of the hydra and prepared the sowers to fall upon one another, and having struck off the thick and murky cloud, he shed the purer rays of the throne.
C First, therefore, Romanus, reaching old age, having already become an old man of three ages according to those of long life, and having passed a great deal of time in power, and having held the scepter for twenty-five years, and having filled everyone with gifts and done good to all, is cast from the throne by his own children and has the hair that formerly adorned his crown shorn off; one might say, the elder-born Cronus by Zeus. Then, the purple-born sovereign Constantine took Romanus’s most wicked children and ostracized them, placing them on an island. And then for the first time he looked upon the old woman, the empire, as a girl adorned with gold, wearing pearls, as one with a shining, delicate tunic, as one pampered; and she smiled warmly upon him and spoke to him, and they were joined as in a marriage for the begetting of children. He established Bardas Phocas as commander-in-chief, whom the Romans would call Domestic of the Schools, and Basilius the eunuch, one of the outcasts—who was the natural son of the Lacapenus—as bedroom attendant and guardian of the imperial bed. D Since Bardas’s fervor for battles had been extinguished (for old age was cooling his impulsive rush), he transferred the command of the armies to Nicephorus Phocas—one might say, from the lion to his whelp.
Having been blessed to see a son born from his own loins, whom he saw born of Helena, the daughter of Romanus, he named him Romanus. When he had reached puberty, he united him in marriage, and upon seeing a grandson born of his son, Basil, the greatest emperor, he gave him into his care as an infant. Having spent five years in power without a partner or disturbance, and being about to be loosed from the bonds of nature, he installed the boy Romanus as joint-emperor. A But he gave over all power and all authority to wicked and narrow-minded eunuchs, while he himself concerned himself with hunting and the chase, and became demonically obsessed with the chariot races. At that time, the hostile Arabs held Crete, having established it as a powerful refuge, and were ravaging the seas and plundering everything. Nicephorus Phocas (for he was sharp in battle, fiery in his charge, and swift of hand) was proclaimed commander of the fleet and entrusted with the war. He filled the sea with well-equipped, fair-prowed ships, was sent against these land-and-sea beasts, joined a hard battle, defeated his opponents, sank the pirate ships of the Hagarenes, captured their leader—that most daring man—and seized the giant-handed warrior like a child. Departing from there with brilliant trophies, B he celebrated a magnificent and splendid triumph.
At that time the fair city, the city of Antioch, that noble, comely maiden adorned like a bride, had been taken by spear-point by murderous Ishmaelites, who disgraced her as a thrice-enslaved woman, a harlot standing at the crossroads. But again that thrice-victorious Phocas unsheathed his sword; again he moved against the bloodthirsty, foreign enemies. He broke the barbarians, fought for his own kin, and again restored the comely, fair-skinned maiden to her mother, the most skillful of all artisans.
While Phocas was still waging this war, death snatched away the Emperor Romanus, who had left the power to his wife, Theophano, and the children he had sired by her, having ruled for fourteen years. Phocas heard these things, departed from there, and making haste, arrived at the great city, and was again proclaimed commander of the eastern armies. Bound by fearful oaths to the empress that he would not plot against the children of Romanus, he again departed for Syria.
But the cruel beast, Envy—that heart-devouring bear of the earth-born—could not rest. And so, a certain daring man from among those in the palace, who at that time was managing all the state affairs according to his own judgment, pricked by the thorn of envy against the general and unable to endure seeing such great prosperity of fortune for Nicephorus Phocas, who was sailing with a fair wind, inscribed swift letters to Tzimiskes, urging him by them that, after killing Phocas, he should seize Byzantium—the future...
334 sovereign and lord of the Romans. John Tzimiskes receives that letter, he runs through the written commands and, boasting a mind hostile to wickedness and eager for goodness, he hands these over to Phocas; he denounces the plot, he expresses loathing for the murderous intent of that eunuch. Now Tzimiskes was handsome, fair of face, of good complexion, with fine hair; enduring, merciful, brave, and of manly spirit, an invincible fighter and a sharp strategist, a man magnanimous, temperate, courageous, and gentle, and trained to brandish a long-shadowed spear and to pull the string of the bow back to the notch for the arrows. A man of free spirit, cherishing no grudge, not fashioning his heart as a lair for malice, nor envious of the gloomy, ill-tempered camel. If one must briefly summarize that which is long and great, he was a living paradise, cultivating graces, a grove of countless goods, planted by the palms of God, flourishing with shoots, watered by the golden-flowing streams of the Spirit, in which the whole circle of virtues danced, while the choir of graces chanted in response. Such a man as Tzimiskes was in virtue, and so great, and at that time it fell to him to accompany Phocas and to fulfill the role of sub-commander for him (for he was also a kinsman of Phocas and of the same blood).
As soon as he held the letter in his hands and had unfolded it, he ran his mind over the contents, and he conveyed everything to the chief commander and said, "Alas, O general, for the fortune of the Romans! How long shall effeminate eunuchs, who are fertile in malice, steer the ship of state—men who are procurers for wickedness, inventors of all evils, doers of all evils, soft-hearted men, vessels of iniquity, conductors of unlawful deeds, pipelines of villainy?" The general heard these things, and he raised a flame of anger. From that point on, the slumbering mountain-lion opened his eyes and uttered a roar, and fear ran through the thickets, the woods, and the mountains. He is proclaimed emperor, reaches Constantinople, enters without danger; he is seen, he sees, he gives joy. And the whole multitude, as many as were among the citizenry, and as many as were puffed up by the splendor of their lineage, and as many as were among the laborers, and as many as were in fine robes, before all others the empress together with the priests, receives the man with upturned palms. And by common vote Nicephorus becomes emperor. For he was most strategic, daring, with a powerful hand, indomitable in labors, like an anvil standing fast against toils. And he unites with Theophano, the former empress, and shows a sort of fatherly affection toward the children of Romanus. Above all, he proved his virility of heart in the empire and his ardor in battles. For the impulses of spirit in Phocas were noble, and he gave proofs of his constancy immediately from the beginning, having long since shown...
A himself to be a skilled horseman. But while the faculty of acting resided with others, he suppressed the generosity of his soul deep within his heart, not otherwise than as one might keep a firebrand, like some seed of fire, hidden in ashes. But when he had obtained the opportunity and the power to act, having received the command, he was carried along like a whirlwind with great impetus, and he ran around all the barbarian tribes, like fire, one might say, falling into a dense thicket and driven by winds and wandering everywhere, consuming every growing plant and every green thing. The Arabs fled before him, the Syrian submitted, the Cilician fled, the Phoenician drew back, and the things of the Romans were returned to the Romans. Thus Phocas was invincible to his adversaries. For the circle of virtues surrounded the man, and he adorned every good, and graced every virtue: strength, courage, prudence, mildness, temperance. But for all that, no one among men on earth is blameless, even if one should ascend to the summit of virtue. And so the ever-victorious Phocas, so great as he was, shone in other respects, in the goods of the body, and showed his soul B to be shining with graces like a bride adorned in white, like a delicate-complexioned girl. For he took such care of the beauty of his soul that he would afflict his little body with a hair-shirt and keep a harsh tunic hidden beneath the purple, and abstain from meats at his table. In other matters, therefore, he was a lamp shining by day, radiant; yet, as one bearing earthly and earthen flesh, he carried also stains of certain offenses, like stains upon a clean garment that are difficult to wash away. For, as those who wrote in earlier times relate, although he was joined to the Empress by spiritual kinship, nevertheless he dared to unite her to himself in carnal marriage as well. To this stain was added another, altogether unworthy of a prince, namely, avarice. Indeed, all liberality was absent from him, just as an eye from a body, or leaves from a terebinth. And from this cause all the virtue and beauty of Phocas appeared very much disfigured and unsightly. For indeed, from the body of the girl having been shorn, the whole frame is dimmed, the whole body is wretched; and when the delicate foliage of the terebinth has fallen away, the branches are graceless, the trunk useless. And let there also be to me a mark of his lack of generosity. A famine preyed upon the land under the Romans, and the multitude was afflicted by the fire-tongs of this evil, and all lamented the sting of want; for a medimnos was scarcely bought for a gold coin. These matters reached Phocas, and he felt pain hearing them. C D
and pretending to be zealous to cure the evil, he orders the public grain-stores to be emptied, and that two medimnoi be sold for one gold coin. Thus did Phocas deal with the matter in a petty manner, even though he possessed thousands of grain-stores overflowing with burdens and stuffed with corn, from which had been hoarded store in former times of plenty. He was not zealous in this like the great Basil, the truly kingly one from Macedonia, who, having seen the Byzantine multitude suffering, and having learned that famine was the cause of the grief, skillfully arrayed himself against that unendurable affliction, struggling nobly against the noble, and destroying the heavy beast with more violent suffocations; for he ordered twelve medimnoi to be worth one gold coin for the buyers. And let each one judge these things as he pleases. But Phocas, being stung by a certain suspicion that the Empress might have a bond of love with Tzimiskes, and that the ways of lovers were occurring between them, and having heard that Tzimiskes was fervently desiring the throne, deprives him of all office and power, and orders him to live by himself as he wishes, having done nothing else unpleasant to the man. But the Empress, considering this a heavy matter, not seeing Tzimiskes in the imperial halls, persuades Phocas to recall the man and to restore to him his former splendor.
A And so, being heart-wounded, that man returned, bearing hidden wounds in his soul; in appearance, indeed, he pretended to be dispassionate and not heavy-hearted, and appeared cheerful, but inside he was fermenting with terrible things and was seething in his depths, and he was undermining all his crafty schemes. But Phocas the Emperor, not discerning the snares and the nooses of the plots being dug beneath him, was borne aloft like an eagle with ether-traversing wings, and was lightly fluttering toward the air of virtue. From there, on the lips of David the honeyed one, and the hard-laid bed of worthless pallets; but as for soft-bedded couches of purple-clad beds, and bodily unions and things pertaining to unions, he did not even imagine them in a dream, but according to the one who said, B he inferred all sweetness by the stars. Therefore, he held himself far away, he fled and lived in exile, he became as a solitary sparrow upon a roof, and as a wakeful night-owl upon the house-tops. But these things were not pleasing to the Empress; for she needed embraces and bodily union. Therefore, having taken hold of Tzimiskes in a timely manner, seeing that she had become bound by his love (for he, too, was ill-disposed toward the Emperor), she brings him up secretly with many sword-bearers, sets him as a hunter at the lion's lair, and delivers—alas!—his own bed-mate to his enemies, even as the most bloodthirsty Delilah to Samson, C as Helen to her bed-fellow, she looked upon this fighter, this man of Edessa, the Euphrates [plain].
plains.
What lioness, rearer of cubs, has dared such a thing? What tigro-pard, or heavy-hearted bear? What buprestis or hammerhead shark, the pests of the sea? Those dogs, searching for Phocas, ran in, they found him lying humble upon a mat, and slew him as he brought the holy things to his mouth, after he had been sole emperor of the Romans for six years. B And the blood of the righteous man was poured out upon the earth, as once Abel was slain by his brother-murderer Cain, and sent forth lamentable cries to God. But Tzimiskes set the crown upon his head, and again the Arabs saw him as commander-in-chief, and again the Syrians tasted of a more active sword, and again Chabdan the phylarch fled headlong. This emperor, having brandished his sword against his enemies and terrified every barbarian bordering on the Romans, persuaded them to cast aside the arrogance of their pride; and the borders of the Romans, which had been straitened by their enemies, he widened with the measuring-lines of vast lands, and he pitched his tents up to the streams of the Tigris. The commanders of the Cilician garrisons shuddered at his steel; the commanders of the Abbades feared his strength; the Phoenician fled with his fiery hands; the Syrian, fleeing the spear, became pale.
The horse of the Romans drank of the waters of the Euphrates, and filled it with the snorting of its trumpeting. C Edessa saw this man, the Euphrates plains saw him. The Danube saw him, and the Scythian neighbor to the Ister saw him cutting down the battle-lines of the foes, breaking through the leaders of the nations, slaying, chasing, and turning the champions to flight, as if a lion, having fallen upon broad-flanked oxen, were feasting and tearing them apart with violent wounds. Then even the river streams were turned into blood, and the fair-flowing Ister became clotted with gore. The Romans danced through the plains by the Ister, and fear turned the barbarian hearts to ice.
Such was Tzimiskes, a hunter of beasts, keeping watch for his own flock, tireless and not even inclining his eyelids toward sleep, crushing the jaws of strong-clawed wild beasts. But in times of peace he was gentle, sweet, urbane; he had eyes with a graceful gaze, a look distilling delight, a most cheerful face, a most generous hand, a heart great-souled and most magnificent; D he was, in short, another paradise of God, pouring forth four streams: justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance. And if he had not stained himself with the pollution of the murder, he would have been truly a morning star, a life-bringer.
But when the common debt of natural necessity had taken Tzimiskes also from this life, after he had ruled the Romans for six years following Phocas, Basil and Constantine, the purple-born, began to flourish.
A They were the shoots of Romanus, who had previously been the autocrat of the Romans, the son of Constantine. These brothers brought back to light and again joined the ancestral rule, which had been hidden and interrupted during the years of Phocas and Tzimiskes, binding it as if with a golden chain. For something happened to these purple-born ones like a tree that withers when winter arrives, but then thrives again and blossoms once more when the joy of spring smiles sweetly; or like a beautiful star hidden and obscured by the density of a cloud, which shines forth again once the darkness is dispelled.
And so the first-born of the branches of the purple B, emulating his great-grandfather, the Macedonian, and the most steadfast of heroes, Heracles, rejected luxuries and sensual pleasures and loathed an idle and effeminate life. He preferred the rough and hard toil of weapons, and breastplates, and helmets, and swords, and arrows, to the dripping of nectar. Hence, he detested clothing of soft fabrics, and a table of delicate food that excites the appetite, and a purple-strewn couch and the wearing of pearls; but he valued the clashing of shields and the din of arms more than any instruments that delight the soul with enchanting melodies, and he delighted in spurs, iron greaves, and warlike spears. C Yet, Fortune, casting a jealous eye upon him, opposed and thwarted such zeal, and withered his heat and held back his impulse. For, having stirred up that hard and mighty Bardas to rebellion—a man most warlike, bold, and arrogant, and a kinsman to the Emperor—she raised him up like another murderous Ader; and she stirred up the life of the Emperor like a storm-wind from a cloud tossing a ship. While the war dragged out for a long time and was deliberately prolonged by Bardas, with internal perils agitating the empire, Asia was devastated by the Arabs, and the Roman borders were straitened by the Syrians, while the Bulgarians pressed on against the regions along the Ister and plundered the neighboring Thrace. The Emperor, in the midst of them, was like a small boat on the sea, D like a nestling of a bird in the mouths of dragons. But suddenly a spring shone forth instead of winter; instead of the surging storm, a sweet-breathing breeze blew, bringing calm to affairs. For Bardas submitted to the rod of the ruler, and all who were secretly aspiring to the throne subsided. From that time on, the Emperor immediately invaded the dominion of the Arabs—the land neighboring the Phasis—together with the land of the Phoenicians, striking like a whirlwind; for this reason, the Iberians and Tauroscythians trembled greatly. Thus he quickly traversed the whole of Asia, and not with his own eyes
Thus he swiftly overran all of Asia. He gave no repose to his own temples, Nor drowsiness to his eyelids, nor sleep to his pupils, Until he had chased away the sheep-rending wolves. The mighty men of the Bulgarians learned his strength; The plains were dyed with their blood, And their corpses became like fallen oak trunks, And heaps were formed in many places from the slaughter of those who had fallen. Then the Ausonian army, armed and yet not armed, Danced through Thrace with free steps; For everywhere the tents of the Bulgarians were strewn, No less than the corpses of old, those of the Dardanians Whom Achilles, neighbor to the Scamander, had laid low. The Barbarian A thus checked his boldness for a little while, For he saw his battle-hardened strength laid waste. And again he sounded forth martial cries, And again he blew the trumpet, the signal of battle, And again Basil girded on his sword And struck his heavy-sounding, all-bronze shield, Like Ares, the sacker of cities, stirring up the combat, And immediately the whole plain became all-bronze. For he did not take his ease in royal chambers, Like a delicate maiden fleeing the sight of men, But morning dews moistened his locks, Which once had been cultivated with perfumes of royal purple. And again there were fierce battles, again slaughters, And the Barbarian showed his brute-like boldness, Like a boar thrusting the point of a spear into its vitals. A The army had been armed from both sides, And all were breathing blasts of fury and war, All iron-clad, bronze-shielded, spear-bearing; All carried spears heavy with bronze. The trumpet sounded a martial and combative note, And man-killing war bristled with lances, And there was shouting and mutual exhortation of the two armies. B C When the Bulgarians and Romans joined in the same place, They fell upon one another like lions, like foaming boars, And every sword raged, and hands did not rest; Palms were stained with the gore of the falling, And the crash of shields and the shattering of spears Sent forth a deep-sounding, wild-sounding din. And the king moved among those with him like a swift-flying hawk Against the deep-throated enemies. At last the army of the Bulgarians departed, turning their backs, And the Roman phalanxes followed at their heels, Slaughtering those in the rear, trampling the fallen, Pursuing the chieftain, hamstringing horses, D And seizing the tents and reveling in the spoils. Thus the sovereign broke the pride of the Bulgarians And brought low their exalted brow. Thus he chased the death-bringing dogs From his folds and from the herd-mastery. Thus he made the arrogant ones pitiable, the haughty ones cowardly, Through frequent toils, making them slaves instead of free men. And since Hades, who devours all, spares no one, Verses 6023
A And Basil, too, did the mills of death seize, And ground down the pride of the Romans like grain, Yet in a deep and lush and long-enduring old age, Having held the Roman power for fifty years. But the royal strength and the scepters of the Romans Run to his own brother, Constantine. But the proverb was surely being fulfilled: Wash-basin and cup from the same clay, Ladle and broom from the same wood. For the lives of the brothers were from opposite ends, Differing from each other by immeasurable degrees. For as much as Basil, despising pleasures, Devoted his life to the practice of warfare, Always selecting horsemen, arms-bearers, And those in bronze corslets and equipped for war, Constantine, on the contrary, was quite the opposite; for he could not bear [to see Greaves or iron tunics, Nor to hear the clatter of chariots even in his sleep, Nor the blasts of the battle-trumpet, Nor the clamor of the battle-line, nor the ill-boding roar; He was always idle with luxuries and rich tables, And he delighted in immodest women, dancers, Flute-players, pranksters, cithara-players, And this although he was an ancient, decrepit, very old man. And having a cowardly and trembling heart, Because of idle slander he would blind many, As if they were covertly digging pits of rebellion. And while his life was wavering on account of two daughters, B And having been taught by some that after him the power Would pass to Romanus, one of the senate, By surname Argyropulus, he forces the man To cast off his former wife and spouse And join in marriage with Zoe, born in the purple. And having arranged these things, he departs from life, Having enjoyed the imperial rule for but a short time, And having been shown to be the sole ruler of the Ausonians for two years. And Romanus sits upon the royal throne, A man wise, God-fearing, meditating on divine things, And rejoicing greatly in books and all-night vigils; Who, in great magnificence, to the Theotokos Maid Built a monastery which is called The Peribleptos. And so the empress, flourishing in youth And warming with bodily agitations, And seeing Romanus living by himself And not even remembering that he was bound to a woman And was living with a wife, and that a young one, She was disturbed by certain base and proud thoughts. Now there was a certain handsome and striking youth; His name was Michael, of the race of the Paphlagonians. Towards that Michael, with the graceful eyelids, Wandering about in the courtyards of the palace, The empress, casting an amorous glance And seeing the brightness of his face and his beauty (For he had tender and soft cheeks, of the best complexion, Lovely, with clear skin, rosy-red, dripping the dew of Love) Was erotically inflamed, and continually was plucking From the cheeks of Michael the roses of the Graces.
A And behold, at one time when the Emperor Romanus was soothing his flesh in the baths and refreshing himself, certain men, murderers, falling upon him fiercely, strangled him like dragons, having fastened upon his neck; I do not know how they were led into this evil, or from whence, or if, as they say, Zoe also participated in this. B I know not at all how (for I have nothing to say), nor if she conspired. Having held power over the Romans for five years and six months, in such a way he departs from his rule and his life.
When Romanus had left the life below, Michael takes the lead and grips the scepter, he who a little before was obscure, lowly in his origin, having found this as a reward for his adulterous bed. But Michael was fair not only in his countenance, but he also shone with the gifts that virtues beget, the adorners of the soul and the lamps of the mind. For he understood, as a sensible man, and considered within himself from what lowliness he had flown to the kingdom, from what sort of baseness he had been raised to what a height! Thence he was accessible, humble, modest, bending toward mercy, pitying those in misfortune, soothing the needy, enriching the poor, and them who were chilled by the evil of poverty, he was reviving and rekindling and sustaining and warming, and watering the thirsty with golden streams. No one who beheld him departed weeping; no one who prayed went away complaining. But he was torn by a most grievous disease, A as Saul was by the evil pricking of the demon, and he had a life full of pain and danger, either because he was muddied and falling from the inner boiling, or wrestling with a violent, tormenting demon. For often indeed he was cast upon the ground speechless, vomiting foam from his mouth, spewing saliva, his lips turning black, his pupils distorting, sending forth sounds harsh, unclear, beastly; and if some did not happen to be there to assist him in his affliction, he would beat his head against the walls as if it were alien to him. From such a fall, often recovering, he became a more ardent worker of virtue, and took more care of his internal well-being, and thirsted even more for the monastic life.
There were to him, born of the same blood and of the same seed, certain men of base character, rapacious drones, men untractable, brutish, malignant. And what indeed were these? Cow-herds, swine-herds, ox-drivers, men who were shepherds, smelling of tallow, and collectors of wild-fruit and acorns? Since such were the brothers of the Emperor, he who was first in birth also took the lead in evils, a man evil-doing, perverse, filthy-minded, who had held the care of those being cared for in their old age B and managed all other matters of the realm up and down, and appeared outright a lion-tamer to the sovereign.
A And he persuades Zoe, the empress, to adopt as her son the nephew of her husband. Such were these things and such was he; but what followed? The emperor adopts Michael (for so he was called) as a son to his spouse, and decks the most bestial man, a man of pure swine-mind, with the crown of a Caesar. Yet he himself, overcome by his customary ailment, puts on a garment better than purple, having dyed his robes with the black of the Spirit, and having run toward tranquility from a life of many storms, having ruled for fully seven years of empire. B Thenceforth the empress takes thought for the affairs of the state, and she does not rightly deck that nephew of her husband, Michael, with the symbols of the sovereigns—a man ill-starred, swine-like, sheep-brained, and by nature bearing innate malice, but being one whom youth turned all the more into a foal that rejects the bridle, and one who repaid with rude prancing and wild kickings her who had nursed him, after he had drained the breast and been fed to satiety. And here alone did Zoe, the shoot of the purple, commit an error of ignorance, grafting many tribulations, because she warmed a snake in her bosom and offered the breast of the empire to the dragon. For when the man, young, thoughtless, arrogant, and self-willed, got hold of such great matters, like new-pressed wine, he was insolent and bubbling. C He could not endure the kindness of fortune, and hence was spilled out into a deep-riven abyss; for prosperity, they say, is a thing like heavy lead, and unless it chance upon a mighty bearer capable of carrying the burden, it throws that person face-down to the earth and crushes him. And at first he was punishing the leaders of the authority and the counselors after a barbarian fashion, cutting off their reproductive organs, so that many, having changed their male nature, became half-men and unrecognizable to nature. Thus, right from the first line, he appeared wicked; for one shall know the ill-minded and the most malicious in a single day, as the saying goes. Then, having taken to himself youths suggesting childish counsels, and using those infants as chief counselors, D just as Roboam, the son of Solomon, did before, he casts out the queens, Zoe and Theodora, and having deemed them women of the islands, he shaves their heads. This act stirred up terrible surges against the miserable wretch, just as a wind falling upon a ship-tossed sea and prying it up from below with levers. Then it was present to behold, from the clear proofs of events, what sort of thing is the goodwill of the multitude toward a benefactor, and how much a sovereign ruler prevails, lord of the army, rich in a father’s affection toward those under his hand and loved by them as by his own children. For when the multitude heard these things, that the ruler was sending the mistresses into exile,
A having against their will shorn their hair by force, having changed their garments into mourning black, it seethes with the fire of wrath; it immediately grabs stones, wood, and anything it happens upon—clods, clubs, swords. The women too were armed with weaving-shuttles as if they were spears, and with shouting and clamor they run towards the ruler, demanding back the empresses with all their hands and minds, and reviling Michael with savage, discordant cries. Then, oh, then, the fearsome dragon was seen (the one previously of fierce aspect, the lion, the chameleon) to shrink back from his bravado and arrogance. He brings the empresses on swift-sailing ships and returns to them the empire, the one acquired from their ancestors, from their grandfathers. But yet again the fire of sedition was kindled, again it was fanned against the detested man. And now the most wicked man, seeing the violence inescapable and seeing himself encircled from every side like a bear by hounds, attempts to steal away his life with fleeing feet; he runs like a hare—one might say—to a rock, and makes the mystical table his place of refuge. But the multitude, once inflamed to madness, is wont to overcome the fire itself, as it seems; for having rushed inside the holy of holies, they snatch from there the wretch, who is crying out with B heartfelt sighs and hot tears, and they gouge out his eyes with razors. And along with him, they blind his impious uncle, a perverse man, wicked, most evil, an all-acquisitive person, who had enjoyed the empire for no more than four months. And again the empresses take up the crown, and again they enter into their paternal inheritance. When the storm of temptations was driven far away, a sweet zephyr blew, a serenity smiled.
But Empress Zoe, having understood that the Roman empire had need of a manly ruler, and desiring to obtain successors born of herself (for although, like some tree, she had been watered by two gardeners, there was still a danger she might remain fruitless, without buds or leaves), summons from Lesbos, with swift ships, a certain elegant man named Constantine, who was called Monomachus by family surname. For he had been sentenced to inhabit this island by the first Michael, who had reigned. According to some, this was because he was trying to snatch the power (for the rumors about this matter held sway in divided ways); as others say, whose tongue is thought to be free from lies, it was because of his secret tryst with Empress Zoe. So, Constantine, having been sentenced to live in Lesbos, and having risked being extinguished and losing his eyes, had the die of fortune suddenly fall the other way.
A Since he wished to be known for his magnificence, he was proclaimed Sovereign—the former slave becoming lord, the prisoner becoming master—and he married the Empress Zoe. Such is the instability of the life of earth-born men; such is the wheel of events, rolling up and down, turning all mortal things and tossing them into confusion. Fame portrays this Monomachus as ignorant of warfare and arms, but in other respects magnificent, bountiful, refined, B generous, lover of beauty, and gentle in his ways—a sea of bounty, a very sweet lake—from which many derived streams of good flow, from which many drew life-sustaining waters. For he was seen to have channeled the veins everywhere, a Pactolus of golden vortices, a Nile of silver currents. Nations also knew his bountiful hands, and churches knew his beauty-loving hands. The poor drank their fill and drew water to their heart's content; every shrine enjoyed the irrigation of his golden flood. So common a river was he, pooling everywhere; for the outflow of his gifts was poured forth as if into pipes for the afflicted. And while Xerxes, that arrogant King of the Persians, once reclined beneath a beautiful plane tree in summer and in turn honored the plant with lifeless ornaments, the benefits of this Emperor continuously watered the cliffs, trees, islands, and meadows. Such a great and wealthy soul he possessed. C The magnificently built monastery will attest to this fact, which he raised from the foundations, from the very roots, in honor of the divine martyr of Christ who bears the trophy. Yet, although he flourished in good deeds above the cedars and, blooming with virtues, was as evergreen as a phoenix, he was very miserably afflicted in his earthly flesh; his feet were constricted by the weight of podagra, as if by strong shackles or inescapable fetters. And so he spent his days in soft bedding, seeking to soothe his exhausted feet. Hence, many tempests of misfortune and trials of troubles broke over him. D That terrible Maniaces is known to all—a man with the strength of a giant, swift-handed, murderous, bold-hearted, stout-hearted, breathing fierce wrath. That man, having gathered together close-combatants, club-bearers, spearmen, men of gigantic stature, bearing an immense growth of body, a measure of fathoms in length like tall plane trees, stood over the Emperor’s head like a thick, dark, muddy cloud, blacker than pitch, threatening not watery downpours, but bloody streams and murderous slaughters. He captured fortresses, he captured cities. He advanced roaring with rage, snorting more than the Centaurs, boasting like Capaneus, flaunting himself like Antaeus. And who would have hoped to flee from such an evil? But he who is guarded by the hands of God will not fear giants, will not dread wild beasts, will not fear iron nor the mouth of a burning furnace.
For he bears as his ally God, greater than the Pantarbes stone, greater than Midas, the beast-hunter near the Tigris. Thence the sun raised its bright rays, dissolved the gloom, and drove away the cloud. A The emperor, and the cities, beheld a free light; the hostile beast was wounded in the side, and all escaped its raw-fleshed jaws. And again, Tornikios raised up another evil, another beast which Daniel once saw of old, trampling all things, crushing them, treading them with its feet, and shattering the remains with its teeth. But justice quickly snatched this one away too, having pierced him with inevitable darts, and having struck the beast with breast-wounding blows. And then a calm embraced the emperor, untroubled, having no remains of the storm. And as the fatal diseases pressed upon him, and nature demanded the clay of the body, having set his affairs according to his mind, he departed from life, having directed the empire for twelve years. B And when Constantine had left the life below, the empire passes to the purple-born Theodora, the sister of Zoe (for the empress Zoe had long since died), she who had ascended the imperial throne for a short time, and had reigned for ten months, and having learned of her own dissolution from the tabernacle, A (she was, they say, entirely without bodily grace) she replaced an elderly, senile, and trembling man into his place. His name was Michael, a man who in years vied with the long-lived crows, who, as those who have already reached the sunset of life, are released by their own devotion from strife, was considered composed and most excellent in other respects. But he was not able to bring into the light the shoots of his heart, nor to reveal the grain lying in the depths; for the attendants of the purple-born Theodora were usurping all the power, despising Michael openly as a sapless, leafless, old cabbage, already rotting, B because he had been bound by terrible oaths to yield to them in all matters, both of words and actions. He was therefore an emperor merely in shadow and in word; all other things were managed by the hands of those whom Theodora had left to Michael as guardians, watchmen, and fathers of the authority. For "old men are twice children," as the proverb says. Hence those who fawningly approached them, and at every turn were dependent on their beck and call, were showered with a lake of benefits. But men of military rank, well-versed in wars, and born of illustrious roots and noble branches, whose ancestors were noble and of heroic lineage, were cast aside as some cheap earthen vessel. Isaac provides sure proof of this matter.
A That Comnenus, Isaac by name, who had been deemed worthy of a name and most exceeding fame for his feats of prowess; for he had hands skilled in the works of war, and his fingers were naturally trained for battles. Having approached Michael, and having expected to reap the fruits of his labors more abundantly from him, but having failed in his hopes and not having gathered roses, but rather having found thorns of insults from those most wicked gardeners of the meadow of authority, being aggrieved, he looked toward tyranny 50. And having associated with himself Constantine Ducas, and many others who were heavy with much wealth and who had attained to bright positions of the race, and having gathered an armed force from Asia 40, he rose up against the emperor to tear him from the throne. B Michael, the terrible old man, heard these things, and having judged himself rather worthy of obscurity, as being already an old man of the tomb and decaying, he was ready to depart from the empire to Comnenus. But those whose lot it was to steer the ship of authority, not wishing to save it, but rather to sink it and to swamp the exhausted one with deep-roaring waves, they rouse the old man to battle even though he was unwilling, and the man nearly cast into the tomb to formal array. * Others again say that the Roman nobles, the chief priests, the leaders of the senate, called him, to whom they might grant the crown: for he was a man fit for leading an army and capable of steering that sacred and saving ship of the empire; a man of ready counsel, dexterous for works and for battles, and lacking nothing of the former emperors. The Comnenus, therefore, enters the royal city. Hence a civil war, and Roman hands sharpening their points and spears against Romans, and stained with the slaughter of their own kin, and a sickle flew about dividing those of the same race, and moving them against one another as in a moonless night [*], and making fellow-sons of the same fathers savage against one another. C Accordingly, Comnenus becomes the victor in the battle, and Michael is deprived of the power even though he was unwilling, having held the scepter for the measure of one year. And having reached the first city with winged speed, and having put on the crown of the sovereign lords, he immediately took hold of the affairs of government, and behaved toward all according to his majesty, both toward those near and those far away, and those in authority. And he hated from his soul the "almo-posia"—that base flattery—and its nauseating effects. Hence he seemed somewhat more burdensome to the majority, and bearing more haughtiness than was fitting. D However, having enjoyed the power not for many suns, but having blossomed like the grass—as the saying goes—and after a short time having withered from wasting diseases, for he enjoyed the power for two years, he adorns Ducas with the symbols of the empire, as one who had opened many treasuries for him.
A And he, having chosen the rugged life according to God, donned dark robes, and having exhausted himself in long-suffering labors, he ended his life at a highly envied end; therefore he found the life which he had also desired.
Ducas, having received the reins of power, steered the golden four-horse chariot with steady balance, and using temperate, slow-paced steps, neither once more yielding everything and running recklessly, but curbing the ferment of boldness as if by a rein and avoiding driving headlong over precipices, he evaded the dangers of the wagon-wheels. Having supported his house with his seven children as if on seven firmly fixed columns, and being ready to depart from life and from the things of life, he felt a boundless care in his heart, and was carried by a surge of successive anxieties. He loved the empress, and he wanted her to remain the caretaker of his children and a partner in the rule, yet he suspected the delicacy of her age, for it was vibrant with the surgings and throes of the flesh. B He suspected she might lie down to a second marriage, might again become a mother of children of a different growth, and from this, those who were born from him might wither, and to the others, the half-siblings, the power might shift. Tossed by such storms of thoughts, he attempted to move the empress from this plan and to leave the power free to his children, having appointed other administrators for them, as they were infants. But the future seems to prevail over all things, to triumph over designs, and to defeat hearts. And so the empress, having perceived these things and having learned the entire counsel of the marriage-bed, bound and obligated herself with fearful oaths as if with chains, that she would never set up the bed-curtains of a second marriage, that she would no longer know the bridal chambers, but would preserve the power for his children.
Ducas, then, was subjected to the laws of nature and laid down the mortal and earth-born burden, having ruled the Romans for seven years. C Eudokia continued as a fellow-voyager for the children, serving as navigator of the beautiful-prowed vessel. But suddenly, the storms of the flesh becoming wild, they stirred up a most troubled, surging wind, brought on nausea, vomiting, and dizziness, and threatened to make those sailing it castaways; for the sea, being prone to storms, began to open its mouth.
But what, and of what kind is the event? Come, O word, speak to me, do not strike the musical string out of tune.
There was a certain commander of armies, Romanos, Diogenes by surname, graceful, handsome, a Cappadocian by race, possessing a body of good appearance, and strong in his arms, a figure of most delightful form, worthy of the tyranny. This man, seeing the affairs and the power of the Romans D as if they were fading away, attempted to transfer the empire from those to others. Agitated by such waves of thoughts, he tried to recall the empress from this resolution and to leave the empire free to his own, with others appointed as their tutors and curators, as they were but children. But truly, that which is to be seems indeed to be stronger and more powerful than anything, and to conquer the reasonings and hearts of mortals. For when this empress smelled out and had observed the whole plan of her husband, she bound and obligated herself with fearful oaths, as if with certain chains, having promised never to proceed to second nuptials, but to preserve the empire for the common children.
Following these things, Ducas yielded to the fates and laid aside his earthly and mortal bulk, having administered the empire for seven years. His wife Eudokia succeeded him with the children, in whom, immediately after his passing, the raging lusts of the flesh stirred up a certain storm. But what sort of matter it was, it is pleasing to point out in a true narrative.
There was a certain leader of armies, Romanos, by surname Diogenes, by nation a Cappadocian, with a fair face, a beautiful body, robust in his muscles, of the most ample and beautiful bodily form, and worthy of the kingdom. This man, when he perceived the Republic being managed by a woman-
a creature painting her face with rouge, and dealing with tender and soft boys—was hissing like a dragon against unfledged sparrows, boasting that he would devour the mother herself along with her chicks. The foolish man did not know that a well-aimed arrow A can cast down even an eagle soaring through the air, and that twine-woven snares catch bears. Having therefore traversed the cities neighboring Thrace, he gathered a swarm of soldiery, set forth, and stirred up resistance; he insulted the gardeners and vine-dressers, and put to plunder the belongings of the farmers. A little while passed, and that lowing ox of massive chest was caught by hounds and led away to pay the penalty for his misdeed. The empress, upon seeing his beauty, stood agape, was seized by love, and deemed the crime committed by Romanus as nothing. Scornfully disregarding those horrifying oaths, she locks herself lovingly with the prisoner, joins herself to the captive; instead of a dungeon, she opens bridal chambers to him; instead of chains, she bestows robes adorned with pearls; and instead of a bed made of country boughs on the dirt, she gives him the royal couch, and finally declares him emperor—the very man who a moment before was about to be given over to the jaws of Hades. Such are your games, O rotating wheel of life.
But when Romanus had arrived at such a height of affairs beyond his expectation, from the very threshold and the first start he showed what a masculine spirit he possessed. For he did not gape after bodily pleasures, nor, delighted by gold-gleaming and purple-dyed garments, did he live in obscurity like a wretched worm of the earth seeking pasture, hidden away in royal chambers, fleeing enemies, shrinking from battles, or failing to brandish his sword against the wicked and those plotting evil. But having roused up his spirit against the Hagarenes, and having drawn his avenging sword against them, covering the earth with their corpses as if with sheaves, and making the sea a raft with the blood that flowed, he showed what sort of manly valor the Lycians nourish and what kind of muscles they possess in wars. And if the evil of envy had not hindered the brave man, if the viper of malice had not devoured the man, not even one of the commonest of men would have escaped his avenging sword. B But the thorn of malice and the goad of envy stung him more sharply than any scorpion’s sting, and they even gouged out his eyes. For Romanus was indeed by nature fierce, contumacious, haughty, arrogant, a lover of self, and tenacious of his own judgment; and at this time, having been further puffed up by the purple and by the fact that he was emperor of the Romans, he had assumed a greater pride. Furthermore, a certain inconsistency of mind had been added, fickle habits, and a suspicious diffidence toward everyone, whether intimate or alien and strange, as if all were
preparing to intrigue against him. For these reasons, things seemed grievous and harsh not only to the nobility but also to his wife and the children of Ducas. Hence followed clandestine whispers, machinations, guiles, the hatreds of his own kin, nets, and the snares of those pondering how they might betray the Emperor to his enemies without any labor or danger. The cup of this treason was being mixed by Caesar, the brother of Constantine Ducas, whose son, Andronicus, was at that time a commander of the armies. C He therefore communicates his counsel to the other commanders and to his son, by which a dangerous net was being woven for the wretch and a garment of death was being spun. Diogenes had already crossed over to the coast opposite Byzantium, intending with all his might to invade and slaughter the wolves that were leaping upon and devastating the sacred and Christian folds of the sheep, when a bird, a dove from somewhere, flying toward him, settled upon his knees with a silent movement of its wings; not such as once flew to the covering of the ark, announcing the end of the flood and bearing an olive branch, comforting Noah, who was hidden in the ark, the second progenitor of the human race, but an inauspicious omen, a herald of evils, a messenger of misfortune, a prophetic bird of ill-omen. The Emperor, for his part, sends the bird to the Empress, guessing it to be a bringer of good news. For whatever a man desires to happen to himself, that he also imagines will come to pass; and all men conceive in their minds what they desire in their will. But there is nothing more miserable than a man who has enemies within his own household and sharing the same roof. D If you have enemies inside, if you harbor inmates who are against you, the walls of Babylon will not rescue you from dangers, nor the towers of Semiramis, nor the thickness of the pyramids. If you suffer a treacherous soul to be your housemate, if you dwell with her in an impregnable fortress, the fortress will be capturable, and the city will be defenseless.
But I must recount what pertains to Diogenes. A heavy and immense battle was stirred up on both sides, between the Romans and the Persians; a savage uproar arose. Great A passion was arming both commands, and from every side Ares, the pursuer of men, was rushing about, baptized in blood, washing his hands in slaughter, desiring to quaff whole seas of blood. The King was flying along, smiting the flanks, pursuing B and shedding with the stabs of his spear the bowels of the enemies, a slaughterer of sparrows, one might say, a swift-flying hawk, rushing with a rustling of wings upon tender-winged brood. He seemed to his enemies like a burning thunderbolt, an invader from the air, descending from above, breaking forth from a cloud. His hands became soaked with gore, his right hand dripping with slaughter, his sword stained with blood. He wore a crimsoned garment from the killings, just as if a lion, having encountered a timid animal, should rip its flank with its claws and lick the inward [parts.
He showed a Briareus with a hundred hands above him, he showed an Enceladus and the boldness of Typho, slayer, worker of violence, tireless as adamant. These things were happening, and victory looked upon the Romans and laughed joyfully, recognizing them with time. But that thrice-barbarous Envy, and the grim cloud of malice and envy, darkened such a brightly adorned day. B For as soon as the Caesar began his departure and flight, all went out of the way, abandoning the emperor. And the emperor was stripped bare like a jackdaw; he looked this way and that, and he saw himself alone in inescapable snares. From there, the principal leaders of the Barbarians leaped out, running together, rushing forward, contending with one another as to who might capture Romanos alive. And finally, the emperor is captured—alas!—by barbarian hands; the lion becomes the prey of raging panthers, the gold-winged eagle is caught by night-owls. What happened after this, and how, and to what point did it proceed? That Barbarian ruler, the one who took him prisoner, unexpectedly tempers his barbarian-hearted soul, and looks upon the emperor more humanely; for even a barbarian man feels pity for a distressed king. C He condemns the fellow-born Romans who betrayed their king—the thrice-barbarous stranger judges those of the same race—and he becomes more provident for him than his own kin, and more solicitous than those of his own blood. He makes a treaty, he is reconciled, he offers a hand of alliance, and he sends him back to recover his empire. Thus Romanos escaped like a beast out of a cage, as an eagle from snares, as a fish from a hook, and he was once again distinguished for being raised to power. But Envy confounded his hopes; for letters flew everywhere as messengers, walling off all the cities against Romanos. From thence the miserable man wandered, desolate, friendless, helpless, another Bellerophon, D cast down from his empire as if from Pegasus, having enjoyed the power for only three years. But not even then was the flame of envy extinguished. For Michael Ducas, the son of Constantine, having already reached the prime of youth and showing the first down of a beard upon his cheeks, having made use of his uncle the Caesar as his accomplice, along with those who were powerful and in command of the armies, immediately installed himself on his paternal throne, and drove away his mother, who wept much and lamented the walls of her rule against her will, and he placed her in a monastery, and he cut off her locks.
those locks A which once the Graces themselves irrigated with ointments, and he revealed her dark-veiled who was formerly gold-veiled. Having learned that Romanus was again desiring the throne, and again craving the authority from which he had fallen, and raising his warlike sting like a scorpion, he sent those who would wage war and seize the man. And again, alas! the wretch falls into traps, he is captured alive, his eyes are put out, and he is deported to a barren and harsh island.
But Michael, delivered from the fears that stood before him, and having taken possession of the ship of state in a calm, did not even dream of warlike tumults and the wearing of armor, nor of the roar of the sea and labors and dangers; but, devoting himself to books, he spent sleepless nights, being another Demosthenes or a Didymus of bronze-insides—the Alexandrian by birth, whom they named thus because, in his delight in discourses, he became unable to eat for many days. Hence, the tributaries of the barbarians broke forth, and again storms were blown up from everywhere, and they stirred up roarings and made surges; for the admiral was not present to ward them off, and from the land, bitter growths sprouted up. For the cultivator of the land lived the life of a tortoise, B advancing but a little and again shrinking back, and again concealing himself in his house like a shell, or rather like a sea-dwelling penna-mussel eating the earth, needing one to prick him into imperial actions and requiring someone to remind him that he ruled the Romans. From there, gaping dragons crawled forth again, and they were devouring every Roman border as if it were a fledgling. There was, therefore, a heavy complaint against the emperor, and all were grieving, seeing the affairs of the Romans not only fallen to their knees or even upon their faces, but by now flowing away and withering.
But a certain man of high birth, from the primary root, an older man, long-lived, another Pylian Nestor (they called that man Nicephorus Botaniates), a man experienced in war, having his flesh pierced with wounds C as one having struggled in many battles since childhood and having become full of heroic triumphs, secures a myriad-fold allied hand, occupies Nicaea, and sends a letter of exhortation to the one holding power, allegedly persuading him to withdraw from the scepter to the old man bloodlessly, and for him, as one unskilled in battle, to live in tranquility. And why say many and superfluous things? He reaches the Queen of Cities, and he himself is adorned in purple embroidered with gold, while Michael, not long before emperor, becomes one who wears black, having tasted of kingly power for six years.
A But forgetting himself and his old age, this ancient man, this Nicephorus, is joined in lawful marriage to Michael’s consort; and this, though he was a tender old man, and she a thriving, youthful woman. B And while Michael was burdened and struggling, he appointed him pastor of the city of Ephesus. Thus, avoiding the labors of war, he sat there, clad in gold, adorned in robes that radiated the beams of burning gold, and he nurtured his happy old age with baths, drinking, and luxuries C, while he himself delighted in gowns that shimmered with gold, in fine linen, in gold-woven, pearl-studded cloaks, and in robes dyed with purple and gold. Using these in cycles, one after another, he sat upon high silver seats, adorning with dignities all who approached him—cobblers, woodcutters, diggers, merchants, farmers, and those among the plain folk—as if he were a gilded swan, a statuesque creature, who, when about to set and be hidden in the grave, begins to find pleasure and joy in a life of pampering and luxury in his extreme old age.
And he would entrust the affairs of state to men who spoke in a barbaric tongue and did not know how to speak properly, who would stand all day long drinking and holding their mixing-bowls, whose lineage was triple-servile, whose grandfathers and fathers were thrice-barbarian, and who in soul and judgment were themselves barbarians, chattering in Scythian-tongued speech that was difficult to understand or to pronounce, D just as if one were to entrust a massive load of cargo to ignorant, foolish, and worthless sailors. He would clothe them in the fine attire of cobblers, rope-makers, fullers, and vine-dressers, bringing such renown down to base commoners—a prize that former emperors awarded only to men of noble birth and blood for their courage and great deeds of prowess. In such tasks he delighted, in such he was vigilant; yet if some did not petition him for high dignities, he appeared to be in deep distress, judging it a personal loss. All other matters he considered as trivialities and as nothing, even if the borders of the Romans were being constricted by the barbarians, and even if many cities were being struck by rams and siege engines. Thus, having enjoyed the state for three years, he took his leave of royal power and life. But now, let our discourse come to rest in the harbor of silence, for the surging of the Atlantic sea has broken upon me.