Chronicle 1 part 3/4

sitting, the voices of the citizens resounded after the custom, the arms, seen before they were heard, were snatched out, and stones were hurled like showers upon the unwary and the citizens, and brandished swords, smeared in the blood of friends and neighbours, raged together with their wielders. The hollow of the theatre wavered and groaned, and, trampled by the feet of those fleeing hither and thither, and defiled with the gore of the slain, it bewailed. For the imperial city wept for more than three thousand citizens lost to stones, swords, crushings, and the waters of the proscenium. (A.D. 502.) Indiction X, in the consulship of Probus and Avienus. The accustomed nation of the Bulgars again devastated Thrace, which it had often plundered, no Roman soldier resisting.

Cabades, king of the Persians, in the fifth month from when he had begun to besiege it, burst into Amida, that most opulent city, betrayed by the cunning of its monks, and slew its betrayers, the monks. (A.D. 503.) Indiction II, in the consulship of Dexicrates and Volusianus. Three Roman commanders — Patricius, Hypatius, and Areobindus — who had formerly been sent against the Persians with fifteen thousand armed men to fight, joined battle without boldness near the fort of Sificum with those same Persians, many commanders of the soldiery then fleeing from the battle being slain. Then, an immense weight of gold having been given to the enemy, those same our commanders ransomed the captured and empty city of Amida — Celer, master of the offices, having now been assigned to them with two thousand warriors as a reinforcement.

(A.D. 504.) Indiction XII, with Cethegus as sole consul. Meanwhile Celer, master of the offices, leading armed soldiery through Callinicum, a city of Mesopotamia, ranged abroad to devastate the Persian countryside; he slaughtered very many peasants intent on their rustic labours like cattle, carried off the herdsmen of various flocks together with numerous beasts of burden, assaulted forts built of brick and clay, advanced laying waste everything as far as the Iron Bridge so called by name, and, having seized all the booty, returned to the common camp with his soldiery enriched. Thereafter he deliberated somewhat about striking a treaty with the Persians, Harmonius the secretary having been sent to him to negotiate the treaty. (A.D. 505.) Indiction XIII, in the consulship of Sabinianus and Theodorus.

The same Sabinianus, son of Sabinianus the Great and commander of the soldiery, being assigned against Mundo the Geta, made ready his arms, dragging with him ten thousand armed men whom he had gathered to himself and wagons laden with arms and supplies, and advanced to fight; and battle being joined at Horreum Margi [perhaps Horrea Margi], many of his soldiers having been lost in this conflict and killed in the river Margus, his wagons moreover lost, he fled with a few into the fort called Natus: so greatly did the hope of the soldiery fall in this lamentable war that it could in no wise be repaired among mortals. (A.D. 506.) Indiction XIV, in the consulship of Areobindus and Messala. In this consulship,

the statue of the emperor Anastasius was set up in the same place where formerly that of Theodosius the Great had stood, upon a huge column in the Forum of Taurus. (A.D. 507.) Indiction XV, with Anastasius Augustus for the third time [Cassiod.: and Venantius] as consul. A popular sedition arose in the circus; the soldiery and the armed men withstood it. The northern steps of the circus, with their structure, were burned and collapsed, while Anastasius Caesar was tarrying at the processions. (A.D. 508.) Indiction I, in the consulship of Celer and Venantius.

Romanus, count of the domestics, and Rusticus, count of the scholarians, with one hundred armed ships and as many fast-galleys carrying with them eight thousand armed soldiers, set out to ravage the shores of Italy, and assaulted as far as Tarentum, that most ancient city; and, having recrossed the sea, they reported back to Anastasius Caesar the dishonourable victory which the Romans, with a piratical daring, had snatched from the Romans. (A.D. 509.) Indiction II, with Opportunus [or Importunus] as sole consul. A fire having broken out in the imperial city, the fire reduced to dust both porticoes from the Forum of Constantine as far as the slender statue of Perdiccas. The harbour of Julian, first drained of its waters by wheeled machines and the mud dug out, was cleansed. (A.D. 510.) Indiction.

III, with Boethius as sole consul. A bronze image in the Forum of Strategius, sitting upon an arch and holding the horn of plenty of Fortune, was blasted by fire and, burned, lost its arm — which, however, the statuaries at once made solid again. Appius the patrician was exiled. Constantine, formerly master of the soldiery, was ordained bishop of Laodicea. (A.D. 511.) Indiction IV, in the consulship of Secundinus and Felix. Macedonius, bishop of the imperial city, although long since beset by the deceits and frauds of the emperor Anastasius, and accused before that Caesar by the testimonies of wicked men — because he delayed to give to that emperor the Tome of the holy Fathers, long ago strengthened by holy subscription at Chalcedon — was by that same emperor consigned to exile at Euchaita.

Timothy, ordained bishop at midday by Anastasius Caesar, usurped the place of Macedonius. (A.D. 512.) Indiction V, in the consulship of Paulus and Muscianus. Often the sky was seen to burn from the northern quarter. On the Lord's Day, while, at the command of Anastasius Caesar, through Marinus and through Plato, those standing in the pulpit of the church added to the hymn of the Trinity the quaternity of the Theopaschites, many of the orthodox, chanting in the ancient manner and rebuking the faithless heralds with shouts, were cut down in the very bosom of that church, and being led off to the prisons perished; on another day no less, in the atrium of Saint Theodore [Chiffl.: Theodosius], the catholics were struck down with greater slaughter for the one faith.

Wherefore the bands of the orthodox, stirred up, on the following day — that is, on the eighth day before the Ides of November (on which day the memory of the ash that once covered all Europe is celebrated among the people of Byzantium) — flowed together from all sides into the Forum of Constantine: of whom some indeed, while the rest day and night chanted the hymn of the Trinity to Christ God, traversed the whole city and slew with sword the flatterers in the monastic garb of Anastasius Caesar, with flame and fire; others carried the keys of the gates and all the military standards to the forum where they had pitched the camp of religion; and there, while Anastasius Caesar was engaged in the processions, they cried aloud that Areobindus should be made emperor over them. Then, the images and statues of Anastasius having been cast down to the ground, the senators Celer and Patricius,

sent to them for the sake of supplicating or giving satisfaction, they drove back with stones cast like rain. The houses of Marinus and Pompeius having been set on fire, coming into the circus to Anastasius and standing before his throne, chanting together the hymn of the Trinity after the manner of the catholics, and bearing the gleaming Gospel and the cross of Christ, very many gathered from the forum, crying out that Marinus and Plato, the authors of his depravity, should be cast to the wild beasts. These citizens that same Anastasius Caesar, with his accustomed perjuries and feigned utterances, promising that he would do everything, made return to their dwellings without any accomplishment of their demands, on the third day after I had come into the forum.

Then Anastasius, his depravity renewed, ordered an infamous and laughable synod to be held against the orthodox bishop [others: bishops] at the city of Sidon — from whose name 'titles' are put forward in jests — nearly eighty faithless bishops being gathered together. Flavian, catholic patriarch of Antioch, and John, bishop of the town of Palti, because they had refuted this sacrilegious assembly, were sent as exiles into the fort called Petra. There Flavian, confessor of Christ, rested in the Lord; John, Justinus Augustus, soon made emperor, recalled. About the same times an eclipse of the sun occurred. The nation of the Heruli was introduced into the lands and cities of the Romans by the order of Anastasius Caesar. (A.D.

(A.D. 513.) In the sixth indiction, Clementinus and Probus being consuls. Severus, a devotee of the perfidy of Eutyches, by the will of the emperor Anastasius, having been made bishop from a monk, seized the see of bishop Flavian. Dorotheus, the venerable bishop of the city of Ancyra, perpetually an opponent of the emperor Anastasius for the sake of the one orthodox faith, met the end of his life — which he had himself foretold to the magistrianus sent against him by the emperor — at the appointed time. (A.D. 514.) In the seventh indiction, Senator being sole consul. Vitalian the Scythian, having gathered more than sixty thousand armed men of Roman cavalry and infantry assembled within three days, came to the place called Septimius, and there pitched his camp.

And having drawn up the ranks of his men from sea to sea, he himself advanced as far as the gate called the Golden Gate without the loss of any man; declaring, namely, that he had come to Constantinople on behalf of the faith of the orthodox, and on behalf of Macedonius the bishop of the city, who had been exiled in vain by the emperor Anastasius. Then, enticed and deluded by the pretences and perjuries of Anastasius through the intermediary Theodore, he withdrew on the eighth day after he had reached the city. From there Vitalian, passing the night, entered by cunning the city of Odessus in Moesia.

Vitalian found Cyril, a leader who was a procurer rather than an energetic commander of the army, sleeping between two concubines, and having dragged him out he forthwith cut his throat with a Getic knife, and openly and publicly showed himself an enemy to the emperor Anastasius. (A.D. 515.) In the eighth indiction, Anthemius and Florentius being consuls. Hormisdas was ordained bishop of the Roman Church and lived nine years. The same Vitalian became a still more savage enemy to the same emperor Anastasius: for having sent ahead his cavalry, and with armed vessels running down the shore on his left, he himself, hedged about with the arms of his infantry, entered the Sosthenium estate, and made his quarters in the palace of the whole place. Senators were sent to Vitalian by the emperor to settle the terms of peace with him.

He received then ninety pounds weight of gold, besides the royal gifts, as the price of Hypatius, eleven hundred pounds of gold having already been offered by his own men at Sozopolis together with the captive Uranius. Vitalian, having been made Master of the Soldiers throughout Thrace, returned and sent back to his uncle Hypatius, whom he had held captive and in chains at the fort of Acrae. At that time the Huns, having crossed Armenia and devastating all Cappadocia, pressed on as far as Lycaonia. Ariadne Augusta departed this life after fifty-five years spent in the palace. (A.D. 516.) In the ninth indiction, Peter being sole consul. Having changed his faith, the emperor Anastasius supplanted Vitalian and appointed Rufinus as his successor.

Elias, bishop of the city of Jerusalem, banished by that same emperor, died in the village called Aila. Moreover Anastasius commanded that Laurentius of Lychnidus, Domnio of Serdica, Alcissus of Nicopolis, Gaianus of Naissus and Evangelus of Pautalia, catholic priests of Illyricum, be brought before his sight. The bishops Alcissus and Gaianus died at Byzantium and were buried in one tomb. Domnio and Evangelus having been at once sent back to their own sees, on account of fear of the catholic soldiery of Illyricum, Laurentius alone, often confuting the emperor Anastasius in the palace on behalf of the catholic faith, at the court...

...he was detained as though banished into exile, and thereafter became more crippled in body than when he had come to Constantinople. For in the seventh year of his infirmity this same Laurentius was healed, by his own faith yet by the grace of Christ, in the courtyard of Cosmas and Damian, and was found worthy to stand upon his own feet and to be strengthened in his steps, and afterwards to be restored unharmed to his own country, where, more than an octogenarian, he rests. (A.D. 517.) In the tenth indiction, Anastasius and Agapitus being consuls. That pot which in Jeremiah is often kindled from the north against us and our offences forged fiery darts, and wounded the greatest part of Illyricum with those same javelins.

Then the two Macedonias and Thessaly were laid waste, and as far as Thermopylae and old Epirus the Getic horsemen ravaged. Then the emperor Anastasius sent through Paul a thousand pounds of gold in denarii to John, prefect of Illyricum, for the ransoming of the Roman captives: but, the price falling short, the Roman captives were either kept shut up with their little dwellings, or were slaughtered before the walls of the closed cities. (A.D. 518.) In the eleventh indiction, Magnus being sole consul [variant: and Florentius; variant: and Agapitus for the second time]. In the province of Dardania, by an incessant earthquake twenty-four fortresses collapsed in a single moment.

Of these, two were sunk together with their inhabitants; four were destroyed with the loss of half their buildings and people; eleven were overthrown with the destruction of a third of their houses and as much of their population; seven were levelled, with a fourth part of their roofs and so great a portion of the common folk crushed, while their neighbours were despised through fear of [variant: through fear of] ruins. Scupi indeed, the metropolis, although without slaughter of its citizens who fled the enemy, nevertheless collapsed utterly to its foundations. In one fortress of the region of Canisa, which is called Sarnuntum, the veins of the earth being then burst open and boiling like a parched furnace, it vomited forth on either side a long and seething rain.

Very many mountains of the whole province were split by this earthquake, and rocks were torn from their joints; and a chasm of trees, rolling down and gaping open for thirty miles in length and twelve feet in breadth, prepared at its command a deep abyss for the citizens, as a refuge for those fleeing the ruins of fortresses and rocks, or even still the incursions of the enemy. The emperor Anastasius, overtaken by sudden death, perished an octogenarian: he reigned twenty-seven years, two months, twenty-nine days. (A.D. 519.) In the twelfth indiction, Justin Augustus and Eutharic being consuls. Justin, chosen by the senate as emperor, was at once ordained. Amantius, provost of the palace, and Andreas, Misael and Ardabur, chamberlains, supporters of the Manichees, were caught out as traitors to Justin Augustus.

Of these, two, Amantius and Andreas, were slain by the sword; Misael and Ardabur were sent into exile at Serdica. Theocritus, a henchman of Amantius, whom the same provost Amantius had secretly prepared for reigning, was seized, and crushed to death with huge stones in prison, and was cast into the salt deep; he was likewise deprived of burial along with the imperial power for which he had gaped. Vitalian the Scythian, recalled to public service by the piety of the emperor Justin, entered Constantinople, and on the seventh day of his reception was appointed Master of the Soldiers. (A.D. 520.) In the thirteenth indiction, Vitalian and Rusticus being consuls. Vitalian, consul for the seventh time, in the seventh month of his consulship, was pierced with sixteen wounds and slain in the palace together with his attendants Celerianus and Paulus. (A.D....

...521.) In the fourteenth indiction, Justinian and Valerius being consuls. This most famous consulship Justinian the consul put on far more munificently, with these acts of liberality, than the consulship of all the men of the East. For he distributed two hundred and eighty-eight thousand solidi among the people and for the spectacles or for the machinery of the spectacles; he exhibited at once in the amphitheatre twenty lions, thirty leopards, besides other beasts. Moreover he bestowed numerous and richly-caparisoned horses in the circus upon charioteers already presented with gifts, only the last napkin being denied to the maddened people. (A.D. 522.) In the fifteenth indiction, Symmachus and Boethius being consuls. (A.D. 523.) In the first indiction, Maximus being sole consul.

Very many of those who had stoned, struck down, and ravaged the city, being caught for their crimes, were dispatched by sword, fire, and the noose, affording a welcome spectacle to good citizens. (A.D. 524.) In the second indiction, Justin Augustus for the second time and Opilio being consuls. In their consulship a scarcity of oil brought great want upon the people. (A.D. 525.) In the third indiction, Philoxenus and Probus being consuls. John, pope of the Roman Church, the fifty-first from Peter, prince of the apostles and pontiffs, in the four hundred and seventy-fifth year of his (Peter's) session, while king Theodoric was striving to restore the rites of his Arians, alone of all the Romans, his predecessors, departing from the city, came to Constantinople, and was received with wondrous honour.

On the right he took his seat upon the right throne of the church, and with full voice he celebrated the day of the resurrection of our Lord with Roman prayers. (A.D. 526.) In the fourth indiction, Olybrius being sole consul. A sudden earthquake invaded the whole city of Antioch in Syria during the midday meal; moreover, with the winds soon blowing from every side from the left, and mingling the flames of the kitchens, then seething according to the season, into the falling buildings, it brought a twofold and scorching destruction upon the great western part of the city. Euphrasius too, bishop of the whole city [variant: of this city's place], with his head cut off, it overwhelmed at once in a burnt-out tomb, the obelisk of the circus being overturned and buried in the ground. (A.D. 527.) In the fifth indiction, Mavortius being sole consul.

In the one hundred and ninety-seventh year from the founding of the royal City, the emperor Justin made his nephew Justinian, his sister's son, whom he had long since designated as most noble, also a partner of his reign and his successor, on the first of April. He himself, however, departed this life in the fourth month after this, in the ninth year of his reign, in the second month. (A.D. 528.) In the sixth indiction, Justinian Augustus being sole consul. In the one hundred and ninety-eighth year from the founding of the royal City, the victorious prince Justinian restored, more eminently and brightly than it had been, the royal vestibule and the ancient throne in it, built for viewing and judging the contests in the circus, and with his accustomed magnanimity he renewed both porticoes where the senators customarily watched, signifying reward indeed for good drivers, but severity for the slothful. (A.D. 529.) Indiction...

...the seventh, Decius being sole consul. The Parthians making war, the Roman army prepared its arms, and rebelling, it guarded its own borders. This expedition of our men lasted nearly five years, and having departed from the East it made for Africa, to fight successfully against the Vandals. (A.D. 530.) In the eighth indiction, Lampadius and Orestes being consuls. Mundo, commander of both branches of the Illyrican soldiery, while the Getae were ranging through Illyricum, was the first of all Roman commanders to fall upon them, and put them to flight, having killed not a few of them. After these things the same commander, flying in the boldness of his spirit also into Thrace, cut down in a happier battle the Bulgars plundering it, five hundred of them being slaughtered in the fight. (A.D. 531.) In the ninth indiction, after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes.

In their consulship the Justinianean Code [variant: Code of Justinian] was promulgated to the world. (A.D. 532.) In the tenth indiction, likewise after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes. Hypatius, Pompeius and Probus, cousins by descent and nephews of the divine Anastasius, attempted by treacheries to seize the empire — which each of them individually longed for with unworthy ambition — on the Ides of January, very many of the nobles being now in conspiracy, and the whole rabble of the seditious being enticed by arms and gifts furnished to them; and for five continuous days they ravaged the royal city with plunderings, with sword and fire, by wicked citizens running about with no fixed king, in hostile impiety, while they themselves dissembled in the palace as faithful to the commonwealth.

But on the fifth day of this unspeakable crime, while Hypatius, crowned with a golden torque by the hands of his criminal companions, and Pompeius his companion, mailed beneath his garment, were mounting to seize the palace; both of them were captured before the gates of the palace, and immediately, at the nod of our most pious prince, were chained and slain and paid the penalty, and lost the empire before they had it, with countless people slaughtered everywhere in the circus, and the partners of the tyrants forthwith proscribed. The church, then burnt, soon began to be renewed by the same Augustus. (A.D. 533.) In the eleventh indiction, Justinian Augustus being consul. After a long and savage toil against...

...the Parthians, accomplished by Roman sweat, at last through the patrician Rufinus, and through Hermogenes the Master of the Offices, both sent as legates by our prince, peace was made with the Parthians. The pledge of the struck treaty was followed by gifts sent mutually to each other by both emperors in concord. (A.D. 534.) In the twelfth indiction, Justinian Augustus for the fourth time and Paulinus being consuls. The province of Africa, which in the division of the world is by most placed in the third part, was, God willing, recovered.

Carthage also, its city, in the ninety-sixth year from its destruction, the Vandals having been driven out and conquered, and their king Gelimer captured and sent to Constantinople, was recovered in the fourth consulship of the prince Justinian, by his own moderation, restored together with its country, more firm than it had long been. At which time Theodahad, king of the Goths, killed queen Amalasuntha, who had created him, after she had been driven from the kingdom, on an island of the Bolsena lake. The emperor Justinian, as he grieved at her death, so he avenged it [variant: and thus he avenged it]. [Thus far Marcellinus Comes.] (A.D. 535.) In the thirteenth indiction, Belisarius being sole consul. After Carthage and Libya, together with their king Gelimer, had been subdued by Belisarius, the emperor deliberates concerning Rome and Italy.

And again an expedition, again a fleet is prepared, and the same commander who is chosen as consul, with a direct voyage hastens to Sicily, and without delay overruns Catania and Syracuse — nay, the whole of Trinacria. And there, learning that in Africa a civil war is breaking out, and the soldiery is rising against its own commander, he proceeds to Africa with a few men, and comes to the aid of Solomon who was in command: and consulting the welfare of the commonwealth — partly by coaxing, partly by punishing the army, and by putting the enemy tyrant to flight — he, having retraced his voyage, returned to Trinacria. Agapetus, bishop of the city of Rome, sent on an embassy by Theodahad king of the Goths, came to Constantinople. Tzittas the patrician, fighting in Mysia with the enemy of the Bulgars, is found superior over his brother.

Epiphanius, bishop of the royal city, dies before the arrival of the Roman bishop: whose episcopate, against the canons, Anthimus seized, abandoning the church of Trebizond. (A.D. 536.) In the fourteenth indiction, after the consulship of Belisarius. Ebremud, son-in-law of Theodahad, abandoning the royal army in Bruttium, flew to Belisarius in Sicily. But in Africa, Solomon likewise being at odds with the army, Germanus succeeds him, sending Solomon back to the prince. Belisarius, crossing into Campania, lays waste Naples. The army of the Goths, holding king Theodahad in suspicion, takes Vitiges into the kingdom: who soon seized the kingdom in the barbarian plain.

The expedition being completed, he enters Rome, where, Agapetus having already died at Constantinople, king Theodahad had substituted Silverius to the episcopate; and residing there he directs his march to Ravenna, kills Theodahad in the place called Quintus, beside the river Santernus: and he himself follows on through Tuscany, plundering all the wealth of Theodahad which he had gathered on the Island or at Urbevetus. And having entered Ravenna he joins to himself in the kingdom Matasuintha, granddaughter of Theodoric, more by force than by love. Belisarius, with the Lord favouring, enters. Germanus administers prosperously in Africa.

Agapetus, as we have said, coming as bishop from Rome to Constantinople, soon drives Anthimus from the church, declaring him, according to the ecclesiastical rule, an adulterer, since, having forsaken his own church, he had aspired to another: in whose place he ordained Mennas the presbyter as bishop; and he himself met his last day in the Lord, in nothing however, as was objected against him by the prince, holding anything contrary to the faith. For in that same year, on account of excessive drought, pasture being denied in Persia, about fifteen thousand Saracens under Alamundarus, with the phylarchs Chabus and Hezidus, entered the borders of Euphratesia. There Batzas the commander cherished them partly by blandishments, partly by a peaceful settlement [variant: by strictness], and restrained them as they gaped to make war. (A.D. 537.) Indiction...

...the fifteenth, again after the consulship of Belisarius. The tyrant Vitiges, having assembled an army, besieges Rome; and Belisarius removed from the episcopate pope Silverius, who was then favourable to him (Vitiges), and ordained Vigilius the deacon in his place. And while Vitiges besieged Rome for a long time, Belisarius, suffering within from hunger and watchings, demands aid from the emperor. To him were sent Martinus and Valerianus, both Masters of the Soldiery: nor even so, however, did Vitiges abandon the siege. In Africa Germanus, by fighting, puts to flight the rebellious soldiers with the tyrant Stotzas amid the deserts of the Moors. In the East too John Cottistis, snatching at tyranny, before he attempted anything hostile, was extinguished at Daras.

The greater Church at Constantinople, constructed by the emperor Justinian in a way singular in the world, is dedicated on the sixth day before the Kalends of January. (A.D. 538.) In the first indiction, John being sole consul [variant: Volusianus and John]. While Vitiges still tarried in the siege of Rome, John the Master of the Soldiers, with Batzas, Conon, Paul and Remus, illustrious men, and a great army made ready, hasten to Italy, and place their camp at the Roman harbour, and come to the aid of labouring Rome. Seeing their arrival, Vitiges confirms a pact of three months' time with Belisarius, and sends his envoys to the emperor. In this peace Belisarius returns to Campania, intending to bring a supply of provisions to Rome: and returning from Campania he removes from their midst Constantinus the patrician, who was hostile to him.

But John, abandoning the camp which he had placed in the harbour, entered the region of the Samnites, and having stormed the town of Aternum, lays low Tremo, a commander of the Goths, with his men. He likewise invades Ortona too: plundering Picenum, he occupies Ariminum. Hearing this, Vitiges, leaving the siege of the City in which he still remained after the disturbed peace, abandoning Rome, crosses by the causeway of Clodia and through provisioning Tuscany the Apennines, and having pitched camp on the bank of the river Rubicon, besieges Ariminum. Driven thence by Narses coming from Constantinople and by Belisarius coming from Rome, he flees to Ravenna. His nephew Oraio wears down Milan by long starvation, besieging there the commanders Mundila and Paulus, posted with their soldiery.