THE CHOICE OF THE PATRIARCH CONSTANTINE

66. This gentleman was none other than the famous Constantine, who in the past had on more than one occasion restored peace to a storm-tossed Empire and had been much sought after by many of the emperors. The crowning-point of his career came with his elevation to the Patriarchate.**210 All other candidates for the office yielded to his claims.**211 All were agreed that he had pre-eminent qualities which fitted him for the duty above the rest. And to the glorification [241] of this dignity he dedicated all his efforts, a man who lived the life of a priest, yet possessed qualities of statesmanship and great public spirit. In the case of other men, virtue is supposed to be some such thing as not yielding to circumstances, not tempering one's freedom of speech, not attempting by one's own mildness of character to turn men of sterner material into slaves. So it has come about that mankind has dared every sea, gone in the face of all winds, and some, caught by the waves, have sunk, while others have been rebuffed with much violence. With Constantine, however, the varied pattern of his life enabled him to deal successfully with every precise philosophic problem, and at the same time with all questions of practical government. Moreover, he handled affairs, not like an orator, but as a philosopher would deal with them: there were no wasted words, no histrionics. He played either rôle, churchman or politician, without deviating one iota from his natural habits. As a politician, he impressed his interrogators by his priestly dignity, yet when you approached him in his capacity of Patriarch, even if you stood in considerable awe of him and trembled a bit, he still appeared human, with the graceful manners of a diplomat, a man of sturdy character and smiling gravity. His whole life inspired confidence: on the one side, his military and political career, on the other, his great dignity, his courtesy. It was natural, even before this appointment, that I should often predict for him promotion to the Church's highest offices. His manner of life taught me what to expect in the future, and now, after he has actually become High Priest, I still see in him a gentleman of the noblest character.

67. By appointing such a man as Michael's successor, therefore, the emperor paid a compliment to the late Patriarch. I will now deal with the barbarians. In the east Isaac put an end to their incursions; in that part of the world the task proved to be well within his power. Now he proceeded to march in full force against the western barbarians. In the old days they had been called Mysians,**212 but later their name was changed to its present form. They live in all countries divided from the Roman Empire by the River Ister (Danube). Suddenly they left these districts and emigrated to our side of the river. This movement areas caused by the activities of the Getae, their neighbors, who by their plundering and ravaging compelled them to abandon their own homes and seek new ones. So, at a time when the Ister was frozen over, they crossed as though on dry land [242] and emigrated from the Trans-danubian territories to our province. The whole nation was transported, bag and baggage, over our borders, incapable of living at peace themselves, and bound to spread consternation among their former neighbors.

68. More than other nations they are difficult to fight and hard to subdue. They are neither vigorous of body, nor brave in spirit. They wear no breastplates, put on no greaves, and no helmets protect their heads. They carry no shields of any kind whatsoever, neither the long sort like those traditionally borne by the Argives, nor the round shield, nor do they gird on swords. The only weapon they carry in their hands is the spear, their sole defensive armour. They are not divided up by battalions, and when they go to war they have no strategic plan to guide them. The terms 'vanguard', 'left wing', 'right flank' mean nothing to them. They build no palisades for their own protection, and they are unacquainted with the idea of defensive ditches on the perimeter of their camps. In one mass, close-packed and pell-mell, fortified by sheer desperation, they emit loud war-cries, and so fall upon their adversaries. If they succeed in pushing them back, they dash against them in solid blocks, like towers, pursuing and slaying without mercy. On the other hand, if the opposing force withstands their assault and if their ranks preserve an unbroken line in face of the barbarian onslaught, the latter forthwith turn about and seek safety in flight. But there is no order in their retreat. They scatter in all directions, in small groups. One hurls himself into a river, and either swims to land or is engulfed in its eddies and sinks; another goes of into a thick wood and so becomes invisible to his pursuers; a third escapes in some other way. They all disperse at the same moment, but later, in some strange fashion, they meet again, one coming down from a mountain, another from some ravine, another from a river, all from different hiding-places. When they are thirsty, if they find water, either from springs or in the streams, they at once throw themselves down into it and gulp it up; if there is no water, each man dismounts from his horse, opens its veins with a knife, and drinks the blood. So they quench their thirst by substituting blood for water. After that they cut up the fattest of the horses, set fire to whatever wood they find ready to hand, and having slightly warmed the chopped limbs of the horse there on the spot, they gorge themselves on the meat, blood and all. The refreshment over, they hurry [243] back to their Primitive huts and lurk, like snakes, in the deep gullies and precipitous cliffs which serve as their walls.

69. Taken in the mass, this is a nation to be feared, and a treacherous one. Treaties of friendship exercise no restraining influence over these barbarians, and even oaths sworn over their sacrifices are not respected, for they reverence no deity at all, not to speak of God. To them all things are the result of chance, and death they believe to be the end of everything. For these reasons they make peace with great alacrity and then, when they find it necessary to resort to war, they at once violate the terms of their treaty. If you conquer them in war, they invoke a second treaty of friendship; if it is they who win the combat, they massacre some of their captives and hold a magnificent sale of the rest. For the rich prisoners they fix the price high, and if they fail to get ransom, they kill them.

70. Determined to drive this people from Roman territory, Isaac set out against them with a strong force. He was particularly confident before an enemy that was so scattered and had such a different conception of war; he led his army in an attack on the strongest enemy concentration. It was difficult to fight them and no less difficult to take them captive. As he drew near, they were filled with terror, not only on his own account, but also because of his army. In fact, they had not the courage to defy a man whom they looked upon as 'wielder of the thunderbolt', and when they saw the unbroken line of Roman shields, they abandoned the idea of fighting in mass. So they attacked in isolated groups, howling their war-cries. But they found the Romans too compact for them, and having discovered that they could neither catch them by ambush nor face them in open battle, they made a proclamation that they would fight on he third day from then. Thereupon, on the self-same day on which hey made this declaration, they left their tents, forsaking all those incapable of flight, that is, aged people and the very young, and hen dispersed in the inaccessible regions of hat country. According o the agreement, the emperor marched out to meet them on the third day, with his troops lined up for battle, but not a barbarian as to be seen. As he thought it unwise to pursue them, partly because he was nervous of secret ambushes, and partly because they ad three days start on their flight, he destroyed their tents, and taking away what booty he found there, returned laden with the trophies of war. The return journey, however, proved unfortunate, [244] for a sudden storm fell upon his army with great violence, and he lost many of his soldiers.**3 Still, he did return to the capital, his lead crowned with the garlands of victory.

71. From that time there appeared in the man new qualities, foreign to his normal behaviour. I am speaking from personal observation, as I was pretty familiar with his character. He became more haughty to such an extent that he held everyone else in contempt. In fact, he treated his own relatives just like the others, and his brother,**214 whenever he approached the outer entrances to the palace, at once dismounted from his horse, in accordance with the emperor's express command, and there was nothing whatever to distinguish him from the rest when he had audience with Isaac. Indeed he was the finest gentleman I ever met, and he accepted the change of attitude without rancour, and far from showing irritation at this new state of affairs, he obeyed the emperor's commands and treated him with due respect. He was generally unobtrusive, an example to other men to change their demeanour in like manner.

72. With this change in the emperor's character the second period of his reign came to an end. Now begins the third. Isaac was passionately devoted to hunting. No one was ever more fascinated by the difficulties of this sport. It must be admitted, moreover, that he was skilled in the art, for he rode lightly and his shouts and halloos lent wings to the dogs, besides frightening the coursing hare. On several occasions he even caught the quarry in full flight with his hand. He was, too, a dead shot with a spear. But crane-hunting attracted him more, and when the birds were flying high in the air he still refused to give up the hunt. He would shoot them down from the sky, and truly his pleasure at this was not unmixed with wonder. The wonder was that a bird so exceptionally big, with feet and legs like lances, hiding itself behind the clouds, should, in the twinkling of an eye, be caught by an object so much smaller than itself. The pleasure he derived from the bird's fall, for the crane, as it fell, danced the dance of death, turning over and over, now on its back now on its belly.

73. The emperor took delight in both kinds of chase. However, to avoid reducing the number of animals kept in special reserves by hunting them down, he used to go out, when the fancy took him, to find beasts in their natural habitat, hunting them both on horse- [245]back and with the falcon, at his leisure. He would stay at an imperial lodge outside the city, a place surrounded by sea and equipped well enough to please ordinary huntsmen of either kind, but not to the satisfaction of Isaac. He would rise early in the morning and continue hunting till late evening. With this constant throwing of spears at bears and hogs, and with the repeated strain on his right arm, he caught a chill in his side. At the time the trouble was not especially obvious, but on the following day he had fever, with fits of shivering.**215