Res Gestae

Therefore we devised the plan of placing a lighted lantern on a single pack-animal, binding it fast, so that it should not fall off, and then turning loose the animal that carried the light and letting him go towards the left without a driver, while we made our way to the mountain heights lying on the right, in order that the Persians, supposing that a tallow torch[*](Sebalis fax, which seems to occur only here, is the same as sebacea, a torch or candle made of tallow (sebum) instead of wax.) was carried before the general as he went slowly on his way, should take that course rather than any other; and had it not been for this stratagem, we should have been surrounded and captured and come into the power of the enemy.

Saved from this danger, we came to a wooded tract planted with vineyards and fruitbearing orchards, called Meiacarire,[*](According to Valesius, from Syrian maia or maio, water, and carire, cold; the former word appears also in Emmaus. ) so named from its cold springs. There all the inhabitants had decamped, but we found one soldier hiding in a remote spot. He, on being brought before the general, because of fear gave contradictory answers and so fell under suspicion. But influenced by threats made against him, he told the whole truth, saying that he was born at Paris in Gaul and served in a cavalry troop; but in fear of punishment for a fault that he had once committed he had deserted to the Persians. Then, being found to be of upright character, and to have married and reared children, he was sent as a spy to our territories and often brought back trustworthy news. But now

Then with our anxious cares increasing we went from there as quickly as circumstances allowed to Amida,[*](Modern Diarbekir, see Gibbon, ii. p. 269, Bury.) a city afterwards notorious for the calamities which it suffered.[*](Ch. ix. below, and xix, 1–8.) And when our scouts had returned there, we found in the scabbard of a sword a parchment written in cipher, which had been brought to us by order of Procopius, who, as I said before, had previously been sent as an envoy to the Persians with Count Lucillianus. In this, with intentional obscurity, for fear that, if the bearers were taken and the meaning of the message known, most disastrous consequences would follow, he gave the following message:—