For the three stood there sharpening each other’s wits, as if they were boar’s teeth, intent upon rending the Emperor’s arguments. And if any objection escaped Cusinus, Culeon would take it up; and il Culeon was at a loss, Pholus in his turn would rise in opposition; or they would, one after the other, rouse themselves against [388] the Emperor’s premises and refutations, just like very large waves following up other large waves. But the Emperor swept away all their objections as if they were a spider’s web and quickly closed their impious mouths.

But as he could not convince them at all, he finally wearied of these men’s silliness and dispatched them to the Queen City, allotting to them as their abode the verandahs which surrounded the great palace. And yet his hunting had not been all in vain in spite of his not having captured those leaders by his words; for every day he brought to God, maybe a hundred, maybe even more than a hundred; so that the sum total of those he had captured before and those whom he won now by the words of his mouth would amount to thousands and ten thousand souls.

Near Philippopolis on the other side of the river Eurus

But why should I linger to speak of that which the whole world knows and to which the East and West bear testimony? for whole towns and districts infected by various heresies he brought back by divers means to our orthodox faith. Upon the more eminent Manicbmans he bestowed great gifts and enrolled them among the picked soldiery. But the more vulgar, such as were diggers or had to do with ploughing and cattle, he gathered together and transplanted them with their wives and children to a town he built for them near Philippopolis on the other side of the river Eurus. There he settled them and called the town Alexiopolis, or a name more generally used, Neocastrum, and to one and all he distributed plough-lands and vineyards, horses and immovable property.

Nor did he leave these gifts unsecured, so that like the gardens of Adonis they should bear flowers one day and fall away the next, but by Golden Bulls he confirmed these gifts to them and he did not limit his benefactions to them only but made them transmissible to their sons and sons’ sons; and, in case the males failed, the women could succeed to the inheritance. In this wise did the great man confer his benefits. Let this be sufficient on this subject, although a great deal has been omitted; and let no one revile this history as if it were corrupt. For many of the people still living can testify to the truth of what I have related and I could not be convicted of falsehood.

After arranging all matters as was best the Emperor left Philippopolis and went back to the Queen City. And there he renewed his continual discussions and arguments with Culeon and Cusinus and their followers. And he captured Culeon, for he, I fancy, was the more intelligent and able to follow the true arguments closely, and he became a very tame lamb in our fold.

But Cusinus and Pholus became savage and, like iron, they were hammered upon by the Emperor’s frequent discourses and yet they remained of iron and turned away from him and would not be led by him. Therefore as they were the most blasphemous of all the Manichaeans and clearly drifting into melancholy madness, he had them cast into the prison called Elephantine, and while supplying them liberally with all necessaries, he allowed them to die in company with their sins alone.

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Consequently many of the Manichaeans on that occasion went to the priests without any hesitation, confessed their sins and received divine baptism. But many too could be seen who with a tenacity exceeding that of the Maccabeans of old clung to their own religion and quoted passages and proofs from the sacred writings, thinking thereby to confirm their own detestable doctrine. But by the Emperor’s continuous arguments and frequent admonitions the majority of these too were convinced and accepted divine baptism. For from the first rays of the sun in the East to deepest night very often the controversy was continued and he would not desist from the conference but often remained without food and this too in summer-time in an open-air tent.

Without delay the Emperor started for the Danube

IX While this was going on and that wordy disputation with the Manichaeans was being hammered out, a messenger came from the Ister and announced that the Comans had crossed. Without delay the Emperor started for the Danube, taking with him what soldiers he had. On reaching Bidyne and not finding the barbarians (for they had already crossed back directly they heard of the Emperor’s approach) he at once detached a band of brave soldiers and bade them go in pursuit of the barbarians. So they crossed the Danube and started off after them.

They pursued them for three days and nights but when they found that the Comans had crossed the river beyond the Danube on rafts, they returned to the Emperor without having effected anything. The Emperor was indeed somewhat annoyed that his soldiers had not over-taken the barbarians, and yet he considered it a species of victory that by the mere sound of his name he had driven the barbarians away, and converted many from the Manichaean heresy to our faith. So he set up a double trophy, one for a victory over the barbarians by means of arms, and the other over the heretics by most pious discourses.

Then he returned to Philippopolis and after a short rest applied himself to fresh contests. For Culeon and Cusinus and with them Pholus, the chief upholders of the Manichaean heresy, and in other respects like the rest of the Manichaeans, but clever at maintaining their heterodoxy, were adamantine against all verbal persuasion; they were also exceedingly able in pulling the Scriptures to pieces and in interpreting them perversely; so the Emperor summoned them every day and engaged in a war of words with them. Then could be seen a double contest–on the one side, the Emperor contending with all his might for their salvation, and on the other, these three men disputing earnestly to gain, if possible, a so-called Cadmean victory.

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For, as all the inhabitants of Philippopolis were Manichaeans except a few, they tyrannized over the Christians there and plundered their goods, caring little or naught for the envoys sent by the Emperor. They increased in numbers until all the inhabitants around Philippopolis were heretics. Then another brackish stream of Armenians joined them and yet another from the most polluted sources of James. And thus, metaphorically speaking, it was a meeting-place of all evils; for the rest disagreed indeed with the Manichaeans in doctrines, but agreed with them in disaffection.

Wrestlings with the heretics

But my father, the Emperor, arrayed his long military experience against them too and subdued some without fighting and others he reduced to slavery by fighting. How much that valiant man did and endured over this truly apostolic work! For what reason could anyone forbear to praise him? perhaps because he was negligent in his military duties? -nay, he filled the East and the West with his exploits as general. Or is it because he was indifferent to argumentation? -nay again, for he had studied the Holy Writings more than anybody else in order to sharpen his tongue for wrestlings with the heretics.

He alone commingled arms and arguments, and conquered the barbarians with his arms, and subdued the impious by his arguments; as in this present instance he engaged the Manichaeans in a contest that was apostolic rather than military. I for my part should call him ‘the thirteenth apostle.’ Although some ascribe this glory to Constantine the Great; yet I am of opinion that Alexius should be ranked equal to the Emperor Constantine or, to prevent contentiousness, let him be placed second to Constantine both as apostle and Emperor.

For, as we were saying above, he went to Philippopolis for the reasons given and, as the Comans had not yet appeared, he made the secondary purpose of his journey more important than his actual task and began turning the Manichaeans from their brackish religion and instilling into them the sweet doctrines of the Church. So from the morning till afternoon or even evening, and sometimes till the second or third watch of the night he would send for them and teach them the orthodox faith and refute their distorted heresies. Present with him were Eustratius, the bishop of Nicaea, a man of wide knowledge of religious and secular literature and pluming himself on dialectics more than those who frequent the Stoa and Academy, and also the incumbent of the archiepiscopal throne of Phillippopolis. In addition to all the others and in preference to them the Emperor had as his coadjutor my Caesar, Nicephonis, whom he had trained in the study of the sacred books.

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I rather wished to treat lightly of the doctrine of the Manicha~ans and to explain it very concisely, and even attempt a refutation of their most godless doctrines. But I will omit these as I know that everybody considers the Manichaean heresy an absurdity and also because I wish to hasten on with my history.

Moreover I know that not only men of our own court have refuted them, but that Porphyrius, our great opponent, reduced the nonsensical doctrine of the Manichaeans to utter absurdity when in several chapters he very scientifically examined the question of two principles, although his doctrine of the unity of God compels his readers -to support Plato’s “Unity ” or “the One.” We do indeed worship the unity of the Divine nature, but not that Unity which contains only one Person. Nor do we accept the ‘One’ of Plato; that which is with the Greeks, the ‘Mysterious’ and with the Chaldeans the ‘Ineffable’; for from it they make many other principles dependent, both mundane and hyper-mundane.

The regions of Chalybes and Armenia

Now these followers of Manes and of Paul and John, the sons of Callinice, who were very uncivilized and cruel and would not hesitate to shed blood, were conquered in war by that most admirable of Emperors, John Tzimisces; then he led them as slaves out of Asia and transported them from the regions of Chalybes and Armenia to Thrace and compelled them to take up their abode near Philippopolis. This he did firstly to drive them out of their strong cities and forts which they held as despotic rulers, and secondly to post them as trustworthy guards against the inroads of the Scythians by which the country of Thrace was often oppressed; for the barbarians crossed the passes of the Haemus and over-ran the plains below.

This Haemus is a very long mountain range running along a line parallel to Mount Rhodope. The range begins at the Euxine sea, leaves the cataracts a little on one side and continues right into Illyria; there it is cut through by the Adriatic Sea, I fancy, and emerges again in the opposite continent and finishes right away in the Hercynian forests. On either side of its slopes dwell many very wealthy tribes, the Dacians and the Thracians on the northern side, and on the southern, more Thracians and the Macedonians.

In olden days the Scythian nomads would cross the Haemus, before Alexius’ spear and his many battles brought them almost to extermination, and spoil the Roman territory with their large armies and especially the nearer towns, of which the chief one was the formerly renowned city of Philippopolis. But John Tzimisces converted our opponents of the Manichaean heresy into our allies, as far as arms are concerned, by opposing them as redoubtable forces to these Scythian nomads, and from that time the cities had a respite from most of their incursions. However the Manichaeans, being naturally free and unruly, soon acted as usua:1 and reverted to their original nature.

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VIII Not a year had passed before the Emperor heard a rumour that the Comans had crossed the Ister; consequently at the commencement of the eighth Indiction in the month of November in the beginning of autumn he left the Queen of Cities after calling up all his forces and stationed these, some in Philippopolis and in the towns called Petritzus and Triaditza and in the province of Nisus and some as far away as Branizoba (or Buranitzobe) on the banks of the Ister. He enjoined them to bestow great care on their horses so that they should grow stout and strong enough to carry their riders in time of battle. He himself remained in Philippopolis, a town in the centre of Thrace, which is washed by the Eurus on the side of the North wind.

An extremely tall man

This river flows down from the extreme end of Rhodope, makes many twists and turns, flows past the town of Adrian [384] and after many tributaries have joined it, empties itself into the sea near the town of Aenus. When speaking of Philip I do not mean the Macedonian, the son of Amyntas, for the city is younger than that Philip, but I mean the Roman Philip, an extremely tall man whose physical strength nobody could resist. At first it was a small town called Crenides before Philip’s time, and by others Trimus.

But that very large man Philip enlarged the town and girt it round with walls and made it the most famous town in Thrace, for he built a very large circus in it and other admirable edifices, the traces of which I saw myself when I once stayed in the town with the Emperor for some purpose or other. The city stands on three hills and each hill is surrounded by a strong and high wall, and on the side where it slopes down to the plains and level ground there is a moat running alongside of the Eurus. From all appearances it must once have been a large and fine city. After the Tauri and Scythians enslaved the city in bygone days, it was reduced to the condition in which we found it during my father’s reign and conjectured that it must have been very large. The chief of its misfortunes was the residence of so many heretics there.

For the Armenians took possession of the city and the so-called Bogomils (I will speak of them and their heresy later at an opportune moment), and even those most godless Paulicians, an offshoot of the Manichaean sect, founded as their name shows by Paul and John, two men who had imbibed the undiluted heresy of Manes and handed it on to their followers.

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He, as I have said, recounted all that had happened, and the devices the Emperor employed against the Ishmaelites; and the inhabitants of Constantinople with one voice and mouth shouted their applause, hymned the Emperor and made a god of him and blessed him for his generalship and could not restrain their pleasure in him. And after escorting Camytzes homeward in high spirits, they welcomed the Emperor a few days later as a triumphant victor, an invincible general, an undefeated King and a revered Emperor. That was how the people acted; but he after entering the palace and offering thanksgiving for his safe return to God and the Mother of God, recommenced his usual mode of life. For as he had settled his enemies abroad and put down the rebellions of pretenders he now turned his attention to the courts of justice and the laws. For he was at the same time the best administrator both of peace and of war.

Relaxation was a second labour

For he judged the case of orphans, had right done to widows, looked very severely on any case of injustice and only occasionally sought physical refreshment in the chase or other relaxations. For as in other matters he acted as a philosopher, in this too, in subduing his body and making it subservient to him. During the greater part of the day he devoted it to labours, and then again would recall it from labours. But even his relaxation was a second labour, the reading and studying of books and the careful observance of the precept, ‘search the scriptures.’ The chase and the game of polo were but of secondary, or tertiary, importance to my father, even while he was still a young man and before that monster, the affection in his feet, had fastened itself upon him like a sinuous serpent, and kept ‘biting his heel,’ as it says in the curse.

But directly this disease commenced and began to increase then certainly he gave himself up to gymnastics, and horse-exercise and other games for he was ordered to do this by medical science in order that by regular horse-exercise some of the fluid which descended might be dispersed and he might be relieved of the weight which pressed upon him. For as I have said above, this racking affliction of my father’s arose from no other cause than his labours and fatigues for the glory of the Romans.

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Part of my history, as I said, I derive from my own memory and part from the men who accompanied the Emperor on his expeditions and told me divers things about them, and who by means of ferrymen conveyed the news to us of what had happened in the wars; but most I gathered first-hand as I often heard the Emperor and George Palaeologus talking about them.

In this way I collected much of my material, but most during the reign of the third successor to the imperial throne after my father, when all flatteries and lies about his grandfather had expired together, for the whole world was flattering the present occupant of the throne and nobody shewed any sign of adulation for the departed, but related the naked facts, and spoke of things just as they had received them. But now I am bewailing my own misfortunes and lamenting the deaths of three Emperors, my Emperor and father, my Empress and mistress-mother, and alas! my own husband and Caesar; so I mostly keep in a comer and occupy myself with books and God.

The souls of the most blessed Emperors

And I shall not allow even the most insignificant of men to approach me unless they be men from whom I can learn of things which they happen to have heard of from others, or they be my father’s intimate friends. For during these last thirty years, I swear it by the souls of the most blessed Emperors, I have neither seen nor spoken to a friend of my father’s, this is due partly to many of them having died and partly to many being prevented by fear. For the powers that be have condemned us to this ridiculous position so that we should not be seen, but be a general object of abhorrence. And what I have added to my history, let God and His Mother my Mistress be my witnesses, I have collected from some absolutely unpretentious, simple commentaries, and from a few old men who were soldiers when my father seized the Roman sceptre but have fallen upon evil times and retired from the turmoil of the world to the calm life of monasteries.

For the commentaries which fell into my hands were simple in diction and incurious and strictly truthful and displayed no style and were free from all rhetorical pretensions. And the narrations of the old men were like the commentaries both in phrase and scope, and I judged the truth of my history from them by comparing and examining what I had written with what they told me, and what they told me with what I remembered from having often heard the accounts both from my father himself and from my paternal and maternal uncles. From all these sources I wove the whole fabric of my truthful history. And now let me return to the point in my history of which I was speaking above, namely Camytzes’ escape from the barbarians and his speech to the citizens.

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But verily that is not so; I swear by the dangers the Emperor underwent for the welfare of the Roman Empire, and the struggles and disasters my father suffered on behalf of the Christians, I most certainly do not describe and write of these things in order to favour my father. And, wherever I perceive that my father made a mistake, I unhesitatingly transgress the natural law and cling to the truth, for though I hold him dear, I hold truth dearer still. For, as some philosopher has said, when two things are dear, it is best to prefer the truth.

The attendants of the women’s apartments

But I follow up the facts themselves, without adding anything of my own or slurring over events, and thus I speak and write. And the proof is close at hand; for I am not writing about things of ten thousand years ago, but there are many still living to-day who knew my father and tell me of his doings; and no small part of my history has been gathered from them, for one will relate one thing which he happens to remember and another another, and all are of the same opinion. And as a rule I was with my father and mother and accompanied them. For it was not my lot to be kept at home and brought up in the shade and in luxury; but even from my cradle (I call my God and His Mother to witness!) toils and afflictions and continual misfortunes beset me, some from without and some from within. What my physical appearance was I cannot say, that the attendants of the women’s apartments can describe and tell at length.

But as for all the external ills which happened to me before I had even completed my eighth year, and the many enemies the malice of men aroused against me it would require the Siren of Isocrates to tell, or the eloquence of Pindar, the breeziness of Polemo, the Calliope of Homer, the lyre of Sappho or some other power beyond all these. For there is no terror either great or small, from near or afar that did not throng around us. And verily the floods overwhelmed me and from that time until now, up to the very time that I am writing this history, the sea of calamities rushes over me and waves follow upon waves. But unconsciously I have been drawn to speak of my own troubles; now having returned to my senses, I will swim upstream again, as it were, and return to my first subject.

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