§ 1  Preface
Historical narratives, indeed, have been invented for the common benefit of mankind, since those who will are able to gather from many of these the most advantageous insights. In recording ancient events and customs, the narratives elucidate human nature and expose men of noble sentiments, those who nourish a natural love for the good, to varied experiences. In abasing evil and exalting the noble deed, they introduce us, for the most part, to the temperate and the intemperate who incline to one or the other of these two scales.

§ 2  Men who value the attribute of virtue and eschew shameless conduct and corrupt habitude, although born mortal and subject to death, are immortalized and brought back to life by the writing of history. The same is true for those who, on the contrary, have led depraved lives. It is most fitting that the actions of the virtuous and the shameless be known to posterity. The soul moves on to Hades while the body returns to those elements from which it was constituted.
Whether the actions of a man during his lifetime were holy and righteous or lawless and contemptible, and whether he lived a happy life or gave up the ghost in evildoing, are proclaimed loudly by history. Wherefore, history can be called the book of the living and the written word a clarion trumpet, like a signal from heaven, raising up those long dead and setting them before the eyes of those who desire to see them.

§ 3  Since such is the value of history, if I may say so in passing, is it not just as pleasing to posterity? Let no one be so mad as to believe that there is anything more pleasurable than history. Decrepit old men, more ancient than Tithonos and thrice a crow’s age, familiar with the record of the past, related these things to willing audiences, kindling the fires of their memories and ploughing the furrows of the past. He who loves learning, even though he be but an adolescent, proposes to do the same thing.
For these reasons, therefore, the events which occurred in my times and shortly before, deserving of narration and remembrance, and being of such a multitude and magnitude, I could not allow to pass in silence.
It is, then, by way of this history that I make these events known to future generations.
Since others are of the opinion — and I wholly agree — that in the narration of history they should eschew that which is obscure and distorted by discordant and prolix circumlocutions, and should cherish clarity as not only being in accord with the words of the sage but also as being appropriate to them, one shall not find that the events recorded herein fall short of that ideal. Nor have I in any way embraced an affected, recondite, and vulgar vocabulary, even though many are gaping in eager expectation for this; or perhaps it would be more truthful to say that they pass over ancient and contemporary events and bedeck lavishly whatever business suits their interests best. For the most part, however, when it is a matter of setting down in writing those things that are fitting, they choose not to overstep or overleap history’s proper limits.
Above all else, as I have said, the phrase which is not straightforward and easy to comprehend has been rejected, and that which is unadorned, natural, and absolutely unambiguous has been preferred and embraced.
This history, having truth as its sole objective, shuns rhetorical artifice and poetic storytelling as being diametrically opposed and disavows, moreover, their characteristics. Furthermore, even when History is composed with solemnity and reverence, she passionately desires to be the reward of diggers and of smiths covered with soot; she is also familiar with the armed company of Ares and is not captious with women who cultivate her; she rejoices at the most elegant of phrases and prefers to adorn herself, not with the pretentious and ostentatious, but with the cloth of plain and simple words.
This history, as far as is possible, will be treated with clarity and succinctness. If it lacks distinction and grace, I humbly request the forebearance of those into whose hands it may fall.

§ 4  Since this is the first time I have undertaken such an endeavor, it is like attempting to traverse a desolate and untrodden road, a much more difficult task than following the footsteps of others who have gone before or than holding to the straight and smooth royal highway without straying.
My history begins with those events which immediately followed the reign and death of Emperor Alexios, the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, since those historians who directly preceded us concluded with his reign. My work, then, is a continuation of their written record and is interwoven to resemble a channel whose waters flow from a single source or connecting links which are added to a chain that reaches into infinity.
This history will touch briefly upon the reign of John, who succeeded Alexios to the throne, but will not long dwell thereon as it will on succeeding events. Since I was not an eyewitness of that which I have recorded, I could not describe these events extensively but have set down what I heard from those contemporaries who personally knew the emperor and who escorted him on his campaigns against the enemy and accompanied him into battle. It is best that I begin here.
I. The Reign of John Komnenos
EMPEROR Alexios Komnenos begat three sons and four daughters. John was the oldest of the sons;

§ 5  the firstborn from the loins of Alexios was Anna, who was wedded to Nikephoros Bryennios and honored with the dignity of kaisarissa. Of all his children, Emperor Alexios favored John. Determined that John should succeed him to the throne, he gave him the red buskins and allowed him to be proclaimed emperor. The mother, Empress Irene, in opposition, threw her full influence on the side of her daughter Anna and lost no opportunity to calumniate their son John before her husband Alexios, mocking him as rash, pleasure loving, and weak in character. She continuously attempted to persuade the emperor to change his mind. Whenever the occasion allowed, she would heap extravagant praise on Bryennios, lauding him profusely as the most eloquent and no less capable of getting things done, as learned in the liberal arts which develop moral character and greatly assist those who are about to assume the reins of government in preserving the empire intact. Alexios, hearing these things and gware of Irene’s maternal affection for Anna, often pretended that his mind was preoccupied with matters of great urgency and would give the impression that he had not even heard the words. At other times, after deliberating on her exhortations, he would contend that he had not overlooked her petition. When he could stand no more, he would say, O woman, sharer of my bed and empire, will you not desist from admonishing me on behalf of your daughter, attempting thereby to dissolve praiseworthy harmony and good order as though you had been stricken by some God-sent madness? Put your trust in good fortune. Or rather come, let us take counsel together and see which of the former Roman emperors who had a son suited to take over the reins of government set him aside and chose instead his son-inlaw? And even should this have happened at sometime in the past,

§ 6  we still ought not to recognize rare precedent as binding law. All the Romans would laugh aloud at me and conclude that I had lost my senses should I, who gained the throne in an unpraiseworthy manner by denying the rights of consanguinity and the principles of Christian laws, when it came time to leave a succession, replace the child of my loins with the Macedonian — calling Bryennios by that name as he came from Orestias [Adrianople], one of the great and prosperous cities of Macedonia.
Having presented these cogent arguments to Empress Irene, he would once again behave as though he had no objections and divert the woman by pretending to be deliberating. He was, beyond all others, a dissembler, deeming secretiveness a clever thing and never saying much about what he intended to do.
When Alexios approached the end of his life and lay in the splendid complex of the Monastery of Mangana, John, seeing his father at death’s door and his mother’s heart hardened against him, and his sister courting the empire, consulted with his relatives, chief among whom was his brother Isaakios, who supported his cause, as to the course of action to be taken. Undetected by his mother, he entered his father’s bedchamber and, while embracing him as though in mourning, secretly removed the signet ring from his finger. Some say that he did so at his father’s behest, which seems to be borne out by what shall be described shortly.
Immediately thereafter, John gathered together his counselors and, announcing the action taken, took up arms, mounted his charger, and hastened toward the Great Palace. Both the Monastery of Mangana and the streets of the City were crowded with his supporters, and the assembled citizenry, having heard rumors of the events taking place, acclaimed him emperor.
John’s mother, Empress Irene, was taken by surprise by the turn of events. She summoned her son and exhorted him to desist from his actions. As John was in complete charge of events and paid no attention

§ 7  whatsoever to his mother, she incited Bryennios to seize the throne with her support. But when she saw that Bryennios did nothing, she approached her husband who lay prostrate on his bed and whose only sign of life was his gasping for breath. She threw herself over his body and cried aloud against their son, shedding tears even as a fountain of dark water, that while Alexios was still among the living, John was stealing the throne with acts of rebellion. Alexios, however, did not respond to her accusation, in all likelihood giving his thoughts to more serious matters, such as his imminent departure from this life, and directing his gaze upon the angels who would lead his soul to the next world. While the empress was pleading with Alexios, vehemently protesting their son’s actions, Alexios briefly forced a smile and raised his hands to heaven, perhaps rejoicing over the news and offering thanks to God, saying that it was but to mock and laugh at him that his wife should rant about his successor at a time his soul was taking leave of the body and when he should be atoning before God for whatever sins he may have committed.
The woman, convinced that her husband was gloating over her protestations, with all her hope denied, the victim of false promises, sighed deeply and spoke: “O husband, in life you excelled in all kinds of deceits, gilding your tongue with contradictory meaning, and even now as you are departing this life you remain unchanged from your former ways.”
When John reached the palace, he found the entrance barred to him by the guards, who were not satisfied with the display of the ring but demanded further evidence of his father’s wish that he should be allowed inside. John’s escort lifted the palace gates off their hinges with heavy bronze poles and threw them to the ground; then John entered with ease,

§ 8  together with his armed cohorts and relatives. Not a few of the promiscuous crowd who had followed along poured inside and began to seize everything in sight. When the gates were shut once again, those outside were barred from entering and those who had come through were forced to remain inside with the emperor for several days. And so passed the fifteenth day of the month of August [1181 CE].
The following night, Emperor Alexios departed this life, having reigned thirty-seven years, four and one-half months. Promptly at dawn, the mother summoned John to join the funeral procession bearing his father’s body to the Monastery of Christ Philanthropes, built by the deceased. John refused to heed her bidding, not because he wished to spurn his mother’s authority or to show any disrespect for his father, but because he had not had sufficient time to secure the throne. He feared his rivals’ inordinate passion to seize power. Like an octopus clinging to the rocks, John hugged the palace, but he allowed most of his kinsmen with him to join in his father’s funeral procession.
A few days later, he permitted anyone who wished to do so to enter or leave the palace, since he was now in firm control of the government and administered the affairs of state according to his wishes. Conducting himself with fair-mindedness before his relatives and close friends who approached him, he bestowed on each suitable honors. He showed himself to be one in body and mind with his brother Isaakios, to whom he was devoted. Isaakios had proved his love beyond all others, having contributed the most to John’s accession to power. Once the empire had been set in order, John received him as an equal partner of his throne and table and allowed him to share in the public proclamation befitting the rank of sebastokrator,

§ 9  with which Isaakios had been honored by his father Alexios. John appointed the administrators of public affairs from among his blood relatives; John Komnenos he honored with the office of parakoimomenos, and Gregory Taronites as protovestiarios. John Komnenos, who administered his office without restraint, behaving pompously and with singular presumptuousness, was quickly relieved of his responsibility as administrator. Gregory, on the other hand, did not exceed or overstep the limits of his authority and thus remained in power much longer.
Later, another Gregory, by the name of Kamateros, was associated in office with him. Kamateros was a learned man, and although he was not descended from a very distinguished or noble family, his services were enlisted by Emperor Alexios. Enrolled among the under secretaries, he made the rounds of the provinces, where he amassed a great wealth derived from the taxes he assessed. He longed to be connected to the emperor by marriage, and when he wedded one of his kinswomen, he was promoted logothete of the sekreta.
However, John Axuch was one who prevailed above all others in gaining the favor of the emperor and received the highest honors. He was a Turk by race, taken captive and offered as a gift to Emperor Alexios when Nicaea, the capital of Bithynia, was taken by the Western armies on their way to Palestine. Of the same age as Emperor John, he served as his playmate and became his dearest friend from among the domestics and chamberlains.

§ 10  When John ascended the throne, Axuch was awarded the office of grand domestic, and his influence was greatly increased; consequently, many of the emperor’s distinguished relatives, on meeting him by chance, would dismount from their horses and make obeisance.
Not only were his hands skilled in war but they were also quick and agile in performing needed good works. Furthermore, the nobility and liberality of his mind quite overshadowed his humble origins and made Axuch beloved by all.
The first year of the emperor’s reign had not yet run its course when his relatives — how, one cannot say — stitched up a plot against him, ranting and raving and casting the evil eye. A band of evil-working men, pledging good faith, rallied around Bryennios; because he had been educated in the liberal arts, displayed royal bearing, and was the most outstanding of those connected to the imperial family by marriage, they handed over the royal power to him. (As we have said elsewhere, he was married to the emperor’s sister, Kaisarissa Anna, who was ardently devoted to philosophy, the queen of all the sciences, and was educated in every field of learning.) They probably would have struck quickly at night with murderous weapons while the emperor was encamped at Philopation, a place well suited for running horses and situated a little distance from the gates of the land walls, since they had previously plied the keeper of the gates with lavish bribes, had not Bryennios’s customary sluggishness and languor forestalled any attempt to gain the throne and compelled him to remain immobilized, ignoring his compacts, and thus extinguishing the zeal of his partisans. It is said that Kaisarissa Anna, disgusted with her husband’s frivolous behavior and distraught in her anger, and being a shrew by nature, felt justified in strongly contracting her vagina when Bryennios’s penis entered deep inside her, thus causing him great pain.

§ 11  When the conspirators were found out the next day, they were not maimed or flagellated, but they were deprived of their possessions, which, after some time, were returned to most of them. The emperor took pity first of all on the chief instigator of the plot, the kaisarissa Anna, for the following reason. The kaisarissa ’ s gold and silver, her wealth of all kinds, and her diverse garments, had been collected in one room. Emperor John, standing there and gazing upon them, said, above all else, “How the natural order of things has been inverted for me! Kinsmen have become the enemy, and strangers friends; it is only proper for this reason to turn these treasures over to friends.” He commanded them all to be taken by the grand domestic, who thanked the emperor for his great generosity and asked for permission to speak freely. His request granted, he said, “Even though your sister has resorted to violent and wholly unjust means, O Emperor, and has renounced by these deeds her family ties, she did not thereby cast off her name and kinship. She remains, after all, the sister of a virtuous emperor and by repentance will recover, thanks to the ties of blood, your affection, which she has now lost through madness. O Master, spare your sister who has offended your majesty and chastise her with your loving-kindness, for she has already confessed to having been utterly defeated by your virtue. Give her also these things which lie before our eyes, not as payment of a just debt, but as a voluntary gift. They are more rightly hers than mine, being a paternal inheritance bequeathed to offspring.” Persuaded by these words, or, more truthfully, shamed by them, the emperor eagerly granted the request, admitting, “I should be unworthy to rule should you be deemed more merciful than I towards my family and more above the temptation of excessive and easy gain.” He restored everything to the kaisarissa and John Komnenos was reconciled with her.

§ 12  Empress Irene, John’s mother, was not implicated in the plot against her son. It is said rather that when she learned of the conspiracy, she phrased an aphorism: In the absence of a successor it is necessary to seek an emperor, but a reigning monarch must not be removed. “The anguish I would have suffered, thanks to what these butchers were planning for my son, would surely have been sharper than the pains I experienced in giving birth, for they thrust the infant into the light of day, while the former, penetrating my womb from the bowels of hell, would have caused me unending sorrow.”
The emperor, seeing that the Turks were violating their treaties with his father, in great numbers overrunning the cities throughout Phrygia and along the Maeander, with the coming of spring marched against them. He emerged victorious from many battles. He built a wall around Laodikeia, after taking the city, and routed Alp-qara, who had been entrusted with her defense. Putting everything else in good order, he thought to return home.
After a brief stay in Byzantion, he set out from the palace and once again became a tent dweller [spring 1120], He guarded against incursions by the barbarians, well aware how devastating these could be if the Romans were caught unprepared. Consequently, he chose to remain on campaign for two compelling reasons: the defense of his own provinces, which is best achieved by being in the field, and the opportunity to train and drill the troops far removed from the cares of housekeeping. For an army, like a red-hot iron dipped into water, is tempered by the sweat of blazing battle.
Accordingly, he set out to subdue Sozopolis in Pamphylia.

§ 13  The city’s capture, he knew, would be difficult because of its armed garrison and the inaccessible and precipitious terrain by which it is surrounded. Thanks to Divine Providence, he conceived the following scheme. Giving a certain Paktarios the command of a cavalry force, he instructed him to launch frequent attacks against Sozopolis, firing missiles against the walls; should the enemy sally forth, Paktarios was to flee, without turning to take a stand, along the paths a short distance from the city which were overgrown with clumps of thick bushes. Paktarios carried out the imperial command. Since the Turks repeatedly poured out of Sozopolis in large numbers, Paktarios outwitted the enemy by laying an ambush in the narrow pathways. On one of their pursuits, the Turks, without giving thought to a possible ambush, impetuously chased after the Romans for a greater distance than usual and rode heedlessly over the rough terrain.
When the Romans, who were lying in ambush, observed the Turks chasing at full gallop after one of their divisions, giving heed to nothing but the overtaking of the fleeing enemy, they rose up and eagerly assaulted Sozopolis. Then the Romans who were in flight wheeled about, and the Turks caught in the middle were unable to reach the city or to escape their pursuers; some were taken captive, others were slain by the sword, and a few escaped thanks to the speed of their horses. Thus, Sozopolis was taken by the Romans as a result of the emperor’s cunning stratagem. Next, the fortress called Hierakokoryphitis capitulated and many other fortified towns and strongholds which in the past were tributaries of the Romans but had made peace with the Turks.

§ 14  In the fifth' year of John’s reign, the Patzinaks crossed the Istros [Danube] and plundered Thrace, destroying everything under foot more absolutely than a host of locusts. John gathered the Roman forces, equipping them with the best arms possible, and marched against them, not only because of their great numbers, but also because of the arrogant behavior and grating boastfulness of these barbarians, who, it appears, recalled their former accomplishments when during the reign of Alexios Komnenos they had occupied Thrace and laid waste most of Macedonia.
The emperor, first resorting to a stratagem, dispatched Patzinakspeaking envoys to attempt to persuade the enemy to agree to withdraw, if not all of them, then at least some, since they were divided into many tribes set up in separate field headquarters. Those chiefs he won over were greeted with every kindness. He set sumptuous feasts before them and charmed them with gifts of silk garments and silver cups and basins.
While diverting the attention of the Patzinaks with such bait, he knew he must not delay in bringing his forces into battle array before the chiefs could make up their minds as to what course of action they should follow.
They contemplated making peace with the Romans because of the promises made them, and, at the same time, they were confident that they would be victorious in battle, as they had always been in the past.
Setting out from the regions of Beroe (where they were encamped), John engaged the Patzinaks in combat in the morning twilight, and there ensued one of the most frightful and terrifying battles ever fought. The Patzinaks met our troops bravely, making resistance difficult with their cavalry charges, discharge of missiles, and war cries.

§ 15  Once the Romans had joined in battle, they were committed to fighting to the death or to victory. The emperor, escorted by his companions and bodyguards, provided assistance all the while to his beleaguered troops. In the thick of battle the Patzinaks, inspired by necessity, resorted to the following base stratagem. After collecting all of their wagons and deploying them in a circle, they positioned a goodly number of their troops on them and fashioned a palisade. They cut many oblique passageways through the wagons, enabling them to take refuge behind them as though they were walls whenever hard pressed by the Romans and forced to turn their backs. When rested, they sallied out as though through gates thrown open and wrought brave deeds with their hands. This tactic devised by the Patzinaks, which, in effect, was the same as that of fighting from walls, frustrated the Roman assault.
Then John devised a cunning plan for his troops; not only was he valiant and a cunning tactician by nature but he was also the first to execute the instructions he gave his generals and soldiers. His behavior on the battlefield gave witness to his great piety: whenever the Roman phalanxes were hard pressed by the enemy falling furiously upon them, he would look upon the icon of the Mother of God and, wailing loudly and gesturing pitifully, shed tears hotter than the sweat of battle. It was not in vain that he acted thus; donning the breastplate of the power from on high, he routed the Patzinak battalions just as Moses had turned back the troops of Amalek by raising his hands.
Taking with him his bodyguards, who were armed with long shields and single-edged axes, John went forth like an unbreakable wall to meet the Patzinaks. When the rampart of wagons had been demolished and the

§ 16  fighting had turned into hand-to-hand combat, the enemy was put to inglorious flight, and the Romans pursued them boldly. The wagon folk fell by the thousands, and their palisaded camps were seized as plunder.
The captives were beyond number. Eager to defect to our side, many were sent to settle in the villages along the western borders of the Roman empire, some of which still survive; not a few were enrolled as allied forces, and many captured divisions were assigned to the army. John, having achieved such a glorious victory over the Patzinaks, raised a huge trophy and offered prayers to God and, as a remembrance y and thanksgiving for these deeds, established what we today call the festival of the Patzinaks.
Shortly afterwards [1123 CE], he delcared war against the nation of Triballoi (also called Serbs), who were guilty of many crimes and violations of treaties. He engaged them in battle and inflicted a crushing defeat, compelling these barbarians to sue for peace; they had never shown themselves to be a good match in battle but always bowed to the yoke of neighboring princes. And carrying away from there plunder beyond measure and heaping countless spoils upon the army, he transferred the captive part of the population to the East. Settling them in the province of Nikomedia and parceling out rich and fertile land among them, he enrolled some in the army and the rest he made tributaries.
Having begotten male offspring, the emperor gave his firstborn (Alexios) the purple robe and granted him the privilege of wearing the red buskins on his feet and of being mentioned with him in the acclamations whenever John was proclaimed autokrator of the Romans by the assembled populace. He honored the second son, Andronikos, the third, Isaakios, and the fourth, Manuel, with the rank of sebastokrator.

§ 17  They say that Emperor John saw his newly crowned son Alexios in a dream, mounted on a lion and holding onto his ears as reins but unable to train the beast to do anything useful. The meaning of the vision was that the boy would be emperor in name only and that he would be denied real power, which is what happened shortly thereafter: death took him from among the living [2 August 1142]. In the summer [1127 CE], the Hungarians crossed the Istros and sacked Branidevo, where they tore down the walls, whose stones they transported to Zevgminon. They also plundered Sardica, again repudiating and tearing into shreds their treaties of friendship. The hidden cause of this dispute was the fact that Almos, the brother of Stephan, ruler of the Hungarians, had fled to the emperor and had been warmly received. The specious and ostensible cause was the charge that the inhabitants of Branicevo had attacked and plundered the Hungarians who had come to these parts to trade, perpetrating the worst crimes against them.
With the unexpected eruption of this evil, the emperor who happened to be sojourning in the vicinity of Philippopolis, gave careful consideration to the problem and decided to remove the Hungarians from this area. After preparing his troops to ward off the enemy [spring 1128], he sailed the swift-moving ships he had outfitted into the Istros by way of the Pontos and there suddenly came upon the enemy on both land and water.
He then crossed the river in his imperial trireme and transported the army to the opposite shore, where the cavalry, with couched lances, scattered the assembled Hungarian forces.

§ 18  John stayed on in enemy territory. Showing himself to be more persevering than ever before, he capture Frangochorion, the richest land in Hungary, which lies among plains suited to the driving of horses, between the Sava and Istros rivers. He also took Zevgiminon and rode out against Chramon, from which he carried away much booty. After several other engagements with this nation, he made peace with it [winter 1128-29], Those remaining barbarian nations along the western borders of the Roman empire against whom he had often prospered in battle he compelled to enter into friendly relations. He felt it his duty to use every possible means to win over the nations beyond the borders, especially those who sailed down to Constantinople to trade and petition favors. He also conciliated the Italian seaboard, whence ships spread their sail for the queen of cities.
Having pacified the nations in the West, John transported the army to the East to attack the Persarmenians, who were in possession of Kastamon [1130 or 1132], He marched through the provinces of Bithynia and Paphlagonia and appeared before the city. Throwing up many scaling ladders and surrounding it with siege engines, he took Kastamon. The Persarmenian satrap despaired of the situation and fled. After taking captive no small number of Turks, John returned to Byzantion.
John proclaimed a triumph in celebration of the enemy’s defeat [1133 CE] and gave instructions that a silverplated chariot be constructed; and the chariot, adorned with semi-precious jewels, was a wonder to behold. When the day designated for the procession had arrived, all manner of gold-embroidered purple cloths decorated the streets. Nor were there missing the framed images of Christ and the saints, fashioned by the weaver’s hand, and which one would have said were not woven figures but living beings.

§ 19  Worthy too of admiration were the wooden platforms and scaffoldings set up along both sides of the parade route to hold the spectators. The part of the city that was thus bedecked was that which extended from the eastern gates to the Great Palace. The splendid quadriga was pulled by four horses, whiter than snow, with magnificent manes. The emperor did not himself mount the chariot but instead mounted upon it the icon of the Mother of God, in whom he exulted and entrusted his soul. To her as the unconquerable fellow general he attributed his victories, and ordering his chief ministers to take hold of the reins and his closest relations to attend to the chariot, he led the way on foot with the cross held in his hand. In the Church of the Wisdom of God [Hagia Sophia], he ascribed his accomplishments to the Lord God and gave thanks before all the people before he entered the palace.
Not too long afterwards, once his subjects had been given the opportunity to see him and he had been entertained by the public spectacles, and the soldiers, moreover, had spent some time at home, and his horse was rested and his lance mended, John once again marched against Kastamon [c. September 1134], Danishmend the Persarmenian, who at that time occupied Cappadocia, had marched out with a very large force, taken the city after storming the walls, and cut down with the sword the Roman garrison. When the emperor arrived there, he found that Danishmend had departed from the world of men and that a certain Muhammad, an enemy of Mas'ud, the ruler of Ikonion, was now in control of Kastamon. Taking advantage of the opportunity to promote his own cause, the emperor made peace with Mas'ud [end of 1134]; he entered into an alliance with him and marched against Muhammad. The latter, realizing that he was unable to combat a double-edged attack by both

§ 20  armies, secretly contacted his fellow countryman Mas'ud and proposed in his letters, among other things, that they should set aside their enmity, contending that if they should not be reconciled and Mas'ud defect to the emperor of the Romans, the cause of the Turks would be seriously damaged. He convinced the Ikonian Mas'ud to break with the emperor, to join forces with him and dissolve the alliance. Not long after this event, the Turkish troops, dispatched by the sultan to fight as allies of the emperor, departed by night, and henceforth the Romans met with little success in this campaign. John drew back and took up quarters at the fortress which he himself had built along the Rhyndakos River [winter 1134-35] and engaged Muhammad once again in battle, but now even more vigorously [1135 CE], Recovering Kastamon for the Romans, he proceeded on to Gangra. This is one of the largest and most illustrious of the cities of the Pontos that had not been subject to the Turks in former times.
First taking the surrounding area, he established his camp next to the city. The Turkish defenders, undaunted, refused to negotiate treaties with the emperor that would allow him to enter the city, whereupon the imperial troops surrounded the walls. Resorting to siege tactics because the wall appeared vulnerable, they kept up a constant barrage of missiles.
But John was unable to make any progress because the ramparts were sturdy and the defenders put up such fierce resistance, so he ordered that the stone missiles be directed away from the walls and hurled instead against the houses which could be seen from the hilltops on which the Romans were camped. Since the target was visible but at some distance away, the Romans in charge of the siege engines, discharging round and light stones which seemed to be flying rather than being shot from engines of war, shattered the houses; the inhabitants within fell to their

§ 21  knees and were killed by the caving-in of the roofs. As a result it was no longer safe to walk the streets nor to remain indoors.
For these reasons, because the emperor had so persevered, and especially because the ruler of Gangra had earlier disappeared from among the men of Danishmend, dying a gentle death, they surrendered themselves and the city to the emperor. After entering Gangra, John expelled the Turkish hordes and posted a garrison of two thousand troops; then he returned to the imperial city.
But Constantinople was not to see this city allotted to her and listed among her subject cities for very long. The Turks returned in even greater numbers and much stronger than before, and, throwing up an entrenched camp, they starved the city into submission while the emperor’s attention was diverted with other grave issues [1136?].
After these events, John declared an expedition [1136-39] against Cilicia because Leon, who ruled Armenia, wanted to march against and subdue other fortresses subject to the Romans; above all he was attempting to subjugate Seleukeia. Assembling his forces augmented with newly levied troops and providing sufficient provisions for a long campaign, he came to the Cilician Gates; he passed through without meeting any resistance and then occupied Adana and captured Tarsus. But he was not satisfied with his successes up to this point and contested for the whole of Armenia. Consequently, when the most important fortresses either surrendered to him or were taken by force, he became master of the entire country.

§ 22  On one occasion, he came upon a certain fortress situated on a precipice called Baka, and since the inhabitants did not stretch forth their hands to him, or were they willing to negotiate peace terms, he threw up an entrenched camp and deployed all his forces around it, maintaining stoutly that nothing whatever was to be removed until he became master of the fortress, even should his head turn grey during the siege and snow fall upon him often [summer 1138]. He informed the besieged of the benefits to be derived should they surrender and deliver the fortress over to him, as well as the evils to which they would be subjected should they continue the battle and be taken captive when his troops poured inside.
But he sang these charms to asps which had voluntarily stopped their ears to the incantations of the wise charmer, and it was obvious that he was attempting to wash a blackamoor white.
Those entrusted with the defense of the fortress of Baka were dauntless in their determination to give battle; this was especially true of a certain Constantine, an Armenian of the highest nobility who excelled all in brave deeds. Not only did he band the populace together and rouse them to fight the Romans but he often appeared above the fortress with weapons in hand and stood on the hilltop, which nature had made of rock and human skill had strengthened by surrounding it with walls,

§ 23  heaping contumely upon the emperor in the Hellenic tongue and vilifying his wife and daughters with obscenities. The emperor longed to seize the foulmouthed barbarian and exact his just revenge. Moreover, Constantine, confident in his prowess and boasting loudly of his brute force, ridiculed the imperial troops and defiantly challenged any one of them to single combat. The emperor ordered his taxiarchs forthwith to set against the Armenian one of their stoutest soldiers as a worthy opponent. A certain Eustratios was chosen from among the Macedonian legion. He was given a shield the height of a man and handed a sword newly honed. Armed in this fashion, he stepped out from the Roman ranks and, standing at the foot of the hill, challenged the Armenian to descend quickly so that they might fight on even ground, if indeed he was serious, if he truly preferred single combat and was not merely being capricious before the others to no purpose. Constantine took the words of the Macedonian as a personal affront. The huge and courageous warrior hurled himself at Eustratios like a tornado whirling in thunder and lightning or a mountain-bred gazelle leaping over the brush, thrusting in front of him a white shield, equal on all sides, with a cross incised in the center. Bracing his swordwielding right hand, and forthwith striking the shield obliquely and raining blows on the Macedonian in raging madness, he expected at any moment to inflict grave injury on the man.

§ 24  The emperor despaired, for he was certain that the Macedonian would die a violent death. Against the roaring onrush of Constantine’s attack, the Romans shouted out their encouragement and urged Eustratios to strike back, but although he raised his arm often as if to deliver a blow against his opponent, to everyone’s suprise he would then hold back; it was as if some spiteful sorcerer restrained his right hand from delivery of the blow, rendering him incapable of any action. Finally, after much vacillation, the Macedonian brought down his sword mightily and split Constantine’s great and veritable Hectorian shield in two. The Romans shouted out in great amazement. The Armenian, thus unexpectedly losing his defense and unable to remain in the field, fled and, with his life at stake, ran back to the hilltop at full speed. Henceforth, he remained within, no longer behaving insolently against the Romans nor impudently mouthing foul words against the emperor and his family, shouting these obscenities forth as though they were arrows, with his lips serving as bowstrings and his teeth as bows.
When asked by the emperor the reason for his actions and what he had in mind by frequently raising his arm to strike his opponent but bringing it down only once, the Macedonian answered that his purpose was to sever both shield and the Armenian who held it with one blow of the sword. But he was unable to carry out his plan because Constantine was not holding his shield close to his body, instead extending it a great distance away, and he finally realized that he could not just stand there doing nothing.

§ 25  Thus, he waited for the most opportune moment to bring down his weapon; then, bereft of shield, the enemy fled. Marveling at these words, the emperor rewarded Eustratios with bountiful gifts.
Not many days elapsed before this fortress was taken by force and surrendered to the emperor. Constantine was seized and taken captive, his legs bound in chains. He was taken aboard a trireme which shortly thereafter was scheduled to slip its moorings and set sail to carry the bound captive to Byzantion. But the audacious and reckless Armenian attacked his guards at night, killing many, and, released from his bonds by his attendants, he escaped. He had no sooner begun his rebellion when he was seized once again and given over to the emperor.
Not only did the emperor tax his energies during the capture of Baka but earlier he had also labored mightily against Anazarba. This densely populated city, embraced by strong walls situated above precipitous rocks and defended by ramparts and diverse engines of war stationed at intervals, was made even more secure by the fully armed and stalwart men who took refuge within. The emperor sent ahead a portion of his troops who were enrolled among his Turkish divisions and who had ably assisted him earlier in his capture of Gangra to test the sentiments of the Armenians and ascertain exactly with whom they sided. When the Armenians laid eyes on them they seethed with anger and decided on their immediate destruction. Without even waiting for them to make their initial assault, they threw open the gates and charged out against the Turks.
Joining battle, they defeated them, and when the latter turned their

§ 26  backs, the Armenians pursued them over a great distance. Shortly afterwards the fleeing Turks, seeing the Roman legions ready to come to their aid, wheeled about. The battle was turned around, and the Armenians were forced to shut themselves in behind the walls. The siege engines were soon brought to the walls, and the round stones were discharged, hitting the towers. The barbarians did not stand idly by, but positioning in their turn war engines on the battlements, they shot heavy stones against the troops and hurled fiery iron pellets, thus wholly prevailing over the Romans. Consequently, from the first, large numbers of Romans were injured. Then the Armenians roused themselves into charging forth unexpectedly like a pack of wild boars, and they burnt down the siege engines, finding it an easy matter to set fire to the reed-covered scaffoldings set up to protect them. Following this, the enemy laughed loud and their bodies shook with merriment, and they repeatedly jeered and ranted against the emperor with much nonsense.
Hostilities were briefly suspended, during which time the stone-throwing engines were repaired and mantelets and platforms were constructed out of clay bricks; on the following day, the assault against the walls was resumed. Because the flaming iron pellets could no longer damage the siege engines, the desires of the Armenians were foiled, and their earlier derision was now turned into loud lamentation. The mass of red-hot iron which was propelled from within made direct and repeated hits, but, dashing against the loose earthen barricade, it had no effect. The shot dropped to the ground and was extinguished without achieving its purpose. The walls of the city were subsequently shattered in many places,

§ 27  and the way was open into the city. Thus, the formerly impudent and loud-boasting enemy bent the knee to the emperor and surrendered the city to him by necessity, rather than by intention. This took place not immediately, but after a second offensive in which the enemy repeatedly attacked and then withdrew to the other wall nearby, their retreat from this position, as from the first, after a bloody beating.
After similarly attacking the fortresses in the vicinity of this city, John departed for Coele Syria, and on making his entrance into the beautiful city of Antioch through which the Orontes River flows and the west wind blows, he was welcomed by Prince Raymond and the entire city populace [29 August 1137]. He sojourned in the city for some days [29 August-10 September 1137]; then, as he regarded both the prince and the count of Tripoli as his liegemen, he decided to attack the Syro-Phoenician cities around Antioch which were occupied by the Agarenes.
He approached the Euphrates and came to a fortress called Piza by the local inhabitants. When battle was joined, the Roman forces retreated before the great courage of the enemy and a portion of the vanguard was pursued for some distance, unable to resist the maniacal passion and savage onrush of the barbarians. Not long afterwards, the emperor made his appearance and many from among his personal phalanx engaged the enemy in battle; unable to withstand the Roman attack, they shut themselves in behind the walls and were no longer disposed to sally forth. A double wall protected the town, girded in part by a deep fosse, while rocks scattered in their natural state added further reinforcement. But as many of the towers gave way, demolished by a hail of stones,

§ 28  Agar’s offspring lost heart. When the fortifications were breached, the bold and blustering foe turned cowards, raised their hands in submission to the emperor, and pleaded for their lives in exchange for the city’s wealth [13 April 1138].
After a while, the emperor sent a portion of the army against the cities and fortresses on the far side of the Euphrates, where he amassed a multitude of spoils, granting Piza to the count of Edessa. Vembetz, lying in the open plain where it could be easily taken, could be bypassed in favor of an advance against Halep and Ferep at the request of the prince of Antioch, who had joined forces with him [19 April 1138], Halep (called Verroia in ancient times) he found to be a populous city with a large armed force. Its soldiery charged forth from the walls upon sighting the Romans and engaged the troops around the emperor [20 April 1138]. Getting the worst of it, they retreated behind the walls, only to sally forth time and time again, but they were unable to gain the victory.
Sometimes, when the emperor approached to compass the city and survey the walls, they treacherously contrived to strike him down with missiles but failed in their purpose. Unable to avoid a protracted stalemate because of the city’s fortifications and its troops, well equipped with both arms and horses, and no less because the Roman supplies were running short and there was a dearth of firewood and water, the emperor departed [21 April 1138], Ferep was taken by assault [22 April 1138] and the fortress given to a certain count from the city of Antioch.

§ 29  John advanced then against another city, called Kafartab in the local language, which presided over a very large province and boasted of mastery over no small number of fortresses around her, where she stood proudly confident in the stoutness of her walls. Quickly subduing the city [end of April 1138], he advanced into the interior along the road to Shaizar. He encamped near Nistrion (also a city of Mesopotamia), situated a little distance from Shaizar and most excellently fortified. Since Nistrion happened to be on the way, he subdued the city, gave her over to be looted by the soldiers, especially the recruited Patzinak troops who had taken her and, departing thence, came to Shaizar.
From the assemblage of neighboring satraps, the officials of Shaizar collected large numbers of armed troops to form a single fighting force.
Further strengthening their position with a defensive alliance, they then crossed the winding river in those parts, and, brandishing reed spears and riding swift-footed horses, they engaged the emperor’s phalanxes. After many clashes, the emperor carried off the victory. Some of the enemy were hurled into the water and others were impaled by spears, since their own flexible reed spears were not at all adequate, being fragile reeds with which to defend themselves, so to speak. Thereupon, withdrawing behind the walls, they attempted no further sorties. Appearing from under their earthen shelters which had protected them, they withstood the Romans, allowing their province to be sacked and despoiled with impunity and their fortresses to be taken.
When these things had been accomplished, the emperor, arranging the phalanxes and grouping them according to nation and clans that tribe may bear aid to tribe,

§ 30  constituted a Macedonian, a Keltic, and a Patzinak division; the latter, originally from Persia, defected to the Romans in earlier campaigns. Confronted by these several homogenous divisions, each with its special arms, the enemy was seized with great fear and stopped resisting fiercely, retreating then from the outer to the inner wall.
For many days there were hand-to-hand combat, clashes and battles, duels between the best, flight and retreat, and pursuit on both sides. The Roman troops always prevailed: the enemy was cut down by the sword in large numbers, and many, pierced by arrows, succumbed to the sleep of death. But although the walls, breeched by the stone missiles discharged from the siege engines, came smashing to the ground, together with the parapet, the enemy, still countless in numbers, remained unshaken, for they were fighting for their own lives and the lives of their children and wives and for their copious treasures of every kind.
The city would have soon fallen and submitted to the emperor and been emptied of all her wealth, and by her capture the Romans would have won renown more glorious than ever before, had not ill-omened dispatches dragged the emperor unwillingly from there. These reported that Edessa had been surrounded by the Turks and was in danger of suffering the worst should the emperor delay coming to her aid. The emperor lifted the siege and set off for Antioch [23 May 1138], carrying away magnificent gifts.
There were highly bred horses with arched necks and objects fashioned from the most precious materials: silk garments interwoven with gold and a table well worth looking at, as well as an inscribed cross carved of Parian marble, a most beautiful and unusual work of art rivaling in beauty the sacred image, a feast for the eyes; this the emperor received with his own hands and preferred to all the others. The Saracens of Shaizar related that the cross of glistening marble and the costly and dazzling table from among

§ 31  the gifts offered to the emperor had been taken by their ancestors long ago as spoils when they had captured Emperor Romanos Diogenes, the ruler of the Romans. At that time they had plundered the imperial pavilion, and, taking possession of the entrenched camp, they had divided among themselves everything within.
As the emperor was departing from Shaizar, his rear guard was attacked by the forces of Zengi and the Turkish troops of certain other eminent chiefs, who were very conceited because of their horses, almost as swift as the wind, and extremely contemptuous of the Romans in their stupid barbarian arrogance. When they performed no brave deeds, their hopes were dashed. In retribution for their boasting and vaunting, they were punished by Divine Justice, and two of their chiefs taken alive: these were the sons of the atabeg and the brother of Amir Samuch.
As the emperor made his entry into the celebrated city of Antioch, the entire populace poured out to greet him and to prepare a splendid reception for him by holding sacred images and magnificently adorning the streets. He departed Antioch amidst propitious acclamations and laudatory farewells and arrived at the borders of Cilicia; setting out from there, he took the road to Byzantion. Proceeding in battle array and mindful of his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, he dispatched a division of the army against the Turks of Ikonion; previously, when the emperor and his army were in Syria, Ikonion had taken advantage of the opportunity to launch attacks against the Romans. John prevailed against this hostile horde and despoiled the enemy’s land, taking captive both men and animals of all kind, draft animals as well as those suited for riding.

§ 32  Such then were the battles of John in the lands toward the rising sun, involving peoples of every tongue and opinion, a single expedition of three years’ duration [spring to spring 1139].
The sebastokrator Isaakios, who, as was reported above, had assisted in putting down the abortive conspiracy to seize the throne, returned to the emperor at this time. Vexed at some trifle, Isaakios parted company with his brother and departed as a fugitive from the land of the Romans, taking with him as companion and fellow wanderer his eldest son John, a warrior mighty and formidable in raising the cry of war, of noble stature, and most fair to look upon. He came into contact with many and diverse nations, among whom was the satrap of the metropolis of the Ikonians [Mas'ud I], This Isaakios, in need of money, was ever eager to attack Roman territories and to become a Satan to John; seeing Emperor John so widely known for his continual successes in war, he found that none of his own plans was realized. Everyone, in fact, withdrew from him, and at the first mention of rebellion, they had misgivings and dissuaded him from this course as being both disadvantageous to him and impossible for them to effect. Consequently, when he visited the toparchs, he was respectfully received by them as their guest, as he was most imperial in bearing and a member of a most distinguished family. Finally, he realized that it was for nought that he was separated from his family and that he was suffering an evil existence, and so he returned to his brother. The emperor was happy to see his brother and his son, and, granting them an audience, he embraced them affectionately. For the love of kin is a strong emotion, and should it ever be slightly injured, it quickly heals itself. Indeed, preserving his former affection undiminished, he did not harbor any burning resentment in his heart, as those in authority are wont to do in concealing their wrath and then taking

§ 33  revenge at an opportune moment. Entering Constantinople with his brother, John did not rejoice any more as a returning conqueror than he did in the return of his brother. His subjects commingled their praises out of respect for the emperor, not only extolling his trophies and offering thanks to God who marched along with him and preserved him as victor but rejoicing also for his brother’s homecoming.
Because the Turks were mounting attacks against the defenseless regions along the Sangarios River, John was able to remain in Byzantion only a short time. Despite his physical debilitation, he set out without delay [spring 1139] and succeeded in terrifying the enemy by his very presence, at the same time driving out animal herds of all kinds. This finished, he returned to Lopadion. Not long afterwards, when the ladies of the court had departed from the city, he built Ochyrai, taking advantage of the cessation of hostilities. He planned to remain for some time in these parts and ordered the troops to assemble. When, in compliance with the imperial decrees, the army was brought together, John for the first time appeared to be unremitting and imperious; recognizing no limits to his expeditions, it was as though he had forgotten or that he was unaware that the Romans had spent three years in the Eastern wars.
What was particularly maddening, driving the troops to unspeakable hatred, was the fact that many who had gone up with him into Syria had not been allowed to look in on their domestic affairs but, suffering from sickness of body, inadequate provisions, and the loss of mounts on their long march, were compelled by those who kept diligent watch over the roads and points of embarkation to forego returning to their homelands and to continue on to the imperial encampment.
The emperor was well aware of the reasons behind their complaints, and did not pretend that he knew nothing or that he did not care, but still he allowed them to air their grievances to no avail while he carried out his purpose, contending that he did not want to exhaust and wear out his troops from continuous expeditions but to make them his zealous assistants.

§ 34  John now proposed to march against the barbarians, who had intruded into the Armeniakon theme, as well as to seize Constantine Gabras, who for some time [since 1126] had held Trebizond subject, governing that city as a tyrant. Thus he made his way through the valleys of Paphlagonia, keeping to the coastland of the Pontos for two reasons: to provision the army from his own provinces and to be exposed on one side only, so as not to be easily surrounded should it be necessary to engage in hostilities. The ruler of Kaisareia was the aforementioned Muhammad, who was invested with great power, having subjugated both a portion of Iberia and parts of Mesopotamia, and who traced his distant roots to the Arsacids and was directly descended from the Danishmendids. These were brave and stouthearted warriors, the strongest and most ruthless of those who had subdued the cities of the Romans.
Towards the end of spring [end of May 1139] the emperor rose up and departed from Lopadion. He spent the summer season and the temperate period of autumn on campaign and at the time of the winter solstice [21 December 1139] took up quarters in the Pontic city of Kinte. Thereafter, when he assaulted enemy territory, he fared very badly. The land of the Cappadocians is frost-bound and the climate bitter cold, and as the winter that year was uncommon, he contended with diverse evils. Supplies were practically depleted, and all the pack animals and war chargers perished. Consequently, the foreign invaders were greatly heartened, and whereas they are infamous by reputation, leaving nothing unexplored and unexamined, and resort to frequent surprise attacks, engaging in plundering raids and sometimes fiercely joining in open combat, they always

§ 35  decimated the Roman phalanxes. It was as though a mass of clouds had suddenly appeared; trusting in the swiftness of their horses, the Romans broke rank and retreated as though they had been picked up and blown away by the wind. To make up for the failure of the cavalry, the emperor went about the camps collecting highly bred chargers which he gave to those Romans who were skilled lancers, as well as to those Latins specially adept at tilting; these he set against the enemy and instructed to fight bravely. The enemy, unable to withstand their charge at full tilt, were turned to flight. He also ordered huge numbers of infantry standards to be raised to give the appearance of more cavalry. Thanks to these stratagems, the Turkish assaults were checked, and John hastened on to Neokaisareia.
Many were the battles fought between Turks and Romans around this city. And the emperor’s youngest son Manuel, couching his lance and advancing a good distance, completely unbeknownst to his father charged the enemy. The youth’s action inspired almost the entire army to fight beyond their strength. Some rose up in equal zeal, while all the others, alarmed for the boy’s safety, reasoned that the emperor would be greatly pleased should he suffer no harm thanks to their assistance. Then, the father publicly rewarded the youth with praise, but later, on entering the imperial pavilion, John made Manuel stretch himself out face downwards and flogged him with a whip of willow twigs for being rash, rather than courageous, and forbade him to engage the enemy in close combat.
Perhaps the emperor would have prevailed over Neokaisareia had he not been stopped by an unforeseen circumstance, the irrational and selfwilled arrogance and the wholly uncontrollable wrath of his nephew John, the son of the sebastokrator Isaakios. In the midst of a battle with the Turks, the emperor, seeing a distinguished knight from Italy without a horse, commanded his nephew, who was nearby, to dismount from the Arabian stallion he was riding and offer him to the Italian, knowing that

§ 36  his nephew had no lack of horses. Being high spirited and more haughty than was proper, he resisted the emperor’s command, demonstrating his opposition with great indignation and impudence. Contemptuously, he challenged the Latin to a duel; should he prevail, then the horse would justly be his. But John, who observed that the emperor was bristling with anger, could not defy his uncle for long and grudgingly surrendered the horse. Mounting another charger despondently and taking up his lance, he rode off in the direction of the enemy’s ranks. Then, after advancing a short distance, he turned his lance to the rear, placing it on his shoulder, and, removing the helmet from his head, he defected to the Turks.
The barbarians were glad to see John and welcomed him warmly, regarding him as the friend they had known in the past in the company of his father, and who would now, as he had then, strengthen their cause by his presence. A short time later, he renounced the Christian rites and married the daughter of the Turkish ruler of Ikonion. The emperor, taken by surprise by these events, feared that his nephew would hold nothing back concerning the Roman army’s predicament but, with unbridled tongue, would promptly inform the enemy of the lack of horses and supplies and every other plight in the camp. He furtively retraced his steps, and departed hastily [summer 1140]. However, he could not entirely escape the notice of the enemy; pressing upon the last of the troops to withdraw, they followed over a long distance, continually harassing the rear guard. When the emperor reached the protection of the coast, the barbarians, no longer able to attack, beat a hasty retreat.

§ 37  The ides of January [15 January 1141] saw Emperor John entering the City on his return from his Turkish labors, and the spring equinox witnessed him once again girding on the sword and arriving in the vicinity of the town on the Rhyndakos River [Lopadion], As the summer season came to a close and winter petulantly intruded into clear skies, causing terror with the howling of winds and weakening the body’s resistance to the cold, John returned to Byzantion, retreating before the freezing weather that rained down snowflakes as large as boulders and sleet like javelins. When Spring slowly began to smile, he rose up and departed from the palace [1142 CE]. When he took leave of his daughters, like the Heliades they covered him with amber tears. After crossing Phrygia, he arrived at the most splendid city of Attaleia, where he intended to remain for some time, so as to establish greater order in the surrounding provinces.
Some of these, among them Lake Pousgouse, had already submitted to the Turks. Stretching out into an immense sea-like expanse, Lake Pousgouse contained islets scattered throughout which were protected by stout walls. These islands were inhabited by colonies of Christians who crossed Ikonion in their barks and light boats and, by mingling with the Turks, not only stengthened their mutual bonds of friendship but also maintained strong commercial ties. Allied with their neighbors, they looked upon the Romans as their enemies. Thus custom, reinforced by time, is stronger than race and religion. These people, secure in the protection of the watery girdle of the lake, wickedly accused the emperor of being an enemy and arrogantly refused to submit to his ordinance;

§ 38  those things which they could not judge sanely they conceived in madness. John exhorted them to remove themselves from the lake, as it was an ancient Roman possession, and to go over to the Turks, should that be their wish. Should they not comply, however, he threatened that he would not put up with them and their keeping the lake from the Romans for long. Since his words had no effect, he began military operations.
Lashing fishing boats and light transports together and forming a platform on which he placed siege engines, he assaulted the fortifications along the lake. Although he succeeded in destroying them, the Romans did not sail away from that campaign without sustaining losses; at times a strong wind would churn the waters of the lake, swelling them into roaring billows, and the transports would be swept away; capsizing, they lost their cargo to the wavy deep.
At this time the emperor’s firstborn son Alexios, to whom he had awarded the red buskins and the imperial purple, departed this life [2 August 1142]. His illness, of the severest kind and of short duration, took the form of a rushing fever attacking the head as though it were an acropolis. The second son, Andronikos, did not long survive; no sooner had he lamented his brother’s departure from this world when he, too, discharged his allotted portion of life.
Although The emperor was brought to his knees by such calamities and the tragic loss of his noble sons, regarding, without saying, the deaths of the beloved youths as evil omens of his onward march, he neither became fainthearted nor was he at all diverted from his purpose, nor did he retrace his steps and return to Byzantion, even though a whole year had elapsed since he had undertaken these labors.

§ 39  After arriving in Isauria and putting affairs there in order, he marched back into Syria, accompanied by his last-born son, Manuel.
The ostensible purpose of this expedition was to establish a better disposition of Armenia and to reaffirm the loyalty of the cities and fortresses of which he had taken possession in his earlier campaign up from the coast, but the real purpose behind this well-planned troop movement was kept concealed. He had always had a burning desire to unite Antii och to Constantinople and then to visit the holy lands trodden by God and adorn the life-giving tomb of the Lord with precious gifts, and, in addition, to clear away the barbarians round about. He resorted, therefore, to every ruse in the hope that the Latins would willingly surrender to his dominion over venerable Antioch; should they not be persuaded to do this (for he had no faith in the driveling of the Latins and in their arrogance}, then the Cilicians and the Syrians would go over to him.
During his ascent he dispatched missives announcing his arrival to the Antiochenes, and he did not slacken his pace so that, although he had not yet crossed the borders of Syria, he might attract thence an embassy which would produce very good hopes for him for the future. However, as he approached Antioch, he found that the Italians had different ideas because rumor had reached them of the emperor’s secret and unspoken intentions. Contrary to his expectations, it appeared that his entry into Antioch would be difficult. Although he had the right to do so according to treaty, in his soul John deliberated on how divisive the issue was and that should he proceed into the city he must spend days being properly venerated and honored, only to leave without having achieved anything innovative in the public affairs of the city or having altered anything in the established customs; annoyed that he had been deceived, he deemed it unwise to force his entry. Warfare against Christians he forbade, but the troops were allowed to pillage the suburbs of the city in which they were quartered and to carry off everything they could get their hands on.

§ 40  His excuse for this command was that there was a lack of supplies; not even the fruit-bearing trees were left unharmed, but were given over to the flames for cooking. Imperceptibly taking his revenge in this manner, he diverted his course towards the border of Cilicia [after September 1142], From the camp that he set up in an extremely wide ravine along which run soaring twin-peaked mountains called Crows’ Nest, John went hunting [1 April 1143]. Coming upon a solitary boar, he plunged the head of his javelin into the beast’s breast. As the beast thrust forward, the entire iron shaft penetrating into its entrails, the hand holding the javelin became numb and gave way before the beast’s terrific counter-thrust, and as the hand was thrown back it straightway struck the quiver carrying poisoned arrows which hung at the emperor’s side. As the quiver overturned, one of the falling arrows pierced the emperor’s skin along the middle of his last two fingers. The poison, ever-spreading and increasing, coursed through the body and penetrated its vital parts, which became chilled and numb; after some time he departed this life. When the accident had occurred, the emperor had made light of the skin’s abrasion and had applied as a remedy a piece of leather from his shoes called the ekdora, ' mistakenly attempting thereby to staunch the wound’s bloody and purulent discharge.
He returned towards evening and took dinner and then passed the night restfully; the next day when the wound began to swell and throb violently and he was harrowed by excruciating pains, he disclosed to the physicians what had happened. They saw the swollen hand, and, after examining the application laid on it for healing and concluding that it was contrary to the canons of medicine, they removed it and resorted to other medications that could relieve the festering wound. When the drugs

§ 41  proved ineffective the Asklepiadai considered surgery. The swelling was lanced, but this brought no reduction or relief to the injured hand; instead the swelling increased in size, and the evil spread from finger to finger, and from, palm to wrist, then to the forearm, and thence to the arm, and the emperor lost all hope. Since all the physicians were perplexed, they agreed to amputate the emperor’s arm, which had swollen to the size of a man’s thigh, although they were still in doubt as to the healing of the injured limb; the emperor, deeming the earlier lancing to be the cause of all subsequent complications, adamantly refused to consent to their proposals, but lay in pain ignoring the disputation over the treatment.
When the most glorious day of the resurrection of Christ [4 April 1143CE] arrived, he partook of the Holy Mysteries [Holy Communion] and, reclining to take his dinner, drew back the curtain to all who wished to enter and make a petition. At the suggestion of John [Axuch], the grand domestic, he did the same the next day, and distributing the viands that were laid out to those present, he henceforth kept to himself to give thought to the successor to the throne. As there was a torrential downpour and the valley in which he was encamped was flooded, the imperial couch was moved to a dry place, and he recited the following oracular response, “Into watery places, past hope, thou shalt fall.”
Those who specialize in the study of succession and removal of emperors said that the following prediction had been fulfilled, “O, food shalt thou become for the fearsome crows,” contending that this ancient saying either referred to the black and sizzling irons used to cauterize the emperor’s hand or to the name of the mountains on which he was encamped.
Assembling afterwards his kinsmen, friends, and all the dignitaries and officials, and presenting his last-born son Manuel, he said the following:

§ 42  O Roman men, I have not, according to my great expectations, taken Syria; I had hoped to perform deeds more glorious than heretofore; to bathe without fear in the Euphrates and drink its flowing waters to satiety; to see the Tigris River and terrify the adversary with men under arms, both those who have gone over to the Cilicians and those who have defected to the Agarenes; to soar like the kings of the birds, even though this be an excessive thing to say, towards Palestine where Christ did raise our fallen nature, extending his hands on the cross and uniting the whole world in his droplets [of blood]; to go up to the mountain of the Lord, according to the psalmist, and to stand in his holy place; to attack the enemy round about who, like the Philistines of old who had seized the ark, had many times taken the Lord’s tomb by military might.
Since my expectations are not to be fulfilled, for reasons which God only knows, it is altogether impossible to resist, nor must we raise our voices against what has been ordained. For who is wiser than God? Or who shall search into the mind of God and alter his judgments by being able to subtract or to add to these? The designs of men are frustrated, but the Lord’s will cannot be nullified and is immutable. In gratitude to God, who has dispensed countless kindnesses for my benefit, and in thanksgiving for the excessive mercy he has shown us, 1(10 I declare the following to you as audience and witnesses.
I was begotten of a father who was emperor, and as his successor to the throne I have cast aside nothing of which he gave over into my hands. As to whether I have worked the talent of sovereignty granted me by God, I leave to others to examine and comment upon; and I myself could narrate, without offensiveness and pride, the wondrous works of God around me. East and West saw me warring, and I attacked the nations of both continents.

§ 43  I remained but little in the palace; nearly my whole life was lived out of a tent, and I have always diligently sought the open air. The land in which we are now encamped has twice looked upon me, and it has been a long time since Turks and Arabs have not laid eyes on a Roman army; this army, with God as its leader and me as his subordinate commander, they have come to dread; many cities submitted to us, and forthwith we are installed as masters and they are now governed by our decrees. May the Lord our God grant me, the supreme commander of the Christian commonwealth, an inheritance in his kingdom and an eternal portion which the meek and well pleasing shall receive from him. May you continue to strengthen your hands and to prevail against those nations that wish for wars and have never called upon the holy name of our God which is above every name. These things shall come to pass if you entrust the sure success to the right hand and mighty arm of the most high God. He should then grant you a sovereign who is not a devourer of the people, giving the lie to his name, capricious by nature, bent forward over the table with his hands ever on the wine ladle, and never tearing himself away from the palace like those portraits on walls in colored mosaics; who enjoys arranging the affairs of state according to his own inclinations and seeing them carried through; from the very beginning whatever transpires depends on him: if he proves a coward, the course of events will be altered, and if again virtuous, they shall take the opposite direction, in the manner that God, according to David, does good to them that are good and upright and leads away them that turn aside to crooked ways with the workers of wickedness.
As I am about to say something concerning my successor to the throne following my imminent and certain demise, it is necessary that you hearken to my words. That I inherited the imperial throne as my patrimony, I need not say, just as it is not necessary for someone to produce evidence that the sun is the lamp of day. Perceiving in my own case that the proper order of succession was

§ 44  observed, and that you are eager that the same should hold true for the offspring of my loins, and that you long to be ruled by one of my surviving sons (these are Isaakios and Manuel); and that you do not want to make the selection yourselves but entrust the election to me, I must admit that it has been the custom, by the very nature of things, to award the highest office to the firstborn son; however, in the matter of highest promotions it does not always please God that this should be the case. Recall Isaac who was second in birth to Ismael, Jacob coming forth from the maternal womb after Esau, Moses born after Aaron, David who was small among his brothers and the youngest in his father’s house, and many others. For God does not look at the outward appearance as man does, nor does he award public offices because of advanced years, as one devoted to grey hair and old age, but, rejoicing in the nobility of soul, he looks upon the meek and the gentle and upon him who keeps his commandments. Accordingly, therefore, conceding little to Nature, the arbiter, and shunning her ordinances like the counsels of a narrow-minded woman in matters of vital concern, I prefer instead to emulate God, who is above every respect of persons.
Were the rule to be transferred indisputably to my son Isaakios, who is the older, there would be no need for me to speak of the character of both my sons, but since the sovereignty has inclined towards my last-born Manuel, to turn aside the suspicions of many and the conviction of some that I have preferred to honor the youngest son above the elder on the basis of affection instead of virtue, I must explain the reasons.
The road of aspirations is not singular but branches off into numerous paths, as is the case with the human form, even though we humans have inherited the same nature. We differ in our appetites, and we do not all, with one accord, enjoy the same ones. Were this not the case, we could not be blamed by God and one another for

§ 45  greedily desiring the same pleasures and having by necessity the same inclinations.
Even though my two sons were begotten of the same father, each differs in temperament. They are both virtuous, excelling in robustness of body, nobility of form, and profundity of intellect; it is perfectly obvious to me that my last-born son Manuel would be the better administrator of the empire. Isaakios has often appeared to me as being irascible; provoked by some cause he flies into a towering rage, a fault which ruins the wise and because of which the majority of men act thoughtlessly. Manuel, on the other hand, together with the cluster of virtues shared by Isaakios, is not a stranger to meekness, readily yielding to what is useful and willing to listen to reason. Since, like David the king and prophet, he, too, is adorned with innocence of heart, and we humans, furthermore, prefer to be led by a hand clasping the sword and by a temperament which subtly searches out the trespasses of subjects, I have chosen Manuel to be emperor.
Receive, therefore, the youth as God-annointed sovereign and as emperor by election. Proof that God has destined and chosen him to be emperor are the many predictions and prophecies of men beloved of God, all of which foretold that Manuel should be emperor of the Romans. Since my sons, whom I had earlier designated to rule, have died, and Isaakios, who was next in line of birth to ascend the throne, was found wanting, what else was there to do?
Assuredly, we can pronounce these signs to be palpable evidence that God wishes that none other than Manuel be awarded the scepter of the Romans. Should one wish to explore the matter, he will not behold me, the father, awarding the throne to the boy altogether as a gift and as one wholly concerned to keep the succession in the family, but he shall observe me bestowing his elevation as a prize of virtue. For you know, you know full well, what deeds of prowess he, a mere stripling, performed in Neokaisareia and of

§ 46  that brave charge against the Turks which, though it caused me great anguish as a father and made me exceedingly fearful for my beloved son, strengthened the Roman position.
Thus spoke Emperor John. The assembly, lamenting at his words, gladly received Manuel as emperor as though he were appointed by lot or election." Afterwards, the father, after addressing his son and giving him sound advice, crowned him with the imperial fillet and put on him the purple-bordered paludamentum. Then the troops were assembled, and they proclaimed Manuel emperor of the Romans, and each of the nobles, with his retinue standing apart, loudly acclaimed the new sovereign.
Thereupon, when the Holy Scriptures had been brought forth, everyone confirmed on them his goodwill and loyalty to Manuel. The initiator and celebrant of these ceremonies was the grand domestic, whose intention was to dissolve and dissipate the attempts at disturbance and rebellion by the ambitious and to blunt the assistance given by a good many to several of the emperor’s kin, who, putting forth seniority of birth as a great and venerable tradition and magnifying their connection to the imperial family through marriage, deemed themselves more worthy to rule the empire.
Several days after these events, Emperor John departed this life, having reigned twenty-four years and eight months [15 August 1118-8 April 1143]. He had governed the empire most excellently, and his life was well pleasing to God; in moral character he was neither dissolute nor incontinent; by way of gifts and expenditures he pursued magnificence, as is evidenced by his frequent distributions of gold coins to the City’s inhabitants and by the many beautiful and large churches he built from their foundations. More than all others, he was a lover of glory, and, bequeathing to posterity a most illustrious name, he was highly honored. He was so fastidious as to the decorum and deportment of the members of

§ 47  his family that he would inspect the cut of their hair and carefully scrutinize the shoes on their feet to see if the leather had been sewn to the exact shape of the foot. He swept the palace clean of idle and filthy conversation during public audiences, of profligacy in food and dress, and of all else that was ruinous and destructive of life; playing the role of grave chastiser and desiring that his attendants should emulate him, he never stopped in the pursuit of every virtue. I do not mean that by behaving in this fashion he was lacking in the graces, inscrutable, inaccessible, sullen in appearance, knitted-browed, or even wrathful. He presented himself to public view as a model of every noble action, and when enjoying a respite from public matters, he would avoid the commotion of large crowds, turning a deaf ear to their babbling and jabbering; his speech was dignified and elegant, but he did not spurn repartee or in any way hold back and stifle laughter. He only just failed to reach the very summit of self-control and steadfastness and barely escaped the charge of parsimony; depriving no one of life nor inflicting bodily injury of any kind throughout his entire reign, he has been deemed praiseworthy by all, even to our own times, the crowning glory, so to speak, of the Komnenian dynasty to sit on the Roman throne, and one might well say that he equaled some of the best emperors of the past and surpassed the others.

§ 48  II. The Reign of Manuel Komnenos BOOK ONE
As soon as he was proclaimed emperor [5 April 1143 CE], Manuel dispatched forthwith to the queen of cities the grand domestic John Axuch, together with the chartoularios Basil Tzintziloukes, to make arrangements for the smooth transfer of power to the new regime and to pave the way for his entry with appropriate festivities. Moreover, they were to constrain his brother, the sebastokrator Isaakios. The emperor was apprehensive lest Isaakios, on being informed that his father was dead and that the scepter had been given to his younger brother, should form a party of opposition and hotly contend to make himself master of all, inasmuch as he was in line to succeed the throne and happened, at that moment, to be present in the queen of cities and lodged in the palace, where piles of money were stored and the imperial vestments were kept.
John, therefore, entered the City in great haste, and since Isaakios had not yet been apprised of events, seized him and incarcerated him in the Pantokrator monastery built by Emperor John.

§ 49  Learning of his father’s death and his brother’s accession after his arrest, Isaakios, powerless to do anything, complained that he had been made to suffer beyond all measure and extolled the order by which the whole universe is sustained. “Alexios,” he said, “the firstborn of my brothers and heir to the paternal throne, quitted this world, having succumbed to Death; he was followed by Andronikos, the second-born, who departed this life shortly after returning with his brother’s corpse from across the sea.” Isaakios coveted the throne for himself, insisting that he was the rightful sovereign.
But in vain did he tragically declaim such sentiments, and for naught did he flutter his wings like a little snared bird. The grand domestic took charge of the palace guard and attended to the acclamation of Emperor Manuel on the part of the citizens and delivered to the clergy of the Great Church a letter written with red letters and secured by a gold seal and silk thread, steeped in the blood of the mussel, conferring on them the annual sum of two hundred pounds in silver coins. It is said that Axuch carried a second royal letter written in red awarding the same amount in gold coins; since the not unreasonable notion had occurred to the emperor that Isaakios, on learning of his father’s death and his young brother’s acclamation as sovereign, might incite rebellion in the City on the grounds that he had a better right by birth to the crown, or that the turbulent and revolutionary desire, which forever incites the populace whenever emperors are chosen or removed, would create difficulties for the new ruler and imperil the reign because of the uncertainty of the situation of the moment, he entrusted to John the two munificent imperial diplomas. Since his mission had succeeded in its purpose and the newly arrived emissary could conceive or wish for nothing better, he held back the diploma awarding the gold coins and produced that which bestowed the silver coins.

§ 50  In such wise they prepared for the imperial arrival. The emperor completed the obsequies of his father and placed the body aboard ship among the fleet anchored in the Pyramos River which fattens Mopsuestia and flows into the sea. Putting in order the affairs of Antioch in the brief time allowed him and setting out from Cilicia, he marched through upper Phrygia. It was at this time [c. May 1143] that Andronikos Komnenos, Manuel’s cousin on his father’s side (he later reigned as tyrant over the Romans), and Theodore Dasiotes, who was married to Maria, the daughter of Manuel’s brother, the sebastokrator Andronikos, were captured by the Turks and taken to Mas'ud, who was then ruler of Ikonion.
While hunting wild game, they turned off the road taken by the army and unawares fell into the hands of the enemy; stalking game, they themselves fell prey to the hunters of men. The emperor, who was unable at the time to fix his mind on any other course of action but was wholly absorbed by the enterprise at hand, deemed it inexpedient to delay even a little, nor did he take thought of these men, which would have been the proper thing to do, and come to their aid as befitted the royal dignity. He freed them afterwards without paying ransom, and he recovered for the Romans the town of Prakana, situated near Seleukeia and besieged by the Turks.
When Manuel arrived in the queen of cities [c. July 1143], he was warmly welcomed by her inhabitants both as heir to the paternal throne and because, even though he was a mere lad, he had the deep understanding of those grown old in affairs of state; he had shown himself to be skilled in war, venturesome and undaunted in the face of danger, highminded and eager to give battle. The youth had a handsome face which

§ 51  was graced by a gentle smile; he was tall but slightly stooped. In complexion he was neither snow-white like those reared in the shade nor the color of deep black smoke like those exposed to the burning rays of the sun; he was, consequently, not fair-complexioned but swarthy in appearance.
The citizenry crowded round with arms outstretched, shouting out acclamations, when Manuel jubilantly entered the palace. As he reached the palace, and was about to enter through the gate past which only the emperors were allowed to dismount, the horse carrying the emperor, an Arabian stallion with a high, arched neck, neighing loudly and frequently striking the pavement with his hooves, and advancing without restraint and proudly wheeling about, finally crossed over the threshold. To those who were skilled in such techniques, this episode appeared to be propitious, and of these, those who gaze at the sky while barely seeing what is at their feet foretold, on the basis of the equine configurations and frequent whirlings around, a long life for the emperor.
Offering thanks to God on the occasion of his entrance and acclamation as emperor, Manuel turned his attention to who should succeed to the patriarchal throne and take the helm of the Church and place the imperial crown on his head in the Lord’s temple, for Leon Stypes had departed the world of men in death. Manuel communicated his views to his kin, the members of the senate, and the clergy; although many were nominated to the supreme high priesthood, the deciding and nearly unanimous vote went to the monk Michael from the Monastery of Oxeia, who was both renowned for his virtue and erudite in our learning. 12s

§ 52  As soon as Michael was promoted as patriarch, he forthwith anointed his anointer upon his entrance into the sacred palace [probably August 1143], The brother Isaakios was reconciled with the emperor, and, to the surprise of many, they pledged fraternal goodwill to one another. Isaakios was irascible and for the slightest cause would inexplicably be impelled to inflict inordinate punishments on many. He nurtured, furthermore, an ignoble timidity, so much so that he was unmanly. His father John, the best of emperors, was deemed happy by all and of glorious and blessed memory for the added reason that he had rightly chosen Manuel to reign as emperor above Isaakios.
Because Mas'ud was plundering and laying waste the eastern provinces, Manuel set out against him [1144 or 1145]. When he came to Melangeia, he attacked the Turks in those parts; after he had directed the campaign for the recovery of Melangeia and stationed a garrison for her defense, he returned to the queen of cities stricken with pleuritis.
To wreak his vengeance against Raymond, prince of Antioch, for harassing the cities of Cilicia subject to the Romans, Manuel dispatched an army and designated as commanders his nephews, the brothers John and Andronikos Kontostephanos, and a certain Prosuch, who was not ignorant of military matters. He also dispatched long ships under the command of Demetrios Branas.
Once the beleaguered cities and fortresses in those parts were furnished with assistance, Manuel proposed forthwith to march against the Turks; they were already pressing on to take possession of the fortifications around Pithekas, and, invading the Thrakesian theme, they carried off everything in their path. Manuel then crossed Lydia and appeared before the cities of Phrygia and before those along the Maeander River,

§ 53  where he freed them of the impending dangers; striking terror into the Turks, he put them to flight. At Philomilion he engaged the Turks in battle. There he was struck in the flat of the foot by an arrow shot by a certain Turk overthrown by the emperor’s lance; as he fell backwards, the discharged arrow pierced the sole of Manuel’s foot. Manuel, who appeared awesome and daring to the enemy and more venturesome than his father John, did not choose to turn back, nor would he be persuaded by those who counseled him to consider returning home lest the Turks, in desperation, regroup and batter his forces.
Indeed, he rode on to Ikonion with heightened enthusiasm. Mas'ud, who had departed, had set up camp at Taxara, the ancient Koloneia; one of his daughters, reportedly married to the emperor’s cousin, John Komnenos, the son of the sebastokrator Isaakios who, because of some trifling vexation against his uncle, Emperor John Komnenos, had fled and defected to Mas'ud, peered out from above the walls and delivered a persuasive defense on behalf of her father, the sultan. The emperor reached the outskirts of Ikonion and surrounded the walls with his troops, but after he had allowed the youth to aim their arrows at the battlements and to violate the marked graves, he turned back without further ado. As he withdrew, the enemy, which had set up ambuscades and occupied the heavily wooded terrain, engaged him in greater battles than had heretofore erupted. Fighting his way through with difficulty, Manuel returned to the queen of cities [1146 CE].
The emperor took a wife from a distinguished and most illustrious German family. She was not so much concerned with physical beauty as with her inner beauty and the condition of her soul.

§ 54  Disdaining face powder, eye liner, and eyeshadow underneath the eye, and rouge instead of nature’s flush, and ascribing such aids to silly women, she was adorned by the virtues to which she was devoted. She had the natural trait of being unbending and opinionated. Consequently, the emperor was not very attentive to her, but she shared in the honors, bodyguard, and remaining imperial splendors; in matters of the bed, however, she was wronged. For Manuel, being young and passionate, was wholly devoted to a dissolute and voluptuous life and given over to banqueting and reveling; whatever the flower of youth suggested and his vulgar passions prompted, that he did. Indulging in sexual intercourse without restraint and copulating undetected with many female partners, he unlawfully penetrated his kinswoman. And he was blemished by this disfiguring and unseemly action as warts or pustules of dull white leprosy sprout on the face mar a lovely countenance.
The emperor attended, nonetheless, to public affairs. He appointed John of Poutze procurator of the public taxes and grand commissioner and inspector of accounts, as his father and emperor had done before him when he was serving as protonotarios of the dromos, and he installed John Hagiotheodorites as chancellor, whose responsibility it was to carry out the imperial edicts. The latter was seen ever in the presence of the emperor and received his commandments and directives as though they were oracular pronouncements; as ministers of the written and spoken word he made use of many of the learned men who abounded at the imperial court, especially Theodore Styppeiotes, about whom we shall speak in the following.
John of Poutze was extremely clever in the matter of public affairs, a sly and oppressive tax collector, most exacting in the payment of existing taxes and without peer in inventing new ones. He was by nature more inexorable and relentless than any man. It would have been easier to

§ 55  make a stone smile or laugh than to change his mind against his wishes.
Even more remarkable than this, not only was he unmoved by tears, unbending before the pleas of suppliants, impervious to the lure of silver and unaffected by the enchantments of gold, but he was also inhumanly unapproachable. That which was distressing and insufferable to the men of those days was the fact that there was no clear response forthcoming from him to a petitioner’s request, but he took great satisfaction in remaining silent; sometimes he would dismiss a supplicant without ever speaking to him. He was invested with so much power and authority from the emperor that he rejected and tore up whatever imperial edicts were not to his liking, while including others in the public registers.
Thanks to this man’s counsel, a measure for the common welfare and salutary for all the islands perpetuated by the former emperors was abolished by Emperor John with great harm. Whatever contributions were collected by ship-money levies and designated in the past for the fleet, he diverted into the treasury by the use of convincing arguments and very nearly scuttled the manned triremes provided on demand by the islands.
Arguing that the state and public did not always have need of the triremes and that the expenditures made on their behalf were a heavy annual burden, and that these funds, therefore, should be deposited in the treasury and that supplies and pay should be provided the navy by the imperial treasury only when needed, he appeared to be the best of men and an expert in the nature of public affairs — he who resorted to the pirate’s plot of throwing his captive overboard. By proposing such measures, he diverted the emperor from excessive expenditures and, in turn, the chancellor was pleased by the moderation of expenses. Now, as a result of this ill-advised policy or pennypinching, pirates rule the seas and the Roman maritime provinces are harassed by pirate ships, and the enemy gloats. For even though we know the sower’s ear of corn, it is the reaper whom we blame; and he who ignited the fire and was able to extinguish it, did not desire to do so.

§ 56  Up to this time John had proved himself to be a public-spirited minister of finance, a shrewd and niggardly steward, and an exacting collector of taxes from usurers, and his power was absolute; he could do whatever he wished without question, and whatever he wished was possible. Realizing that his rank and influence might be transferred to another, his freedom of speech rescinded, and his power undermined in no time, and that others, raised to power by the emperor, might violently attack and subvert his position, he pulled down all proper limitations to his authority, and taking advantage of both time and circumstances clung to both and embraced them. Addressing one of his confidants with the words, “Come, let us enrich ourselves,” he became a completely different man; reversing forthwith his tactics, he devoted himself to unjust gain as no other man of that time. He looked cheerfully upon those who appeared before him and addressed them courteously as he inspected them most carefully to ascertain whether they carried any gold on their person.
Married to a woman from among the rejected and withered nobility, he lavished great wealth on his children, sufficient to indulge their pleasures.
But otherwise he was parsimonious, a niggard and a miser who never raised his eyelids to gaze upon the poor; he was attached to Wealth, which held him permanently fettered in unbreakable and indissoluble bonds, a virtual prisoner, just as Akrisios kept Danae long ago. Mean and stingy, he would often send comestibles that had been given to him to a shop to be sold: for example, he would return the huge and fat flat fish and bass which he had received as many as three different times, to be purchased as many times and in turn by others who had need of his services. And the fish straightway became fishers, exchanging roles, as though they were letting down the large fishhook, placing soft fat on it as bait, and thus pulling into their habitat the passers-by.

§ 57  At another time, he had passed the day at the palace in Blachernai and on his return towards evening had seen a food set out on the wayside by female taverners which in common speech is called brine. At this, he felt a craving to drink his fill of the sauce and munch on the stems of the greens. When one of his attendants by the name of Anzas remarked that he should curb his appetite, since he would find food to his liking prepared and set out for him at home, John, looking at him with a fierce and titanic gaze, insisted on satisfying his craving. Greedily grabbing the bowl containing the meal he coveted from the hands of the female vendor, he lowered his head with his mouth wide open, gulped down the juice in one draught, and gluttonously devoured the greens. He then took a bronze coin from his pocket, handed it to one of his attendants, and instructed him to exchange it for four obols; with this he was told to pay the vendor two obols and to bring back the remaining two immediately.
Another time, as he made his way through the agora and, as usual, in most royal fashion, with a crowd of people trailing behind him, he spied an iron horseshoe which had been cast aside at the crossroad. Causing the procession to halt while he was being applauded and glorified by many as though he were equal with God, he directed one of his attendants to retrieve the horseshoe. The latter had not fallen off the horse’s hoof, nor

§ 58  had it been thrown away by chance, but it had been heated by fire and placed on the ground by children playing in the agora, inciting the passers-by to laughter. At the command of this man, the attendant dismounted and took hold of the iron horseshoe, only to give a loud, piercing cry, having badly burnt his hands. At this, the children were convulsed in laughter, and his companions ridiculed him and marveled that the skinflint should behave so niggardly even over such flimsy trifles. It was not surprising, therefore, that when this inordinate lover of money died, he was found to have storehouses teeming with money, even having secretarial pen cases engraved in colors.
The counsels of John Hagiotheodorites were crowned with success, yet the mercurial and capricious flow of events permitted the clever Theodore Styppeiotes to trip him up, as he was free to work with or against John. He was second in rank after John but could neither abide nor be content with this status and sought the highest office of state; aspiring to reach the summit, he ever concentrated his efforts on the upward climb.
Taking advantage of the opportunity to which no small part was contributed by the differences between a man of law and one of noble birth (I speak of Michael Palaiologos and Joseph Balsamon, Hagiotheodorites’ brother-in-law, married to his sister), he attacked Hagiotheodorites vehemently and, exerting himself mightily, ostracized him from the palace as from the heavenly heights, throwing him as though from a sling into the farthermost region, the praetorship of Hellas and the Peloponnesos, there to restore order and resolve the contentions between the aforementioned

§ 59  men. John, therefore, prepared his baggage for his departure. Fortune, without even waiting for his leave-taking, removed herself to Styppeiotes, attaching herself to him, and, in a manner of speaking, gladly and most gracefully sang his praises as she promoted him from one office to another and exalted him from one glory to the next. Finally, she advanced Styppeiotes to the lofty dignity of keeper of the inkstand, where he enjoyed the devoted friendship of the emperor. While she lavishly bestowed many other preferments on him, she regarded Hagiotheodorites unfeelingly, so that he must even want for a morsel of bread. Nor did fickle Fortune alter or in any way change her decrees, but remained unusually constant and stood at Styppeiotes’ side. Henceforth, he administered public affairs as he wished, profoundly wise, prudent, pleasant in manner, and soaring in political judgment. He agreed to whatever the emperor commanded and commanded whatever the emperor wished.
At that time the emperor was free of unjust and base gain; he was a sea of munificence, an abyss of mercy, affable to the genial and unrivaled in imperial virtue, still possessing a guileless soul and an ingenuous disposition. As those who are advanced in years have reported to us, alluding to those celebrated golden years, they were like a swarm of buzzing bees flying out of a hollow rock and no different from the crowds who thronged about the agora as they would enter the imperial treasuries to receive the benefit of some largess; they pressed about the gates as the benefactions were distributed in turn, some pushing their way inside as others were prodded to leave. We, however, hear but a rumor.
The public treasuries, moreover, at that time were overflowing. They spilled over like converging waters, pouring forth a portion of their contents to the needy standing outside; they were like a womb, heavy with the weight of a full term fetus, about to deliver. From the tax collections of Emperor John, Emperor Manuel’s father, a portion was given to God

§ 60  and a portion to the just man; and since he himself was neither wastrel nor spendthrift, he piled up mounds of money as though they were pebbles. The Deity, it seemed, had blessed and multiplied these according to the infallible word of the Gospel which promises both a heavenly reward and manifold compensation.
These excellent intentions of Emperor Manuel, however, proved to be of short duration, impermanent and evanescent. A hard driver of men, he governed the affairs of state imperiously, treating his ministers not as free men but as allotted slaves. He suspended the flow of munificence, not to say that he forced the flow backwards, and he justified its redistribution from time to time, not so much, I think, because he voluntarily chose to do so (for in things unknown it is necessary to give one the benefit of the doubt) as from the need not to pour out gold dust by the cupful, since his outlays were as expansive as the Tyrrhenian Sea, as I shall demonstrate in the course of my history.
But while the emperor governed the empire in this fashion, a cloud of enemies, a dreadful and death-dealing pestilence, fell upon the Roman borders; I speak of the campaign of the Germans, joined by other kindred nations. Females were numbered among them, riding horseback in the manner of men, not on coverlets sidesaddle but unashamedly astride, and bearing lances and weapons as men do; dressed in masculine garb, they conveyed a wholly martial appearance, more mannish than the Amazons. One stood out from the rest as another Penthesilea and from the embroidered gold which ran around the hem and fringes of her garment was called Goldfoot.

§ 61  The pretext for this expedition was provided by the Lord’s empty tomb, and those Germans who wished to hasten to Jerusalem prepared to take the straight and level road instead of the crooked and treacherous byways. They affirmed, moreover, that on this expedition they would drag along nothing superfluous but only that which was absolutely necessary for smoothing the roads. By this they did not mean shovels, picks, and spades but shields and swords and coats of mail and whatever else is suited to warfare. They declared and affirmed by oath that Jerusalem was motive for their expedition. Later events proved their declarations were not false.
They dispatched envoys [before September 1146], who, in a show of friendship, asked permission of the emperor to pass through the Roman empire and requested that roadside markets be set up so that they might purchase provisions for the nourishment of both men and horses. The emperor, although taken by surprise and naturally thrown into a state of confusion, did not fail to take expedient measures. He discussed the issue of food supplies with the envoys in an affable manner and with little sincerity lavished high praise on their action and pretended to admire them for their pious intention. He immediately gave instructions that preparations be made for their passage and assured the envoys that abundant and ready market wares would be provided them should they pass through his lands and not through foreign territory. All they need do was to swear solemn oaths that their passage would truly be God-loving, and that they would cross the Roman frontiers without battle.
As was fitting, the emperor attended to these arrangements; he sent imperial decrees everywhere [summer 1147] directing that the necessaries of life be set out in advance on the roads to be traversed by the Western troops, and the deed followed the word. Distrustful and suspicious lest they be wolves coming in sheep’s clothing or lions concealed in the disguise of an ass, to reverse the fable, or the lion’s skin to be patched with the fox’s, he assembled the Roman forces, deliberated openly on

§ 62  the state of public affairs, expounded in detail on the mighty army that would be passing through, reckoned the large number of cavalry, depicted the multitude of heavy-armed soldiery, portrayed the myriads of foot soldiers, and described the all-brazen arms and deeds of murder of these men with fire in their eyes who exulted more in the spilling of blood than others do in the sprinkling of water. He announced these things to the senate, the ministers, and the troops and also told of everything that the tyrant of Sicily, a veritable sea monster, had perpetrated against the maritime provinces, when, smiting the sea with oars, he had entered the harbors of Roman towns, laying waste everything before him while meeting little resistance. Furthermore, Manuel repaired the City’s battlements and secured the circumference of the walls. He issued coats of mail to the troops, armed them with brazen lances, stiffened their resolution with swift horses, and plucked up their courage with the distribution of monies, which someone in antiquity most excellently named the sinews of things. And thus with the assistance of God and the Guardian of the City, the Virgin Mother, Manuel stationed his troops in impregnable positions as far as was possible, designating some to defend the fair City and deploying them along the walls, and instructed the remaining troops to follow close behind the Germans in order to prevent the German troops from turning aside to plunder and forage. All was to be done, however, in a pacific manner and not by engaging in combat.
For the greater part of the march, nothing noteworthy ensued between the two armies. Even when the Germans encamped at Philippopolis the regiments anticipated no quarrel there; the bishop of the province (this was Michael Italikos, eloquent in speech, the darling of wisdom, so to speak, and, like a magnet, most beguiling in his manner of conversation)

§ 63  lured the king into his power, enfeebling him with the charms of his words, bewitching him with the honey of his tongue. He said one thing but meant another and disguised his true feelings to benefit the Romans.
Energetically changing his form like Proteus of Pharos, he held the haughty [monarch] spellbound as the wine jugs were emptied; he made him his table companion and drank to his health. While the king himself was freely feted, he treated most cruelly those who brought in grain, from whatever source, without making payment in silver.
When the king departed and advanced with the vanguard, a cause for controversy between Germans and Romans appeared for the first time, ostensibly as the result of the mistreatment suffered by some. Afterwards, the tumultuous interference by many others exacerbated the situation, which was further worsened by the clamor. To these were added license of tongue and contentiousness, and eventually this led to the taking up of arms. Enyo attended and, aided by Phylopis, the conflict waxed hotly.
Delighting in growth and ever longing after the world above, Enyo would have planted her head in heaven, being originally an earthbound and infernal deity, had the aforementioned bishop not overtaken the king, placated him with his charms, and persuaded him, beyond expectation, to calm down although he had already turned back breathing war, the king of beasts who had freshly feasted but who, stung in the tail, rushed forward by leaps and bounds.
When the troops had assembled at the well-walled city of Adrianople, the king marched on the prescribed route through the city, where he was forced to encamp because one of his kinsman fell ill. Certain ruthless Romans whose hands were better instructed in stealing than in taking up arms attacked the lodging at night, set it ablaze, and burned the man together with his companions. When Conrad (for this was the king’s name) learned of this he commanded his nephew, Frederick, to avenge the death. A high-spirited man, he was overcome by passion and returned to the holy monastery in which the German had been lodged, burned it to the ground, and condemned to death those who had been

§ 64  apprehended, having first made an investigation into the stolen monies. And this became a part of the cause for conflict. But once again, the nurse Peace smiled, and various Roman officials quelled the strife, thanks especially to the efforts of Prosuch, who left the horse he was riding at the stone bridge beneath which flows the three rivers, approached the enraged Frederick, and placated him, deflecting him from his course.
Once more, the stopping places were peaceful, the march untroubled, and the route easy to traverse.
Some days later, the Germans spread their camps throughout the prairie of the Choirobacchoi, but they did not lay a trench because they were confident that the Romans would honor their oaths and agreements.
There is a narrow and shallow river by the name of Melas which flows by these plains. In the summer, a lack of water reduces it to a muddy ravine, and it moves not through sandy soil but through the very fertile black earth and cuts a channel like a deep furrow made by plows pulled by oxen. With the arrival of winter or with a downpour of torrential rains, it expands in size enormously from a trickle, and from a useless pond of water it swells into a deep-eddying river. Jealous of the seas and no longer content to be only a river, its waters are churned into soaring waves; it becomes so broad that ships are able to navigate upon it.
Lashed by winds, it is whipped into high waves and spits out foam as it violently dashes against the neighboring dry land to carry away the fruits of the farmers’ labors and sweep the travelers from the road. The river now contrived a wholly execrable deed.

§ 65  The Melas was swollen by torrential rains that had created a veritable deluge; as though the floodgates of heaven had opened into it, that night it raced through the German camp sweeping away weapons and horse trappings, whatever goods the packasses were carrying, horses and mules, as well as the mounted knights. So piteous a spectacle called forth tears as men fell without fighting and were cut down without being pursued. Neither their huge stature, measured almost in stades, nor their right hand, insatiate of battle, sufficed to repel the evil, for they were cut down like grass and carried away like sun-warmed chaff and airy woolen fleece. In the words of the psalmist, this river lifted up the voices of those shouting in a barbarian fashion, sending out a melody to the peaks and hills which reverberated with a wild and savage tune unlike those honey-sweet songs the shepherds played on their pipes. Those who witnessed this chance event concluded that the wrath of God had fallen upon the German camp, bringing the sudden rush of floodwaters which swallowed them up so that they were unable to save themselves. They fell asleep that night [7/8 September 1147], some to die, the rest to suffer the loss and destruction of all their belongings. The king, deeply aggrieved over this misfortune, set aside his petty arrogance, for he marveled that the very elements should obey the Romans. Thus, he yielded to their wishes, seeing that even nature served their needs, and departed thence to continue on his way.
As Conrad approached the queen of cities [c. September 1147], he was forthwith compelled to ferry his troops across the straits, although at first he was overbearing and stupidly refused to cross over, saying that it was against his judgment to do so and that he did not wish to encamp in Peraia at the place called Ta Pikridiou. Every rowboat, ferryboat, fishing boat, and horse transport was commandeered for the crossing of the Germans. Emperor Manuel appointed recorders to register every man ferried across,

§ 66  but the hosts were so numerous that the officials appointed to the task gave up and returned unsuccessful.
The passage of the king, who shortly was to be joined by his fellow Franks, was viewed with satisfaction by the Romans, like the passing of some dire portent from heaven. Once again, the emperor had the same care for his own provinces which he had formerly exercised. He did not neglect to provide them with supplies of food, and market wares were once again set out on the roadside. The Romans, following Manuel’s instructions, set up ambushes in strategic places and along the defiles of mountain passes, where they slew no small number of the enemy. When the Germans approached the gates of cities, the citizens did not display their wares but rather let ropes down from the wall so that they could first pull up the money in payment for whatever they were hawking and then let down only as much as suited them, whether it was bread or any other salable foodstuff. By knowingly committing these unlawful acts, they incensed the All-Seeing Eye, for cheating at the scales and for taking no pity on them as strangers, and for not even setting before them, as coreligionists, any of their own household stores, instead seizing from their throats that which was necessary to sustain the body. The worst of the inhabitants, especially those motivated by inhumanity, did not let down even the tiniest morsel but, drawing up the gold or silver, deposited the coins in their bosoms and disappeared, not to be seen again on the walls between the towers. Some, mixing lime with the barley groats, concocted a fatal mixture.
Whether all this, in truth, was commanded by the emperor, as was rumored, I do not know with certainty; it was, nonetheless, an iniquitous and unholy deed.

§ 67  The emperor’s purpose was neither in doubt nor was it cast in the shadow of the curtain of falsehood; he minted debased silver coinage which he offered to the Italian troops to pay for their needs. In short, every ill the emperor himself had contrived was present, and he commanded others to inflict such harm so that these things should be indelible memorials for posterity, deterents against attacking the Romans.
It also occurred to the Turks to act similarly against the Germans once Manuel had stirred them up with letters and incited them to make war.
The Turkish troops, under the command of a certain Mamplanes, defeated the Germans near Bathys, where they slew large numbers [26 October 1147], But when they attacked the contingent traversing Phrygia, their purpose was foiled and they willingly brought destruction down on their own heads, summoning it from afar, and they fell into the very pit they had dug with their own hands. They shou/d never have killed, never have aroused, vexed, and provoked the sleeping beast to anger and human slaughter. Massing in phalanxes on the banks of the river (the Maeander), they blocked the Latin troops from crossing over. At any other time and place, this river was difficult to ford, but at this time its rushing waters formed whirlpools, making it completely impassable.
When the conduct of the Western forces had demonstrated their forbearance to the extent that the Roman phalanxes were not subjected to forays and their cities were bypassed without being ravaged and their inhabitants were not slain for their flocks, the crusaders were sorely distressed. When the king reached the riverside there were neither river boats at hand nor a

§ 68  bridge for crossing over, and a combined Turkish force of infantry and cavalry, appearing in the open on the opposite shore, discharged arrows that pierced those standing on the bank and fell upon the front line of the phalanx. Then, withdrawing a short distance from the riverside, he pitched camp out of arrow’s reach and commanded the knights to sup and attend to their horses, for they would be making war against the Turks early next morning [31 December 1147-1 January 1148].
Arising in the dark, before the sun had yet yoked his chariot, he made ready for battle and his troops donned their arms. The barbarians were likewise drawn up in battle-order; they deployed the archers along the bank and the cavalry made suitable preparations for the discharging of missiles should the Italians [French] advance towards the river. The king reviewed the entire army and exhorted the troops in the following words: O comrades-in-arms, that our expedition was undertaken for Christ and that we chose this present course seeking the glory not of men but of God, each and everyone of you clearly knows. How should it be otherwise? Because of this, we have renounced the comforts of home and have willingly separated ourselves from our families; traversing foreign lands, we walk hand in hand with afflictions, are exposed to dangers, waste away from famine, freeze from the cold, and faint from the heat; we have the earth for our couch, the sky for our roof; we, the wellborn, the grandees, the renowned in glory and in wealth, the lords of many nations are ever-wrapped in military attire as though it were unwanted bonds, and we tolerate it in our suffering as did Peter, the greatest of Christ’s disciples, who was maltreated of old by being bound in double chains and guarded by four quaternions of soldiers. That the barbarians, separated from us by the space of the river’s waters, are the enemies of the cross of Christ, are those whom long ago we sought to engage in battle and in whose blood, in the words of David, we have promised to wash ourselves, no one would wish to dispute, except that one had been manifestly driven mad and, looking about wide-eyed,

§ 69  saw not, and listening, heard nothing.
Even though we be concerned about our going straight to the eternal mansions (for God is not so unjust that he does not see the cause which had led us on this course and therefore not admit us into the virgin meadows and shady resting places in Eden, for we have abandoned our country and have chosen to die for him rather than to live), should we remember the abuse which these men, uncircumcised in heart, daily heap on our countrymen, and should we recall the blows on the head they have struck and the blood they have shed without cause, then pity will move us: now stand bravely and fight stoutly. Let not panicking fear prevent you from dutifully defending yourselves. Let the foreigners truly know that by as much as Christ our guide and preceptor surpasses the prophet, the misleader of the people and teacher of impiety, by so much do we excel them in everything.
As we are a sacred host and a God-chosen army, let us not ignobly love our lives more than a Christ-loving and everlastingly remembered death. If Christ died for us, how much more justified are we to die for him? Let a noble end attend such a noble venture.
We shall fight with confidence in Christ and in the full knowledge that we shall crush the enemy; the victory will not be difficult, for none will be able to sustain our onslaught, but rather they shall all give way before our first charge. Should we fall in battle, God forbid!, to die for Christ is a fair winding sheet. Let a Turkish archer strike me down for Christ’s sake; one must fall asleep with fairer hopes in such a death and ride the arrow like a chariot to the resting place in the beyond. May we be spared an inglorious and sinful death.

§ 70  We shall now avenge ourselves on them whose kinsmen and coreligionists, with defiling feet, have entered, as though it were a common site, the holy place in which Christ, who was coeval and coruler with the Father, became a companion of the dead. We are the mighty, and with swords unsheathed we shall pay tribute to the life-giving and God-containing tomb as though it were Solomon’s marriage bed. We who are free shall eject the slave Agar’s descendants and remove them as stumbling stones from Christ’s path. The Romans, I know not how, have served them as though they were a wolf’s cubs 2Romans should have recovered their vigor and the reasoning of prudent men and expelled them from their own lands and cities like wild beasts from flocks.
Since this river, as you can see, is impassable except one were to open up a fresh passage, I myself will be the first to propose this and the first to undertake what I have proposed. Massed in full battle array and couching our lances, let us zealously rush in and charge on horseback through the river’s current; and I am fully confident that the waters shall be stayed, draw back, and the direction of their course reversed as happened of old when the Jordan River was crossed by Israel on foot. 2(11 May this deed and tactic be eternally commemorated by our descendants and never expunged by time or erased by oblivion’s flow, making a laughingstock of the Turks whose limbs shall fall about this river, rising up into a mound as a trophy proclaiming our immortal glory.
Following these exhortations, he gave the signal for battle, mounted his horse and, with constant prodding, spurred it to cross the river in a rush; the rest, chanting paeans and raising the war cry as is their custom, advanced like a wall in close array to join battle. When they came to the river’s edge, they paused to shake clean their horses’ hooves on the dry

§ 71  bank and to check and stay the rushing current so that it should reverse itself in defiance of nature, or by piling up it should fall backwards while they, advancing through the water as though on dry land, would take the Turks by surprise. The barbarians, having no avenue of escape by which to save themselves (for they were pursued and caught; not even their swift-footed horses coursing over the topmost ears of ripened corn could save them) and unable to engage the Germans [i.e., the French] in hand-to-hand combat, were cut to pieces in diverse ways and fell on one another like ears of corn; and then, like grapes pressed in wine vats, their lifeblood was squeezed out by the lance-bearing knights. Some, especially the light and unarmed troops, were run through by lances, while others were cut down, cleft in two by the long swords; still others arrayed nearby were wounded with dagger thrusts and were plunged into ruin as the bronze spilled out their bowels. The bodies of the fallen Turks completely covered the plains, the ravines overflowed with their blood. Although arrows were shot at many of the Italians [French], only a few were struck down and slept the sleep of death.
To this day the mounds of bones are so many and so high that they stand like lofty hillocks bearing witness to the hosts who fell there. All those who come this way are amazed by what they see, as was I, the recorder of these events. The vastness of the circuit of the fences enclosing the vineyards of the Massilians, fashioned from the bones of the Cimbri when the Roman Marius had crushed the barbarians, would clearly be comprehended by all those who had viewed this unusual deed and reported it to others. Indeed, what happened here would have surpassed the earlier battle were it not for the grandiloquent account recording the fate of the Cimbri that exaggerated nature, sinking all into myth.
Henceforth, they [the French] were unopposed in their march and none of the barbarians made a show of resistance.

§ 72  BOOK TWO Through the exercise of such war games, the Italian [French] youths seized Coele Syria. While they were crossing the Roman border on the road to Jerusalem and traversing upper Phrygia, Lykaonia, and Pisidia (once subject to the Romans and now ruled by the barbarians, who have taken them by the force of arms and exploit them, thanks to the slothfulness and unmanly housekeeping cares of the Roman rulers who have been unwilling to labor and brave danger for the lands entrusted to their safekeeping), Emperor Manuel was pondering how to take his revenge upon the Sicilians, how to punish them for the inhuman crimes they perpetrated against the Romans and how to deliver the citadel of Kerkyra, now called Korypho, from its garrison.
Roger [II Guiscard], who then ruled Sicily, either in compact with the king of Germany, as it was said, or on his own accord initiated an attack coincident with the German expedition by sending swift-sailing ships against the Roman seacoast [April 1147], The fleet sailed from Brindisi and put in at Kerkyra. Meeting no resistance, it took the citadel by assault. The inhabitants were to blame and of these, especially Gymnos by name, whose cunning was smoother than a pestle.

§ 73  The citizens contended that because they were unable to abide the overbearing and insufferable tax collector and could no longer endure his drunken fits and insolent behavior, they conceived an evil scheme whose purpose was outright rebellion. Unable to consummate the plan on their own, they seized the opportunity at hand as a godsend and went to the captain of the fleet, whose wily tongue convinced them to follow steathily the fox’s tracks and negotiate a treaty admitting a Sicilian garrison of a thousand knights in armor. Witlessly fleeing the smoke of taxation, they fell into the fire, bringing down upon the Romans warfare both chronic and most grievous. Taking possession of the fortress, the fleet’s captain strengthened its defenses to render it impregnable to assault as best he could and then sailed on to Monemvasia, confident that he would occupy this citadel without bloodshed, as he had taken Kerkyra three days earlier. However, here he encountered men governed by the intellect who, not ignorant of the Paphian goddess of freedom, repulsed him. As though he had dashed himself against an immovable jutting rock, he backed water and sailed thence without having accomplished anything.
When the Sicilian captain sailed around Malea, a contrary wind blew up in full force, recalling the proverb: “When rounding Malea, forget your troubles back home.” He was carried off to the Isthmus, where he attacked both shores, not only raiding the defenseless positions, carrying off plunder, but also those fortifications admirably situated and difficult to assault, some of which he took by compact and the rest by storm.
Wreaking devastation against the Akarnanians and the Aitolians and all along the shoreline, he sailed into the Gulf of Corinth and dropped anchor in the Krissaios harbor, and finding no worthy adversary, he ventured to attack the inhabitants inland.

§ 74  He drew up his heavy and light troops in battle array, the erstwhile seaman appearing as a landsman, Like those sea monsters who seek food on both land and sea, his army encamped in the land of Kadmos, and, plundering the towns along the way, he came to Thebes of the Seven Gates, which he took by storm, treating her inhabitants savagely. An ancient report that the city spawned wealthy inhabitants sparked an insatiable desire for money within him, and his thirst for riches was unquenchable and his appetite for treasure beyond satisfaction. A measure of his cupidity was his order that all or most of his ships should sink to the third stripe from the weight of the monies; he squeezed the artisans dry, and, still inquisitive after filthy lucre, he then subjected the powerful and the illustrious of birth, those of venerable age and distinguished in rank, to diverse ill-treatment, indiscriminately and without mercy; neither was he moved by entreaty, nor was he deferential to the reigning principle of Adrasteia, nor did he cast a wary glance at his Kadmean victory. Finally, setting out the Sacred Scriptures, he compelled everyone to stand before them and to declare on oath his personal worth and, after forswearing his rights thereto, to depart. In this fashion he carried off all the gold and silver on the ships also ladened with gold-laced textiles. He did not refrain from keeping his hands off the bodies of those whom he had gleaned, but took captive and sailed off with the most eminent according to birth and merit and chose those women who were comely and deep-girded in form, and who had often bathed in the running waters of Dirce’s beautiful spring, and who had styled their tresses and had mastered the weaver’s art.
Since his enterprise was proceeding expeditiously, and he met no resistance whatsoever either on land or on sea, he sailed the fleet for Corinth, a rich city situated on the Isthmus and thus favored with two harbors: one afforded safe anchorage for ships putting in from Asia and the other for ships sailing in from Italy, providing easy access on both sides for the loading or unloading of cargoes and resulting in a prosperous reciprocal

§ 75  trade. The Sicilian arrived to find the marketplace, a term by which the lower city was designated, desolate and the entire population withdrawn to Akrocorinth, taking with them all the foodstuffs and riches, both that which belonged to private individuals and that which was consecrated to God. He realized that he would have to attempt an assault against Akrocorinth and to take it, if possible, by force.
Akrocorinth was the acropolis of the ancient city of Corinth, a mighty fortress on a high, sharp-peaked mountain which rests on a trapezium-shaped site securely fortified by walls. Within were several small wells of potable and limpid water, as well as the Pirene spring made famous by Homer in his epic poetry. While Akrocorinth was thus secure and seemed unassailable (for nature, site, and unbroken walls combined to make it all but impregnable), the Sicilians entered with little effort and wasted no time in taking the citadel. The event, however, was neither extraordinary nor astonishing, for the fortress was not sufficient unto itself. Although its fortifications were so formidable, it could not repulse the attacking enemy without a garrison and watch that were combatworthy. In numbers they were many, but there was not a single valiant man among them to stand sentinel over the city; the troops dispatched by the emperor, together with their commander, one Nikephoros Chalouphes, sat idle within, and the prominent Corinthians, along with various divisions from the surrounding towns, entered Akrocorinth as a timely shelter from war.
When the captain of the fleet entered the citadel and saw for himself how its natural site made it unassailable from all sides, he declared that he had fought with God’s help, for only God could have enabled him to occupy such a position. At the same time he reproved and heaped abuse) on the defenders for being ignoble in warfare, especially on Chalouphes, whom he called more effeminate than a woman whose only skill was to spin wool in the women’s apartments.

§ 76  As soon as the captain had loaded the riches he had found there onto the triremes, had enslaved the Corinthians of illustrious birth, and had taken captive the most comely and deep-bosomed women, he took into his hands the icon of Theodore the Stratelates, the greatest among martyrs, renowned for his miracles, and removed this icon which had been set up in the church of his name. Then he put out to sea, takings advantage of a fair and favorable wind, and sailed across to the citadel of Kerkyra [end of or beginning of 1148] for greater security. One might have said, with good reason, that the Sicilian triremes were not pirate ships but merchantmen of large tonnage, so overladen were they with fine merchandise that they were submerged very nearly to the level of the upper rower’s bench.
These events, reverberating in his ears, distressed Emperor Manuel and, much like Homer’s Zeus, or like Themistokles, son of Neokles, who was always observed in deep thought and watchful through sleepless nights, " he pondered in his heart what must be done [before October 1147]; and to those who made inquiries he answered that Miltiades did not win the trophy by sleeping. He sought the counsel of every expert in military tactics and every popular orator whose words fell thicker than snowflakes. Many proposals were made, but one plan appeared the best and was approved by the emperor: to wage war on the Sicilians on both land and sea, for the contest did not hold out high hopes or suggest brief encounters, but rather promised to be a mighty conflict like those which had exhausted the Roman emperors of old.

§ 77  The eastern and western legions, therefore, were assembled. The fleet was put in repair and new triremes were built and made ready to put out to sea. Fire-bearing ships were fitted out with liquid fire which had not hitherto been employed and projected. Fifty-oared ships rallied, and small pirate galleys mobilized. Cavalry transports were caulked, merchantmen were laden with provisions, and light pirate skiffs were outfitted. A fleet of nearly one thousand ships was collected and the infantry forces were mustered in the tens of thousands. With unfurled sails, all the vessels put out from the shore where they had been tossing and rolling at anchor. The Giants would have shuddered had they arrived before such an armed camp because the entire Roman empire at that time, nurturing mortals of heroic prowess, abounded in men good and true, and the soldiery were not ignoble but leonine and irresistible in their charge. Manuel’s father, John, of emperors the most royal and best versed in generalship, concerned himself with nothing but the common welfare and particularly charged the military registers to enrich the troops with frequent largesses while preparing them through constant military exercises to perform martial deeds. When Manuel was satisfied that he had made adequate preparations for the Sicilian campaign, he ordered the rowers to take the fleet out to sea [spring 1148] and the boatswains to undo the sail yards, appointing as grand duke his sister’s husband, Stephanos Kontostephanos; he also gave instructions for the infantry to march under the command of various officers, in particular the grand domestic, John Axuch, about whom much has already been said.
The triremes were anchored along the roadstead of the Phaiacian [Kerkyra or Corfu] shoreline, divided into Venetian allied ships and Roman vessels in order to keep the two squadrons separate from one another to

§ 78  avoid squabbles between the two nations [autumn 1148], Shortly afterwards, the emperor himself set out with his troops. The Cumans, who had crossed the Istros and were laying waste the lands around Mount Haimos, were terrified at the first assault. Setting out from Philippopolis, Manuel took the road leading directly to Kephallenia [Kerkyra or Corfu].
The citadel of Kerkyra, too sheer even for the foot of the goat, reaches into the clouds, winds with lofty peaks and drops into the deepest waters.
Its cliffs are precipitous and abrupt, and it is more towering than the proverbial Aornis. Impregnable walls enclose the city whose capture is made even more improbable by the height of her towers.
The naval forces, encircling the cape, concentrated there their allbrazen weapons. Before the first onslaught of battle, the emperor wished to try the defenders with Greek-speaking envoys who asked if they would surrender the fortress without resistance. But they would not yield even a little and rejected the offers outright and closed the gates, securing them with bolts. They strengthened the walls as best they could with archers, and, having deployed war engines of all kinds around the walls, they were seen discharging their missiles. Then the emperor ordered his legions to do likewise and to defend themselves from the enemy in diverse ways.
The Romans shot their darts into the heavens while the enemy rained down their missiles like snowflakes. The Romans repelled the stones fired from the mangonels, or rather they shot them back. The defenders discharged them as though they were hailstones, and because the machines stood high above, the missiles they let fly were most effective, while the besiegers, fighting from ground level with the enemy ensconced on such a great height, inflicted little or no damage. The repeated and concerted

§ 79  hard-fought actions of the Romans accomplished nothing except to risk death. While the defenders remained unscathed, the battered Romans ever contrived something new as they strove earnestly before the emperor, displaying mighty feats of arms and perseverance in danger, a profound acquaintance with stratagems, and experience in military tactics in the face of extremity. But they were to blame for pursuing the unattainable and for vainly undertaking the wholly impossible; thus their efforts resulted only in that which was favorable and advantageous to the enemy. For the Romans felt as if they were disputing with the sky itself, or as if they were in contention with airborne birds whose nests were perched on some peak in the clouds. Finally, the grand duke himself fragment discharged from above by a stone-throwing war engine. He lay powerless with his head to one side and shortly afterwards departed the world of mortals.
Thus was fulfilled the prophecy concerning him uttered by Patriarch Kosmas Attikos, successor to Michael Oxeites at the helm of the church. The latter, withdrawing from the coveted supreme see, departed for the island of Oxeia where in childhood he had taken up the simple and plain life [March 1140]; and there at the entrance into the monastery narthex he presented his neck, bent aslant, to be tread upon by every monk entering inside, saying that it had not been to his advantage to thrust aside his companion, beloved quietude, nor had he benefited in any way in ascending the supereminent throne.
Kosmas, whose homeland was Aigina, had been numbered among the deacons. Profoundly learned, he was, in addition, distinguished by an array of virtues. He was especially adorned by charity, which, embedded

§ 80  in a variety of virtues, shone like a jewel on a precious necklace. He was so eager to demonstrate his pity for mankind that he gave the indigent his cloak, sometimes the tunic that covered his body, and his linen-covered headdress, as well as providing beggars and those who collected alms for the needy with goods from his own dwelling.
For these reasons the man was highly esteemed by all. Sebastokrator Isaakios, Manuel’s blood brother, regarded him almost as a god, deeming whatever the patriarch enjoined as pleasing to God and desirable, and whatever he forbade as despised by God and to be abjured. The cabal of bishops at that time, who were adversaries of virtue and opponents of virtue’s champion, slandered him to the emperor as one who conspired to give the empire to his brother Isaakios, describing the sebastokrator ’ s overt visits to the patriarchal palace as clandestine and the conversations which took place, not in the dark recesses of the earth but with the sun as witness, as secret plots.
These men who were detractors of the patriarch accused him of seeking to depose Manuel from the throne by urging Isaakios to become emperor, and the strong-willed young Manuel became suspicious of his brother. Since as we know, Calumny defiles the sacred, and every man is inclined to do evil, the patriarch was deposed on the charge of conspiring with the monk Niphon. Niphon had been a frequent companion of the father and often ate at his table and slept under his roof; he was accused of not being orthodox in his faith, and consequently his long beard was

§ 81  shaved off and he was cast into prison by Patriarch Michael. Kosmas was accused of being of the same mind and of holding the same views, and on the basis of this specious charge, his opponents persecuted and attacked Kosmas fiercely, pressing urgently to have him removed by unanimous vote. Placed on trial, or rather standing condemned, he was asked about those things of which he knew not and ostracized [26 February 1147], Kosmas was filled with indignation, and, looking about the assembly, he cursed the empress’s womb so that it should not bear a son; he excommunicated certain officials around the emperor and also the synod that had gathered to depose him, saying that they licked the imperial boots and were toadies to important persons, and hence had ousted him from his throne and flock uncanonically and illegally.
Then Kontostephanos, one of those who surrounded the imperial throne and was in close touch with the emperor and could speak freely with him, was of the opinion that the latter would suffer grievously because the empress’s womb had been cursed. Alone of all those present, he responded immoderately to the zealot; seething with anger he approached the patriarch, intent on striking him down with his fist, but he managed to check his impulse. Nor did the emperor deem this to be a prudent act, but revealed in his complaints that he was sorely distressed by the incident. The emperor’s blood relations and the attending senate rebuked Kontostephanos for his impious conduct and for not shuddering at the earth which swallows up those who are guilty of such crimes. The patriarch replied in a gentle voice, “Let him be, inasmuch as he has not yet received his own stony fate,” speaking thus of his doom in riddles and enigmas.
Whether it was because of the father’s curse that the empress never heard herself called mother of a male child, made by God in honor of his servant, but bore only female children throughout her life, I am not

§ 82  certain; the emperor, showing a conciliatory spirit and conscience-smitten, was content merely to dismiss from office this just, pious, and blameless man who had done nothing to deserve his deposition, citing no other cause but the deprivation of male issue.
With the fall of Kontostephanos, as I have related, John [Axuch], the grand domestic, assumed control of the naval forces, but not the rank of grand duke, and took command of the fleet in order to supervise operations. He excelled in generalship, was brave in hand-to-hand combat, and endowed with qualities of great leadership. The emperor, in idle occupation without purpose, became restless and did not wish to waste his days to no benefit, as happened in former times with Odysseus, the king of the Kephallenians, in the matter of the oxen belonging to Helios, so he boarded the flagship and reconnoitered the entire island of Kerkyra. He carefully considered whether he should attack (for the siege had lingered on for three months [from February to April 1149]), since he did not have Mount Ossa to pull down, nor Mount Athos to roll down, nor was he able to pile the mountains on top of one another in order to take the lofty citadel. But these things pertain to an incredible and great deed of mythical origin.
Perplexed as to what to do in a ravine whose interior was both accessible and approachable, he proposed to set up a wooden scaling ladder fashioned in the shape of a tower on all sides. Planks used in shipbuilding were fitted together, and masts from large ships were joined with those which fell short of the necessary height that were braced by bands. When it came time to move this tower-like ladder into position alongside the citadel, its summit touched the beetling cliff and jagged crag at the point where the city wall began, providing a stepping place for those leaping

§ 83  from the ladder to give battle to the defenders on the wall; the base of the ladder rested against the ships, securely fastened and firmly planted, steadfast and unshaken.
The mightiest and bravest of all the warriors were chosen to ascend the ladder, for the emperor himself proclaimed, “He who loves the emperor and is eager to distinguish himself in the face of danger, let him ascend.” But this appeal brought forth no one; all refused to make the ascent, wary of the danger’s magnitude, until the four Petraliphai brothers, who were descended from the Frankish nation [Normans] and resided in Didymoteichon, first mounted the ladder in obedience to the emperor. Although they were the first to have the courage to climb up, it was Poupakes [Abu-Bakr], the bodyguard of the grand domestic, who actually preceded them, wholly inspired by this task as he sprang forward, and not a few others zealously followed this example. The emperor was delighted with the eagerness demonstrated by all and their sudden rush, and setting apart those whom he had often seen toiling in battle and fighting stoutly, some four hundred in number, he ordered the rest to ascend after first delivering a long harangue and exhorting them on to brave deeds, with promises of rich rewards for them and their children.
“Should you survive,” said he, escaping this present danger, and give an excellent account of yourselves in the contest at hand, you will find me a provident father beyond expectation instead of master and emperor; should you lose your lives, winning honor for your fatherland and glory for yourselves, I shall not neglect your affairs, but I will so dispose of those things pertaining to your homes, children, and wives that they who survive must deem these fortunate and worthy of emulation, and this great solace will follow you down to Hades. If, in the meantime, there is a certain perception among the dead, neither the pouring out of the waters of oblivion will wash away the memory of those things which have gone before, nor will those things which have come to pass in one’s lifetime be allowed to be lost in the flow to Hades, so that these things will be well known to the dead.

§ 84  As I have said, Poupakes made the sign of the cross over himself and first began the ascent; after him came the Petraliphai brothers, and they were followed by others, one after another, until the ladder could hold no more. There was none among the spectators who did not cry out at this action, heartstricken by this novel sight, and who did not invoke the Deity with tear-filled eyes while striking his breast. And truly the spectacle astounded the viewing eye. Raising their oblong shields above their heads for protection and unsheathing their swords, the attackers drew near the fortress’s defenders and contended hotly with them. The enemy employed all kinds of missiles and cast down upon them stones as large as could be held in the hand, but they accomplished nothing. The attackers, struck by all kinds of missiles like anvils beaten upon by hammers, were untiring; unyielding in strength and undaunted by the immediate dangers, they could not be turned back. The outcome of this battle would have been most favorable, and all the honors would have gone to the Romans, had not a sordid incident intruded itself into these great feats. After promoting an excellent beginning for the task and nurturing little by little the end proposed, it begrudged the Romans the sweetness of ultimate victory. No sooner had Poupakes climbed down from the ladder and set his feet on the rocky ledge to engage the enemy defending the walls then the ladder collapsed. All came tumbling down, falling on their heads and shoulders, a pitiful sight and an incredible spectacle for compassionate eyes as the warriors perished wretchedly. Carried along by the rising and falling of the waves, they were dashed against the rocks and the ships’ decks and buried beneath the stones thrown down from above so that only a few from among the many escaped the peril. Poupakes frightened the defenders away from the walls and found an open postern through which he leaped into the fortress. Not only were the Romans and the emperor astounded by this feat but it was also a wonderment to those of

§ 85  the enemy who had not stoned the fallen Romans and had reproached the others with the charge of inhumanity and savagery, as they admired these men for their bravery.
But the Romans had not yet completed their mourning for this misfortune, and Time, which wastes and plunders all things, had not yet softened the emperor’s sorrow over it when another lamentable misadventure, worse than the first, compounded the evil. The Romans and the Venetians quarreled in the center of the agora, and the discord was not merely a matter of light banter exchanged by both nations, nor of vulgarities wherein whatsoever was spoken was also heard, nor did they indulge in mutual ribaldry, nor did the disputants engage in clever taunts, nor did they hurl insults and heap scorn on one another, but they took up arms and doubtful battle reared its head. As word of the quarrel spread, many on both sides came pouring in with their arms to assist their compatriots, and many of the emperor’s distinguished kinsmen, illustrious in rank, interposed themselves, although they were unarmed. The most illustrious Venetian officals also arrived to stamp out the evil and to serve as mediators, but there was no taking back what was said, nor were the soldiery moved to shame by the presence of these eminent men. Ares raged furiously, and, lusting after bloodshed, incited the armed warriors, especially Venetians, and neither restrained any from the fight nor coerced any to turn back. The more the grand domestic checked their onrush and blocked their tumultuous massing together, so much more enraged the Venetians became, and they poured out of the triremes in a frenzy. When the grand domestic saw that he could prevail nothing by attempting conciliation and that the nations were bound to clash, he summoned his special guards, those valiant, heavy-armed warriors who

§ 86  served him well in times of battle, and sent them against the Venetians.
He also led out a portion of the army. After a brief resistance, the Venetians turned their backs and fled headlong. They were forced back onto their ships against their will, pursued by the deadly Roman shot.
But their barbarous nature could not be confined; they did not lay down their weapons after their defeat, but, like those beasts which are difficult to kill and when endangered jump up and spring forth, they could not accept the fact that they had not overpowered the Romans. No longer able to fight on land, they weighed anchor and sailed to a certain sea-girt island (I believe it was Asteris, which the ancients say lies between Ithaka and the tetrapolis of the Kephallenians.) Behaving as enemies, they attacked the Roman ships from Euboia lying at anchor and inflicted damage on the squadron, manned especially by the Euboians. At last, they set them on fire and laid waste the ships.
This evil they compounded by inflicting an even more monstrous one: they stole the imperial ship, adorned the imperial cabins with curtains interwoven with gold thread and with rugs of purple, and placed on board an accursed manikin, a certain black-skinned Ethiopian. They acclaimed him emperor of the Romans and led him about in procession with a splendid crown on his head, ridiculing the sacred imperial ceremonies and mocking Emperor Manuel as not having yellow hair, the color of summer, but instead being blackish in complexion like the bride of the song who says, “I am black and beautiful, because the sun has looked askance at me.”
The emperor immediately wanted to punish the barbarians properly, but he feared these vulgar displays might lead to internecine war and so dispatched certain of his kinsmen to offer the Venetians amnesty for their lawless acts against him and for their crimes against the Romans, for he

§ 87  perceived that requiting vengeance had its dangers and that other, more pressing, needs required his immediate attention. Though he swallowed his anger for the one day, yet he nursed rancor in his heart like an ember buried in ashes until the opportunity came for him to kindle it, as shall be related at the proper time.
Then, when both armies had become friends once again, he led out the phalanxes to besiege the city, even by sea, as best as he could, sparing no effort to surround it, as though he were competing with himself to prove in which way he would be most effective: by compelling surrender or by destroying it. Heavy stone balls were continuously discharged from the stone-throwing engines, and the archers, ever bringing the strings of sinew to their breasts and drawing the arrows by their notched ends, let fly their darts at the defenders on the walls like snowflakes on a winter’s day. Those who climbed onto many sections of the wall by way of the ravines bounded over the precipices like wild goats, but nothing was accomplished except that the troops were not idle. The defenders within resisted bravely without attempting to descend and engage the Romans in close combat, but rather made their defense on the walls, from where they inflicted injury on the adversary with arrows and stones.
When the emperor realized that he was attempting the impossible, he suspected he would be considered contemptible if he lifted the siege after having labored so hard and having lost so many companies of soldiers, without destroying one fortress, especially this one, which so recently had been tributary to the Romans. And, moreover, he should not maintain a thousand pirates on his own land, allowing Kerkyra to become a naval station and shipyard for the Sicilian triremes sailing against the Romans.
He was compelled, therefore, to persevere, for there remained no other hope, as he saw it, than to persuade the unwilling garrison by his prolonged siege to surrender the fortress and deliver themselves over to him.

§ 88  He was not disappointed in the fulfillment of his expectations, nor did he fail in his purpose.
After an interval of some days the Sicilians dispatched envoys and requested that they be given time to withdraw together with their weapons and other belongings. When they saw that the emperor would not allow them to remain in the land, and that they were feeding themselves on empty hopes expecting that relief was forthcoming from the king at any moment, and since famine was slowly ravaging them, they decided to come to terms. They were urged on to do so by the castellan Theodore, commander of the garrison, a man not of blood but rather a member of Christ’s flock who preferred peace to conflict, and who was also a friend of the Romans, as he later demonstrated.
The emperor listened to the message attentively, eager to attain his objective immediately. But before responding favorably, he feigned a hard countenance and uttered ominous threats in the event all the promises made by the embassy were not kept. When at length they had assembled, not all together but a few at a time, those who came out informed those who remained within of their experience of the emperor as a man who was not haughty and who would foreswear desperate measures; rather, he graciously allowed them, after a grand display of kindly friendliness, to elect what should be done, and commanded that what they deemed beneficial be carried out. It was not his custom to distinguish between the imperial official and the free man, and he did not dismiss those who wished to linger or restrain those who wished to leave. Many, therefore, stayed on with the emperor, especially Theodore the castellan; the rest returned to their homeland of Sicily.
The emperor, arriving inside the city [after July 1149], was amazed

§ 89  to find how invulnerable was the citadel to the force of arms and installed a stalwart garrison of German troops. He sailed thence with his entire army and moved his camps to Avlona, where he took up quarters for a goodly number of days before he authorized the crossing over to Sicily, deeming that the enemy had been pacified, that peace reigned over warfare, and that those cities were fortunate which were fortified with weapons rather than by walls. He contended that those who shun warfare for the sake of peace utterly forget that, as a consequence, a multitude of enemies burgeon as though planted in a fertile piece of farmland, destroying their dominion and making it impossible for them to enjoy any stable peace. But David says, “Miserable are the thoughts of men and uncertain their devices, and the counsel of the Lord is enduring and unchanging, nor is there any man who can alter it.”
At that time [summer 1149], when Manuel had confirmed the passage to Sicily and was about to put into the island which is called Aeironesion, the undertaking miscarried as the sea was whipped by fierce storms and lashed by pounding winds accompanied by the roar of violent thunderclaps, prodigious lightning bolts, and most terrifying flashes. Even as Manuel attempted to make a hasty crossing, the sea gave no support to the ships but churned and seethed from below. The force of the adverse winds broke up the ships, sending them down into the darkness of the deep, a few barely managed to gain the shore, and while the emperor himself belatedly sailed through the danger, the remaining vessels were scattered here and there as casualties of the storm.
Observing that the passage to Sicily would not be to his best interest, the emperor pulled out of Avlona with his forces and arrived at Pelagonia, where he set public affairs in good order and then shifted his attack to the Serbs. The latter, as long as the empire was at peace, had put

§ 90  forward a friendly countenance and were affable in speech while concealing the truth in the innermost recesses of the heart. Because of the mishaps on both land and sea as summarized in this narrative, they were unduly emboldened, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, they took up arms against the Romans and ravaged the provinces of their Roman neighbors. Detaching and taking with him the well-armed but unencumbered portion of his troops, the emperor marched into Serbia. The imperial advance did not escape the notice of the satrap of Serbia, despite the fact that the emperor was eager to avoid detection. The satrap could offer no resistance, well aware that he was not invincible against the Roman forces, and so he withdrew from the plains and lifted his eyes to the mountains whence he expected help to come. He abandoned his own people as though they were large herds of cattle that browsed the green of the woodland, to be scattered and slaughtered by the invaders; each could find deliverance through flight as he himself did. Thus did the ruler of the Serbs propose, and do, and counsel his subjects to do the same. The emperor, like a lion trusting in its prowess, cut down the barbarian regiments as if they were herds of cattle or flocks of goats; putting to the torch many common holdings and taking not a few captives, he returned thence [winter 1149-50 CE].
And he wrote a letter of good tidings to the inhabitants of the City indicating the recent achievements; the bearer of the message was the grand domestic [John Axuch], Shortly afterwards, when the father of these heroic deeds arrived, a magnificent triumph was awarded him because of these accomplishments, and he was acclaimed by the people and the entire senate; the recipient of applause and lofty praise, he reviewed the horse races and spectacles.

§ 91  With the first appearance of spring [1155 CE] he once again occupied Pelagonia. Since he could not make the voyage to Sicily, he provided a certain forceful man, a member of the illustrious nobility (I speak of Michael Palaiologos) with large sums of money; entrusting to his care an adequate force and frequently extending a helping hand, he dispatched him thither. Following the emperor’s instructions, Palaiologos first went to Venice, where he brought together mercenary troops and recruited a stout battalion of lancers. Now exceedingly powerful, he sailed down to Longibardia [Apulia] and engaged the king’s forces; he triumphed against them and was crowned with brilliant victories [August and September 55], The Romans were aided in all things by a certain Count Alexander, who had recently gone over to the Romans because of the injuries he had suffered at the hands of his blood relative, the king. Palaiologos ever expanded his military might, and by scattering money like seed, rather than distributing it, he deeply grieved the king, and so he continued to deal with him in this manner which he was confident would effect the king’s utter ruin. Thereby he subdued most of the cities in those parts, if not by their capitulation, then by force [expedition ended in April 1156]. He sent some captives to the emperor and transported stones thence for a wall to be built around the city which is situated in the province of the Aigaiopelagites and is still called Bari and Avlonia.

§ 92  The emperor, apprised that the ruler of Serbia was once again working wickedness in the mountains and committing ever greater crimes, even conspiring with the neighboring Hungarians against the Romans, marched against them with little preparation, as he deemed them unworthy opponents in battle [autumn 1151]. But the Serbs, emboldened by the support of a large body of Hungarian allied forces, put up a much stiffer resistance than expected. Ever steadfast, John Kantakouzenos engaged the barbarians in close combat, giving and taking blows until he lost the fingers of his hands. The emperor himself fought a duel with the grand zupan Bakchinos [Bagin], a man of heroic stature and brawny arms who struck a blow that shattered the iron screen dependent from the helmet that protected the emperor’s face and eyes. The emperor, in turn, severed Bakchinos’s arm with his sword, rendering him helpless, and took him captive.
Thus, victory shone brightly on the Romans, and the barbarians were dispersed like clouds. Since the battle, badly begun, ended most auspiciously [autumn 1151], the emperor hastened to attack the Hungarians while still dripping with hot sweat and before he had wiped the dust from his face. He resented the assistance they had given the Serbs, and he decided to take advantage of the absence of him who could come to their aid, for the Hungarian king [Geza II] was not in his own land but was warring against the neighboring Rhos.
Crossing the Sava River, he burst in upon Frangochorion (this is not the least part of Hungary but a sufficiently populated one, situated between the Istros and Sava rivers, in which a mighty fortress called Zevgminon had been built) and ravaged the land.

§ 93  Then a certain Hungarian, a giant in size, with a manly and desperate courage, broke out of the crowd and charged the emperor full force. The latter, standing his ground, plunged his sword into the giant’s eye and killed him. Taking many captives as well as much material wealth, the emperor returned to the queen of cities [spring 1152].
Celebrating, as was mete, a greatly extended triumph, he led a most splendid procession through the streets of the City. Decked out in magnificent garments far beyond the fortune of captives, the newly captive Hungarians and captured Serbs enhanced the procession’s grandeur. The emperor provided these adornments so that the victory might appear most glorious and wondrous to citizens and foreigners alike, for these conquered men were of noble birth and worthy of admiration. He turned this triumphal festival into a marvel and presented the prisoners of war not in a single throng but in groups presented at intervals to deceive the spectators into imagining that the captives parading by were more numerous than they really were.
Meanwhile, because the Cumans had crossed the Istros and plundered the Roman fortresses round about this river, a certain Kalamanos was sent against them. 26S But he conducted the campaign ineptly and suffered such a crushing defeat that the regiments were broken and brave men perished, while he himself received a fatal wound and quit this life. The Cumans, according to their custom, collected the available booty, loaded the horses with their spoils, and turned homeward.

§ 94  They easily crossed the Istros with their booty unmolested and moved out without toil or effort. Their weapons consisted of a quiver slung athwart the waist, curved bows, and arrows; in battle, they wheel about with spears. The same horse bears the Cuman, carries him through tumultuous battle, provides him nourishment by having its veins opened, and, as men say, is used by him for copulation to relieve the barbarian’s brutish lust. The Cumans crossed the river by the following device: they filled a skin with straw and stitched it together so tightly that not a drop of water could penetrate within. It was then tied to the horse’s tail and straddled by the Cuman, along with his saddle and engines of war, and navigated, as if it were a boat and the horse a sail, safely over the broad, open Istros.
In the manner now to be recounted did these events take place. Palaiologos, accused of being meddlesome and wasteful of monies to no purpose from the time he landed in Calabria, was relieved of his command, and in his stead was sent Alexios Komnenos, the son of the kaisar Bryennios, the emperor’s cousin on his mother’s side who but recently had been promoted to the rank of grand duke. Komnenos was accompanied by John Doukas, a man both mercurial and martial, skilled in military tactics, who had tasted the liberal arts, but not with the tip of his forefinger, and was descended from a noble family.
The two leaders sailed for Sicily [1152 CE] and engaged the king’s [William I] forces in several great sea battles, destroying his ships and very

§ 95  nearly taking Brindisi by siege [c. April to May 1156]. But Fortune did not smile genuinely upon their brave deeds in battle, and the emperor was not to rejoice at the good news, as was fitting, for the king gathered an even greater force, collecting a number of mercenary troops, and renewed the fight. Engaging the Romans in battle, he retrieved the defeat, prevailed against them and took them captive. Komnenos and Doukas were encarcerated; in one brief moment, all that the Romans had achieved by way of toil and huge expenditures was overturned.
When these events were reported to Manuel, he cast off his earlier gladness of heart, his soul embittered as though he had drunken deep of wormwood. He could not, of course, endure what had happened and was deeply distressed. He was neither a fearful man nor one who falls back from dangerous encounters; neither was he complacent when circumstances made the sailing smooth nor did he ignobly founder when they turned turbulent. And, now, when Fortune treated him unfairly, he hotly contended with her and struck back. Fitting out another naval force [after February 1154], he appointed as commander Constantine Angelos, who hailed from Philadelphia but was not descended from a very eminent and noble family. Robust in stature and graced with a handsome bloom on his face, Angelos took to wife Theodora (begotten of Emperor Alexios, Manuel’s grandfather), fortunate in having his comeliness serve as matchmaker.

§ 96  Manuel held the reprehensible belief that the retrograde and progressive motion of stars and their positions, as well as the configurations of the planets, their proximity and distances, influence the fortunes and circumstances of human life; and he believed in all those other things that astrologers falsely attribute to Divine Providence while deceptively introducing such phrases as “it was decreed” and “the decrees of Necessity are unchangeable and irreversible.” In such fashion he determined that Angelos’s expedition would be propitious.
Having made the necessary arrangements, he sent Constantine Angelos on his way. But what happened? The sun had not set before Constantine returned at the emperor's command, for the departure had been ill-timed, and Angelos had set out when there were no favorable configurations of the stars to decree such an action, or rather there was an inaccurate reading of the tables of the astronomical sphere. As the babblers conceded, they were guilty of making indiscriminate projections, and consequently they erred in finding the propitious time for undertaking the expedition. The horoscope was cast once again and the astrological tables carefully scrutinized. And thus, after a searching investigation, close inquiry, and careful observation of the stars, Angelos moved out, urged on by the beneficent influences of the stars.
So advantageous was the determination of the exact moment to the success of Roman affairs, or in redressing the failures of the preceding commanders, and in redeeming every adversity, that forthwith Constantine Angelos was delivered into the hands of the enemy! Remiss in his duty during the voyage to Sicily, he was taken prisoner by the Sicilian triremes that patrolled the waters and led captive to the king. The latter praised the captors for their catch, and calling Constantine Angelos the best of all preys, had him bound in chains and shut up in prison.
The emperor, now that he had sustained this second injury, searched for an adequate defense. He concluded that warfare was both difficult to effect and disadvantageous, and perceiving that the continuous huge expenditures would be like some gangrenous disease that quickly exhausts

§ 97  the wealth of the treasury (he had spent close to three hundred hundredweight of gold [30,000 pounds]), he resolved that it was necessary to make peace with the king. Not with displeasure did he receive the embassy of the bishop of elder Rome who sought to impose such a solution, and he embraced its members as envoys of good counsel and dispatched to Ancona the protostrator Alexios [Axuch], the grand domestic’s oldest son, to realize both his designs, that is, to procure arms and to raise mercenary troops from Italian provinces should they be required and to pursue the king’s friendship should he perceive that negotiations for a peace treaty were promising.
Alexios, an energetic man expert in military science, with a tongue as sharp as his mind and dignified in appearance, put his hands to the task of realizing the emperor’s stratagems upon his arrival. He immediately set about to enlist troops so as to shake the king’s resolve with such news; he collected a large cavalry force to give the impression that he was preparing to invade Calabria. Meanwhile, he proceeded in his duty to initiate a truce that would end the conflict between the emperor and the king by exchanging letters with Maios, then the commander of the Sicilian fleet.
Obtaining an embassy from Sicily, he sent it on to the emperor, whom he expressly urged to pay heed to what they had to say (he had learned that they demanded nothing outlandish or excessive). He also asked that

§ 98  he be informed should they negotiate a rapprochement before the news was widely disseminated so that he might avoid committing unawares an odious act, for he was in the midst of men from the allied provinces of the king of Germany whom he had won over with hopes of grand expectations and whose animosity, formerly turned against the Romans, he now meant to turn against the king of Sicily. As soon as the emperor’s messenger arrived with the news of the peace treaty [spring 1158], unbeknownst to all in that place, Alexios secretly removed the monies and sent them forth together with his most trusted men; he fastened their now empty strongboxes with seals and entrusted them to the care of the mighty of the province, directing that they were to be handled with absolute inviolability, that no one was to break the seals or search their contents before he returned from his visit to the emperor.
Thus Alexios returned from Ancona with the emperor and the Sicilian king agreeing to a peace treaty. To tell the truth, it was not a compact harmoniously conceived, but a contrived wolf’s pact; those who benefited from this so-called union were the captives who were released without ransom, those who were wellborn and esteemed by virtue of their royal blood, as well as those who were listed in the military registers. Excepted were those who came from Corinth and Thebes, and of these all who were lowborn, those whose lot it was to weave the finely woven linen cloths, and the beautiful and low-girdled women who had practised this craft, together with the men. It is now possible to see the children of Thebans and Corinthians sailing to Sicily and plying the loom, weaving gold-embroidered robes of six strands, just as the Eretrians of old were forced to serve the Persians because they were the first to attack Darius when he led his armies against Greece.
But before long, both sides were seething again and roused to combat like cresting waves thrown up by the destructive ebb and flow of the vast

§ 99  tides. With promises of money, the emperor incited the powerful rulers of the adjacent lands against the king. The king, in turn, commanded Maios, the count of the fleet, to launch forty swift-sailing ships from the shipyards and, in battle array, to arrive before Constantinople, where in hearing distance of the citizens he was to proclaim his master lord and emperor of Sicily, Apulia, Capua, and Calabria, and of all the provinces and islands between them; after pouring contempt and scorn on the emperor of the Romans he was to return.
Carrying out his instructions, Maios rounded Malea and sailed through the Aegean Sea and the Hellespont to ride at anchor before the queen of cities. First he sailed through the straits and put in before the palace complex of Blachernai, against which he discharged arrows with silver shafts gilded from end to end; then, retracing his path and ordering the rowers to stop before the Great Palace, he loudly acclaimed his own king while the crew joined in a tumultuous proclamation. Beating home in great haste, faster than the soaring speed of the legendary Argo, he dashed by Sestos and Abydos as though they were another Symplegades, leaving the City in great agitation since the emperor was absent.
This adventure became a great boast of the king of Sicily which he recorded as a great triumph. But this incident by which the king bestowed upon himself such honors was as child’s play to Manuel (or it would be closer to the truth to say that he had stolen the honors), and thus he allowed the king to roar and puff in vain.

§ 100  BOOK THREE Such was the outcome of Emperor Manuel’s struggles in Sicily and Calabria that the lavish and huge sums of money poured into them served no useful purpose to the Romans, nor did they bring lasting benefits to succeeding emperors. But what can one say about a man who has struggled and contended so zealously to subdue the barbarians?
But this emperor once again declared war against the Paiones, who are also called Huns [Hungarians], and he commanded the armed troops in the West to bring wagons to the camp to furnish food for themselves, and in this way to help the rest of the army, who would be lacking such food transports. While the armies assembled in one place, the emperor was in the city of Sardica, now called Triaditza. He did not remain there long as an embassy arrived from the Hungarians with peace proposals, and so, altering his course, he marched against the satrap of the Serbs, causing great consternation, and convinced that but to see the emperor was to know fear and consequently that he should renounce his treaty with the Hungarians. The emperor now came to the province of Thessaly and allowed the greater part of the army to return home while he remained in Thessaly until he deemed it expedient to enter the queen of cities [1153 CE].

§ 101  As the sun was driving past the winter solstice [1154-55], he again marched out to Pelagonia, deeming it an appropriate base of operations, with its flat plains suited for both an encampment and cavalry maneuvers; moreover, it was well-suited for acquiring information and for observing the actions of the nations with whom he was contending.
The events in Sicily continued to distract and trouble the emperor, as they had not yet been completely put to rest, and the actions of the ruler of the Hungarians made it clear that he was looking to wield the sword.
Andronikos Komnenos, who later was to rule as tyrant over the Romans, was relieved of his command as duke of Branicevo and Belgrade for secretly conspiring with the Hungarians to depose Manuel and for consulting with their ruler about his rebellion against the emperor in order to gain the throne. Manuel had summoned him to Pelagonia and as soon as he arrived had transferred him thence in chains and incarcerated him in one of the prisons of the Great Palace. In response to these actions, the ruler of the Hungarians forthwith made war against the Romans. He besieged Branicevo and overran the land, pillaging and carrying off booty as he liked.

§ 102  Therefore, the emperor sent as general against the Hungarians the chartoularios Basil Tzintziloukes, who took command of the assembled forces, arraying them in companies and phalanxes. Convinced that he had an army worthy of victory, he engaged the Hungarians in battle and prevailed against them, slaying more than half their troops, who had turned their backs to their adversaries only to be pursued a great distance and overrun. Apprised of these events, the emperor quickened the pace of his march thither on the chance that the Hungarians, thrown into confusion by his arrival, would depart; and this they did. Having set in order the affairs of Branicevo and Belgrade, Manuel returned to the queen of cities.
Since the Western enemies had been pacified for the time being, thanks to a treaty of peace and reconciliation, and with no worthy opponent in the West to resist him, Manuel sanctioned an expedition from the coast up into Armenia. Setting out for Tarsus [c. September 1158], he arrived at Adana and the borderlands of lower Armenia which were being harried by Thoros and restored hope to these territories, deeming that they had the right to expect adequate security. His presence so terrified the devious, dissembling, and crafty Armenian that he advanced no farther; he did not emulate his own father in contesting for control of

§ 103  all of Armenia, nor did he attack those fortresses which he had subdued, since to demand their surrender from the ruler of the Armenians would have been like a shepherd putting his hand down a wolf’s throat to remove a lobe of liver. Tricked by the duplicity of Thoros’s words and taken in by wheedling treaties, he turned his reins and made for Antioch, the first and fairest city of all of Syria.
While in Tarsus Emperor Manuel had been informed of his cousin Andronikos’s escape from prison [autumn 1158]. The reason for his incarceration has been cited above, but no less a cause was his constant outspokenness and the fact that he excelled most men in bodily strength; his perfect physique was worthy of empire, and his pride was not to be humbled. All these things generate suspicion and provocation deep in the hearts of rulers because of the fear that surrounds the throne. For these attributes, as well as for his cleverness in battle and the nobility of his birth (Manuel’s father, Emperor John, and Andronikos’s father, the sebastokrator Isaakios, were both the sons of the same father, Alexios, Manuel’s grandfather), Andronikos was viewed with a jaundiced eye and was greatly distrusted.
Something else had happened which caused Manuel to have Andronikos confined in prison. Emperor Manuel had three brothers, Alexios, Andronikos, and the oft-mentioned Isaakios. Of these, two departed this life while their father, Emperor John, was still numbered among the living. The one brother Alexios contributed a daughter to the family’s lineage whom Alexios, the son of the grand domestic John (about whose activities we have spoken) took to wife.

§ 104  Andronikos had three daughters, Maria, Theodora, and Evdokia, and two sons, John and Alexios. Of these females, Evdokia, cheated by death of the husband of her maidenhood, openly engaged in unholy sexual intercourse with Andronikos. Against those who reproached Andronikos for his brazen incestuous relations he defended himself with ready wit and quipped that he felt that the subject should emulate his ruler, and that he, Andronikos, came out of the very same mold as Manuel. In playful repartee with his cousin Emperor Manuel, he accused him of being subject to the same passions and, moreover, that Manuel’s behavior was even more reprehensible, since he engaged in intercourse with his brother’s daughter, while Andronikos bedded his cousin’s child.
Such conduct not only displeased Manuel but so incensed the kinsmen of Andronikos’s wife that they were cut to the quick, especially Evdokia’s brother John, who exulted in his high offices of protosebastos and protovestiarios, and her sister Maria’s husband, John Kantakouzenos.
As was to be expected, insidious plots and clandestine intrigues were hatched against Andronikos while others were contrived in the open, but Andronikos swept these away like so many spider webs and scattered them about like children’s playthings made of sand, relying on his manliness and the fact that he surpassed his enemies in mother-wit to the degree that irrational creatures are inferior to rational ones. In his many contentions with his adversaries, he always turned them to flight and carried off Evdokia’s love as a reward.
Once when he was lying in the woman’s embraces in his tent at Pelagonia [winter 1154-55], Evdokia’s blood relations, on being so informed, surrounded the tent with a large number of armed troops and stood guard

§ 105  over the exit, intending to cut him down on the spot. Evdokia was well aware of this plot, even though her mind was occupied with other matters, for she had either been alerted by one of her kinsmen or warned in some other way of the ambush planned against her corrupter. Contrary to the nature of women, she was quick-witted and gifted with sagacity.
While in the embraces of Andronikos, she informed him of the plot.
Shaken by what he heard, he leaped out of bed and, girding on his long sword, deliberated on what he should do. Evdokia proposed to her lover that he don female attire and that she should command aloud and by name one of her chambermaids and maidservants to fetch a lantern to the tent, and that as soon as the ambushers heard her voice he should exit and make his escape. However, he was not convinced by her persuasive argument, afraid that he might lose his way, be taken captive, and be led before the emperor, ignobly dragged by the hair, and, worse, made to suffer a womanish and inglorious death. Hence, unsheathing his sword and taking it in his right hand, he cut slantwise through the tent, leaped forth, and in one mighty bound, like a Thessalian, hurdled over the barrier which chanced to be standing in front of the tent and the space occupied by the stakes and ropes; the ambushers were left agape; by escaping both obstacles, the prey transformed defeat into a marvel.
When Manuel heard of these events, he was distressed. The accusations were like never-ending drops that carved a channel in the emperor’s soul to hold the outpourings against the slandered man and soon these carried off the glowing affection he had for the man and convinced him to

§ 106  accept as true the charges brought against Andronikos. It was utterly impossible to crush the rumors circulating against Andronikos or to dissipate the pungent smoke of suspicion surrounding him, for no evil worse than a slanderous tongue has been planted in men, and with good reason, therefore, did David, the lover of songs and psalms, in most of his divine and sweetly phrased idylls disparage and ridicule this vice, simply describing its solitary power and praying to be delivered from its coils. And Manuel, caught in the net of repeated denunciations cast by Andronikos’s kinsmen, with soul unwilling, yielded and threw him in prison, where he was firmly bound in unbreakable and indissoluble iron stocks.
Andronikos remained in prison a long time [beginning of to fall 1158], maltreated all the while. Being the most reckless and cunning of men, methodical in his ways and capable of extricating himself from dire straits, upon discovering an ancient underground passage beneath his cell (this was a tower built entirely of baked bricks), he secretly let himself down and cleared the entrance and exit, using his hands as a hoe or shovel, in such a way that the openings remained concealed. At dinner time, when the guards opened the cell doors and the prepared meal was brought inside, their guest was nowhere to be found. The guards searched the cell to see where the man of many wiles might have broken through or pierced the walls to make his escape. But nothing whatsoever had been damaged: neither door pivot nor jambs nor even the gate’s threshold, neither the ceiling nor the inner cell, neither the ironbound skylight nor anything else!

§ 107  The guards uttered a piercing wail and tore their faces with their fingernails because they no longer held their prisoner and knew not the means or the place of his escape.
These events were reported to the empress, attendants, and troops stationed at the imperial court. Some were dispatched to guard the gates along the seawalls, some to keep watch over the land walls, some to search out the harbors, and yet others to hunt out the fugitive Andronikos in other sections of the City. The streets were also searched and the crossroads guarded. Imperial decrees flew one after another in all directions and to every province announcing the disappearance of Andronikos and commanding that an all-out search be conducted for his apprehension and return [autumn 1158].
The wife of Andronikos was taken into custody as privy to his escape and thrown in the same prison in which Andronikos had been held so that she should pay the penalty for her wifely affection in that place where her husband had been confined and from which he had escaped. They had forgotten that they had held Andronikos in fetters; in vain they poured their anger on his wretched wife, punishing her because of her husband.
Emerging from beneath the earth from the underground passage, he chanced upon his wife and, imagining her to be a demon from Tartaros below or a fleeting shade from among the dead, was taken aback by her unexpected appearance. He embraced her and wept, but not to the extent warranted by the misfortunes and most grievous circumstances of the moment, lest his lamentations reach the ears of his jailers. He engaged at length with her in sexual intercourse beside the prison and left her pregnant with a son, to become John, with whom Andronikos later shared the empire, as will be related at the proper time. Because he departed thence after this act, the guards had no need to keep watch over the woman with the same vigilance with which they had guarded him.

§ 108  Andronikos was taken by the soldier named Nikaias when he arrived at Melangeia [Malagina]; he was placed in the custody of a heavier and more ruthless guard than formerly, and the iron fetters were doubled.
As soon as Manuel received the news of these escapades, the logothete of the dromos, John Kamateros, was dispatched to undertake a diligent investigation into the circumstances and to submit a full comprehensive report to the emperor immediately upon his return [beginning of 1159].
The Antiochenes were not at first pleased by the emperor’s arrival but were deeply indignant and deliberated as how to send him packing [Easter, April 1159]. As they could neither stop him nor change his mind, they streamed forth from the gates to meet him with a show of servile submission and prepared a triumphal procession adorning the boulevards and streets with furnishings, rugs, and decorations of fresh-cut sprays, and in the center of the city they planted a garden of delights filled with flowers, thus improvising a magnificent parade for him. Not just a few came, but rather every single inhabitant was in attendance: the Syrian epicure, the Isaurian brigand, the Cilician pirate, and the Italian lance-bearing knight, as well as the stately horse of proud bearing moving along in the triumph with marching step.
When Manuel beheld the Latin troops bragging, boasting of their prowess in tilting with the lance, he agreed that a tournament with blunted lances should take place on a given day. When the appointed time arrived, Manuel called out from the Roman lists those who were skillful in tilting with the lance, including as many as were his own kinsmen. Grinning a little and then breaking out into his usual smile, he rode out to a flat plain large enough to accommodate two teams of opposing horsemen. He carried his lance upright and wore a mantle fastened elegantly over his right shoulder

§ 109  which left the arm free on the side of the brooch. He was borne by a war-horse with a magnificent mane and trappings of gold which gently raised its neck and reared up on its hind legs as though eager to run a race, rivaling its rider in splendor. Manuel commanded each of his kinsmen and all those chosen to compete with the Italians to wear the most splendid armor possible.
Prince Reginald came forth mounted on a horse whiter than snow, wearing a cloak slit down the middle and reaching to his feet and a cap like a sloping tiara, embroidered in gold. He was escorted by knights, all of whom were mighty warriors tall in stature.
Since the battle that bristles with long spears had tasted no blood, a goodly number of both sides eagerly engaged one another, tilting lances and avoiding the thrusts aimed at them. It was something to behold during this mock battle in one place a knight thrown on his head and shoulders, and in another place one knocked off his saddle, and one lying on his face, and another on his back, and still another who turned tail in headlong flight. One knight, pale with fear, was frightened of his adversary with couched lance and wholly buried himself behind his shield, while the other, observing his cowering foe, was exuberant. The rush of the wind whipped up by the horses’ charges caused the pennons to wave and produced a shrill whistle. Viewing this embroilment one could have described it, and not inelegantly, by saying that it was like watching Aphrodite in union with Ares, or the Graces embracing Enyo. Thus, the games that day were a mixture of diverse noble deeds. Manuel roused the Romans to strive mightily, and, even more incredible, he wanted them to excel the Latins in tilting with the lance. His eyes were the judge of the games played on the field for the ever high-spirited and insolent Italians could in no way tolerate the Romans prevailing in the tournament.

§ 110  The emperor dashed two knights to the ground at the same time; brandishing his lance, he charged the one, and the force of the thrust threw both opponents down.
Now that he had filled the Antiochenes with admiration for his manly courage, and they had verified with their eyes what they had previously only heard with their ears, he changed his mind and decided to return to Constantinople [20 April 1159], Since he was to travel through friendly territory, he dismissed the troops, allowing them to go wherever each desired. This proved to be an imprudent decision on his part, as he lost the greater part of the army and the rear guard was badly mauled; his hasty determination to pull out and the disorderly and mindless departure of the troops for their homes resulted in the destruction of several of the disbanded divisions when the Turks suddenly fell upon them. From this experience, many learned how great a virtue is forethought, and that afterthought is unprofitable and detrimental: it is better to put off an action for another day, when to do so brings salvation and glory, than to rush headlong to one’s death, even though this course may at first appear expedient. Indeed, their end would have been most pitiable had not the emperor returned and repulsed the onrush of the Turks and sent forth the troops in their former battle array. They say that when he came upon the fallen bodies and perceived how great was the number of the slain, he smote his thigh in grief, gnashed his teeth in sore distress, wailed aloud, and wept (this also was the reaction of those who witnessed the poignant spectacle, as well as of those who heard the reports), and having no other course open to him, he rushed into the fray to wipe away the disgrace by performing some brave deed on the spot.
Envy, which ever looks askance, not only at the great rulers of nations

§ 111  and cities, but also at those of more modest rank, and which is forever near at hand nurturing traitors, did not deign to allow Theodore Styppeiotes to remain in his position of trust with the emperor; this elusive enemy inflicted many blows and removed him from his stable post and, in the end, overthrew him and caused him to suffer a most piteous fall.
I insert these events into my history to show my readers how unreasonable a thing wickedness is and how difficult it is to guard against it. It is necessary, as far as it is possible, to suspect all rivals in power who are not open in their manner but are instead insidious in their ways, and say one thing with their lips and mean the opposite in their heart, and, above all, to set a watch over one’s mouth and not to allow the tongue, which nature has enclosed, as it were, behind a double wall, to bound rashly over the barrier of the teeth and bulwark of the lips.
The logothete of the dromos at that time, John Kamateros, was unable to endure Styppeiotes’ good fortune. He envied him his decisive influence on the emperor, and his freedom to approach the emperor at all times and to speak openly, his ability to move all things by merely pointing his finger and nodding, the fact that at certain prescribed hours the gates were opened to him, and that all Styppeiotes had to do to accomplish anything was merely to wish it. Subject even in his dreams to the envy which gnawed at the very cockles of his heart, Kamateros devised the greatest mischief against the man. Skillful in hatching plots and possessed

§ 112  of a forked tongue like the slanderous serpent, the originator of evil, he feigned friendship with Styppeiotes, thus concealing his evil deliberations with the appearance of good intentions and anointing the lip of the cup of poison with the honey of love. Saying one thing and meaning another, and honoring him with his lips while his heart was far from him, he took in the simple and naive Styppeiotes, The logothete accused Styppeiotes of being a fraud and a cheat and indicted him for treason, saying that he was fomenting trouble in the affairs of Sicily. When the emperor, who was still in Cilicia, required proof of the allegations, Kameratos positioned him behind a curtain and, taking Styppeiotes aside on the pretext that he had a private matter to discuss with him, led him to where the emperor was standing. After bringing up other topics, he introduced the subject of Sicily and guilefully cited reasons why Styppeiotes should bear a grudge and denounce the emperor’s actions regarding Sicily. Then he terminated the meeting. Thus igniting such a spark in the emperor’s soul and leaving it to smolder against Styppeiotes, he considered what other calumnies he might use as fuel to feed the spark.
Kamateros received another wound in his heart when Styppeiotes was presented with an inkwell adorned with gems and gold to hold the red ink made of madder and was given instructions to preside over the oathtaking ceremony in the Great Church of Blachernai which secured the succession of Alexios of Hungary and Maria, the emperor’s daughter, an honor appropriate to the office of logothete. It is said that Kamateros

§ 113  composed a letter full of nonsense addressed to the king of Sicily and allegedly written by Styppeiotes. After concealing the letter among Styppeiotes’ documents and letters, he convinced the emperor to send agents to search Styppeiotes’ tent for the letter. When the charge was confirmed, the emperor’s rage against the man flashed like lightning in the sky. Styppeiotes’ pupils were forthwith destroyed, and he was unjustly blinded, never again to see the sun.
O unerring eye of Justice that sees all things, how is it that thou dost often overlook such transgressions and even other more wicked deeds of men? Neither dost thou hurl forthwith the lightning and the thunderbolt, but, by delaying, thou dost defer divine retribution. Inscrutable is thy judgment and beyond human comprehension! But thou art wise, yea, and thou dost know perfectly what is good for us, even though thou dost overlook our narrow-mindedness.
As soon as the prey spies and hears a tawny serpent or shaggy-maned lion in the mountains, it turns aside, but the evildoer can be pardoned if he is reduced to tears and prayers of repentance. With great wisdom man must eschew devising evil in the depth of his heart against his neighbor, hiding one thing in his mind and saying another, and he must seek to be touched by the Almighty.
Kamateros, if I may digress a bit from the sequence of my history, having tasted of higher learning with only the tip of his finger, neither an ardent admirer nor a quick-learning disciple of Holy Philosophy, excelled rather in natural ability and attained the greatest glory from extemporaneous speaking, his speech flowing freely like the waters of a spring running downhill. The greatest epicure and the mightiest tippler of men, he sang to the sounds of the small lyre, moved in rhythm to the cithara, and danced the licentious dance of the cordax, kicking his legs to and fro.
Drinking down wine in great gulps and soaking up oceans of the potation like a sponge time and again, Kamateros did not sodden his mind, nor was he confused as drunkards are, nor did his head totter from side to side,

§ 114  top-heavy from too much strong drink, but instead he would utter some clever remark, the drink illumining and watering his mind, which then sprouted pithy sayings. By frequenting drinking parties, he not only greatly pleased the emperor but was also befriended by those rulers of nations who delighted in carousals. Appearing before them as the emperor’s envoy, he would outdrink some who took much longer to recover from their drunken stupors. As for the others, he was able to keep up with them; they were the ones who gulped down whole casks and held the amphorae in their fingers as though they were wine cups, and their afterdinner drinking cup was as huge as that used by Herakles.
Whereas our present discussion concerns this man, let the following events which are worthy of narration and remembrance be recorded in this history. Kamateros once wagered with Emperor Manuel that he could drink dry the purple wine bowl once positioned at the outer door of Emperor Nikephoros’s bedchamber, which opened out towards Boukoleon from above; it is now located in the enormous gold-spangled gallery built by the emperor of this history [Manuel], The emperor, taken aback by what he heard, commented, “Most excellent, O Logothete,” and wagered fine linen cloths with floral patterns and a goodly number of gold pounds should he make good his boast, but, should he fail, he was to make the same payment. Kamateros happily accepted the wager. The wine bowl, which held one and one-half gallons, was filled to the brim; stooping over like an ox, he emptied the vessel, coming up for air but once, and received forthwith from the emperor the items stipulated in the wager.
Unable to resist eating green beans, Kamateros tore, rather than plucked, them off the young shoot.

§ 115  He consumed whole fields or, to be more exact, he swooped down on them like a bird. Once, when encamped at a riverside, he observed a field of beans on the other side. He removed his tunic, swam across, and gulped down the greater part of the crop. But he did not stop there. Stacking in bundles what he had not devoured and lifting these onto his shoulders, he quickly crossed the river and then sat himself down on the floor of his tent and contentedly gobbled up the beans as if he had gone without eating or drinking for a long time.
Of heroic stature and exceptional height, he was not unwarlike, but rather courageous and worthy of his maternal bloodline.
At the close of his life he suffered pangs of conscience for the wrongs he had done Styppeiotes. He sent for him and tearfully begged his forgiveness. Styppeiotes granted him forgiveness without any show of malice and prayed for the salvation of his soul. The narration of these events as they happened is not, I trust, without profit, charm, and grace for most.
When Manuel’s German wife died [end of 1159 or beginning of 1160], he grieved bitterly, looking upon her demise as if a limb had been torn from his body, and his lamentation was like the roar of a lion. He honored her remains with a magnificent burial, celebrating the funeral rites in the paternal Monastery of the Pantokrator. But after concluding the prescribed period of mourning as if half-dead and sundered in twain, he contemplated a second marriage because he desired to hear himself called the father of a son.
Letters from emperors, kings and princes throughout the world, as well as matchmakers, came to him. From all the candidates, Manuel chose a daughter of Raymond, prince of Antioch, the chief city of Coele Syria, which is watered by the Orontes and refreshed by a west wind.

§ 116  This Raymond was an Italian by birth, surpassing Priam with his goodly spear of ash. Members of the senate and the nobility were dispatched to escort the maiden back [summer 1161], and the nuptials were celebrated [Christmas 1161]. The woman was fair in form and exceedingly beautiful; her beauty was incomparable. In a word, she was like unto the laughter-loving, golden Aphrodite, the white-armed and ox-eyed Hera, the long-necked and beautiful-ankled Laconian [Helen], whom the ancients deified for their beauty, and all the rest of the beauties whose good looks have been preserved in distinguished books and histories.
We shall now proceed to relate in detail those events pertaining to the Turks mentioned earlier and to clarify certain developments cited above.
Many were the sons and daughters born to Mas'ud, the ruler of the Turks. As he was about to depart this life and go on to the tortures of the next because of his impiety, he distributed among some of his sons the cities and provinces which had once been included within the boundaries of the Roman empire and now were under his rule, and to some he bequeathed other provinces as their paternal inheritance; the metropolis of Ikonion and all that was subject to it he assigned to his son Kilij Arslan. To his son-in-law Yaghi-Basan, he allotted Amaseia, Ankara, the fertile province of Cappodocia, and all the adjacent lands of these cities; and to his son-in-law Dhu’l Nun, he portioned out the great and prosperous cities of Kaisareia and Sebasteia.
How long, O Lord, wilt thou overlook thine inheritance which lies exposed to abduction and incessant looting and change of rule by a foolish and unwise people far removed from pious belief and faith in thee?

§ 117  How long, O lover of mankind, wilt thou turn away thy face from us and ignore our beggary? How long wilt thou, who art quick to hearken to the afflicted, take no heed of our groanings, and delay, O Lord of vengeance, thy taking revenge? How long shall these calamities follow one another and the descendants of the bondwoman Agar continue to subjugate those of us who are free and destroy and kill thy holy nation which above every name has called upon thine? How long shall we endure this long-continued servitude and suffer the reproaches and buffetings of these accursed foreigners? Let the affliction of those in fetters, O Master, lover of goodness, come before thee at last. Let the blood shed by your servants cry out to you, O merciful God, as did Abel’s blood in the beginning. Take hold of shield and buckler and rise to our aid and make strong the man thou hast chosen and TniwHom Thou art well pleased. Repay our wicked neighbors sevenfold the evils they have inflicted on thine inheritance; restore to us, through brave deeds, the cities and provinces which the foreigners have taken from us and let the boundaries of those who call upon thy name be marked by the dawn and dusk of the rising and setting sun.
Perhaps these sentiments which we have poured out were not ill-timed or in vain, as we thus have briefly addressed God and emptied out a small amount of the sorrow which overflows from our souls. Mas'ud’s three sons, who divided the principality, or, to be more exact, the allotment of the Romans, bequeathed to them by their father into three major parts, paid but little attention to peace and the bonds of kinship and occupied themselves mostly with differences and disagreements.
Presently, the sultan of Ikonion jealously eyed the toparch of Cappadocia and plotted a pernicious and violent deed against him, while the latter, in his turn, cast a deadly glance at the sultan. They did not keep secret and in the dark these wicked schemes against one another but revealed them to the emperor. Manuel, elated, desired that they should

§ 118  not merely reach a point of disaffection, alienation, and the parting of the ways, but that they should suffer utter destruction by taking up arms in opposing camps, so that while he reposed in tranquility he might exult in the evil works of these impious foreigners. Secretly sending envoys to both sides, he led them into war. Manuel presented Yaghi-Basan with gifts, making it evident that he supported him in the hostility. He loathed the sultan as being underhanded, deceitful, duplicitous, and pernicious not only to his own kinsmen and blood relations but also to the Roman borderlands, which he continually plundered and devastated.
Trusting in the emperor, Yaghi-Basan made war on the sultan. The latter, in turn, marched out against him, and they clashed in battle frequently [1155-60], After much blood was shed by both armies, victory smiled on Yaghi-Basan, and both adversaries laid down their arms for the time being [1161 CE]. Yaghi-Basan remained in his province, but the sultan went directly to the imperial city when he returned from the western regions and appealed to the emperor for help [spring 1162], Receiving him graciously, the emperor heaped honors upon him so that he was gladdened at the lavishness of the hospitality. Manuel had high hopes of satisfactorily disposing of the issues in the East, thanks to the sultan’s presence, and of charming the money-loving barbarian with gratifying entertainment, but he also believed that this circumstance would bring glory to the empire.
Together with the sultan, Manuel entered Constantinople. There he proclaimed a magnificent triumph resplendent with exquisite and precious robes and diverse adornment cunningly wrought. But as the emperor, with members of the bodyguard, the nobility, the imperial retinue,

§ 119  and the sultan, was about to make his appearance before the citizens to receive their applause, God annulled the splendors of that day. The earth shook, and many splendid dwellings collapsed, the atmospheric conditions were violent and unstable, and other such terrors took place so that one could not pay heed to the triumph, and the mind swooned. The clergy of the holy church, contended (and the emperor himself received their words as evil omens) that God was wroth and that under no circumstances would he tolerate an impious man to show himself and participate in a triumph adorned by all-hallowed furnishings and embellished by the likenesses of the saints and sanctified by the image of Christ. Thus, the triumph was thoughtlessly conceived, and neither did the emperor himself pay adequate attention to it, nor was proper regard paid to custom.
The sultan sojourned with the emperor for some time [80 days] and feasted his eyes on the horse races. Now, in the Hippodrome there was a tower which stood opposite the spectators; beneath it were the starting posts which opened into the racecourse through parallel arches and above were fixed four gilt-bronze horses, their necks somewhat curved as if they eyed each other as they raced round the last lap. At this time a certain descendant of Agar, who posed as a conjurer but who, as later events were to show, was the most wretched of men and no more than a suicide, ascended, announcing that he would fly through the stadium. He stood on the tower as though at a starting post, dressed in an extremely long, wide white robe, on which twisted withes, gathering the garment all around, made ample folds. It was the Agarene’s intention to unfurl the upper garment like the sail of a ship, thus enveloping the wind in its folds.
All eyes were turned on him. The spectators smiled and repeatedly

§ 120  shouted, “Fly,” and “How long will you keep us in suspense, swaying from the tower to and fro in the wind?” The emperor sent word, attempting to dissuade him from attempting the flight. The sultan, an observer of the unfolding drama, was dubious as to the outcome, he both throbbed with emotion and grinned, elated and at the same time fearful for his compatriot. Snapping at the air frequently and testing the wind, the Agarene mocked the hopes of the spectators. Many times he raised his arms, forming them into wings and beating the air as he poised himself for flight. When a fair and favorable wind arose, he flapped his arms like a bird in the belief that he could walk the air. But he was an even more wretched sky-runner than Ikaros. Instead of taking wing, he plummeted groundward like a solid mass pulled down by gravity. In the end, he plunged to the earth, and his life was snuffed out, his arms and legs and all the bones of his body shattered.
This abortive flight was bruited about by the citizens in mockery and ridicule of the Turks in the sultan’s retinue. They could not even pass through the agora without being laughed at as the silversmiths made loud noises by striking the iron tools of their benches. When the emperor was informed of these things, he was, in all probability, amused, knowing how the rabble was fond of gossip and play, but he humored the sultan (for as he gradually became aware of the coarse jests, his soul was sorely vexed) and pretended to restrict their freedom of speech.
After the display of admirable munificence, the sultan, who had skimmed off many splendid gifts from the imperial treasuries, before which he stood amazed, wondering if the emperor could possibly possess others of such number and magnitude, returned home laden and rejoicing.
Manuel, who knew that no barbarian is able to resist the temptation of gain, wished to magnify himself and to astound Kilij Arslan with the immense riches of the treasuries which overflowed on all sides of the Roman empire, and thus he displayed all the gifts which he proposed to

§ 121  offer the sultan in one of the palace’s splendid men’s apartments. These consisted of gold and silver coins, luxuriant raiment, silver beakers, golden Theriklean vessels, linens of the finest weave, and other choice ornaments which were easily procured by the Romans but rare among the barbarians and hardly ever seen by them. On entering the men’s apartments to which he had summoned the sultan, the emperor inquired if he wished to receive as gifts the contents of the treasury at hand. When the sultan replied that he would take whatever the emperor offered him, the emperor posed a second question, asking if any of the enemies of the Romans could possibly withstand their assault should he pour such treasures on mercenary and native troops. Seized with wonder, and answering that were he the master of such vast sums of money he would have subjugated his enemies long ago, the emperor said, “I present you with all these treasures so that you may know my generosity and munificence and that he who is lord over such wealth is he who grants so much to one man.” The sultan was delighted and astonished at the outpouring of money and, blinded by the desire of gain, promised to hand over Sebasteia and its lands to the emperor. Manuel gladly welcomed this promise and agreed to give him more money should he confirm his words by deeds.
But the emperor anticipated that the barbarian might not be constant, and, wishing to strike while the iron was hot, acted shortly afterwards according to his promise. He dispatched Constantine Gabras [1162] and sent along with him many other gifts and all manner of armaments, but the sultan, who was a cheat and incapable of speaking the truth, ignored the treaties; on his return to Ikonion, he lay siege to Sebasteia and conquered its subject lands and became master over all.

§ 122  The sultan had ejected Dhu’l-Nun from his own dominion and made of him a runaway and vagabond while he occupied Kaisareia. Now, he went in pursuit of his remaining countryman; I speak of Yaghi-Basan, whose land he longed for with a passion and after whose life he thirsted. Yaghi-Basan assembled his troops and drew up his forces in battle order, but he was checked in his eagerness by death [1164 CE], Since Yaghi-Basan’s throne was vacant, Dhu’l-Nun secretly entered the satrapy of Amaseia. There he was repulsed and there he was the cause of the death of Yaghi-Basan’s wife, who had secretly made Dhu’l-Nun ruler by marrying him; after he had sent for her, the Amaseians rebelled and killed her. Dhu’l-Nun, whom they held in contempt as a ruler, they expelled.
They were not, however, mightier than Kilij Arslan, who proved himself more powerful then they. Just as he had earlier laid claim to Cappadocia, so did he later seize Amaseia, taking advantage of conspicuous good fortune in these affairs. Kilij Arslan was not a physically well-proportioned man but maimed in several of the vital parts of his body. His hands were dislocated at the joints, and he had a slight limp and traveled mostly in a litter. This was the origin of the gibes against him, as a result of which Andronikos later contrived to call him Koutz-Arslan [Halt-Arslan], Andronikos was fonder of reviling than all other men and devastating in his reproaches, and he was also extremely competent in using the soft words of cunning men to inflict humiliation on those who had committed foul deeds or who had suffered a repulsive physical deformity.
Regardless of his misshapen body (for thus, I deem, nature had molded him), Kilij Arslan had obtained a mighty dominion and was in command of large forces. He did not choose to lead a quiet life, but being by nature an agitator and as turbulent as the gulf of a sea,

§ 123  he harassed the Romans incessantly without a declaration of war and frequently initiated warfare without giving cause, disregarding accords and violating truces, weighing the action he was about to take according to his personal desire. Nor did he hold back from Melitene. Determined to depose its emir, he disregarded the fact that he was his coreligionist, and having no charge of injury to bring against the man, he openly contrived an accusation after which the emir was indicted and expelled. Afterwards, he stole upon his own brother and made a fugitive of him. Both refugees came to the emperor.
These events took place later. Kilij Arslan had become very powerful. He showed no deference to the emperor, and forgetting the court he had paid when he had been assailed by difficulties, he now required the emperor to pay court to him. Changing with the seasons in the fashion of barbarians, when in need he was inordinately humble but he was high-flying whenever Fortune tipped the scales in his favor. At times, he resorted to unctuous flattery to mollify the emperor and rendered him the esteem due a father; then the emperor, instead of treating him as if he were a wild beast in need of surveillance, honored him by adopting him as a son. In the letters which they exchanged, the emperor was addressed as father and the sultan as son.
But the friendship which they both sanctioned was not genuine, even though they did not dishonor their treaties. The sultan, like a swollen torrent or a serpent which had devoured herbs, deluged and swept away everything before him and often swallowed up our fortresses, spitting out the venom of evil. The emperor, on the other hand, dammed up the main roads and stemmed the rising tide with an unbreakable wall of soldiers, or he lulled the serpent to sleep in peace with the enticement of seductive gold, and as it reared up to strike in pursuit of plunder and coiled its body to crush the army, he soothed and quieted it.

§ 124  Repulsing the Turks who poured over the Roman borders now and then like countless herds, the emperor would attack the lands around Pentapolis, and taking large numbers of men and animals captive, for the Turks did not dare to engage him in combat, he returned bearing trophies of victory. At this time, Sulayman, the highest ranking official in the sultan’s court, in an audience with the emperor spoke vigorously in the sultan’s defense, declaring that the Turks had acted against his wishes. Offering other such specious arguments but describing conditions that were not in accordance with the facts, he was caught in the offense of lying; notwithstanding, the emperor did Sulayman no hurt. Paying insincere court to the emperor, as is the barbarian custom, and resorting to deceitful measures, Sulayman sought his favor by presenting him with swift-footed horses from his own stables. The emperor, for his part, accepted this token of gratitude, even though, as was characteristic of the man’s disposition, this act of kindness was only a gift of the times. He sent Sulayman back to the sultan to set forth those things of which he was not ignorant and to taunt him for the untrustworthiness, faithlessness, and wickedness of his ways, and to warn him that should he not desist from these actions, he would suffer the vengeance of the Romans.
Nonetheless, the sultan continued his customary forays for plunder.
With select troops he laid siege to Laodikeia in Phrygia, which was not as thickly peopled at that time as it is now, nor was it fortified by secure walls, but spilled out to the villages along the slopes of the mountains. He carried off large numbers of men and countless animals; furthermore, he slew no small number of men, among whom was the bishop Solomon, a eunuch who otherwise was gracious and elegant in manner and godlike in virtue. The sultan remarked to his intimates sarcastically that the more injuries he inflicted on the Romans, the more treasures he received from the emperor. “It is customary,” he said, “for gifts to be gladly given to conquerors so that they should not desire to advance their conquests, just as festering diseases require numerous treatments so that they should not spread and increase further.”

§ 125  Manuel did not remain inactive through all this. He first sent Basil Tzikandeles, and afterwards Michael Angelos, to attack the Turks, who had left their homes en masse and crossed into Roman territory to find grassy meadows for their wealth of cattle. The two commanders drew up their light troops into companies and led them forth. They decided that it would be better to attack the enemy by night and gave the troops the password “iron" [sideron] to cry out when they engaged the Turks in the dark. In this way, they would be able to recognize a fellow countryman by his speech and would then let him pass, but should the response be silence, they would slay the man as a foreigner. The password, shouted out throughout the entire battle differentiated the races, and in the words of David, the iron passed through bodies of the Turks. After a good many Turks were slaughtered, they finally realized the meaning of the word uttered so often by the Romans and shouted back in unison until, with the passing of the night, the armies separated.
At this time, and under this emperor, many incursions took place against the Turks, and the latter, in turn, attacked the Romans [1162-77]. I have omitted those actions which are not worthy of the telling; these would only satiate those who are fond of listening, for they are largely repetitive and have nothing novel to add to the narration.

§ 126  BOOK FOUR I return once again to Hungarian affairs, and for the sake of historical clarification I will comment on the following. Geza [II], the ruler of the Hungarians, had two brothers, Istvan [IV] and Laszlo [II], and his two sons were Istvan [III] and Bela [III]. Istvan [IV] was forced to flee from the murderous clutches of his brother and reached Constantinople [1154 CE], where he was welcomed with open arms by Emperor Manuel. There he received a multitude of gifts, and, moreover, he was married to Manuel’s niece Maria, the daughter of the sebastokrator Isaakios. Shortly afterwards [1158 CE] Laszlo [II], the third brother, following in the footsteps of Istvan [IV], defected to Manuel, not so much because Geza loved him less than he should or that he feared a plot on his brother’s part, but more because he was fascinated by Istvan’s fame. Neither was he disappointed in his expectations nor was he received by the emperor in a manner unworthy of his station, but all his objectives were realized. Had he so desired to take a wife, he could have married a woman of royal blood, but he refrained from marriage so that he should not forget to return to his country and thus bring ruin to his domestic affairs, enchanted by the spell of a wife.
But what happened? Geza, the king of the Hungarians, died [31 May 1162] and his death was a peaceful one; the taut strings of his mortal frame were slackened by nature, dissolving into those elements of which it was composed.

§ 127  His son Istvan [III] succeeded him to the throne. This event seemed to the emperor like a most beautiful flower sprung forth from an ugly root. He reflected that should the Hungarian satrapy pass over to his niece’s husband [Istvan IV], who obviously had a legitimate claim to the throne, glory would first redound upon him and afterwards the Roman empire and that as partial tribute he might receive undisputed and guaranteed possession of Frangochorion and Zevgminon.
Eagerly, Manuel acted to attain his objectives. The Byzantine envoys appointed to assist in Istvan’s [III] coronation set out to Hungary without delay; shortly thereafter Manuel arrived in Sardica. When they first heard of these events, the Hungarians renounced Istvan [IV]. They took grave offence at the sound of his name and cited several reasons for repudiating him, in particular, his having taken a Roman wife; they deemed it disadvantageous to join with a man who was related to the emperor by marriage and feared that as Hungarians they would be governed by him as king while he was ruled by the emperor of the Romans. For these reasons they did not side with him on his arrival and dismissed the imperial envoys who had escorted him without having accomplished their mission.
The emperor thereupon concluded that it was necessary to assist Istvan [IV] by the use of greater force. He marched out of Sardica and when he arrived in the region of the Danube [Paristria] adjacent to Branicevo and Belgrade dispatched his nephew Alexios Kontostephanos with an armed force to Istvan. Once in control of Chramon, they did everything possible to secure the throne, winning over the most powerful of the Hungarians with gifts, seducing them with flattery, and inciting them with the greatest of promises; however, the only thing they achieved was that the Hungarians accepted Laszlo as their ruler. But when the latter survived for only a brief period [31 May to January 1163]

§ 128  the Hungarians inclined once again to the rule of Geza’s son Istvan [III]. But the emperor did not accept this turn of events meekly, and Geza’s brother Istvan [IV] was forever scheming to gain the throne.
As a result, many battles were fought, and when the emperor chose Geza’s son Bela [III] to be his daughter Maria’s husband [autumn 1163], the Hungarians who opposed Istvan [IV] uprooted and cut down the first shoots of his hopes, for they were intent on leaving behind the periodic and lengthy hostilities for which he was responsible. Having done with these matters, the Hungarians decided to get rid of the despicable Istvan [IV] by resorting to treachery. Agreed that poison was the best way of putting him to death, they searched for the right person to place the death-bringing cup in his hands. A certain attendant of Istvan named Thomas agreed to help them if they paid his price. This man who held out his hand for evil gain, was so sharp and quick in taking a man’s life and severing the body from the soul found another method to send Istvan more speedily on his way to Hades. In bleeding Istvan’s vein, he smeared with poison the bandage which covered the wound; from there it spread and diffused throughout the body and penetrated into the most vital parts and removed the man from life [13 April 1165], thereby clearly confirming the uncertain and cowardly devices of men. In vain some strive after goals and labor in their pursuits if God above does not give his blessing, approve of their actions, and direct their deliberations and steps. Thus did Istvan lie dead. His corpse was treated spitefully and denied funeral rites, and Zevgminon was surrendered to the Hungarians. As soon as the emperor was informed of these events, he declared war on the Hungarians.

§ 129  At this time, Andronikos, who had escaped once again [1164 CE] and come to Galitza, returned from there [spring 1165]; Galitza is one of the districts of the Rhos who are called Hyperborean Scythians. His manner of escape was as follows. He pretended to be ill and was provided with a young boy to attend to his physical needs, a foreigner who largely mispronounced our speech. Andronikos knew that there was only one entrance into the prison. He instructed the boy to stealthily remove the keys to the tower gates when the guards, overcome with copious drink, were taking their daily nap and to make a wax impression of them so that the impress should be in every way identical to the original in shape and form. The lackey did as he was commanded and brought the wax impressions to Andronikos. The latter directed the young attendant to present these to his son Manuel and to tell him that it was imperative that he forge keys from them as quickly as possible; moreover, he was to insert into the amphorae of wine which held his drink for his midday meals small ropes of twisted linen fibers and balls of thread, together with woolen yarn and slender cords. When these instructions were carried out, at a signal from Andronikos the boy lifted the bars of the prison gates during the night, and the gates were thrown wide open without any trouble. Then Andronikos, holding the cords in his hands, let himself down into the thick weeds growing high in the impassable parts of the palace grounds. During the second and third days he continued to escape the detection of his pursuers by hiding in the tall grass. Once they were satisfied with their search of the palace environs, Andronikos made a ladder of wooden rungs and let himself down over the wall between the two towers. At a prearranged signal he boarded a boat pitching between the shore and the breakwaters found at intervals along the City’s sea wall which dissipated the impact of the breaking waves. The name of the man who received Andronikos into the fishing boat was Chrysochoopolos.

§ 130  But before they could put out to sea they were apprehended by the officers of the guard who stand on lookout along the Boukoleon to protect the palace from attack by approaching ships. This lookout dated from the time when John Tzimiskes attacked Nikephoros Phokas after being drawn up in a basket at this spot. Andronikos very nearly ended up in prison once again, with his hands bound in chains or slain by the sword, and thus spared the many wanderings that followed. But now ready Wit saved the resourceful man, cutting and gathering from her own garden fitting medicinal herbs to cure the ills of the times, just as David was preserved from danger in Geth by altering his appearance and beating on the drum and crazily jerking his legs. Pretending to be a household slave fleeing the bonds of many years, Andronikos pleaded with his captors to have compassion on him for the many tribulations he had suffered in the past at the hands of his master and for the punishment that would be inflicted on him now because of his escape. He named Chrysochoopolos as his owner and spoke in barbarian speech instead of the Greek tongue, pretending he did not understand the latter very well.
Chrysochoopolos, for his part, deceived the sentinels with gifts and was able to free Andronikos, claiming him as his runaway slave. Thus Andronikos so unexpectedly arrived unnoticed at his own home, called the House of Vlangas, and saluted his dearest family as he made his entrance. When the shackles were removed from his legs, he announced that he was going abroad. At Melivoton he mounted the horses which had been made ready for his escape and raced straight for Anchialos, where he presented himself before Poupakes, who, as I have stated above, first scaled the ladder at Korypho [Corfu], After receiving provisions and guides to show the way, he took the road to Galitza.

§ 131  But just when Andronikos began to feel safe because he had slipped through his pursuers’ hands and reached the borders of Galitza, towards which he had hastened in search of a place of refuge, he fell into the hunters’ snares. Apprehended by the Vlachs, who had heard rumors of his escape, he was led back to the emperor.
With no one to rescue or redeem him and no bodyguard, attendant, or friend along to console him, the ingenious fellow resorted to his own wiliness. To deceive his abductors, he pretended to suffer from gastroenteritis and day and night would frequently dismount and turn aside to defecate, withdrawing alone at a distance on the pretext that he did not wish to disturb the others. Rising up in the dark of the night, he planted in the ground the staff which he used to support himself when presumably he was indisposed and wrapped his cloak around it; he placed his hat on top and, forming it into the shape of a man bending his knees and discharging excrement, outwitted his guards. While they watched the dummy, he took cover in the copse and saved himself by fleeing like a gazelle from the noose, like a bird from the snare. When his abductors finally realized that they had been tricked, they charged ahead, supposing that Andronikos would go by the same road he had taken earlier, but he turned back and went by another route to Galitza.
The emperor arrested Poupakes and had him publicly scourged until the many blows of the lash lacerated his back and shoulders. Afterwards, the herald, leading him about with a rope around his neck, shouted the following: “Whosoever harbors the emperor’s enemy and sends him on his way with provisions will be flogged and paraded about in the same way.” Poupakes looked intently at the assembled populace with a joyous countenance and responded: “Let my shame be before every man who so

§ 132  wishes for not having betrayed my benefactor who came to me, for not having dismissed him harshly, but instead attending rightly to his needs and sending him rejoicing on his way.”
Andronikos was welcomed by the governor of Galitza with open arms and remained near him for a long time [1165-66]. He so endeared himself to the governor that he joined him in the hunt, was his partner in deliberations, and shared the same hearth and table with him.
Emperor Manuel judged his cousin’s flight and alienation from his own homeland to be a reproach against himself. Moreover, he viewed his prolonged absense with suspicion because it was rumored that Andronikos was attracting a myriad of Cuman horse in order to overrrun the Roman borders and thus gave, they say, Andronikos’s return highest priority over all other business. He summoned him thence, and they exchanged pledges of good faith, and he embraced the vagabond, this at the same time the Hungarians, violating their treaties, were ravaging the Roman provinces along the Danube.
The Hungarians engaged the generals Michael Gabras and Michael Branas in battle and inflicted a crushing defeat on them, carrying off enormous booty. Gabras had but recently celebrated his marriage with Evdokia Komnene, Andronikos’s paramour, as we have mentioned earlier. Evdokia’s kinsmen, wishing to advance Gabras’s cause with the emperor, applauded and praised his feats before the emperor and contended that he had fought stoutly in the battle against the Hungarians. As witness to their words they ushered in Gabras’s fellow general, Michael Branas. Branas was ordered to appear before the emperor and compelled to take an oath on the emperor’s own head to speak truthfully as to whether he had witnessed Gabras’s courageous action. When he hesitated to answer, Manuel, turning to Gabras, asked him whether he indeed had performed any bold and praiseworthy deed and whether as general he

§ 133  had accomplished even more valiant exploits when they fought the Hungarians under their general Dionysios in hand-to-hand combat. When Gabras asserted that he had done these things, and no one else was brought forward to bear witness to his bravery in action at that time, Branas, unable to distort the truth before the emperor who had him swear on his own head, affirmed that in no wise did Gabras stand his ground against the enemy’s assault, but that at the first charge he played the coward and fled while Branas called out to him time and again to return, shouting, “Stand firm, O friend!” [1166 CE].
Nonetheless, the emperor hastened to recover Zevgminon for the Romans [summer 1165] and take his revenge on the Hungarians for having abusedlstvan, and he mounted an attack in these parts. The barbarians occupied the mouths of the Istros River and were drawn up in battle array along its banks. From there they hurled various missiles at the Romans, preventing them from crossing, but in the end they accomplished nothing, for the Roman archers and all of the remaining heavyarmed troops pressed forward and repulsed the enemy from their positions. The emperor then arrived at Zevgminon with his entire army and set up camp nearby.
Situated on a hill and walled off by the river’s flow, Zevgminon was unapproachable from the south. Manuel thought that he would take the fortress without a blow and that the inhabitants, taken by complete surprise at the sight of him, would open the gates wide and admit him.
Instead, they barred all the entrances and strengthened the walls with diverse weapons and stone-throwing engines. The barbarians appeared from above, and, sharpening their tongues like that of the serpent, not only discharged deadly missiles by hand but also let fly through the barrier of their teeth obscenities anointed with the poison of asps which is under their lips. Nor did the Romans hold out their empty hands to

§ 134  them in supplication, but eschewing such foul language as a base and womanish weapon, they took up their arms in high dudgeon.
To encourage the troops under his command to emulate him, the emperor first rode his horse hard in the direction of the city gates and drove his lance midway between them. Next, filling the fosse with mud and rubbish, as there was a lack of stones, and positioning the stonethrowing engines round about, he gave the command to bring down the walls. When all were put into operation, discharged stones of a talent weight weakened the walls’ joints. Andronikos took charge of a stonethrowing engine and by using the sling, winch, and screwpress, shook the section of the wall between the two towers violently. Struck by the weighty stones and sapped by miners as well, the wall began to crumble and fall over. Then one night, certain Hungarian grandees entered one of the projecting galleries along the wall (called arklai in the common and vulgar speech), unsheathed their swords and, raising them up naked, threatened the Romans with great braggadocio. Unable to dye their swords in blood, they smote the air, and, filling the gallery with as many persons as possible, they rent the air with their shouts. But vengeance followed upon their heels. Andronikos took aim against the gallery that held them, and the missile scored a direct hit against the projecting wooden structure, tearing it from the wall. Those standing thereon were pitched headlong into the entranceway of Hades, and these wretched divers were seen woefully swimming across Acheron.
Not long afterwards, the wall itself collapsed, whereupon the Romans, scaling it with ladders, entered the city. Many were smitten and thrown to their death, and not a few saved themselves by surrendering to the conquerors or found deliverance by making their escape. One of the inhabitants of this city, not a man of the rabble and vulgar mob but a rich and eminent nobleman, took pride in possessing a wife who was both graceful and very shapely.

§ 135  Seeing her being dragged away to be violated by one of the Roman soldiers and unable to protect her from being tyrannized, or to repel force by force and turn aside this iniquitous carnal passion, he resolved on an action that was more noble than daring and unlawful, but suited to the present fateful circumstances: he thrust his sword, which he carried with him, through the entrails of his beloved. Thus the irrational desire of the lawless lover who lusted madly after the woman was extinguished, since the cause was no more; and this truly wretched woman, who had been so passionately desired, was deprived of the gladdening light of life. Alas! How fateful the complexity of events and how vengeful and treacherous the Telchine who has produced such tragedies for the crowded theater. O, two contrary loves contesting for the same prize! The one, reprehensible and the other, prudent; the one, desiring the beloved for illicit intercourse and the other, confronted by shame, resolved in a unprecedented manner to kill her, and thereby to combat passion with passion! There were not a few in the city who made common cause with the Romans and constituted a pro-Roman faction. These men cooperated with the Romans in the siege of Zevgminon: they attached documents to arrow shafts without their iron heads and shot them at night towards the Roman camp, divulging the plans of the barbarians and their full strength.
At that time, a Hungarian, still wearing his native hat and dress, was being led away captive. A certain Roman fell upon him, struck a blow with his knife, and killed him; he put the Hungarian’s hat on his own head and without futher ado proceeded on his way. But Justice followed with silent tread and visited upon him the very evil he had inflicted on his victim. From among the troops in the rear, another even more violent Roman came upon the scene with sword in hand and, believing him to be a Hungarian captive, smote him a mortal blow upon the neck and dispatched him forthwith.
In this manner did Zevgminon fall, as I have hastened to relate without dwelling overlong on the narration. The emperor, returned thence and made his way towards the Roman borders [1166 CE], He left behind his uncle, Constantine Angelos, who came from Philadelphia, together with Basil Tripsychos, to rebuild the walls of Zevgminon.

§ 136  Carrying out their orders, they restored the fallen towers and attended to the repair of the remaining fortress. They also showed the greatest concern for the fortifications of Belgrade, built walls around Nis, and colonized Branicevo. Putting in good order all else, they rejoined the emperor.
In pursuit of Desa, who had become an even greater villain than before, Manuel led his army into Serbia [summer 1165] without delay.
But Desa, who observed these operations from afar and was sorely afraid lest some unpleasant and unhoped for misfortune befall him because of the emperor’s invasion of his land, dispatched envoys to plead that he be granted safe-conduct. His request granted, he arrived escorted by a bodyguard worthy of a satrap and appeared before the emperor, where he was rebuked for his craftiness and dismissed without gaining a truce. Barely escaping being taken prisoner, he was allowed to return home after being bound by frightful oaths to mend his ways and never to act against the emperor’s wishes. But if the chameleon was unable to change his color to the whiteness of truth, he could easily take on every other color. On leaving the emperor, his soul was torn by many emotions. He felt ashamed for submitting to the emperor; he was angered by what he was made to suffer; he was distressed because he had fenced himself in by oaths which were contrary to his intentions. Finally, despite what he had sworn and agreed to before the emperor, the shifty barbarian wrapped the leopard skin he was wont to carry on his shoulder around himself and, undisguisedly approving of the tragedian’s words, said, “My tongue an oath did take but not my heart.”

§ 137  Thus did these events unfold. Since Manuel had not yet begotten a son [end of 1165 or beginning of 1166 CE], he fixed the succession on his daughter Maria, whom his German wife had borne him, and bound everyone by sworn oaths to recognize Maria and her husband Alexios, who, as we have said, came from Hungary, as heirs of his throne and to submit and make obeisance to them as emperor and empress of the Romans after his death. While all others acknowledged the designated heirs and gave their sworn oaths as commanded by the emperor, Andronikos was reluctant, saying, “The emperor may be inclined to enter into a second marriage from which, presumably, he may beget a son, and by binding ourselves afterwards on oath to secure the throne for the emperor’s younger offspring, we will be compelled to violate the oaths just taken on behalf of the emperor’s daughter.” He continued, “What madness is this of the emperor to deem every Roman male unworthy of his daughter’s nuptial bed, to choose before all others this foreigner and interloper to be emperor of the Romans and to sit above all as master?”
The emperor was not persuaded by this sound advice, taking Andronikos’s words as idle prattle spoken by a man who was both contrary and obstinate. There were those who, after the oath-taking ceremony, made common cause with Andronikos; some declared on the spot their support of his views, while others argued that it was not to the advantage of either the emperor’s daughter or the Roman citizenry to graft onto the fruitful and good olive tree the branch from an orchard of another species with the intention of girding others with power.
The following memorable event ought not to be omitted from this history. This emperor was very concerned about the cities and fortresses of Cilicia, over which the shining and renowned Tarsus presides as metropolis. Consequently, after many illustrious governors of noble blood

§ 138  had been assigned there, the lot finally fell to Andronikos Komnenos, who was both of the highest nobility and the handsomest of men [1166 CE], There he collected the tribute from Cyprus, which provided his operating expenses. He conceived a hatred for Thoros [II], who, in turn, thoroughly despised him, and declared war on Thoros, often opposing him in battle.
Andronikos accomplished no noble action whatsoever, nor did he perform any noteworthy deed, despite his versatile experience in warfare and cunning ways. Finally, after Thoros had inflicted a shameful defeat on him and had set up a trophy, he decided on a most reckless action which I shall now relate.
As each was marshaling his forces, Andronikos deployed his troops as though they were an animal with a head, body, and limbs proportionate to the whole. Thoros, on the other hand, divided his own troops into many tactical units and scattered these about in bands and companies. In battle, Thoros once again won a splendid victory: confronted by fresh troops who continuously poured in to give assistance, and by Armenians unexpectedly leaping out from their ambuscades, Andronikos’s phalanxes fell back and fled in disarray. Grief-stricken, Andronikos felt that he could retrieve the defeat only by performing some noble action; on the spur of the moment and against the enemy already celebrating their victory, he attempted the nigh impossible. At a distance he saw Thoros at rest on horseback together with his bodyguards, awaiting his divisions to reassemble following their pursuit. Andronikos, giving free rein to his horse, hurled his lance, striking Thoros flush on his shield and unhorsing him. Then, breaking through the picked troops like a winged knight or a slippery eel, Andronikos escaped all hands. This was the extent of Andronikos’s noble accomplishment: thanks to the iron coats of mail which Thoros wore and the oblong shield hanging down along his horse’s flanks, he was spared serious injury.
Not many days elapsed before Andronikos reckoned the slaughter of

§ 139  men, battles and warfare, the war trumpet, and Terror, Rout, and Ares, who is the bane of mortals, as secondary and incidental. Setting aside the deeds of war, he gave himself over to the orgiastic rites of Aphrodite. The goddess did not put forward a Helen, nor did she present any such who exercised dominion throughout Hellas and mid-Argos, suffuse her with beauty, drive her mad with passionate love, and build ships and install Phereklos as captain. She described instead, from among his neighbors, the comeliness of Philippa and seduced Andronikos. Andronikos, notorious for being love-smitten, laid down his shield, removed his helmet, completely doffed his military attire, and deserted to his inamorata in Antioch [1166 CE]. Making his way thither, he preferred the joys of the Erotes to the armaments of Ares, although he did not card wool or devote himself to the loom and twist the distaff for Philippa as did Herakles when he served Omphale as her slave. His beloved was the daughter of Raymond of Poitiers and sister to his cousin Manuel’s wife whom the emperor had married not long before [25 December 1161].
In Antioch, Andronikos gave himself over to wanton pleasures, adorned himself like a fop, and paraded in the streets escorted by bodyguards bearing silver bows; these men were tall in stature and sported their first growth of beard and blond hair tinged with red. Henceforth Andronikos pursued his quarry, bewitching her with his love charms. He was lavish in the display of his emotions, and he was endowed, moreover, with a wondrous comeliness; he was like a young shoot climbing up a fir tree. The acknowledged king of dandies, he was titillated by fine long robes, and especially those that fall down over the buttocks and thighs, are slit, and appear to be woven on the body. But his manliness was diminished, and he was constantly anxious; he lost his sobriety and faculty of reason, and the beast of prey shed his gravity of deportment.
Philippa, utterly conquered, consented to the marriage bed, forsook both home and family, and followed after her lover.

§ 140  Thunderstruck and almost speechless on learning of Andronikos’s doings, Manuel decided to deal with both parties. He detested Andronikos for his indecent love affair and unlawful marriage, and because he had dashed his hopes against the Armenians, he wanted him seized and punished. He dispatched the sebastos, Constantine Kalamanos, a man of reason, daring, and steadfast nobility of mind to attend to the affairs of Armenia and also to make an attempt to wed Philippa [1166 CE], Kalamanos, bedecked in splendid attire as befits a groom and confident that he would win over the inamorata, entered Antioch. So devoted was Philippa to Andronikos, and so successful was he in wooing her away from her first love, that she did not give Kalamanos a second look or deign to address him by name. Instead she berated him for being short, and derided Manuel in front of him for being so stupid and simple-minded as to think that she would forsake the hero Andronikos, whose fame was widespread and who was descended from a great and noble family, and cleave to a man who, as was well known, came from an obscure family line which had made its appearance but only yesterday.
When Constantine saw that he was held in low esteem by Philippa’s Erotes, who fluttered their wings towards another, pelting Andronikos with apples and carrying torches, he departed and went to Tarsus, where he engaged the Armenian enemy in battle with his Romans. As they had done in the past, the adversary pressed him closely, then took him captive, and bound him in chains. The emperor gained his release by paying a large ransom.
Andronikos, fearing Manuel’s threats and anxious lest he be taken prisoner, thus to exchange Philippa’s embraces for his former prison and endure long-lasting suffering, departed and took the road to Jerusalem

§ 141  [beginning of 1167], exposed like the proverbial weasel accused of chasing after the suet. He returned to his former life as a renegade and relied on the wiles he had used in the past.
Like a horse in heat covering mare after mare beyond reason, his behavior was promiscuous, and he engaged in sexual intercourse with Theodora, comporting himself with unbridled lewdness. Theodora was the daughter of his first cousin (I speak of Isaakios the sebastokrator, Emperor Manuel’s brother); the husband of her maidenhood, Baldwin, an Italian by race, had reigned over Palestine earlier but had recently died [1163 CE], Manuel, suffering yet another affront as a result of his behavior, devised all manner of schemes in the hope of catching Andronikos in his nets and dispatched a letter written in red ink urging the authorities of Coele Syria to seize Andronikos as a rebel guilty of incest and put out his eyes.
If the imperial letter had been delivered, and Andronikos taken captive and bound in chains, surely his eyes would have been stained red with blood, and pallor would have laid hold of his cheeks, or he would have succumbed to dark death. But he was protected by God, who, it seems, was storing up against the day of wrath the evils that Andronikos later visited intemperately upon his subjects when he reigned as tyrant over the Romans and the horrors which, without pity, were visited upon him. The dispatch fell into Theodora’s hands. Reading it, she grasped the mischief being concocted against Andronikos and handed the document over to him at once.
Now Andronikos realized that it was necessary to make a hasty departure and that there was no time to loiter. A feeling of horror came over him, and he set about to make his escape.

§ 142  A dissembler and a cheat, he tricked Theodora into leaving the security of her household, just as Zeus in days of yore led Europa astray from the chorus of virgins and carried her off on his back by changing into a bull with magnificent horns; he asked her to accompany him the distance of a sabbath day’s journey so as to bid him farewell and then dragged her willy-nilly after him to be his companion and fellow wanderer.
Andronikos roamed far and wide, from province to province, the guest of rulers and princes who held him in esteem and thought him worthy of their greatest benevolence. His wandering finally came to an end when he came to the realm of Saltuq, whose principality then included the borderlands of Koloneia and who enjoyed the fruits of the lands adjacent to Chaldia and nearby. There Andronikos dallied away the time with Theodora and the two children she bore him, Alexios and Irene. John, the legitimate offspring of his former marriage, had come from Byzantion to keep him company only to return to Emperor Manuel, as shall be recorded at the proper and fitting time in this history in connection with Andronikos’s subsequent actions. Manuel tried repeatedly to ensnare Andronikos and take him captive, but he was attempting the impossible, for the ever-roving and stouthearted Andronikos could ward off attacks against him as though they were children’s blows, and, leaping nimbly over the many traps set to ensnare him, he remained at liberty.

§ 143  What happened next? Nothing must be omitted from these events.
Every man who holds power is fearful and suspicious; each rejoices in executing the works of Thanatos and Chaos and Erebos, felling the nobility, overturning and casting forth as excrement the influential and capable counselor, and cutting down the courageous and ingenious general. The mighty of the earth can be likened to lofty and tapering pine trees; just as these rustle when the sharp winds shake the needles of their branches, so do these rulers mistrust the man of wealth and cower before him who surpasses most in manly spirit. And should there exist someone endowed with the beauty of a statue and the lyrical eloquence of a nightingale in song, gifted, moreover, with ready wit, then the wearer of the crown can neither sleep nor rest, but his sleep is interrupted, his voluptuousness suppressed, his appetite for pleasure lost, and he is filled with grave apprehensions; with wicked tongue he curses the creator nature for fashioning others suitable to rule and for not making him the first and last and the fairest of men. Such rulers oppose providence and behave insolently toward the Deity. As victims they slay the best from among the people so that undisturbed they may waste and squander in luxury the public revenues as though they were their own private patrimony and treat free men as slaves and, at times, behave towards their most competent ministers as though they were purchased slaves. These men are ignorant of what is right, deprived of prudence by their abuse of power, and foolishly oblivious of their former condition.
Manuel was unable to charge the protostrator Alexios [Axuch] with any offense, since he had in no way aggrieved or annoyed him, nor

§ 144  slackened even a little the devotion and faithfulness required of him. But, counterbalancing the good that Alexios had done him by depressing the opposite scale of the balance, incited by mere insinuations and allegations made by certain mischievous men, and observing that Alexios was warmly loved by both commanders and troops and that he was munificent and openhanded to all — it may be that he secretly coveted his wealth — he had him taken into' custody in Sardica before the break of dawn while he was lying with his wife, and not only did he strip him bare of all his possessions but, tonsuring him a monk, he cast him into one of the monasteries on Mount Papykios.
So that the emperor’s wrongdoing and disgraceful conduct should not appear to be inexcusable and premeditated, calumniators were secretly induced to accuse Alexios of using his powers of witchcraft against the emperor, powers which were so illusory and efficacious that the sorcerer could fly in the air and remain invisible to those upon whom he wished to swoop down with sword in hand; their other buffooneries and vulgarities to which sound ears ought not to listen were such as those of which the Hellenes, fabricating fables, accused Perseus.
The most glib of Alexios’s accusers, chief fabricator and inventor of this nonsense, was Aaron Isaakios of Corinth, who had mastered the Latin tongue when he was carried off captive to Sicily together with his fellow countrymen. At this time, he was serving as interpreter for Latins who were granted an audience with the emperor.
Alexios’s wife, daughter of the porphyrogenitos Alexios, the first-born of Manuel’s brothers,

§ 145  and among womankind the prize of peerless beauty, a radiant ornament spoken of by all with deep affection, held wifely affection and discretion in high esteem and attempted to kill herself at this. Frustrated in this undertaking, she fell groveling at the feet of her uncle, the emperor, and pleaded with him more vehemently than a woman beating her breast in grief, more piteously than a sea-eagle, more grievously than serpents, and more plaintively than the halcyon bird " to forgive the man for her sake, invoking God and whatever thing and name were held as awesome by the pious and declaring that her husband was a true and faithful servant of his throne and completely blameless. But she could not change the emperor’s mind or persuade him to rescind in any way what he had decreed for Alexios even though she had moved him to tears with her pathetic appearance and propitiatory gestures, and poignant words. Her life was given over to weeping like a mourning dove, and she walked in circles through the house, moaning and wailing and lamenting her loneliness; consumed by excessive grief, and having exhausted her possessions caring for her two sons, she became deranged, and in the end she withered.
Alexios embraced the black habit and was uplifted by his passion for the divine, seeking to reach the highest peak of moral virtues by flying high above things mundane like a soaring eagle. During his former life he had abounded in riches and indulged himself in worldly pleasures. He had been extremely fond of meat dishes and had delighted in foods dressed with rich sauces. Given to feasting splendidly, he would be served at table with meats even on fast days (I mean Wednesday and Friday), as well as on dominical feasts, or a feast day of a glorious martyr, or of one of Christ’s disciples; now he dined on greens and herbs and feasted on fruits and sacrificed unburnt offerings and suffered the pangs of hunger. Later, when celebrating a feast day, he would rejoice in partaking of fish at dinner, and when he recalled the savory dishes and sumptuous meat courses, he called this the dissembling of the belly and the means whereby the appetite is aroused, as the gluttons and meat-eaters contend,

§ 146  saying that they are unable to control themselves even a little; for it is obvious that food, of whatever kind, contributes to the strengthening of the sick body and restores good health [spring 1167], And what of cherished Justice? Does she who is many-footed and many-handed, sharp-eyed and all-seeing, with ear reaching almost down to her feet, haply forget or mark not or completely leave unavenged the unjust calumniations which the accusers concocted against guiltless and praiseworthy men? Not at all! She brings these matters into the light of day, for she peers into the innermost recesses of the earth and overhears whatever is uttered under breath.
Whether Justice was wroth with the emperor over this unjust action, I shall not recount at this time. It behooved Manuel, who was wordly wise and not at all an ignorant and unlettered man, not to waste his labor seeking out him whose name began with alpha as the one to succeed him and bring an end to his rule, but to leave the charge of the reins of government to him who says he is the alpha and omega, as John instructs me in the Apocalypse.
Justice visited the accusers and laid different punishments on each of them; she bore down most heavily upon Aaron, binding him with his own rope. Not long afterwards, he was caught practicing magic, and a replica of a tortoise came to light; inside the tortoise shell was a human figure whose feet were bound and chest pierced through by a nail. Aaron was seized while unrolling a book of Solomon which, when unfolded and perused, could conjure up legions of demons who, on being asked to do that for which they had been summoned, hastened to fulfill the command and eagerly executed the order.
These were not the only reasons for which Aaron was taken into custody. While translating messages carried by envoys from the Western nations before the emperor, he perceived that they did not run counter to

§ 147  the emperor’s wishes, and admonished the envoys that they were too quick to accede to the demand for payments, advising them not to concede so facilely, since the emperor would regard them with greater affection and they would be more highly esteemed by those who spoke their own language. The audience was concluded, leaving the emperor ignorant of Aaron’s admonitions, these acts of insubordination concealed thanks to the use of a foreign tongue. The empress, a Latin by race who understood exactly what was said, pondered over the issues as they were set forth and disclosed everything to the emperor. Vexed by what he heard, he punished Aaron cruelly by extinguishing the light of his eyes and confiscating all his possessions.
When Andronikos later reigned as tyrant, Aaron, an evildoer who was bedeviled by a nature lusting after the most wicked deeds, urged him not to be content with gouging out his opponents’ eyes, but either to condemn them all to death or to remove them by inflicting the most grievous tortures. He gave himself as an example that attacks were made not only by the hand, for as long as he lived and moved, breathed and talked, he could give counsel, and he could slit the enemy’s throat with his tongue as though it were a sharp knife. With other such absurd and fiendish advice, he encouraged the irascible and perverse little old man to relish exceedingly in murder. Isaakios Angelos, who deposed Andronikos afterwards, gave little recompense to Aaron, the author of such evil deliberations and blandishments, and cut out his tongue to destroy its poison.
Emperor Manuel firmly regarded Skleros Seth and Michael Sikidites with a secret anger and justly moved to punish them, whence by his

§ 148  command they were blinded by the sizzling hot iron for their devotion to astrology and the practice of the demonic magical arts.
Skleros had passionately desired a nubile virgin and made a vigorous attempt on her honor but was rebuffed and held in contempt by the maiden. He then sent her a peach by way of a procuress. The virgin, concealing it in her bosom, was driven mad with passion and consumed by an insane lust, and, in the end, she was deflowered by him. The young girl’s kinsmen, who were grievously injured by her humiliation, inveighed most nobly against him who arms demons against maidens and who, like the serpent, the author of evil, despoils virgins with a fruit and drives them away from a prudent life as if from Eden. Skleros’s sight was taken from him, and thus he found bitterness in wooing her on whom he cast a lustful eye.
Sikidites, by resorting to unmentionable magic spells, darkened the orbs of his spectators, tricking them into believing that what they saw was real, and diverted his viewers as he conjured up ranks of demons to attack those he wished to terrify. It so happened that once, while looking down at the sea from the vantage point of the imperial palace, he observed a fishing boat carrying a cargo of bowls and dishes. He challenged his companions that should they be willing to make a wager, he would not hesitate to make the boatman lose his mind, get up from the rowing bench, and with the pair of sculls smash the pottery to smithereens. They accepted the wager, and soon the pilot rose up from his bench and, taking the oar in his hands, struck the utensils repeated blows until he had pounded them into dust. The onlookers from above broke out into

§ 149  laughter, considering what had taken place a marvel. Not long afterwards the seaman, laying hold of his beard with both hands, wailed plaintively and described his madness as sent by God, and the more he recovered from his delusion the more he lamented his fate. When asked what had possessed him to dispose of his cargo in this fashion, he related with deep emotion that as he was pulling at the oars, he suddenly saw a blood red serpent, its back like a firebrand, stretched out over the bowls. Peering at him intently and fixedly in the manner of dragons, it seemed bent on devouring him and did not uncoil itself until the pottery had been smashed to pieces; then suddenly it vanished, disappearing from sight.
Such was this story, but there was also another told of Sikidites. Once, while bathing in a bathhouse, he had an altercation with those who were cleansing themselves with soap, and they all moved into the inner chambers. Shortly afterwards, the bathers came running out of the bathing room in panic, falling over one another; catching their breath, they related to those gathered around that certain men, blacker than pitch, had jumped out of the hot water and chased them out of the bath while kicking them on their buttocks with the soles of their feet.
For these and other acts even more outrageous the two were deprived of their sight, but they survived. Seth went back to his old ways, while

§ 150  Sikidites, who had been tonsured a monk, composed after some time a treatise on the Divine Mysteries [Sacraments]; he, who was unworthy of the divine gifts, let loose thereby the howling of dogs.
A glorious deed was now performed by the emperor [1162-73]. The cities of Asia, Chliara, Pergamon, and Atramyttion, were suffering terribly at the hands of the Turks. Formerly, the neighboring provinces had not been settled because the inhabitants of villages were exposed to enemy attack. Manuel fortified these with walls and protected the nearby horse-breeding plains with fortresses. In this way, these fortress towns swelled in population and abounded in the good things of civilized life, surpassing many prosperous cities; fields were cultivated and gave forth abundant crops, and the nurturing hand of the gardener made fruit-bearing trees of every kind take root there so that the wilderness was transformed, in David’s words, “into pools of water,” and that which was formerly uninhabited was transformed into the habitable. If Manuel had conceived and performed but one great deed, if one action had profited his subjects [Ausones] the most during the years he ruled the Romans, it was this, perhaps the finest and most beneficial to the common welfare.
Who, passing by, knowing how untilled the land had been and what kind of men it had sheltered, more ruthless than the club-bearing Periphetes and more savage than the pine-benders Sinis and Skiron whom Theseus had slain in olden times, did not raise his hands and pray that this emperor be rewarded with an eternal lot in Eden, a green and indestructible place? These fortresses, all with the same name (Neokastra [Newcastle]), were sent a governor from Byzantion and contributed annual revenues to the imperial treasury.

§ 151  BOOK FIVE When the Hungarians again violated their oaths, war broke out, and issuing forth in season in order to bring it to a conclusion, Manuel came alive with renewed vigor like a rich man’s field of wheat which requires reapers in the prime of strength. When the proper time had arrived for the expedition, he set out on the road to Sardica, where the forces which he planned to lead against the Hungarians were commanded to join him [after Easter, April 1167].
While the troops were being assembled, reports came of the two bronze statues of female figures which long ago had been placed above the arch erected on the west side of the forum of Constantine, the one called the Roman Woman and the other the Hungarian Woman. As a result of time which alters all things, the figure which took its name from the Romans was overthrown from its upright position, while the other remained fixed on its pedestal. Manuel marveled at what he heard and immediately sent word to raise up the statue of the Roman Woman and to overturn and pull down the statue of the Hungarian Woman, thinking that by transposing the statues’ positions, he could reverse the outcome of events, and, as it were, raise up the fortunes of the Romans which had been cast down by the Hungarians.
When the armies had been brought together, he debated whether he himself should march with them against the Hungarians, or whether he should entrust his forces to a general to seek out the enemy. It was

§ 152  everyone’s opinion that the emperor should remain in Sardica and that the commanders-in-chief of the campaign should be proclaimed from among the officers. As the outcome of these events was unknown, and the disgrace of a defeat would be minimized and a victory magnified and exalted most gloriously since either one of these would occur during the emperor’s absence, Andronikos Kontostephanos, dux of the fleet, was appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces.
As the troops were preparing to march out of Sardica, the emperor, standing within earshot, addressed them in noble, eloquent, and very persuasive terms. He encouraged Kontostephanos in the forthcoming campaign, not only suggesting tactical maneuvers but also the time of attack, the military equipment to be used, and the battle formations to be drawn up. He roused to battle the subordinate commanders and the commanders of the horse and all those in arms, reminding them of former contests and convincing them to strive eagerly to emulate these, to endure the impending hardships bravely, with God’s help to bring these endeavors to a successful issue, and to return with splendid trophies. If they would thus magnify him by defeating the barbarians, he, in turn, would load them down with gifts.
When these words were spoken by the emperor, the troops appeared to be delighted by what they heard. They eagerly welcomed his exhortations and embraced his words in silence. As he finished speaking, they expressed their emotions with vigor and their soulful exhilaration, charmed by the honey of his words which seemed to them completely to wash away whatever unpleasant memories they carried from former battles. They applauded the emperor with acclamations and contended stoutly that they would prove themselves by fighting eagerly and mightily.
They shouted out to the general not to delay but to lead them on to the enemy.
Suddenly, while the troops were in this state of excitement, a loud commotion spread through the camp. A certain Hungarian came riding his horse at full speed, but before he could advance very far, he fell forward on his face together with his mount. When the emperor heard

§ 153  what had happened, he was jubilant and exhorted everyone to take courage, divining the future from this incident and urging them to rejoice in the certain happy conclusion to the war., Meanwhile, he invoked God the Savior to be the leader of the armies, and Andronikos, girding himself as general, marched out thence with all his forces. After some days, he crossed the Sava and the Danube and entered Zevgminon.
The Hungarians did not lose heart at this but assembled their troops and recruited no small number of allied forces as mercenaries, especially the Germans, as was reported. They installed over them Dionysios [Denes] as commander-in-chief, a man of mettle who had often drubbed the enemy’s ranks, and, boasting over their successes, they marched out in a show of arrogance. When this Dionysios, who prided himself in his previous victories over the Romans, first heard that the Roman army had crossed the Istros, he boasted loudly that he would gather once more the bones of the Romans fallen in battle and raise a sepulchral mound to serve as a trophy, as he had done in the past, for he had perpetrated such a barbarity when he defeated Gabras and Branas, as I have already related.
On the day commemorating the feast of the martyr Prokopios [8 July 1167], Kontostephanos arrayed his troops for battle, put on his coat of mail, donned the remainder of his armor, and commanded the rest to do the same, and everyone joined his company and stood at attention. He placed himself in the forefront of the battle line, entrusting the right wing to Andronikos Lapardas and the left wing to other company commanders [taxiarchs].

§ 154  He stationed other troops in battle array and deployed them a short distance from either wing so that they might come to the timely aid of any divisions in distress.
When Andronikos had thus arrayed his forces and taken up his position, a courier appeared bearing letters from the emperor commanding that the engagement be put off and designating in the dispatch another day. The general took the missive and concealed it in his bosom, neither heeding its contents nor revealing its instructions to the grandees present and commendably diverted attention to other matters. That particular day was rejected as being unlucky and unfavorable for a military en-_ counter, but since the successful completion or failure of great and mighty ^ deeds depends on the goodwill of God, I do not know how it was that.
Manuel could put his trust in the conjunctions and positions and movements of the stars, and obey the prattle of astrologers as though they were equal to judgments coming from God’s throne.
Kontostephanos, realizing that a few words of exhortation from his trainer often braces the athlete for the contest at hand, roused the troops by reciting the following words.
Remember, O Romans, your valor in war; remember, and do not be minded of anything unworthy of the glory and fortune at hand, knowing full well that mountain-ranging beasts flee in fright from those who courageously track them in order to lay hands on them; all those who are afraid to face them are a ready feast of raw flesh to be devoured. We must play the man against these beastly barbarians lest we succumb to them, and by ignobly giving way to love of life, we lose it instead of saving it; this is the way opposing evils

§ 155  are wont to act upon virtues when they are entrenched next to them or nearby. Moreover, we are not palsy-stricken mortals nor is the enemy made of bronze; nor does he protect himself with coats of mail and ride swift-footed horses while we, to the contrary, enter the lists with naked bodies; nor is the adversary cunning in the art of warfare while we, on the other hand, are unfit; formations, military exercises, and equipment are the same for all. It goes without saying that in eloquence and learning we excel the barbarians, and that being experienced and comprehending, we surpass them in generalship and stratagems. In previous clashes we have contended hotly with the Hungarians, invading and ravaging their land. Thus we shall now engage them in battle, and as though from habit we shall emerge victorious. Yea, O men! Yea, O fellow soldiers! Even so you shall see your children and wives. Let the deep-eddying Istros drown out the cries of the barbarians, broken and perishing in its eddies; pouring forth its bloodstained waters over the land, let it declare the defeat of the Hungarians and proclaim the victory of the Romans, astounding the spectators with the novelty of its flood.
We must bear in mind, moreover, that he who sent us forth on this campaign relies on each and every one of us, and warming himself with high hopes and the oaths that we have sworn before him to fight bravely and mightily, he envisions the captives and the magnitude of the victory. Let us not, therefore, on the one hand, disgrace him, and, on the other, shame ourselves by showing cowardice before the present danger which has no other end but death. The worst of evils does not relish retreat, and for us to give way but a little is to betray everything.
Having spoken in this fashion, Kontostephanos led his troops to an open plain. Dionysios led out his forces against him with cheerful countenance, clapping and rejoicing as though he were going to play a game.
Not knowing what to do on the spur of the moment, he neither divided his troops into right and left wings, nor did he separate his horse from the phalanxes, but forming them into a close and compact mass in the shape

§ 156  of a tower, he led them on like a black cloud with a coarse and unmitigated arrogance. His standard, waving in the wind, was raised on a thick, high-reaching pole on wheels, pulled by four yoke of oxen. The enemy line, wholly constituted of lance-bearing cavalrymen, was truly a fearsome and terrifying sight. The men armed cap-a-pie, and it was a spectacle to behold the horses displaying fillets and cinches and wearing frontlets and breastplates as protection against missiles. The snorting of the horses and the sunlight flashing brilliantly in reflection from the weapons as the armies approached each other created a most unusual sight that inspired fear and wonderment on both sides.
Since the two opposing forces had closed the space that separated them, and it was midday, Kontostephanos deemed the time right for the battle to commence. He commanded the troops of both the right and left wings who were following close behind to cut down the barbarian rear guard and ordered the mounted archers to shoot uncommonly fast and thick. The purpose of the stratagem was to break up or to repel the compact Hungarian ranks; it was a battle out of Homer that day, “buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and man on man ,” the horses were head to head, “the battle, that brings death to mortals, bristled with spears ,” and the armies swayed back and forth like an undulating serpent rattling its scales. Dionysios moved forward like an immovable wall, stretching forth his lance against both Kontostephanos and the troops surrounding him. When the Romans met his attack, both sides fought for a while with lances, jostling one another; once the lances were shattered and the battlefield became fenced in by the piling up of pikes, they unsheathed their long swords and fell upon one another, flailing away.
When their blades were blunted by the troops’ armor made all of bronze and iron, the Hungarians were at a loss, for they had not expected the Romans to withstand their onset. The Romans, taking hold of their iron maces (it was their custom to carry this weapon into battle), smote the Hungarians, and the blow against head and face was fatal.

§ 157  Reeling back, many fell off their saddles; others bled to death from the wounds. When this unbroken formation scattered in disorder, there was no Roman who did not strike and lay low a Hungarian, or who did not strip the fallen, or who did not put on the enemy’s panoply, or who did not mount the horse whose rider he had slain.
As it was late in the day, a shrill blast of the trumpet sounded retreat, and Dionysios’s lofty banner was taken down; the ferryboats were launched into the Istros, and the army was transported to the other side.
A rumor which jangled the general’s nerves was spread throughout the Roman camp, to the effect that the Hungarians were expecting a force of stout mercenaries on the morrow. Because of this report, which could not be wholly dismissed, Andronikos, with the successful conclusion of the battle, straightway departed thence.
Thus were the Hungarians defeated by superior generalship, and the emperor, informed of this most glorious victory, offered thanks to God, applauding and rejoicing. Communicating these cheering successes to the inhabitants of the queen of cities, he dispatched letters of glad tidings heralding the splendid victory.
A few days later, he prepared a triumph and entered the megalopolis through the Eastern Gate, which opens out in the direction of the acropolis. To celebrate a magnificent triumph on the occasion of this stupendous and genuine victory, he issued instructions that the most lavish preparations be made for the procession. Every purple-bordered and gold-speckled cloth was hung, and the citizens, flowing towards the procession like the rush of a swollen stream, emptied out the agorae, houses, churches, workshops, and every other place in the capacious city.

§ 158  Nor was the triumph lacking in troops of captives, and many of these entertained the spectators and magnified the solemn procession as they marched along. To the wonderment of all, on both sides of the route along which the triumph was to pass, standing side by side, were platforms raised to two and three stories, and the rooftops above all were crammed with spectators. When the time came for the emperor to join the triumphal procession, he was preceded by a gilded silver chariot drawn by four horses as white as snowflakes, and ensconced on it was the icon of the Mother of God, the invincible ally and unconquerable fellow general of the emperor. The axle did not creak loudly, for it did not carry the dreadful goddess, the pseudo-Virgin Athena, but the true Virgin, who, beyond understanding, bore the Word through the word. Following behind were the emperor’s renowned blood relations and all ministers of senatorial rank and illustrious dignitaries who enjoyed the emperor’s favor. Next in the line of procession was the most glorious and most great emperor mounted on a stately horse and arrayed in the imperial regalia. Close behind came Kontostephanos, the man responsible for the triumph, receiving praise for his victory and congratulations for his generalship. He entered the Great Church [Hagia Sophia] and offered up praise to the Lord before all the people and then proceeded to the imperial palace. Unstringing himself like a bow from the excessive tension, he relaxed at the horse races [spring 1168], Manuel spent the following spring in physical recreation, and as the sun rode past Cancer and passed by Leo, and the burning heat of Sirius gradually abated, and the winter solstice had already taken on a gloomy aspect [autumn 1168], he marched out to the western parts and encamped near Philippopolis. He had heard that the satrap of Serbia (at that time it was Stefan Nemanja) had become inordinately insolent. A mischievous fellow who deemed meddlesomeness to be shrewdness, Nemanja nurtured an insatiable appetite, eager to expand his territories. He mounted

§ 159  a heavy attack against his own countrymen and pursued them with the sword, and, completely ignoring his own boundaries, he subjugated Croatia and took possession of Dekataroi.
To make trial of Nemanja’s intent, the emperor dispatched Theodore Padyates with a military force. The toparch Nemanja was in such a hostile temper that he fell upon the Romans and immediately launched an undeclared war. When he saw that the emperor was in pursuit, he showed himself in battle but briefly and then hid in the cover of mountain caves which he sealed with stones. At last his pride was shattered, and he prostrated himself at Manuel’s feet. Lying outstretched, mighty in his mightiness, he pleaded that he not be made to suffer cruelly; he was anguished lest he be removed as sovereign over the Serbs and political power be transferred to those who were more fit to rule, those whom he had pulled down so that he might seize power.
Thus did Manuel deal with Nemanja and prevail upon him to make a pledge of good faith: whenever he observed him straying from the straight and narrow, or acting independently, or entering into an alliance with the king of the Germans, or inclining towards the Hungarians and sharing a common purse and pouch with them, he was more diligent than a shepherd guarding a small flock. And Nemanja feared Manuel more than the wild animals fear the king of beasts; often Manuel led out only the cavalry and commanding his bodyguards, “Follow me,” crossed the Roman borders and rode against Nemanja at full tilt, restoring conditions in these parts according to his own design.
What followed these events? Manuel, who wanted to campaign in foreign lands, had heard of Egypt’s bountiful productivity, how extensive were the fields fertilized by the Nile, the giver of fruit and rich grain, where the plentiful harvest was measured by the cubit. He determined to set his hand in the sea and his right hand in the rivers, to observe with his keen eyes and take into his hands the coveted blessings of Egypt which had been brought to his attention.

§ 160  These thoughts motivated him to leap over the lands under foot even while these were still deeply troubled, laid waste, and put to the torch. Nor had they vanished or been rendered invisible, but, like the Hydra, they continually restored themselves; it was an ill-timed ambition that Manuel should vie with kings whose fame was great and whose domains had extended not only from sea to sea but also from the boundaries of the East to the Pillars of the West.
Manuel shared his ambitions [summer 1168] with Amalric, king of Jerusalem, and found him not averse to the scheme. With Amalric’s promise to cooperate in the venture, he fitted out an armada to sail against Damietta consisting of over two hundred long ships, ten from Epidamnos [Dyrrachium] and six swift-sailing ships manned by Euboians; he appointed the grand duke Andronikos Kontostephanos commander of the fleet. Entrusting sixty of these triremes to Theodore Mavrozomes, he sent him forth to the king to announce the launching of the rest of the fleet and the arrival of Kontostephanos. Amalric was to make himself ready for the expedition and to provide provisions for the knights of Jerusalem who were to campaign with the king against the Egyptians.
Not long afterwards, Kontostephanos set sail (it was the eighth day of the month of July [1169 CE]). He stopped at Melivoton, where the emperor came to inspect the fleet and give final instructions for the task

§ 161  ahead, and two days later sailed to Koila, situated between Sestos and Abydos, and embarked the army of Roman and auxiliary troops assigned to the triremes. When a favorable and fair wind arose, the stern cables were loosed and the sails were spread, and Konstephanos gave orders for the ships to make their way to Cyprus. While at sea he came upon six ships dispatched by the amir of Egypt on a reconnaissance mission, and captured two, while the others which had kept their distance escaped by virtue of their superior speed.
He came ashore on Cyprus, made his arrival known to the king, and inquired as to his intentions, whether he should await the king there or continue on his way to Jerusalem. The king, in the manner of Epimetheus, who gave no thought to his actions only to repent of them grievously afterwards, was deeply troubled in his heart that he had wholeheartedly agreed to succor the emperor and that he had encouraged him to undertake the expedition against the Egyptians. He thought it best to procrastinate so he could ponder on what should be done. After a long delay, he signaled Andronikos to hasten to Jerusalem to take counsel with him and decide what joint action they should effect.
When Kontostephanos arrived in Jerusalem, Amalric once again procrastinated, and a smoldering regret weighed heavily on his soul. Putting forward among many other excuses “the pretext for Patroklos,” he cited the levying of his own troops as not the least of these. Andronikos was vexed because of the waste of precious time which could never be laid hold of again, like hair that is not long in the back. He was especially troubled over the continual depletion of provisions by the fleet’s complement. The emperor had provided a three-month supply of grain for the naval forces beginning with the month of August, and it was now the end of September.

§ 162  When he decided to set out, the king proposed an expedition by land rather than by sea and suggested that Andronikos follow suit, contending that he was certain that it was a much easier and safer route and that as an added boon both Tounion and Tenesion would surrender at the first assault. These small villages, subject to the amir of Egypt, in which the majority of the inhabitants were known by the name of Christ [Christians], were not difficult to assault or to penetrate, as they were situated on a flat plain. Andronikos, persuaded by the king’s argument, abandoned his own course of action, and the Romans made their way unopposed and attacked the aforementioned fortresses. These they subdued by agreement, since they were not sufficiently garrisoned and could not put up a stiff resistance. Following this, they pushed forward.
After joining up with the fleet, which was already riding at anchor, and blockading Damietta, they engaged the Saracens before the city (for the latter had forthwith poured out) and met them in arms [30 October to November 1169], Thus the Romans took them by surprise and overwhelmed them by the daring of their attack and with battle cry and tumult pushed them back behind the gates until the enemy could not endure to look them straight in the face. This action took place on the day the triremes ran ashore on the Nile and the king arrived by land. The next day the Saracens again joined battle with the Romans, and they clashed along the winding and gently curving surrounding wall. But once again the Saracens were unable to resist the Romans. Taking up their positions a short distance from the gates and never moving out beyond the walls, they conducted hostilities in this fashion. Whenever the Romans mounted an attack against them, they turned in flight and poured in

§ 163  through the gates to avoid sustaining heavy losses since they dared not pit their troops against their adversaries. Thus it was for many days. The purpose of this tactic was none other than to outwit the Romans so that by making them waste their time they should lose all hope in accomplishing their objective.
The following day, Andronikos moved up siege engines and pounded the wall, but not without great effort and danger; the barbarians hampered the work of the engineers by shooting at them from above, discharging missiles more thickly than snowflakes and contriving various ways to defend the wall. He succeeded, however, in demolishing a part of the wall near which stood a church which smelled of sweet incense and was dedicated to the Mother of God. The story is told by the townsfolk that near this spot the Virgin Mother and her spouse Joseph paused to rest from their wandering when hastening to Egypt to escape the child-slaying Herod. The Saracens, accordingly, jeered at the Romans and showered Andronikos with insults for not sparing the church wherein the Christians assembled to celebrate their cherished sacraments and chant their prayers and thank-offerings.
Since Andronikos had yet to accomplish his purpose, he decided to make trial of the defenders by mounting a more forceful attack. He spoke with the king and finally convinced him, after pressing him strongly, to lead out his troops and deploy them along the entire wall and, when this action was successfully accomplished, to throw up ladders and have his men scale them. Amalric lauded Andronikos’s words and apotheosized him for his excellent strategy, but swearing an oath on Christ’s tomb, he contended that he would not undertake the task unless wooden towers were constructed first to be placed along the walls. Having so spoken, he gave orders for the palm trees growing all about to be cut down and planed for use in the high-reaching towers.

§ 164  The lofty palm trees of leafy crown were felled, the groves emptied of trees, and every garden stripped bare, but the fitting and joining together of the truss beams was never completed, for the king put off the work to be done over a period of many days, ever waiting for tomorrow and never executing the measures that had been resolved upon. Observing these things, Andronikos was vexed. The army’s provisions were short; some of the troops had no money with which to purchase the necessities of life and were threatened with death by starvation, while the rest were indignant because, not having their own market, they were compelled to pay exorbitant sums to the king’s grain merchants in return for meager foodstuffs. When the time agreed upon for the campaign had long since elapsed, the troops began to grumble and vent their anger, especially since the siege, which had lasted over fifty days, proved to be fruitless and futile.
The emperor’s written instructions did not allow Andronikos to take measures that were not agreeable to the king, and so he could only wait to see what the king proposed to do. But he soon realized that Amalric was neither devising an effective plan nor assisting and sharing in the toils of battle and that the troops, reduced to helplessness, were in grave peril.
So hard pressed were they by famine that in the desperate search for food some laid their hands on forbidden provender, and all ate roots and plucked the fronds of the palm trees which they boiled and served up as a meal. Furthermore, ominous rumors were being spread that auxiliaries would soon be arriving to assist the besieged from the sultan of Egypt and the Arabs in the East and that Assyrian mercenary horsemen were very close by. So Andronikos gave up talking into the ear of the dead. In disgust, he stripped himself of the Latin drivel and decided to conduct the campaign on his own.
He assembled his troops, and pronounced, To remain in this place a long time is grievous, and to return empty-handed without having inflicted any injury against our enemies is a shameful thing; but what is even worse than those two evils and wholly ridiculous is the task of convincing a man who is

§ 165  not only in complete disagreement with the judgment of the Ro mans but who is also no better disposed towards us than are our adversaries. Do you not perceive that the king, who has set up his camp far from ours, never moves forth from there, and that our fellow combatant, our ally, behaves as though he had been engaged by us as a spectator to some festive recreation and not as a doer of martial deeds? Do not our adversaries behave in the same way when they put off the battle and do not issue forth from the gates fighting? Henceforth, it is not this threat that I fear or that we shall depart without having achieved some success, but lest we be unable to save our very lives. Nor am I concerned about or do I give thought to whether the king will join his forces with ours in battle, but how we may escape his cunning, since he no longer conceals nor hides his treacherous ways behind a curtain, and how we may depart unharmed, repelling the danger before our eyes.
Perhaps stronger potions, like those of olden times, have now been concocted by the Egyptians, potions whose effect is not only to lull grief to sleep and bring unexpected cheerfulness to the deeply distressed soul, like that which long ago Thon’s wife gave to the Laconian, banishing pain and sorrow and causing all evils to be forgotten, but also to make warriors effeminate and forgetful of prowess. It was, I ween, the cup of these potions that the Egyptians offered Amalric, who, bewitched, it would seem, by the drink, and in his cups, then fell into a lengthy torpor. His shield was hung on a peg, his sword slept in its scabbard, and his spear was fixed in the earth on its spike. Should this not be the case, then perhaps he changed his mind, held spellbound by silver, and his ears, plugged by gold, tickled him, making him hard of hearing.
And now the treaties of alliance he had tendered the emperor are undone, since he honored them only with his lips while rejecting them in his heart. We are compassed about by grave dangers, consumed by both warfare and famine; the boasts of Romans on

§ 166  our behalf have taken flight, and glorious achievements are dissolved. It would have been better had we not put in to this place of anchorage after sailing over immense and boundless seas than to sail away unsuccessful. Therefore, let us not now spread the ships’ white sails with which we sailed from Byzantis, but only those of dark color to denote the blot of shame.
O countrymen and fellow soldiers and all of you mercenary troops present here, let us separate ourselves from these haughty and arrogant knights from Palestine who have shown themselves faithless to the Romans. Let us charge the barbarians, storm the walls, and fight until we take this city, and let us contend for the riches within as though they were already in hand. Though the wall protects the barbarians, and the discharge of missiles takes place from on high, we have our shields which are not easily held up by men (for they are superior to Aias’ shield of sevenfold bull’s hide) but are raised up in defense like city walls; not only are they unshaken by arrows and invulnerable to blows inflicted by hand but they are also impervious to any missile discharged by engines of war. Standing up against these like battlement houses a short distance from the wall, we shall deal with its defenders.
If, indeed, you choose to do your duty, time it is to trust in me, since I will happily endure with you whatever must be done. Let none say that Andronikos is persuasive in argument and most capable of inciting others to martial deeds but that he himself is a wretched leader who knows not how to repel the enemy. Be assured that the foe shall see the face of my helmet before they see yours.
When necessary I shall fight in the forefront, and if the state of affairs requires it I shall lead the rear guard. May God accomplish our designs and turn back every calamity on the heads of those whose land we lay waste.
Having uttered these words, he armed himself, and the rest dispersed from the assembly and dressed in full armor. As the day grew longer and was approaching the third hour [9:00 a.m.], the divisions were drawn up for battle, and Andronikos marched out in advance of the whole army.

§ 167  The Saracens secured the gates with bars and bolts and spread out engines of war to defend these and took up their positions on the walls.
They repulsed the attackers with all manner of weapons, making the entire area within missile range impassable, thanks to the weapons they slung from the battlements and shot from bows. Despite this, Andronikos advanced on horseback and hurled his lance against the gate. Then the archers and everyone else moved into action; repeatedly the trumpets sounded out the call to battle and the cymbals were struck loudly so that the defenders on the walls and in the towers would be unnerved by the continuous shouting of the troops, their charge, and the discharge of all kinds of war engines.
The scaling ladders had already been brought forward and were firmly fixed on many sections of the wall when the news of what was taking place struck the king a piercing blow. It was as though he were suffering from a deep and unexpected hurt or that a lightning bolt had robbed him of his senses and left him dumbfounded. As soon as he recovered from his vertigo, he called for a horse and leaping onto it appeared before the Roman forces with his picked troops. Checking all attacks, he admonished them to desist from giving battle to men who had just made it known to him that they were ready to surrender themselves and the city to the emperor without bloodshed.
This benumbing information immobilized the Romans as they were about to take the city by storm, and the king negotiated treaties which, instead of rendering honor to the Romans, gave advantage to the Agarenes. Moreover, when the soldiers heard of the treaty, they could think only of returning home and did not pause to examine carefully the terms of the peace. In their haste, they filled the camp with confusion, and their ignorance of seamanship was more ruinous than fire.

§ 168  Without orders from the general they set fire to the siege engines and rid themselves of most of their equipment. Then they made for the rowboats. Looking out to the restless sea, they rushed madly onto the ships without considering the untimely voyage into wintry seas (for it was the fourth day of the month of December) [c. December 1169].
It was something to behold the multitudinous fleet of vessels putting in along the docks en masse and putting out again to scatter in ten thousand directions, some choosing to follow their own course but all steering their ships towards their homelands so that hardly six triremes remained in the harbor to carry Andronikos back. With the king and appropriate escort, Andronikos marched overland to Jerusalem, bypassing Ikonion, and arrived at Byzantion. Many ships encountered adverse winds and sank, men and all, while the rest, dispersed by heavy seas, at length reached the City’s docks at the approach of spring. [1170 CE]. Not a few, once they reached land and were emptied of their passengers, were abandoned like Charon’s ferryboats to be borne without ballast by the rising and falling waves, thus surviving both the agitation of the shallow sea and the sailors’ negligence.
The Saracens were very fearful of another Roman attack. To avert a future naval expedition they dispatched envoys to the emperor with rich gifts and confirmed the peace treaty.
Since the empress was already in travail and about to give birth, the Purple Bedchamber was swept clean and meticulously prepared for the

§ 169  childbirth and the mother’s reception. When the labor pains became acute, the parturient empress entered the Purple Bedchamber. The sight of the emperor, who was in attendance and anxious for his wife, eased her pangs; even more, he cast frequent glances at the stargazer, the gaper at heavenly signs. Since it was a male child that issued forth from the womb [14 September (1168?)], and the astrologer’s art predicted that he should be blessed, a child of destiny, and successor to his father’s throne, prayers of thanksgiving were offered up to God, and everyone applauded and rejoiced.
Celebrating the child’s birthday and name-giving [22 September], Manuel, as is the custom among the Roman emperors, regaled the City’s residents and named his son Alexios, choosing this name neither impulsively nor in honor of the grandfather’s name, but taking heed of the oracular utterance in answer to the question: “How long shall the dynasty of Alexios Komnenos reign?” The oracular response was aima [blood]; if divided into letters and recounted in their order, the alpha clearly designated Alexios, the iota John [Ioannes], and the next two letters Manuel and his successor to the throne.
As the boy increased in stature and shot up like a flourishing and luxuriant young plant, the emperor had another purpose to accomplish.
He transferred to his son the oaths of allegiance that had earlier been pledged to his daughter Maria and her betrothed, the Hungarian Alexios [24 March 1171]. The emperor, his son, and those who were to pledge their oaths of allegiance to the latter entered the great and celebrated

§ 170  Church of the Mother of God in Blachernai. Having transmitted the dominion to the offspring of his loins by this ceremony of oath-taking, shortly thereafter he separated his daughter from Alexios and plighted his wife’s sister, who had recently set out from Antioch with Baldwin, as his wife.
When the life of the ruler of the Hungarians came to an end [1172 (1173?)], Manuel, who deemed his demise an unexpected stroke of good fortune, forthwith dispatched Alexios [Bela III] with a splendid entourage and the full trappings of royalty to succeed to the throne of Hungary and reign over his fellow countrymen. Crowned without any trouble with the kingly diadem of Hungary, Alexios became the incontestable master of the whole nation. The emperor once again carefully searched for a husband for his daughter. Making light of Roman nobles who were candidates for marriage, he carefully selected those dynasts of nations who were unmarried or those with sons who, following the death of their parents, would succeed to the paternal throne. The first place fell to William, king of Sicily. One envoy after another was sent to him, while he dispatched envoys back again to negotiate the marriage contract; the embassies alternated, and the preliminary wedding deliberations were drawn out in idle chatter. When these oscillated like a scale rising and falling and were frequently altered and modified, the emperor finally changed his mind, deeming a marriage with the king of Sicily to be disadvantageous to the Romans.
The maiden, a princess wooed by many,

§ 171  was like Agamemnon’s daughter Electra raving long in the palace and, stately as a white poplar wet with dew, longing for the marriage bed. Later, after the emperor had given the matter much thought, she became the consort of one of the sons [Renier] of the Count of Montferrat [February (1179?)], who was fair of face and pleasant to look upon; his well-groomed hair shone like the sun and he was too young to grow a beard, while she had passed her thirtieth year and was as strong as a man.
Having reached this point in my history, I shall include the following.
There is a gulf in the western sea called the Adriatic which recedes from the Sicilian sea and, separating itself as an effluence of the Ionian, flows a long way in the direction of the north wind. The northernmost recesses are inhabited by the Enetoi, who, in their own dialect, call themselves Venetikoi; nourished by the sea, they are vagabonds like the Phoenicians and cunning of mind. Adopted by the Romans when there had been need for naval forces, they had left their homeland for Constantinople in swarms and by clans. From there they dispersed throughout the Roman empire; retaining only their family names and looked upon as natives and genuine Romans, they increased and flocked together. They amassed great wealth and became so arrogant and impudent that not only did they behave belligerently to the Romans but they also ignored imperial threats and commands.
Buffeted by a series of villanies, one worse than the other, the emperor now recalled their offensive behavior on Kerkyra and turned the scales against them, spewing forth his anger like the tempestuous and stormy spray blown up by a northeaster or north wind. The misdeeds of the Venetians were deemed to be excessive, and letters were dispatched to every Roman province ordering their arrest, together with the confiscation of their communal properties, and designating the day this was to take place [12 March 1171].

§ 172  On the appointed day they were all apprehended, and a portion of their possessions was deposited in the imperial treasury, while the greater part was appropriated by the governors. Those Venetians who had dwellings in the City, especially those who were unmarried, planned to escape, and since there rode at anchor in the City’s dockyards a threemasted ship of greater capacity and magnitude, as was reported, than any ship that ever, lay in a harbor, they boarded her at night and raised anchors. Unfurling the sails, they returned home thanks to the winds.
Fire-bearing ships and imperial triremes filled with men carrying one-edged axes on their shoulders pursued them closely. They approached the vessel but could do nothing, since the ship was driven so fast before the wind that she appeared to be flying rather than sailing; they despaired particularly because of the utter futility of boarding the vessel, thanks to her height and the desperation of those on board. They were thus able to sail straight to Venice, their homeland.
Strengthening their fleet the following year [September 1171], they attacked the islands; in Euboia they laid siege to Evripos and were able to occupy a section whose buildings they burned to the ground. With the advent of spring they sailed thence and put in at the island of Chios [1172 CE]. When Manuel was informed of these happenings, he dispatched the grand duke Andronikos Kontostephanos with some one hundred and fifty triremes, a fleet which was neither inferior to that of the Venetians

§ 173  nor in any way less resolute or less well equipped. Roman troops were assembled from everywhere and made ready for the great battle against the enemy, and not a few allied ships were brought in, furnished by the province of the Slavs. Terrified at the first report of the departure of the Roman fleet, they passed the night at the oars. Sailing from Chios, they crossed over to other islands, which they left behind in their continuing flight, then sailed towards others, and finding these inhospitable, they moved on to the next. The Romans were vexed that their naval action was unsuccessful, that they had not turned their prows towards the Venetians. Andronikos advanced as far as [Cape] Malea and chased vainly after the unattainable; sailing over the open sea in pursuit of the Argo, he backed water from the roadstead and put in at the City [spring 1172].
As the Venetians saw that they could not defend themselves, they made peace with the king of Sicily [September 1175], thinking that he might immediately undertake their defense and protect them in case the Romans attacked. The emperor, heeding these reports (for he knew that a petty cause often leads to momentous changes and calamities), directed his attention to earlier treaties with the Venetians [1179 CE] and attempted to cancel their treaties with the king of Sicily. When they refused to set them aside, he won them over with offers of forbearance and friendship in answer to their demands. He not only renewed their privileges of equal citizenship with the Romans but also returned their possessions stored in the imperial treasury. The Venetians decided that it was more profitable

§ 174  than grievous to forgo the redistribution of their personal wealth for greater commercial benefits and agreed to receive in several payments fifteen hundred pounds of gold in return for their losses.

§ 175  BOOK SIX The following deeds were also accomplished by Emperor Manuel. Let our narrative proceed and record each event in its proper place and time.
Since the sultan [Kilij Arslan II] would not embrace peace, for it was inimical to his enrichment, whereas it was always most profitable to have his Turks pour over the Roman borders, the emperor once again marched out against him. He would not allow the Turkish ruler to sleep, but, as though prodding a ravening beast, he maddened him, roused him from his lair, and provoked him into battle. Indeed, neither armistices nor truces, compacts, treaties, nor the negotiations of envoys could prevent or stave off mutual attacks, for both sides were prone to hot and reckless acts. Eager for warfare, they marched against each other on the slightest pretext; their chief business was to strip off suits of armor, assemble troops, fall to, and exchange blows. The two rulers differed from one another in this way: the sultan appeared always to be deliberate and to exercise forethought, reflecting carefully on his actions and cautiously winding up the skein of battle through his commanders (no one ever saw him standing in the front line of a phalanx or sharing in his soldiers’ toil); the emperor, on the other hand, was courageous by nature, reckless in battle, and daring in the deeds worked by his hand, and when the report came that the enemy had made one of its frequent incursions,

§ 176  wreaking havoc on his realm, he was the first to mount his horse and boldly march out his troops.
Because Manuel wanted to rebuild Dorylaion, he provoked the barbarian to give battle. The sultan responded by pretending that he had not known that the emperor had arrived at Dorylaion and sent an embassy to inquire as to the cause of the difficulties and to appeal to him to depart.
With curling lips Manuel perused the contents of the sultan’s letters. He reckoned that it was no small wonder that the Sultan should be unaware of the march on Dorylaion and should feign to be unaware of the reason.
Since it was imperative to rebuild the city, Manuel, the first man to carry stones on his back, set the manly example for others to follow. Thus the walls were raised with great speed, the palisade was thrown up outside, and wells were excavated inside for drawing up an abundant water supply.
The Turks knew that they would be in danger should they be forced to abandon the fertile plains of Dorylaion on which their herds of goats and cattle grazed, romping in the verdant meadows, and should the city be restored with a Roman phalanx installed as a garrison. They gave free rein to their horses and rode at full speed against the Romans. Guarding against their forays in search of food, they prevented them from gathering wood and slew those they took captive. The emperor easily surmounted this obstacle. At the exact moment when the Romans who were charged with collecting the necessities sallied forth, he gave the command for the sounding of the trumpet, issued first from the entrenched camp, and led the way. Never leaving the side of those in search of provisions, not even briefly, he sometimes would not return to camp until late afternoon or evening. Because he was intent on carrying the war to the Turks, they were unremittingly begrimed with dust in their flight and set fire to the crops and burned their tents so that the Romans should not succeed in securing supplies.

§ 177  Once, when the emperor had turned aside to eat and was peeling a peach with his knife, a Turkish attack against those gathering food was announced; casting away the fruit at once he girded on his sword, donned his coat of mail, and mounted his horse to ride on at full speed.
The barbarians in battle array quickly broke rank when they saw him; then, feigning flight, they wheeled round and smote their pursuers, putting their rout to advantage by shooting and overthrowing those who pressed upon them. The Turk spurs his horse again and again, and as its legs quickly strike the ground it is furiously swept along; the Turk, holding the arrow in his hands, discharges it from behind and slays the foe who is rushing to reach him by meeting him first, thus overthrowing his enemy about to overtake him, and suddenly the pursued becomes the pursuer.
When the emperor had rebuilt Dorylaion and had taken every safeguard for its defense, he departed and went to Souvleon which he resorted and garrisoned. Confident that he had set all other matters in excellent order, he returned to the queen of cities [before Epiphany, January 1176].
Not long afterwards, the adversaries rekindled their resolve against each other and resorted to mutual recriminations. The emperor charged the sultan with ingratitude towards his benefactor and with unmindfulness of the emperor’s previous acts of kindness, of his manifold assistance in establishing the sultan in his rule over his own people; the sultan blamed the emperor for his offhanded breaking of faith, for forsaking friendship, for abruptly violating the established articles of peace, and for arousing him with promises of bountiful gifts that were inscribed in imperial documents in royal purple ink and then granting him but a pittance.

§ 178  For these reasons the emperor collected the existing forces and augmented their numbers with fresh recruits. He also enlisted not a few mercenaries, especially from among the Latin race and from the Cumans along the Danube. Numbering his troops in the tens of thousands, he marched out intent on destroying the Turkish nation, and on taking by storm Ikonion and her walls, and on holding captive the sultan whose neck he would trample as a footstool when he prostrated himself.
Now prepared for the expedition, he entered the Great Church which is named for the Divine and Ineffable Wisdom and there invoked the Divinity to be his helpmate and to grant him victory. But that He did not assent to these pleas was evident when at the war’s end victory was given the enemy according to the inscrutable judgment of God.
The emperor set out from the queen of cities [summer 1176], passing through both Phrygia and Laodikeia, and came to Chonai, a prosperous and great city, the ancient Colossae, this author’s homeland. He entered the enormous Church of the Archangel [Michael], incomparable in beauty and a marvel of craftsmanship, and then marched on to Lampe and the city of Kelainai, where are the headwaters of the Maeander and where the Marsyas River discharges into the Maeander; there it is said Apollo flayed Marsyas who, as if he had been driven mad by the sting of the gadfly, had challenged Apollo to a musical contest.
From there he went on through Choma, halting at the ancient abandoned fortress of Myriokephalon, so called, I believe, either because of what had happened or as a prediction of what was to occur; for at this place many tens of thousands of Roman heads would fall in violent death, as I shall relate.
The emperor always provided for well-ordered stations; he formed entrenched camps and carefully undertook his departures according to

§ 179  military tactics, even though he had to make his way slowly because of the pack animals loaded with engines of war and the numerous noncombatants who were charged with their care. However, the Turks, who showed themselves from time to time only to engage in light skirmishes, rode on ahead and destroyed the grass along the way so that the horses of the Romans would have no forage, and they contaminated the waters so that the Romans would have no pure water to drink. The Romans were grievously afflicted by a disease of the bowels which utterly ravaged the army.
Because of these events, the sultan gave heed to war and drew upon substantial numbers of allied troops from Mesopotamia and from among the barbarians of the same race from the north. He also dispatched an embassy to the emperor to ask for a peace treaty and to promise to carry out the emperor’s wishes, whatever they might be. All those who were experienced in warfare, especially in Turkish combat, and who were advanced in age, entreated Manuel to receive the embassy with open arms rather than to place all hopes on the die of battle. They begged him to keep in view how prodigious the contest would be, that the terrain was not easily passable but beset with ambuscades, and that he should neither overlook the excellent Turkish horse at peak strength nor ignore the sickness that afflicted the army. Manuel paid no heed whatsoever to the words of the older men but instead gave ear to his blood relations, especially those who had never heard the sound of the war trumpet, who sported beautiful hair styles and displayed bright and cheerful faces and wore around their necks collars of gold and translucent necklaces of sparkling gems and precious pearls. The envoys he dismissed empty-handed.
The sultan continued to pursue discussions over peace terms. But when he perceived that no progress was being made on the treaties and that the emperor was boasting that he would give him his answer at Ikonion, he occupied the rough ground called the defiles of Tzivritze, through which the Romans had to pass after leaving Myriokephalon.

§ 180  There the Sultan crowded together his phalanxes to resist the Romans. This place is a far-stretching defile with mountain passes that descends gently the steep northern slope to the hills below, opening up into broad ravines and then dropping down on the other side to jutting rocks and precipitous, beetling cliffs.
It appears that Manuel took no precautions on behalf of the army when he set out on such a path. He neither lightened the loads of the pack animals nor did he put aside the wagons carrying the siege engines, nor did he attempt to rout the Turks in advance from the overgrown mountain passes with a company of his light troops, thus smoothing the way for the army. After making his way over the open plains, he elected to be pressed in by this narrow defile, even though he had been forewarned. He was soon to verify these reports with his eyes when the barbarians, having occupied the mountain ridges, would attack, emptying their quivers with discharges of arrows, thereby putting the Romans to flight and checking their advance.
The emperor, nonetheless, led on his phalanxes. The month was September [17 September 1176], Constantine Angelos’s two sons, John and Adronikos, Constantine Makrodoukas, and Andronikos Lapardas, together with their own troops, formed the van of the army. Following these came the right wing, led by Baldwin, the brother of the emperor’s wife, while Theodore Mavrozomes commanded the left wing. Next came the pack animals, the camp menials, and the wagons carrying the siege engines. Then came the emperor himself with his picked troops, followed by Andronikos Kontostephanos as the rear guard.
The troops about Angelos’s sons, Makrodoukas and Lapardas, passed through the rough terrain without injury, for the infantry, sent on ahead, startled the. barbarians, dislodging them from the hills below the mountain where they had been posted to give battle,

§ 181  and sent them scurrying back to the steeper slopes for cover. Perhaps the troops who followed would have passed safely through the Turkish melee also had they only closed ranks with, the companies who had preceded them and used their archers to repel the onslaughts of the attacking Turks, but they neglected to maintain closed ranks, allowing the superior number of Turks swarming down the hill sides from the higher ground to scatter the troops and engage them in a most reckless manner. The Turks routed Baldwin’s men, wounded many, and slew not a few. Thereupon, Baldwin, seeing that his troops were in a sorry plight, too weak to break through the enemy’s ranks and escape, and pressed hard on all sides, gathered certain of his knights and rode through the Turkish phalanxes, but, surrounded by the enemy, he was slain. All his companions fell with him, displaying desperate courage in their daring and noble deeds.
Elated by their success, the barbarians closed all avenues of escape to the Romans, who, pressed closely together, were unable to move through the mountain pass. The Romans in this narrow space fell over one another, unable to harm the enemy, and in blocking the way to those marching with them they made it impossible for them to defend themselves. Thus they were easily killed by their attackers, for there was no aid whatsoever from the troops in the rear or from the emperor, nor was there any possibility of retreating or breaking out on either flank. The wagons drawn along in the middle not only stopped the troops who had gone on ahead from turning back and rendering aid but also acted as a barricade against the forward advance of the emperor’s troops.
The ox was felled by a Turkish arrow, and the driver expired by its side. The horse and its rider were cast down together. The hollows were filled with bodies. The groves were glutted with the fallen. The

§ 182  babbling, rushing streams flowed red with blood. Blood commingled with blood, human blood with the blood of pack animals. The horrors that took place there defy all description. Since they could neither advance nor retreat (for the Turks took up positions in the rear and made the way forward impassable), the Romans, like cattle in their pens, were cut down in this gorge.
Whatever noble purpose and burning desire to resist the adversary still survived was soon extinguished and lost, and all their zeal deserted the Romans when the enemy brought before them another calamitous spectacle: the head of Andronikos Vatatzes raised on a lance. He was the Emperor Manuel’s nephew who had been dispatched with an army levied in Paphlagonia and Herakleia of the Pontos to oppose the Turks of Amaseia.
The emperor, bewildered by these reports and abominable spectacles, looked upon his nephew’s head lifted high and saw before his eyes the magnitude of the danger in which he was ensnared. Despondent and sullen, he gave himself over to grieving, as they say, with muffled tears and passively awaited the future.
The Roman divisions which had marched on ahead safely traversed those precarious pathways and occupied a hill which provided enough security for a bivouac in an entrenched camp.
The Turks exerted themselves mightily to overcome the emperor’s troops, for if they had put to flight the greatest number and stoutest part, then they believed they would easily paralyze the others, just as a serpent’s coils perish when its head is crushed, or a city, after its citadel falls, and it is wholly plunged into ruin, suffers the worst horrors. The emperor

§ 183  repeatedly attempted to dislodge the barbarians blocking the pathways and pressed his troops hard to clear a way through, but he saw that his plans were not succeeding, that his losses would not be less by remaining where he was, for the Turks were ever prevailing, as they fought from higher ground. And so he led a charge against the enemy with a few of his troops and enjoined the rest to save themselves as best they could; from what he could perceive there was no hope.
Manuel slipped out of the phalanx’s iron grip as though it were a trap set for a weasel. He suffered many wounds and bruises from sword and mace wielded by the Turks: his whole body was covered with injuries, his shield was pierced by some thirty bloodthirsty arrows, and he was unable to set straight his helmet which had been knocked askew. But beyond all expectations he escaped the clutches of the barbarians, p rotected by God who long ago had screened David’s head in the day ofbattle, as the lover of psalms himself relates. The other Roman divisions fared much worse. Pierced continually from all sides by the metal heads of lances and continuously smitten by arrows, they perished as they fell over one another. There were some who passed through the ravine, repulsing the Turks stationed there, and advanced to reach the next hollow, where they were cut down by the enemy troops posted there. This pathway cuts through seven trench-like and contiguous valleys, becoming wider for a short distance and then contracting again into a narrow pass; these valleys were carefully guarded by Turkish troops. Nor was the remaining area lacking in enemy, for the whole region was filled with them.
Then a strong wind blew, whipping the sandy soil into a violent sand storm that enveloped both armies. They fell upon one another, attacking their adversaries as though they were fighting in the night, and in the darkness that can be felt, they slaughtered their own friends for it was

§ 184  impossible to distinguish between countryman and foreigner. Turks and Romans drew their swords against their own men and slew whoever approached as an enemy, so that the gullies became one huge grave, a burial place of diverse nations, the common resting place of Romans and barbarians, of horses, oxen, and pack asses.
The greater part of the Romans fell, as did most of the emperor’s most illustrious kinsmen. When the dust had settled and the blinding mist had dissipated, some were to be seen (alas, how pitiful the spectacle!) buried to the waist and neck in the corpses. They stretched forth their hands in supplication and with piteous gestures and voices echoing a mournful refrain pleaded with those nearby to come to their aid, but none who passed could defend or save them. Everyone who saw their suffering foresaw his own calamity and ran to escape mortal danger; appearing pitiless without wanting it, each fled as fast he could to save himself.
Emperor Manuel paused to rest in the shade of a wild pear tree, to regain his spent strength, having neither armor-bearer at his side, nor lancer, nor bodyguard following him. When a cavalryman, a man of common and humble station, saw the emperor, he took pity and approached him, and moved by devotion he eagerly volunteered to serve him to the utmost of his ability; thereupon he adjusted the emperor’s helmet which had slipped to one side.
While the emperor was resting beneath the wild pear tree, a certain Turk ran up and grabbed the emperor’s horse by the reins since there was no one to hinder him; Manuel struck him on the head with the piece of his lance which he still held and knocked him to the ground. Soon other Turks in search of captives rushed at him, but he repulsed them with ease; the emperor, catching up the lance of a cavalryman at his side, transfixed one of the attackers and killed him; the cavalryman, unsheathing his sword, cut off the head of another.
When another ten Roman troops had assembled about the emperor,

§ 185  he departed, eager to rejoin the divisions which had gone on ahead. After proceeding a short distance, however, his advance was again barred by the Turks as well as impeded by the corpses of the fallen which lay about in the open in heaps, obstructing the roads. Crossing over the rugged terrain and the swollen mountain stream flowing nearby, and treading on the carcasses and riding over them, he collected another band of Roman soldiers who came running when they saw him. When he looked up he espied his niece’s husband, John Kantakouzenos, one man hotly contending against many, bravely pressing his attack while looking about to see if anyone was coming to his aid. A short time afterwards, the emperor saw him fall and despoiled because no one had come to his defense.
When the Turks who had slain Kantakouzenos saw the emperor passing by (for it was impossible to escape their notice), they formed into a band and set upon him as though in pursuit of great prey; they were undecided whether to take him captive or to kill him. All were mounted on Arabian stallions, and in appearance they stood out from the many: they carried elegant weapons, and their horses were bedecked with splendid ornaments, in particular with adornments of tinkling bells suspended from horsehair that reached far down the neck. The emperor roused the mettle of the men around him and easily repulsed the enemy’s charge. He pushed forward little by little, sometimes by the law of warfare and sometimes without bloodshed, outdistancing the Turks who had joined together in their rush to seize him. Glad and thrice-pleased, the emperor overtook the divisions that had gone on ahead, less concerned for themselves than anxious that he had not yet appeared.
Before joining up with them, he had been overcome by thirst while still in the region of the stream mentioned above, and he asked one of the men standing nearby to fill a pitcher with water and to bring it to him to drink. Taking only so much of the water as to wet his palate, he poured

§ 186  out the rest so that he should not experience the pleasure of the liquid passing down his throat. The drinking water, he saw on close inspection, was defiled by gore; he wailed aloud and said that fortunately he had not tasted of the blood of Christians. A certain man standing nearby who showed himself to be rash and impudent, more unpleasant than these troubled times, unblushingly commented: “Get along with you, O Emperor, this is certainly not so, oh no! This is not the first time; often in the past you have drunk unto intoxication from a wholly unmixed wine bowl of Christian blood, stripping and gleaning your subjects.” The emperor cheerfully suffered this accusing and abusive man as though he had not heard him or as one who had no reproofs in his mouth.
When the emperor saw the Turks ripping open the moneybags of the treasury and seizing the gold and silver coin strewn on the ground, he exhorted the Romans around him to fall on the barbarians and take possession of the monies to which they had a greater right than did the Turks. The same man once more stepped forth and shamelessly reviled the emperor for giving such orders: “These monies should have been offered willingly to the Romans earlier, not now, when they can be won only with great difficulty and bloodshed. If he [Manuel] be a man of strength as he boasts he is, unless it is the sour wine that speaks [?], let him meet the gold-plundering Turks in battle, and after bravely thrashing them, let him restore the loot to the Romans.” Manuel remained silent before even these words, neither grumbling nor muttering under his breath but suffering the rashness of the reviler as did David the impudence of Semei of old.
Late in the day, Andronikos Kontostephanos, who commanded the rear guard, appeared unharmed, and many of the other forces which were largely unscathed rushed to meet Manuel.
As night fell and darkness succeeded day, the fighting ceased. Each man sat with his head in the palm of his hand, distraught and terrified by the imminent danger.

§ 187  These men did not number themselves among the living, for they heard the barbarians running along the edge of the camp, in piercing tones exhorting their countrymen who had gone over to the Romans in the past (whether out of necessity or because they had been converted) to leave the camp that very night because everyone within would be dead come the dawn. The Romans spent the night in their clans and with chosen friends, and fear turned their complexions pale just as the leaves of trees change color in the leaf-shedding season.
The emperor himself suffered the travail of ignoble designs. As soon as he gave birth to them he presented them to his companions, and his plan of secret flight and the abandonment of so many souls to slavery and death shocked his listeners, especially Kontostephanos, as words spoken Nikefas Choniates by one who had lost his senses or was whirling about because of dizziness.
Those who gathered to deliberate on what course of action should be taken took sorely to heart what they heard, but when a certain unknown soldier standing outside the tent heard the imperial scheme, he raised his voice, wailing aloud, “Alas, what are these things that the emperor has put into his head?” Directing the force of his words to Manuel, he declared, “Are you not the one who has squeezed us into these desolate and narrow paths, exposing us to utter ruin, the one who has ground us as though in a mortar between these cliffs falling in upon us and the mountains pressing down upon us? Would not our crossing these rough and harsh paths be the same thing as passing through the valley of weeping and the mouth of Hades? What charge can we bring against the barbarians for investing these narrow, rugged, and winding places and ensnaring us? And now will you deliver us over to the enemy like sheep for slaughter?” Stung to the heart, Manuel relented in his soul and chose another, more suitable course.

§ 188  But He who in olden times had left a seed for Israel so that His own inheritance should not utterly disappear, becoming as Sodom and being made like to Gomorrha, He who chastises and heals again, who strikes down and restores to life, who does not allow the rod of sinners to be upon the lot of the righteous, had compassion then upon the holy nation, not wishing to cast them off forever. H e quite unexpectedly moved the sultan’jsheart to mercy, which was incompatible with his nature, and whereas the sultan had formerly stood in fear of the emperor’s valor, he was now moved to pity by Manuel’s misfortunes. Thus He who sets as naught the counsel of Achitophel by way of Chusi and changes Abessalom’s mind by promising even greater destruction against his enemies, deflected the Turkish ruler from his duty. Misled by the counsels of his grandees, who in peacetime received money by the handful from the emperor, the sultan dispatched an embassy to discuss a peace based on a treaty with the same terms as before. He anticipated that the emperor, urged on by the Almighty, would accept the compacts which were being forced upon him.
The Turks, unaware of the sultan’s aims, moved out at the crack of dawn [18 September 1176] to encircle the Romans like wild beasts rushing to gulp down a prepared dish or to carry off both abandoned eggs and undefended nest. Riding in a circle around the entrenched camp and raising their barbarian war cry, they struck down those within with their arrows. The emperor therefore commanded John, Constantine Angelos’s

§ 189  son, to attack the Turks with his troops; obedient to the imperial command, he attempted to repulse them, but he was unable to perform any noble deed and returned. Next, Constantine Makrodoukas led out his forces mustered from among the eastern divisions, but he, too, turned back after making a brief showing.
The sultan dispatched Gabras, the most honored and esteemed of his officials, to the emperor. Henceforth, the Turks, by command, ceased their attacks from all sides, and the Romans. ended their sallies. On being received by the emperor, Gabras rendered a profound obeisance in the barbarian fashion, and at the same time presented as a gift from the sultan a Nisaean horse with silver-mounted bridle from among those horses kept at rack and manger for use in solemn processions, and he also presented a long, two-edged sword. As he initiated the discussion of peace terms, using soft words, he mollified the emperor’s evident discomfiture, soothing his raging passion as though the words he whispered into his ears were enchantments. Gabras observed the yellowish appearance of the surcoat over the emperor’s coat of mail and remarked, “This is not an auspicious color, O Emperor, but in the hour of warfare it very much militates against good fortune.” Manuel, forcing a brief smile at these words, removed the surcoat embroidered with purple and gold and presented it to Gabras. He then accepted the horse and sword, had the treaties drawn up, and set his hand to them. Time would not permit certain articles to be spelled out precisely, but it was stipulated that the fortresses of Dorylaion and Souvleon were to be demolished.
Now that Manuel found the barbarian to be speaking truthfully on behalf of peace and not disposed to devising deceitful stratagems, he requested that he might depart by a route other than the road he had taken earlier

§ 190  so that he should not retrace his steps, desiring to bypass the fallen dead. But the guides led him over the original route rather than over another so that he should see the horrible spectacle with his own eyes. Indeed, the sight was worthy of tears, or, more accurately, the magnitude of the evil was too great for tears. The ravines were leveled with corpses, while the hollows rose up to become sepulchral mounds and the groves were hidden. The slain had had their scalps torn from their heads, and the phalluses of many had been cut off. It was said that the Turks took these measures so that the circumcised could not be distinguished from the uncircumcised and the victory therefore disputed and contested since many had fallen on both sides. No one passed by on the opposite side 5iy without bursting into tears and calling by name his slain companions and close friends.
At this point in the narrative I can now say that it is difficult to protect mankind from the future and that none can deliver us easily from the events which overtake us except the Deity, who, through our supplications, takes pity and turns aside the perils, or shakes the cup and thereby blends the unmixed wine and dilutes the pure wine because of his love for mankind. At the time the emperor had first proposed to march against the Turks, as he lay sleeping he saw himself in a dream boarding a flagship together with many of his close friends with whom he sailed into the Propontis [Sea of Marmara]; suddenly the mountains of Europe and Asia appeared to collapse and everything in the shattered vessel was lost, while he was barely able to swim to dry land. The day on which he set out on his dangerous march, a certain man, an interpreter, and a Roman by race, whose surname was Mavropoulos, came to him and related that he dreamed he entered a church named after [Saint] Cyrus, and as he was making a propitiatory offering he heard a voice coming from the icon of the Mother of God saying, “The emperor is now in the utmost danger,”

§ 191  and “Who will go forth in my name to assist him?” The voice of one unseen answered, “Let [Saint] George go.” “He is sluggish,” came the reply. “Let [Saint] Theodore set forth,” then suggested the voice, but he was also rejected, and finally came the painful response that no one could avert the impending evil. So much for these matters.
After they had descended over the rough ground, the Turks pressed upon the Romans from the rear; it was said that the Turk [sultan] regretted setting free the prey that was in hand and that he permitted his troops to follow in order to inflict the same injury as they had done before the treaties had been drawn. The entire Turkish forces did not escort the Romans through the nearly impenetrable terrain, but rather they sporadically followed close upon them in bands, and thus the chiefs and the majority of their soldiers returned home laden with the spoils of war. The pursuers slew many, especially from among the wounded and the noncombatants, even though the emperor had ordered his most martial and energetic commanders to take charge of the rear.
When the Romans reached Chonai, they knelt in gratitude that they would no longer have to look upon the enemy. The emperor made provision that every ailing man be given a silver stater for special medical treatment and went himself to Philadelphia, where he remained several days recuperating from the injuries he had sustained during the campaign.
Messengers were sent on ahead by the emperor to relate the events that had taken place to the Constantinopolitans describing the emperor as one who had suffered the same fate as Romanos Diogenes, who also had lost the greater part of his army while campaigning against the Turks in the past and was himself taken captive and carried off [Manzikert, 1071]. Then he extolled the treaties made with the sultan, boasting that these had been concluded beneath his own banner which had waved in the wind in view of the enemy’s front line so that trembling and fear fell upon them.

§ 192  Along the way, Manuel visted Souvleon and demolished the fortress in accordance with the sultan’s wishes, but he left Dorylaion untouched.
The sultan, therefore, dispatched an embassy to remind him of the articles of the treaty and expressed his surprise that the emperor had not demolished Dorylaion immediately. The emperor responded that he had been able to give but little attention to urgent matters, made no mention whatsoever of dismantling Dorylaion, and simply recited that part of the Pythia’s oracle addressed to Epikydes’ son [Glaucus]: Yet hath the Oath-God a son who is nameless, footless and handless;
Mighty in strength he approaches to vengeance, and whelms in destruction All who belong to the race, or the house of the man who is perjured.
But oath-keeping men leave behind them a flourishing offspring.
The Turk, setting apart from his whole army an elite division numbering twenty-four thousand men, appointed the atabeg as commander and sent him to ravage the cities and provinces as far as the sea with instructions to spare nothing and to bring him back water from the sea, an oar, and sand. The atabeg carried out his orders and fell upon the cities along the Maeander. Attacking them suddenly without warning, he wasted them mercilessly. He took by force the cities of Tralles, Phrygian Antioch, Louma, and Pentacheir and seized some other fortresses, all of which he sacked completely. He continued on, laying waste the coastal provinces.
When the emperor was apprised of these events, he resorted to various stratagems; issuing forth from his tent without the blare of trumpets or horns, he said, “We have no need of such as these now, but of bows and lances, so that those who (in the words of David) hate us and have made a noise and lifted their heads may be expelled from the Roman provinces.” In no wise could he justify his setting out against the enemy, and

§ 193  so he dispatched his nephew John Vatatzes, a vigorous commander in time of need, and Constantine Doukas, a youth growing his first beard and who, like luxuriant plants, promised to bear fruit prematurely, as well as Michael Aspietes. He strongly exhorted them to achieve their mission with prudence and in an orderly manner, and above all they were not to engage the barbarians unless they first had precise knowledge of the enemy’s numbers and were confident that they could defeat them in battle.
The Turks, whose onslaught was stopped only by the sea, returned with enormous plunder, for they also ravaged those regions which they had bypassed during their descent. Vatatzes’ officers, at the head of the forces provided by the emperor together with those they collected along the way, hurriedly made their way to the fortresses of Hyelion and Leimmocheir where, in olden times, a bridge spanned the Maeander River.
Because the scouts whom Vatatzes had placed, along all the roads leading there reported that the Turks had turned back and were no longer forging ahead, the commander divided the army into two sections and deployed the greater part as ambushes along the roads the enemy was to traverse.
Then he stationed the remainder along the old bridge with orders to wait until a portion of the Turks had crossed over and then to meet them courageously and without fear.
While Vatatzes, having deemed this plan the best tactic, deployed his troops accordingly; the Turks crossed over and, pelted by missiles cast from the higher ground, tumbled into the river and drowned. The atabeg rallied his heavy-armed troops about him into a compact body and engaged the Romans in nearly equal combat, wishing to inflict heavy losses on the foe in order to give his compatriots the opportunity to cross over the river. But as every soldier was not eager to attempt the crossing, it proved to be very slow, and those who balked perished cruelly. The atabeg’s protracted resistance, fiercely fought, proved him to be a man of prowess and noble deeds.

§ 194  When he learned that the Romans were posted along the opposite bank of the river and, there, were killing those Turkish troops who attempted to cross over, his morale was shattered and his great courage gave way to the resolution to save himself. Altering his present course, he withdrew upstream to find another crossing place.
Since the river could not be forded at any point and he was in fear of his pursuers, he floated his shield in the water and used it as a boat, thus opposing the harshness of necessity in a most excellent manner. With his left hand he held his horse as it swam; in his right hand he grasped his naked sword as if it were an oar, and so he quickly rowed across the river’s expanse. But he did not escape death in the end. On reaching the opposite shore, he ascended a hill and shouted in triumph, boasting loudly. None of the notable Romans who recognized him drew near, but one of the Alan allies rushed to the spot where this novel rowing terminated and slew him with his two-edged sword. Consequently, the Turks fled in disorder. The majority were engulfed by the Maeander, and only a few out of the many thousands were able to save themselves.
This deed, more than any other, revived the fortunes of the Romans and silenced the crowing of the Turks. As there was no one to oppose them, the Romans advanced with rejoicing, ravaging and laying waste nearly all of that part of Phrygia which stretches along the Maeander, whose winding streams empty into the sea.
In this battle, Aspietes fell in the following manner: a Turk engaged him, but unable to strike him a blow on the body (for Aspietes’ weapons were mighty and his shield reached to his feet), he charged Aspietes’ mount;

§ 195  struck a fatal blow to the face, the horse reared back and, raising its front legs, threw its rider into the river.
In addition to this exploit, the emperor, firm in his resolve to accomplish another, marched first against the Turks encamped in Lakerion and then against Panasion. Successful in driving the Turks out of Panasion, he then pursued those in Lakerion. Before entering the lands where the enemy was encamped, he dispatched Katides of Laodikeia to reconnoiter the Turkish positions and to report with all speed what he had observed.
As the emperor was rushing to seize the Turks as booty for the taking and easy prey, Katides frightened them off by telling them of the emperor’s arrival. Thus provoked, Manuel flew into a rage and decreed the ablation of his nose as punishment. The emperor did not hesitate for a moment but hastened on without engaging the foe.
As in the past, he sent Andronikos Angelos against the Turks, but this time he did not fare well in the campaign. Sending along with Andronikos the very best of the eastern divisions and Manuel Kantakouzenos, a brave man valiant in battle, he also launched other illustrious Romans against the Turks in Charax, which is situated between Lampe and Graos Gala. Andronikos first encamped his armed forces at Graos Gala, where he safely deposited the pack animals and baggage before he proceeded towards Charax with the lightly armed troops. He performed no courageous feat worthy of such an army, which had been led there under these circumstances, but rather limited his actions to the seizure of flocks and a few Turkish shepherds before he returned thence in great fear.
When certain barbarians showed themselves at night in the rear and shouted out, he did not wait to ascertain the numbers of his pursuers or to deploy his troops for battle, but giving rein to his mount, he spurred it

§ 196  on with his hands, feet, and voice so as to quicken its pace, not in the direction of the camp, but towards the city of Chonai. Seeing that his horse was still able to continue, he did not end his ride there but eagerly exerted himself to reach Phrygian Laodikeia. The army, thrown into confusion by the sudden disappearance of its commander, broke rank and fled in total disarray, leaving behind both flocks and captives.
In all likelihood, because it was still night, the Romans would have fallen upon one another and have fought among themselves had not Manuel Kantakouzenos stood in their way with drawn sword and struck the deserters with its flat side, commanding, “Stand fast. There are no enemy forces attacking, so whither are you flying?” Thus they finally ended their irrational flight at full speed down ravines and up hills.
Suffering grievously on account of Andronikos’s ignominious flight, the emperor came near to pouring contempt upon Andronikos by parading him through the streets of the City dressed in a woman’s garment.
But, being fond and ever indulgent of his blood relations, he suppressed his anger; moreover, he was informed that very few Romans had fallen in this battle.
No one had distinguished himself in this campaign, either on the rapid march inland to engage the barbarians or during the even more speedy withdrawal. A certain Turk had taken up a position on high ground where he crouched and discharged his deadly arrows, killing many Romans as they passed by and sending them on their way down into Hades.
Penetrating shield and breastplate, his arrows were an irresistible evil.
Therefore, all who laid claim to valor joined together to oppose him; when at close range, they let fly their arrows and furiously struck at him with their lances. He, however, openly performed a war dance, dodging the missiles, and then, twirling about, he cut down his attackers until

§ 197  Manuel Xeros jumped from his horse and, under cover of his shield, charged the Turk with sword in hand. Taking all the arrows on his shield, Xeros slew him with a fatal blow to the head. The Turk found Xeros determined on killing him, unbending, truly adamant, and unyielding to his plea that he be spared. He suffered one and then a second ill-timed blow as he begged for humane treatment from those for whom he himself had been an evil destroyer.
My kinsman, enrolled in the clergy of the city of Chonai, a Levite in rank [deacon], and a man of great courage who accompanied the remainder of the army to Charax in military attire, looted whatever he could get his hands on in the Turkish tents. Even in the face of danger he did not leave the spoils behind but carried away such loot as Turkish garments in a pouch and a thick-fleeced ewe. As he walked slowly with all eyes turned on him, he was applauded by some as being fearless in perilous times and the very best of those who campaigned at that time, but others derided him for sparing the life of a sheep. He made his way in this fashion, reproaching when it was practicable the runaways who took flight while no one was pursuing them [1177-79].
Not long afterwards [end of 1179], the Turks invested the city named after Claudius Caesar [Claudiopolis]. They first blocked the defending garrison assigned to the fortress from issuing forth and laid siege to the city. Those within threatened to capitulate and surrender the city unless outside help were forthcoming, contending that they could not endure starvation for very long, and, moreover, that they did not have the means to repel the enemy.
Manuel, unwilling to wait for news of disaster, rose up the next day and set out for Claudiopolis as fast as possible via Nikomedia. He took with him none of the royal luxuries — not even royal pavilion, bed, or mattress — but only the horse trappings and armor woven of chain mail.

§ 198  He extended the distance of the day’s march in his eagerness to reach the besieged before they should suffer dangers beyond description. He passed the nights without sleep and resorted to artificial light as he marched through Bithynia, which is completely covered with heavily wooded glens and in many places is impassable because of the thickly shaded forests.
Whenever he had need of rest, the earth was his throne and hay and chaff his bedding; when rain fell and the day’s march happened to end in a ravine, he was soaked by the water dropping from above and his sleep was interrupted by the streams of water flowing under his mattress. Actions such as these brought him more affection and admiration than when he wore his diadem, donned the purple robe, and mounted his horse with gold trappings.
The barbarians positioned about Claudiopolis caught sight of him as he approached, first aware of his arrival from the military standards of his divisions and the radiant splendor of their arms, and forthwith took flight.
Manuel pressed the attack, pursuing the enemy as far as possible. Thus, to the Roman inhabitants of this city who had already given in to the designs of the Turks, the emperor’s appearance was most welcome; it was like the relief sailors must feel when, after laboring wearily at the oars and sweating profusely, a fair wind blows and the melancholy of winter is succeeded by sweetest springtime or like some distressful situation which is followed by more auspicious conditions.

§ 199  BOOK SEVEN The following must also be recorded. This emperor, unable to undertake military operations against those nations that dwell around the Ionian gulf or, rather, ever having before his eyes their assaults against the Romans which he deemed formidable and difficult to withstand, realized that the Roman forces were unequal to the task of standing up against the Western armies, that they were like earthern pots striking kettles. He also realized it was possible that the nations would enter into a compact against the Romans, suspecting they would actually join in a conspiracy.
Safeguarding himself from afar in all kinds of ways, he contended that it was permissible to lead on the barbarians in the East, to buy their friendship with money and to convince them by feats of arms not to pour over his borders. But the Western nations which were scattered over many places he viewed with suspicion, for these men were boastful, undaunted in spirit, lacking all humility, and trained to be ever bloodthirsty. They all dressed in great opulence and wore armor into battle; and they also nurtured an unsleeping hostility against the Romans, a perpetual, raving, hatred as they looked askance at them.
And so to Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ancona, and the other nations spread along the sea, he offered friendship ratified with sworn compacts and won them over with sundry friendly gestures as he provided them with quarters in the queen of cities. Anxious lest one of their so-called kings

§ 200  should muster a large military force and then attack the Romans, he plied them with gifts of money; and he exercised his influence over those peoples who were in danger of falling under the sway of a more powerful ruler and roused them to take up arms.
Time and again he armed the Italians against Frederick, the king of Germany. The latter demanded that they should submit and turn their affairs over to him, while the emperor dispatched envoys who emboldened the Italians, enjoining them to prevail against Frederick and to beware of the king’s crafty ways.
Frederick attempted several times to enter elder Rome to be crowned, but Manuel thwarted the move by writing to the pope [1167-68], “Do not bestow your glory upon another, and do not repeat the restrictions of the fathers lest you discover later that your soul is smitten with regret thanks to the unforeseen in these actions and to unreasonable negligence, at which time the evil will be wholly incurable.” Consequently, the king was shut out of Rome the very glorious as though he were an unarmed commander boasting of myriads of troops.
When the walls of Milan were destroyed by the Germans [1 March 1162], the city’s inhabitants outwitted those who forced them to swear never to rebuild them, first by protecting themselves behind a deeply dug trench, contending that they had not therefore perjured themselves, and then by restoring the walls with the help of the emperor.
Following these events [1177 CE], Manuel enlisted as a friend of the Romans the marquis of Montferrat [William], who could boast a noble lineage and fair children, as well as great power and influence, by granting him abundant gifts and by marrying his own daughter Maria to the marquis’s younger son. Thus, as we stated a short while ago, he further frustrated the machinations of the ruler of the Germans.

§ 201  The latter dispatched his official, called a cancellarius in the Latin language and logothete by the Hellenes (this was the bishop of Mainz [Christian]), with a large force, and he won over the Italian cities; detaching them from the pope, he appropriated them without fear [1179 CE], The emperor, by supporting the marquis with promises of largess, persuaded him to oppose the bishop of Mainz with his own son Conrad, comely and in the bloom of youth, brave and prudent beyond measure, and flourishing in vigor and bodily strength. When battle was joined, he repulsed the Germans, turning them to flight with his cavalry, and took some captives among whose numbers was the bishop of Mainz. He would have been sent on to Byzantion had not the emperor prevented this out of compassion [Feast of St. Michael, September 1179], There were no cities in Italy or even in more distant regions where this emperor did not have someone sworn to be faithful to his cause. Indeed, these men reported to the emperor whatever mischief and intrigue the enemies of the Romans contrived behind closed doors.
Once [before April 1173], certain envoys of the emperor came to Ancona on affairs of state. They achieved their goals and completed their mission, which was either to win the friendship of certain persons whom they call lizioi [lieges] for the emperor or to gain some other advantage for the Romans. The king of the Germans, advised of this mission, flew into a rage and sent his troops to lay siege to Ancona, to chastise and punish the inhabitants for concluding an alliance with the Romans and for welcoming their envoys whose only purpose was to do him mischief and to remove the cities from his favor and allegiance. His troops surrounded the city as an enemy stronghold and mounted an attack against the Anconians [1 April-15 October 1173]. They demanded that the Romans be

§ 202  handed over, but the Anconians were so mindful of these threats, or so distraught by the palisaded camp thrown up by the enemy, or perhaps so distressed by this military investment that they did not deliver those whom the Germans importunately demanded but dismissed such thoughts from their minds and heroically endured the present danger. As the siege was protracted, with the enemy prolonging their investment, the Anconians laid hands on strange foods and unaccustomed fare, like those who choose to run after banquets but feed on bread.
The emperor’s envoys convened an assembly of the people to inquire whether they might bring in assistance. The people replied that it was permissible, but, as was obvious, they did not have an abundance of money. The envoys assured them, calling upon God as their witness, that the emperor would defray all expenses. They were urged not to delay, else the worst would be guaranteed at the hands of those who would take the city: the abduction of childen and women, and the plunder of monies and possessions. Thereupon the city sent for a certain Count William [of Marchisella] by name and a certain noblewoman [Aldruda Frangipane, countess of Bertinoro] who, recently deprived of her husband by Death, had inherited her husband’s family power and authority. Once the people had agreed to make bountiful payments to these two, the enemy was beaten off with ease, and the citizens rejoiced over the recovery of their liberty as if their city had swum to the surface from the bottom of the sea. The emperor had good cause to be gladdened by these events; he heaped praise upon the Anconians and, admitting them to the same civic rights enjoyed by Roman citizens, he promised to provide them with whatever legitimate and practicable needs they might request. He also sent ever-increasing sums of gold.
Thus was concluded the affair of the Anconians, who were disposed to remain steadfast in their loyalty, rather than to change their minds with every turn of the wheel of fortune. One might be perplexed as to the reason why they thrust aside the demands of a neighboring monarch who was more deserving of leading them, as was the king of the Germans, and favored the Roman emperor, who held sway over much of the visible earth and shadowy mountains, were it not for their innate consciousness of right-doing which remained undaunted and ardent in the face of

§ 203  danger, unshaken before adversity. Moreover, the Anconians would have been hard put to answer the accusation that as slaves to gain, holding out their hands and begging, they had defected from the ruler who had recently been appointed over them in order to follow another, who had aroused their desire for profit and had catered to their venality.
While the emperor was thus managing these affairs, the Romans jeered at him for vainly nurturing such inordinate ambitions and setting his eyes upon the ends of the earth, for overstepping by far the bounds fixed by former emperors, and for squandering to no useful purpose the revenues which he collected by his authority, gleaning the tax registers and exhausting the extraordinary taxes. The citizenry was not at all justified, however, in hurling such accusations, inasmuch as his actions were not completely unreasonable innovations, for he had seen the irresistible power of the neighbor Latin nations and feared a conspiracy, as I have related, that would deluge our lands like a swollen mountain stream suddenly cresting and sweeping away farmlands. Wary lest a small spark ignite the brand which, if by chance it should fall upon flammable wood, will then set off a huge fire that grows into a conflagration, and because of this single suspicion, he attempted to extinguish the cause of vexations by imitating those excellent husbandmen who uproot the young prickly plants which ruin the garden plot and destroy the newly budding wild trees.
As events were to demonstrate after he had departed this life, his thoughts and actions were both sound and reasonable; and shortly after

§ 204  this wise helmsman was cast overboard by circumstances, the ship of state sank.
I will not conceal that he strove to increase the taxes. Nor will I pass over the fact that the authorities went out as tax farmers in his desire to turn virgin ground into fields; with his own plow he cut furrows from which sprang full-grown ears of corn of extraordinary size for his benefit.
The collected revenues were not so much deposited in the treasuries or buried in the recesses of the earth as they were drained away in lavish endowments to monasteries and churches and to Romans in want, but by far the larger part was poured out among the divers nations and especially emptied into the Latin communes. In pursuit of a policy of ostentatious Nikelas Choniates munificence, he dissipated and wasted whatever he gathered with both hands by appointing rapacious tax collectors as procurators in charge of the public revenues.
His kinsmen and close friends also received a proper portion of the expenditures. For example, his niece Theodora with whom, as we have related, he had sexual intercourse, was a member of the imperial retinue except that she did not wear a crown; supercilious by nature, she would enter the palace only when it was swept clean, as she arched her eyebrow in conceited disdain. The son she bore the emperor, as well as the other sons who came one after another, diverted to themselves seas of money.
The emperor easily succumbed to the influence of the chamberlains and the eunuchs of the bedchambers; the same was true for those attendants from foreign-language nations who spoke broken Greek and driveled in their speech; and he even gave orders favoring the affluent, repeatedly inclining his ear to them and readily granting their every request. To some of these the means of livelihood flowed so profusely that they swam in rivers of money, as do the illustrious of the world and the grandees of the greatest nations which, totally lacking in learning and in knowledge of the Hellenic language, go in search of the course [of these riches] in the manner of peaks and cliffs hearkening to the reverberating echo of songs played on the shepherds’ flutes. Fully confident in these men as his most loyal and devoted servants, he not only entrusted them

§ 205  with the highest offices but also appointed them judges as though they had recently become experts in the law.
Whenever it was necessary to register taxable lands in certain provinces (which was often), this coterie of experts was preferred. Should a Roman nobleman, one prudent and sagacious, be associated with them, he was sent along so that while he drew up the tax register and designated what taxes were to be collected, his barbarian colleague gathered in the profits and sealed the moneybags to be delivered to the emperor. But most of these measures worked against the emperor, and his plans were rendered ineffectual; because he was suspicious of the Romans, turning them away as embezzlers, he did not realize that in cheering the moneyloving barbarians and benefiting evil-minded manikins, he was alienating the native Romans who by nature and training were honest and faithful.
Since the Romans realized that the emperor was suspicious of them, and that they were looked upon as being no more than servants grasping after unjust gain rather than as trusted officials, they sided with the foreigners with whom they were sent in pairs as though they were trace horses harnessed alongside the imperial chariot. They simply carried out their orders; they harvested the coins, tying them together as though they were sheaves being taken to the threshing floor, and delivered them to that barbarian who had been appointed over many and was deemed worth more than most other men. Everything else they neglected, although every now and then they brought a few coins to the emperor as though they were the choice parts of the whole; but the greater portion they appropriated by stealth for themselves, and so the emperor’s virtuous and faithful servant first kneaded his own bread from the ground wheat — that is, the gold coins — and afterwards gave a share to his colleague.
A work of this emperor was the tower standing not far from the sea whose waves washed the dry land called Damalis; another tower was built on the opposite side of the straits right next to the Monastery of Mangana. The emperor constructed these towers in order to block the

§ 206  occasional attacks by barbarian ships by stretching an iron chain from one shore to the other, thus rendering impenetrable both the regions in the vicinity of the City’s acropolis and the channel whose waters coursed all the way to the palace complex in Blachernai.
The emperor was criticized for his passion for erecting beautiful structures, for having built the very long peristyle galleries at both palaces which shimmered with gold mosaics that depicted in the variegated colors of flowers and in the wondrous craft of the artists his feats against the barbarians as well as whatever other benefits he had provided for the Romans. He also erected most of the splendid edifices along the strait of the Propontis wherein the Roman emperors spend the summer in relaxation; just as the rulers of Persia in ancient times had built Susa and Ecbatana, so did he raise these, but in adornment they far surpassed the former.
He withstood the toils of war exceedingly well, enduring the hardships which the times demanded of him; he suffered the cold, abided the stifling heat, and resisted sleep; but when he was not campaigning he indulged himself in luxuries and took pleasure in recreation. If one carefully observed how much he relished savory dishes and enjoyed the playing of the small lyre and cithara with harmonious singing, one would have said that he had grown up only in such amusements and that pleasure was the primary purpose of life; if, on the other hand, one considered how, in difficult times, he set aside his readiness to indulge in every kind of trivial luxury, one marveled how he moved back and forth between the two.
Undertaking to rebuild the enormous and most beautiful church of Hagia Eirene [Holy Peace], situated near the sea and which had been erected long ago by the excellent Marcian [450-57] and was laid waste by fire, he restored a portion of this temple from the foundations but did not complete the work.
He founded a holy monastery near the mouth of the Pontos at a place called Kataskepe [Covering], named for the Archangel Michael. and,C gathering together the most celebrated and renowned monks of the time, f

§ 207  he provided for them to lead an altogether solitary and untroubled life^j Recognizing that ownership of landed estates as well as being troubled about many things diverted from tranquility those who had chosen the solitary life and led them away from the life in God which was their special calling, he did not set apart for them any small property or assign fields and vineyards to the monastery. By paying for the monks’ necessities from the imperial treasuries, he thus restrained, I believe, the excessive desire of most to build monasteries. He also provided an example for those who followed that whenever there was a need to set up church buildings, it was also necessary to provide board for the solitaries who had no means of subsistence and had set themselves free of material concerns.
He so disapproved of the present situation where those who profess to be monks are richer in substance and more careworn than those who are fond of wordly pleasures that he revived the novella of that most excellent emperor of heroic prowess and great wisdom, Nikephoros Phokas, which prohibited the monasteries from increasing their properties but which eventually had become a dead letter and lost its authority, by appending his signature in red ink that, like blood, warms again and quickens with life.
Nor did he desist from blaming his father and grandfather and all his remaining kinsmen who had founded monasteries and assigned to them fruitful parcels of land and verdant meadows; he cast blame or heaped ridicule upon these men, not because they had granted a portion of their possessions to God, but because they had not performed their good works in the best way. For it was fitting that monks should set up their habitation in out-of-the-way places and desolate areas, in hollow caves and on mountain tops, and that they avoid this fair City situated on the Hellespont even as Odysseus avoided the lotus and the irresistible Sirens’ songs. But some monks sought the praise of men and set up their

§ 208  whited sepulchers in full view of those entering the churches, and, even when dead, they desired to depict themselves as crowned in victory and with cheerful and bright countenances. They built their holy monasteries in the marketplace and at the crossroads and confined themselves to these as though in caves, not choosing the path of moral virtue as characterizing the monk but rather the tonsure, the habit, and the beard. Because of these things, either in an attempt to uphold monastic dignity, which had fallen flat and was fast disappearing, or in fear lest he be caught doing what he had condemned, the emperor took a course different from that of his kinsmen.
There is a law laid down by the Romans, which, I believe, prevails also among the barbarians, that provides for soldier’s pay and their periodic inspection to ascertain whether they are well-armed and have cared for their horses; the new recruits were first tested to see if they were ablebodied, skilled in archery, and experienced in brandishing the lance, and only then were they registered in the military rolls. This emperor, pouring into the treasuries the so-called gifts of the paroikov like water into a cistern, sated the thirst of the armies by the payment of provision money and thereby abused a tactic begun by former emperors and rarely resorted to by those who had frequently thrashed the enemy.
He was not aware that he was enfeebling the troops by pouring countless sums of money into idle bellies and mismanaging the Roman provinces. The brave soldiers lost interest in distinguishing themselves in the face of danger, as no one any longer spurred them on to perform glorious exploits, and now the concern of all was to become wealthy. The inhabitants of the provinces, who in the past had to pay the imperial tax-collector, now suffered the greatest horrors as the result of military greed, being robbed not only of silver and obols but also stripped of their last tunic, and sometimes they were dragged away from their loved ones.

§ 209  For these reasons, everyone wanted to enlist in the army and many bade farewell to their trades as tailors and cobblers, claiming that these provided them with but meager and insufficient necessities, while some ran away from their charge of grooming horses and others, washing away the mud from brickmaking and wiping off the soot from working the forge, presented themselves to the recruiting officers. After handing over a Persian horse or paying down a few gold coins, they were enrolled in the military registers without due examination and immediately were provided with imperial letters awarding them parcels of dewy land, wheatbearing fields, and Roman tributaries to serve them as slaves. Sometimes a Roman of royal bearing would pay taxes to a half-Turkish, half-Greek barbarian manikin who knew nothing of pitched battles even though the Roman was as superior to the tax collector in the mastery of warfare as was Achilles to him, or he could be compared to one bearing arms in both hands who contended with an unarmed opponent hitting out from sheer passion.
This disorderliness of the troops brought deserved suffering to the Roman provinces; some were plundered by alien peoples and made subject to their rule, while others were devastated, ravaged by our own men as though they were enemy lands.
How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget thine inheritance, and, turning thy face away from us, make a way for thy wrath? When wilt thou look down from thy holy dwelling place, and, seeing our affliction and oppression, save us from impending evils and deliver us from the fear of even greater calamities?
In addition to that which has been recounted, the following must be included in the history. Most of the Roman emperors would not wholly accept that they should only rule, and wear golden apparel, and make use of the public properties as though they were their private possessions; neither would they deal with free men as though they were their slaves.
For they believed that they would suffer tribulations unless they were resolved to be godlike in form, heroes in prowess, wise in the matters of God as was Solomon, most excellent defenders of the doctrines of faith, more exact measures of the moral life than the canons, and, in short, infallible expositors of divine and human affairs. They felt, therefore, that

§ 210  it was their duty to censure the more boorish and insolent individuals who introduced strange and new doctrines or else to refer them to those whose vocation it was to have knowledge of things pertaining to God and to expand upon them. But they would not take second place even in these cases and so became themselves authors of doctrines and sat in judgment as well as provided their definitions, even frequently punishing those who disagreed with them.
Hence the emperor, gifted with a silver tongue and an innate grace of expression, not only wrote letters of great charm but also labored over catechetical sermons, called selentia, which he delivered before public audiences. In speaking, he would touch upon sacred doctrines and expand on questions pertaining to God. Often he would pretend to be puzzled and initiate inquiries into the Scriptures; then to resolve such questions he would assemble all the scholars. All this would have been praiseworthy if in extending his inquisitiveness to these matters he had not disputed the doctrines which were beyond human understanding, or if in fixing his mind on these things he had not been so obstinate, or if he had not distorted the meaning of the written word, as he often did, to accord with his own intent, providing definitions and giving exegeses of doctrines whose correct meaning the Fathers had formulated as though he fully comprehended Christ due to his having received from the Divine the most lucid instructions pertaining to the mysteries of his person.
When there was a discussion of the scriptural verse which states that God incarnate is both the Offerer and the Offered, the learned men of the time were divided into opposing factions; the deliberations were protracted, and arguments were offered and rebutted. When the question

§ 211  had been rightly resolved, and the emperor had concurred with the pious and excellent judgment, the following were deposed as holding contrary views: the bishop designate of Theoupolis, the great Antioch, Soterichos Pantevgenos; Eustathios of Dyrrachion; Michael of Thessaloniki, who adorned the orator’s chair and mounted the evangelical pulpit; and Nikephoros Basilakes, who expounded on the epistles of Paul in the churches, illuminating with the light of the eloquence of language those statements of the apostle darkened by obscurity and hidden by the depth of the Spirit.
It is said that while this doctrinal dispute was being decided in public debate, an unseasonable and portentous thunderclap rent the air, deafening the assembly as well as the emperor, who was sojourning then in Pelagonia. A certain man of letters, one Elias, who was superior to most in his station in life and a sentinel of the army, opened a book on the subject of thunder and earthquakes and, coming upon the meaning of thunder at that particular season, gave the following interpretation: “The fall of the wise.”
These men who were deposed, the most learned of the time, were expelled from the church and ostracized from every holy ministration; many others, who were cloistered, were also evicted from their sacred precincts.
Some years later, Manuel began an investigation of the saying of the God-Man, “My Father is greater than I.” He showed little concern for the exegeses of the Fathers, which were excellent and sufficient for the exposition and clarification of the issue, but instead introduced his own

§ 212  interpretations, contentiously defending his novel beliefs. By forcing the sayings of the blessed teachers of the ecumene, unsullied in the truth and spoken with divine wisdom, to suit his own definition, he proposed to have his answer sanctioned. There were some who contended that the Father was called greater as the cause [of the Son], while some understood this saying to refer to the human nature and assumed flesh and not to the Logos so that by his going to and coming from the Father, the Prince of the World and Searcher should find no place whatsoever in him. Others considered the saying “greater” to apply to the Logos, not only in his nature and essence but also because of the extreme kenosis m and humiliation of his incarnation. Still others piously accepted other interpretations, but Manuel, I know not on what grounds, rejected these as not adequately addressing the issue and gave his own definition.
He convened a synod, assembling all those who were learned in the divine doctrines, and exhorted everyone to suscribe to the dogmatic tome, laying down this definition: “I concur with the teachings of the God-bearing Fathers pertaining to “my Father is greater than I,” and I affirm that this saying refers to his created and passible flesh.”
I do not know how they designated the flesh-bearing Son as being inferior to the Father, for if indeed he was divested of his equality because he assumed human nature and dwelt among us, he would not thus have been able to preserve his own glory confined by the limitations of kenosis; or had he not deified and exalted that which had been abased by rendering it a partaker of his glorification by way of the union [of the two natures], he himself in turn would have been abased, which would be absurd.
Emblazing this doctrine in red letters, as though with a flaming sword, Manuel threatened anyone who impulsively dared to scrutinize it with expulsion from the faith and death, especially anyone who grumblingly attacked it. He had the decree inscribed on tables of stones on the advice of certain men and set them up in the Great Church. AH others looked with suspicion upon the analysis of that which had been confirmed — making the Logos appear inferior because of the flesh —

§ 213  especially because it ignored the doctrine of kenosis and the meaning of his human nature.
What a thing it was that this man wrought near the end of his life [March-May 1180]! Included among the excommunications listed in the Book on Catechism is the anathema directed against the god of Muhammad, about whom is stated, “He neither begat nor was begotten,” and that he was a solid [holosphyros]. Manuel proposed to have the anathematization expunged from all the catechetical books beginning with the codex of the Great Church. The reason was specious: he contended that it was scandalous that the Agarenes, when being converted to our Godfearing faith, should be made to blaspheme God in any manner.
He summoned, therefore, the most great Theodosios [Boradiotes, 1179-83], who at that time governed and adorned the chief throne, as well as those hierarchs of the City who excelled in learning and virtue, and made known his proposal to them with a bombastic introduction to the issue. They all shook their heads in refusal, unwillingly even to listen

§ 214  to his proposals, which they considered slanderous and detracting from the most true glory of God. They piously explained the text which supposedly was a cause for scandal and an obstacle and made it quite clear that it was not God, the creator of heaven and earth, who was subject to anathema, but the solid God fabricated by the deluded and demoniacal Muhammad and who was neither begotten nor did he beget; for Christians believe God to be a father and it was these absurd and frivolous words of Muhammad which they utterly proscribed. Inasmuch as he did not know the meaning of holosphyros and the mind in his breast was one not to be beguiled, Manuel let the opposition perish and set forth his own tome with the assistance of those members of the imperial court whom he knew to be opportunistic as well as learned, in which Muhammad’s babbling (for I cannot call it theology) was upheld and former emperors and members of the hierarchy were thoroughly unbraided for being so stupid and thoughtless as to suffer the true God to be placed under anathema. He delivered the tome to the sacred palace [patriarchal residence] to be read publicly, sending along the leaders of the senatorial council, the senate, and the learned nobility to lead the way applauding the contents like a band of youths. So plausible did reason make the doctrine appear, not with the words which the Holy Spirit teaches but in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, that it was very convincing by virtue of the diverse scope of the issue, the attractiveness of its elaborate arguments, and in the careful examination of the meaning of its contents.

§ 215  Perhaps the holosphyros god about whom Muhammad spoke so foolishly would have been glorified as the true God had not the patriarch resisted so strenuously, had he not determined that the meaning of the contents was misleading because of the introduction of novel doctrines, and had he not prevailed upon the bishops to suspect these as being noxious. Manuel, as if he had suffered a calamity, heaped contumely on the bishops and called them the foolish things of the world. But he was afflicted at the time with a grievous disease which was to take his life, and consequently he was ill-tempered.
Expatiating on the former tome, he resorted to discrepant elaboration and rhetorical embellishments which he then epitomized, and thus once again making the doctrine enticing, he publicly posted a second tome, since he happened to be residing then in Damalis at the palace complex called Skoutarion to benefit from its mild climate and gain relief from the crowds of people while receiving thorough medical care, by imperial command the assembly of bishops and all those who were honored because of their learning sailed thither. They had not yet disembarked from the boats when one of the emperor’s most trusted under secretaries presented himself (this was Theodore Matzoukes) and addressed the patriarch and the company of bishops; he informed them that it was not possible at the present to see the emperor because he was suffering some indisposition due to his illness, and he required them to read the documents he held in his hands.

§ 216  One dealt with the doctrine under discussion, which, as we have said, the emperor had submitted with the intent that the assembled bishops should affix their signatures with dispatch; the other represented the emperor disputing with the chief shepherd Theodosios and the synod in terms that were neither moderate nor elegant but rather criticized the opposition of the patriarch and his bishops as unreasonable. The emperor threatened to convoke a larger synod and to confer with the pope himself on the issues. “I would be an ingrate and a fool,” said he, “if I did not return to him who made me emperor, the God of all, a fraction of the good things I have received from him and did not make every effort to prevent the true God from being subjected to anathema.”
The listeners were so far from being intimidated by such threats that the archbishop of Thessaloniki, the most learned and eloquent Eustathios, who was filled with indignation by what was read and could not suffer the true God to be called a solid, the fabrication of a demoniacal mind, said, “My brains would be in my feet and I would be wholly unworthy of this garb,” pointing to the mantle [mandyas] covering his shoulders, “were I to regard as true God the pederast who was as brutish as a camel and master and teacher of every abominable act.”

§ 217  589 The bishops were nearly struck dumb by what they had heard, for he had shouted out these words, visibly shaken by pious zeal. Dumbfounded, the reader of the document returned to the emperor. Manuel, perturbed by the report of what had been said, gave an artful defense of his position, commending forbearance as never before. He counted himself among the most orthodox of Christians and asserted that he came from most holy parents, while shunning the censorious and the scoffers. He urgently appealed that a judgment be made between him and the archbishop of Thessaloniki, for he said that if he should be absolved of believing in a god who is a pederast and of distorting the faith, then a just punishment should be imposed upon him who belched out blasphemies against the anointed of the Lord. However, should he be condemned as glorifying another god than Him whom Christians worship, then he would learn the truth and be deeply grateful to the one who should convert him from error and initiate him into the truth.
Shortly thereafter, when the patriarch came to see him and charmed him with his reasonableness, Manuel got over his anger and pardoned

§ 218  Eustathios for speaking amiss, accepting the reasons he chose to give for his defense. Finally he chided him by saying, “Being a prudent man you should not show yourself to be foul-mouthed or inordinately overbold of tongue.”
Later a public hearing was given to the dogmatic tome, and when all had lauded the contents as being reverently orthodox in its teaching and had gladly subscribed to it, the assembly was dismissed. The bishops departed exulting in the fact that in opposing the emperor they had won out over him, while he rejoiced in having bent them to his will, having achieved with a few words what he had been unable to do with the earlier prolix tome.
On the following day, however, when the synod convened at the patriarchal residence to act upon the agreement (for the imperial officials appeared at dawn to assemble the bishops), they were no longer of the same mind but again shook their heads in denial, contending that the written decree still contained certain reprehensible words which should be excised and replaced by others that would give no offense whatsoever to correct doctrine. Once again the emperor was provoked and charged that their inconstancy and fickleness plainly showed that they were devoid of any intelligence. After a long delay, they barely agreed to remove the

§ 219  anathema of Muhammad’s god from the catechetical books and to write in the anathema of Muhammad and of all his teachings. Having proclaimed and confirmed this doctrine, the many synods and assemblies came to an end.
I must not neglect to record another noteworthy event. There was a certain eunuch by the name of Niketas who presided as bishop over the city of Chonai and who was the habitation of every virtue; indeed, such were his oracular powers, his ability to foresee the future, that he was reckoned as one of the greatest of seers and deemed a marvel by those who knew him. While ours was a wicked and adulterous generation, we were fortunate to have such a good man. When the emperor [Manuel], newly crowned as successor to his father’s throne, passed through Chonai on his way from Armenia and entered the Church of the Archangel [Michael], he had been blessed by the hand of this bishop. The latter was celebrated because of his virtue and his fame was spread far and wide.
The clergy and of these the most astute doubted whether Manuel, a mere youth with the first growth of down on his cheeks, would really be able to govern the empire, which very much needed a man with shaggy beard, grown hoary in prudence, and, moreover, whether he could overthrow his brother Isaakios, who had a more lawful claim to the throne and was ensconced in the queen of cities. This great man, truly a man of God, resolved the question and answered their doubts: “Yes, this lad shall govern the empire and his brother shall submit to him, for thus has God ordained and decreed. You may even know those things about which you have not inquired, that he shall outlive his own grandfather, I speak of his forefather Alexios, the emperor of the Romans, by a few years, and when his end approaches he will go mad.”
This prophecy was known to me, the author Niketas, together with many others, for the seer was my godfather in holy baptism. As to what this madness would be and how it would be manifested, no one could

§ 220  contribute to the prediction; some related the forecast to his madness for gold, while others believed he would fall victim to some frailty of the flesh. When the controversy over the above-mentioned doctrine was initiated and the emperor recklessly contended for the first time that the god glorified by Muhammad as holosphyros, who is neither begotten nor begets, is the true God, everyone agreed that this was the fulfillment of the prophecy because this doctrine, being wholly the opposite of the truth, was truly and absolutely the worst kind of madness.
The emperor first took ill before the month of March in the then current thirteenth indiction [1 September to August 1180], at the time the doctrinal issue was emerging. The controversy was resolved around the month of May, and with the coming of September the emperor came to the end of his life. He had achieved nothing very notable for the empire and had made no provisions or arrangements for events following his death because he in no way would accept that death was near, for he contended that he had certain knowledge that another fourteen years of life was to be freely given him. The wise and thrice-blessed Patriarch Theodosios advised him to take thought, as a father, of the affairs of state while he was still in possession of his faculties and to search for someone who should steadfastly cleave to his son, the successor to the throne who had not yet reached puberty, one who should be as devoted to the emperor as to his own mother. Those most baneful charlatans of astrology who urged the emperor to spend his leisure time in sexual pleasures boldly told him that he would soon recover from his illness and shamelessly predicted that he would level alien cities to the ground. What was even more incredible, being glib of speech and accustomed to lying, they foretold the movement of the universe, the convergences and conjunctions of the largest stars, and the eruption of violent

§ 221  winds; they very nearly predicted the transformation of the entire universe, showing themselves to be oracular ventriloquists rather than astrologers. Not only did they reckon the number of years and months and count the weeks until these things would take place and clearly point them out to the emperor but they also designated the exact day and anticipated the very moment as though they had precise knowledge of those things which the Father had put in his own power and concerning which the Savior censured his inquisitive disciples. The emperor sought caves and hollows as protection against the winds and prepared them for habitation; he removed the glass from the imperial buildings so that they should not be damaged by the blasts of the winds while his attendants, kinsmen, and sycophants also anxiously involved themselves in these undertakings, with some burrowing into the earth like ants and others making tents, fastening them with threefold cords and cutting sharp pegs to serve as supports.
But, as I was saying, as the symptoms of the emperor’s disease worsened, he rashly made use of the bathing room; there, he saw that, like the water, his hopes for continued life were being washed away. He briefly discussed his son Alexios with those in attendance, and, foreseeing the events that would follow his death, he intermixed his words with lamentations.
On the advice of the patriarch, he renounced his earlier trust in astrology.
Finally, placing his hand on an artery to take his own pulse, he sighed deeply, struck his thigh with his hand, and asked for the monastic habit.
As was to be expected, these words raised a confused clamor. No provision had been made for monastic garb, but the emperor’s attendants managed to procure from somewhere a black threadbare cloak. They

§ 222  removed his soft royal vestments and dressed him in the coarse habit of the life in God, converting him into a spiritual soldier with a more divine helmet and a more holy breastplate, and enrolled him in the army of the Heavenly Ruler. The tattered garment, which neither reached to the feet nor covered the whole body, left the knees bare so that no one who witnessed the scene remained without fear as he reflected on human frailty at the end of life and the wretchedness of the body cast around us like an oyster shell and united with the soul.
Thus, he departed this life and the throne in the thirty-eighth year of his reign less three months [24 September 1180], I think that the lengthy duration of his reign can be explained by that ancient adage which states, “but the last syllable of the word shall bring you profit.” The last syllable of his name stands for the number thirty-eight.
He was buried beside the entrance to the church of the Monastery of the Pantokrator, not in the temple itself but in the shrine attached to it.
Where the church wall led round to an arch, a broad entrance way was opened around the sepulcher, which was faced with marble of a black hue, gloomy in appearance, and was divided into seven lofty sections. To the side, resting on a base, was a slab of red marble the length of a man which received veneration; it was formerly located in the church of [St. John the Evangelist] Ephesos and was commonly reported to be that on which Christ was washed with myrrh and wrapped in burial linen clothes after he had been taken down from the cross. This emperor had it taken out of the church, and, placing it on his back, he carried it up from the harbor of Boukoleon to the church in the lighthouse of the palace [Pharos] as though it were the actual body of God conveying its grace on him. Not long after the emperor’s death, the marble slab was removed from the palace to the place described above with proclamations, I believe, that declared loudly all the feats for which he who lay silent in the tomb had labored and struggled so hard to achieve.

§ 223  III. The Reign of Alexios Porphyrogenitos, the Son of Emperor Manuel
FOLLOWING Manuel Komenos, who died in this manner, his son Alexios, who had barely reached puberty and was still in need of pedagogues and nursemaids, reigned. The affairs of the Romans were borne on an errant and helpless course, worse even than that of Phaethon, who attempted to cleave a path through the starry sky when he had mounted his father’s gold-studded chariot. The emperor, a mere adolescent who lacked an understanding of those things that are expedient, paid no attention to any of his duties, for he had been nurtured on soft airs, and, not having learned for certain what joy and sorrow are, he became a votary of the hunt and a devotee of the chariot races; he kept company with his fellow playmates, and his character was imprinted with the worst qualities. Indeed, his father’s companions and blood relatives, attending to

§ 224  other matters, neglected to provide him with the finest education and upbringing and did not notice the ruination of public affairs. Some of these men passionately desired the empress and wooed her. Eagerly seeking to win her love in return, they arranged their hair in charming curls, rubbed themselves with sweet oils as though they were infants, and effeminately wore necklaces set with precious gems, all the while looking on her longingly. Others, being avaricious and rapacious, stealthily appropriated public revenues by finding ways to spend lavishly, as well as finding new extravagances in which to indulge so that their purses which yesterday were empty and drawn tight today were full and bulging. Yet others, who craved to sit on the throne, directed all their energies to this purpose. For just as confusion reigns everywhere with the overthrow of a noble-minded and earnest leader, as when a column is removed from its firm and steadfast base the whole structure leans in the opposite direction, so did each pursue his own end, and all conspired against one another. And as equality of privilege was no longer esteemed by the great and powerful and by the emperor’s kinsmen, concern over the affairs of state dissipated and assemblies and councils disappeared.
When, as it was said, the protosebastos and protovestiarios Alexios Komnenos, Emperor Manuel’s nephew on his father’s side, had sexual relations with the young emperor’s mother and often consorted with her, thus coming to prevail over all others, those blood relations who had been made equal in power by Emperor Manuel and were distinguished by the highest rank were choked with vexation. Seeing tyranny take root, they distrusted the protosebastos, not so much because the emperor might

§ 225  suffer some harm, but because they feared that they themselves might be apprehended. Anxious for the future because of these developments, they were concerned to save themselves from the present danger. Indeed, the rumor was already being bruited about, that Alexios was having sexual intercourse with the emperor’s mother and that he planned to depose the young monarch, to mount both mother and throne.
Thus the empire was racked with total confusion and every kind of stormy calamity; the state of affairs could be likened to the myth of the serpent who inflicted damage as he dragged along the deaf and blind hindpart of his body. The portent which appeared when Emperor Manuel was departing this life was fulfilled: a certain woman who resided on the banks of the Propontis had given birth to a male child with a deformed and tiny body and the head a large and extraordinary thing. This was interpreted to be the sign of Polyarchy, the mother of Anarchy.
Andronikos Komnenos, Emperor Manuel’s cousin, about whom we have spoken at length in that emperor’s history, resided at that time at Oinaion. Upon learning of Manuel’s death and the dissension at court, he revived his old passion for tyranny. Since the narration of the events in the life of this man has been interrupted,

§ 226  for the sake of continuity it will be best not to omit anything noteworthy.
Andronikos, having escaped Manuel’s clutches, chose perpetual exile. Passing through many cities and seeing many towns of the barbarians, he finally became the guest, as we have already recorded, of Saltuq. He was toparch over the province adjacent to Chaldia which he had won and which, in former times, had been tributary to the Romans before it had submitted to the Turks and their religion. He occcupied, with Saltuq’s consent, a certain fortress whose natural defenses he augmented with his technical skill, and he remained there together with his fellow wanderer and fellow traveler, Theodora Komnene, who lay with him unlawfully since she was the daughter of Isaakios the sebastokrator; Isaakios and Andronikos were the sons of brothers.
Emperor Manuel, no more able to apprehend Andronikos than Ixion could seduce Hera, concentrated on embracing his niece Theodora as though she were a cloud, and he succeeded in his purpose, thanks to Nikephoros Palaiologos, who at that time had assumed the governorship of Trebizond. Shortly afterwards, he won over Andronikos, who was enticed with the bait of Theodora and angled with his passionate love for her and his ardent devotion to the children which Theodora bore him.
Andronikos dispatched envoys to the emperor begging for amnesty as well as safe conduct, since he could not trust that his arrival would elicit much sympathy. When the emperor had consented to both requests, Andronikos after some time gave himself up.
Andronikos, being most cunning and excelling in diverse wiles, hung around his neck a heavy iron chain which reached down to his feet; he secured it close to his body, concealed inside his cloak. Thus the chain was undetected by the emperor and unseen by the court until he exposed it before the emperor the first time he appeared before him.

§ 227  Stretching himself out on the floor, mighty in his mightiness, and holding forth the chain and shedding tears, he pleaded fervently, begging forgiveness for his alleged misdeeds. The emperor, taken aback by these doings, was himself moved to tears and commanded his attendants to raise up the suppliant. Andronikos avowed that he would not rise unless the emperor commanded one of the bystanders to drag him by the chain over the path to the throne and dash him against it. And so Andronikos’s request was granted. It was Isaakios Angelos, the man who later deposed Andronikos from his tyrranical rule, who rendered this service. It may be that this was not by unreasoning chance or accident.
Andronikos, welcomed at that time [July 1180] with great splendor and rewarded with extravagant kindliness as was fitting for such a great man who had returned home after a long exile, was sent off to take up residence at Oinaion and bring to an end his lengthy migration and chronic wandering. Both men recognized that should they remain together in the same place, they would suffer the same mishaps as before, for they could not wholly suppress Envy, which incites men to bring accusations against their rivals to gain the affection of rulers and to slander others to strengthen their own cause with the end of rising to higher offices.
Far from Zeus and his thunderbolt, Andronikos did not return to his former wicked ways, nor did he wander beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire, and imperial gifts were heaped upon him.
While at Oinaion, he heard of Manuel’s death and received detailed information of the disorders within the palace, how Emperor Alexios entertained himself with horse races and was given to amusements in which childish minds delight, how some of his noble guardians, like bees, frequently winged their way to the provinces and stored up money as

§ 228  though it were honey while others, like goats, craved after the young shoot of the empire and continually desired to gain possession of it; still others, emulating hogs, fattened themselves on the most sordid revenues and, choosing not to lift their heads and look at anything laudable or beneficial for the common fatherland, rolled about in their filthy deeds, rooting like swine after every evil gain.
Andronikos searched very meticulously and thoroughly to find an opportune and plausible excuse for seizing the throne. After much thought, and after contriving every possible scheme, he finally came upon the written oath he had sworn to Manuel and his son Alexios. There he found inserted among the others the following clause (he was bound not to distort the words by false interpretations but to take them at face value):
“And should I see or perceive or hear anything bringing dishonor to you or inflicting injury to your crown, I shall relay this information to you and thwart any such attempt as far as I am able.”
Brooding on these words like a fly on an open wound, he found them extremely useful for achieving the despotic rule for which he had so long been laboring, the rule due him for his dignified bearing and commanding disposition. He sent successive letters to his nephew Emperor Alexios, to the patriarch Theodosios, and to the remaining devoted friends of the deceased Emperor Manuel, relating his distress over the ugly gossip and professing his indignation lest the protosebastos should not be removed from control over the throne and relegated to a lesser rank, not only because of the approaching, indeed, the already manifest, destruction of Emperor Alexios from that quarter but above all also for the unseemly and unacceptable rumor to gentle ears being proclaimed from the wall tops and lying in wait at the gates of princes and being echoed throughout the universe .

§ 229  Expressing and writing these things with great conviction and charm (for he was, if anything, well versed in letter writing, ever quoting from the Epistles of Paul, the orator par excellence of the Holy Spirit), he won everyone to his views so that they concurred that he was the only true friend of the Romans who, over a long period of time and because of his hoary experience, had carried off the highest prizes.
Andronikos left Oinaion and made his way toward the queen of cities. On the way, he administered his own oath to whomever he met and explained the reason for his revolt to those who questioned him. Those who nurtured a desire to overthrow the government were eager to believe the ancient prophecy that Andronikos would some day reign as emperor; they swarmed about him excitedly like jackdaws around a soaring eagle with crooked talons. Thus did the Paphlagonian faction behave toward him as he made his way, receiving him with great honor as though he were a savior sent from heaven.
The protosebastos Alexios raged furiously; confident of his own power and his great influence over the empress, he was like the serpent which, having fed on an abundance of evil herbs, is terrible to look upon. Nothing whatsoever could be done except through him. And if someone accomplished something in secret by begging a favor from the empress or by having his petition granted while the emperor was engrossed in playing with nuts or casting pebbles, even this did not escape his attention. To assure that the accomplishments of others would be returned to him for review like the whirl of eddying waters, he had the emperor promulgate a decree that

§ 230  henceforth no document signed by the imperial hand would be valid unless first reviewed by Alexios and validated by his notation “approved” in frog green ink. He made his moves freely as though playing a game of draughts, and all the revenues which had been collected with much sweat by the preceding Komnenian emperors who, I might add, stripped even the indigent, were channeled to the protosebastos and the empress; and that was fulfilled which Archilochos plainly wrote, that what has been amassed at the expense of much time and labor often flows into the belly of the whore.
Henceforth, the entire City looked to Andronikos, and his arrival was regarded as a beacon and bright shining star in the moonless night. The mighty and the powerful encouraged Andronikos by dispatching letters in secret to hasten his entry, telling him that there was no one to oppose him or even to obstruct his shadow, and that they were waiting to receive him with open arms and to take him readily to the heart.
It was preeminently the porphyrogenita Maria, Emperor Alexios’s half-sister, who, together with the kaisar, her Italian husband [Renier], encouraged Andronikos to step forth bravely. Maria nearly choked with rage at the thought of the protosebastos wickedly cavorting in the paternal marriage bed.

§ 231  Reckless and masculine in her resolution, by nature exceedingly jealous of her stepmother, and unable to endure that she had been bested and was held suspect as a rival, Maria dispatched letters to Andronikos prodding him like a horse at the starting gate anxious to run the race, delighting in the evil joy of her own making and bringing on her own ruin. Unable to conceal her hatred for the protosebastos, she opposed him openly and never ceased from plotting to do him injury. She won over to her side several of her kinsmen, in particular those whom she knew to side with Andronikos and to be hostile to the protosebastos (these were Alexios Komnenos, begotten of Emperor Manuel through his niece Theodora; Andronikos Lapardas; Andronikos’s two sons, John and Manuel; the eparch of the City, John Kamateros; and many others). Conspiring to confirm the oath of allegiance to her brother and emperor while endorsing the death of the protosebastos, she awaited the opportune moment for his overthrow.
She deemed that the appropriate occasion would be the procession of the protosebastos, together with the emperor, to Bathys Ryax [Deep Stream] to perform the sacred rites pertaining to Theodore, the Martyr of Christ, on the seventh day of the first week of Lent [7 February 1181]. Thus she made preparations for the undertaking and suborned the cutthroats of her opponent to lay bare the murderous knife, but because of an unexpected turn of events, she was thwarted in her plot.
When both the deliberation and the plot were exposed a short time

§ 232  afterwards [1 March 1181], the conspirators were brought before the imperial tribunal. The trial, although conducted pro forma, was not based on the determination of the facts; the sentence followed immediately, and the accused were carried off to prison like speechless fishes without being given the right to answer the charges.
The porphyrogenita fled with her husband to the Great Church [before Easter, April 1181], asserting that she was escaping her exceedingly wrathful stepmother and her violent lover. Not only did she excite the pity of the patriarch and the clergy but she also moved the majority of the promiscuous rabble to such a degree that they very nearly shed tears over her. A good portion of the indigent populace was angry on her account because she had plied them with gifts of copper coins, thereby inciting them to rebellion and showing contempt for the special privileges accorded those who seek asylum. Thus she took new courage, and when she was offered amnesty for her crimes, she turned a deaf ear and also demanded a new trial for her fellow conspirators and their release from prison. She could not bear that the protosebastos should be in control of the administration of public affairs and asserted that he had transgressed and offended against the law and, in consequence, had sullied the dynasty. She insisted, furthermore, that he be ejected from the palace and

§ 233  uprooted for causing the emperor’s ruination like a tare growing alongside the noble plant and choking the wheat.
She openly pursued ends that were not to be realized. The protosebastos clung to the palace apartments like an octopus clamping its suckers on a rock. And when her brother, the emperor, threatened to evict his sister the kaisarissa from the temple by force if she did not voluntarily remove herself from the sacred precincts (by saying emperor, I mean that the demands were made by the protosebastos and the emperor’s mother), she replied that she would never depart of her own free will.
Fearful lest she be seized and arrested, Maria stationed guards at the church’s portals and posted sentries at the entranceways, converting the house of prayer into a den of thieves or a well-fortified and precipitous stronghold, impregnable to assault. Her actions became more and more reprehensible. She enlisted mercenaries and transformed the sacred courtyard into a military camp. Italians in heavy armor and stouthearted Iberians from the East who had come to the City for commercial purposes were recruited, as was an armed Roman phalanx, and all the while Maria paid no heed to those who exhorted her to sue for peace, nor did she give way to the patriarch himself, who pressed her vehemently to the point of becoming exceeding wrathful, often censuring her in a passion.
The entire populace from the other side of the City rejoiced without reason and could not be constrained.

§ 234  The excessively tumultuous rabble of Constantinople, which rejoiced in rashness and was perverse in its ways, was comprised of diverse races, and one could say that it was as fickle in its views as its trades were varied. And since it has ever been the normal course of events for the worst cause to triumph, and for people to seek the single sweet grape among many sour ones, the rabble is impelled by no reason whatsoever, nor does it take precautions to restrain agitators. At times disposed to sedition on the basis of mere rumor, it is more destructive than fire, throwing itself, so to speak, against drawn swords and senselessly resisting projecting headlands and the soundless swell, 62a while, at other times, cowering in fear at every noise, it bends its neck so that whosoever desires may trample upon it. It was fairly accused of inconstancy of disposition and of being extremely untrustworthy. Neither were the inhabitants of Constantinople ever observed doing what was best for themselves, no did they heed others who proposed measures for the common good, and they were forever resentful of those cities flourishing nearby which, safeguarded by land and sea, distributed and poured out their goods in abundance to other cities of foreign nations. Their indifference to the authorities was preserved as though it were an innate evil; him whom today they extol as an upright and just ruler, tomorrow they will disparage as a malefactor, thus displaying in both instances their lack of judgment and inflammable temperament.
It was under these circumstances that there was a muster of forces assembled into military companies. At first they openly defended the porphyrogenita Maria, ostensibly taking pity on her as suffering undeservedly; then they inveighed against the protosebastos for behaving badly without cause and for abusing his good fortune; finally, they were vexed at the emperor’s mother. Gradually they rose up in open revolt. Three priests, one bearing an image of Christ in relief into the forum, and another taking up and carrying a cross on his shoulder, and a third waving

§ 235  a sacred banner in the breeze, drew on the seditionists as milk draws flies.
Responding as though to a prearranged signal, they shouted acclamations in praise of the emperor (this, indeed, is the sure sign of those moving to sedition; beginning with the best of principles their end is revolution) and subjected the protosebastos and the empress to anathema. They did not confine these activities only to the vicinity of the Milion but also gathered at the turning post of the magnificent Hippodrome while they faced the palace. When this was repeated over many days, the populace was incited to open rebellion. In a rage, many willfully pulled down the most splendid dwellings and plundered their furnishings while the protosebastos and the empress looked on with remarkable sang-froid. Among these was the very beautiful residence of Theodore Pantechnes, the eparch of the City, who presided over the probate court, distinguished himself on the judge’s bench, and saved his own life by taking flight.
The mob carried off everything within, even the public law codes containing those measures which pertained to the common good of all or to the majority of citizens; these were powerless before the craving for private gain and could not wet the winebibber’s pharynx.
Seeing that matters were going from bad to worse, the supporters of the protosebastos decided to take counsel as to how to stave off ruin.
Since they could not see the kaisarissa Maria changing her mind in any way or moderating her excessive demands, they decided to move against her with a military force and to drive her out of the holy temple as from some bulwark.

§ 236  Not a few troops were assembled from both the eastern and western divisions and brought together into one camp at the Great Palace, and a reconnaisance was undertaken to determine an advantageous position whence to launch an assault upon the church while the kaisarissa deployed her troops in her desire to decide the contest in her favor. All the dwellings adjacent to Hagia Sophia and adjoining the Augousteon were demolished by her men, and they ascended the great triumphal arch which stands in the Milion and prepared to offer resistance to the imperial troops. Soldiers entered the Church of St. Alexios, which bordered on the courtyard of the Augousteon, and stood guard.
On the seventh day [Saturday], the second of May in the fifteenth indiction [1181 CE], the imperial troops, bounding from the palace at dawn, entered first the church of John the Theologian, also called Diipeion, under their commander, a certain Sabbatios, an Armenian.
Afterwards they appeared on the roof of the church and let out unintelligible cries. When the time for battle was at hand and the forum was especially full about the third hour of the day [9:00 a.m.], they inflicted no little injury on the kaisarissa’ s troops who fought from the triumphal arch of the Milion and the church of Alexios to take the advantage of fighting from above, hurling down their arrows like thunderbolts from on high. Other well-equipped contingents issued forth from the palace, filled the streets, and occupied the lanes leading to the Great Church, so that the populace was prevented from giving aid to the kaisarissa, as all approaches were cut off by men-at-arms.

§ 237  Her own troops sallied forth from the temple, crossed over the open court of the Augousteon, and engaged the imperial forces in the streets; a few contending against many, they were soon exhausted and their courage sapped.
The struggle was keenly contested, with the discharge of arrows and hotly disputed hand-to-hand combat. The moaning of the smitten and the cheering on of those spilling blood could be heard on both sides. Until high noon the battle was evenly matched, and Victory, undecided, balanced the scales equally, favoring one side and then the other, but towards sundown, she clearly favored the imperial troops. Maria’s men were driven from the church, pushed from the streets into the Augousteon, and shut in, trapped inside, while those standing upon the arches of the Milion and fighting from the church of Alexios took flight. Once the imperial troops had taken possession of these positions, they fixed the standards portraying the imperial family above the arches, and the gates of the Augousteon were shattered by the axe and the stonecutter’s tool.
The kaisarissa’s troops, bombarded by the enemy from the top of the arches, were no longer able to resist and suffered heavy casualties in hand-to-hand combat with those soldiers who had poured into the open court of the Augousteon. They slowly stole away, protected for a time by the stone missiles and arrows discharged by the defenders positioned above the gallery of the Catechumeneia (also called the Makron), which faced in the direction of the Augousteon and the building of Thoma'ites. Finally, the troops from the church, hard pressed by those smiting them from all sides, withdrew from the open court of the Augousteon and

§ 238  entered the outer narthex which displays the exquisite mosaic of the very first and greatest of the archangels serving God [Michael] with sword drawn, standing guard over the temple. Consequently, the imperial troops could not advance any further in fear of the temple’s narrow passageways or could the kaisarissa's exhausted soldiers exit to give battle.
The kaisar was afraid that he and his wife might be apprehended ignobly by their adversaries, and the patriarch was anxious lest the enemy troops enter the temple, with unholy feet trample the holy floor, and with hands defiled and dripping with blood still warm plunder the all-holy dedicatory offerings. Thus, the patriarch donned his pontifical vestments and took the Holy Gospels in his hand, and all three descended to the proskenion [outer narthex] of the temple, also called the Protekdikeion, where the troops fighting on behalf of the kaisarissa had lodged after their flight. The kaisar assembled the men-at-arms who guarded the entrances of the church and those of his Latin bodyguard who were still unscathed, as well as his wife’s servants, all told about one hundred in number. He stood on a raised bench located at the Makron in the midst of his troops ready for battle and said the following:
It had been better had we donned our armor and taken up the sword against the enemies of the cross and not against compatriots and coreligionists; it is because they have badly mismanaged the affairs of the Roman empire that they must be removed, and it is by necessity and not by choice that we have sharpened our lances against them. Let us bravely oppose our assailants and reflect not

§ 239  that we are of the same race and religion but look upon them first as enemies of God whose holy temple they enter without shame, and then let us avenge ourselves against our adversaries. Moreover, we cannot be held responsible for the need to defend ourselves. Even though we did not give offence to them or take up arms against them, they came against us brazenly as though we had been set forth last, as it were appointed to death; they trample upon what is right and proper and desire to drag out of the temple those who have taken asylum with God. It is not right that they should do this, since there is no crime with which they can charge us; it is utter madness to reprove in any way or not to stop inflicting suffering on those who seek refuge with God, whom we put forward as mediator and arbitrator in our dissensions. Nor should you regard it an unholy act to defend yourselves and to strive eagerly against him who smites you and to return to him the death he brings you, nor must you suffer the compatriot, who attacks with sword and kills, to come and go without receiving a blow, but deem every man an enemy who is evilly disposed to kill and let him fall. God’s grace will surely be bestowed upon us if we keep out those blood-thirsty murderers from this holy temple and resist those who, with mouth agape, are eager to rush upon the holy vessels and furnishings and seize them as plunder. Were this not the case, and had they made the distinction between the sacred and the profane, they would long before have given up their desire to penetrate the outer and inner narthexes, since the victory was already theirs. They are so utterly shameless that not only do they imagine themselves as taking what is ours but these stupid men are also bent on appropriating the things of God. Nay, verily by Him who was nailed to the cross and by this my lance, they will most certainly fail in their attempts because God’s things will be protected from defiled hands, nor shall we be abandoned.
Having spoken these words and other similar sentiments, he went down into the outer narthex where, as stated above, stands Michael, the

§ 240  Prince of the Heavenly and Sacred Hosts with sword drawn. The rest followed him as their commander, all bearing shields and looking like bronze statues. The kaisar then drew up his troops in battle array, fortified himself with the sign of the cross, and sallied forth before his men. The enemy forces in the open court of the Augousteon, thrown into confusion and pressed hard by the kaisar's first assault, poured out of the entrances; many of the imperial troops were wounded, and one was run through by the sword and killed. After this, the kaisar returned to the place from which he had set out.
Then the imperial troops no longer dared to enter the open court but preferred to fight by firing missiles. As the day was already in decline, the exhausted combatants stopped fighting. The patriarch dispatched to the empress his own servant, called a palatinos because his function was to present himself to the palace and convey recommendations to their Imperial Majesties and then to return thence with their answers. After he had threatened the empress with quick-sighted divine wrath that perceives in a flash unlawful acts wherever they may be perpetrated, and he had made known the kaisarissa' s cries for a truce, there arrived as arbitrator of the dispute, the grand duke Andronikos Kontostephanos, together with the grand hetaireiarch John Doukas and many other distinguished nobles adorned with the highest dignities.
Yielding obedience to night’s behest rather than trusting in conciliation, they brought an end to the fighting, and on the following day [3 May 1181] they plucked up their courage to renew hostilities. But the arbitrators came before the kaisarissa and her husband and gave her pledges of good faith confirmed by oaths, assuring her that nothing unpleasant

§ 241  would befall her. She would not be deprived of her dignities and privileges by her brother the emperor, or her stepmother the empress, or the protosebastos Alexios, and full amnesty would be granted her supporters and allies. Thus battle was not joined a second time. Once the oaths were sworn and peace was concluded, the troops disbanded. With the coming of night, the kaisar and his wife left the temple and came to the Great Palace where the rulers resided.
Thus ended the affair concerning the kaisar and the causes for which this inglorious war began, bringing down upon us divine retribution for the sacrilege perpetrated in the holy temple. Nor do I absolve the suppliant kaisarissa from guilt, inclined as she was towards reckless acts and agitation against the government, and one could also accuse those who refused to yield even a little to her supplications, who preferred evil strife and, as a result, filled the house of prayer with bloody murder and were thus guilty of lawless conduct. The Roman general Titus, who besieged Jerusalem in ancient times, spared the Temple of Solomon and distinguished himself in his efforts to preserve it from destruction, exposing himself to the sorties of the Jewish legion within, with substantial losses to his own troops, rather than perform any act hateful to the gods against this sumptuous and wondrous work; this even though he was a man who did not know the God from whose temple he drew back, a temple that rendered false worship to gods who did not make the heavens. How much more then should God-fearing Christians pay honor to this most beautiful and holy temple which the hands of God have truly constructed and fashioned into an inimitable work of art from beginning to end, a veritable heavenly orb upon the earth.
The protosebastos was very angry with Patriarch Theodosios for ardently opposing his purposes and thwarting his designs. At first he suborned many bishops against him, corrupting them with gold and drinking parties. He proposed the patriarch’s deposition in absentia for supposedly siding with the kaisarissa in her rebellion against the emperor and for

§ 242  allowing her to use the holy temple as a base of operations and with arms to stir up sedition and foolishly and thoughtlessly to incite a revolution.
The protesebastos would have ousted him from the patriarchal throne with ignominy and by force had not the kaisarissa refused to give him the opportunity to remove the patriarch and replace him with another. She diligently guarded this most holy man lest, to deliver himself from troubles, he withdraw to the monastery he had built on the island of Terebinthos to live in quietude and she then be forcibly taken from the temple and subjected to great harm. The protosebastos now was able to gratify his anger by expelling the holy man from the sacred palace and confining him to the Pantepoptes monastery. He pondered diverse courses of action and wrestled with many ideas, meeting with the most wicked members of the senate and consulting those clerics who feared neither the vengeance of God nor the wrath of men as to how this holy man might plausibly and speciously be ousted. But he failed to achieve his aim, and no cause whatsoever could be found to justify the patriarch’s deposition. Moreover, the empress and almost all, if not all, of the emperor’s blood relations revered the man enormously. Then, against his will, the crooked serpent, unwinding his coils and swallowing down again the venom which he had prepared to vomit all over the saint, approved of the patriarch’s return to his throne.

§ 243  When the appointed day for his return had arrived, all the magistrates and clerics who loved virtue and honor, as well as the entire populace of the City, assembled at the holy monastery [Pantepoptes] and escorted him in a most splendid procession, showering the streets with perfume and filling the air with the scent of Indian sandlewood and aromatic fragrances. So huge was the number of people who joined in the procession that even though the patriarch set out at early dawn from the Pantepoptes monastery, he returned to the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom of God only late in the evening. So great was the shame that covered the faces of the bishops for condoning his trial that they avoided the public byways not only because of their sin against the patriarch and the universal derision heaped on them as a result but also because they were afraid that they might be killed. Thus were these events concluded.
Andronikos, lifted up by his desire to rule, was set on the wing by the frequent letters flying at him from afar dispatched from the houses of the illustrious, as I have already stated. Finally his daughter Maria came to him as a runaway [May 1181], proving herself worthy of such a father, and he was provided by God with a teacher who instructed him fully as to what was transpiring in the palace. Spurred on like a racehorse by the words he heard from her, which were much to his liking, he crossed the borders of Paphlagonia, arrived at Herakleia in Pontos, and continued on his way, seducing and winning over all those he met on the way by his multifarious wiliness and insidious manner and dissembling ways; who, unless he had been made of insensate stone or his heart forged on an iron anvil, could have remained unmoved by the flood of tears shed by Andronikos as from a fountain of black water, and who could not but

§ 244  succumb to the deceitful, enticing, silver-tongued wheedling with which he professed his zeal on behalf of the right and expounded on the need to liberate the emperor [beginning of 1182?]. The protosebastos did not completely ignore these events, even though he was unmanly and not only spent the early morning in sound sleep but also wasted most of the day sleeping. So that the sunlight, so welcomed by other men, should not force open his eyes because of its brightness, he darkened his bedroom with opaque curtains and made the darkness his secret place whenever dealing with important matters. It would be closer to the truth to say that, delighting in dark deeds, he dispersed the nocturnal darkness with artificial light, and when the sun rose in the eastern horizon, nudging the wild beasts from their lair, he shut out the light with carpets and purple curtains. An effeminate dullard, he made the majority of the nobles dependent upon him in a novel fashion by washing clean the mouths of those whose teeth had rotted and smearing with pitch those men who [like corroded bronze statues] had been cast out long ago. By and large, he used the emperor’s mother as an advance fortification or, to tell the truth, as an irresistible mollification (for she pulled in everyone as though on a line by the radiance of her appearance, her pearly countenance, her even disposition, candor, and charm of speech), winning over with bribes those who had suffered arbitrary treatment and lulling them to sleep with lavish gifts so as to gain their allegiance to himself as second in command to the empress. So no one who was enjoined to resist Andronikos, who was now in reach of the throne, went over to him, thus spurning the protosebastos, and none was taken in by Andronikos’s masquerade as tyrant-hater.
Nicaea, the preeminent and greatest city of Bithynia, refused altogether to submit to Andronikos,

§ 245  and John Doukas, who was charged with her watch and ward, remained unshaken by Andronikos’s letters, even though his arguments were more devastating than the blows of siege engines and more powerful than any battering ram. Moreover, the grand domestic, John Komnenos, the governor of the province of Thrace, stopped his ears to Andronikos’s enchantments and baited him as a tyrant. Pouring over his letters as though they were a smooth and shiny mirror, he clearly recognized Andronikos as a Proteus who took on many forms and now behaved in the manner of a tyrant.
When Andronikos approached Tarsia and the majority of the inhabitants round about the city of Nikomedia joined him, Andronikos Angelos, whose sons Isaakios and Alexios followed Andronikos on the throne, was sent against him with a considerable force. Hostilities were waged near the village of Charax, and Angelos was resoundingly defeated, although the forces he engaged were unequal and the opposing commander no match for him in battle; the clash was with a certain eunuch who had enlisted the services of farmers unfit for warfare and a contingent of Paphlagonian soldiers.
Immediately following the defeat, Angelos retreated ingloriously to the city and was required to hand over the monies designated for military expenditures. He worried lest he be apprehended on the grounds that he sympathized with Andronikos and had worsened the conditions he had been sent to improve, and persuaded by his sons, six in number and all young in heart and brave in deed, he undertook to fortify his own house, situated outside Kionion, by erecting ramparts; he also won over some of the populace to his side. But he realized that he did not have the strength to resist the superior imperial force and that he could not prevail over his adversaries and made arrangements to flee.

§ 246  Taking his six sons and his wife, he boarded a ship and went over to Andronikos. On seeing Angelos appoaching, Andronikos declared: “Behold, I will send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”
At his cousin’s arrival, Andronikos took heart and saw that his aspirations were moving towards fulfillment. He discontinued his incursions into the byways; turning his back on the cities of Nicaea and Nikomedia and putting an end to his haphazard movements, he raced on to Constantinople as though he were making his way to the land of the Philistines.
He camped on a site above Chalcedon called Pefkia [Little Pine Trees] and burned many watch fires all through that night, not for the needs of his own troops, but to give the appearance of a much larger army. This thrust the Byzantines into a state of suspense. In causing them to look out in the direction of the straits to see what was going on, Andronikos hoped to have them come down to the shore or ascend the hills so that even from afar he might signal them and win them over. So far then had advanced the cause of Andronikos, whose temples had grown hoary and forehead bald.
The protosebastos Alexios had no infantry with which to ward off the advancing enemy, for some had already decided in secret to pass over to Andronikos’s side, even though they could not safely cross the straits to join him, while others thought that simply staying at home and taking no sides whatsoever was sufficient to prove their allegiance to the emperor. Thus did craftiness of mind and the Roman emperors’ frequent practice of ascending the throne through murder and bloodshed instruct the many to think and say.
Alexios attempted to repel the encroaching danger in a naval battle. Triremes covered the Propontis, some propelled by Roman oarsmen and

§ 247  manned with soldiers on deck ready to give battle, but the mightiest part and fiercest in battle were those of the diverse Latin nations residing in the City. On these the protosebastos poured rivers of money, since he relied more on them for assistance than on the Romans. He hastened to install as captains of the triremes those men who were most loyal to him and to entrust the fleet to his closest kinsmen, but when the grand duke Kontostephanos, who was in sole command of the fleet, proved adverse, Alexios was compelled to change his mind. Andronikos Kontostephanos took command of the entire fleet and blocked the passage across the straits from the eastern shore; with Kontostephanos were some of the protosebastos' s kinsmen and domestics.
Shortly thereafter, the emperor dispatched a member of the clergy as his envoy to Andronikos. This was George Xiphilinos who, when he came into the presence of the tyrant, handed over the emperor’s letters and elaborated on their contents. Included were promises of more bountiful gifts and greater dignities and the favor of God, the Prince of Peace, should he desist from his present plans, leading to civil wars, and return to his former way of life. It is said that Andronikos undermined the negotiations undertaken by the envoy Xiphilinos and refused to yield wholly or in part to the exhortations directed at him. He rejected the appeal and delivered a vaunted harangue to the envoys and angrily demanded that if they wanted him to return whence he had come, let the protosebastos be cast out from the center of authority and account for his

§ 248  wrongdoings and let the emperor’s mother confine herself to the monastic life, receiving the tonsure once and for all. As for the emperor, let him rule in accordance with his father’s testament and not be choked, like an ear of corn by darnels, by those who share his reign.
Not many days afterwards, the grand duke Andronikos [Kontostephanos] defected to Andronikos, taking with him all the long ships manned by Romans. This act, more than any other, elated the rebel and utterly crushed the protosebastos; despairing of all hope, his spirit was broken.
No longer did Andronikos’s supporters meet in secret, but openly reviling the protosebastos and delighting at the turn of events, they sailed over to Chalcedon. When they met Andronikos in troops, they marveled much at his noble stature, his comely form, and his venerable old age. Tasting of the honeycomb of his tongue and captivated by his grandiloquence, like water-grass drinking in the rain or the mountains of Sion soaking up the dew of Hermon, they returned rejoicing as though they had found the celebrated golden fleece, or the repast of ground meal cited in the myth, or the renowned table of the sun set before them and at which they were sated. There were those, however, who recognized at first sight the wolf in sheep’s clothing and the serpent who attacks as soon as he is made warm and does evil to them who have taken him to their bosom.
After these events, Andronikos’s sons, John and Manuel, and all the rest whom the protosebastos had incarcerated, were released, while his own favorites, supporters, and kinsmen were imprisoned. The protosebastos, who had been apprehended in the palace and placed in the custody of the Germans who carry on their shoulders the one-edged axes, remained in confinement.

§ 249  In the middle of the night he was furtively removed from the palace to the sacred palace built by Patriarch Michael, and his guard was increased for greater security.
O, how the course of events is reversed and sometimes is altered quicker than thought! He who yesterday initiated an undeclared war against the church, he who was insolent and self-willed and inordinately over-proud, dragging the refugees thence in defiance of propriety, he who had countless throngs buzzing around him, today is a captive without hearth or home, without follower, aide, savior, or redeemer. The protosebastos endured these things with great difficulty and was made to suffer even more: his guards would not allow him to sleep, and whenever he was about to doze off they fell upon him and compelled him to hold his eyes open as though they were horn or iron. The patriarch, who bore no malice but pitied the man’s reversal of fortune, attended to his needs and relieved his distress by conversing with him. He urged the guards to treat him reasonably and not to make his lot worse than it already was.
Several days later, the protosebastos, sitting on a pony and preceded by a banner on a reed blowing in the wind, was led out of the temple in the early morning; abused in this fashion, he descended towards the sea.
There he was thrown aboard a fishing boat and transported across the straits to Andronikos. Afterwards, his eyes were gouged out; all those in authority, who assembled publicly, sanctioned this act together with Andronikos.

§ 250  Thus ended the joint reign of the protosebastos or, rather, his tyranny which was never firmly established. Had his hands been armed for battle and his fingers instructed for war, and had he not been a weakling warrior and a stammerer spending half the day snoring, he could have barred Andronikos’s way into the City and preserved himself from the evil of that time. He could have used the imperial treasury as he liked, and he could have employed the triremes, manned by Latin troops, to subdue his adversary Andronikos, as the Latins, wrought of bronze and delighting in blood, were superior to the Roman naval forces. But in their confrontation with destiny, the protosebastos, so it seems, lost his nerve, while Andronikos, exerting himself greatly, tripped him up at the heels as he came running against him and carried off the splendid victory.
While Andronikos was still biding his time across the straits, he dispatched all the triremes under the command of the grand duke, and with his elite troops that had been selected from among the soldiers who had enlisted in his cause as he made his way through the provinces, he mounted a war against the Latins in the City. The City’s populace regained their courage and incited one another to fight side by side, and strife broke out on land and sea. Surrounded and hemmed in by both throngs, the Latins were unable to resist.

§ 251  They attempted to save themselves as best they could, leaving behind their homes filled with riches and treasures of all kinds such as are sought by men bent on plunder; nor did they dare to remain where they were or to attack the Romans or to submit to, and endure, their onslaught. Some took their chances by scattering throughout the City, others sought asylum in the homes of the nobility, while yet others boarded the long ships manned by their fellow countrymen and escaped being cut down by the sword. Those apprehended were condemned to death, and all lost their properties and possessions. The triremes, loaded with refugees, put out from the City’s harbors in the direction of the Hellespont and spent the rest of that day anchored at the seagirt islands which are neither far from the queen of cities nor far out in the open sea: I speak of Prinkipos and Prote and all the islands around them rising up from the deep. The next day, after burning down and destroying several monasteries on these islands, they departed, plying all oars and with sails unfurled. Pursued by no one and putting in wherever they wished, they inflicted as much injury as possible on the Romans in these parts.
During these days a comet appeared in the heavens, a portent of future calamities which clearly pointed to Andronikos. Now the fiery mass appeared to be stretched out, portraying a serpent’s sinuous shape, and now it contracted into coils; at other times, opening up into a yawning chasm as though it were about to swallow from above everything below, thirsting after human blood, it struck terror into those who gazed at it. It continued on its course that day and through the next night, and then it vanished.
And a hawk trained to hunt, with white plumage and feet shackled with thongs, that often molts in its nest and rejuvenates itself, swooped down from the east upon the Great Church of the Logos [Hagia Sophia], It entered into the building of Thomaites, where it attracted many spectators who looked upon it as an omen. There were those who contrived

§ 252  means to capture him. The hawk rose up and flew down towards the Great Palace; coming to rest on top of the chamber where the newly crowned emperors were customarily acclaimed by the entire populace, it returned after a short time to the temple. Having thrice flown this same circuit, the bird was caught and taken to the emperor. The majority regarded this as a portent that Andronikos would be apprehended forthwith and subjected to violent punishment, for the omen of the bird’s flight, they contended, clearly referred to Andronikos, since he had been frequently cast into prison, and the hair of his head was snow white.
Others, more clever and discerning in their interpretation of the future, maintained that the threefold flight to the same destination augured that at the end of Andronikos’s reign as emperor of the Romans he would once again be subjected to imprisonment and the stocks.
Everyone was ferried across to Andronikos, and the last to cross over was Patriarch Theodosios, together with the distinguished members of the clergy. When Andronikos heard that the great high priest was approaching his tent, he immediately went out to greet him, wearing a violetcolored garment of Iberian weave, open at the sides and reaching down to the knees and buttocks and covering the elbows; on his head he wore a grayish black headdress shaped like a pyramid. Throwing himself down in front of the horses hooves, he lay outstretched, mighty in his mightiness. Shortly afterwards, he rose up and licked the soles of the patriarch’s feet, proclaiming him savior of the emperor, defender of virtue, champion of truth, and rival of John of the Golden Tongue [Chrysostom] and bestowed upon him every title of honor. The patriarch looked upon Andronikos for the first time and perceived his vicious glare as he scrutinized him, his insidious effrontery, his self-serving and affected manner, his stature reaching a height of slightly less than ten feet, his strutting, and his supercilious leer. He saw that Andronikos was a calculating man ever-wrapped in thought,

§ 253  who deplored those who so foolishly befriended him to their own utter ruin, and he declared, “Heretofore, I had only heard the report of you; now I have seen you and have come to know you very well.” Quoting from the Psalm of David, he said, “As we have heard, so have we also seen,” Thus artfully upbraiding Andronikos for this theatrical antics of throwing himself on the ground and fawning like a dog and associating what he saw with what he had heard from Emperor Manuel, who had so portrayed Andronikos in words that although he was unknown to the patriarch it was as though he were standing before his eyes. However, the equivocal meaning of the patriarch’s words did not escape Andronikos of many wiles, who well understood the concealed meaning of the patriarch’s words that pierced his soul like a sword brandished with both hands. Perceiving that the patriarch’s thick brows knitted in anger revealed his innermost feelings, Andronikos remarked, “Behold the deep Armenian,” for it was rumored that the patriarch’s paternal family were Armenians.
Andronikos derided the patriarch yet another time. During a conversation with him, he appeared vexed and complained that he was the only remaining guardian of Emperor Alexios and that there was no one to share his toil and trouble, not even his holiness, even though the emperor [Manuel], Emperor Alexios’s father,

§ 254  had entrusted his son to the patriarch’s care and the administration of the state to him. The patriarch replied that he had long ago laid down his responsibility for the emperor and that from the time that Andronikos had entered the queen of cities and taken control of the government, he had been counted among the dead. At the patriarch’s reply, Andronikos, turning red in the face, asked what he meant by laying down his charge and, pretending not to understand, asked him to explain his barbed statements. The patriarch, who did not want to enrage the beast and bring him roaring against him, or to make the camel vomit by forcing open its mouth, as is the custom, did not give the true meaning of his words but interpreted them differently, replying that he would no longer look after the emperor but would ignore his charge, for Andronikos alone was capable of caring for him.
Once the affairs of the palace were being managed by Andronikos’s sons and supporters according to his will and pleasure, he finally departed from Damalis [April 1182].

§ 255  As he was crossing over the the straits, he cheerfully recited under his breath the verse from David, “Return to thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with thee. For he has delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” When Alexios and his mother Xene left the palace and moved into the imperial buildings of Manganes in Philopation, Andronikos went there and made a profound obeisance to the emperor, embraced his feet, beating his breast as he was wont to do, and shed tears; paying his respects but perfunctorily to Xene, he left shortly afterwards.
When he entered the pavilion which had been readied for him nearby, he was surrounded by the pitched tents of every noble and notable even as hens gather under their wings their chickens.
At that time, a certain man, another Iros, a homeless and filthy wretch, was caught in the dead of night roaming around Andronikos’s pavilion; his arms were bare to the shoulder and he was squint-eyed. At first, he was accused by Andronikos’s attendants of resorting to sorcery,

§ 256  and then he was delivered over to the city populace; collecting dry wood and fagots in the theater, they burned him without benefit of a trial.
After spending many days with the emperor in Philopation, Andronikos decided to enter the megalopolis to see the tomb of his cousin, Emperor Manuel. He arrived at the Monastery of Pantokrator and inquired where the corpse was entombed; standing before the sepulcher, he wept bitterly and wailed piteously. Many of those who were standing nearby, not knowing what a dissembler Andronikos was, admired him greatly and remarked, “O, how wondrous! How he loved his kinsman, the emperor, even though he persecuted him relentlessly and showed him no mercy!” When several of his kinsmen tore him away from the tomb, saying that he had mourned enough, Andronikos gave no heed to their pleas and requested that he be allowed to abide a while longer by the grave as he had something to say alone to the deceased. He raised his hands as in supplication with his palms turned outwards and lifted up his eyes towards the marble sarcophagus, and moving his lips but making no sound that could be heard by his companions, he carried on a discussion in secret. To most, it appeared as though he were muttering some barbarian incantation. Others, especially those who wished to show off their wit, declared that Andronikos, to mock Emperor Manuel, clearly attacked his corpse by saying, “You have been my persecutor and the cause of my many wanderings, and you have made me the subject of nearly universal gossip as I miserably followed the course of the sun’s chariot.

§ 257  And now this marble with its seven clusters of ivy holds you as a prison from which there is no escape while you sleep the sleep from which there is no waking until the last trumpet is sounded; I shall fall upon your family like a lion pouncing on a large prey, and I shall exact fitting revenge for the injuries I have sustained at your hands when I enter the splendid seven-hilled megalopolis.”
Thereafter, he made his way to every illustrious and splendid dwelling, and stopping off as passers-by do, he conducted the affairs of state according to his will and pleasure, while encouraging Emperor Alexios to devote himself to the chase and indulge in vain pursuits. The guards he set over Alexios supervised his coming in and going out with greater vigilance than the mythical many-eyed Argos and allowed no one to meet with him alone to discuss any matter whatsoever. Andronikos himself was wholly concerned, not with how to promote the welfare of the Romans, but how to remove from the palace the virtuous counselor and the devotee of the war god, mighty in combat, and anyone else who had distinguished himself by some exploit.
He rewarded the Paphlagonians for their goodwill towards him and everyone else who joined him in his rebellion, honoring them with dignities and lavish gifts. Splendid dignities and magnificent offices were transferred to certain individuals according to whim, and he promoted his own sons. Stripping others of their offices, he awarded these as suited him to those who followed after him in the same way that those apostates of the

§ 258  living God in former times followed after Baal and preferred his glory to the praiseworthy honor formerly given to the righteous man as his portion.
Some of these men were expelled from house and native city and separated from their loved ones, while others were given over to prison and iron manacles, and still others had their eyes gouged out without any formal charge being brought against them. They were accused in secret because they were scions of nobility, and the fact that they were often victorious in warfare or distinguished by noble stature and excessive elegance, or by some other praiseworthy trait, nettled Andronikos and inspired in him no great expectations; instead, this only kindled the embers of old vexations, causing the ashes of forgotten wrath slowly to ignite.
The flux of those times was irresistible and the mutual distrust, even among the most genuine friends, an intolerable evil. Not only did brother ignore brother and father neglect son, if such was to Andronikos’s liking, but they also cooperated with the informers in bringing about the utter ruin of their families. There were those who personally informed against their relatives for scoffing at Andronikos’s actions or for being devoted to Emperor Alexios’s hereditary rule, thus shaking themselves free from Andronikos’s grip. In the very act of making accusations, many were themselves accused, and while exposing others as workers of evil against Andronikos, they themselves were denounced by the accused or by others who were present; both accusers and accused were led away to the same prison.
John Kantakouzenous attested that having struck with murderous fists a certain eunuch by the name of Tzitas, knocking out his teeth and bloodying his lips because he was discovered discussing the calamities that had befallen the commonwealth, he himself was seized on the spot,

§ 259  blinded, and cast into a dark dungeon for having sent a greeting through the jailer to the prisoner Constantine Angelos, his wife’s brother.
For these reasons, therefore, the whole head was in pain, and these works were performed in the open as though they could never be verified, like the monstrosities subtly contrived by Empedoclean Strife. It was not only every man of high degree and distinction of the opposing faction who suffered most piteously; he was also most unfaithful to his own attendants. But yesterday he had fed them the finest wheat and set before them the fatted calf and mingled stronger drink of the finest bouquet, including them in the circle of his closest friends; today he treated them in the worst way possible. On one and the same day, one would often see the same man, like Xerxes’ helmsman, both crowned and butchered, praised and cursed. Many who had sided with Andronikos, if they were at all perceptive, deemed praise from him to be a deliberate insult, the conferring of any human benefit the prelude to vomiting up one’s possessions, and a show of regard, certain ruin.
When he had established his tyranny, it went unnoticed at first that he was a pernicious poisoner, but after an interval of some days, it was bruited about by one and all that he was adept in concocting deadly potions. The first to take this ruinous descent to Hades was the kaisarissa Maria, Emperor Manuel’s daughter, who more than anyone longed to see

§ 260  his return to his country. By seductive promises he corrupted a certain eunuch by the name of Pterygeonites, Maria’s father’s attendant now in the woman’s service, to pour the baneful drug into her cup; the poisonous potion was not the kind that brought on instantaneous death but lulled its victims little by little and drained their lives unhurriedly.
Not long afterwards, Maria’s husband, the kaisar, followed the same fate as his wife. It was said that he too, did not die naturally but that man-slaying Andronikos was also the cause of his death, and it was conjectured that one wine cup had snuffed out the life of the two anointed ones.
Andronikos wished to give his daughter Irene to Alexios in marriage.
He had begotten Irene through his niece Theodora, the child of Emperor Manuel’s brother; Theodora had given birth to her after having sexual intercourse with him. He drew up a laconic petition and, signing his name in ink at the bottom, submitted it to the holy synod for a hearing and deliberation. The petition dealt with the question of whether it was permissible to negotiate the marriage contract if only a slight impropriety were indicated, for the marriage would do much to unite the eastern and western parts of the empire, many captives would be rescued, and a host of other benefits would accrue to the public welfare. And this terse document, like some wide-mouthed soup ladle, or Poseidon’s trident, or Discord’s shapely apple, stirred up the synod and caused division among those senators who served as judges; it would be truer to say it armed them against one another and divided them into opposing factions. After

§ 261  they had been bribed with money and appeased by being promoted to higher dignities, the majority gave their approval. Would that they had not done so! They acted as though the marriage were not prohibited. The more insolent of the judges, accustomed to giving their votes in exchange for banquets as they went begging like vagabonds among the houses of the notables, and those members of the synod who were fond of gold and hucksters of divine things evaded the issue by contending that since the couple to be married were both born of illicit unions, the laws view such offspring to be unrelated and without any connection whatsoever, and they said that it was a sign of ignorance even to think of subjecting to inquiry a matter which is as clear as the day. The opposition would not even deign to give ear to such arguments. Using the laws as their weapons in close combat, they turned back the attacks and refused even more vigorously to condone so unlawful an act. Those who advocated this excellent judgment and supported the better cause were a few bishops and clergymen and several prudent members of the senate. The patriarch’s indignation rallied them and stirred them up, preventing them from siding with the impious and going astray. Neither did Andronikos’s ranting perturb the patriarch, nor did the forcefulness of his words discomfit him, nor did threats confound him. He was as unshakeable as that jutting rock around which the high-rising wave is ever stayed and the brine roars and boils, dissolving the water into spray, making the sounding sea to howl loudly and afar as the rock remains firmly fixed on its foundations.
Realizing, therefore, that he could not prevail, and that calamity was manifestly imminent and the worst evils were carrying the day,

§ 262  the patriarch rose up and departed from the sacred palace and came to the island of Terebinthos [September 1183], where he had prepared a place of refuge and a burial place for his body. Andronikos regarded Theodosios’s unexpected and voluntary withdrawal as a great stroke of luck and completed the marriage contract, designating the archbishop of Bulgaria, who was present at that time in the City, to solemnize the marriage. He also deliberated on a candidate of his choosing to succeed to the patriarchal throne. He selected Basil Kamateros to become ecumenical patriarch [II, August 1183-February 1186]; it was stated that Basil enticed Andronikos to choose him by being the only hierarch who agreed in writing to do whatever was pleasing to Andronikos, even though these things be utterly unlawful, and also to abhor whatever was displeasing to Andronikos.
Not only were the affairs of the City in such turmoil, but the provinces suffered even worse, thanks to the evil spirit who overturned everything undertaken by the Romans to their disadvantage. The sultan of Ikonion, like Tantalos [Sisyphos?], forever in dread of the rock suspended above his head (I speak of Emperor Manuel), on learning of the latter’s departure for the nether world took possession of Sozopolis by the law of warfare, and pillaging the surrounding towns, he brought them under his dominion. He afflicted the most splendid city of Attaleia with a long siege, sacked Kotyaeion [Kutahiya], and compelled many other cities to submit to him.
While residing in Philadelphia, John Komnenos, whose surname was Vatatzes, a man not lacking in military skill and one who had carried off many victories against the Turks, nobly set himself against Andronikos and took no heed of his orders. When the latter threatened him harshly, he rebuked him in turn even more sternly; distressed by the news that

§ 263  Andronikos was attempting to establish a tyranny, he roundly admonished and upbraided the tyrant as a demonic adversary intent on exterminating the imperial family.
As a result, the Asiatic cities were fraught with internal strife and wars. The actions now taken were more grievous than those undertaken by the neighboring enemies; in other words, whatever the hand of the foreigner did not pluck, the right hand of the inhabitant reaped, the kinsmen, ignoring the laws of kinship, went to war against one another as though they were barbarians.
Andronikos decided to arm Andronikos Lapardas, a man short in stature but enterprising in warfare, against Vatatzes and enlisted a sizeable force to serve under him. At this time, John Komnenos, who had taken ill and was encamped somewhere near the city of Philadelphia, marched his sons Manuel and Alexios against Lapardas. Vatatzes, who knew of the frequent turns taken by the conflict and that many on both sides were slain in these internecine struggles, was aggrieved and saddened by the malady that confined him to his bed at a time when he should have been defending the public good by displaying his military prowess. Then he would have received the customary acclamations from the eastern cities on the occasion of his victory and his deeds would have told the sort of leader with whom the old and decrepit Andronikos had matched himself. But eagerness resurrects even the dead, and there is nothing stronger than a sensitive heart, and thus he gave orders that he be lifted on a simple cot and carried to a hill whence the battle’s progress would be visible. After he had instructed his sons as to how he wished them to array the troops, his forces won a notable victory, and Lapardas’s men turned their backs and were pursued some distance and cut down.
A few days later Vatatzes died. After mourning bitterly, all of the

§ 264  Philadelphians decided to go over to Andronikos and eagerly winged their way to the imperial city. As they paid court to Andronikos, they croaked like cawing crows at the eagle Vatatzes and his eaglets and like drones buzzed around the streets and the palace, which is the practice of those who are mischievous and speak with forked tongues. The sons of the grand domestic, afraid lest they be apprehended and delivered over to Andronikos, departed and took refuge with the sultan of Ikonion, but what they were to suffer later makes it clear that no one is allowed to jump over the snares or to slip through the net cast by Divine Providence.
Displeased after a lengthy sojourn with the sultan, who was unwilling to defend them against their enemies, they decided to set out for Sicily.
With a fair wind, their ship sailed across to the Cretan sea, but a contrary wind blew up during their passage, and they were compelled to land on Crete where they were recognized by one of the sentries, an ax-bearer of Celtic origin. They were apprehended and reported to the exactor of tribute, who attempted to send them forth from the island safe and sound and furnished them with barley, wine, and with whatever other provisions were necessary for the voyage. But their presence had become known to everyone, and Andronikos was informed of the whereabouts of the wretched Komnenians, whereupon he who hated the light begrudged the men their eyesight and deprived them of the light.
Then Andronikos, who regarded the death of Vatatzes [Pentecost, May 1182] as a divine visitation, added another deceit to the rest of his

§ 265  duplicities and advised Emperor Alexios that he should be crowned emperor. Shedding hot tears, he lifted him onto his shoulders and carried him up the pulpit of the Great Church in the presence of countless witnesses, both citizens and foreigners; carrying him back in the same manner, he appeared to be more affectionate than a father, one who accepted the charge to protect the youthful scion of the empire with his right hand and clearly fulfilled the saying of David, “For thou has lifted me up, and cast me down.”
Zealously banishing everyone [from the court], Andronikos, now the lord of all, administered the affairs of the empire as he liked. His first objective was to remove the emperor’s mother from the emperor. To accomplish this, he continually made accusations against her and threatened to leave because she was openly opposed to the common good of the state, saying that her every action was devious and that she actively conspired against the emperor. To incite the populace’s outrage against her, he brought them together in the sacred palace on many occasions and, using the arts of the demagogue, persuaded them to seize eagerly upon the resolution he had taken against the empress. He compelled the excellent Theodosios against his will to agree in writing to her removal from the seat of government and to her expulsion from the palace; the shameless from among the base populace would have seized Theodosios by the beard in complete disregard of his famed piety if he had not acceded to Andronikos’s demands and thus averted the danger of violence [August 1183].
From among the judges of the velum, Demetrios Tornikes, Leon

§ 266  Monasteriotes, and Constantine Patrenos, who had not as yet been added to the lists of those who belonged to Andronikos’s circle nor openly and servilely subscribed to his every whim and bent their knees in submission, very nearly lost their lives. When they were required to prosecute the empress for the charges brought against her, they responded that first they wanted to ascertain whether this tribunal and trial were taking place according to the will and pleasure of the emperor. Andronikos, as though pricked with an ox-goad by this query, declared, “These are the men who incited the protosebastos to perpetrate his foul deeds. Seize them.” Forthwith, the bodyguards removed the two-edged swords from their shoulders as though to strike them down, and the populace, grabbing hold of their cloaks, insolently pulled them hither and thither so that they barely escaped with their lives.
Andronikos next attacked the grandees. The latter, who deemed such deeds intolerable and beheld the Cyclopean feast taking place before their very eyes, pledged to give no sleep to their eyes nor rest to their temples to insure that Andronikos would be dead and stained by his own blood before he should dye his garment with the purple he coveted.
With fearful oaths they ratified their alliance against Andronikos, who, like some ferocious boar on a rampage of destruction, was bent on uprooting the imperial family. The conspirators were Andronikos, the son of Constantine Angelos, the grand duke Andronikos Kontostephanos, and their sixteen sons, all in their prime, with swords drawn for battle. They were joined by the logothete of the dromos, Basil Kamateros, and many other kinsmen and notables.
But the conspiracy did not escape Andronikos, and in the end it was betrayed. Then Andronikos led a charge against Andronikos Angelos,

§ 267  who was encamped a little distance beyond the gates of the City, and compelled him to flee with his sons. Fortunately, he escaped the dragnet spread out for him by Andronikos’s troops by chancing upon a boat filled with empty amphorae; heaving these overboard together with the refuse of the fishing net, he and his sons boarded and sailed out of danger.
Taking captive Kontostephanos, his four sons, and Basil Kamateros, Andronikos blinded them all, together with others who were accused of participating with those who agreed to the conspiracy only on the basis of unsubstantiated and doubtful hearsay.
Having thus slaughtered those whom he had long been most eager to seize, Andronikos bided his time to assail others: some he delivered over to prison, some he comdemned to banishment, and some he utterly destroyed in various ways. Those few who remained were anxious to go along with the majority and to reverse their former course. They changed their minds like the unstable planets and offered their necks to Andronikos to be tread underfoot, revolving around him as their axis, and so Andronikos hastened to bring about the ruin of the empress. After leveling several accusations against her, he finally charged her with treason and convened a court sympathetic to his cause with judges certain to condemn, not try, the wretched woman. The empress, who had attempted to enlist the help of her sister’s husband, Bela [III], the king of Hungary, writing him letters and tempting him with grand promises to ravage the lands around

§ 268  Branicevo and Belgrade, was led away to a cramped dungeon near the Monastery of Saint Diomedes. There she was grossly reviled by the guards as the butt of their jokes, and, pining with hunger and thirst, she was haunted by a vision of the executioner standing on her right where his edge would cut most surely. Andronikos’s ferocity did not abate even a whit. In the words of David, he perceived trouble and wrath and hastened to deliver her over to death, annoyed by the fact that she was still numbered among the living. Ere long he again assembled the justices who mete out injustice and whose right hand is the right hand of iniquity. He inquired as to what punishment the laws decree for traitors of cities and provinces; receiving in hand a written judgment sentencing such criminals to death, his assault against the empress went unchecked.
When these lawless men raised their voices and shouted aloud as they cast their votes that this ill-starred woman must depart this life, a decree condemning her to death was immediately signed by her son, the emperor, written as though with a drop of his mother’s blood.
Elected to carry out this loathsome and unholy deed were Andronikos’s firstborn son Manuel and the sebastos George, the brother of Andronikos’s wife. Both men recoiled from their selection in disgust and contemned the emperor’s decree, declaring that they had not concurred earlier in the empress’s execution and that their hands would remain guiltless of such defilement; now, even more so, they could not endure to see her innocent body broken. This unexpected reply struck Andronikos like a thunderbolt. He continually twisted the hairs of his beard around his fingers, his eyes were filled with fire, and, shaking his head up and

§ 269  down, he repeatedly pitied himself and was greatly troubled that he did not have friends who delighted in blood and were eager to commit murder at the nod of his head. Holding his rage in check, like a hotblooded horse champing at the bit or like smoke wrapping itself around a flame, he quenched his unremitting anger and postponed the execution.
A few days later [end of 1182?], he condemned the ill-starred empress to a wretched death by strangulation. The sentence was carried out under the supervision of Constantine Tripsychos, who held the office of hetairiarch, and the eunuch Pterygeonites, who, as we have mentioned above, wickedly caused the death of Maria Porphyrogenita by poisoning. And she, who was the sweet light and a vision of beauty unto men, was buried in obscurity in the sand of the nearby shore (O Sun, who didst look down upon this defilement, and Thou, O Word of God, who art without beginning, how inscrutable is thy forebearance!). The bloodthirsty soul of Andronikos exulted at this, for with the extermination of Manuel’s family, with the imperial garden laid waste, he would reign as sole monarch over the Roman empire and hold sway with impunity.
With the advent of the month of September in the second indiction of the year [1182 CE], he was determined to ascend the throne. Therefore, presumably with Andronikos’s sanction (although he concealed his purpose), the members of his perverse conspiracy raised before the council the issue of the insurrection fomented by the Bithynians and the reception of Isaakios Angelos and Theodore Kantakouzenos within the city

§ 270  of Nicaea, as well as the wickedness worked by the Prusaeans by granting shelter to Theodore Angelos and making common cause with the Nicaeans. The council contended that the seditionists would not be stilled in any other way except that Andronikos should become emperor, since he whose hair had turned silver gray by time was able to speak more wisely than the young, that he should sit on the throne and bind his head with the bejeweled imperial diadem and reign together with the emperor, who had been cut off from the friends of his youth, for he could perceive clearly what must be done and carry out the action to be undertaken more forcefully and authoritatively than the young Alexios. Immediately, the bystanders and those members of noble birth and holders of high office who had assembled to support Andronikos, shouted out in unison that the proposal laid before them represented their wish of long ago and that there was no time for delay; in truth, unless they combined persuasion with force they would be unable to advance their cause. They began the acclamation, thereby publicly proclaiming Andronikos’s elevation, as follows, “Many be the years of Alexios and Andronikos, the Komnenoi, the great emperors and autocrats of the Romans,” chanting with mouths open wide and their voices almost bursting.
When the news of this happy event was broadcast among the foolish citizens (for this is how the Constantinopolitan populace must be described), the masses, who represented every race and trade and age, rose up following the termination of the council meeting and congregated like swarms of bees pouring out of their hives. The report of Andronikos’s public proclamation soon spread everywhere and reached the ears of these vile toadies — a certain judge of the velum (I purposely pass over his name), promoted to the office of petitions as Andronikos’s warmest supporter, and a certain other man, honored with the office of protonotary, who lived by his tongue, taking second place to none as an ignoble agent of the tyranny. As though with one breath, they arrived at the tyrant’s dwelling where these unlawful rituals were celebrated (this

§ 271  was the so-called House of Michaelitzes). They removed the headdresses which denoted their senatorial rank, and taking the white linen stoles that hung down over their shoulders, they rolled them up into balls. Then, directing the vulgar populace as leaders of the chorus, they conducted the festivities that followed. Changing the pitch of the voice so as to sing a melody varied by modulation, jumping about frenetically, and clapping their hands, they kicked their feet and whirled up and down in the midst of the crowds, and they beat the earth as they danced, with song and shouting. O, what shamelessness, small-mindedness, and levity!
When Andronikos had gone down from the tyrant’s dwelling to the palace in Blachernai and had entered the high-vaulted chamber within called Polytimos, Emperor Alexios made his appearance amid paeans and groans (for not everyone was swept along by the times). He found the palace crowded and saw that Andronikos was acclaimed by all as emperor. Of his own will, yet with soul unwilling, he therefore gave his sanction to the proceedings and, together with the others, flattered the little old man, urging him to reign as co-emperor; thus Andronikos attained the goal he had so passionately desired for many years. In seeming disregard of the assembly, his most devoted supporters, as though taking him by surprise, held him securely by both arms and set him down on the gold-spangled couch on which the emperor sat. Removing his dark gray pyramidal headdress made of wool, one group put a red one on him, and another dressed him in an imperial robe.
On the following day, when the public proclamation began in the Great Church, Andronikos was proclaimed first and Alexios demoted to second in rank. The reason given was the best and most specious: it was

§ 272  not proper, they said, for a beardless child who had not yet reached maturity to take precedence in the proclamations over the gray-haired Andronikos, who was venerable in his counsel and, thanks to the nobility of his nature, endowed with the capacity to see both before and after.
When Andronikos entered the sacred palace on his way to be crowned, for the first time he appeared to the people to be in good humor, and the wild beast, altering his grim gaze, promised many of the suppliants a change for the better in the state of affairs. This was all a manifest deception, a cheat’s false promise, and his cheerful countenance, betokening the barest humanity, was a transient image overshadowing his inner savageness.
In the holy temple, the customary coronation rites were concluded, and the moment came for Andronikos to receive the Immaculate Consecrated Elements. He partook of the Heavenly Bread, and as he drew near to the chalice to drink the Precious and Life-giving Blood contained therein, he lifted up his hands towards the cup and assumed the aspect of one in deep suffering, swearing on the Awesome Mysteries in earshot of nearly all those standing in the holy sanctuary that the only reason he chose to reign was that he wished to assist this one in his rule (pointing to the emperor, his nephew Alexios who stood at his side), him whom he strangled several days later and dispatched to the bottom of the sea.
As Andronikos left the holy temple, he was escorted by a most splendid brigade of bodyguards, complemented by a very large number of shield-bearers (he had given such instructions because he was sore afraid), and passing by the Church of Christ Savior in Chalke, he did not advance in slow and cadent pace as was the custom with emperors celebrating a triumph but let his horse proceed freely.

§ 273  However, even this event was an issue for dispute: some contended that it was fear that gave rise to the spectacle, while others maintained that because of the day-long strain and the fatigue caused by the encumbrance of the imperial trappings, the old man was unable to contain the excreta of his bowels over a long period of time and defecated in his breeches. Andronikos arrived at the Great Palace and celebrated the inauguration festivities for several days; then he turned his attention to other deeds filled with violence.
In his desire to dispose of Emperor Alexios, he once again assembled his loyal council and gathered together the partisans who conspired with him in his unhallowed acts. Pronouncing all together the Homeric verse, “No good thing is a multitude of lords; let there be one lord, one king,” and “Better the aged eagle than the fledgling lark,” they resolved that Emperor Alexios should become a private citizen, no longer recalling their obscure arguments made to so many about the need to protect the youthful emperor and to preserve the empire. These things had been shouted out heretofore and given as excuses to those who questioned the cause behind these events, to those who lived in the most splendid city of Constantine but were not aware of the developments that had transpired and were wholly ignorant of the reason for which they had taken place.
Before the citizenry was fully apprised of this resolution, the death sentence against the emperor was elicited from that wicked confederacy as these murderers openly applauded the verse of Solomon, “ Let us bind

§ 274  the righteous, because he is not for our turn, and he is grievous unto us even to behold.” In the night, Stephanos Hagiochristophorites, Constantine Tripsychos, and a certain Theodore Dadibrenos, the commander of the lictors, fell upon Alexios and throttled him with a bowstring [before September 1183]. When the corpse was taken up and brought to Andronikos, he kicked it in the side and mocked the parents of the dead youth as his body lay stretched out, deriding the father as a perjurer and wantonly insulting his weak mother as a well-known harlot; afterwards, one of the corpse’s ears was pierced with a nail, and a wax impression of Andronikos’s signet ring was hung from it by a thread.
The body was condemned to be thrown into the deep and the head cut off and again exhibited to Andronikos. When the orders had been carried out, the head was hidden in a hole in a corner of the district called Katabate; the body was enclosed in a lead coffer and cast into the bosom of the sea. The fishing boat which carried this most piteous cargo was taken out to sea to the accompaniment of song and dance by two men held in high esteem, John Kamateros, the keeper of the emperor’s inkstand, who was later appointed archbishop of Bulgaria, and Theodore Choumnos, who was honored with the rank of chartoularios.

§ 275  IV The Reign of Andronikos Komnenos BOOK ONE
THUS did Emperor Alexios disappear from the world, not yet fifteen years of age. He had reigned for three of these years, but not alone and unaided, for as he was but a child, his mother at first governed the realm, and then the affairs of the empire were administered by two tyrants. It was as though the sun were hidden behind the clouds, and it seemed as though Alexios was subject instead of ruler, commanding and doing whatever the rebels proposed until his life was choked out.
When this loathsome deed had been accomplished, Anna, Emperor Alexios’s wife, the daughter of the king of France [Louis VII], was joined in wedded life to Andronikos. And he who stank of the dark ages was not ashamed to lie unlawfully with his nephew’s red-cheeked and tender spouse who had not yet completed her eleventh year, the overripe suitor

§ 276  embracing the unripe maiden, the dotard the damsel with pointed breasts, the shriveled and languid old man the rosy-fingered girl dripping with the dew of love.
Andronikos thereupon requested a second favor of the patriarch who satisfied all his wishes (I speak of Basil Kamateros) and of the synod of that time [c. October 1183]. He asked to be released from the oath which he had sworn to Emperor Manuel and his wretched son, together with all the others who were looked upon as having violated their pledges. The members of the synod, who had received from God the power to bind and loose all sins without discrimination, forthwith published decrees granting amnesty to all those who had breached their oaths. Like an admirer, Andronikos rewarded them for carrying out his orders and readily granted their every request no matter how small or paltry it might be. He paid them the highest honor by sitting in council with them and by having their benches and couches placed close to the imperial throne.
Nonetheless, these hierarchs, who were chosen and admitted into his presence, became objects of ridicule, and after a few days of this fantasy of honor and the illusion of glory, Andronikos returned to his former ways like a twig that is forcibly bent, but then springs back to its original position when released. Rather, he deviated even more from his previous behavior; so that he should not appear to be the most unstable of men,

§ 277  suffering from an inconstancy of character even in matters of little consequence, he made it difficult for the hierarchs to gain an audience as he sat on his splendid throne. And they, who but a short while before had been exalted by sitting in the imperial council and had boasted that they had been awarded this high privilege because, in the words of David, they were “the faithful of the land,” now withdrew and hid their faces in shame, pitying themselves for having fallen away from God by loosing those things which cannot be loosed and by fawning over Andronikos in vain.
The news of Andronikos’s accession and Emperor Alexios’s murder reached Alexios Branas and Andronikos Lapardas, the commanders of the divisions which were engaged in resisting, at Nis and Branicevo, Bela, the king of Hungary, who was ravaging the surrounding lands and wreaking havoc with the sword. Lapardas despaired for his life and henceforth ever suspected that Andronikos’s wide-gaping jaws would one day open and swallow him. Branas, on the other hand, had already declared himself among Andronikos’s supporters and welcomed the transfer of imperial power. After giving a great deal of thought to the many ways in which he might escape, Andronikos Lapardas, like a Laconian hound in hot pursuit, found one salutary path that would lead him away from the countenance and power of Andronikos, and he would have preserved himself from injury had he persisted in this design and had not ventured on another course of action. With a passionate desire to punish Andronikos and avenge the crime against his lord and emperor, he dared to revolt. He knew that the West would not come over to his side nor be willing to take up and continue the battle against Andronikos because of the presence of his fellow general Branas. Thus he set his eyes on the East, where he was better known because there he had often exercised the highest commands, and that was, moreover, the breeding ground of eager champions of resistance.

§ 278  After consulting with his fellow commander and persuading Branas to stay at his post, he set out immediately to meet with the aged and newly made emperor, outrunning Rumor, which clearly perceives those things hidden beneath the earth and often sees future events as though they had already taken place. He stayed only a brief time at Orestias, his native city, which others called Adrianople, just long enough to see his sisters there and to make arrangements to go abroad and then hastened his crossing to the East as quickly as possible, for Rumor, the gossipmonger, was already shouting out in the crossroads and broad thoroughfares and from the walls and housetops and in every direction within earshot, heralding his flight. One night, therefore, he and his companions came down to the sea, embarked on ships made ready at Hyelokastellion for this purpose and crossed to the other side. After a brief respite here, he hoped to escape utter destruction and being served up as a prepared feast and ready dessert for the waiting jaws of Andronikos. It seems he had been blotted out from the book of the living by Providence and was destined to become food for the beast.
Hence, since the Divinity’s will was contrary, he was seized and sent to Andronikos by those very men whom he hoped would help preserve him unharmed and enable him to work great and noble deeds, those men in whose might of hand and soul he had trusted to find every kind of support in overthrowing Andronikos. These were figments of a deluded imagination and proved to be dream-like apparitions. At Atramyttion, he was apprehended by a certain Kephalas, a man of great power and the

§ 279  tyrant’s most trusted supporter, and he was entrusted into the hands of Andronikos as a sacrificial victim. His eyes were gouged out, and he was cast into the Monastery of Pantepoptes. There Lapardas lamented the fact that he had miscalculated the force of the circumstances that opposed him: he had cast the die of rebellion for the best reasons, but Fortune had taken no heed whatsoever of those things which he had undertaken with good counsel and had sided with the worst faction.
Thus God does not reveal to us whether our lives shall be free from toil and sorrow, neither does he give us any presentment of future evil, or allow us to choose a way of life without danger. This man, who often proved himself a most excellent general, thought it a base act to serve Andronikos after the death of Emperor Alexios. Anticipating that he would be put to death by the tyrant, he chose voluntary exile in the face of certain execution and was taken unawares by him from whom he fled, falling into those hands he sought to escape; supposing that he would take Andronikos from behind in hot pursuit, he was met head-on, engaged face to face, and overpowered.
Not long afterwards, Lapardas departed this life. Andronikos had been so frightened by his defection that all throughout Lapardas’s flight he had been haunted by his own imminent destruction; he had feared him because he was sudden and quick to give battle and distinguished by manly courage. In the realization that no headway was being made against him by continued pursuit or by armed combat, the contriver had devised a novel stratagem. He had sent to the governors of the eastern provinces imperial letters whose contents truly spoke in wickedness: Andronikos contended that he had sent Lapardas to Asia and that whatever actions Lapardas should undertake, even though unclear to most in purpose,

§ 280  would be done according to plan and on behalf of his rule, and he urged all to welcome him without hesitation. Andronikos’s intent was to thwart thereby the onrush of many who were suspicious as to why Lapardas had resolved to oppose Andronikos and was marching out the ranks of warriors as his adversary. Andronikos testified to the rebel’s loyalty and commanded that the fugitive be welcomed as though sent by him. But even if these novel letters effectively achieved their purpose, it was impossible to foresee how quickly the man would be taken.
Having repulsed this terror beyond all expectations [before Christmas 1183], the emperor’s niggardly soul was gladdened even as the corn with dew upon the ears. He set out from the City and, making his way leisurely with brief stopovers, came to Kypsella. After enjoying himself in the chase in those parts, he arrived at the monastery founded by his father in Vera and visited his father’s tomb, escorted by his bodyguard and in the full imperial splendor which his father had long ago desired but never attained; it was from his father that Andronikos inherited his passion to become emperor. During this period, which many called the halcyon days, he desisted from inflicting injury and returned shortly to the imperial palace, as the Feast of the Nativity was at hand.
With the coming of spring [1184 CE] he attended the horse races and spectacles and then assembled all the troops, those from the western and eastern armies who had not rebelled, and took the road leading directly to the city of Nicaea. He dispatched Alexios Branas, who had returned from the regions of Branicevo, with a large force to be drawn out in battle array around Lopadion. The Lopadians had already joined their neighbors, the Nicaeans and the Prusaeans, in revolt.

§ 281  Since the expedition fared well for Branas and he had brought a successful conclusion to the campaign, he continued on to Nicaea, where he joined forces with Andronikos. When both armies were gathered together into one force, Andronikos determined to assault the city. The defenders were insolent, not only when Andronikos was absent, but they also scorned him when he was present; appearing on the wall, they defended themselves with weapons and delivered blows of vulgarities, sparing neither missile nor obscenity. The gates of the city were shut and securely bolted, but the gates of the lips opened wide, and the defenders’ tongues issued forth from the breastworks of the teeth to discharge missiles of scurrilities against Andronikos. Cut to the quick by such darts, he breathed forth a fire of wrath, forcing out a Typhonian blast, and was unable to contain his resentment, for the city of Nicaea boasted to be impregnable, or very nearly so, thanks to her mighty walls built all of baked bricks. At that time, soldiers who abhorred Andronikos streamed into the city. Among these were Isaakios Angelos, who later put an end to Andronikos’s tyranny and held sway over the Romans after him, and Theodore Kantakouzenos, as well as Turks who were invited inside, all of which seemed to him to bode no good for the besiegers.
For many days, Andronikos rode up to the walls but was unable to accomplish anything; it seemed to him that he was assaulting precipitous mountains, or that he was foolishly engaging stony ridges in battle and contending against Arbela and the walls of Semiramis, or shooting arrows into the sky. The defenders fought furiously: with weapons they beat back the assaults made by weapons; and with their war engines they rendered totally useless the stone-throwing machines contrived by the

§ 282  ingenious Andronikos, who set up a battery of wall-demolishing siege engines and employed miners, making use of everything possible to bring down the city’s walls. Emulously vying with those present, Andronikos boasted that he was supremely skilled in the art of taking cities. On the one hand, he positioned the siege engines, carefully examined the sling, secured both the withy end and the crank handle, and reinforced the battering ram with iron; the defenders, on the other hand, leapt forth from the city’s hidden posterns, put the torch to the war engines, and smashed them by hand; when similar engines were moved up to the walls, they demolished them like the threads of a spider’s web. When Andronikos saw all his deliberations brought to naught, he contrived an inhuman deed which had been executed a few times in the past by both besiegers and besieged.
Euphrosyne [Kastamonitissa], the mother of Isaakios Angelos, was brought from Byzantion. Andronikos proposed at first to use her as a shield for the siege engines, but instead he placed her on top of the battering ram as though it were a carriage and moved the engines of war up to the walls. One could not but both weep and marvel at such a spectacle — weep because this strange sight was the cause of fury compounded by the fact that the perpetrators shrank not from an act so incredible and alien to human nature — and marvel that the frail woman, seated on top of the engines of war and hauled to the city’s walls, had not died of fright. For the first time, mortals were to see soft feminine flesh become a bulwark for iron, exchanging its function for a dissimilar one, the fragile human frame projecting out from the hard engines of war to prevent metal from smashing against metal, the human body giving cover to iron. The defenders discharged their missiles from the walls as before, but with great care, so as to wound and strike down the attackers while preserving the noblewoman from all bodily harm; it was as though by gesturing with her hands and nodding, she deflected the missiles away from herself and transfixed them in the hearts of the enemy. Then did

§ 283  Andronikos perceive that this inhuman contrivance would accomplish nothing. As for the Nicaeans, sallying forth at night, they set fire to the engines of war and pulled the woman up by a rope, or like Harpies snatched her up and carried her off, leaving Andronikos behind beating his breast like another Phineus with no meat to set before the hungry beast of his anger. Thus the Nicaeans, who knew great glory for their bravery against the enemy, displayed yet more manliness, and they prosecuted the war with increased vigor and courage.
They appeared on the walls and performed noble deeds and poured down abuse on Andronikos, calling him butcher, bloodthirsty dog, rotten old man, undying evil, Avenger of men, lover of women, Priapos, and more aged than Tithonos and Kronos, and every other obscene thing and name. According to reports, they leaped down from the battlements and poured out of the gates. Andronikos, with ashen face and unnatural scowl, twisted his flowing, curly beard with his finger as though he were plying the loom and made no secret of his anger as he wove cunning wiles against the Nicaeans.
Hungering like a dog, which has nothing to feed on, in the words of David, he would go round about the city, and, like a bear at a loss marching forth, he berated the regiments and castigated the commanders for being inept in warfare and avoiding battle.

§ 284  Theodore Kantakouzenos, a bold man and in the prime of his life, like newly treaded wine fermenting in the wine vat, observed Emperor Andronikos one day as he was making a circuit of the city with a sizeable contingent of troops and cavalry regiments. Motivated by a sudden impulse, he leaped forth through the open eastern gates, followed by a few other horsemen, and tilted his lance against Andronikos as he rode out in front. Charging at an ever-quickening pace, he dug his spurs into his horse, urging it to fly as though nature had furnished its feet with wings, but he missed his mark and destroyed himself. When the horse tripped over a hole and fell on its knees, Kantakouzenos was thrown from his saddle: the front of his head struck the ground as he fell head over heels, his back muscles suffered serious injury, and he lay in a daze with his strength spent. Thereupon, many of Andronikos’s troops rushed forward with swords drawn and decapitated him; others severed his body piecemeal according to Andronikos’s wishes. Shortly afterwards, Kantakouzenos’s head, raised on a pike, was exhibited to the inhabitants of Constantinople and paraded through the streets of the City.
The Nicaeans, deprived of their daring and invincible champion, mourned the fallen man greatly and lost heart. They looked to Isaakios Angelos and wished to submit to him and to have him serve as their leader. But he was irresolute and, like Aeneas, stood aloof from the contest, looking into the future and imagining that the emperorship was reserved for him to the glory of his family, for he did not highly regard the sovereign.
He entered into negotiations with the Romans, and, as a result, the zeal of the troops gradually diminished, and their noble and inspired elan was snuffed out. They met together and in tragic terms declaimed of the terrible hardships the besieged must endure as though these were taking

§ 285  place before their very eyes. Reflecting on Andronikos’s cruelty, they considered the diverse kinds of torture and suffering that prevail according to the law of warfare whenever a city is taken by force, and they cowered like leverets; as Kaineus, according to myth, was changed from a woman into a man, they, on the other hand, succumbed to womanish softness, and none cherished the idea of performing deeds of virtue.
It was as though with Kantakouzenos’s death they had all perished with him and their daring and ardor for warfare lay buried.
Nicholas, the archbishop of Nicaea, realized the grim realities of the situation and argued for the necessity to be generous. Summoning the people to the church, he proposed that they yield to the times and circumstances. Ere the city was deluged by the waves of battle, they would do best voluntarily to hand it over to Andronikos, as it was evident that Andronikos, who had nothing to distract or divert his attention elsewhere, would never return empty-handed and that the Nicaeans were little by little abandoning the watch and ward of the city and inclining towards the cause of peace. Everyone considered the archbishop’s suggestion an excellent one, and he grasped the ensuing good with both hands.
Donning his sacred vestments and taking into his hands the Holy Scriptures, he commanded the church attendants and all of the remaining citizens to follow him so that neither women nor children would be missing from the procession. They were to bear no weapons and to wave olive branches as suppliants, with head and hands uncovered and feet bare, presenting themselves as true suppliants and exciting pity with their gestures of wretchedness and their submissive cries.
In such manner did they pour forth from the city. Emperor Andronikos, taken by complete surprise by this unexpected spectacle, blinked many times to verify the reality of what he beheld; he thought that all that he saw was but a dream. Once assured that his eyes were not playing

§ 286  tricks on him, he put aside all sentiments of noble-mindedness and sincerity befitting an emperor, and the deranged man perverted mercy; having no lion skin to put forth, he donned the fox skin, pretending to receive them gladly and nearly shedding tears. This was an old trick of Andronikos to conceal the truth.
But he did not play the role for long. Soon he cast off his soft words, smoother than olive oil, like so many rags and openly demonstrated to the Nicaeans and, in particular, to those who excelled in rank and nobility of birth how great was the wrath nurtured by the old man and how, as his rancor, hatred, and malice smoldered, he was in time to dispense retribution. Many were forced to become fugitives from their homeland, while others, cast headlong from the walls, suffered a most horrible death. As for the Turks, he impaled them in a circle around the city.
He extolled Isaakios Angelos for his words and deeds, for Isaakios did not make use of his teeth as weapons and missiles as Theodore Kantakouzenos had done; instead, he had rebuked the latter many times for speaking insolently against the anointed of the Lord and for unsheathing the tongue from his mouth like a sharp sword. Andronikos filled Isaakios with great expectations, thus nurturing by divine direction his own murderer, the man who was to remove him from the throne and whom he cherished for as long as Providence decreed, and he sent him back to Byzantion while he marched on to the city of Prusa with his troops.

§ 287  He began the siege immediately and established an entrenched camp south of the city, where it appeared that the wall was approachable because here the terrain was level, whereas the rest of the city was situated high on a rocky and rounded hill which jutted out precipitously. The engines of war and the men did not remain idle but performed their tasks suitably. Andronikos, who was given to loquaciousness, attached winged words to the volant shafts of missiles and shot these into the city. These letters borne through the air offered encouragement for a change, and amnesty for evils, should they open the gates, welcome him inside, and seize Theodore Angelos and Lachanas of the marketplace and the witless Synesios, to use Andronikos’s words, as well as their partisans, and give them up. He repeated this for a considerable number of days. Nor was the battle waged against Prusa inferior to that joined against Nicaea in regard to both the prowess of those men who engaged the imperial divisions and the hatred that was felt for Andronikos, the cause of hostilities. Prusa was a city of beautiful towers, encompassed by formidable walls which were double in the southern region. When the two armies joined in battle there were many sallies and many fell on both sides.
As it was fated that this city should bow under the yoke of Andronikos and that the majority of the inhabitants be taken captive and suffer utter ruin, a portion of the wall, repeatedly struck by the siege engines, crumbled. Moreover, when the addition to the old wall at this spot and the girt timbers were thrown down, it appeared to those within that the entire section of the wall struck by the siege engines had come tumbling down, and an unintelligible cry rose up and terror gripped the hearts of all. Frightened almost to death by the crashing noise of the dislodged

§ 288  stones, the defenders abandoned their posts without ascertaining the extent of the damage, descended from the walls, and collected in the streets in a state of confusion. As a result, the enemy easily gained entry into the city through the gates and by way of the scaling ladders placed against the walls. The Prusaeans were seized and cruelly killed; their possessions were carried away as plunder, and the fatted beasts, the flocks of sheep, and the herds of cattle which had been driven into the city to feed the inhabitants during the siege were slaughtered. Such were the horrors inflicted at that time.
Afterwards, Andronikos entered the city and lodged within, but he did not conduct himself as a meek emperor and savior before the Prusaeans, who were former and future subjects even though they had rebelled for a time, but like a ravenous lion falling on unpenned and shepherdless flocks, he broke the neck of one, devoured the inward parts of another, and did even worse things to a third; the rest he scattered in the direction of cliffs and mountains and chasms. In this fashion did Andronikos behave. Since there had been no preceding formal compact or truce with the citizenry of Prusa, nor had a voluntary surrender been negotiated, and as the city had been taken by force, he utterly ruined and destroyed the vast majority, portioning out his savage anger in manifold and diverse punishments.
He had Theodore Angelos, an unmarried youth with the first down of hair on his cheeks, blinded, placed on an ass, and led away beyond the Roman border and gave instructions that he be then released so that he should roam alone wherever the beast of burden should take him. And Angelos would surely have become food for beasts, which was what

§ 289  Andronikos intended when he inflicted this punishment on him, had not the Turks met up with him, taken pity on the youth, and, leading him to their tents, tended his wounds. Leon Synesios and Manuel Lachanas, as well as forty others, he hanged on the branches of trees growing alongside Prusa. He inflicted punishments on many more: the hands of some he cut off and clipped their fingers as though they were branches of grapevines, and he severed the legs of others. Many were deprived of both hands and eyes; some lost their right eye and left leg and again others suffered the reverse.
Having thus brutally deprived his own reign of those who excelled in bodily strength and miltary experience, Andronikos departed for Lopadion where he perpetrated the same crimes. He deprived the bishop of one of his eyes because he showed no indignation against the seditionists, having submitted meekly and calmly to their movement against Andronikos and stood by without bringing charges, and he returned to the palace delighting in such trophies, leaving behind the cultivated vines of the Prusaeans that climbed trees in close embrace weighted down with the bodies of the hanged like so many clusters of grapes. He allowed none of the impaled to be buried; baked by the sun, they swayed in the wind like scarecrows suspended in a garden of cucumbers by the garden-watchers.
Returning to the City to the acclamations of the populace and the adulation of flatterers, whom the palace ever maintains, he became even more arrogant. In the summertime [1184 CE], when he turned his attention to spectacles and horse racing, a section of the railing of the imperial box

§ 290  collapsed, killing about six men. The fanatic Hippodrome mob became agitated by what happened, and Andronikos, pale with fear, gathered together his bodyguards and jumped from his seat to beat a retreat to the palace, but his favorites pleaded with him to set aside this unseemly resolve and convinced him to remain firmly seated for the time being.
They feared he would perish should he rise up and depart, for the factions would then join forces and attack him and his supporters. He remained there only a short while, until the horse races and gymnastic games were concluded, and removed himself completely from the subsequent spectacles in which those who clamber up ropes with hands and feet and dance high in the air on small and delicate tightropes amuse the spectators; moreover, the wing-footed hares and the hunting hounds demonstrated how fond of such novel sights were those who frequented the amphitheater. In this wise then did these events take their course.
There was a certain man named Isaakios (not Isaakios Angelos) of noblest birth, the son of the daughter of Isaakios the sebastokrator, who, as our history has recorded, was Emperor Manuel’s brother. This Isaakios, appointed by his granduncle Emperor Manuel, governor of Armenia and Tarsus and general of the troops stationed in these parts, met the Armenians as adversaries in battle and was taken captive. He was incarcerated in a fortress for many years, during which time Emperor Manuel died. Later ransomed by the Hierosolymitai, who are called friars, he deemed it fitting to return to his homeland to enlist Andronikos’s help in repaying the ransom money on the advice of Theodora, with whom, as we have often said, Andronikos had sexual relations; this Isaakios was her nephew. Constantine Makrodoukas, the husband of Isaakios’s maternal aunt, and Andronikos Doukas, Isaakios’s kinsman and fast friend from childhood, urged Andronikos to receive Isaakios favorably and to pity him his lengthy exile.

§ 291  But this Isaakios, who imagined his homeland to be as distant as the stars, did not wish to submit to Emperor Andronikos, and he paid no heed to the advice of kinsmen or cherished companions of his youth. Aspiring to power, he passionately desired to become emperor himself, and unable to bow to the yoke of rulers, he ill-advisedly used the monies, provisions, and auxiliary forces sent him from Byzantion to canvass for the throne. Therefore, with a large force he sailed down to Cyprus, where he first represented himself as the lawful ruler commissioned by the emperor [c. 1183], Producing for the Cypriots imperial letters which he himself had composed, he read aloud counterfeit imperial decrees ostensibly representing his responsibilities and did those other things which those who are deputed by others to govern are required to do. Not long afterwards, he exposed himself as a tyrant, revealing the cruelty which he nurtured and behaving savagely towards the inhabitants.
Such was the disposition of this Isaakios that he so far exceeded Andronikos in obdurateness and implacability as the latter diametrically surpassed those who were notorious as the most ruthless men who ever lived. Once he felt secure in his rule, he did not cease from perpetrating countless wicked deeds against the inhabitants of the island. He defiled himself by committing unjustifiable murders by the hour and became the maimer of human bodies, inflicting, like some instrument of disaster, penalties and punishments that led to death. The hideous and accursed lecher illicitly defiled marriage beds and despoiled virgins. He irresponsibly robbed once prosperous households of all their belongings, and those indigenous inhabitants who but yesterday and the day before were admired and rivalled Job in riches, he drove to beggary with famine and nakedness, as many, that is, whom the hot-tempered wretch did not cut down with the sword.
Alas and alack, how the ways of ungodly men prosper! They flourish who deal treacherously. Thou hast planted them, and they have taken root; they have begotten children, and become fruitful. Thus did the prophet make his defense to the Lord when speaking of judgments.

§ 292  For that generation, one might say, produced hemlock to ripen for no other purpose than to bring death to those to whom it was offered, and utter ruin to the majority of cities whose government they lawlessly seized.
When Emperor Andronikos heard of these events, in no way whatever could he be restrained, for he saw that which of old had terrified him now about to befall him (he suspected that the letter iota would put an end to his rule). He sought some means by which Isaakios might be apprehended and his anticipated destroyer sent from this life; he was afraid lest Isaakios sail from Cyprus and overthrow his tyrannical rule, knowing full well that Isaakios would be warmly received by all, since the evil from afar seems less grievous than that which is at hand, and the greater evil which awaits us appears less oppressive than that which afflicts us in the present. It seems to be a human trait to be content with any brief and incidental relief from suffering.
But he had no means with which to subdue the absent enemy, and thus he turned his anger against those at hand, doing the same thing that dogs are often wont to do: retreating before anyone who throws a stone at them, they defend themselves by barking, but once the stone is thrown, they attack with snapping teeth. Indeed, he put on trial Isaakios’s uncle, Constantine Makrodoukas, and Andronikos Doukas, who made a pledge of good faith before Andronikos that they did not wish to see the worthless Isaakios set loose and returned to his homeland. A few days later, they were charged with the crime of lese majesty, despite the fact that they were the most eminent leaders of Andronikos’s party and the most powerful members of his faction. On the one hand, there was Makrodoukas, who, besides the various proofs of friendship he had diligently bestowed on Andronikos, was also married to the sister of Theodora with whom, as has been often recorded, Andronikos had illicit relations; Andronikos Doukas, on the other hand, was a lecher and a knave, with shamelessness written on his face,

§ 293  who pretended to be the staunchest supporter of Andronikos’s cause. Whenever Andronikos resolved to gouge out the eyes of someone, Andronikos Doukas, an apt pupil of the murderer who from the beginning delights in the ruin of human beings, would also decree the loss of hands or decide on impalement, frequently uttering imprecations against Andronikos and upbraiding him most shamelessly for not inflicting suitable punishments for offences committed.
When the most splendid and auspicious day arrived on which the bodily ascension of our Lord and Savior into the heavens is celebrated [21 May 1184], all the attendants of the imperial court were summoned to assembly; consequently, there was a tumultuous concourse and sudden rush of representatives of every race and nation to the place where the emperor was sojourning. At that time he had taken up quarters at the Outer Philopation, as it was called. It was as if those who were gathering were singing a palinode, and as they came running, they took another route that led to the so-called palaces of Manganes, which were also built inside the Philopation and were later razed by Andronikos. When large, extremely large, crowds had swelled the gathering, and no one was missing whose presence was required, Doukas and Makrodoukas suddenly were ushered from the nearby ground-floor prisons and paraded before the court and assembled throng as condemned criminals. Led forth as under judgment, they saw the emperor leaning out from the upper chambers, and they played their role by raising their eyes and solemnly crossing their hands.

§ 294  Stephanos Hagiochristophorites, called Antichristophorites by the people of that time who converted his name according to his works (for he was in fact the most shameless of Andronikos’s attendants, filled with every wickedness), picked up a stone the size of his hand, took aim, and threw it at Makrodoukas, the most excellent of the emperor’s in-laws, the most venerable in age, and by far the richest. He urged everyone to follow his example, and looking round at the entire assembly, he badgered anyone who did not cast a stone and vilified him as being disloyal to the emperor and threatened that he would shortly suffer the same sentence.
Intimidated by this threat, the entire assembly picked up large stones and hurled them at the men; the spectacle that followed this mischief was piteous and incredible, and the stones rose up into a heap. As the men were still breathing, certain attendants who were assigned this task lifted them up and wrapped them in the blankets which cover the pack saddles of mules. They carried Doukas to the opposite shore which had been set aside for the burial of the Jews, while they brought Makrodoukas to a hilly promontory on the side of the straits opposite the Monastery of Mangana, and both men were impaled.
For the first time the Constantinopolitans saw with their eyes what they could not believe with their ears; heretofore when such things had been related to them, they would stop up the orifices of the ear, but now that these things were taking place before their very eyes, they wailed aloud. And as they contemplated the deed, they were utterly bewildered and suffered a double torment over these events: for they were overcome by the sufferings of their countrymen. Those who imagined that the danger had not drawn near to them endured over a longer period of time the trial of those who were already caught up in the midst of vexations.
Others desisted from their grievous boding once the evil, which in the past they had turned over in their minds, had materialized. Those who always were able to foresee the future with knowledge of its dangers as though it were the present were robbed of sleep at night, and during the day their conscience was pricked with every kind of torment.

§ 295  Strangest of all, it was not only these men whose inner faculty of judgment was troubled because they prayed and wished for no good to come to Andronikos who suffered; so also did they to whom he was devoted and ever granted some boon; for they were all suspicious of his treacherous nature and the fickleness of his mind. Moreover, they feared his eagerness to inflict punishment, nor could they ignore the acute danger to themselves.
Our history must not pass over the following. Certain outspoken persons made bold to ask Andronikos for permission to take down the bodies of the hanged men. And he, like Pilate with reference to the God-Man, asked if they had been dead a while; informed by the hangmen that they had perished miserably, he said that he deemed them worthy of pity, weeping as he spoke, and asserted that the severity and authority of the law were stronger than his own impulse and disposition to do otherwise and that the judges’ sentence superceded his own choice of action.
O teardrops, shed by those of old and ourselves in the affliction of our souls, showering down on our hearts as from a cloudburst! O portent of greater sorrow and unequivocal proof of inner distress! Sometimes they flow or trickle from the tearducts from joy, but this was not the case with Andronikos, for whom the flow of tears presaged certain death. O, the light of how many pupils have you extinguished with your hot flow? O, Nikeias Choniates how many have you swept along to Hades in your torrential downpour?
O, how many have you washed away in your deluge! O, what manner of men have you dispatched to their graves as their very last bathwater, or as a drink-offering made over their tombs and poured out as the last libation?
In this wise did Andronikos remove Constantine Makrodoukas and

§ 296  Andronikos Doukas from the world of the living, and both men learned in what fashion he repaid his debts for favors rendered. Not long afterwards, he hanged the two Sebasteianos brothers on the opposite shore of the straits called Perama on the grounds that they had conspired to take his life [summer 1184].
Andronikos continued to occupy himself with these and many other, and even worse, crimes. Alexios Komnenos, who was cupbearer to Manuel Komnenos and a scion of the same family (for he was his brother’s son), was condemned by Andronikos to banishment among the Cumans, from whom he escaped like a flying serpent, so to speak, and arrived in Sicily. When he appeared before William, the tyrant of that island, he revealed his identity. With him was Maleinos from the province of Philippopolis, a man neither notable for his family, illustrious in station, nor distinguished by profession. The wrath of both men against Andronikos made them labor strenuously to the injury of their own country: Alexios made his charge perhaps with some justification, but Maleinos simply obliged Komnenos and exerted himself to appear to those who did not know better that he was one of those who merited respect. They did not relate these things only for the ear of the king but also before large numbers and won them over. They very nearly caressed the soles of the king’s feet and like fawning dogs licked them with their tongues, not so much that Andronikos might be made to suffer miserably but that the tyrant of Sicily might be instigated to seize the Roman provinces as though they were a ready prey.
William was incited by their words. Moreover, he had often heard identical reports from his fellow Latins who had served in the past as

§ 297  mercenaries with the Romans and had rubbed shoulders in the imperial court but then were scattered hither and yon because of the indifference of the hardhearted and merciless Andronikos. Marshaling his military forces in full array, he selected a large number of mercenaries whom he enthused with large stipends and swollen promises and thus enrolled thousands of knights. He transported his land force to Epidamnos and took the city without a blow [24 June 1185, Feast of St. John the Baptist], Directing the naval force to sail straight to the seaports of Thessaloniki, he seized the provinces along the way as they capitulated.
In concert, the land [6 August 1185] and sea forces [15 August 1185] seized and girded the splendid city of Thessaloniki with the taslet of Ares.
The city was taken by siege and a few days later [24 August 1185] admitted the enemy within, not because the defenders were helpless and unskilled in warfare, but because of the betrayal of the strategos David Komnenos. The Thessalonians saw no valor in the man; in his constant dread of Andronikos he was most adroit only in seeking ways to escape his irresistible hands by hiding, if needs be, beneath the waves of the sea, or by losing himself among steep crags, or by hiding out on mountains or in caves, or else in being swallowed up by some monster of the deep as was the fugitive prophet [Jonah]. He did not take it upon himself to do anything. It was the misfortune of the Thessalonians that he

§ 298  who was appointed governor and inglorious commander of the troops, that he who was more effeminate than woman and more cowardly than the deer, taking his and the city of Thessaloniki’s future captors by surprise, should openly summon the enemy while they were still a good distance away and with premeditation place himself in their hands as a willing captive.
Moreover, when the battle was under way and all manner of weapons and siege engines were employed against the city, he remained a spectator rather than an antagonist of the enemy troops; neither was he observed throughout the entire siege sallying forth even though the city’s defenders forcefully roused him to do so, nor did he submit to do their bidding but instead stifled the citizens’ fervor like a worthless hunter holding back the courageous onrush of his whelps. Accordingly, absolutely no one saw him dressed in his suit of armor; rather, he shunned helmet, coat of mail, greaves, and shield like those tenderly reared ladies who know nothing outside their shaded women’s apartments, and he made the rounds of the city mounted upon a mule with his mantle gathered and fastened from behind, wearing elegant gold-embroidered buskins reaching to the ankles. When the siege engines smote the walls, bringing the stones crashing down to the earth, David laughed at the whistling sound made by the stone missiles and the thunderous clap as they struck the wall. As the walls fell in ruins from the breaches, he remarked to the good-for-nothing little fellows in his company, squeezing himself beneath a sturdy arch in the meantime, “I listen to the old lady’s bellowing”; so spoke he who still had need of a nurse, and thus he called the largest of the siege engines whose stone missiles hurtled forth from its ’ fitting to demolish the city’s walls.
Such then was the traitor unfortunately assigned to guard Thessaloniki; allotted a pirate for pilot and a sorcerer for physician, the city capitulated after putting up a brief resistance.

§ 299  The evils which ensued were another succession of Trojan woes surpassing even the calamitous events of tragedy, for every house was robbed of its contents, no dwelling was spared, no narrow passageway was free of despoilers, no hiding place was long hidden. No piteous creature was shown any pity; neither was any heed paid to the entreaty, but the sword passed through all things, and the death-dealing wound ended all wrath. Futile was the flight of many to the holy temples, and vain was their trust in the sacred images. The barbarians, who confused divine and human things, neither knew how to honor the things of God nor to grant sanctuary to those who ran to the temples; the same fate which befell those who stayed in their common dwellings, namely, quick death dealt by the sword or being stripped bare of all possessions which the plunderers considered the greatest beneficence, met those who fled to the temples for refuge — not to mention the even more calamitous circumstance, the terrible affliction of the soul caused by the press and congestion of the throngs that entered the holy temples. Bursting in upon the sanctuaries with weapons in hand, the enemy slew whoever was in the way, and as sacrificial victims mercilessly slaughtered whomever they seized [the clergy].
How could men who defiled the divine and took absolutely no heed of God be expected to spare human life? It was less novel that they plundered the votive offerings to God, placed profane hands on the sacred, and looked with shameless eyes upon those things forbidden to be seen than it was unholy to have dashed the all-hallowed icons of Christ and his servants to the ground; firmly planting their feet on them, they forcibly removed their precious adornments and then threw the icons out into the streets to be trampled under foot by the passers-by, or they cast them into the fire to cook their food. Even more unholy, and terrible for the faithful to hear, was the fact that certain men climbed on top of the

§ 300  holy altar, which even the angels find hard to look upon, and danced thereon, deporting themselves disgracefully as they sang lewd barbarian songs from their homeland. Afterwards, they uncovered their privy parts and let the membrum virile pour forth the contents of the bladder, urinating round about the sacred floor; they performed these lustral besprinklings for the demons, improvising hot baths for the avenging spirits through which they swam with great effort and thereby contriving great misfortunes for mankind and inflicting dreadful sufferings.
When it was time to put an end to the horrors and for the hostilities to cease, the Sicilian commanders rose up to restrain the murderous onrush of the majority. One of the commanders, on horseback and clad in heavy armor, entered the temple of the myrrh-bearing martyr [Saint Demetrios]; some he smote with the flat side of his sword, and on others he inflicted wounds, but he was barely able to stay the course of evil.
These evils were not sufficient unto the Thessalonians, for if the day following the fall put an end straightway to the casting of the besieged down into the House of Hades, the subsequent afflictions pressed the wretched survivors in myriad other ways to seek the end of life and to prefer death to life, so that like sorely pressed Job, many prayed for death and obtained it not.
And every other Latin soldier who took captive his opponent in battle ill-treated him and showed him no mercy. He perpetrated every evil proposed by the arrogance of victory; he robbed his adversary, and, subjugating him, inflicted injury that was indeed intolerable, defying description. Even if the Roman seized could speak the Italian language perfectly, he was nonetheless so far estranged from this alien race that not even his dress had anything in common with the Latins; it was as though he were detested by God, condemned to drink unmingled the Lord’s cup of wrath and to take the cup unmixed.

§ 301  What death-dealing viper, or deadly heel-menacing serpent, or bull-killing lion does not overlook stale meat when sated with fresh game? Thus did Latin inhumanity wreak ruin, taking live captives; it was not moved to pity by supplications, softened by tears, or gladdened by cajolery. And should someone sing a pleasant tune, it was regarded as the shriek of kites or the cawing of crows. Should the music be so beguiling that even rocks were made to rise up, as happened with Orpheus’s melodies, for naught did the lyre player strike the chord, and in vain did he lift up his voice in sweet song. Should the barbarian succumb to the song as though it were the swan’s dying and honor-loving song, his relentless soul would alter it, once more effecting death and remaining as implacable as before, or obdurate before every supplication like an unyielding anvil. The members of his race knew how to indulge his singular wrath and were disposed to submit to his irate commands.
What unending evil was permitted this Roman-hater, and what animosity he had stored in his heart against every Hellene! Even the serpent, the ancient plotter against the human race, did not conceive and beget such enmity. But because the land which was our allotted portion to inhabit, and to reap the fruits thereof, was openly likened to paradise by the most accursed Latins, who were filled with passionate longing for our blessings, they were ever ill-disposed toward our race and remain forever workers of evil deeds. Though they may dissemble friendship, submitting to the needs of the time, they yet despise us as their bitterest enemies; and though their speech is affable and smoother than oil flowing noiselessly, yet are their words darts, and thus they are sharper than a two-edged sword. Between us and them the greatest gulf of disagreement has been fixed, and we are separated in purpose and diametrically opposed, even though we are closely associated and frequently share the same dwelling. Overweening in their pretentious display of straightforwardness, the Latins would stare up and down at us and behold with curiosity the gentleness and lowliness of our demeanor;

§ 302  and we, looking grimly upon their superciliousness, boastfulness, and pompousness, with the drivel from their nose held in the air, are committed to this course and grit our teeth, secure in the power of Christ, who gives the faithful the power to tread on serpents and scorpions and grants them protection from all harm and hurt.
And now to continue with the sequence of events. The Sicilian forces which entered the city of Thessaloniki and committed their godless crimes began the siege on the sixth day of the month of August, in the third indiction, in the year [1185 CE], and ended it on the fifteenth day of the same month without sustaining any injury whatsoever.
It was not, as we have said, only during the first days of the siege that the Thessalonians suffered the worst possible atrocities; even when it was over, the scale of fortune did not incline towards humanity, nor did their captors look upon them kindly. They appropriated the dwellings, expelling their masters and depriving them of the treasures stored within, and they also removed their clothing, not even refraining from taking their last undergarments, which conceal what nature has commanded to be covered as unseemly. Nor did they dispense to the masters any morsel of the fruits of their labors into which they had entered, and they made merry all day long. Those who had gathered in the dainties of cuttlefish were left to wander about hungry in the streets, barefoot and without tunic, to sleep upon the earth; and they who heretofore were dressed in fine garments now had the ground for their bed, the sky as their roof, and a dungheap as their comfortable couch. Of all those things related, that which was the worst and afflicted the very soul was not permitting the masters to enter their houses. Should one do so at any time or merely put his head inside, he was seized by those within as though by the ancient evil of Skylla.

§ 303  He was questioned and repeatedly asked his reason for coming thither, or for casting a glance inside, or for stepping on the threshold of the outer door, and he was given many lashes and compelled to give over monies which he was suspected of having hidden there.
Pretending to pour out his heart to them, cowering, so to speak, under their boasts, and looking round timidly, he was led out of the dwelling; while afraid lest he be despoiled, yet he was eager to learn whether that place in the house wherein he had hidden his coins had escaped the notice of the enemy who made a most diligent search to find them, or whether he had succeeded in keeping them safe and undetected. Often, when someone did hand over the money he had concealed, with the expectation that he would be released from his own house, he still was not spared lashings and the blows were multiplied; and tortures of diverse kinds were inflicted so that he should reveal even more hidden treasures. And should someone who had nothing to give maintain earnestly, now as before, that he was indigent and explain that, as he was passing by this particular street, he had had a compelling desire to see his paternal home or the house he himself had built at heavy expense, now being both spectator and mourner of his former estate and effects, there was none to show him mercy or to rescue him. Such a man would be subjected to torture and torments; he would be suspended by the feet, a heap of chaff would be placed under him and ignited, and he would be blackened by the smoke.
His mouth would be smeared with dung, his ribs pierced by arrows, and being subjected to a host of other punishments, he would either give up the ghost as the result of these sufferings or would be dragged out by the feet, half dead, as so much garbage from the house, and would lay exposed in the open square.
What then? If the Sicilians welcomed the former masters of the houses with such kindnesses and paid them court in this fashion,

§ 304  did they perchance admit with tender feeling and treat with kindheartedness the rest, who passed by their dwellings as though they were the mouths of caves leading down into hell, or the Cretan labyrinth, or the Laconian pit? Not at all! How could it be otherwise with such men who were more savage than the wild beasts, and who were wholly ignorant of the meaning of pity, and who rejoiced over human calamities? Like dogs, the victims drew back from those who overtook them and did not molest them with their teeth, but crouched before their pursuers without even barking and voluntarily shut their jaws. The Sicilians confiscated any property that they reckoned to be of great value and turned it aside to their ways, squandering it on harlots and nearly coming to blows with each other. So far were these men from having pity on their victims — these men who boasted that they would seize the entire Roman empire as a deserted brood of chicks and lay hands on her as on abandoned eggs — that they were moved to laughter over the nakedness of so many; they were convulsed with uncontrolled guffaws whenever someone emaciated from hunger passed by with swollen abdomen, sallow and corpselike from feasting on vegetables and banqueting only on bunches of grapes gathered in fear from the nearby vineyards. Thus did they take pity on those who wore tattered garments and covered those parts of the body which needs to be hidden with rush mats, while with the stems of the rush they plaited coverings to provide shade for the head. And when they met these creatures in the streets, the Latins, with grinning laughter, would grab their beards with both hands and pull the hair on their heads, contending that these were unbefitting; they ridiculed the shagginess and

§ 305  length of the beard and insisted that the hair be clipped round about according to their own style. Whenever they rode through the marketplace on horseback, they would brandish their ashen spears and knock down any poor wretch in their way. Should there be a mire or a mud puddle nearby on the same side of the street, they would push them in, for they deemed such chance meetings as producing no good, and so they shoved them aside with great loathing and blocked their way. Should the Romans at any time eat coarse barley bread or any other food which sustains the human body, they would come upon them without warning and mock them, knock over their bowls, and kick over the table to ruin the meal. They would not allow them to draw nigh the time’s bread of grief, or approach the mixed cup of wine turned sour, or take the cup which had received the cistern’s thirst-quenching water. These utterly shameless buffoons, having no fear of God whatsoever, would bend over and pull up their garments, baring their buttocks and all that men keep covered; turning their anus on the poor wretches, close upon their food, the fools would break wind louder than a polecat. Sometimes they discharged the urine in their bellies through the spouts of their groins and contaminated the cooked food, even urinating in the faces of some, or they would urinate in the wells and then draw up the water and drink it.
The very same vessel served them as chamber pot and wine cup; without having been cleansed first, it received the much-desired wine and water and also held the excreta pouring out of the body’s nozzle.
Nonetheless, the Sicilians so honored the servants of God who are accounted among the firstborn, took such heed of the miracles they wrought, and were so astonished at the marvelous and novel wonders by which Christ glorifies those who with their own bodies have glorified him

§ 306  that they would collect in jars and basins the unguent which exuded from the crypt of Demetrios — who was renowned in miracles and among martyrs — and pour it over their fish dishes; they would rub their leather footgear with this sweet oil and use it for all the purposes which olive oil now serves. The unguent issued forth as from an inexhaustible fount, or gushed out as from a great deep in a most novel manner, so that even the barbarians deemed the phenomenon a miracle, and they were amazed by the grace which the martyr received from God.
Even when the time was sounded for the Romans to assemble in the temples for the singing of hymns, the boorish members of the army did not keep away, but went inside as though to attend church services together with the Romans, to offer up to God a sacrifice of praise. They did no such thing, but instead, babbling among themselves and bursting forth in unintelligible shouts or violently throttling certain Romans because of some incident, they caused a great disturbance and confounded the hymn, so that it seemed as though the chanters were singing in a strange land rather than standing in the temple of God. In response to those who were praising the Lord, many would let loose with ribald songs, and, barking like dogs, they would break in upon the hymn and drown out the supplication to God.
To make a long story short, these were the sufferings of the besieged Thessalonians which certain authors have described in their own detailed account of the historical events. When he who dwells in the high places and looks on the low things looked down from heaven and saw that none of the captors understood or sought after God, and that they all had become good-for-nothing and had turned to lawless deeds, he resolved to mock them, to destroy them utterly, to trouble them in his own fury, and to take pity on the afflictions of his own people, to award them the

§ 307  prize of freedom, giving heed to their grieving spirit, and not to set at nought their broken hearts. He shortens, it seems to me, the long duration of woes for his chosen people, and those things with which before he had violently threatened the Babylonians for showing no mercy to Sion and her delicate sons and daughters in their abduction and captivity, he visited upon them [the Babylonians] in an instant. And the Lord was glorified as never before in the testimony of his martyrs, and he magnified his own mercy at that time, moved, it seems, by litanies and by hearkening to the prayer of the archbishop of Thessaloniki.
This man was Eustathios, who was renowned the world over for his learning and virtue, for his praiseworthy and beseeming prudence, and for his admirable and quite remarkable depth of experience, who was by far superior to others in eloquence and every kind of wisdom, both sacred and profane, a brimming mixing bowl with its own peculiar and extraordinary style. He chose to suffer affliction with his own flock, rather than to emulate the hired hands, who when the wolves come abandon their flocks and flee. Although it was possible for him to emigrate when the approach of the enemy was awaited and before they had invested the city, he could not justify to himself such an action, for by remaining he could save many. Willingly shutting himself in the city, he shared the afflictions of the sufferers to the end, so as to persuade them with his own example; to exhort them to suffer the chastisements of God as though they were but the stings of a gentle father and to await healing again from him who smiteth. “For if he knows,” Eustathios said, “how to smite often, he is also wont to heal much more often. Indeed, if one bears his

§ 308  afflictions meekly and thankfully, and is not so disgusted by bitter anguish as to become devoid of all affection for him who visits these things upon him, and submits with sighs to Providence, that man is freed from the depth of divine judgments, having learned to give thanks to the Lord who alone dost well to him; it is as though the ship of life, borne by fair winds, carries to him the objects of his desire, smoothly and easily, and without shipwreck in the manner of ships bringing their cargoes from afar.”
On being seen by the strategoi, who are called counts in the Latin language, the archbishop managed to alleviate the worst of the sufferings, carrying away decrees that provided for relief and granted all other major requests — his eloquence could move the unlaughing stone. His appearance alone commanded respect. The foreigners would rise up from their seats and hear him gladly, and they would become gentler and kinder in disposition, like an inflamed wound that is soothed by water poured from a light hand. Even though they were birds of prey with crooked talons that flew on high near the clouds and hovered oppressively over the Romans in their power, threatening to resettle them in Sicily, he nonetheless gathered together and warmed those whose teeth chattered with fear, and who suspected that even worse evils were to follow their present afflictions, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; he transformed the bitter wrath of the conquerors as Moses did the waters of Merrha by casting a tree in their midst.
Let the story of how liberty was to be won and through whom God was to work this new marvel await the proper time.
Let the narrative return whence it digressed and record the history of Emperor Andronikos.

§ 309  Andronikos hanged the Sebasteianos brothers on the gallows for supposedly plotting to depose him and raise to the throne Alexios Komnenos. Komnenos was the son begotten by Manuel through his illicit relations with his niece Theodora and then joined in marriage to Andronikos’s daughter Irene, who was descended from the same bloodline. A short time afterwards Andronikos seized Komnenos and cast him into prison; later he maimed his eyes and banished him to Chele, a coastal fortress situated at the mouth of the Pontos, wherein a tower was built to receive him. Andronikos loathed his daughter Irene and banished her from his presence, commanding her neither to grieve nor to mourn for her husband ever so little; if she had a daughter’s love for her father and felt any anguish for him who had begotten her, she would loathe her husband and convert her former affection to an equivalent hatred. But she, as was fitting, could not deny her love for her consort; she sang a doleful dirge and appeared in tatters with her hair shorn.
Thus this admirable and much vaunted bond of matrimony was suddenly broken asunder by the most accursed flatterers and judges who contradicted the laws, they who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. It was predicted that those things which long had been separated once again would be joined together, the East would be united to the West, and the ancient hostility eliminated; nations differing from the Romans in language and purpose would concur, and the earlier disagreement would be replaced in a novel manner by an identity of customs so that spears would be beaten into ploughshares and lambs would feed with the lions .

§ 310  The good government of cities would be magnified, and there would be a continual increase in, and an abnormal growth of, the crops of the earth so that the prickly shrub would bring forth pears and the fig tree bristle with ears of corn, or, as the poets say of the sexual union of Zeus and Hera, as they lay on a bed of dewy lotus, the crocus sprouted and the hyacinth sprang up.
In truth, the fabricators of such tales were clearly shown to be fools. They contended that they were wise, and able to foresee future events, and had foreknowledge of what lies ahead, and yet they could not see what was under their very noses. In accordance with the prophetic curse, seeing, they perceived not, and hearing, they understood not. Or even if they were able to perceive with certainty, and accurately to pronounce words of destruction, and to fashion their teeth into arms and missiles, instead they spoke to please and for profit. They held their tongues when expedient, and pursued with all their might the goal of pleasing men. Since it was not fitting that the palace should keep praisers of evil, and they themselves did not wish to know the good, they diligently adhered to wickednesses and acclaimed those who were pleasing to the emperor; and, verily, the emperor was not pleasing to Him through whom kings reign.
Not only did Andronikos treat Alexios savagely and cruelly in this fashion but he also apprehended and imprisoned the most notable of his attendants. Not long afterwards, seizing the noblest of these in large numbers, he deprived them of their eyes. He singled out a certain Mamalos, who was numbered among Alexios’s secretaries, reserving him for the last course of his Cyclopean feast. Andronikos carved up the meat and smothered it with a rich sauce so that it would be worthy to delight no other banqueter except himself and would not fall short of the dainties served at the feasts of the Furies and at the banquets of the Telachines, the like of which no cook ever had dressed and garnished for them.
Mamalos was to be consigned to the flames in the Hippodrome.

§ 311  The fire was ignited, and the flame shot up high into the air along the turn of the racecourse, equal to that of the Chaldean furnace; kindled by naphtha and brushwood, it burned seven times hotter than usual.
Mamalos was brought forward bound by ropes and as naked as when he first saw the light of day as he emerged from his mother’s womb. The furnace workers who stood beside the youth, garlanded, with the first down upon his lip and cheeks, prodded him with long poles, as though he were a sacrificial victim, into the midst of the flames. As he neared the furnace and felt great pain, he became fainthearted, as would any man, and hoping to escape what was already an unavoidable death, he now threw himself against the thrusting poles, deeming the pain inflicted by them to be less than that of the licking flames spreading out from the charcoals; but pushed again into the midst of the fire by the stokers and engulfed by the flames, he would then jump out of the furnace like the quick-darting serpents, running for his life and bounding higher than the Thessalian leap. This drama continued for some time, moving the spectators to tears. Finally exhausted, he fell back, and the raging flames engulfed his flesh and quickly snuffed out his life. The savor of burnt flesh ascending upwards to the heavens polluted the air, while the stench of the acrid smoke and soot was unbearable for the bystanders.
O fierce flame! O burnt offering, most welcomed by demons! O sacrificial victim of the Telachines! O whole offering of avenging spirits! O that which is not the smell of sweetness which the Lord smells but instead a dance of Furies! The evildoer Andronikos, hearing that the ancients sacrificed oxen and honored the gods with the savor of burnt sacrifice, did not deign to do the same, but nurturing a soul more ruthless than that of the worst men who ever lived,

§ 312  he wickedly applied himself to human sacrifice. Was it some insane Cambyses, or cruel Tarquinius, or the savage and beastly Echetos and Phalaris who perpetrated these crimes? Or which of the Tauro-Scythians, who have given the sanction of law to the murder of strangers, and whose conventions were copied by this far-roaming old man, imposed and inflicted such penalties?
Andronikos inflicted the punishment — not without cause but as the result of an earlier crime — and with Mamalos he burned certain books that apparently dealt with the reigns of future emperors which Mamalos had read in secret to Alexios in an attempt to convince him that they spoke of him as ascending the throne.
Andronikos later regretted these actions, or else he was deflected from doing the same again. For example, when George Dishypatos (he was a member of the order of lectors who serve the Great Church) was seized and imprisoned, he was made to suffer only because he had criticized Andronikos for the wrongs he had perpetrated, and the latter threatened to have him impaled through and through on spits, roasted over charcoals, and then to be brought before his wife. And, indeed, the corpulent Dishypatos should have been spitted like a suckling pig, roasted, placed in some capacious, I dare say, basket, and, as a delicacy, brought in before the members of his household and placed in front of his wife, had not her father, Leon Monasteriotes, checked Andronikos’s impetuosity

§ 313  and forcefully restrained him from the undertaking. For, like a lion terrifying wild beasts, Monasteriotes roared out his opinions on the events of the day to Andronikos, who called him the mouth of the Senate. When reports came flying in from everywhere to announce that the Sicilians had taken Epidamnos and were marching on Thessaloniki without battle, Andronikos’s wits were troubled and distraught, and for a brief spell his zeal to inflict human torments slackened.
Dishypatos, confined in prison, raised his hands but did not, however, pray after the fashion of David with the words, “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks to thy name, O Lord”; neither did he utter the words of Jonah, “Shall I indeed look again toward thy holy temple?” Rather, he prayed as follows, “Blot me out, O Lord, from the memory of Andronikos, and let me be out of his sight and hearing from year to year, and from month to month, and from day to day; withdraw my name from the book of the living as long as Andronikos lives.” And it was God, in truth, who removed Dishypatos from the hands of Andronikos.
That he was too distrusting to value his chief ministers, his ardent admirers, and the executioners of his wishes, Andronikos demonstrated by his inhuman executions of both Constantine Makrodoukas and Andronikos Doukas, the first of whom, as mentioned, he had raised to the

§ 314  dignity of panhypersebastos and the other had adopted as his son and had entered in the register of his most cherished friends. He clearly showed the fickleness of his mind and his inability to sustain good will towards his partisans when he blinded Constantine Tripsychos, a long prayed-for man in his need, a man versatile in the services he rendered to Andronikos’s tyranny. Such was his excessive love for Andronikos, and such his zealous devotion, that he nearly surpassed all those who supported the cause of Andronikos. Nonetheless, Tripsychos was hindered from carrying absolute victory for himself alone because his rival, and antagonist, in unsurpassed eagerness was Stephanos Hagiochristophorites; one prize was to be divided into two, and for Tripsychos the crown of cruelty was being plaited.
Tripsychos was blinded for a minor annoyance which should have been overlooked rather than being subjected to investigation that resulted in his punishment for speaking out of turn, and this while he was much loved and no less devoted to Andronikos. But during the time of Andronikos, men had to give account for their every idle word; Tripsychos, the examiner of such tattle, subjected many to torture, stripping them bare of all their goods on the grounds that they had spat out a word of complaint against Andronikos or that they had expressed reproach for some grievous inward thought. Now Tripsychos fell cruel victim to similar charges. In the measure that he often measured out, punishment was measured out to him in return, but compacted, pressed down, and running over, and he obligingly fell into the pit that he had often dug for his neighbors (I praise thee, O Justice!) and rolled over himself the stone he had many times heaved against his next of kin.
When one of his relatives informed against him to Andronikos,

§ 315  reporting that he had grumbled against Andronikos as though he were one of those who had received no benefactions or had not been treated well by Andronikos (Tripsychos, who had been deluged by so many favors, who had been raised to the highest dignities, and who was referred to in the imperial letters as beloved son and rarest of men in these present times, rich in blessings, a grandee!), Andronikos was cut to the heart, and, convinced of everyone’s disloyalty, he became anxious. These charges kindled his anger, and his wrath was lashed into a fury of indignation.
When the informer saw Andronikos’s growing anger, he felt the need to launch another attack of even sharper words so that Andronikos should be lifted up like a violent blast of wind, or like that bloodstained tempestuous sea of wrath blowing forth and opening up into a yawning chasm to envelop the wretched Tripsychos as another Egyptian captain. He said to Andronikos, therefore, “Tripsychos continually disparages your son John — successor to your throne, legitimate heir of the empire, the fairest of men, who is received by all with open arms — with words of madness and proclaims him an abomination should he be established in the holy place of sovereignty.” Once, when Emperor John was passing by in procession and was being acclaimed by large numbers, Tripsychos laughed and derided him by calling him Zintziphitzes, and heaving a great sigh he said, “O ill-starred realm of Romans, that you must hope in such an emperor!” Zintziphitzes was a most hideous-looking little man who haunted the chariot rails of the racehorses; most of his limbs were disproportionate, and he was small in stature and corpulent. Moreover, he had a ready wit and was skilled in striking terror in the hearts of palace officials with ribaldry and indelicate gibes, and he was a consummate actor who provoked laughter with his torrent of poetic verse.

§ 316  Andronikos was unable to bear the accusations which, like missiles, pierced his heart, and like a blast of wind he dissipated Tripsychos’s privileges and placed him on parole; later he deprived him of the light of his eyes. Thus did Tripsychos’s dominance come to an end, and, so it seems, the words of Solomon, “There are ways that seem at first to be right to a man, but the end of them looks towards death,” were spoken clearly of him and consummated in him.

§ 317  BOOK TWO The Sicilian forces were divided into three parts: one part remained in Thessaloniki, the second advanced on Serrai, determined to subdue and plunder everything in the vicinity, and the third took a smooth road, where no one fell into their hands or opposed them, and encamped at Mosynopolis, subjugating the land round about.
Andronikos’s first concern was to dispatch a commander to defend Epidamnos, and John Branas made his appearance there [before June 1185], A few days later, the Italians alighted upon Epidamnos, like birds and creatures of the air, and quickly planted their legs astride to scale the battlements of the walls with impunity [24 June 1185], Branas was taken captive to Sicily. Afterwards, Andronikos wrote to David, the governor of Thessaloniki, and commanded him to keep diligent watch over the city and not to fear the Latin shoe stitchers who jump and bite and sting, to use Andronikos’s own words. Since it was Andronikos who had

§ 318  composed the letters in this vein, only he their author understood their meaning; the contents of the letters provoked laughter among the citizens who loved to scoff, and rejecting them, they altered their meaning with obscene and vulgar words which need not be mentioned.
Assembling, moreover, the Roman forces, both eastern and western, and dividing them into divisions, Andronikos assigned one to the command of his son, Emperor John, who was sojourning in the province of Philippopolis; the second he committed to Choumnos, the chartoularios; the third to Andronikos Palaiologos; and the fourth to the eunuch Nikephoros, who was held in honor by Andronikos and exulted in the dignity of parakoimomenos. He also dispatched Alexios Branas with another force.
Andronikos’s son indulged himself in the chase in the vicinity of Philippopolis, imagining that the sacking of Thessaloniki was as remote as the taking of the gates of Cadiz or the pulling down of the Dionysian small pillars; the others did not venture to draw near and provide assistance to the beleaguered city. Pitching their tents at a great distance, they were informed by scouts and couriers who stole their way into the enemy camp as to the goings on about Thessaloniki. Only Theodore Choumnos took it upon himself to draw close in order to come to the aid of the Thessalonians by engaging the enemy forces who were blockading the city or, if possible, by slipping inside. But he fell short of the mark on both counts and retreated most shamefully. His companions, unable to bear the sight of the front of the enemy’s helm, turned their backs and fled without a backward glance, acquitting themselves like men in but one thing alongside the rest of their countrymen, namely, never to remain supine but to examine with their own eyes the enemy as reported to them by their spies, and from their deeds to learn how impetuous these men were in battle.

§ 319  When famed Thessaloniki fell, the Sicilian forces were divided, as I have already recounted; one could say that, like the mythical Chimaera, formerly united in nearly equal parts, they were then separated. The forepart, being the strongest, like the lion advanced directly upon the queen of cities; the middle part grazed in the regions of Amphipolis and Serrai; and the hinder part, the fleet, crawled like a serpent over the waters, and kept watch over the metropolis of the Thessalonians. Even though the Romans were not of one accord, shooting missiles at one camp and engaging a small enemy force in close combat, they took courage. The enemy troops, after occupying Mosynopolis, were preparing to move forward, since not a single Roman soldier had shown himself.
The Romans had earlier occupied the mountain flanks in those parts and had no need to descend to the plain and await the fury of the enemy’s charge. Therefore, the Italians decided to delay no longer, but to march in close order together and to direct themselves towards a single goal, the assault and capture of the fair city of Constantine.
Alexios Komnenos, who accompanied them but was not given a turn as commander, incited them as he pondered on things that were not to be brought to pass. The stupid Alexios, who was unworthy even to lead sheep, intended to labor on behalf of the king of Sicily, this Melitides.
He pranced about as though he had already been invested with the imperial insignia and elected emperor, and addressing the alien troops, he contended that his own desire to assume the majesty of his paternal uncle, Emperor Manuel, was no less than that of the Constantinopolitans and that he would be as welcome by the Romans as the sun which shines by day

§ 320  and would be deemed as necessary a good as is the breathing in of air. Such then were these events.
Meanwhile, Andronikos made the rounds of the city walls and gave orders that those sections that had fallen into disrepair because of the ravages of time be shored up and restored. The work was begun forthwith. Therefore, all the houses attached to the outside of the walls, consequently making the area inside accessible to the enemy, were demolished.
Some one hundred long ships were anchored along the seashore, ready to sail out to the aid of those cities threatened by the Sicilian fleet, to give assistance to the Constantinopolitans (for they were expecting the imminent arrival of the enemy), and from time to time to blockade the bay of the sea which runs in like the channel of a river to wash the shore of Blachernai.
Having disposed of these common concerns, he slackened his efforts, satisfied that he had taken all adequate and necessary measures to resist and subdue the approaching enemy of the Romans. Informed that Thessaloniki had fallen, he proceeded to maltreat the kinsmen of David whom he had appointed guardian of this city, as we have already seen, and taking them into custody, he cast them into prison. In a public address, he asserted that the event was neither of great consequence nor was it an accomplishment worthy of the boasts of the Sicilians; this was not the first time, for in the past, Time was delighted in bringing about the fall of cities, and victory shifts from man to man.

§ 321  When bombarded with alarming reports brought in one after the other by messengers — such as, the enemy has now taken Amphipolis, and, again, that having plundered the provinces beyond, they are now encamped opposite Mosynopolis — he dismissed them as not being calamitous and claimed that he would march out against the enemy and utterly destroy them in the manner that hunters kill boars, one at a time. Coming forth briefly from their lair in which they are confined, ravenous for the meat exposed as bait and a snare, the boars are impaled on the spear or deeply wounded in their guts. In the same way, the Italians, who had become careless because they had met no resistance, would continue to advance, motivated by the lust for more spoils, but, to their surprise, they would meet their final destruction, and their unrighteousness would come down on their own crowns.
These were nothing more than the obviously deceptive excuses of a man who resisted the natural order of events, mere songs to soothe a citizenry already seething against him; and although he resorted to these and every other device, Andronikos was not man enough to repel the barbarians. Despite such, and so many, present evils, and despite the fact that everyone expected the most pitiable tribulations and wailed aloud as though they were already present and impending, he suffered these intolerable conditions with equanimity and assumed a philosophical attitude toward them, as though these horrors pertained to others. And all this while, craving power and lusting for the throne, he plunged headlong into inhuman habits and surpassed by far all tyrants who ever lived.
He would often set out from the City with a troupe of courtesans and concubines to search out the most deserted locations where the climate was abundantly clement, looking about in the manner of wild beasts at the meeting of glens and forcing his way into verdant groves. He was followed by his ladyloves, like a cock by barnyard hens, or a he-goat leading the she-goats of the herd, or like Semele’s son Dionysos escorting the Thyades, Sobades, Maenads, and Bacchantes; only he did not put on a fawn skin and wear the saffron-colored robe. On fixed days he could be seen by some of his courtiers, among these his nearest kinsmen, as though from behind a curtain, opening wide every passageway to flute

§ 322  girls and courtesans with whom he indulged himself at all times in the pleasure of intercourse. He amused himself in voluptuous entertainments, like Sardanapolos who carved out as his epitaph the words, “His wealth consisted of all that he ate and all that he reveled in.” He was a follower of both Epicurus and Chrysippos, and, suffering from lechery, he sought to attain the sexual prowess of the cuttlefish. Madly ravenous for sexual intercourse, he truly emulated Herakles in his despoiling of the fifty-one daughters of Thyestes. But he did not have powers of licentiousness equal with him who summoned Ioleos to assist him against the many-headed Hydra, so he also sought help in revitalizing his genitals for the purpose of sexual intercourse by resorting to ointments and extravagant preparations. He ate of a Nilotic animal, very similar to the crocodile, repugnant to those who deem such things inedible but which excites and arouses those who engage in intercourse to sexual fulfillment.
On his return to the palace from his out-of-doors merrymaking and many amusements, he was escorted by his bodyguard of barbarian units, pestilent fellows who delighted in their lack of education and most of whom did not understand the Hellenic tongue. From among such ill-bred companies, he always chose his guards and watchmen. Finally, he procured for himself a shark-toothed watchdog such as brings lions to bay and unhorses a heavily armed cavalryman with its snarl. At night, the bodyguards slept at some distance from the imperial bedchamber while the dog was tied to the doors. The possessor of a yelp of brass, it would jump up and bark loud and long at the slightest sound.
Continuing in this fashion, Andronikos delighted in the stupidity of the Constantinopolitans and ridiculed them as being pulled around by the nose; he poked fun at their eagerness to pay court to, and to fawn on, the sovereigns; even the horns of the deer that he had hunted and which excited wonder because of their height, he suspended from the arches of

§ 323  the agora, ostensibly to show the size of the wild beasts that he had caught but in actuality mocking the citizenry and defaming their wives for their incontinence.
Whatever day he arose and returned to the megalopolis from the extravagant amusements and delightful sites along the Propontis was considered an unlucky one; it seemed that he came back for no other reason than to slaughter and kill whomever he suspected of plotting against him.
Andronikos’s arrival meant loss and despair for many, or the departure from this life, and the worst possible evil of which he could think. He let down the fine and delicate plumb line of his cruelty to the very bottom of his soul; straitening his every action according to its measure, he considered the day wholly lost on which he had not devoured the flesh of some notable, or had not put out the lights of the body, or had not contentiously upbraided someone, frightening him out of his wits with his scowl and Titanic indignation. He was like some grave pedagogue who often brings the whip down on the children, reproving them whether they deserve it or not, and is irritated by any sound unpleasant to his ears.
At that time, men lived in gloom and despair. Not for many was sleep carefree, soft and ignorant of grief. Settling down at the edge of the eyes, it would fly away, often deceived or frightened away by Andronikos appearing in an evil dream; such was the state of those upon whom this savage, overpowering, and implacable man had but incidentally visited the wrath of his cruelty. It was as the God-Man had foretold would take place in the last days, namely, that “there shall be two men in one bed; one shall be taken and the other shall be left.” And this actually took

§ 324  place in those days when husband or wife suddenly would be seized and taken away to be physically punished.
Even women were not spared his vengeance and abominations; many lost the light of their eyes and suffered hunger, incarceration, and physical tortures. The father ignored his children, and the sons took no heed of their father; five of one house were divided three against two and two against three. Fleeing the wrath of Andronikos as though it were the conflagration of Sodom, families became fugitives from their own country, but they would have been spared all injury had they measured out their exile with Andronikos’s life. Now, however, when they laid claim to their household possessions, they were neither crystallized into a pillar of salt as was Lot’s wife, nor did they become dead salt, but otherwise losing their savor, they perished wretchedly.
Thus Andronikos, who was irascible by nature and boasted of a savage and cruel character, who was immutable in his disposition to inflict punishment, who made sport of the misfortunes and sufferings of those close to him and of the destruction of others, was convinced that he was consolidating his rule and strengthening the throne for his sons, and in this knowledge increased the pleasure of his soul. And yet he did participate in many virtuous actions, for not towards everyone was he inclined in a hostile manner, parading death and destruction before them. He comforted the indigent with gifts, especially if there was some hope that the suppliant was not terrified by Andronikos’s crimes and did not violently hate him, and this was like finding a highly prized panacea and

§ 325  salutary antidote in the flesh of that serpent [Satan], or plucking a sweetsmelling rose from thorns, or preparing a delicious feast of starlings and quails from hellebore and hemlock.
He so punished the greed of the very powerful, and, thanks to his diligent searching, he so restricted the hands of those who reached out for the properties of others, that the majority of the provinces increased their population. For every man, according to the prophet’s pronouncement, reclined in the shade of his trees, and, gathering the fruit of the vine and harvesting the crops of the earth, he ate with gladness and slept sweetly, unafraid of the tax collector’s threat, untroubled by the thought of the avaricious exactor, unvexed by the extortioner, and not terrified by the despoiler. Rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, he was free of any demand that he pay double and multiply his talent; heretofore, one was required to give his coat and was forced to cough up his very soul in sore distress. An appeal to Andronikos was like a deadly enchantment, a spell that dispersed the tax collectors, a bugbear terrible to the ear of those who collected more than was authorized, and a benumbing paralysis of the hands which heretofore were concerned only with taking first. The voluntary gift of many was sent back, for their riches were considered as corrupting as the moth or some other corroding power that destroys whatever it touches. He sent out, in some cases, public officials who commanded very large salaries, and with threats of dire consequences should they ignore his orders. But he refused to sell these public offices to those who wanted them, to hand them out to the baseborn for a sum; instead, he carefully selected them and appointed them to office without receiving payment in return. Consequently, those who in the past were swept aside by time and were brought down to Death by the ills of public affairs, shook off their prolonged, heavy sleep and put away from themselves their mortification of old as though some archangel had sounded a trumpet in their ears; and as Ezekiel’s vision

§ 326  wishes it to be, bones were drawn to bones and joints to joints. Within a short time the greater number of cities revived and recovered their former prosperity. Perhaps it would be fitting to add here the words of the psalmist David: “He turns a wilderness into pools of water, and a dry land into streams of water.” Andronikos recalled the public officials in order to bring an end to the physical abuse administered by the tax collectors and to limit the many successive tax demands which the clever tax gatherers had fabricated and confirmed as an annual obligation, thus devouring the broken people as though they were a piece of bread.
There was, it seems, a most irrational custom which prevailed only among the Romans. (It is this: ships that are overtaken by a storm, swaying backwards and forwards in the winds as the sea roars, are to receive help from no one as they are driven in upon any harbor or place and cast ashore by the waves. On the contrary, those who happen to live nearby prove to be worse than the storm by breaking up the ships and seizing everything not swept away by the sea). Andronikos stormed against such wickedness and transformed the tempestuous zeal of so many to capsize the ships into a gentle breeze, so that this one deed alone was sufficient to merit him acclaim. The officials at court had considered the evil to be incurable or absolutely immutable, like some acquired habit that can only get worse. Many Roman emperors in the past had wished to bring an end to this absurd custom, and dispatching bundles of imperial decrees, they threatened with utter ruin those who took up arms against shipwrecks and seized their cargoes, but these imperial constitutions remained a dead letter; it was as if the cresting waves of this tempestuous evil washed away the imperial red ink so that it appeared as though the scribes had written on water, making it impossible to discern the specific ordinances.

§ 327  Such were the words that they spoke, but Andronikos, looking keenly at those standing round about him, sighed deeply and said, There is no wrong that cannot be set aright by the emperors, nor is there any transgression of the law which lies beyond their power.
The former emperors, it seems, were slack, or they pretended to be vexed over these grievous ills. For if they had truly wished to put a stop to these life-destroying acts and to promote openly those things which constitute the observance of the law, they would have set aside the red ink, and, disregarding the papyrus as being totally ineffective, they would have considered those who mourn in blood and lament not with tears. Finding those plunderers harsher than the squalls and shallow reefs which caused their ships to be cast ashore by the billows, they would have used against them the sword which is borne not in vain and without purpose, and they would have executed the lawless. I am now convinced that when they wrote, they wrote wickedness, and exhibiting no laudable suffering over the evils of others, they joined in the assault on the suffering and thereby strengthened the contemptible customs from whose correction they voluntarily withdrew.
Having said these things, he added, 'Men, you who are related to me by blood, and those of you whose loyalty to me has been rewarded by my favor, and all the rest standing about, those of you who have been admitted to the senate, as well as those who have been appointed to serve the empire of the Romans in some other capacity, hearken to me, hearken! The words that I shall speak loud and clear will not be carried away by the wind without fulfillment, but those of my words which are not implemented in due course will move me, who decrees what must be done, to wrath, and my fury shall fall with grievous and unbearable consequences upon those who disobey my commands and take no heed whatsoever of the imperial dictates. It is necessary that all pernicious actions by the Romans, those detrimental to the public weal, cease. Let it be known by those who pursue the avaricious life that, if they do not voluntarily desist from desiring the properties of others, they will be deprived of their own possessions and will sigh with the indigent, just as the dust is blown away from the face of the earth by a furious storm; and this shall be so especially for those

§ 328  who fall upon ships and plunder their cargoes, sometimes wrecking and dismantling them, If any of you, therefore, administers an office on behalf of our throne, and if any of you is the owner of landed properties along the seaboard, foster first in yourself and then in your subjects the fear of God, and deference and reverence towards my rule; otherwise, any wrongdoing on the part of the governor of a province or the land-owner shall be required of your soul many times over, and, if you be innocent in hands and pure in heart, then your assistants will pay for the unlawful deed. When the pestilent master is flogged, then his attendants will come to their senses; and should the subject be wont to emulate his master by following him in his former reprehensible actions, then, by his being flogged and forced to learn a new lesson, his subject will follow, treading on the heels of the common good as the child follows in the step of its mother.
So you should know now the manner of exacting satisfaction from him who disobeys my command: he shall be suspended from the mast of the ship, and should the roaring waves have swept it away, on a hilltop near the sea, he shall be fastened to a huge upright beam hewed from the nearby mountains, so that he may be clearly visible to all those sailing the boundless seas like a sail displayed from the yardarm and like a man shipwrecked on land; he shall stand as a symbol that no one should ever again dismantle ships and plunder their cargoes, in the same manner that God stretched his bow in the sky as a sign that never again shall there be water for a deluge.
After speaking these words, he directed his mind to other purposes, portraying himself as extremely agitated and utterly inflexible in the resolutions he had taken or in making any compassionate concession in those matters on which he had given his verdict. They who heard his words were nearly petrified from fear (for they knew from experience that Andronikos neither knew how to jest nor how to hide one thing in his mind and say another); later, when they had regained their composure, they wrote letters and dispatched them by couriers to the overseers of their

§ 329  own estates and to those who administered their public offices in their stead, solemnly entreating and urgently imploring them to be on the watch, vigilant lest some ship should suffer shipwreck and sustain some damage, and, if possible, to rebuke the very winds or, as in the mythic tale of Aiolos, to bottle up the winds in bags so that they should blow up no squalls which violently churn the sea.
Henceforth, no ship buffetted by heavy seas was to have any of its cargo plundered, or any part of its decks dismantled, or its mast taken down, or its anchor removed, or deprived of any of its munitions down to every slender cord; but whatever was washed up on the land by the tempestuous winds, or dashed against the reefs, or shattered by the jutting rocks was regarded warily by the passing people as though they were the barks of Charon bringing up the souls of the dead from the cave of the netherworld; or they were honored like the ancient sacred ships carrying envoys to the oracles, and with trembling the mass of the people, together with the public officials, saw to it that nothing was lost on land that had not been destroyed by the surge of the sea. It was indeed a bright calm coming out of a storm, and the spectacle was a change truly wrought by the most holy right hand of God.
At great expense Andronikos rebuilt the ancient underground aqueduct which ran to the middle of the agora bringing up rainwater which was not stagnant and pestilential but sweeter than running water. He had the Hydrales River conducted through sluices into this water conduit, and near the streams that fed the river at its source, he erected a tower and buildings especially suited as a summer resort. Now all those whose dwellings happen to be in the vicinity of Blachernai and beyond are supplied with water from this source. He did not, however, restore the entire cistern so that the water could be channeled into the center of the agora, for the thread of his life had reached its end. Such was the concern of those who reigned after him, especially those who presently hold sway, to complete this work of common utility that Isaakios, who removed

§ 330  Andronikos from both throne and life, demolished the tower and razed these most delightful buildings in envy of Andronikos’s magnificent work.
Reviving the office of praetor, Andronikos appointed notables and the noblest members of the senate to these posts. He exalted them with bountiful gifts and sent them forth nourished, so to speak, on benefices, thereby taking care that they be sent to the cities without imposing any burden and with resolve to attend diligently to the cause of the lowly with compassion and judgment. With sufficient resources at hand at all times (for they were paid at the rate of forty and eighty minas [pounds] of silver coin), they spared the imperial treasury, which was enriched by the voluntary contributions of some who thereby were saved from the hands of the ruler, or they received in return some other benefit. As a result, the cities quickly grew in population, the land yielded crops a hundredfold, and the necessities of life were sold for little.
Andronikos was very affable towards anyone who had any accusation to make against those who use the right of might, and being no respecter of persons, he did not deny the righteous man his right. In his judgments, he listened with equal attention to the man of humble station and the great man of family and wealth. He would roundly rebuke the guilty, and if a man who was proud and of ill-repute was accused by an indigent, and had been discovered in the act of wrongdoing, or extortion, or smiting his fellow man with his fist, he would impose a suitable punishment.
Once, certain rustics presented themselves to him and inveighed against Theodore Dadibrenos, who had lodged with them while making a tour of inspection; procuring those things of which he and his servants and all his carriages had need, he had made no payment when he departed. This was the Dadibrenos who, as mentioned above, had participated with others in strangling Emperor Alexios. Andronikos conducted the trial between him and the country folk, and, finding that the charges were true, he sentenced him to twelve lashes and commanded the officials of the imperial fisc to pay the expenses many times over.

§ 331  Then, as now, there was a convention of declaiming publicly on divine doctrines, but Andronikos did not wish to discuss or listen to newfangled ideas about God, even though he had tasted of our wisdom [Holy Scriptures], and not only with the tip of his forefinger. He rebuked Euthymios, bishop of New Patras, a man of prodigious learning and John Kinnamos inside the imperial tent when they were debating at Lopadion on the saying of the God-Man, “My father is greater than I,” and, flying into a rage, he also threatened to cast them into the Rhyndakos River if they did not desist debating about God. This is not to say that Andronikos had become a complete savage. To the contrary, he regarded learning highly and did not keep the fathers at a distance from the purple but brought them near to the throne and warmed them with frequent gifts, paying them no small honor. He showed himself to be one who greatly esteemed divine philosophy as of much value and praised the eloquent professor of rhetoric, and the experts in law.

§ 332  To prepare his burial place in the huge temple dedicated to the Holy Forty Martyrs which was raised in the very heart of the City and was extremely beautiful, he diligently restored the dilapidated parts of the temple and rekindled the beauteous form which had been extinguished.
The icon of our Savior Christ, through which, it is reported, Christ spoke long ago with Emperor Maurice, he covered over with precious adornment. From the small garden of the Great Palace he took the huge porphyry washing basin around whose rims are two terrifying serpents coiled round another, a marvel to behold, and placed it near the outer door of the temple, and to the temple he also transported the remains of his wife from the Monastery of Angourion, where they had been laid to rest. Outside, near the perforated gates of the temple facing north in the direction of the agora, he set up a huge painted panel of himself, not arrayed as an emperor or wearing the imperial golden ornaments, but dressed in the garb of a laborer, of turquoise color and slit all around and reaching down to the buttocks; his legs were covered up to the knees in white boots, and he held a huge curved sickle in his hand, heavy and strong, that caught in its curved shape and snared as in a net a lad, handsome as a statue, with only his neck and shoulders showing forth.
With this representation, raised higher than all other pillars and inscribed monuments, Andronikos instructed the passers-by and made conspicuous to those who wished to understand the lawless deeds he had perpetrated in putting to death the heir and wooing and winning for himself both his throne and his wife.
Near the four-sided bronze monument that rose high above the ground called Anemodoulion, on which were represented nude Erotes pelting one another with apples, he planned to set up a bronze statue of himself on a column. He had earlier ordered that the paintings of Empress Xene, Emperor Alexios’s mother, whom he had ordered strangled, be done over so that she appeared as a shriveled-up old woman because he was suspicious of the pity elicited by these radiant and very beautiful portrayals, worthy of the admiration of the passers-by and spectators.

§ 333  Now he yielded to those who wished to obliterate most of these images and replace them either with Andronikos shown as emperor, accompanied by Alexios’s bride, or with the figure of Andronikos worked in relief.
Moreover, he erected costly buildings near the Temple of the Forty Martyrs to house him whenever he should be visiting the shrine. Because he could not ornament the buildings with paintings or delicate mosaics of diverse colors depicting his recent deeds, having accomplished none, he resorted to showing his deeds before he became emperor. In addition to chariot races, there were scenes of the chase, with clucking birds and baying hounds; deer, hare, and wild boar hunts; and with the zoumbros run through with a hunting spear (this animal is larger than the high-spirited bear or spotted leopard and is bred and raised by the Tauro-Scythians). There were also scenes of rustic life, of tent dwellers, and of common feasting on game, with Andronikos cutting up deer meat or pieces of wild boar with his own hands and carefully roasting them over the fire. Similar scenes also depicted the way of life of the man who is confident in the use of bow, sword, and swift-footed horses and who flees his country because of his own foolishness or virtue.
Andronikos compared his fate to that of David and contended that he, too, had been forced to escape the traps of envy and often migrate to the enemy’s country. He recounted how David, living meanly and poorly, secretly stole away the necessities of life and smote the Amalekites with the sword as he kept watch over the borders of Palestine from a short distance away at Sikelas, and how he would have killed Nabal for refusing to bring him food in answer to his petition, while he, Andronikos,

§ 334  passing through nearly all the Gentile nations, bearing the name of Christ before all and preaching as though he were an apostle, received the highest honors wherever he went and an escort of honor when he departed. These things he expounded with compelling persuasion; indeed, he spoke thus to men of eloquence and learning so long as the affairs of state were calm and tranquil.
When those things which threatened Andronikos began to be realized and carried to completion, he was seized with an utter desperation which surpassed in excess every form of inhumanity. His realm was growing smaller, and the enemy, like rivers swollen by heavy rains that overflow their banks, inundated the earth and made desolate everything under foot. He also saw that because he showed little concern for its welfare, the citizenry was beginning to speak out and was being gently urged on to rebellion. But as one overcome by drowsiness and neither seeing nor giving ear to the lawless deeds of the warring nations, he travailed in pain and brought forth iniquity. Not only did he condemn to death all those he had confined to prison, putting some to death by the sword, casting others into the deep of the sea after ripping open their bellies with the sword, and removing others from life by divers means, but he also sharpened his sword against their kinsmen. “For what advantage is it,” he said, “if, when one head is cut off, many more sprout, and there is no one to apply to these the sizzling iron? The demigod and hero Herakles must be praised in that he had Ioleos to cauterize and destroy the Hydra’s ability to grow more heads.”
Thereafter, he assembled his partisans and those judges who could be bought and who hover about the imperial table like vultures over carrion and decked out in tragic phrases the knaveries of the Italians and all the wicked deeds with which they had enveloped the western provinces and the cities they had seized by the law of warfare; the blame for all this he laid only upon those who opposed him, together with their blood relations and favored near relations. These men thirsted after Andronikos’s destruction and left no stone unturned to assure that he be toppled from the throne and suffer a most wretched death.

§ 335  Unable to secure the support of their countrymen, they brought in an alien army which behaved like a swarm of locusts that escapes the fire only to drown by water.
This was Andronikos’s response: “Not by my old age shall they rejoice who love enmity and exult in the din of war, but that which they desire to befall Andronikos, Andronikos shall visit upon them. If it is ordained that Andronikos shall be dragged down to the halls of Hades, they shall go first to prepare the way; only then shall Andronikos follow.”
Afterwards he paraphrased the words of Saint Paul, “the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do, since my enemies are warring against me and bringing me into captivity to act contrary to my will ,” and sought to remedy the evil. His partisans, who raised their voices and loudly shouted for him to remove his enemies from the face of the earth and to spare none, sanctioned the destruction of all those he had cast into prison or who were sentenced to banishment, as well as their attendants and kinsmen. And forthwith the decision was set down in writing, with the protoasekretis dictating, the officer in charge of petitions taking down the words, and the protonotarios of the dromos leading the shouts of approval.

§ 336  Their names, together with those of their collaborators who ran in pursuit of vainglory while they feared and dreaded Andronikos, I shall not cite; their ringleader and chief was Stephanos Hagiochristophorites, whose thunderous voice crashed throughout the palace, sweeping away, like a frothy swift river current, all who were deemed suspect by Andronikos.
The preamble to the decree read as follows:
Prompted, not by the directive of our mighty and holy master and emperor, but by the will of God, we cast our vote and pronounce that it is for the common good and especially for the benefit of Andronikos, the savior of the Romans, that all those who have been apprehended and incarcerated for being obdurate and seditious, or who have been banished, must be utterly destroyed; furthermore, their kinsmen and blood relations shall be seized and put to death. Should this be accomplished, Andronikos who, with God’s help, holds sway over the realm of the Romans, will enjoy a brief respite and will concern himself with public affairs, deal with the injudiciousness of conspirators, and force the alien Sicilians, who no longer have anyone to instruct them as to what tactics to use against the Romans, to sing a different tune. Henceforth, for all such as these, who, having been seized and their eyes gouged out, remain inflexible in their malice, there shall be no other way left to bring them to their senses except to deprive them of life, an anchor that we must drop as the last salutary measure for the malignant who are so deranged as to kick against the pricks and to have no understanding whatsoever that being stone deaf, they whet the sword to be used against them.
In summary, these and other such things were expounded in this lawless decree which was followed by a list of those to be arrested and put to

§ 337  death. It also defined the manner in which each and every one was to die.
In wonderment I cite the other actions of these men which I deem altogether unholy, but I particularly marvel at this action which I have just related. I am astonished beyond measure by the crimes they sanctioned, by how they could have conceived of ascribing their own bloodthirstiness to God, and, without blushing, how they could call their motivation divinely inspired when from the beginning it was the murderer who instigated their deliberation. They could have composed a different preamble and expressed themselves without shame, without baldly slandering the Divinity as delighting in blood, he who brought man into being in the beginning without creating death and to whom the voice of Abel’s blood cries out, and who explicitly declared that he does not desire the death of the sinner but that he should convert and live.
Having sentenced all to death in this manner, they dissolved the assembly. Andronikos took into his hands the judicial ballots which had been cast in favor of these abominable acts and kept them safe in a chest.
I do not know what he had in mind, but I think that looking ahead to future events, he sensed the abject fear that was to befall him afterwards.
He also secured the speeches which he had secretly instigated, exacting them from the members of the assembly, and denied responsibility in those instances when he had aggrieved some or subjected others to physical torments. He contended that the judges and the senate had determined the punishments which were endured by those who offended him before and after he came to the throne, and that he had only enforced their decisions (for he beareth not the sword in vain) and executed their judgments.
At this time he eagerly desired to carry out the published decree, but his son, the sebastokrator Manuel, refused to comply and said that he could never agree to an act which was not published as an imperial constitution, as stated in the preamble by those who issued it.

§ 338  Moreover, he could never tolerate or claim as his own a decree placing practically the whole Roman populace under the death penalty and doing away not only with those who were of Roman descent but also with many foreigners. An infinite number would be put to death on the basis of this decree, the one being seized and killed, and so, too, another who had neither been banished nor had sprung from an oak but from a father and mother, or who had shown a connection through marriage and friendship.
When imperial edicts directed that the judicial decision should become effective, those who had been removed to different provinces and those who had been confined wherever in prisons would have gathered together in one place; and each one would have been put to death, as sheep for slaughter, in the manner prescribed, had not God, according to the words of the prophet, brought down his own sword upon the apostate dragon, the crooked serpent, who flees under the sea in whose waters he resides, imagining only the hedonistic life and perceiving nothing but things visible.
Something else happened which impelled Andronikos to such wickedness. He knew that the empire was in desparate straits on all sides and that the Sicilians would soon be on top of him, bearing down like the hundred-headed Typhon, while those within the City thirsted after his death, for they believed in the visitation of God and supposed that his dissolution would be the solution to their difficulties. And Andronikos suspected that the Divinity had abandoned him for having killed the nobility in so many ways, although he still contended that he was of the

§ 339  fold of Christ and a member of the same family that was being afflicted.
Thus he turned eagerly to the prediction of future events. He flattered and paid court to the accursed demons as Saul of old had later looked to the women who had in them a divining spirit and whom he had earlier persecuted in order to propitiate God on his behalf.
He recognized that the ancient divining art of sacrifice had been abolished, that the revelation of future events through this technique had also ceased and wholly vanished, that augury as well had flown away beyond the borders of the Roman empire, together with dream interpretation and the observation of omens, and that only those impostors survived who falsely divined through tubs and basins, together with those who carefully observe the positions of stars and who deceive others no less than they themselves are deceived. He set aside astrology as being both more common and obscure in revealing future events and yielded himself wholly to those who read the signs of the unknown in the waters, wherein certain images of the future are reflected like the shining rays of the sun.
Andronikos declined to be present at the mysteries, shunning babbling rumor which sees through the secret rites and divulges them to all. Therefore, he entrusted this loathsome deed of the night to Stephanos Hagiochristophorites, of whom we have made frequent mention. He enlisted the services of Seth, who had performed such rituals from boyhood and for which Emperor Manuel gouged out his eyes, as we have mentioned when recounting the events of his reign, and asked the question:
Who will rule after Emperor Andronikos or who will depose him? How he performed the secret rite I would rather neither learn nor describe,

§ 340  and they who so desire may be informed from another source. The evil demon replied or, rather, dimly indicated, as in murky waters, a certain Isaakios; the entire name, however, was not spelled out, but only a sigma in the shape of a half-moon, behind which was formed an iota. The oracle was unclear and only gave an indication of what was to be, or it would be closer to the truth to say that that which one could not be sure of knowing was beclouded with uncertainty by the multiform demon which feeds on evil by night. Andronikos surmised from what he heard that the letters designated the Isaurian; he contended that this was Isaakios Komnenos, who ruled as tyrant over Cyprus and whom he suspected of aspiring to his throne, since he had sailed from Isauria to Cyprus. Isaakios was an evildoer as no other, a ruinous Telchine, a flooding sea of calamities, an Erinys [avenging deity] raging furiously against the erstwhile happy and prosperous inhabitants of this island. I express my sympathy in words for those who experienced this common disaster.
Andronikos wondered at the oracular response and said, “Ask not only after my successor but inquire also as to the time.” When this question was posed, the earth-loving spirit fell into the water with a loud noise and prophesied by means of incantations that which it should not have revealed, that it would be within the days of the Exaltation of the Cross [14 September], It was the beginning of the month of September when these events took place. When he heard the response to his second question, Andronikos smiled an unpleasant, false, and scornful smile and said that the oracle was nonsense (for how could Isaakios set sail from Cyprus and cover such a distance within so few days and remove him from the throne?) and paid no heed whatsoever. He asked John Apotyras

§ 341  (he was appointed judge of the velum by Andronikos and consequently was an ardent minister of his wishes) whether it was necessary to arrest Isaakios Angelos, since the responses of the oracle might pertain to him (for they looked into the distance neglecting that which was under foot), but he did not interpret the oracle in that way. Andronikos, for his part, heaped scorn on John Apotyras for even thinking that these things might pertain to Isaakios Angelos, contemning the man for the effeminacy of his character and contending that he was incapable of any clever enterprise; his doom was approaching and the Divinity was wiser than he.
The hot and hasty Stephanos Hagiochristophorites, who cared for his lord and emperor in various ways, agreed to arrest Isaakios Angelos and after confining him to prison to subject him to that death which Andronikos was to sanction. He arrived at the house of Isaakios near the Monastery of Peribleptos in the late afternoon of the eleventh day of September in the year [1185 CE], and entering the courtyard, he ordered Isaakios to descend and follow him wherever he should take him. As was to be expected, Isaakios delayed, speculating that as soon as he appeared, the worst of all possible evils would befall him. Hagiochristophorites was resolved to use force and admonished his attendants not to hesitate to grab Isaakios by his hair or seize him by his beard. They were to bring him down from his room in disgrace and lead him away as they beat him and then to thrust him headlong into the place of confinement he would designate.
His attendants were ready to do his bidding. Isaakios saw that he could not escape the dragnet spread out by the angler which was already closing in on him. He did not turn coward or become fainthearted, but, as one about to die, he chose to give battle. In the hope of escaping death or,

§ 342  rather, fearing that he would not be able to stamp freely over the plains as did the Homeric horse that had fed his fill (for the falcon was poised and the seizing of the prey not difficult), like the war horse that pricks up its ears to the sounding charge of the trumpet, with bristling mane, snorting and leaping, he closed with the enemy, scornful of the swords, disdainful of Ares, pouring out threats, and caring for naught.
With sword drawn (his head was bare and over his body he wore a cloak of two colors which descended to the waist and then separated into two pieces) he mounted his horse and raised his sword hand against the head of Hagiochristophorites. Terrified by the onrush of Isaakios, who, with unsheathed sword, was clearly bent on killing him, Hagiochristophorites turned around the mule he was riding and spurring it repeatedly, managed to get by the archway of the gate. But before he was able to pass through, Isaakios brought down a mortal blow and struck the poor wretch in the middle of his skull. Having cleaved him in twain, he let him lie there, the sport of dogs, like a fatted beast besmeared in its own blood. As for Hagiochristophorites’ attendants, he terrified the one with his bare sword, cut off the ear of another, and sent another flying elsewhere, whereupon all fled to their homes. Then Isaakios rode at full speed towards the Great Church by way of the thoroughfare Mese. As he passed through the agora, he shouted out to all that with this sword (for he was still carrying it naked in his hand) he had killed Stephanos Hagiochristophorites.
On entering the holy temple, he ascended the pulpit from which murderers publicly confess their crimes, asking forgiveness from those entering and leaving the most holy shrine. Those of the City’s populace who, with their own eyes, had seen Isaakios riding into the Great Church, as well as those who had learned of his deed by hearsay, came streaming in by the thousands to see Isaakios and witness what was to become of him. They all supposed that before sunset he would be seized by Andronikos and subjected to the most terrible and novel punishments

§ 343  which could be contrived for his suffering by the ingenious fabricator of such horrors. Isaakios’s paternal uncle, John Doukas, together with his son Isaakios, came to his assistance and hailed his act of sedition, not because they were participants with Isaakios in the slaughter of Hagiochristophorites and accomplices in shedding his blood, but because they realized their ruin would follow, since they had given surety for one another to Andronikos when compelled to confirm their oath of loyalty to him.
With teeth chattering in fear, they expected to be apprehended at any moment and saw their death before their eyes. At great length they earnestly entreated the promiscuous crowds that streamed into the temple to remain with them and to help them as best they could, persuading them that their lives were threatened. The crowd nodded assent to their petition and took pity on them for their misfortune. Because none of the emperor’s supporters was present to protest these developments, neither from among the illustrious nobility nor from among those who retained Andronikos’s favor, nor ax-bearing barbarian, nor lictors dressed in scarlet, nor any one else, the assembled throng became bold and excited.
Since there was none to obstruct them, their tongues became loosed and unbridled, and they promised to join together to provide the three with every assistance.
Thus Isaakios passed the whole night [11-12 September 1185], not in discussion about the throne, but in prayer that he not be killed; he knew that the flesh-eating Andronikos would sacrifice him like an ox or savor raw bits of his flesh like Cyclops. Thanks to his anxious supplication, several of the assembled populace shut the gates of the temple

§ 344  and brought in lights and persuaded many by their example not to depart for their homes. By morning there was no inhabitant of the City who was not in attendance and who did not pray to God that Isaakios might reign as emperor and Andronikos be dethroned, taken into custody, and made to suffer all the torments he had inflicted as he plotted against the life of almost everyone.
It so happened that at that time, according to the dispensation, as it seems, of Divine Providence, that Andronikos was not present in the imperial palace but was at the palace of Meloudion, situated on the eastern side of the strait leading into the Propontis. Near the first watch of the night, he heard of Hagiochristophorites’ death and did nothing more for the time being than to address the citizens of the capital with a brief dispatch that exhorted them to desist from attempting to foment rebellion; it began as follows: “He who has received, has received; punishment has ceased.”
In the early dawn, Andronikos’s attendants attempted to restrain the swelling mob, and Andronikos himself arrived at the Great Palace on an imperial trireme. Nor did any other proposal to check the tumultuous concourse fall on the ears of those who hear; many came near to being killed by merely muttering that no good could come of all this. As if by a preconcerted signal, the common herd ran en masse as though possessed with Corybantic frenzy to the Great Shrine of the Logos, inciting one another and bantering with those who did not share their zeal; they had not armed themselves with any kind of weapon but simply stood by idly and observed what others were doing. The learned among them called them a putrid member which did not suffer together with the rest of the body politic.
Next, they broke into pieces the keys and bolts of the public prisons and set the prisoners free;

§ 345  these were not all criminals, but many were members of illustrious families who had pined behind locked doors for some fortuitous and insignificant fault, or incidental remark, or for a crime committed against Andronikos by some friend. This event united the people even more and brought those who earlier mumbled against Andronikos but hesitated to do anything that might expose them to danger wholeheartedly into the enemy camp. They were now seen bearing swords and shields and fenced with long coats of mail, but the majority were armed with clubs and with wooden beams taken from workshops. The surging throng proclaimed Isaakios emperor of the Romans, and one of the sacristans climbed a ladder and took down the crown of Constantine the Great which was suspended above the holy altar and set it on Isaakios’s head.
So that what followed may not remain unrecorded and unheard by future generations, Isaakios, for his part, was perplexed by the coronation, not because he did not cherish the crown with a passion, but because he suspected how troublesome and difficult it would be to attain.
He felt that these events were simply being acted out in a dream, and fearing the wrath of Andronikos, he did not wish to provoke him any further. The aforementioned Doukas, who was standing with Isaakios, removed his hat, and baring his bald pate that shone brighter than a full moon, made earnest supplication that the diadem be set on his head. The mob refused, asserting that they never again wanted an old man to rule over them as emperor. They had had their fill of evils at the hands of the grizzled Andronikos; thanks to him, they abhorred every old man full of years and on the brink of the grave, especially if he had a beard parted in the middle and tapering at the end.

§ 346  When Isaakios was anointed emperor in this manner, there occurred another event worth telling. As the imperial horses with their goldtrappings were about to be transported across the straits to the passageway of the Little Columns, one of them reared its legs, broke loose from the groom, and ran through the streets. When captured, it was taken to Isaakios as a mount.
Isaakios left the Great Church accompanied by Patriarch Basil Kamateros, whom the multitude had induced against his will to participate in and approve of their actions. When Andronikos arrived at the Great Palace, the mingled murmur pricked his ears, and shortly afterwards, seeing at a glance what was taking place, he gave his attention to resisting the mob and assembled his companions to give battle. Only a few of them were ready to follow his call for action, and so he took direct charge of the battle. Taking hold of a bow, he sent his arrows against the attackers from the embrasures of the highest tower, called Kentenarion. He soon realized that he was attempting to accomplish the impossible and spoke to the people through a messenger. He agreed to lay aside his crown and deliver it over to his son Manuel, hoping to still the tumult and to ward off the danger at hand. But exasperated more than ever by his words, the mob heaped the most atrocious insults on both him and his designated successor.
Because the multitude was now pouring inside the palace through the so-called Karea Gate, which had been broken down, Andronikos fled, taking wing in his purple-dyed buskins. Struck mad by God, on the way he removed his ancient amulet and the cross and donned a barbarian cap that tapered to a point like a pyramid. Thus attired, he boarded the same trireme which had brought him from Melanoudion to the Great Palace.

§ 347  There he took on board Anna, the bride of Emperor Alexios, who, when the latter departed this life, suffering the death we described above, was taken to wife by Andronikos. He also took with him his mistress Maraptike, for whom he had a most ardent and passionate love — greater even than that of Demetrios Poliorketes of ancient times for Lamia, whom Ptolemy took captive when campaigning in Cyprus and who played the flute quite tolerably — and sailed away as fast as possible towards his destination. He chose the route leading to the land of the Tauro-Scythians [Russia], excluding all Roman provinces and other foreign territory as untrustworthy.
It was in this manner that Andronikos was driven from the throne of the Roman empire. Isaakios arrived at the palace, where he was acclaimed forthwith emperor and autokrator of the Romans by the assembled throng; thereupon, he dispatched troops to pursue Andronikos.
Large numbers of the citizenry, who had entered the palace without any difficulty, since there was no one to obstruct them or to prevent them from doing whatever they wanted, seized as plunder all the money they found still stored in the Chrysioplysia mint (besides the raw metals which had not been coined, there were twelve hundred pounds of gold, three thousand pounds of silver, and twenty thousand pounds of copper coins) and whatever else they could lay their hands on and carry away either individually or with the help of many others. Entering the armories, they removed countless weapons. They proceeded to despoil the churches inside the palace and went so far as to pull the ornaments off the holy icons and to make away with the most sacred wrapping in which, according to an ancient tradition which has been handed down to us, was folded the letter of the Lord written in his own hand to Abgar.
After spending many days in the Great Palace, Emperor Isaakios moved to the palace in Blachernai, where messengers arrived announcing the capture of Andronikos, who had been apprehended in the following manner. While making his escape, he came to Chele, accompanied by a few of his attendants who had served him before his reign as emperor and by the two women he had brought with him. When the inhabitants there

§ 348  saw that he was wearing none of the imperial insignia, and that he was hastening to sail on to the Tauro-Scythians as a fugitive, fleeing without being pursued, they neither dared nor deemed it proper to take him into custody (they feared the beast no less that he was unarmed; for they cowered just at the sight of him); they prepared a ship and Andronikos boarded it with his followers. But even the sea was vexed with Andronikos because he had often defiled her depths with bodies of the innocent; the waves rose straight up and fell back into a yawning chasm and leaped up again to swallow him, and the ship was cast towards shore. Again and again this happened, and Andronikos was hindered from crossing over before his captors arrived on the scene.
Thus the wretched Andronikos was arrested, bound, and thrown into a boat together with the women. But even at that time Andronikos remained ever the same, a man of many wiles and passing wise. Seeing that he could use neither his hands nor feet and that there was no sword at hand to perform some brave deed and escape his captors, he enacted a tragedy. Deftly modulating the plaintive tones of his voice, he sang a pathetic lament that paraded the forcible confinements of the past, and like a dexterous musician plucking the strings of a melodious instrument, he recounted in poetic strains how highborn was his family, distinguished for bravery; how fortunate had been his former station in life; how his earlier existence, even though he had been a homeless wanderer, had not at all been unbearable; and how pitiable was the present calamity which had overwhelmed him. The ingenious women responded to Andronikos in song and improvised an even .more mournful tune. He began the lamentations, and they, following his lead and singing together, answered him.
For naught did Andronikos recite all these things, and in vain did he of many devices contrive them;

§ 349  for the unholy deeds which he had perpetrated stopped up the ears of his captors like beeswax: not one of them was moved to pity, or listened to his Sirens’ song which he sang in the manner of women, or, more properly, with cunning and deceit, and the moly failed Hermes because of God’s wrath.
He was confined in the so-called prison of Anemas with two heavy chains weighing down his proud neck, the iron collars used to fetter caged lions, and his feet were painfully shackled. Bound in this fashion he was paraded before Emperor Isaakios. He was slapped in the face, kicked on the buttocks, his beard was torn out, his teeth pulled out, his head shorn of hair; he was made the common sport of all those who gathered; he was even battered by women who struck him in the mouth with their fists, especially by all those whose husbands were put to death or blinded by Andronikos. Afterwards, his right hand cut off by an ax, he was cast again into the same prison without food and drink, tended by no one.
Several days later, one of his eyes was gouged out, and, seated upon a mangy camel, he was paraded through the agora looking like a leafless and withered old stump, his bare head, balder than an egg, shining before all, his body covered by meager rags; a pitiful sight that evoked tears from sympathetic eyes. But the stupid and ignorant inhabitants of Constantinople, and of these more so the sausage sellers and tanners, as well as those who pass the day in the taverns and eke out a niggardly existence from cobbling and with difficulty earn their bread from sewing, even as tribes of flies are gathered together and swarm around milk pails in the springtime and drink deep from the ivy-wood cups filled to overflowing,

§ 350  gave no thought to the fact that but a few short days earlier this man had been emperor. That he had worn the imperial diadem and had been hailed as savior, acclaimed and adored by all; that they had confirmed their loyalty and devotion to him by the most awful oaths was forgotten. Now, carried away by unreasoning anger and an even greater madness, there was no evil which they did not inflict wickedly on Andronikos. Some struck him on the head with clubs, others befouled his nostrils with cow-dung, and still others, using sponges, poured excretions from the bellies of oxen and men over his eyes. Some, using foul language, reviled his mother and all his forebears. There were those who pierced his ribs with spits. The more shameless among them pelted him with stones and called him a rabid dog. A certain incontinent prostitute, grabbed an earthenware pot filled with hot water and emptied it over his face. There was no one who did not inflict some injury on Andronikos.
Thus reviled and degraded, Andronikos was led into the theater in mock triumph sitting on the hump of a camel. When he dismounted, he was straightway suspended by his feet by a cord made of cork oak fastened to the two small columns on which rested a block of stone that stood near the bronze she-wolf and hyena whose necks were bent down.
Suffering all these evils and countless others which I have omitted, he held up bravely under the horrors inflicted upon him and remained in possession of his senses. To those who poured forth one after another and struck him, he turned and said no more than “Lord, have mercy,” and “Why do you further bruise the broken reed ?” Even after he was suspended by his feet, the foolish masses neither kept their hands off the much-tormented Andronikos, nor did they spare his flesh, but removing his short tunic, they assaulted his genitals. A certain ungodly man dipped his long sword into his entrails by way of the pharynx; certain members of the Latin race raised their swords with both hands above his buttocks,

§ 351  and, standing around him, they brought them down, making trial as to whose cut was deeper and boasting loudly as to the dexterity of their hands which resulted in such a noteworthy wound.
After so much suffering, Andronikos broke the thread of life, his right arm extended in agony and brought around to his mouth so that it seemed to many that he was sucking out the still-warm blood dripping from the recent amputation.
He reigned for two years, and for one year he was the actual master of the empire without donning the purple toga and the imperial diadem. He was well-proportioned and of wondrous comeliness, erect in posture and of heroic stature, and although he was well into old age, his face was youthful in form. He was the healthiest of men because he did not indulge in delicacies; neither was he incontinent in matters of the stomach, a gourmand drinking neat wine, but in the manner of Homeric heroes he preferred meats roasted over the fire, and thus no one ever saw him belch. But if ever he did suffer a stomachache as a result of toil and fasting the whole day long, he quickly overcame his ailment, helping his body to heal itself by partaking of a morsel of bread and a sip of wine. He took a physic but once during his reign, and then only because he was exhorted to do so against his will by the physicians who contended that, although he was not indisposed, it was necessary to take the efficacious medicine as a precaution. At sunset, after drinking the cathartic slowly, he evacuated whatever waste matter there was in his excretory organs, and to those companions who asserted that most thought that what the oracle declared of old, “O Scythe-bearer, you have four months left,” was said of him, he smiled and said that this was clearly false. Even should his body endure every kind of illness for a year on end, he was confident that he could resist because of the robustness of his physique, and it seems that he imagined that he would succumb to a soft death and

§ 352  that the end of his life would be a peaceful one; as for a death that would be just the opposite, he either purposely pretended that there was no such possibility or he had never put it in his mind.
The story has come down to us that once, during the horse races, Andronikos extended his hand and pointed out to his cousin Emperor Manuel the columns between which he himself would be suspended and said that some day an emperor of the Romans would be hanged there and ill-treated by the entire City’s populace; Andronikos was speaking of Manuel, but it was not he who was to succumb to this fate.
Such was the death which overtook Andronikos, who was desolated like one rudely awakened from a dream. In the City his image had become an abomination, whether it be the features of his face as one would visualize them or his portrait found on walls and panels; large numbers of the populace abused these and ground them down and scattered them over the City, even outdoing what Moses’ chosen followers did to the idol of the bull they cast in drunkenness.
After several days, his body was taken down from the most pitiable gallows and pitched into one of the vaults of the Hippodrome like an animal’s carcass. Later, certain people who displayed some measure of compassion and did not indulge their wrath in all things removed Andronikos’s corpse and laid it to rest in the lowest district near the Monastery of Ephoros which is situated at the Zeuxippon; even now it is not completely decomposed as can be seen by those who wish to look. Isaakios, blameless and just in all things, or so he thought, refused to allow the corpse to be removed and consigned to the grave or to be carried to the Church of the Holy Forty Martyrs which Andronikos had ambitiously restored, adorning it with splendid decorations and extraordinary votive offerings, and in which he had provided that his body’s dust be sheltered.
Andronikos gave himself over to the epistles of Paul, the divine herald.
Continually taking his fill of their trickling honey, he composed excellent

§ 353  letters embellished with incontrovertible arguments which he derived from this source. He adorned with gold an icon of the divine preacher of Tarsus, which had been painted by an ancient hand and set it up as a votive offering in the Church of the Holy Forty Martyrs. When his downfall was imminent, teardrops trickled from the eyes of the icon. On being informed of this Andronikos dispatched his ministers to verify the report. One of those chosen was Stephanos Hagiochristophorites; climbing a ladder (for the icon was suspended), he wiped the eyes of Paul with an unused and spotless cloth, but as soon as the wellsprings were wiped dry, they poured forth yet more tears. Marveling at what he had seen, he returned to report the wonder to Andronikos, who was greatly troubled and shook his head from side to side, muttering that it appeared that Paul was weeping for him, a portent that the worst calamity was to befall him. He loved Paul ardently and was exceedingly devoted to his words and presumed that he was loved by him in return.
In a word, Andronikos would not have been the least of the Komnenian emperors had he mitigated the intensity of his cruelty, had he been less quick to apply the hot iron and to resort to mutilation, ever blemishing and staining his vestments with blood, inexorably driven to punishment. Such practice he copied from the barbarous nations with whom he associated when, above all men, he was compelled to wander far and long. He might have been the equal of the Komnenians and their match in every way, for he was also responsible for the greatest blessings on behalf of humanity. He was not inhuman in all things, but like those creatures fashioned of double natures, he was brutal and human in form.
There were, moreover, iambic verses, contained in books and recited by many, that predicted Andronikos’s future, among which was the following:
Suddenly rising up from a place full of wine,
A man livid and arrogant in manner, Spotted, grizzled, a multicolored chameleon, Shall fall upon a stalk and mow it down.

§ 354  But he too, being cut down in time, Will miserably pay the price For those wrongs which the wretch committed in his lifetime;
For he who bears the sword shall not escape the sword.
By a place full of wine, Oinaion was meant, as is evident from the name of the land whence Andronikos set out for Constantinople, as I have already related.

§ 355  V The Reign of Isaakios Angelos BOOK ONE
Thus Isaakios Angelos succeeded to the throne with no trouble whatsoever by purchasing it, so to speak, with the blood of Hagiochristophorites. He left the Great Palace and arrived at the palace of Blachernai, where he played the role of the righteous man most masterfully, continually repeating the verses which were said of the bovine emperor and mistakenly applying them to himself.
The form shows forth the place and the manner Whence you came, proving to me what a friend you are;
Being yourself temperate, you teach your dearest friends selfcontrol;
Earning alone the glory that emanates from the palace, By taking the sovereignty from the dying man, O most excellent one;
And shortly you shall prosper in the rule.
As emperor, he anointed his head with an abundant measure of compassion for the indigent, and behind his closet door he held converse with God the Father who sees in secret. All those who had suffered afflictions in exile and those whom Andronikos had stripped bare of their properties or whom he had physically maimed Isaakios gathered together

§ 356  and rewarded with substantial benefactions, restoring whatever of their possessions had been kept hidden in the imperial treasury and had not disappeared or which, awarded by Andronikos to others, still survived. In addition, he greeted them with a generous hand and provided large sums of money from the palace treasuries.
He also directed the war against the Italians, who had already taken Thessaly and Amphipolis. Unreservedly emboldened, they boasted that they would easily subdue the megalopolis by land and by sea, that they would occupy her as a deserted nest and, within a few days, effortlessly plunder her. The people looked upon Isaakios’s reign as the transition from winter to spring, or as the steady calm following the storm. They came streaming in from all parts of the Roman provinces, not only those under arms but also those who had been disabled in the past, and the youths no less; some came only to look upon the liberator Moses and Zorobabel leading back the captives of Sion (for thus did they deem Isaakios), others to receive their customary soldiers’ pay, and some to enlist in the army and to acquit themselves like men against the Sicilians.
When Andronikos’s downfall became known to those who marched away together with Andronikos’s son, Emperor John, to the province of Philippopolis, they immediately seized him and gouged his eyes out.
Waiting for someone to console him and finding no one, and for someone to grieve with him and beholding no one, he died an agonizing death.
His brother Manuel was also arrested and blinded, despite the fact that he in no way assented to his father’s crimes and that this was well known, not only to those who frequented the agora but above all to Isaakios, who deprived him of his sight.

§ 357  When Isaakios saw the considerable concourse of people from the eastern cities who came to take part in the campaign against the Sicilian enemy, he welcomed them readily and gladdened them with as many gifts as possible. Then he armed them and dispatched them to the army under Branas’s command. To the Roman divisions in the field who fought the enemy troups, he sent the imperial rations and gave added support to the struggle at hand to the sum of four thousand pounds of gold.
The Sicilian adversary had not yet heard of Andronikos’s fall and confidently continued their advance, intending to terminate their march at Constantinople; their fleet sailed out and put in at the islands nearest the City. But He who does not allow the Giants to be saved by the greatness of their strength and by war chariots and horses, and showers His grace on the humble, caused the proud to fall. Coming down once again in truth, He did not confound their tongues but divided them into three parts. The one part was left to keep watch over the presiding city of the Thessalians [Thessaloniki] and remained in force with the support of fast-sailing ships; the second part plundered the territory around Serrai with impunity; the third part did not remain wholly undivided, but one section drank and bathed in the Strymon while laying waste the lands around Amphipolis, and the other, advancing joyfully as though anticipating their entry into the capital, encamped at Mosynopolis. Ever victorious and meeting absolutely no resistance, they made reckless sallies. They separated according to companies, each going its separate way, and scattered in the hope of despoiling anyone coming out of, or carrying provisions into, Mosynopolis.

§ 358  The strategos Branas observed the activities of the barbarians in those parts and led on the army from time to time, but he could barely persuade the troops to come out of the mountains but for a little and take to the plain fit for driving horses. In their first attack they performed bravely and routed an enemy division, bearing out the myth of the Myrmidons in their own actions; they were suddenly transformed into men of valor and ever cut down those in the rear ranks. The rout of the enemy continued all the way to Mosynopolis. After successfully engaging the enemy before the city, they attacked the defenders within. They set fire to the gates guarded by the enemy (for fear and shuddering had already compassed their bodies), and, leaping inside, they reveled in slaughter, having for so long been starved of the savory repast of warfare. As they consumed the wealth of the nations, they were surfeited and made fat by the booty, and they became presumptuous over against the enemy around Amphipolis, passing over their recent victory as though it were stale food. They marched, therefore, in battle array, as though they were the Camp of God, or an army of lions, against the horses, armaments, and remaining divisions of the enemy still encamped about the Strymon.
When the die of fortunes was cast contrariwise by the hand of God, they, who were formerly haughty and disdainful, boasting that they could wellnigh lift up and move mountains with their lance, were as though struck by lightning or by the violent crash of thunder. Driven mad by the dreadful reports of what had befallen their near friends at Mosynopolis, they procrastinated in giving battle and sluggishly drew themselves out in battle order. The Romans, on the other hand, putting aside their humility

§ 359  of spirit and darting forth like eaglets dwelling high in the clouds in pursuit of fowl on the ground, raced with wingless speed to engage in battle those who had formerly reproached them as having turned into birds.
When both armies converged on the same position (it was called the place of Demetritzes), then more and more the Sicilians demonstrated their cowardice. They decided to sue for peace, and to this end they sent an envoy to enter into negotiations with Branas. At first, the request delighted the Romans; shortly afterwards, however, they changed their minds, suspecting that the enemy’s proposals were a stratagem, and if this were not the case, it was undoubtedly evidence of cowardice. Without waiting for the call to battle or the sounding of the war trumpet or any other mobilization order customarily given by commanders before battle, they attacked the enemy with swords bared. Up to a certain point the Sicilians received the charge of the Romans bravely and courageously, and the tide of battle ebbed and flowed, but finally they succumbed to the excessively impassioned charge of the Roman troops; they turned their backs and fled in disorder. When overtaken, they were cut down, taken captive, driven into the Strymon River, plundered, and stripped. It was in the early afternoon of the seventh day of the month of November when these events took place [1185 CE], Both generals of the army were apprehended: Richard, the brother of Tancred’s wife, who commanded the Sicilian fleet, and Count Baldwin, who was not descended from a noble and illustrious family but was highly regarded by the king for his competence in military science; he was, above all others at that time, girt with the dignity of generalship. Exulting in his earlier victories over the Romans, he likened himself to Alexander the Great, the Macedonian, except that he did not have on his chest, as did Alexander, hairs depicting a beak and representing wings, and he

§ 360  boasted of having achieved even greater deeds than Alexander in a briefer span of time and without bloodshed.
Those troops who had escaped the net of battle that had been cast, together with those who had overrun the lands around Serrai, hastened straightway to Thessaloniki and embarked on the long boats as soon as they arrived from their hasty flight. But they were not to have a fair voyage; furious storms that bore their destruction rose up to cripple them and worked their doom, which was first ordained by the will of God to take place on land and then, shortly afterwards, at sea. Many who were too late for the triremes were overtaken while still wandering about Thessaloniki and put to death in diverse ways, especially by the Alan mercenaries. In retaliation for what they had suffered when Thessaloniki fell, they took no pity upon the enemy and filled the streets and the narthexes of the holy churches with corpses. As they asked the captive Sicilians, “Where in the world is my brother?” (they meant their fellow Alan whom the Sicilians had killed during the fall), they ran them through with the sword. They also slaughtered those who streamed into the temples, with the words, “Where in the world is the papas? [father] meaning those priests killed when the Sicilians had burst in upon the sanctuaries.
At this time something quite novel took place. They say that after the fall of the city, the dogs did not snatch at the corpses of the slain Romans, or rend them with their teeth, or mutilate them, but they attacked the bodies of the fallen Latins with such viciousness, unsatiated by the flesh they devoured, that they even broke into graves and unearthed the entombed bodies as prey.
The two generals of whom we have spoken and the brainless and pernicious Alexios Komnenos, the cause of all these evils, who deserved to dwell in the House of Charon, were deprived of the light of their eyes.

§ 361  The Latins who reached Epidamnos safely were gladly delivered over to their countrymen who guarded the city as the seeds of many thousands. The king of Sicily, having strengthened its defenses with all manner of weapons, would not deliver the city over to the Romans after the destruction of his armies. In foolish pursuit of famed glory, he insanely held on even after suffering defeat and disgrace. But not long afterwards, because provisions were scarce, he decided to withdraw.
The auspicious conclusion of the land war was such as had never entered our hearts. But God, as ruler over all, cares for all; governing human affairs with great forebearance and taking pity on all things, for he can do all things, he tipped the scales in our favor. Bringing every good hope, and chastening us but briefly, he scourged our enemies ten thousand times more, neither by changing the harmony of the elements, nor by bringing lice forth from the earth, nor by casting up fish and frogs from the river, nor by sending wasps forward as forerunners of the host, nor by any of the other prodigies of old; but rather, they who were being killed were suddenly transformed by God into relentless warriors and began to slay the murderers, for wickedness is a vile thing condemned by its own witness, and, pressed by its own conscience, it ever suffers the most grievous consequences.
For what grave charge could the Sicilians, removed from us by shadowy mountains and sounding sea, lay against the Romans? And should we seek to apprehend the deeper judgments of God, the Lord smites us because he knows our sins. Because those who, by the will of God, laid

§ 362  hold of us to flog us were both reckless and merciless, they, too, did not escape the just wrath of him who will have mercy and in measure feeds us the bread of tears and gives us tears to drink. But, as a lion leaping out of a thicket, like the destructive whelps of a wolf, and like a pouncing leopard, the captors became captives and the victors were vanquished, and the Lord had prepared for them a spirit of error that revealed the red-colored stains caused by their murderous ways and in need of cleansing. They crossed their own borders and invaded our lands; flogging us for a short time, they were flogged much more.
Thus did Justice take vengeance on the cavalry. The long ships, more than two hundred in number, also did not escape unscathed as they backwatered. Where they attempted to put their passengers ashore along the Astakenos Gulf, many were lost as they encountered the Roman forces who prevented them from bringing their ships to land by taking up positions on both shores, thus making it impossible to set foot on either side. Whenever the Sicilian fleet approached land or let down the gangway, a deluge of missiles immediately rained down upon them from all sides, and everyone ran for cover beneath the ships’s decks even as turtles withdraw into their shells. Their ships were numerous, but ours, numbering no more than one hundred in all, were eager to give battle. Not only was the fleet heartened but also many of the City’s inhabitants, who boarded fishing boats and armed themselves with whatever weapons were at hand, throbbing with eager excitement to sail out against the enemy.
The public interest did not induce the emperor and his counselors to give their permission for this; the fact of the excessive numbers of the enemy ships had to be considered. Consequently, our triremes riding at anchor alongshore the Columns [Diplokionion] did not advance any further. The

§ 363  enemy’s fleet did not take to the oar and move out from the islands for some seventeen days, since they saw none of our countrymen approaching by land; considering the delay not to their advantage, they prepared to set sail [November, 1185]. After wasting with fire the island of Kalonymos and the littoral of the Hellespont as well, the fleet sailed homewards. It is said that many ships, men and all, sank in the deep when they encountered tempestuous winds, while famine and disease emptied out others.
Thus, no less than ten thousand fighting men were lost in these campaigns. The captives taken in both battles, numbering more than four thousand, were incarcerated in public prisons. Had they not been fed from the imperial treasuries or had they not received the necessities of life from some other quarter, and been forced to survive only on bread provided by those God-loving people who visit those in prison, they would have wasted away miserably. He who wielded the scepter over Sicily and had initiated the war against the Romans, when informed of these things, sent letters reproaching the emperor for his lack of mercy and for cruelly allowing so many ranks of men of such tender age to perish of hunger and nakedness. Certainly they had taken up arms to wage war against the Romans, but nonetheless, they were Christians delivered into their hands by God. The victor, he said, either should have

§ 364  immediately condemned the prisoners to utter destruction, wholly irrationally exchanging his own nature for that of the beast and disregarding the law of humanity, or, choosing not to behave in this manner and casting them into prison, he should have broken bread for them consisting of eight pieces if he were too niggardly to provide sufficient sustenance. The emperor took no heed of the letters’ contents. He allowed the wretches to waste away as before, which was the fate he had in store for them. Every day, two and three at a time were often carried out and, deprived of burial rites and libations to the dead, were thrown into the common burial places and deep pits.
The emperor, vested in his jeweled toga and seated on his royal throne inlaid with gold, assembled a multitude around his tribunal, so that he appeared most formidable to both foreigners and Romans, and commanded the generals of the Sicilian army, that is, Baldwin and Richard, to be brought before him. After they had removed their head coverings and rendered servile obeisance, they were questioned by the emperor as to why they had reviled him, the anointed of the Lord, who had given no just cause for complaint. Gloating all the while over their present plight, more than was proper, he boasted and exulted in the crushing defeat of the enemy.

§ 365  At the time the Latin army was still intact and Emperor Isaakios had but just succeeded to the throne. He dispatched envoys, but he made no offer of reconciliation to the generals, or honored them with gifts, or led them on with any pretences of goodwill. He addressed them in an imperious manner, and, smiting them with reproaches and accusations, he bore himself pompously towards men who were still victorious and who had trampled under foot the entire realm of the Romans. Openly praising and extolling his sword with its lethal power, he violently threatened — without yet knowing how he was going to achieve it — their utter destruction and perdition if they did not alter their plans and return whence they had come.
Baldwin, an arrogant man now swollen like a wineskin because of his successes, could not tolerate these written communications. He replied most cleverly to the emperor: he ridiculed his sword as having been honed on the bodies of effeminate men (he was alluding to the death of Hagiochristophorites), and he mocked Isaakios as being helpless, for he had never camped out and slept on a shield, or endured a helmet covered with coal dust and abided a filthy coat of mail. Instead, from a tender age, he had devoted himself to an elementary schoolmaster; he had been taught learned trifles, holding in his hands a pencil and a writing tablet and with a parchment dealing with numbers hanging about his person; he had looked askance at the scourge which fell frequently on hands and buttocks and had known and feared only the crack of the whip, without ever experiencing the threat of Ares or ever hearing the hurtling of spears. 106(1 Not only did Baldwin write these things in mockery but he also resorted to persuasion; although he was an enemy, he became a counselor.

§ 366  He urged Isaakios to put away the imperial crown and to lay aside the remaining insignia of sovereignty, and, folding these away, to give up all claim to them and to preserve them for the winner and the better man, thus referring to the king as his master, and to fall down before him and plead long and urgently for his life only.
Because of these things, the emperor now brought the generals to account, dismissing from his mind the verse of David, “Our tongue is our own: who is lord over us?” and he condemned them to death because of what they had written.
Baldwin, skillfull in casting reproaches while extolling his successes, was also an inordinate flatterer who assigned the emperor’s failure to the slight inferiority of his weapons and engines of war. He deflected the emperor’s wrath and mollified his anger by first magnifying his sword as being truly imperial and keen and then contending that the words written by the emperor at that time were words of truth that had been sealed indeed by the hand of God and were not empty, light talk. He pleaded that he did not deserve being cast aside as worthless, despite the bitter words he had written, for even Nature considers hatred among enemies as blameless.
Wherefore the emperor remained silent, adding nothing more. I know not whether he was swayed like a woman by the flattery or persuaded by the statement of defense.
Baldwin and Richard were again placed under guard when they left.
The emperor, now turning his attention to other matters, gave explicit instructions to those present and to all the rest that from that day on he wished no one to be maimed in body, even though he be the most hateful of men, and even though he plot to take the emperor’s life and throne.

§ 367  All those assembled at the imperial tribunal applauded this declaration and shouted in approval almost as it they were listening to the voice of God. All, contemplating the difficulty of accomplishing what was promised and amazed at his excessive gentleness, remarked that the emperor was the perfect gift from God. 1(164 It is not possible that someone, especially an emperor, should be characterized by an immutable depravity of nature which cannot be altered or changed for the better, or that he should shelter a rebellious man who lays thieving hands on the throne, even though he should put forth special claim to virtue and with David should not requite with evil those who requite him with good, 11)65 or, in times of danger, should chant his verses, “They compassed me about as bees do a honeycomb, but in the name of the Lord I repulsed them.”
Shortly afterwards, however, the emperor gave indications of contradicting the resolution he had declared in public; just as he gave no explicit verbal commands, neither did he hesistate to take action, but he closely emulated Andronikos by destroying all opposition, contrary to Solomon’s verse which says, “Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.”
When the sultan of Ikonion (this was still Kilij Arslan, in green old age and over seventy years old) heard of Andronikos’s death and Isaakios’s accession, he conjectured rightly that with such changes of emperors, dislocations would most likely occur, especially if a major war was being fought in the West. He now initiated an attack against the Thrakesian

§ 368  theme with picked cavalry and elite troops under the command of the amir Sames [autumn 1185]. Finding the region of Kelbianos !<)6S emptied of men experienced in bearing arms (for they all had flowed like torrents towards Isaakios, who had just now donned the purple robe), he took many captives, seized all kinds of herds, and loaded his troops with other spoils.
With the Eastern nations pacified by additional lavish outlays, as well as by the payment of annual tribute (thus did those who sit over us Romans know how to free themselves of the foreigner, pursuing housekeeping cares like maidens of the bedchamber who toil at wool spinning), Isaakios decided to seek a wife from among the foreign nations, for the woman he had married earlier had died. After his envoys had made the negotiations, he took as his betrothed wife the daughter of Bela, the king of Hungary, who was not yet ten years old. He celebrated the wedding rites penuriously [end of or beginning of 1186], using public monies freely collected from his own lands. Because of his niggardliness, he escaped notice as he gleaned other cities which were joined together around Anchialos, provoking the barbarians who lived in the vicinity of Mount Haimos, formerly called Mysians and now named Vlachs, to declare war against him and the Romans.
Made confident by the harshness of the terrain and emboldened by their fortresses, most of which are situated directly above sheer cliffs, the barbarians had boasted against the Romans in the past; now, finding a pretext like that alleged on behalf of Patroklos — the rustling of their cattle and their own ill-treatment — they leaped with joy at rebellion.

§ 369  The instigators of this evil who incited the entire nation were a certain Peter and Asan, brothers sprung from the same parents. In order to justify their rebellion, they approached the emperor, encamped at Kypsella [early 1186], requesting that they be recruited in the Roman army and be awarded by imperial rescript a certain estate situated in the vicinity of Mount Haimos, which would provide them with a little revenue.
Failing in their request — for the punitive action of God supersedes that of man — they grumbled because they had not been heard; and with their request made for naught, they spat out heated words, hinting at rebellion and the destruction they would wreak on their way home. Asan, the more insolent and savage of the two, was struck across the face and rebuked for his impudence at the command of John, the sebastokrator.
Thus did they return, unsuccessful in their mission and wantonly insulted. What words could possibly describe and embrace the endless string of Trojan woes inflicted on the Romans by these impious and abominable men? But none of this now; let us proceed with the narrative in historical sequence.
As Isaakios Komnenos still ruled as tyrant over Cyprus and was not disposed to keep his hands off the revenue payments that were promised to the emperor, or to bend his knee to him, or to moderate the horrors which he wickedly inflicted on the Cypriots, ever contriving novel torments, the emperor decided to fit out a fleet against him. Seventy long ships were made ready; the designated commanders were John Kontostephanos, who had arrived at the threshold of old age, and Alexios Komnenos, who, although of good stature, courageous, and a second cousin to the emperor, had had his eyes cut out by Andronikos and thus was considered as unfit for battle by all those participating in the campaign. His appointment was deemed by many as an inauspicious omen.

§ 370  The voyage to Cyprus was without danger, with a very favorable wind gently filling the sails, but immediately after entering the harbors, a storm broke out that was more furious than any at sea. Isaakios, ruler over Cyprus, engaged them and put them to flight. The most formidable pirate on the high seas at that time, a man called Megareites, unexpectedly came to the aid of Isaakios and attacked the ships, which he found emptied of men, for they had disembarked to join in the land war. The captains of the triremes performed no brave deed but readily surrendered themselves into the hands of the enemy. Isaakios handed them over to Megareites to do with them as he wished. He took them to Sicily, where he recognized the tyrant of that island as his lord. Isaakios, after defeating the Romans, enlisted many in his own forces, and many he subjected to savage punishments, for he was an inexorable tormentor; among these was Basil Rentakenos, whose legs he cut off at the knees with an ax. This man was most skilled in warfare and had served as a teacher to Isaakios as Phoenix of old instructed Achilles to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. The most wrathful of men, Isaakios’s anger ever bubbled like a boiling kettle; when in a rage, he spoke like a madman with his lower jaw aquiver, and not knowing how to reward his pedagogue with bright gifts, he subjected him to such retribution. He allowed the ship’s crews to go wherever they wished, and they came to their homes as though returning after a long time from a distant shipwreck, as many, that is, as did not succumb to one of the three evils of sea, hunger, and death.

§ 371  When the Vlachs were afflicted with the disease of open rebellion, the leaders of this evil being those I cited above, the emperor marched out against them [spring 1186], These events, therefore, must not be overlooked and unrecorded. At first, the Vlachs were reluctant and turned away from the revolt urged upon them by Peter and Asan, looking askance at the magnitude of the undertaking. To overcome the timidity of their compatriots, the brothers built a house of prayer in the name of the Good Martyr Demetrios. In it they gathered many demoniacs of both races; with crossed and bloodshot eyes, hair dishevelled, and with precisely all the other symptoms demonstrated by those possessed by demons, they were instructed to say in their ravings that the God of the race of the Bulgars and Vlachs had consented to their freedom and assented that they should shake off after so long a time the yoke from their neck; and in support of this cause, Demetrios, the Martyr for Christ, would abandon the metropolis of Thessaloniki and his church there and the customary haunts of the Romans and come over to them to be their helper and assistant in their forthcoming task. These madmen would keep still for a short while and then, suddenly moved by the spirit, would rave like lunatics; they would start up and shout and shriek, as though inspired, that this was no time to sit still but to take weapons in hand and close with the Romans. Those seized in battle should not be taken captive or preserved alive but slaughtered, killed without mercy; neither should they release them for ransom nor yield to supplication, succumbing like women to genuflections. Rather, they. should remain as hard as diamonds to every plea and put to death every ' captive.

§ 372  With such soothsayers as these, the entire nation was won over, and everyone took up arms. Since their rebellion was immediately successful, all the more did they assume that God had approved of their freedom.
Freely moving out a short distance without opposition, they extended their control over the lands outside of Zygon. Peter, Asan’s brother, bound his head with a gold chaplet and fashioned scarlet buskins to put on his feet. An assault was made upon Pristhlava [Preslav] (this is an ancient city built of baked bricks and covering a very large area), but they realized that a seige would not be without danger, and so they bypassed it. They descended Mount Haimos, fell unexpectedly upon the Roman towns, and carried away many free Romans, much cattle and draft animals, and sheep and goats in no small number.
The emperor marched out against them, and they, in turn, occupying the rough ground and inaccessible places, stood their ground for a long time. But unexpectedly a blackness rose up [solar eclipse, April 1186] and covered the mountains which were guarded by the barbarians, who had laid ambuscades at the narrow defiles; the Romans, undetected, came upon them unawares to send them scurrying in panic. The originators of this evil and commanders of the army, that is, Peter and Asan, and their fellow rebels ran violently to the Istros like the herd of swine in the Gospels

§ 373  who ran into the sea and sailed across to join forces with their neighbors, the Cumans. The emperor was hindered by the vast wilderness from making his way through Mysia. Many of the cities there are in the vicinity of Mount Haimos, and the majority or practically all, in fact, are built on sheer cliffs and cloud-capped peaks.
Thus, he posted garrisons and did nothing more than set fire to the crops gathered in heaps. Subjected to the trickeries of the Vlachs, who observed him closely, he turned back forthwith, leaving matters there to continue in turmoil [probably July 1186]. As a result, he encouraged the barbarians to sneer even more broadly at the Romans and emboldened them all the more.
On arriving at the queen of cities, Isaakios plumed himself on his achievements, so much so that one of the judges (this was Leon Monasteriotes) said that the soul of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer [Basil II, 976-1025] was aggrieved because the emperor had utterly cast aside his Typikon and all the writings he had lodged in the Monastery of Sosthenion, among which he had prophesied the revolution of the Vlachs. Isaakios continued apace, deriding and ridiculing the prediction as being apparently mistaken, contending that he had won over the rebels by persuasion and had instantly led them back to their former subordination and bondage, while it took Basil a very long time to do so, and that Basil had belched forth empty lies and vain prophecies as from the bay-eating throat and tripod.

§ 374  Asan and his barbarians crossed the Istros and met the Cumans, from among whom he enlisted a large number of auxiliaries. Then, as was their intention, they returned to their country of Mysia [after summer 1186].
Finding the land swept clean and emptied of Roman troops, they marched in with even greater braggadocio, leading their Cuman auxiliaries as though they were legions of spirits. They were not content merely to preserve their own possessions and to assume control of the government of Mysia; they also were compelled to wreak havoc against the Roman territories and unite the political power of Mysia and Bulgaria into one empire as of old.
The former triumphs would have been repeated had the emperor himself set out once more against the rebels. But he deferred his own attack until another time and handed over the command to his paternal uncle, the sebastokrator John. Without exposing his troops to danger, John commanded them in a most laudable manner and annoyed the enemy with constant attacks whenever they formed in close order to give battle and descended into plains fit for driving horses. Shortly afterwards, he was divested of his command for setting his eyes on the throne.
The kaisar, John Kantakouzenos, the emperor’s brother-in-law who was married to his sister, succeeded to the command of the sebastokrator.

§ 375  The man was huge in size and most courageous of heart, and with a booming voice. Although greatly experienced in the art of warfare, he was unsuccessful most of the time, or, rather, all of the time, because of his rashness and arrogance. The light of his eyes had been extinguished by Andronikos, who had heated for him the iron that maims. The barbarians had learned from their recent defeat that to leave the mountains and turn off into the plains was inimical to them. The kaisar, mistaking the guardedness of their behavior for cowardice, tracked them down in the manner of huntsmen as he advanced and then set up camp wherever he happened to be at the time without fortifying it with trenches. When the enemy attacked in the night, he barely saved himself, and his troops were sorely afflicted in diverse ways. Those who were caught as they slept were killed, and those who did not have time to strap on their weapons were taken captive; those who were able to escape without their weapons collected around the kaisar, only to find him to be more vindictive than the enemy. He ceaselessly insulted and reproached them for being helpless and for utterly betraying him. In an attempt to retrieve the defeat, he donned his armor, leaped on his spirited Arabian stallion, and couched his strong, heavy lance. Pointing his weapon in the direction of the enemy, he exhorted the survivors of his army to follow him, even though he could not see the enemy and had no idea where they were encamped.

§ 376  When the Romans had been put to flight by the barbarians, their standards were captured and the soft tunics and elegant cloaks of the kaisar snatched and put on by the companions of Asan and Peter. The victors, with the standards at their head, once more occupied the plains.
When Kantakouzenos laid aside his command, Alexios Branas was proclaimed general; he was short in stature, but gigantic in the scope of his intelligence and the cunningness of his designs, and he was the most versed in generalship of all men at that time. Taking over the command of the army, he executed his responsibilities as general with caution, not rashly, always advancing step by step, careful to harass the enemy while taking just as much care to keep his own troops out of danger. After traversing much rough terrain, he bivouacked in the vicinity of the socalled Black Mountain and established an entrenched camp. By anticipating any attack, he performed a very great service.
Branas was obsessed by a burning passion for the throne; he held Emperor Isaakios in contempt or, rather, unable to bear seeing him

§ 377  reign, he had before [end of 1185] been detected aiming at the throne when he was general of the troops in the war against the Sicilians. Aware that it would be difficult to gain the support of the Roman forces under his command in fomenting the rebellion for which he painfully longed, he first won over his German allies; but because he later deemed that they would be insufficient help in any future attempt to seize the throne, he decided to follow the same course taken by Isaakios when he traveled without difficulty the road to autocracy. By night he entered the Great Church and proceeded into the sanctuary in order to address those standing without; he entreated those who come inside to come to his aid, to help him avert the emperor’s unjust design, asserting that he had never given offense in any manner whatsoever. He supplemented this with a tiresome narration of the great victories he had won, how he had twice attacked the enemy forces and had, as many times, turned them to flight in great battles and by way of excellent stratagems. Again he fostered the same passion, forcibly restraining and bridling his lust for power as though it were an uncontrollable horse; but this time [c. April 1187], luckily receiving the support of the troops, he was prompted to bring his earlier objectives to a successful conclusion.

§ 378  His kinsmen consulted, those who were also his fellow countrymen (for they were from Adrianople), many in number and all of them powerful, he put on the red buskins. Next, he went to his native city, where he was proclaimed emperor by all the troops, and then set out for the imperial city and encamped in the Outer Philopation, as it was called.
He approached the City’s walls late in the afternoon with his wellarmed forces, astride a horse all black but for white horsehairs growing around the brow in a crescent shape, and threatened and exhorted both the imperial troops defending the walls and the City’s residents who were spectators of the goings-on. He promised to reward those who sympathized with his cause, and if they should open wide the gates and admit him inside, they would find him to be both savior and benefactor, embracing them with open arms; but if, when entering by the door, as he did not wish to climb up some other way, ' he should be opposed and resisted, and if he should be forced, at all hazards, to steal his way inside and to snatch the throne, he would with just cause do to them what savage beasts do when they enter the sheepfold by some way other than the door. Having boasted in such fashion with his troops arrayed to demonstrate his battle readiness, he returned to his camp.
On the following day, when the sun’s light began to illumine the eastern skies, he came to the City’s walls once again, at the land gates, called the Gates of Charsios, 1(188 where he deployed his army into right and left

§ 379  wings. Taking up his position in the center of the phalanx, he ordered his men to engage the troops that poured out of the City. The emperor did not deploy all his troops within the City’s gates to fight mightily on his behalf but commanded one part to stand on the walls above while another part sallied out to the farthest point of the fosse, where it was to oppose the enemy as best it could. Should the troops become exhausted by the heavy press of the enemy, he urged them to stay close to the walls so that those manning the battlements could defend them from above.
Until high noon both sides engaged in the discharge of missiles and in skirmishes. For a short time Branas’s troops prevailed over those of the emperor, as they were seasoned soldiers, especially those who constituted the Latin infantry. Survivors were searched out from among the captured Sicilian troops, and the emperor set them free from their bonds and prison, placed them under arms, and sent them against Branas. Branas’s infantrymen formed a mighty phalanx around him, and they were fenced about with a cavalryman’s shield, a long sword and a pointed lance.
Supported by their cavalry, they utterly routed the troops from the City, and these were compelled to cross the fosse and cling to the walls; the troops who stood on the walls came to their aid.

§ 380  Thus ended the events of that day. After suspending hostilities for five days, the tyrant once again massed his forces for battle and came before the walls of the City. Making himself appear terrifying to the citizens in an attempt to incite those within to revolt, he detached a division of his troops and dispatched them to the northern side of the City, opposite the haakios Angelos strait called the Ford of the Ox, from which the waterway can clearly be seen making its serpentine way to the palace in Blachernai, as can all the sections of the City facing north. In compliance with their orders, they ascended the high ground of the hills in that region and raised their standards. As the sun’s rays fell on the armor and the newly burnished and smooth corselets they were reflected like flashes of lightning, so that the City’s populace gathered in groups on the hilltops of the City to view the scene with great amazement.
After this, they won over to their side the inhabitants of the Propontis, who, though not all skilled in warfare, were each and every one adept in pulling an oar. The boats they had built for the catching of fish they converted into warships, covering the sides with thick planks; some were equipped with slings, while others took on board bows and quivers. Thus transformed from weavers of nets into fierce warriors, they triumphed over, and prevailed against, the imperial triremes which, while compassing the City, were on the lookout for nocturnal assaults by Branas’s troops and diligently kept watch lest the tyrant, despairing of entering through the land gates, slip inside unnoticed through the seaside gates. At

§ 381  first, those on the long ships thought that the fishermen were utterly insane and were confident that as soon as they moved against the fishing boats they would dash them. When the time came to exchange blows, the triremes sailed forth as the crooked and straight war trumpets sounded.
The ferryboats moved out in silence; the men on board, breathing fury, smote the sea with their oars and engaged the huge ships of the enemy, over whom they prevailed, and hemmed them in along the shore of the City. Because of their great length and slowness in turning, the triremes could not at once inflict damage on the adversary. As the fishing boats moved forward en masse, many would randomly surround a single trireme; attacking stern and prow and both sides, they won a resounding victory and raised a splendid trophy.
Unable to bear the disgrace of the defeat for long, the commanders of the emperor’s fleet prepared to give pursuit to the fishing boats. They would have quickly destroyed the ferry boats with liquid fire had not Branas’s heavy-armed troops descended from the crest of the hill to the shore and come to their assistance.
The rebel, who saw that he could neither steal his way into the City nor achieve his plans through warfare or persuasion, contrived another scheme. He could either force the queen of cities to submit in the face of famine, setting up against her the mightiest and most powerful siege engine of all — starvation (for the eastern and western parts of the Roman empire had already gone over to him), forbidding any supply ship to put into Byzantion, or he could attack with a larger and more vigorous fleet.
These things would have unfolded according to plan had not the Divinity

§ 382  refused to consent to their realization. The emperor saw that the City’s entire populace was devoted to him, that not only would they not tolerate that Branas should reign as emperor but that they also subjected him to curses. He carried up to the top of the walls, as an impregnable fortress and unassailable palisade, the icon of the Mother of God taken from the Monastery of the Hodegoi where it had been assigned, and therefore called Hodegetria, and took courage to fight back on his own, deeming the long confinement inside the City to be detrimental, creating an abominable situation; also, he yielded to the rebukes of the kaisar Conrad.
This Conrad was an Italian by race; his father ruled over Montferrat. He so excelled in bravery and sagacity that he was far-famed, not only among the Romans but also celebrated among his countrymen, and Emperor Manuel was especially fond of him as one graced with good fortune, acute intelligence, and strength of arm. It was he who, having received bounteous gifts from Emperor Manuel, was induced to raise his hand against the king of Germany, and defeated in battle the bishop of Mainz [Christian], the king’s chancellor, who had invaded Italy with a huge force. He had seized him, put him in chains, and stiffly maintained that he would not release him unless the emperor of the Romans commanded him to do so.
At the time when Emperor Isaakios had dispatched an embassy to Conrad’s brother Boniface to propose a marriage contract between him and his sister Theodora, Boniface had recently taken a bride and was celebrating the hymeneal rites. Now, Conrad had lost his consort in life to Death. The envoys deemed this a godsend and their second choice far superior to their first. They assuaged Conrad with grand promises, and he accompanied them on their return [after March 1187].

§ 383  The emperor gave the marriage feast and shortly afterwards Branas’s rebellion ensued.
Conrad continuously bolstered the emperor’s spirits, which were dampened and ignobly languishing, and by inspiring the highest hopes, he served as a whetstone honing a fine edge to the emperor’s resolution to give battle. The emperor gathered together those of the monks who go barefoot and couch on the ground and brought down those who live on pillars, suspended above the earth; but while he prayed through them to God to bring an end to the civil war and not to allow the sovereignty to pass over, or to fly off, to another, he himself neglected to make preparations for battle, resting all his hopes on the panoply of the Spirit. Conrad, on the other hand, acting as the crab to the mussel, would often awaken him from sleep and prod him to rise up, persuading him not to rest all his hopes in these mendicants. He counseled the emperor to attend to the troops, to employ the heavy infantry against the rebel, that is, not only the arms on the right hand, which is the assistance of holy men, but also that on the left, which is the armor strengthened by sword and breastplate. He admonished him, moreover, not to be sparing of money but to spend it freely to raise troops because, with the exception of the emperor’s blood relations and those whose residences were in the City, everyone else had submitted to Branas, and it was not possible to bring in a military force from the outside.
Prodded continually by the kaisar’s words as though by an ox-goad, the emperor woke from his torpor, threw off his apathy, and began to collect an auxiliary force. Contending that he did not have an abundance of gold coins, he removed the silver vessels from the imperial treasuries and deposited them as security in the monasteries, which abounded in gold. The monies he obtained from this source he distributed for the raising of an armed force. (After the victory, however, he did not restore the gold and even removed the deposited vessels.)

§ 384  In a short time, Conrad gathered from among the Latins in the City some two hundred and fifty knights, all fierce warriors, and five hundred foot soldiers. Not a few Ismaelites [Turks] and Iberians [Georgians] from the East who had journeyed to the queen of cities for trade purposes were also enlisted.
The nobles loyal to the emperor, together with those in attendance at the imperial court, numbered about one thousand men. Such was the zeal that Conrad demonstrated on behalf of the emperor that he was deemed by all a blessing sent by God to the emperor in time of need.
Once, when he came upon the emperor while eating, he uttered a low moan and said, “Would that you showed the same eagerness in attending to the present conflict as you do to running to banquets, falling with gluttonous appetite on the foods set forth, and wasting all your efforts on emptying out dishes of carved meat.” Isaakios blushed at these words and turned a bright red; he gave a forced smile, and taking hold of the kaisar s mantle he remarked agitatedly, “Ho there! At the proper time we shall both eat and fight.”
At this time, the following omens made their appearance in the sky: stars showed forth in the daytime, the air was turbulent, certain phenomena called halos appeared around the sun, and the light it cast was no longer bright and luminous but pale [4 September 1187]. Such being the state of events, the emperor assembled his troops and decided that he should no longer remain withdrawn, sitting within doors, but that he, too, should show himself before the rebel with sword drawn.
Putting on his coat of mail, he stood within the wall of the City which Emperor Manuel had raised to protect the palace in Blachernai and emboldened his kinsmen and the soldiery standing nearby, exhorting them as follows.

§ 385  Certainly it is better and irreproachable in the sight of God that the lawful ruler, even before his subjects, should brave the first danger rather than yield to a revolutionary who foments civil war among those who speak the same tongue. Should there be some among you who are uncertain and undecided in your minds or, on the other hand, are fervidly and passionately devoted to him, or again who yesterday served him slavishly as master but today despise him, I make of you a most reasonable request: remain at home, offering assistance to neither side until the issue is resolved by battle and then submit with the others to the victor, or else leave the City and go over to the rebel before the conflict begins; fight for him and bear the brunt of battle, so that he shall owe you a greater debt of gratitude should he gain the trophies of victory. As for those of you who cleave to me and honor me with your lips 11(K1 but are inclined to another in your hearts and render to him all your goodwill, I know not whether you shall be praised or weighed in the balance by God, who, loving justice, examines the intents of the heart. " I refuse to think of that which is even worse and most shameless, that is, to desert to the tyrant in the midst of battle, thus setting a bad example even for the best of men to change sides and go over to the enemy, as we observe with birds flying in flocks: when one flies away, all the others fly off with it with a rushing sound, and when another comes to rest, the entire flock follows suit.
He spoke in this manner because he distrusted his paternal uncle, the sebastokrator John, who was an old friend of Branas and whose son celebrated his marriage to Branas’s daughter shortly before the rebellion.
All those who comprised the assembly were greatly aggrieved by these words. The sebastokrator, wishing to remove all suspicion from himself, placed all the members of his household and himself under the most dreadful curses if he had ever considered joining forces with Branas; neither was he so ignorant of his duty nor had he taken leave of his senses because of old age and become so complete a fool that he would replace as emperor his brother’s son, who had raised from glory to glory the rustic and stranger, with a son-in-law about whose good intentions and actions concerning himself he knew absolutely nothing.

§ 386  When the time came to give battle, the rebel gave the command for his forces to be drawn out in battle order; the gates of the City were thrown open, and the troops poured forth. The left wing was under the command of Manuel Kamytzes, who had supplied the emperor with no small sum of money when the mercenary forces were recruited. He was Branas’s worst enemy, and realizing what evil would befall him should Branas prevail, he revealed all his substance to the emperor and allowed him to take as much as he wanted, for he deemed it better to part with all his possessions on behalf of an emperor who was his friend and kinsman, and to receive in return much more gratitude should he emerge victorious, than to have his properties fill the coffers of a stranger, implacable and hardhearted in his hostility, to his own derision and the former’s great amusement. Emperor Isaakios himself commanded the right wing, composed of the best and most distinguished men-at-arms; the kaisar Conrad brought up the center with the assembled Latin cavalry and infantry.
The foremost place at the center of the opposing army’s battle lihe, where were massed Branas’s kinsmen, close friends, and those nobles of good courage who accompanied him, was held by Branas; the divisions deployed on either side were led by accomplished commanders and the Cuman Elpoumes.
It was not yet high noon when missiles were discharged, the two armies charged, and the infantry forces advanced and engaged in pitched battle. When the sun was ablaze in the zenith and the signal for battle was given, Conrad, with his purple-dyed emblem imprinted on his and his troops’ arms, was first to move. He fought then without a shield, and in lieu of a coat of mail he wore a woven linen fabric that had been steeped in a strong brine of wine and folded many times. So hard and compact had it become from the salt and wine that it was impervious to all missiles; the folds of the woven stuff numbered more than eighteen.

§ 387  When there was but a short distance between the two armies, he came to a stop; the foot soldiers arrayed themselves in the fashion of a wall and raised their javelins to give battle (buckler pressed on buckler, helm on helm, and shield clashed against shield); the horsemen couched their lances and spurred on their horses with the emperor’s division close behind. Branas’s troops could sustain neither the first shock of Conrad’s heavy armed infantry nor the violent charge of the horse, and turning their backs, they scattered. Terrified on seeing this, the remaining divisions fled.
Branas shouted at the top of his voice, “Stand your ground, O Romans. We outnumber the enemy, and I myself shall be the first to engage them in combat.” But though he pressed forward, he was unable to persuade anyone to turn around. He aimed his lance at Conrad, who was fighting without helmet, but he failed to deliver a mortal blow, harmlessly grazing Conrad’s shoulder. In vain the weapon slipped from his hands; Conrad, holding his own lance with both hands, thrust it into Branas’s cheekpiece, dazing him and throwing him headlong from his horse. Conrad’s boydguards surrounded him and ran him through with their lances.
They say that when Branas was first wounded by Conrad, he was terrified of death and so pleaded to be spared. Conrad replied that he must not be afraid; he assured him that nothing more unpleasant would happen than that his head should be cut off, and forthwith it was done.
Because the flight was disorderly, everyone could slay the man he pursued. This happened only at the beginning of the rout, but was not continued thereafter. The Romans spared the blood of their fellow countrymen, and the pursued ran for their lives as fast as they could and escaped. The entrenched camp was plundered by the victors and exposed

§ 388  to looting, not only by the emperor’s troops but also by the citizens who poured out of the City.
In this battle, Constantine Stethatos was also slain, pierced in the groin by a lance. He was a good and gentle man who, as governor of the province of Anchialos, was forced to follow Branas against his will, but despite Branas’s hopes he was of no benefit to him. He did not save Branas and himself from falling to the sword even though he was the most celebrated astrologer of that time; evidently he had an inkling of something coming which convinced him to remain quietly in his tent, and he was not anxious about the enemy’s attack. It is said that, on the basis of the signs of his art, he prophesied to Branas that on that day he would enter the City and celebrate a glorious triumph. Whether Stethatos actually said this, I have no way of knowing for certain, for not all things related by Rumor are devoid of deceit because Rumor loves a good story.
If we give credence to the rumor, then the predictions of the prophet Stethatos would seem to have miscarried; on the other hand, a certain devotee of the astrologer’s science contended that he was not at all mistaken and had not failed in his art, for he associated the forecasts with Branas’s head and one of his feet, which on that day were transfixed on pikes and paraded through the agora, together with the head of a certain baseborn fellow by the name of Poietes [Poet] which no warrior’s hand had taken from him. The emperor, after that brilliant victory and defeat of the enemy, commanded that it be cut off, to what end and purpose I know not.
Thus ended the conflict of that time. The emperor gave himself over to feasting, with the palace gates leading into the court as well as the outer windows opened wide so that all those who wished to do so could come inside and get a glimpse of the triumphant emperor. As he greedily attacked the bread and laid violent hands on the meats, for the purpose of diversion and after-dinner sport, he ordered Branas’s head brought

§ 389  forward. Carried inside and thrown on the floor, the grinning head with eyes closed was tossed back and forth like a ball. Later it was taken to his wife, who was confined within the palace, and she was asked if she knew whose head it was. Fastening her eyes on this pitiable shocking sight, she replied, “I know and my heart bleeds.” She was prudent and much esteemed for her ability to hold her tongue, which is so becoming to women and for which her maternal uncle, Emperor Manuel, called her virtuous among women and the flower of his family.
As soon as those who were positioned behind the front ranks during the conflict realized that a rout was taking place, they scattered in flight, and thinking that those who followed were the enemy, they rode on all the harder to avoid capture. Those who followed vied with those who preceded them in the impetuosity of their flight to save themselves.
Alarmed at being pursued by the enemy, they prayed openly that their horses’ hooves might not strike the ground, thus enabling them to fly like Pegasos, and that they themselves might become invisible as though wearing the helmet of Hades. ’ In truth, so great was their terror that they were willing to do and pray for anything. The majority would have slipped and fallen to their death at the bridge which leads to Daphnoution had not someone prevailed upon them to check their headlong flight in good order and to proceed through the archway with utmost caution. This the man accomplished by lifting his hands towards heaven and swearing by the Divinity that none of the enemy was chasing after them but rather had turned around and given up pursuit.
Those who were lowborn and of humble station returned to their homes without harassment or reproach. They found their dwellings,

§ 390  which lay in an obscure part of the City, preserved from harm and had no fear of anyone coming after to punish them. On the other hand, those who were of illustrious station and had distinguished themselves as governors and magistrates assembled in a body and sent a legation to fhe emperor, petitioning him to forgive them for their act of sedition in following the rebel; in return for a pardon from the emperor, they swore to remain virtuous and loyal servants in the future, and by their deeds to prove their repentance for having taken up arms against their lord and emperor and for having done violence against him out of sheer madness.
Should the emperor, they said, in fueling the immutable passion within his soul, refuse to swallow his wrath for one day, 111)7 or should he hereafter hold their sins against them, fanning the smoldering rancor into sparks of rage, they should flee from before the emperor and seek a distant lodge among the barbarian nations which despise the Romans.
There they would do for the Romans what they are bound to do for those who come streaming into them, for it is not at all novel that one should seek out his enemy and flatter him, finding his adversary to be his friend.
These things did the envoys murmur. The emperor granted amnesty to all, and admitting into his good graces those who approached him as suppliants, he urged them to prove their repentance for having transgressed their sworn oaths to him by appearing before the great high priest [patriarch] to obtain from him the absolution of the anathema which the City’s inhabitants had called down upon them when they stood atop the battlements as spectators of the actions below. And many who were God-fearing men appeared before the patriarch; the others nodded their heads in assent at the conclusion of the exhortation but deemed entering the Great Church and making public confession utter nonsense. I will omit describing how the insolent among these, after leaving their audience with the emperor, mocked and ridiculed him, saying that it was nothing new for one who had been destined for the priesthood — for he was also accused of this — now to instruct them to do what he had been taught from adolescence. Many went over to Asan and Peter; but they returned shortly afterwards when they received imperial letters.

§ 391  At this time a most unexpected event took place. The emperor actually granted permission to citizens and foreigners alike to pour forth and maltreat the peasants living near the City, as well as those who dwelled along the Propontis, for having gone over to Branas. On the night of the very day that Branas was defeated, liquid fire was hurled against the houses of the unhappy inhabitants of the Propontis; contained in tightly covered vessels, the compound would ignite suddenly and, like bolts of lightning striking intermittently, consume whatever it happened to fall upon. The blazing fire burned and destroyed every building, whether it was a holy temple, holy monastery, or private dwelling. Because the disaster was wholly unexpected and the conflagration spread, consuming not only the buildings, with the flames very nearly covering the sky, but also men’s possessions, no one could rescue anything except the monies one could carry away in his arms.
At dawn on the following day as though by invitation, the Latin troops under the command of the kaisar Conrad marched out, and the multitude of commoners and beggars of the City and her environs came running, some still bearing arms while others carried whatever weapons were at hand. What did they not seize? What evil did they not perpetrate? They razed buildings, carried off the riches inside, searched through the holy monasteries, removed sacred furniture, desecrated holy vessels, showed no reverence for the venerable gray hair of the monks, disregarded virtue which even the enemy knew how to honor, and, to make a long story short, they ill-treated those they attacked in every way. Many who grumbled because their homes had been stripped were punished with death.
These horrors would have continued on and with increased intensity had not certain men reported to the emperor; having suffered grievously themselves, they naturally urged him to correct the situation. The emperor dispatched forthwith men of high rank and noble birth to check the riotous mob attacks,

§ 392  and at long last the extensive destruction was brought to an end.
But even these words are inadequate as a lament for those whose hearts are compassionate and for whom the tears well up in hot streams at the misfortunes of the suffering. The artisans of the City did not consent to the villanies of which I have given an account, holding them to be horrendous, for the Latins not only were free of speech and plumed themselves on having defeated Branas but they had also inflicted intolerable sufferings on their Roman neighbors outside the City. In bands and companies they burst in upon the houses of the Latin nations like a rushing torrent. Unintelligible cries rent the air, louder than the din raised by flocks, of jackdaws, cranes, and starlings as they spread their wings for flight, or the hunter’s halloo and whoop; the victims appealed to one another as they were being dragged by their tunics, but there was no one there to heed those who proposed conditions of peace; ears stopped, as are those of asps, they ignored every wise sorcerer.
Irrational anger held sway over the vulgar mob at that time, even as it was emboldened by love of the foreigners’ money. They believed that they would expel the Latins from their dwellings with little trouble and with impunity seize whatever treasure was stored within as they had done during the reign of Andronikos. But their hopes were turned topsy-turvy.
When the adversary saw the rabble rushing towards them, they barricaded with huge pickets all the streets leading in their direction, and putting on their coats of mail, they took up their stand in close array at the fortifications. The vulgar mob rushed headlong in many attempts to scale the barricades, but they failed in their purpose and were badly mauled by the Latins; drunk with wine and fighting without armor or

§ 393  arms against armed men, the majority soon learned of their folly and discovered that Epimetheus is inferior to Prometheus when, smitten by arrows or wounded by spear thrusts at close quarters, they fell to the earth.
Thus did this horror prevail from the afternoon of that day until late evening; at break of day, the Romans, most of whom were armed with weapons, with a great rush assembled to give battle a second time. But certain notables from the emperor arrived to restrain them, while certain representatives of the Latin race outwitted the simple-minded and quelled their excessive impetuosity. The Romans who had lost their lives in the fray were collected; their garments were first removed and their hair clipped short, and their corpses were laid in their court, displayed before the emperor’s agents. Feigning sorrow over the loss of their own countrymen, the Latins pleaded that a second battle not be allowed to begin, that they not suffer twice the losses to which they now bore witness. The emperor’s agents conveyed these sentiments to the army of artisans, persuading them to look upon the dead and contending that they should not applaud what had taken place, and they finally succeeded in appeasing the rabble and prevailed on them to return each to his own work. In other words, had they not been armed by their intimate friend and leader — I mean captain wine — or to be more precise, had he sharpened their sword for battle, they would not have dispersed so readily and without argument, obedient to the exhortation of the great men who served as mediators. Had they not been drunk with wine from before — indeed, they were heavier with wine than are wine kegs — what spell or melodies hummed by the Sirens could have lured them toward peace or disposed them to some other noble action? They were continuously mocked for their drunkenness. Menander censures them as follows: “Byzantion makes drunks of its merchants; they drank all night long.” To this point, then, have events borne us.

§ 394  BOOK TWO Smitten now by misgivings, the emperor launched a second attack against the Vlachs because he had mismanaged affairs in the enemy’s country during his first inroad, when he had risen up and left as though he had been attacked by the enemy without having installed Roman garrisons in the fortresses or taken any valuable barbarian hostages. He marched out of the City with a few of his comrades in war [September 1187] with the rest of the army assembled by command. He had heard that the Vlachs were no longer hiding out in the mountains and hills.
Having enlisted Cuman mercenary troops, they had penetrated into the regions of Agathopolis, utterly despoiling the land and wreaking havoc.
Before the desperate and violent onslaught of the barbarians, he employed the following tactic: he thought he would force the enemy to cower in fear and his own troops not to faint during the impending second assault on the Vlachs if he himself were the first to take up arms and mount his war-charger.
At Taurokomos (a small estate with inhabited villages, situated not very far from Adrianople) he waited for his forces to assemble and commanded the kaisar Conrad not to delay his departure.

§ 395  Conrad was openly displeased that the emperor showed him favors he considered unbefitting his family status and not harmonious with his imperial marital connection and was unhappy that all his proud hopes resulted only in his wearing the buskins of uniform color that are given but to a few (I speak of the insignia of the kaisars). Long ago he had taken up the cross at home with the intention of traveling to Palestine, which was now in the hands of the Saracens of Egypt. On the way he had celebrated his marriage to the emperor’s sister. But he agreed to march out with the emperor and help prepare for the impending campaign so that, God willing, he might prevent the Romans from suffering further misfortunes at the hands of the Vlachs. However, he then changed his mind.
With a sturdy and newly reconditioned ship, he set sail for Palestine and came to anchor at Tyre [14 July 1187], where he was hospitably received by his countrymen, who regarded him as some higher power. He fought against the Saracens and recovered Joppa, now called Ake [Acre; July 1191], as well as other cities for his compatriots. But it was ordained that they should suffer evil fortune in those parts: many excellent and brave generals who had voluntarily undertaken the journey at their own expense, for Christ’s sake, were lost, and Conrad himself, who had won the admiration of the Agarenes for his bravery and prudence, survived but a short time before he was slain by an Assassin [28 April 1192].
The Assassins are a sect who are said to hold such reverence for their chief in carrying out his commands that he has only to make a sign with his brows for them to hurl themselves over cliffs, or to dance over swords,

§ 396  or to leap into water, or to cast themselves into fire. Those in authority over the Assassins send them to kill the victims they have chosen. Approaching their victims as friends, or asserting that they had some urgent business with them, or pretending that they had come as envoys of nations, they would strike many times with their dirks and kill them as adversaries of their lord without considering the difficulty of the deed or the possibility that they themselves might be killed before they were able to inflict death on another.
The emperor set apart about two thousand select troops which he provided with arms and swift-footed mounts and marched out from Taurokomos towards the enemy; the baggage and camp attendants he ordered to move on to Adrianople. The scouts reported that the lands around Lardeas had been overrun by the enemy, who had killed large numbers and had taken many captives and were observed returning loaded down with much booty.
Sounding the war trumpet at night, the emperor mounted his horse and marched out, to arrive [7 October 1187] at a place called Basternai, where he rested his troops while the enemy failed to show themselves.
Rising early for departure from Basternai after three days [11 October 1187], he took the road leading straight to Beroe. He had not quite gone four parasangs when a well-equipped soldier appeared with bad news written on his face. Gasping frequently for breath, he announced that somewhere in the vicinity the enemy was returning with captives, easily

§ 397  making their way on all fronts since they had not met any opposition, and that they were heavy-laden with spoils. Immediately dividing his troops among his commanders and drawing them up into battle formation, he took the road which the adversary was reported traveling.
Since we saw, and were seen by, the Cumans and Vlachs as they handed over their spoils to certain of their divisions (for I myself followed along as the emperor’s under secretary), these divisions were ordered to select the shortest routes and hasten on their way until they reached the mountains; the others cheerfully awaited the charge of the Roman cavalry. They fought in their ancestral, customary way; they let fly their darts and attacked with their lances. After a short while, they turned their onslaught into flight and, enticing their adversaries to follow hard behind them as though they were in retreat, then cleaved the air sharper than do the birds and wheeled about to face their pursuers, whom they fought with even greater bravery. Repeating this tactic time and again, they so prevailed over the Romans so that they no longer bothered to turn around, but with naked swords and terrifying shouts fell upon the Romans almost faster than thought; overtaking both him who gave battle and the coward, they mowed them down.
On that day, the Cumans would surely have boasted of winning great glory against us, and we would have been given over as a reproach to the foolish had not the emperor himself come to the rescue with his still-fresh troops. The blare and blast of the bronze-mouthed trumpets, together with the display of representations of dragons suspended on poles and blowing in the wind, terrified the enemy because they gave the impression of a much larger army.

§ 398  Then the emperor, after snatching away a small number of the captives as though from the jaws of wild beasts, went to Andrianople, which he deemed a practicable destination; but since the barbarians would not keep still, he chose to retrace his steps. At Beroe, he checked the sallies of the Vlachs and Cumans w