Still the Romans held out; but it was a relief to them when the missile weapons were exhausted on both sides, and a closer fight began along the whole line with swords and spears.  After a while the Roman left was in difficulties.  Here the Cadiseni (Cadusians?) under Pituazes routed their opponents, and were pursuing them hastily when the Massagetic horse, commanded by Sunicas and Aigan, and three hundred Heruli under a chief called Pharas, charged them on their right flank, and at once threw them into disorder.  Three thousand fell, and the rest were driven back upon their main body, which, still continued to fight bravely.  The Romans did not push their advantage, but were satisfied to reoccupy the ground from which they had been driven.

Scarcely was the battle re-established in this quarter when the Romans found themselves in still greater difficulties upon their right.  Here Perozes had determined to deliver his main attack.  The corps of Immortals, which he had kept in reserve, and such troops as he could spare from his centre, were secretly massed upon his own left, and charged the Roman right with such fury that it was broken and began a hasty retreat.  The Persians pursued in a long column, and were carrying all before them, when once more an impetuous flank charge of the barbarian cavalry, which now formed an important element in the Roman armies, changed the face of affairs, and indeed decided the fortune of the day.  The Persian column was actually cut in two by the Massagetic horse; those who had advanced the furthest were completely separated from their friends, and were at once surrounded and slain.  Among them was the standard-bearer of Baresmanes, who commanded the Persian left.  The fall of this man increased the general confusion.  In vain did the Persian column, checked in its advance, attempt an orderly retreat.  The Romans assaulted it in front and on both flanks, and a terrible carnage ensued.  The crowning disaster was the death of Baresmanes, who was slain by Sunicas, the Massa-Goth; whereupon the whole Persian army broke and fled without offering any further resistance.  Here fell 5000, including numbers of the “Immortals.”  The slaughter would have been still greater, had not Belisarius and his lieutenant, Termogenes, with wise caution restrained the Roman troops and recalled them quickly from the pursuit of the enemy, content with the success which they had achieved.  It was so long since a Roman army had defeated a Persian one in the open field that the victory had an extraordinary value, and it would have been foolish to risk a reverse in the attempt to give it greater completeness.

While these events took place in Mesopotamia, the Persian arms were also unsuccessful in the Armenian highlands, whither Kobad had sent a second army to act offensively against Rome, under the conduct of a certain Mermeroes.  The Roman commanders in this region were Sittas, the former colleague of Belisarius, and Dorotheas, a general of experience.  Their troops did not amount to more than half the number of the enemy, yet they contrived to inflict on the Persians two defeats, one in their own territory, the other in Roman Armenia.  The superiority thus exhibited by the Romans encouraged desertions to their side; and in some instances the deserters were able to carry over with them to their new friends small portions of Persian territory.