Thereafter the Iberians presented themselves at Byzantium and Petrus came to the emperor at his summons; and from then on the emperor demanded that he should assist the Lazi to guard their country, even against their will, and he sent an army and Eirenaeus in command of it.  Now there are two fortresses in Lazica[15] which one comes upon immediately upon entering their country from the boundaries of Iberia, and the defence of them had been from of old in charge of the natives, although they experienced great hardship in this matter; for neither corn nor wine nor any other good thing is produced there.  Nor indeed can anything be carried in from elsewhere on account of the narrowness of the paths, unless it be carried by men.  However, the Lazi were able to live on a certain kind of millet which grows there, since they were accustomed to it.  These garrisons the emperor removed from the place and commanded that Roman soldiers should be stationed there to guard the fortresses.  And at first the Lazi with difficulty brought in provisions for these soldiers, but later they gave up the service and the Romans abandoned these forts, whereupon the Persians with no trouble took possession of them.  This then happened in Lazica.

And the Romans, under the leadership of Sittas and Belisarius, made an inroad into Persarmenia, a territory subject to the Persians, where they plundered a large tract of country and then withdrew with a great multitude of Armenian captives.  These two men were both youths and wearing their first beards[16], body-guards of the general Justinian, who later shared the empire with his uncle Justinus.  But when a second inroad had been made by the Romans into Armenia, Narses and Aratius unexpectedly confronted them and engaged them in battle.  These men not long after this came to the Romans as deserters, and made the expedition to Italy with Belisarius; but on the present occasion they joined battle with the forces of Sittas and Belisarius and gained the advantage over them.  An invasion was also made near the city of Nisibis by another Roman army under command of Libelarius of Thrace.  This army retired abruptly in flight although no one came out against thorn.  And because of this the emperor reduced Libelarius from his office and appointed Belisarius commander of the troops in Daras.  It was at that time that Procopius, who wrote this history, was chosen as his adviser. [527 A.D.]

XIII

[Apr. 1, 527] Not long after this Justinus, who had declared his nephew Justinian emperor with him, died, and thus the empire came to Justinian alone. [Aug. 1, 527] This Justinian commanded Belisarius to build a fortress in a place called Mindouos, which is over against the very boundary of Persia, on the left as one goes to Nisibis.  He accordingly with great haste began to carry out the decision of the emperor, and the fort was already rising to a considerable height by reason of the great number of artisans.