him. If, indeed, by any chance, they were able
to catch him, this barbarian would fall upon his pursuers
while still unprepared and not in battle array, and
would rout and destroy them with no trouble; and on
one occasion he made prisoners of all the soldiers
who were pursuing him together with their officers.
These officers were Timostratus, the brother of Rufinus,
and John, the son of Lucas, whom he gave up indeed
later, thereby gaining for himself no mean or trivial
wealth. And, in a word, this man proved himself
the most difficult and dangerous enemy of all to the
Romans. The reason was this, that Alamoundaras,
holding the position of king, ruled alone over all
the Saracens in Persia, and he was always able to make
his inroad with the whole army wherever he wished in
the Roman domain; and neither any commander of Roman
troops, whom they call “duces,” nor any
leader of the Saracens allied with the Romans, who
are called “phylarchs,” was strong enough
with his men to array himself against Alamoundaras;
for the troops stationed in the different districts
were not a match in battle for the enemy. [531 A.D.]
For this reason the Emperor Justinian put in command
of as many clans as possible Arethas, the son of Gabalas,
who ruled over the Saracens of Arabia, and bestowed
upon him the dignity of king, a thing which among the
Romans had never before been done. However Alamoundaras
continued to injure the Romans just as much as before,
if not more, since Arethas was either extremely unfortunate
in every inroad and every conflict, or else he turned
traitor as quickly as he could. For as yet we
know nothing certain about him. In this way it
came about that Alamoundaras, with no one to stand
against him, plundered the whole East for an exceedingly
long time, for he lived to a very advanced age.
XVIII
This man’s suggestion at that time therefore
pleased Cabades, and he chose out fifteen thousand
men, putting in command of them Azarethes, a Persian,
who was an exceptionally able warrior, and he bade
Alamoundaras lead the expedition. So they crossed
the River Euphrates in Assyria, and, after passing
over some uninhabited country, they suddenly and unexpectedly
threw their forces into the land of the so-called
Commagenae. This was the first invasion made by
the Persians from this point into Roman soil, as far
as we know from tradition or by any other means, and
it paralyzed all the Romans with fear by its unexpectedness.
And when this news came to the knowledge of Belisarius,
at first he was at a loss, but afterwards he decided
to go to the rescue with all speed. So he established
a sufficient garrison in each city in order that Cabades
with another hostile army might not come there and
find the towns of Mesopotamia utterly unguarded, and
himself with the rest of the army went to meet the
invasion; and crossing the River Euphrates they moved
forward in great haste. Now the Roman army amounted