These men had been quartered in the depths of Iberia, where they were engaged in repelling a barbarian invasion. There was no hope of succour for Constantine from abroad; safety for him depended on one thing only — the circle of walls around him — and it was on the avails that he expended his efforts, building up the parts which had been allowed by negligence to fall into a state of disrepair, and planting his stonethrowing machines thick on the ramparts.
106. By some chance at was precisely at this moment that his gout became worse. In fact, it became so distressing that his hands were completely dislocated and his feet swollen with terrible pairs. Apart from that, he was quite incapable of walking. His stomach, too, was in a disordered condition, with diarrhoea and general putrefaction. His whole body was being consumed and eaten away by a wasting illness, so that he could neither move nor come into contact with the people.
It was natural, therefore, that the city populace should think he was dead, and mass meetings were held in different parts of the city where they debated whether they ought to run away and join the pretender. To counter this, although it was against his inclination, Constantine was compelled from time to time to mix with the people, or allow himself to be seen from a distance and prove by his gestures that he was still alive.
Soldiers and some of the older men
107. So much for the emperor. The pretender, meanwhile, running like the wind, encamped with all his army on a spot in front of the city.**118 The operation was not war, nor a pitched battle, but a pure siege and simple wall-fighting. I heard some of the soldiers and some of the older men say that never before had any rebel been so daring as to prepare to set up artillery in front of the city and bend his bows against its battlements, with an army encircling the whole outer circumference of the walls.
Amazement and confusion reigned everywhere and it seemed that the entire city would fall an easy prey to the enemy. The rebel had meanwhile moved up to a position some little distance from the walls. Here he threw up a rampart and pitched his camp in full view of the defending army. He bivouacked on his rampart for a short time that night, but the rest of the time he spent on horseback, encouraging his men to follow his own example and sleep on the fortification. He arranged his light-armed troops and went forward himself on foot.
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