At break of day they were all in position before the walls, not in a confused mob, nor massed together in one great body, but disposed in a soldier-like way and giving every sign of readiness for battle. And in order to fill us with terror — we, forsooth, had no experience of war — every man wore armour. Some were completely armed, with greaves and breastplate, and their horses clad in mail at all points, but others were protected with whatever they could get.
108. The rebel himself, riding on a white horse, was in the exact centre of his army, together with the pick of his knights and the better part of his troops. He had surrounded himself, also, with light-armed soldiers, all of them good shots at long range, and lightly equipped and fast runners. The rest of the army stood on either flank in order of battle under their several commanders. Although the battalions preserved their formations, they had been divided into groups, not of sixteen men, but less. The object of this was to allow the whole body to deploy over a bigger area.
Thus congestion was avoided and the men were not in close order. Behind was a great multitude, which, to those on the walls, seemed countless, for they also had been divided into small groups. Nevertheless, as they charged on foot or on horseback, both groups at the same time, they gave the impression not so much of a strong army as of a disordered mob.
Empresses on a balcony
109. I will leave them and come back to the emperor. Besieged as he was inside the city walls, his immediate object was to prove to his enemies that he was still alive. So, dressed in his imperial robes, he sat together with the empresses on a balcony of one of the imperial apartments, breathing faintly and groaning in a feeble manner. The only part of the enemy’s army that he saw was that immediately in front and near him. The rebels were, in fact, drawn up in good order close by the walls. Their first move was to remind the defenders on the wall of the dreadful things they had suffered at the emperor’s hands.
They brought to their notice the alleviation that would result from his capture, the sufferings that would follow his continued freedom. This information was proffered at different parts of the wall in turn. They begged the defenders to open the gates to them and receive within their city a sovereign who was kindly and merciful, one who would treat them with humanity and bring new glory to the Roman Empire by waging victorious wars against the barbarians.
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