The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

212
EVAGRIUS
concerning this I shall tell what is appropriate at the appropriate
moments, 33 but for the meantime what occurred in succession during his
time and is worthy of mention will be interwoven in the present history.
12 It has been written by Procopius the rhetor in composing his history
concerning Belisarius, that Cabades the Persian king wished to confer the
royal rule on his son Chosroes who was younger than his other sons; in
agreement with Chosroes he planned to grant him to the Roman emperor
as an adopted son, so that in consequence the a¡airs of his realm might be
disposed most safely for him. Then, after they failed in this, at the instigation
of Proclus who attended on Justinian in the capacity of quaestor,
they extended to a greater degree their hatred towards the Romans. 34
Accordingly the said Procopius has set forth most assiduously and
elegantly and eloquently what was done by Belisarius, when he
commanded the eastern forces, and by the Romans and Persians when
they fought against each other. Now, he records a ¢rst victory for the
Romans in the territory of Dara and Nisibis, when Belisarius and
Hermogenes as well were disposing the Roman armies. To this he
attaches all that happened in the country of the Armenians, and what
Alamundarus, who was leader of the Scenite barbarians, wrought on
the land of the Romans; that man indeed captured Timostratus, the
brother of Ru¢nus, together with the soldiers in his company, and subsequently
gave them back for large sums of money. 35
but in 542 James Baradaeus and Theodore were consecrated as bishops and sent from Constantinople
to the East, in the ¢rst instance to respond to a request for Monophysite clergy
from the powerful Ghassanid king, al-Harith; thereafter James, in particular, consecrated
bishops and clergy throughout the eastern provinces (Frend, Rise 284^8).
33 See iv.38 below.
34 Wars i.11.1^30. Of Kavadh’s two elder sons, Kaoses was an adherent of the discredited
Mazdakite movement and Zames was disquali¢ed from kingship by the loss of an
eye; both, however, had their supporters, hence Kavadh’s attempt to secure external recognition
for Khusro in 525/6. Proclus (PLRE II. 924^5, s.v. Proculus 5) was quaestor (chief
legal adviser) for most of Justin I’s reign; he argued that Khusro, as an adopted son, might
lay claim to the Roman empire as his inheritance.
35 Evagrius has ignored the ¢rst three years of the war, as, largely, did Procopius. The
battle at Dara in 530 is described at Wars i.13^14, and the Armenian campaign of the same
year at i.15; the material about the Lakhmid al-Mundhir comes from a resume¤ of the Arab’s
earlier achievements against the Romans which is included in the 531 campaign (Wars
i.17.40^6); the capture of the dux Mesopotamiae Timostratus (PLRE II. 1119^20) and his
troops had occurred in the context of a frontier dispute in 523.