The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK V 283
their horses these people are invincible for others, nor are they captured if
they should be enclosed somewhere, and they outrun their opponents
when retreating. Theoderic too, who was leader of the Scythian nations,
£ed with those around him, even though he had not come within range. 74
21 There also occurred portents which presaged the imperial power for
him. 75 For, late at night, as he was o¡ering incense within the shrine of
the sacred Church of the holy and immaculate Virgin and Mother of
God Mary, which is called by the people of Theopolis the Church of
Justinian, 76 the curtain around the holy table was engulfed in £ames, so
Evagrius has in fact con£ated the events of 581 and 582. In 581 Maurice led an expedition
down the Euphrates towards Ctesiphon, but was thwarted when he discovered that the
bridge over the Tigris had been cut; he was then forced to retreat rapidly by the news that
Adarmahan had invaded Mesopotamia; Adarmahan secured considerable booty, but withdrew
hastily without the Romans being able to engage him. Maurice and the Ghassanid
leader al-Mundhir quarrelled over the failure of the campaign, with Maurice accusing the
Arab of treachery; al-Mundhir defeated his Lakhmid Arab opponents, but took no further
part in joint actions with Maurice; during the winter of 581/2 he was tricked into a meeting
with a friend, the curator Magnus, and was arrested and taken to Constantinople. In 582 the
Persians under Tamkhusro invaded, but were confronted by the Romans at Monocarton,
the military camp near Constantina; Tamkhusro was killed in the battle, either by an anonymous
common soldier (Menander fr. 26.5) or through the self-sacri¢ce of a Christian hero
named Constantine (John of Ephesus, EH vi.26), and the Persians retreated to the vicinity
of Dara. Adarmahan may have participated in this battle, but there is no con¢rmation for
this in the other sources, and Evagrius may be con£ating the events of 581; similarly, it is
possible that Theoderic (see below), who probably commanded the federate troops recruited
by Tiberius in 574 (cf. PLRE III. 1237, s.v. Theodericus 2), had failed to collaborate
with Maurice in the campaign of 581, when there was a Roman reverse in Armenia as well as
the failed invasion of lower Mesopotamia. Discussion in Whitby, Maurice 272^4, and for a
di¡erent interpretation of al-Mundhir’s behaviour, Shahid, Sixth Century 415, 418 (there is
some imprecision in Shahid’s presentation of the evidence).
Evagrius has also omitted the doctrinal initiative in which al-Mundhir was currently involved:
he had travelled to Constantinople in 580, where he was honourably received by
Tiberius and tried to reconcile the di¡erent Monophysite factions in the patriarchate of
Antioch; he returned to the East with an edict from Tiberius ordering an end to all persecution,
which Patriarch Gregory promulgated in the East: John of Ephesus, EH iv.42; discussion
in Shahid, Sixth Century 900^10.
74 The occasion of this £ight cannot be determined: it could be Monocarton, but equally
it could have been during the campaign against Adarmahan in 581.
75 Cf. ii.1 for predictions of Marcian’s accession.
76 This is most probably the church opposite the basilica of Ru¢nus, which Justinian
reconstructed after the earthquake of 527 (Malalas 423:1^4); Allen, Evagrius 236, links it