The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK VI 307
counter-attacks. They did this during the summer, but broke camp in
winter. 57
15 As successor in command Comentiolus was sent, a Thracian by race.
He engaged the Persians most ¢ercely, and came close to losing his life
when he was thrown together with his horse, if one of his bodyguards
had not mounted him on one of the spare horses and conducted him out
of the battle. The survivors then £ed headlong, after losing all their
leaders, and reached safety at Nisibis. 58 Being afraid to return to their
own king, for he had threatened them with death if they did not keep
their leaders safe, they plotted usurpation against Hormisdas since the
Persian general Varam was already planning this together with his men,
after his return from the engagement with the Turks. 59 In the meantime
Comentiolus, while blockading Martyropolis, left most of his men there
but with a few chosen on merit he dashed against Okbas, a very strong
fortress which is located on a steep crag on the further bank opposite
Martyropolis, from where indeed the whole city was visible: he besieged
it, left nothing untried, threw down part of the wall with catapults,
57 Before the Romans broke camp for the winter, now under the command of Comentiolus,
they managed to capture the Persian fortress of Akbas (Theophylact iv.2.1), which
was located quite close to Martyropolis, on the banks of the Nymphius river; this may be the
new base camp to which Evagrius refers here, though he records the capture of Akbas in the
following chapter.
58 In contrast to their respective treatment of events at Martyropolis, Evagrius’ account
is here to be preferred on points of detail to that of Theophylact (iii.6.1^4), which is distorted
by praise of Heraclius, the father of the emperor (see Whitby, Maurice 232, 290). On
Comentiolus, see PLRE III. 321^5, s.v. Comentiolus 1. This successful battle against the
Persians was fought at Sisarbanon, to the east of Nisibis. For the term ‘spare horse’, cf.
n. 17 above.
59 Vahram Tchobin had conducted several campaigns against the Turks in the late 580s,
which culminated in a great victory which freed the Persians from the need to pay peace
money to their neighbours on their north-eastern border. A dispute had arisen, however,
between Vahram and King Hormizd about the apportionment of the booty, and the
quarrel was compounded when Vahram was defeated by the Romans in an engagement in
Lazica in 589: it appears that while returning from his Turkish campaign, Vahram had encountered
a party of Iberian raiders in Azerbaijan, chased these back towards Lazica, but
then been worsted in battle. Recriminations between king and general became more bitter,
and Vahram persuaded his army to rebel against the unpopular Hormizd. It was their
knowledge of Hormizd’s reaction to military failure, rather than to the speci¢c deaths of
their leaders, which persuaded the survivors of the Persian army at Nisibis to agree to join
Vahram. See Whitby, Maurice 290^1.