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274
THE DECLINE AND FALL
among the Thracian peasants,[1] without any of those advantages which had formed the virtues of the elder and the younger Scipio: a noble origin, liberal studies, and the emulation of a free state. The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted to prove that the youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of praise: he served, most assuredly with valour and reputation, among the private guards of Justinian; and, when his patron became emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command. After a bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which his glory was shared by a colleague and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius repaired to the important station of Dara, where he first accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion, and diligent historian, of his exploits.[2] His services in the Persian war. A.D. 529-532 The Mirranes[3] of Persia advanced, with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on which the citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary equal to himself, by the new title of General of the East:[4] his superior in the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans and strangers, relaxed in their [A.D. 530] discipline, and humbled by recent disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with a deep trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular and afterwards in parallel lines, to cover the wings of cavalry advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the enemy.[5] When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell; the immortals fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers; and eight thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of battle. In the next campaign, Syria
- ↑ Ὠρμητο δὲ ὸ Βελισάριος ἐκ Γερμανίας, ὸ Θρᾳκων τε καὶ Ἰλλυρίων μετ αξὺ κεɩ̂ται (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 11). Aleman. (Not. ad Anecdot. p. 5), an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity of Giphanius and Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. [Γερμάνη, near Sardica, is mentioned by Proc., de Æd. 4, 1; Γερμάη, obviously the same place, by Hierocles, under Dacia Medit. p. 14, ed. Burckhardt (Γερμανός in Const. Porph. iii. 56).]
- ↑ The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are fairly and copiously related by his secretary (Persic. l. i. c. 12-18).
- ↑ [Mihrān is the name, not of an office, but of a family. Cp. Theophylactus Simoc., 3, 18, and Nöldeke, Gesch. der Perser, &c. p. 139.]
- ↑ [No new title, but that of Mag. Mil. per Orientem; but about this time a new command was introduced, that of Mag. Militum in Armenia, and was conferred on Sittas, who married the Empress Theodora's sister.]
- ↑ [For a diagram of this battle see Bury, Later Roman Empire, i. p. 375.]
