Books. In them is found written how many years each emperor shall live; what things, whether peace or war, are to happen during his reign; whether fortune is to be favourable to the Saracens, or the reverse. And so it reads, that, in the time of this Nicephorus, the Assyrians will not be able to resist the Greeks, and that he, Nicephorus, will only live seven years; and that after his death an emperor shall arise worse than he—only I fear that none such can be found—and more un warlike; in whose time the Assyrians shall so prevail, that they shall bring all the regions as far as Chalcedon, which is not far from Constantinople, under their sway. For both peoples have regard for their favourable seasons; and from one and the same cause the G-reeks press on encouraged, and the Saracens, in despair, make no resistance; awaiting thetime when they themselves may press on, and the Greeks, in turn, may not resist.
Hippolytus, indeed, a certain Sicilian bishop, wrote similarly concerning your empire and our people—I call "our people," namely, all those who are under your rule;^and would that it were true what he prophesied concerning the present times. The other things have hitherto come to pass as he foretold, as I have heard from those who know these books. And of his many sayings I will mention one. For he says that now the saying is to be fulfilled: "The lion and his whelp shall together exterminate the wild ass."
The interpretation of which is, according to the Greeks: Leo — that is, the emperor of the Romans or Greeks—and his whelp,—the king, namely, of the Franks—shall together in these days drive oiat the wild ass—that is, the African king of the Saracens. Which interpretation does not seem to me true, for this reason, that the lion and the whelp, although differing in size, are nevertheless of one nature and species or kind; and, as my knowledge suggests to me, if the lion be the emperor of the Greeks, it is not fitting that the whelp should be the king of the Franks. For although both are men, as the lion and the whelp are both animals, yet they differ in habits as much—I will not say alone as one species from another—but as rational beings from those who have no reason. The whelp differs from the lion only in age; the form is the same, the ferocity
