De capta thessalonica 3 a work by eustathios of thessalonica on its hopefully later capture, which had been weakened by a narrative of cachexia during

 Bearable and full of mourning and wanting springs of tears and some such things, but he who, as they say, was sown in a net and, like us, was caught u

 Most people raised their eyes as to mountains, to the acropolis, where they eagerly awaited help would be for them. but what especially accuses the gr

 Having practiced stretching out his hands like a woman to his pursuers, to slip into a fortress and to give trouble to those who ran after him, lest t

 David, who had lost his senses, whom i had previously blessed when he was in his right mind. and i thus also admired the emperor andronikos in other t

 Completely under age, not only unable to rule a very great empire by himself, but not even to be firmly disposed as boys are, of course, he had alread

 The protostrator alexios and john the eparch, and imprisonment held them and before that, things exceedingly dishonorable. but the boiling of anger on

 For should one measure things beyond measure?) a great disturbance of those of the palace, as much as was for god and the truth according to him, of

 But when the illusion proved false and the war was brought to an end in the late afternoon, having cast down many and filled the southern cemetery, th

 Thus men suffer for for the most part we multiply and magnify what we admire, as being unable to be precise because the soul is confounded by astound

 The present evils are fitting. and to recount the terrible things of that time, all that the latins saw, the fire which spread through their quarters,

 Kontostephanos, an energetic and sensible man, and countless others. but these things were unknown to the crowd and they did not know that he raged ag

 And he also sent them into exile into perpetual banishment. and after a short while, having divided those who had been imprisoned, he separated them i

 To be shamed but if not even so he should yield, being stubborn, to try even violence, and they say it is better for that one to suffer what he does

 Moreover and not enduring it if, having just found an opportunity, he would not take wing, like some demonic figure, he himself tries to surpass in ev

 Having said what seemed best, he was quiet. and for the rest, so that i may not chatter on about worldly unpleasantness, a rush of evils takes place t

 Manuel, and he curses, that he would not come to a worthy state of living in peace, that those alone would be grandeurs when his father died. and he b

 The marchese was left to remain in peace, just as neither was the kral of hungary and any other powerful neighbor. and generally, wherever there was m

 A certain boy, who appeared to be of a similar complexion and age to the emperor alexios. and that child was, they say, a peasant boy from somewhere i

 He annihilated the rest. and his knights were so boastful in their nature that each would stand against three hundred men in war, not at all unlike co

 About to happen, inferring it from many signs. we, at least, anticipating the enemy's attack, sent away those who were children of constantinople with

 For the man was truly master of his hands but he provoked the victorious one to exhaust his desire to laugh at the emperor, and drove the matter to a

 Laws of city-takers, in which, on account of their unwieldiness from size, no effect shone forth, but those around the eastern parts, and they were es

 Not to meddle further, unless they should choose to suffer evils. though he was obliged to supply sufficient grain for the city, he neglected it to su

 Having completely withdrawn his skill, lets the ship be dashed against a reef and sink to the bottom with its cargo and men. so too a guard of a fruit

 Of those seated around to release even one stone from a sling, then also to suggest to the sandal-stitchers on the walls to reproach the latins rounda

 The besiegers because the latins had entirely turned to resisting against choumnos, he, having with difficulty opened the gates and having allowed, fo

 To rebuke the general and to join in leading towards the good. and one might call these men, who had undertaken to remain in the city, no longer civil

 Stripping and running down the streets, known to those who saw them, thus giving proof that they were formerly conspirators. and there is no way that

 He wished, and as a result the enemy host was more emboldened, and even more so especially when, after choumnos had joined battle, though it was possi

 Very strongly fortified. we spoke thus, and the speech flowed away at random, itself as well. and the small stone-throwers were vexing the city, casti

 To the enemies. and with the soldiers shouting in a common cry, komnenos, halt and dismount, he, as if snorting back a final mount up and as you

 But i think this was stranger than that, that when rain poured down from what the enemies were scattering, plowing, indeed, but not sowing the beautif

 In blood, i was led about on horseback through heaps of others, the greater part of whom lay strewn before the wall, so densely packed, that my little

 Of the storm. and if it were made useless for the trees, and especially the fig trees, whose unripe fruit was unlawfully served to the savage beasts f

 But this would be judged as bordering on fighting against god. for the barbarians, rushing in even against each one of them, were committing all sorts

 They tore down when they arrived. and the ruler restrained the murders there, but there was no stopping the suffocation of those who fled into the chu

 By the command of the counts. and it was a sabbath, not having a flight, which one might evangelically pray to avert, but the destruction of so great

 Redness. it was therefore a task to recognize even one's dearest friend among them and each man would ask each other who on earth he might be, becaus

 Thus confounding good order and dissolving the sacred harmony. and i spoke reverently about this also to count alduin, if somehow order might be estab

 To crush the man, goading the horse to kick. thus did these men love us, frequently for every word and every deed putting forward as a justification f

 Of the longed for ones the executioners, or may they have pity. for something like this did indeed happen at times, as if a hungry and biting lion, th

 To relate moderate things out of countless ones but the events of the nights, not even they fail to rival these in contention. and for a time, with t

 They grieved those who kept treasure-houses by ransacking them for the sake of wealth, thus themselves implying that they understood hades as plouton.

 Through all of us and most provident. for it is reported to us that he ordered all-night vigils around the great churches, he jesting even then. for w

 They busied their swords upon them, and afterwards they left completely empty what it contained within, both things for healing and with which the suf

 They cast our people in, and declaring blessed not them but the disease, and now perhaps even death according to the people of gades, among whom hades

 Is fitting, but only by thanksgivings and glory to the most high, from whom and through whom are our affairs. what then prevents me from ceasing after

 Mercilessness towards those who offend in some small way, from which came the merciless thing that just now cast us down, a most just thing, since we,

Manuel, and he curses, that he would not come to a worthy state of living in peace, that those alone would be grandeurs when his father died. And he boasts that butchers, to speak like him, and bakers and perfume-boilers he would allow to survive and certain such men, whom they themselves, who would later rule, are now pointlessly afraid of, while he greatly magnified the empire to his children, if they would turn out to be such petty kings, just as if depriving them of Giants, he wished to console them by promising they would rule over Pygmies. The man therefore becomes increasingly inhuman, having put on the guise of a beast. And as if it were not enough for him to secure his reign, if he removed so many and such prominent men, some he sent to the majority, and others he otherwise removed from the scene, he also strikes down countless others, seizing them one after another, not for any real cause, but for such as a man might invent against the living, desiring to live alone because of his naturally suspicious nature, which was firmly rooted in him by the ways he himself always plotted against his predecessors; whence he thought all kings were like himself. And I do not speak of the number of those who suffered, I do not touch on the quality, I do not set forth the fabrications against them, I do not relate the methods or places in which and how the evil was accomplished, nor anything else of that sort, lest I stir up a mire of unpleasantness. I say only this, that he excelled in keeping his promise to his sons; for he came close to stripping the Great City of its notable men. And thus he was against all; but not all were unlike him, at least in hatred. For being hated, they were eager to hate in return, not evangelically, but according to that royal example. And gathering for their defense they wished to do some one thing and to cause pain in return to the one who had begun it. Among those acting in their own defense, because they were also among those who suffered, were the men of Hagar. For the sufferings concerning the Nicaeans and all that the Prusaeans endured touched 56 her too and made her most hateful to us. For Nicaea, yes and Prusa too, saw many of her own picked men, after a very painful capture, hoisted up, from where it is possible to descend to Hades both quickly and most piteously. And what the easterners suffered from this, let another write for remembrance, if not with praises of Andronikos, one who has sufficient leisure, but is also rich in tears; for even these have failed us. But what befell us from there, and how the, to speak plainly, unkindness of Andronikos reached even us with destructive effect, I am coming to tell, not this for the sake of long-windedness, lest I find myself forced to write a very broad book, but as a sketched-out indication of what was done. Those who were harmed, the many, the various, the multilingual, scattered some from one place, some from another, whether a certain confraternity from Pisa, or one from Genoa, the Tuscan race and some from Lombardy; nor was that which was harmed from the Longobards left out, nor any others; but indeed also of those ranked in nobility, a certain Maleinos and a Dalassenos and a Kladon and some such men of lesser rank, and also servants of archons, whom Andronikos had treated badly, these indeed and as many others as were in similar evils sent embassies to many of the most powerful men concerning the eastern provinces and the western lands. And some provoked the sultan for the most part, putting forward to shame him the death of the short-lived emperor Alexios, to whom the ethnarch of the Hagarenes owed fealty on account of his father Manuel, and others the one who presided in Antioch, both the secular and the ecclesiastical, and others the one in Jerusalem who royally championed what is good. And so these two rulers also owed true love and aid after Manuel to his wronged son Alexios. But the most vigorous of the embassies were carried out concerning the western regions. And on the one hand, the one who presides hierarchically in great Rome was supplicated, and any other who was powerful with him and like him, and on the other hand, the German chieftain. And the Alamannus, great in power, was also troubled by embassies. And not even the

τὸν Μανουήλ, καὶ ἐπαρᾶται, μὴ ἂν εἰς ἄξιον ἐλθεῖν τοῦ ἡσυχῇ ζήσειν, μεγαλείους μόνους ἐκείνους ἐσομένους, ἐπὰν ὁ πατὴρ θάνοι. Καὶ κομπάζει μακελλαρίους, εἰπεῖν κατ' ἐκεῖνον, καὶ μάγγιπας καὶ μύρων ἑψητὰς μέλλειν ἀφήσειν περιεῖναι καὶ τοιούσδε τινάς, ὧν αὐτοὶ ἄρξοντες ὕστερον εἰκῇ ἄρτι δειλαίνονται, μεγάλα σεμνύνων ἐκεῖνος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῖς παισίν, εἰ οὕτω μικροβασιλεῖς ἀποβήσονται, ὅμοιον ὡς εἰ καὶ Γιγάντων ἀποστερῶν ἐθέλοι παραμυθεῖσθαι οἷς Πυγμαίων ἄρξειν αὐτοὺς ὑπόσχοιτο. Γίνεται οὖν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐπὶ πλέον ἀπάνθρωπος, τὸν θῆρα μετενδυσάμενος. Καὶ οἷα μὴ ἀρκοῦν αὐτῷ στερεῶσαι βασιλείαν, εἰ τοσούτους καὶ τοιούτους λογάδας, τοὺς μὲν ἀπήγαγεν εἰς τοὺς πλείονας, τοὺς δ' ἄλλως ἐκ μέσου ἔστησε, προσεπικαταβάλλει καὶ ἄλλους μυρίους ὅσους, μάρπτων ἑξείης, οὐ κατ' αἰτίαν οὖσαν, ἀλλ' ὁποίας πλάσαιτ' ἂν κατὰ ζώντων ἄνθρωπος, αὐτὸς μόνος ἐφιέμενος ζῆν διὰ τὸ φύσει καχύποπτον, ὃ παγίως αὐτῷ ἐνερρίζωτο οἷς αὐτὸς ἀεὶ ἐδολίου κατὰ τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ· ὅθεν ᾤετο πάντας βασιλεῖς κατ' αὐτόν. Καὶ οὐ λέγω τὸ πλῆθος τῶν πεπονθότων, οὐ προσάπτομαι τῆς ποιότητος, οὐκ ἐκτίθεμαι τὰ κατ' ἐκείνων συμπλάσματα, οὐ περιηγοῦμαι τρόπους ἢ τόπους, καθ' οὓς καὶ ὅπως περανθείη τὸ κακόν, οὐκ ἄλλο τοιοῦτον οὐδέν, μὴ καὶ ἀηδίας ἀναταράξω βόρβορον. Ἐκεῖνο μόνον λέγω, ὡς ἠρίστευεν ἀληθεύων ἐπὶ τῇ πρὸς τοὺς υἱοὺς ὑποσχέσει· οὐ πολλοῦ γὰρ ἐνέλιπε ψιλῶσαι ἀνθρώπων ἐπιδόξων τὴν Μεγαλόπολιν. Καὶ οὕτω μὲν κατὰ πάντων αὐτός· ἦσαν δὲ οὐδ' οἱ πάντες ἀπεοικότες ἐκείνου πρός γε τὸ μῖσος. Μισούμενοι γὰρ ἐφιλοτιμοῦντο ἀντιμισεῖν, οὐκ εὐαγγελικῶς μέν, κατὰ βασιλικὸν δὲ ἐκεῖνο παράδειγμα. Καὶ συλλεγέντες τῇ ἀμύνῃ πρός τι ἓν δρᾶν ἤθελον καὶ ἀντιλυπεῖν τὸν κατάρξαντα. Ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τοῖς δρῶσι πρὸς ἄμυναν, ὅτι καὶ ἐν τοῖς παθοῦσι, καὶ οἱ τῆς Ἄγαρ. Τὰ γὰρ κατὰ Νικαέων πάθη καὶ ὅσα οἱ Προυσαεῖς ἔτλησαν ἥψαντο 56 καὶ ἐκείνης καὶ εἰς πολὺ ἐχθίστην ἡμῖν ἐνέγραψαν. Πολλοὺς γὰρ καὶ τῶν αὐτῆς ἐπιλέγδην ἡ Νίκαια, ναὶ δὲ καὶ ἡ Προῦσα, μετὰ πολύπονον ἅλωσιν μετεωρισθέντας εἶδον, ὅθεν ἔστι καταβῆναι εἰς Ἅδην καὶ ταχὺ καὶ οἴκτιστα. Καὶ οἷα μὲν ἐντεῦθεν οἱ ἀνατολικοὶ ἔπαθον εἰς μνήμην, εἰ καὶ μὴ μετ' ἐγκωμίων τοῦ Ἀνδρονίκου, συγγραφέσθω ἕτερος, ἐκεχειρίαν τε ἄγων ἱκανήν, ἀλλὰ καὶ δακρύοις πλουτῶν· ἡμᾶς γὰρ ἐπέλιπον καὶ αὐτά. Ἡμῖν δὲ οἷα ἐκεῖθεν συνέπεσον καὶ ὡς ἡ τοῦ Ἀνδρονίκου, ὁμαλῶς λέξαι, οὐ προσήνεια καθίκετο καὶ ἡμῶν ὀλεθρία φράσων ἔρχομαι, οὐ πρὸς εὐρυλογίαν οὐδ' αὐτά, μὴ καὶ πλατὺ μάλα βιβλιογραφήσειν ἀνάγκην εὑρήσω, ἀλλ' ὡς πρὸς ἐσκιαγραφημένην τῶν πεπραγμένων ὑπόδειξιν. Οἱ βλαβέντες ἐκεῖνοι, οἱ πολλοί, οἱ ποικίλοι, οἱ πολύγλωσσοι, διασπαρέντες ἄλλοι ἄλλοθεν, εἴ τις φρήτρη ἐκ Πίσσης, εἴ τις ἀπὸ Γενούης, τὸ τῶν Τούσκων φῦλον καί τι Λαμπαρδικόν· οὐκ ἀπελίπετο δὲ οὐδὲ τὸ ἐκ Λογγιβάρδων βλαβέν, οὐδ' ὅσα ἄλλα· οὐ μὴν δὲ ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν εὐγενείας ἐπιτεταγμένων, Μαλεῗνος δέ τις καὶ ∆αλασηνὸς καὶ Κλάδων καί τινες τοιοῦτοι τῶν τῆς ὑφειμένης, πρὸς δὲ καὶ θεραπευταὶ ἀρχόντων, οὓς ὁ Ἀνδρόνικος φαύλως διέθετο, οὗτοι δὴ καὶ ὅσοι δὲ ἄλλοι ἐν ὁμοίοις κακοῖς ἦσαν ἐπρέσβευσαν παρὰ πολλοὺς τῶν μέγιστα δυναμένων περί τε τὰ τῆς ἑῴας λήξεως καὶ τὰ ἑσπέρια. Καὶ οἱ μὲν τὸν σουλτὰν ἠρέθισαν τὰ πλείω, προϊσχόμενοι εἰς δυσωπίαν τὸν τοῦ βραχυβίου βασιλέως Ἀλεξίου θάνατον, ᾧπερ ὤφειλε πιστὰ διὰ τὸν πατέρα Μανουὴλ ὁ τῶν Ἀγαρηνῶν ἔθναρχος, ἕτεροι δὲ τὸν ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ προκαθήμενον, τόν τε κατὰ κόσμον καὶ τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικῶς, ἄλλοι δὲ τὸν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις ζηλοῦντα βασιλικῶς ὑπὲρ τοῦ καλοῦ. Ὠφειλέτην δὲ ἄρα καὶ τούτω τὼ ἄρχοντε ὀρθὴν ἀγάπην καὶ ἐπικουρίαν μετὰ τὸν Μανουὴλ ἀδικουμένῳ τῷ υἱῷ Ἀλεξίῳ. Αἱ δὲ ἐντρεχέστεραι τῶν πρεσβειῶν περὶ τὰ καθ' ἑσπέραν ἐξετελοῦντο. Καὶ ἐλιτάζετο πρὸς μὲν τῶν ὁ τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ Ῥώμῃ ἀρχιερατικῶς ὑπερεστὼς καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος παρ' αὐτῷ καὶ κατ' αὐτὸν ἰσχύων, πρὸς δὲ τῶν ὁ Γερμανικὸς φύλαρχος. Ὠχλεῖτο δὲ πρεσβευτικῶς καὶ ὁ πολὺς τὴν ἐξουσίαν Ἀλαμανός. Καὶ οὐδὲ ὁ