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a tearful plaything of the dead, are hurled by the waves of the sea, and one could see the sea-stream, so to speak, at one time zealously presenting the newly slain bodies to the land, at another, with some returning counter-pushes, embracing them back to the sea that had received them. 8.12.2 Thus the imperial disaster is made a spectacle for the crowds, or, to speak more properly, the misfortunes concerning the whole world, and the shores of Chalcedon were filled with the crowds, and they received the story of their own folly, gazing at the waves of the sea as if they were certain pictures of misfortunes, 8.12.3 making a spectacle of the naked bodies of the emperors. When these things, then, were sung by the writer on the public platform after the tyranny had ended, the assembly is filled with tears, with the imperial calamities seeming to be almost before the eyes of all. 8.12.4 For this very reason the father of the history, seeing the entire audience bathed in tears because of the lamentation, interrupting his narratives, presented the following to the assembled with some extemporaneous dirges. 8.12.5 "Let theater and platform and free speech mourn with me today. Let tragedy and tears hold festival. Let lament leap forth, dancing down, worshipped and honored at the festival of such great sorrow. 8.12.6 Let speeches shear off their applause, the Muses their acclamation, Athens its white cloak. For virtues are widowed and seek their own charioteer, some torrential envy having shattered his axle. 8.12.7 Men, spectators, but would that you had not become witnesses of such great evils. The subject is an Iliad of woes, the chorus for the speech is the Furies. And the stage of my drama is a conspicuous tomb .... 8.12.8 So Lilius (for he had been entrusted by the tyrant with the murder of the emperor) ferries the heads of the slain to the tyrant. Then, to the field situated in the so-called Hebdomon, which the Romans call Campus, he publicly displays the murder of the 8.12.9 emperors to the tyrant's armies. For the inhumane army had to partake of the abomination also through the spectacle, so that the evil-hating and incorruptible judgment of God might also ensnare in the nets of retribution all those who had been driven to madness over this. For all those of those bloody camps, having fallen into the greatest and most varied evils, ended their life here. 8.12.10 For when the Persian war gained confidence, they inherited their retribution by certain divinely-sent threats of those evils at hand, at one time being struck by fire from heaven at the hour of battle, at another time 8.12.11 being consumed by famine and plunder; and most of them, being delivered to the edge of the broadsword and the sword, ended this life that loves sin, and victory did not abandon the Persians before that tyrant-loving 8.12.12 and most unholy multitude was utterly destroyed. But what is about to be said is sufficient for anyone to prove it; for the confirmation of the account, we will briefly steal away the sequence of what followed. When the emperor Heraclius made war against Razates, having reviewed an inspection of the heavy infantry, he found two and only two soldiers of that tyrant-loving multitude left, although not many years had intervened. 8.12.13 But when time had renewed other forces and the evil had been consumed, good fortune deserted the Persians, and the Babylonian dragon, Chosroes son of Hormisdas, is slain, 8.12.14 and the Persian war is ended. But let us return in an orderly way to the acts of the tyranny, so that we do not speak doubly with digressions. For from that time until our own times, various and extraordinary failures, and by their magnitude unbearable, have not ceased for the Roman empire. 8.13.1 But the tyrant (for I return to the account), having become thoroughly drunk with his impieties, rages with other murders, and his brother

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τῶν τεθνεώτων ἐπίδακρυ παίγνιον τοῖς τῆς θαλάττης ἀκοντίζονται κύμασιν, καὶ ἦν ἰδεῖν τὸ ῥεῖθρον ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν τὸ θαλάττιον ποτὲ τῇ χέρσῳ τὰ νεοσφαγῆ φιλοτιμούμενον σώματα, ποτὲ φιλυποστρόφοις τισὶν ἀντωθήμασι πρὸς τὴν ὑποδεξαμένην ἐναγκαλιζόμενον θάλατ8.12.2 ταν. θεατρίζεται τοίνυν τοῖς ὄχλοις τὰ τῆς βασιλικῆς συμφορᾶς, εἰπεῖν δὲ μᾶλλον οἰκειότερον τὰ περὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην συμπτώματα, οἵ τε τῆς Χαλκηδόνος αἰγιαλοὶ ἐπληροῦντο τῶν ὄχλων, καὶ τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἀνοίας τὴν ἱστορίαν ἐλάμβανον, πίνακας δυστυχημάτων τινὰς τὰ τῆς θαλάττης ἀτενίζοντες 8.12.3 κύματα γυμνὰ τὰ τῶν βασιλέων σώματα θεατρίζοντα. τούτων δῆτα ὑπὸ τοῦ συγγραφέως ᾀδομένων ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος τῆς τυραννίδος ληξάσης, πληροῦται δακρύων ὁ ξύλλογος, μονονουχὶ ἐπ' ὄψεσι πάντων εἶναι δοκούντων τῶν βασιλικῶν συμ8.12.4 φορῶν. διά τοι τοῦτο ὁ τῆς ἱστορίας πατήρ, τὸ ἀκροατήριον θεασάμενος ἅπαν ὑπὸ τῶν δακρύων περιρρεόμενον διὰ τὸν θρῆνον, ἐγκοπὴν τοῖς ἀφηγήμασιν ἐμβαλὼν αὐτοσχεδίοις τισὶν ὀδυρμοῖς τάδε τοῖς συνεληλυθόσι παρέθετο. 8.12.5 "Θέατρον καὶ βῆμα καὶ παρρησία συμπενθείτω μοι σήμερον. πανηγυριζέτω δὲ τραγῳδία καὶ δάκρυον. ἐξαλλέσθω δὲ κατορχούμενος θρῆνος τηλικαύτης κατηφείας ἑορτῇ θρη8.12.6 σκευόμενος καὶ τιμώμενος. ἀποκειράσθωσαν οἱ λόγοι τὸν κρότον, τὴν εὐφημίαν αἱ μοῦσαι, τὸ λευκὸν ᾿Αθῆναι τριβώνιον. χηρεύουσι γὰρ ἀρεταὶ καὶ τὸν ἑαυτῶν ἀναζητοῦσιν ἡνίοχον, ῥαγδαίου φθόνου τινὸς τὸν ἐκείνου διαρρήξαντος ἄξονα. 8.12.7 ἄνδρες θεαταί, ἀλλ' εἴθε μὴ τηλικούτων κακῶν γεγόνατε μάρτυρες. ᾿Ιλιὰς κακῶν ἡ ὑπόθεσις, ᾿Ερινύες τῷ λόγῳ χορός. ἡ δὲ σκηνή μοι τοῦ δράματος τάφος ἐπίσημος .... 8.12.8 ῾Ο μὲν οὖν Λίλιος (οὗτος γὰρ ὑπὸ τοῦ τυράννου τὸν τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος ἐπεπίστευτο φόνον) διαπορθμεύει τὰς τῶν ἀνῃρημένων πρὸς τὸν τύραννον κεφαλάς. εἶτα πρὸς τὸ πεδίον τὸ ἀνακείμενον ἐν τῷ λεγομένῳ ῾Εβδόμῳ, ὃν Κάμπον ῾Ρω-μαῖοι κατονομάζουσιν, ταῖς τυράννοις στρατιαῖς τὴν τῶν 8.12. βασιλέων στηλιτεύει ἀναίρεσιν. ἔδει γὰρ τοῦ μύσους καὶ διὰ τῆς θεωρίας μετασχεῖν τὸ ἀφιλάνθρωπον στράτευμα, ἵνα καὶ ἅπαντας τοὺς ἐπὶ τούτῳ καταμανέντας ἡ μισοπόνηρος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἀδέκαστος κρίσις τοῖς τῆς ἀντιδόσεως σαγηνεύσῃ δικτύοις. ἅπαντες γὰρ οἱ τῶν παλαμναίων στρατοπέδων ἐκείνων μεγίστοις τε καὶ ποικίλοις περιπεπτωκότες κακοῖς τὸν 8.12.10 τῇδε βίον κατέλυσαν. τοῦ Περσικοῦ γὰρ λαβόντος παρρησίαν πολέμου, θεηλάτοις τισὶν ἀπειλαῖς τῶν κακῶν ἐπιχείρων ἐκείνων κατεκληροδοτήσαντο τὴν ἀντίδοσιν, ποτὲ μὲν πυρὶ οὐρανόθεν βαλλόμενοι κατὰ τὴν τῆς παρατάξεως ὥραν, ἄλλοτε 8.12.11 λιμοῖς καὶ προνομῇ ἀναλισκόμενοι· οἱ δὲ πλεῖστοι στόματι ῥομφαίας καὶ ξίφους παραδιδόμενοι τὴν φιλάμαρτον ταύτην ζωὴν κατεστρέψαντο, καὶ οὐ πρότερον Πέρσας τὰ τῆς νίκης ἀπέλιπεν, πρὶν ἂν εἰς τὸ παντελὲς διεφθάρη ἡ φιλοτύραννος 8.12.12 ἐκείνη καὶ ἀνοσιωτάτη πληθύς. ἱκανὸν δέ τῳ τεκμηριῶσαι τὸ λεχθησόμενον· διὰ γὰρ τοῦ· λόγου τὴν πίστωσιν τὴν συνέχειαν τῶν παρηκολουθηκότων μικρὸν ὑποκλέψομεν. ὁπηνίκα πρὸς τὸν ῾Ραζάτην τὸν πόλεμον ἐποιήσατο ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ ῾Ηράκλειος, ἐξέτασιν τοῦ ὁπλιτικοῦ ἀνακρίνας δύο καὶ μόνους στρατιώτας τῆς φιλοτυράννου πληθύος ὑπολελειμμένους ἐξεῦρεν, καίτοι μὴ πολλῶν μεσολαβησάντων τῶν 8.12.13 χρόνων. ἐπεὶ δ' ἐνεόχμωσεν ἑτέρας ὁ χρόνος δυνάμεις τό τε κακὸν κατανάλωτο, τὰ τῆς εὐπραγίας μεταπίπτει τοῖς Πέρσαις, καὶ ἀναιρεῖται ὁ Βαβυλώνιος δράκων, ὁ τοῦ ῾Ορμίσδου 8.12.14 Χοσρόης, καὶ ὁ Περσικὸς καταπαύεται πόλεμος. ἀλλ' ἐπὶ τὰς τῆς τυραννίδος πράξεις τακτικῶς ἀναδράμωμεν, ἵνα μὴ διλογῶμεν ταῖς παρεκβάσεσιν. οὐ διέλιπε γὰρ ἐξ ἐκείνου καιροῦ μέχρι τῶν χρόνων τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς τῇ ῾Ρωμαίων ἀρχῇ ἀποτεύγματα ποικίλα τε καὶ ἐξαίσια καὶ τῷ μεγέθει ἀνυπομόνητα. 8.13.1 ῾Ο δὲ τύραννος (πρὸς γὰρ τὸν λόγον ἐπάνειμι) καταμεθυσθεὶς τοῖς ἀσεβήμασι πρὸς ἑτέρους ἐκβακχεύεται φόνους, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν