ould
rout and destroy them with no trouble; and on one occasion he made
prisoners of all the soldiers who were pursuing him together with their
officers. These officers were Timostratus, the brother of Rufinus, and
John, the son of Lucas, whom he gave up indeed later, thereby gaining
for himself no mean or trivial wealth. And, in a word, this man proved
himself the most difficult and dangerous enemy of all to the Romans. The
reason was this, that Alamoundaras, holding the position of king, ruled
alone over all the Saracens in Persia, and he was always able to make
his inroad with the whole army wherever he wished in the Roman domain;
and neither any commander of Roman troops, whom they call "duces," nor
any leader of the Saracens allied with the Romans, who are called
"phylarchs," was strong enough with his men to array himself against
Alamoundaras; for the troops stationed in the different districts were
not a match in battle for the enemy. [531 A.D.] For this reason the
Emperor Justinian put in command of as many clans as possible Arethas,
the son of Gabalas, who ruled over the Saracens of Arabia, and bestowed
upon him the dignity of king, a thing which among the Romans had never
before been done. However Alamoundaras continued to injure the Romans
just as much as before, if not more, since Arethas was either extremely
unfortunate in every inroad and every conflict, or else he turned
traitor as quickly as he could. For as yet we know nothing certain about
him. In this way it came about that Alamoundaras, with no one to stand
against him, plundered the whole East for an exceedingly long time, for
he lived to a very advanced age.

XVIII

This man's suggestion at that time therefore pleased Cabades, and he
chose out fifteen thousand men, putting in command of them Azarethes, a
Persian, who was an exceptionally able warrior, and he bade Alamoundaras
lead the expedition. So they crossed the River Euphrates in Assyria,
and, after passing over some uninhabited country, they suddenly and
unexpectedly threw their forces into the land of the so-called
Commagenae. This was the first invasion made by the Persians from this
point into Roman soil, as far as we know from tradition or by any other
means, and it paralyzed all the Romans with fear by its unexpectedness.
And when this news came to the knowledge of Belisarius, at first he was
at a loss, but afterwards he decided to go to the rescue with all speed.
So he established a