time closely and meet the leader of the Ephthalitae at dawn, and
then, turning toward the rising sun, make his obeisance. In this way,
they explained, he would be able in the future to escape the ignominy of
the deed. Perozes accordingly gave the pledges concerning the peace, and
prostrated himself before his foe exactly as the Magi had suggested, and
so, with the whole Median army intact, gladly retired homeward.

IV

Not long after this, disregarding the oath he had sworn, he was eager to
avenge himself upon the Huns for the insult done him. He therefore
straightway gathered together from the whole land all the Persians and
their allies, and led them against the Ephthalitae; of all his sons he
left behind him only one, Cabades by name, who, as it happened, was just
past the age of boyhood; all the others, about thirty in number, he took
with him. The Ephthalitae, upon learning of his invasion, were aggrieved
at the deception they had suffered at the hands of their enemy, and
bitterly reproached their king as having abandoned them to the Medes.
He, with a laugh, enquired of them what in the world of theirs he had
abandoned, whether their land or their arms or any other part of their
possessions. They thereupon retorted that he had abandoned nothing,
except, forsooth, the one opportunity on which, as it turned out,
everything else depended. Now the Ephthalitae with all zeal demanded
that they should go out to meet the invaders, but the king sought to
restrain them at any rate for the moment. For he insisted that as yet
they had received no definite information as to the invasion, for the
Persians were still within their own boundaries. So, remaining where he
was, he busied himself as follows. In the plain where the Persians were
to make their irruption into the land of the Ephthalitae he marked off a
tract of very great extent and made a deep trench of sufficient width;
but in the centre he left a small portion of ground intact, enough to
serve as a way for ten horses. Over the trench he placed reeds, and upon
the reeds he scattered earth, thereby concealing the true surface. He
then directed the forces of the Huns that, when the time came to retire
inside the trench, they should draw themselves together into a narrow
column and pass rather slowly across this neck of land, taking care that
they should not fall into the ditch[7]. And he hung from the top of the
royal banner the salt over which Perozes had once sworn t