f men that not even the Persians would be able to come in from there in
the future. And Goubazes had promised that the emperor would give them
this money. So he reported the agreement to the Emperor Justinian and
besought him to send this money for the barbarians and afford the Lazi
some consolation in their great distress. He also stated that the
treasury owed him his salary for ten years, for though he was assigned a
post among the privy counsellors in the palace, he had received no
payment from it since the time when Chosroes came into the land of
Colchis. And the Emperor Justinian intended to fulfil this request, but
some business came up to occupy his attention and he did not send the
money at the proper time. So Goubazes was thus engaged.

But Dagisthaeus, being a rather young man and by no means competent to
carry on a war against Persia, did not handle the situation properly.
For while he ought to have sent certainly the greater part of the army
to the pass, and perhaps should have assisted in person in this
enterprise, he sent only one hundred men, just as if he were managing a
matter of secondary importance. He himself, moreover, though besieging
Petra with the whole army, accomplished nothing, although the enemy were
few. For while they had been at the beginning not less than fifteen
hundred, they had been shot at by Romans and Lazi in their fighting at
the wall for a long time, and had made a display of valour such as no
others known to us have made, so that many were falling constantly and
they were reduced to an exceedingly small number. So while the Persians,
plunged in despair and at a loss what to do, were remaining quiet, the
Romans made a trench along the wall for a short space, and the
circuit-wall at this point fell immediately. But it happened that inside
this space there was a building which did not stand back at all from the
circuit-wall, and this reached to the whole length of the fallen
portion; thus, taking the place of the wall for the besieged, it
rendered them secure none the less. But this was not sufficient greatly
to disturb the Romans. For knowing well that by doing the same thing
elsewhere they would capture the city with the greatest ease, they
became still more hopeful than before. For this reason Dagisthaeus sent
word to the emperor of what had come to pass, and proposed that prizes
of victory should be in readiness for him, indicating what rewards the
emperor should bestow upon hims