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Title: Procopius
History of the Wars, Books V. and VI.

Author: Procopius

Translator: H.B. Dewing

Release Date: January 6, 2007 [EBook #20298]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PROCOPIUS

WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY
H.B. DEWING

IN SEVEN VOLUMES
III

HISTORY OF THE WARS, BOOKS V AND VI

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

_First printed_ 1919

_Printed in Great Britain_

CONTENTS

PAGE

HISTORY OF THE WARS--

BOOK V.--THE GOTHIC WAR 1
BOOK VI.--THE GOTHIC WAR (_continued_) 287

INDEX 427

* * * * *

PLAN OF WALLS AND GATES OF ROME _facing_ 185

PROCOPIUS OF CAESAREA

HISTORY OF THE WARS:

BOOK V

THE GOTHIC WAR

I

Such, then, were the fortunes of the Romans in Libya. I shall now
proceed to the Gothic War, first telling all that befell the Goths and
Italians before this war.

During the reign of Zeno[A] in Byzantium the power in the West was held
by Augustus, whom the Romans used to call by the diminutive name
Augustulus because he took over the empire while still a lad,[B] his
father Orestes, a man of the greatest discretion, administering it as
regent for him. Now it happened that the Romans a short time before had
induced the Sciri and Alani and certain other Gothic nations to form an
alliance with them; and from that time on it was their fortune to suffer
at the hand of Alaric and Attila those things which have been told in
the previous narrative.[1] And in proportion as the barbarian element
among them became strong, just so did the prestige of the Roman soldiers
forthwith decline, and under the fair name of alliance they were more
and more tyrannized over by the intruders and oppressed by