Huns, Sclaveni, Antae, and Mounted Archery at Rome

This Good Works Translation continues the Gothic War portion of the Procopius Wars steppe dossier from the Greek.

The chapter is central to the Scythian shelf. Procopius names Huns, Sclaveni, and Antae arriving from beyond the Ister, then explains Belisarius' success at Rome through mounted archery: Romans and their Hunnic allies fight as horse-archers, while Gothic cavalry is bound to spear and sword.

The translation is newly made from the Greek source text printed below. Dewing's public-domain English translation was used only as a control.

Translation

Wars 5.27.1-29

This exploit was carried out by the Goths on the third day after they had been driven back while fighting against the wall. Twenty days after Portus, both the city and the harbor, had been taken, Martinus and Valerian arrived,

bringing sixteen hundred horsemen. Most of these were Huns, Sclaveni, and Antae, peoples settled beyond the river Ister not far from its bank.

Belisarius was pleased by their arrival and thought that from then on they ought to carry the war against the enemy.

On the next day, then, he ordered one of his own spear-bearers, a spirited and active man named Trajan, to take two hundred horsemen from the shield-bearers and go straight toward the barbarians. When they came near the camps, they were to go up onto a high hill, which he pointed out to him, and remain quiet there.

If the enemy came against them, he was not to let the battle become hand-to-hand, nor touch sword or spear at all, but to use only arrows; and when they had nothing left in the quiver, they were to flee back as quickly as possible without any thought of shame, and retire at a run into the fortifications.

After giving these orders, he held in readiness the arrow-shooting engines and the craftsmen who worked them. Trajan, with the two hundred men, went out from the Salarian Gate against the enemy camp.

The enemy, struck with alarm by the suddenness of the thing, rushed out from the stockades, each man equipped as best he could.

The men around Trajan rode up onto the hill that Belisarius had shown them, and from there defended themselves against the barbarians by shooting.

Since their shafts were falling into a dense crowd, it happened that for the most part they struck either a man or a horse. When all their missiles had now failed them, they rode back at speed, and the Goths pressed hard after them.

But when they came nearer the circuit-wall, the craftsmen set the arrows from the engines to work, and the barbarians, fearing the pursuit, drew back.

It is said that no fewer than a thousand Goths died in this action. A few days later Belisarius sent Mundilas, another of his own spear-bearers, and Diogenes, men exceptionally good in war, with three hundred shield-bearers, ordering them to do the same thing as the others had done before.

When the enemy came against them, it happened that no fewer, perhaps even more, were destroyed in the same manner as in the former action.

A third time, too, he sent the spear-bearer Oilas with three hundred horsemen, ordering them to do the same things to the enemy, and he accomplished the same result.

By making three sallies, then, in the manner I have described, he destroyed about four thousand of his opponents.

But Vittigis did not understand the difference between the armies in equipment and in practice for deeds of war. He thought that he too would most easily do irreparable harm to the enemy if he attacked them with a small force.

He therefore sent five hundred horsemen, ordering them to go very near the circuit-wall and to display against the whole enemy army the same tactics that small numbers of the enemy had often used against them.

When they had come to a high place not far from the city, but just beyond missile range, they stood there.

Belisarius selected a thousand men, set Bessas over them as commander, and ordered them to advance directly against the enemy.

They made a circle around the barbarians, kept shooting them from behind, killed many, and by pressing hard on the rest forced them to come down into the plain.

There the battle became hand-to-hand, though the strength was not equal. Most of the Goths were destroyed; a few escaped with difficulty and withdrew into their own camp.

Vittigis reproached these men for having been defeated by cowardice. Promising that he would soon recover the loss through certain others, he remained quiet for the present. Three days later he chose five hundred men from all the camps and ordered them to make a display of brave deeds against the enemy.

As soon as Belisarius saw that these men had come rather near, he sent against them fifteen hundred men under the commanders Martinus and Valerian.

A cavalry battle immediately took place. Since the Romans far exceeded the enemy in number, they routed them without difficulty and destroyed almost all of them.

To the enemy this seemed altogether a terrible thing and an opposition of fortune: when they were many and the enemies coming against them were few, they were defeated; and when they themselves went in small numbers against the enemy, they were again destroyed.

The Romans publicly praised Belisarius for his intelligence, naturally holding it in great wonder. Privately, however, his friends asked him on what basis he had judged, on that day when he escaped from the enemy after being so completely defeated, and why he had been confident that he would master them decisively in the war.

He said that when he first came to grips with them with a few men, he observed what the difference between each army was. If he made his engagements with a force proportioned in strength to theirs, the enemy's multitude would be able to do no harm to the Romans because of their own small numbers.

The difference was this: almost all the Romans and their allies the Huns are good mounted archers, while no one among the Goths has practiced this work. Their horsemen are accustomed to use spears and swords only, and their archers enter battle on foot, under the cover of the heavy-armed men.

Therefore, if the encounter is not hand-to-hand, the horsemen, having no way to defend themselves against opponents using arrows, are easily struck and destroyed. The foot soldiers, for their part, can never be strong enough against men on horseback.

Belisarius maintained that for these reasons the barbarians had been defeated by the Romans in these engagements. The Goths, keeping in mind the unexpectedness of what had happened to them, thereafter neither attacked the fortifications in small numbers nor pursued the enemy when harassed by them, except only so far as to drive them back from their own camps.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Scythian shelf by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Greek source text printed below. The Greek text was downloaded from the PerseusDL canonical Greek repository as tlg4029.tlg001.perseus-grc2.xml and inspected locally. Dewing's public-domain English, preserved in the local ToposText capture and Ready archival dossier, was used only as a control.

This is the twelfth unit in the Procopius Wars steppe and Black Sea translation dossier, and the second Book 5 unit.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Procopius, Wars 5.27.1-29

Greek source text from Procopius, Wars 5.27. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

Wars 5.27

§ 5.27.1 Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν, ἐπειδὴ τειχομαχοῦντες ἀπεκρούσθησαν, τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ οἱ Γότθοι ἔδρασαν. ἡμέραις δὲ ὕστερον εἴκοσιν ἢ ὁ Πόρτος ἥ τε πόλις καὶ ὁ λιμὴν ἑάλω, Μαρτῖνός τε καὶ Βαλεριανὸς ἧκον, ἑξακοσίους τε καὶ χιλίους στρατιώτας ἱππεῖς ἐπαγομένω.

§ 5.27.2 καὶ αὐτῶν οἱ πλεῖστοι Οὖννοί τε ἦσαν καὶ Σκλαβηνοὶ καὶ Ἄνται, οἳ ὑπὲρ ποταμὸν Ἴστρον οὐ μακρὰν τῆς ἐκείνῃ ὄχθης ἵδρυνται.

§ 5.27.3 Βελισάριος δὲ ἥσθη τε αὐτῶν τῇ παρουσίᾳ καὶ πολεμητέα σφίσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους εἶναι τὸ λοιπὸν ᾤετο.

§ 5.27.4 τῇ γοῦν ὑστεραίᾳ τῶν δορυφόρων τῶν αὑτοῦ ἕνα, θυμοειδῆ τε καὶ δραστήριον, Τραϊανὸν ὄνομα, τῶν ὑπασπιστῶν διακοσίους ἱππέας λαβόντα, ἐκέλευεν εὐθὺ τῶν βαρβάρων ἰέναι, καὶ ἐπειδὰν τῶν χαρακωμάτων ἐγγυτέρω ἵκωνται, ἀναβάντας ἐπὶ λόφου ὑψηλοῦ ἡσυχάζειν, δείξας τι χωρίον αὐτῷ.

§ 5.27.5 ἢν δὲ οἱ πολέμιοι ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς ἴωσιν, ἐκ χειρὸς μὲν τὴν μάχην οὐκ ἐᾶν γενέσθαι, οὐδὲ ξίφους ἢ δορατίου τινὸς ἅπτεσθαι, χρῆσθαι δὲ μόνοις τοξεύμασιν, ἡνίκα τέ οἱ τὴν φαρέτραν οὐδὲν ἐντὸς ἔχουσαν ἴδῃ, φεύγειν τε κατὰ κράτος οὐδὲν αἰδεσθέντα καὶ ἐς τὸν περίβολον ἀναχωρεῖν δρόμῳ.

§ 5.27.6 ταῦτα ἐπιστείλας, τῶν τε τοξευμάτων τὰς μηχανὰς καὶ τοὺς ἀμφὶ ταύταις τεχνίτας ἐν παρασκευῇ εἶχε. Τραϊανὸς δὲ ξὺν τοῖς διακοσίοις ἐκ πύλης Σαλαρίας ᾔει ἐπὶ τὸ τῶν πολεμίων στρατόπεδον.

§ 5.27.7 καὶ οἱ μέν. καταπεπληγμένοι τῷ αἰφνιδίῳ, ἐβοήθουν ἐκ τῶν χαρακωμάτων, ὡς ἑκάστῳ ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἐσκευάσθαι τετύχηκεν.

§ 5.27.8 οἱ δὲ ἀμφὶ Τραϊανὸν ἀναβάντες ἐπὶ τοῦ λόφου ὅνπερ αὐτοῖς Βελισάριος ἔδειξεν, ἐνθένδε τοὺς βαρβάρους ἠμύνοντο βάλλοντες.

§ 5.27.9 καὶ αὐτῶν τοὺς ἀτράκτους ἅτε ἐς πολὺν ἐμπίπτοντας ὅμιλον ἀνθρώπου ἢ ἵππου ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἐπιτυγχάνειν ξυνέβαινεν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἅπαντα σφᾶς τὰ βέλη ἤδη ἐπελελοίπει, οἵδε κατὰ τάχος ὀπίσω ἀπήλαυνον, διώκοντές τε οἱ Γότθοι ἐνέκειντο.

§ 5.27.10 ὡς δὲ τοῦ περιβόλου ἐγγυτέρω ἵκοντο, τά τε ἐκ τῶν μηχανῶν τοξεύματα οἱ τεχνῖται ἐνήργουν, καὶ τῆς διώξεως οἱ βάρβαροι κατωρρωδηκότες ἀπέσχοντο.

§ 5.27.11 λέγονται δὲ Γότθοι οὐχ ἧσσον ἢ χίλιοι ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ τούτῳ ἀποθανεῖν. ἡμέραις δὲ ὀλίγαις ὕστερον Βελισάριος Μουνδίλαν τῶν δορυφόρων τῶν αὑτοῦ ἕτερον, καὶ Διογένην, διαφερόντως ἀγαθοὺς τὰ πολέμια, ξὺν ὑπασπισταῖς τριακοσίοις στείλας, ταὐτὸ ποιεῖν τοῖς προτέροις ἐκέλευε. καὶ οἱ μὲν κατὰ ταῦτα ἐποίουν.

§ 5.27.12 ὑπαντιασάντων δὲ τῶν πολεμίων ξυνηνέχθη αὐτῶν οὐχ ἥσσους, εἰ μὴ καὶ πλείους, ἢ ἐν τῷ προτέρῳ ἔργῳ τρόπῳ τῷ αὐτῷ ἀπολωλέναι.

§ 5.27.13 πέμψας δὲ καὶ τρίτον ξὺν ἱππεῦσι τριακοσίοις Ὀΐλαν τὸν δορυφόρον, ἐφ’ ᾧ τὰ ὅμοια τοὺς πολεμίους ἐργάσονται, ταὐτὰ ἔδρασε.

§ 5.27.14 τρεῖς τε, καθάπερ μοι ἐρρήθη, ἐπεκδρομὰς ποιησάμενος τῶν ἐναντίων ἀμφὶ τετρακισχιλίους διέφθειρεν.

§ 5.27.15 Οὐίττιγις δὲ ʽοὐ γὰρ αὐτὸν εἰσῄει τὸ διαλλάσσον ἐν τοῖς στρατοπέδοις τῆς τε ὁπλίσεως καὶ τῆς ἐς τὰ πολέμια ἔργα μελέτησ̓ ῥᾷστα καὶ αὐτὸς ᾤετο τὰ ἀνήκεστα τοὺς πολεμίους ἐργάσασθαι, ἤν γε στρατῷ ὀλίγῳ ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς τὴν ἔφοδον ποιοίη.

§ 5.27.16 ἔπεμψεν οὖν ἱππεῖς πεντακοσίους, ἄγχιστά τε τοῦ περιβόλου ἰέναι κελεύσας, καὶ ὅσα πρὸς ὀλίγων πολλάκις πολεμίων πεπόνθασι, ταῦτα δὴ ἐς ξύμπασαν τὴν ἐκείνων στρατιὰν ἐπιδείξασθαι.

§ 5.27.17 καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐν χωρίῳ ὑψηλῷ γενόμενοι τῆς πόλεως οὐ μακρὰν ἄποθεν, ἀλλ’ ὅσον ἔξω βελῶν, ἵσταντο.

§ 5.27.18 Βελισάριος δὲ ἄνδρας τε ἀπολέξας χιλίους καὶ Βέσσαν αὐτοῖς ἄρχοντα ἐπιστήσας ὁμόσε χωρεῖν ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐπέστελλεν.

§ 5.27.19 οἱ δὲ κύκλωσίν τε τῶν βαρβάρων ποιησάμενοι καὶ κατὰ νώτου ἀεὶ βάλλοντες κτείνουσί τε συχνοὺς καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς βιασάμενοι κατελθεῖν ἐς τὸ πεδίον ἠνάγκασαν.

§ 5.27.20 ἔνθα δὴ τῆς μάχης οὐκ ἐξ ἀντιπάλου τῆς δυνάμεως ἐκ χειρὸς γενομένης, τῶν Γότθων οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ διεφθάρησαν, ὀλίγοι δέ τινες μόλις διαφυγόντες εἰς τὸ σφέτερον στρατόπεδον ἀνεχώρησαν.

§ 5.27.21 οὓς δὴ ὁ Οὐίττιγις ἅτε τῷ ἀνάνδρῳ ἡσσημένους ἐκάκιζε, καὶ τὸ πάθος ἑτέροις τισὶν ἀνασώσασθαι οὐκ ἐς μακρὰν ὑποσχόμενος, ἐν μὲν τῷ παρόντι ἡσύχαζε, τρισὶ δὲ ὕστερον ἡμέραις ἐκ πάντων τῶν χαρακωμάτων ἄνδρας ἀπολεξάμενος πεντακοσίους ἔργα ἐς τοὺς πολεμίους ἐκέλευεν ἐπιδείξασθαι ἀρετῆς ἄξια.

§ 5.27.22 οὓς ἐπειδὴ Βελισάριος ἐγγυτέρω ἥκοντας εἶδε, πεντακοσίους τε καὶ χιλίους καὶ ἄρχοντας Μαρτῖνόν τε καὶ Βαλεριανὸν ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς ἔστελλεν.

§ 5.27.23 ἱππομαχίας τε ἐκ τοῦ εὐθέος γεγενημένης, τῷ πλήθει Ῥωμαῖοι παρὰ πολὺ ὑπεραίροντες τῶν πολεμίων, τρέπουσί τε αὐτοὺς οὐδενὶ πόνῳ καὶ σχεδόν τι ἅπαντας διαφθείρουσι.

§ 5.27.24 Καὶ τοῖς μὲν πολεμίοις δεινόν τε καὶ τύχης ἐναντίωμα παντάπασιν ἐδόκει εἶναι, εἰ πολλοί τε ὄντες πρὸς ὀλίγων πολεμίων ἐπιόντων σφίσιν ἡσσῶνται καὶ κατ’ ὀλίγους αὖθις ἰόντες ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς διαφθείρονται.

§ 5.27.25 Βελισάριον δὲ δημοσίᾳ μὲν τῆς ξυνέσεως Ῥωμαῖοι ἐπῄνουν, ἐν θαύματι αὐτήν, ὡς τὸ εἰκός, μεγάλῳ ποιούμενοι, ἰδίᾳ δὲ αὐτὸν ἠρώτων οἱ ἐπιτήδειοι ὅτῳ ποτὲ τεκμαιρόμενος ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ τοὺς πολεμίους οὕτως ἡσσημένος διέφυγεν, εὔελπις ἐγεγόνει τῷ πολέμῳ κατὰ κράτος αὐτῶν περιέσεσθαι.

§ 5.27.26 καὶ αὐτὸς ἔλεγεν ὡς αὐτοῖς κατ’ ἀρχὰς ξὺν ὀλίγοις τισὶν ἐς χεῖρας ἐλθὼν κατενόησεν ὅτι ποτὲ τὸ διαφέρον ἐν ἑκατέρᾳ στρατιᾷ εἴη, ὥστε ἢν κατὰ λόγον τῆς δυνάμεως τὰς ξυμβολὰς ποιοίη, οὐδὲν ἂν τῇ σφετέρᾳ ὀλιγανθρωπίᾳ τὸ τῶν πολεμίων λυμήνασθαι πλῆθος.

§ 5.27.27 διαφέρειν δέ, ὅτι Ῥωμαῖοι μὲν σχεδόν τι ἅπαντες καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι Οὖννοι ἱπποτοξόται εἰσὶν ἀγαθοί, Γότθων δὲ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο οὐδενὶ ἤσκηται, ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν ἱππεῖς αὐτοῖς μόνοις δορατίοις τε καὶ ξίφεσιν εἰώθασι χρῆσθαι, οἱ δὲ τοξόται πεζοί τε ὄντες καὶ πρὸς τῶν ὁπλιτῶν καλυπτόμενοι ἐς μάχην καθίστανται.

§ 5.27.28 οἵ τε οὗν ἱππεῖς, ἢν μὴ ἐκ χειρὸς ἡ ξυμβολὴ εἴη, οὐκ ἔχοντες καθ’ ὅ τι ἀμυνοῦνται πρὸς τῶν ἐναντίων τοξεύμασι χρωμένων, εὐπετῶς ἂν βαλλόμενοι διαφθείρονται, καὶ οἱ πεζοὶ κατ’ ἀνδρῶν ἱππέων ἐπεκδρομὰς ποιεῖσθαι οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἱκανοὶ εἶεν.

§ 5.27.29 διὰ ταῦτα μὲν Βελισάριος ἰσχυρίζετο τοὺς βαρβάρους ἐν ταύταις δὴ ταῖς ξυμβολαῖς πρὸς Ῥωμαίων ἡσσῆσθαι. Γότθοι δὲ τῶν σφίσι ξυμβεβηκότων τὸ παράλογον ἐν νῷ ἔχοντες οὔτε κατ’ ὀλίγους τὸ λοιπὸν ἐπὶ τὸν Ῥώμης περίβολον ἐχώρουν οὔτε τοὺς πολεμίους ἐνοχλοῦντας ἐδίωκον, πλήν γε δὴ ὅσον ἐκ τῶν χαρακωμάτων ἀπώσασθαι.

Source Colophon

Greek source text from the PerseusDL canonical Greek repository file tlg4029.tlg001.perseus-grc2.xml, inspected locally for this translation unit.

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