of the Roman army had had the courage to get outside
the fortifications with three hundred men and to anticipate
the enemy in seizing this rock and to ward off the
assailants from there, never, I believe, would the
city have come into any danger from the enemy.
For the barbarians had no point from which they could
have conducted their assault, for they would be exposed
to missiles from above both from the rock and from
the wall; but as it was (for it was fated that Antioch
be destroyed by this army of the Medes), this idea
occurred to no one. So then while the Persians
were fighting beyond their power, since Chosroes was
present with them and urging them on with a mighty
cry, giving their opponents not a moment in which
to look about or guard against the missiles discharged
from their bows, and while the Romans, in great numbers
and with much shouting, were defending themselves still
more vigorously, the ropes with which the beams had
been bound together, failing to support the weight,
suddenly broke asunder and the timbers together with
all those who had taken their stand on them fell to
the ground with a mighty crash. When this was
heard by other Romans also, who were fighting from
the adjoining towers, being utterly unable to comprehend
what had happened, but supposing that the wall at this
point had been destroyed, they beat a hasty retreat.
Now many young men of the populace who in former times
had been accustomed to engage in factional strife
with each other in the hippodromes descended into the
city from the fortification wall, but they refused
to flee and remained where they were, while the soldiers
with Theoctistus and Molatzes straightway leaped upon
the horses which happened to be ready there and rode
away to the gates, telling the others a tale to the
effect that Bouzes had come with an army and they
wished to receive them quickly into the city, and
with them to ward off the enemy. Thereupon many
of the men of Antioch and all the women with their
children made a great rush toward the gates; but since
they were crowded by the horses, being in very narrow
quarters, they began to fall down. The soldiers,
however, sparing absolutely no one of those before
them, all kept riding over the fallen still more fiercely
than before, and a great many were killed there, especially
about the gates themselves.
But the Persians, with no one opposing them, set ladders against the wall and mounted with no difficulty. And quickly reaching the battlements, for a time they were by no means willing to descend, but they seemed like men looking about them and at a loss what to do, because, as it seems to me, they supposed that the rough ground was beset with some ambuscades of the enemy. For the land inside the fortifications which one traverses immediately upon descending from the height is an uninhabited tract extending for a great distance and there are found there rocks which rise to a very great height, and steep places. But some say that it was by the will of Chosroes that