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A short time before this calamity God displayed a sign to the inhabitants of that city, by which He indicated the things which were to be.  For the standards of the soldiers who had been stationed there for a long time had been standing previously toward the west, but of their own accord they turned and stood toward the east, and then returned again to their former position untouched by anyone.  This the soldiers shewed to many who were near at hand and among them the manager of finances in the camp, while the standards were still trembling.  This man, Tatianus by name, was an especially discreet person, a native of Mopsuestia.  But even so those who saw this sign did not recognize that the mastery of the place would pass from the western to the eastern king, in order, evidently, that escape might be utterly impossible for those who were bound to suffer those things which came to pass.

But I become dizzy as I write of such a great calamity and transmit it to future times, and I am unable to understand why indeed it should be the will of God to exalt on high the fortunes of a man or of a place, and then to cast them down and destroy them for no cause which appears to us.  For it is wrong to say that with Him all things are not always done with reason, though he then endured to see Antioch brought down to the ground at the hands of a most unholy man, a city whose beauty and grandeur in every respect could not even so be utterly concealed.

So, then, after the city had been destroyed, the church was left solitary, thanks to the activity and foresight of the Persians to whom this work was assigned.  And there were also left about the so-called Cerataeum many houses, not because of the foresight of any man, but, since they were situated at the extremity of the city, and not connected with any other building, the fire failed entirely to reach them.  The barbarians burned also the parts outside the fortifications, except the sanctuary which is dedicated to St. Julianus and the houses which stand about this sanctuary.  For it happened that the ambassadors had taken up their lodgings there.  As for the fortifications, the Persians left them wholly untouched.

A little later the ambassadors again came to Chosroes and spoke as follows:  “If our words were not addressed to thee in thy presence, O King, we should never believe that Chosroes, the son of Cabades, had come into the land of the Romans in arms, dishonouring the oaths which have recently been sworn by thee—­for such pledges are regarded as the last and most firm security of all things among men to guarantee mutual trust and truthfulness—­and breaking the treaty, though hope in treaties is the only thing left to those who are living in insecurity because of the evil deeds of war.  For one might say of such a state of affairs that it is nothing else than the transformation of the habits of men into those