But mark how impiously he had sworn. These things were said and done on the thirteenth day before the Calends of August (July 20) on the second day of the week (Monday); from which day, until the ninth day, I received no supplies from him. And this was at a time when the famine in Constantinople was so great that for three gold pieces I was not able to provide a meal for my twenty five companions and the four Greek guards. On the fourth day of that week Nicephorus left Constantinople to march against the Assyrians.
On the fifth day his brother called me before him and addressed me as follows: “The holy emperor has gone forth and I have remained at home to-day at his command.
Chelandian ships to the port of Ancona
Tell me, then, now, if you do desire to see the holy emperor, and if you have any thing which you have not yet imparted.” I answered him: “I have no reason for seeing the holy emperor or for narrating any thing new; I ask this alone, that, according to the promise of the holy emperor, he allow me to cross on his Chelandian ships to the port of Ancona.” On hearing this,-the Greeks are always ready to swear by the head of another -he began to swear that he would do so by the head of the emperor, by his own life, by his children whom God, according as he spoke truly, was to preserve. When I asked him: “When ” he answered: “As soon as the emperor is gone; for the ‘delongaris’ in whose hand all the power over the ships rests, will see to you when the holy emperor goes away.” Deceived by this hope, I went away from him rejoicing.
But two days after, on Saturday, Nicephorus had me summoned to Umbria, which is a place eighteen miles from Constantinople. And he said to me: “I thought that you had come hither, as a distinguished and upright man, in order altogether to accede to my demands and to establish a perpetual friendship between me and your master. But as, on account of your hardness of heart, you are not willing to do this: at least bring about this one thing, which you may with perfect right do; promise, namely, that your master will lend no aid to the princes of Capua and Benevento, my slaves whom I am about to attack. Since he gives us nothing of his own , let him at least give up what is ours. It is a well-known thing that their fathers and grandfathers gave tribute to our empire, and that they themselves shall shortly do the same,-for that the army of our empire will labor.”
Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 7
