Having done and said these things they gave to me a letter written and sealed with gold to bring to you; but it -was not worthy of you, as I thought. They brought also other letters sealed with silver and said: “We judge it unseemly that your pope should receive letters from the emperor; but the marshal of the court, the emperor’s brother, sends him an epistle which is good enough for him – .not through his own poor envoys but through you to the effect that ‘ unless he come to his senses, he shall know that he shall be utterly confounded.”
Fifty pieces of gold
When I had received this, they let me go, giving me kisses which were very sweet, very loving. But as I went away they sent me a message right worthy of themselves but not 6f me-to the effect, namely, that they would give me horses for myself personally and for my companions, but none for my luggage. And thus, being very much annoyed, as was natural,- I had to give to my guide as pay, objects of the worth of fifty pieces of gold. And as I had no means of retaliating upon Nicephorus for his ill deeds,’ I wrote these verses on the wall of -my hated habitation, and upon a wooden table:
False is Argolian faith, be warned and mistrust it O Latin;
Heed you and let not your ear be lent to the words that they utter.
when it will help him the Argive will swear by all that is holy!
Lofty, with windows tall, ornate with varying marble,
This-dwelling, deficient in water, admits the sun in its confines,
Fosters the bitterest cold, nor repels the heat when it rages
Liutprand a bishop I, from Cremona a town of Ausonia,
Hither for love of peace to Constantinople did journey;
Here I was kept confined throughout the four months of the summer.
For before Bari’s gates had appeared the emperor Otto,
Striving to take the place by-flame alike and by slaughter.
Thence, by my prayers induced, he hastens to Rome, his own city
Greece meanwhile having promised a bride for the son of the victor.
O had she ne’er been born, and I had been spared this grim journey
Safely avoiding the wrath that Nicephorus since has poured on me-
He who prohibits his stepchild from wedding the son of my master!
Lo, the day is at hand, when war, impelled by fierce furies,
Wildly shall rage o’er earth’s limits, should God not see fit to avert it.
Peace which is longed for by al1, because of his guilt will be silent!
Read More about The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 6
