(10) On the following day three men, Sclavenes by race, who were not wearing any iron or military
equipment, were captured by the emperor's bodyguards. Lyres were their baggage, and they were not
carrying anything else at all. (11) And so the emperor enquired what was their nation, where was their
allotted abode, and the cause of their presence in the Roman lands. (12) They replied that they were
Sclavenes by nation and that they lived at the boundary of the western ocean;10 the Chagan had
dispatched ambassadors to their parts to levy a military force and had lavished many gifts on their
nation's rulers;11 (13) and so they accepted the gifts but refused him the alliance, asserting that the
length of the journey daunted them, while they sent back to the Chagan for the purpose of making a
defence these same men who had been captured; they had completed the journey in fifteen months; but
the Chagan had forgotten the law of ambassadors and had decreed a ban on their return; (14) since they
had heard that the Roman nation was much the most famous, as far as can be told, for wealth and
clemency, they had exploited the opportunity and retired to Thrace; (15) they carried lyres since it was
not their practice to gird weapons on their bodies, because their country was ignorant of iron and
thereby provided them with a peaceful and troublefree life; they made music on lyres because they did
not know how to sound forth on trumpets. For they would quite reasonably say that for those who had
no knowledge of warfare, musical pursuits were uncultivated,12 as as it were. (16) And so, as a result of their words, the emperor marvelled at their tribe and judged that those
same barbarians who had encountered him were worthy of hospitality; in amazement
at the size of their
bodies and the nobility of their limbs, he sent these men under escort to Heracleia.
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