Part 12: Shapur's War on Rome

They set up the audience hall and the court, and called for the keys to the treasuries. The army gathered as the day dawned, his head full of vengeance and his heart full of fury. From Iran he marched all the way to the Roman frontier, killing everyone who lived in that land. They slaughtered the people and burned their homes, setting a whole world ablaze. When word reached Rome from Iran that this flourishing land had been laid waste, the renowned Caesar found himself trapped, caught on the dark battlefield of war. All of Rome broke into weeping, seared with grief at the name of Shapur. Everyone kept asking who had done this evil, unless it was Caesar, that ignoble coward, who died for it. Caesar had a brother, his father dead and his mother still living, a young man named Yanus, ambitious, generous, and cheerful. An army gathered at his door, and his war-hungry mother gave out coins to pay them. She told him: Avenge your brother. Don't you see the Iranian army has come? When Yanus heard this he seethed and said: A brother's blood cannot be left unavenged. He beat the war drums and brought out the cross, a great cross and a terrifying army. When the two armies came face to face, the vengeful men could not stay still. They drew up their ranks and a great roar arose; Yanus came running to the front. A cloud and black dust rose up, so thick the eye lost its way in the darkness. On one side the army had a mountain, on the other a great mass of water. It went on this way until the sun turned yellow, dust of battle rising on every side. So many were killed that the face of the earth turned iron with the armor of the dead. When Shapur drove his army out from the center, he called his chosen men to left and right. As the king spurred his horse with his nobles, the ground trembled and the army writhed. He charged at the Roman army; to him a great man and a small one were the same. Yanus realized he could not withstand the king; he turned and fled with his army. Behind them the hero Shapur gave chase, his dust stealing the light from the sky. In every place he raised a heap of the slain, staining the grasses with their brains. He killed so many of that Roman army that a whole plain was nothing but severed heads. No army was left on the plain, no cross; no crucifix and no bishop were left in the fortresses. He seized so much plunder from every place that his own army stood amazed at it. He divided it all among the soldiers; only Caesar's treasure was set aside for the king. For he had seen suffering come from that treasure; the treasure and its suffering were never far apart. The whole Roman army gathered together and told tales about Caesar, saying: May we never have such a lord again, may the name of Caesar be gone from Rome. In Rome no altar was left standing, no cross, no Christ, no chanted hymn. The priest's sacred belt was burned, the crucifix and the bishop set aflame. Now Rome and Kannauj are one to us, for the voice of the Christian faith has grown faint.