Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/438

 departing with all speed by a road lying between the lake Sunon and the winding course of the river Gallus. And through this circumstance Bithynia also fell into the hands of Procopius.

4. When Valens had returned by forced marches from this city to Ancyra, and had learnt that Lupicinus was approaching with no inconsiderable force from the East, he began to entertain better hopes, and sent Arinthaeus as his most approved general to encounter the enemy.

5. And when Arinthaeus reached Dadastana, where we have mentioned that Jovian died, he suddenly saw in his front, Hyperechius, who had previously been only a subaltern, but who now, as a trusty friend, had received from Procopius the command of the auxiliary forces. And thinking it no credit to defeat in battle a man of no renown, relying on his authority and on his lofty personal stature, he shouted out a command to the enemy themselves to take and bind their commander; they obeyed, and so this mere shadow of a general was arrested by the hands of his own men.

6. In the interim, a man of the name of Venustus, who had been an officer of the treasury under Valens, and who had sometime before been sent to Nicomedia, to distribute pay to the soldiers who were scattered over the East, when he heard of this disaster, perceived that the time was unfavourable for the execution of his commission, and repaired in haste to Cyzicus with the money which he had with him.

7. There, as it happened, he met Serenianus, who was at that time the count of the guards, and who had been sent to protect the treasury, and who now, with a garrison collected in a hurry, had undertaken the defence of the city, which was impregnable in its walls, and celebrated also for many ancient monuments, though Procopius, in order, now that he had got possession of Bithynia, to make himself master of the Hellespont, had sent a strong force to besiege it.

8.  The siege went on slowly; often numbers of the besiegers were wounded by arrows and bullets, and other missiles; and by the skill of the garrison a barrier of the strongest iron chain was thrown across the mouth of the harbour, fastened strongly to the land on each side, to prevent