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454 During these three weeks, then, Nicephorus had his camp outside of Constantinople, in a place that is called "At the Fountains"; and thither he ordered me to come. And, although I was so weak that not only standing but even sitting seemed a heavy burden to me, he compelled me to stand before him with uncovered head; a thing which was entirely wrong in my state of ill health. And he said to me: "The envoys of thy king Otto who were here before thee in the preceding year promised me under oath —and the wording of the oath can be produced—that he would never in any way bring scandal upon our empire. Dost thou wish for a worse scandal than that he calls himself emperor, that he usurps for himself the provinces of our empire? Both of these things are unbearable; and if both are insupportable, that especially is not to be borne, nay, not to be heard of, that he calls himself emperor. But if thou will'st confirm what they promised our majesty will straightway dismiss thee happy and rich."

This, moreover, he said not in order that I might expect ye to observe the engagement, even if in my foolishness I had made it; but he wished to have in hand something that he might show in time to come to his praise and to our shame.

I answered him: "My most holy master, most wise as he is and full of the spirit of God, foreseeing this which thou dost desire, wrote me instructions which he also signed with his seal lest I should act counter to them: to the effect that I should not transcend the bounds which he set for me."—Thou knowest, my august master, what I relied upon when I said this.— "Let these instructions be produced, and whatever he shall order, will be confirmed by an oath from me to thee. But as to what the former envoys, without the order of my master, promised, swore or wrote,—in the words of Plato: 'the guilt is with the wisher, the god is without fault.'"

After this we came to the matter of the most noble princes of Capua and Benevento, whom he calls his slaves, and on account of whom an inward grief is troubling him. "Thy master," he said, "has taken my slaves under his protection; if he will not let them go and restore them to their former servitude, he must do without our friendship.