the land inside the river, that namely which is between it and the
Tigris, is appropriately named Mesopotamia; however, a portion of it is
called not only by this name, but also by certain others. For the land
as far as the city of Amida has come to be called Armenia by some, while
Edessa together with the country around it is called Osroene, after
Osroes, a man who was king in that place in former times, when the men
of this country were in alliance with the Persians. After the time,
therefore, when the Persians had taken from the Romans the city of
Nisibis and certain other places in Mesopotamia, whenever they were
about to make an expedition against the Romans, they disregarded the
land outside the River Euphrates, which was for the most part unwatered
and deserted by men, and gathered themselves here with no trouble, since
they were in a land which was their own and which lay very close to the
inhabited land of their enemy, and from here they always made their
invasions.

When the mirranes[23], defeated in battle[24] and with the greater part
of his men lost, came back to the Persian land with the remainder of his
army, he received bitter punishment at the hands of King Cabades. For he
took away from him a decoration which he was accustomed to bind upon the
hair of his head, an ornament wrought of gold and pearls. Now this is a
great dignity among the Persians, second only to the kingly honour. For
there it is unlawful to wear a gold ring or girdle or brooch or anything
else whatsoever, except a man be counted worthy to do so by the king.

Thereafter Cabades began to consider in what manner he himself should
make an expedition against the Romans. For after the mirranes had failed
in the manner I have told, he felt confidence in no one else. While he
was completely at a loss as to what he should do, Alamoundaras, the king
of the Saracens, came before him and said: "Not everything, O Master,