"Why, then, did you elect to fight ?" said the angry prince.

"It was God's doing," replied the priest, astutely; "He willed that thou shouldest owe thy conquest of Amida, not to our weakness, but to thy own valor." The flattery pleased Kobad, and induced him to stop the effusion of blood; but the sack was allowed to continue; the whole town was pillaged; and the bulk of the inhabitants were carried off as slaves.
The siege of Amida lasted eighty days, and the year A.D.503 had commenced before it was over.

Anastasius, on learning the danger of his frontier town, immediately despatched to its aid a considerable force, which he placed under four commanders--Areobindus, the grandson of the Gothic officer of the same name who distinguished himself in the Persian war of Theodosius; Celer, captain of the imperial guard; Patricius, the Phrygian; and Hypatius, one of his own nephews.

The army, collectively, is said to have been more numerous than any that Rome had ever brought into the field against the Persians but it was weakened by the divided command, and it was moreover broken up into detachments which acted independently of each other.

Its advent also was tardy.