When they arrived at his court, they saw grandees and lords before him. There we observed them kneeling on their couches like rows of heavily-laden camels. Each had a bowl full of the flesh of unclean animals, and bowls containing salt water into which they dipped their food. There were silver cups and beakers chased in gold which they brought from the plunder of Tiflis. They also had drinking horns and very large utensils shaped like ladles (shoromadzews) with which they lapped up their broth and similar greasy, cold, unwashed abominations. With two or three of them to one cup, they [drank] greedily and like animals, pouring unmixed wine or the [fermented] milk of camels or horses into their insatiable bellies which resembled bloated skins. They did not have the customary cup-bearers before them nor servants behind them. Even the king's son lacked [such attendants] except for those soldiers [g272] who watchfully guarded his court armed with shields and spears.
[74] They brought inside [our Aghuanian delegation] and [the Aghuans] passed from one guard [gate] to the next. We carried on our arms the gifts of greeting [and we walked] behind the kat'oghikos. Then [Khazar guards] ran before him. They ordered all to step forward and to kiss the ground three times. Keeping the others at the second door and taking the gifts from them in their own arms, they led the kat'oghikos by himself to the innermost tent where the king's son sat. Entering his presence, the kat'oghikos kissed the ground before him and gave gifts to him and to all the grandees. Shat' took him by the hand and greatly rejoiced to see him arrive with such a multitude, and he ordered him to sit near him in the tent. Scrutinizing the face of the kat'oghikos for some time, he said: "You are my father, and your face is like the face of God. Why did you delay coming to me? You could have avoided the disaster that my troops have now inflicted on your land. But now that you have come, orders shall be issued in my name to all the soldiers in my army to return to their camps, and to no longer conduct raids in the confines of your country. The whole army shall heed your word. I shall swear an oath on the sun [g273] of my father Jebu Xak'an that whatever you request of me I shall grant without fail. Now order the whole of your principality to return to their homes and their endeavors. I shall raid the lands around you and shall bring the loot and booty and store it inside your territory. In place of this one destructive raid [the Khazars made on Aghuania], I shall repay you double in men and beasts, for my father has received these three lands—of the Aghuanians and the Lp'ink' and Ch'oray—as his royal patrimony in perpetuity." The kat'oghikos arose, reverenced him, and said: "We are the servants of your father and yourself, I and all the inhabitants of this country. Spare us your servants and turn your sword from us that we may serve your father and yourself in the same way that we served the Sassanians." When this had been said, through the power of the Holy Cross the great wrath of the beast-like people and their lords and soldiers was soothed in the kat'oghikos' presence. They became as tame as lambs and like pious believers in God towards beloved brothers and like-minded fellow citizens and neighbors. They invoked the name of the kat'oghikos in the same manner as their king's son, namely, God Shat' and God kat'oghikos. Those who had come with him they styled dear brother [g274].
Then they were ordered to sit and eat with them. [The Khazars] had them kneel down just as they themselves did and they placed before them vessels full of unclean meat. Now they did not want to eat since it was then the time of the Lenten fast, and the Khazars respected the wishes of the servants of God, removed the meat, and placed before them a few thin slices of bread fried in a pan. Giving thanks to God, [the Aghuans] blessed it and broke it, and ate it to please them. After the meal, [Shat'] ordered that the kat'oghikos be sent on his way with his people in great honor that he go to the city and live in his own house at ease. From that day forth [kat'oghikos Viroy] was often a visitor to their camp, both when they were on the move and when they were resting. Once [the Khazars] had grown to trust him, he grew bolder and began making requests to the king's son: "My lord, since we are your servants, let me tell you something which is to your own benefit. Do not allow the country to be ruined and turned into a wasteland. Rather, send trustworthy officials everywhere, to the hamlets, fields, fortresses and villages, so that all the inhabitants of this country may return and work without fear, being protected by these officials against any violence on the part of your troops. Since you and your father have plainly received this country in service, let your grandees and yourself lend an ear [g275] to my requests. Order the release of all those captured by your soldiers and detained in their tents, men and women, girls and youths, so that fathers may not be separated from their sons and mothers from their daughters. Otherwise, [the people] will scatter over the land like tender hinds before those who hunt their calves."
[75] In this way, with mild and suppliant words which flowed from his spiritual wisdom, [Viroy] inclined their hearts to his requests. The order was issued by the king's son to all his troops to release all the prisoners and not to dare to prevent their return or to conceal them. For if they dared to do this, they would be subject to very severe punishment. [Shat'] sent distinguished men from among those who were close to him—[officials] called t'ndiwn [tudun]s—to accompany the kat'oghikos' attendants. Then they arose and went through their camps, searching through their tents and pavillions. They removed and extricated young boys who had been hidden among the baggage or the pack-animals and took them away. No on dared to resist them. Assembling them in groups, they brought them to the palace of the kat'oghikos. And there [kat'oghikos Viroy] cared for them like a hen caring for her chicks. He clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and sent them all back to their homes. The grace of the Lord was with him and aided him in all his thoughts and deeds [g276]. Moreover, his name was glorified among the multitude of the enemy until the day God visited his people and delivered them from their hands.
[76] We can find nothing to compare with our misfortunes anywhere with the exception of the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus. We stepped over the corpses of those who had died of starvation and which, black and swollen, covered the fields as thick as stones on the bed of a river. The word [g278] of the prophet was fulfilled: "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass" [Jer. 22. 19] and "No one shall break bread for the mourner" [Jer. 16. 7]. When the green shoots [of spring] began to appear, yet more people died than during all the days of winter. Let whoever is still capable of hearing and comprehending know that towards the end of the famine a disease unlike any other spread throughout the land. Those who were infected by this disease became crazy for the space of one month or two. They would grind and gnash their teeth, and roll their eyes. Nor did they comprehend that they were sick, and they even did not know how to ask for water. Some, like frantic madmen, rose naked and shameless from their bed, talked to the walls, and beat the air, while others mistreated their nurses. Although the illness was severe, death was not the result. They called it madness. Those afflicted grew black and thin, their bodies wasted away, their limbs were paralysed, and their hair and beard fell out. I lamented and mourned these unbelievable disasters for many days, praying to All-merciful God to bring these unbearable afflictions to an end.
I Viroy, kat'oghikos of Aghuania, Lp'ink', and Ch'oray [g279], will avoid mentioning all the other ghastly things—the blackened bodies, the baldness of the heads—for here too the meaning of the prophet should be obvious: "I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins and baldness on every head" [Amos 8. 10]. When God had caused all His wishes to be fulfilled, He remembered [humanity] as he remembered Noah in his ark among the waters of the flood. He had mercy on them and granted their requests. He sent fullness to their bodies, satisfied the hungry, and filled the needy with good things. This was so that, enjoying these things, [the people] might multiply their praises to God.
When the prince reached his vanguard in the land of Armenia, he learned that the Persian general was marching against him [g281], and he went to earth like a serpent, lying in ambush and holding the road before him. News reached Shahrvaraz about what the enemy was planning and where their fearless vanguard troops had been deployed to meet him. Making an announcement in the midst of his troops, [General Shahrvaraz] suggested that they should depose the Sassanian family and make him king. "Look around you and understand, oh Houses of Persia, that you are nothing without me, who destroyed the son of Rome. Now I have turned towards the East and have commanded my brave men to trample beneath the hooves of their horses the people who have descended from the North, from Gothland. [The Sasanian king Artashir] is a suckling child and a plaything in [the Sasanian family's] hands. They put their trust in him and press him to their breast like a child born to their family. But he will not protect them. [The Persians] have fallen and been defeated by a few. [The victorious Khazars], knowing that you are depopulated, have set their hearts on inheriting the glories of the land of the Aryans."
After he said this, [Shahrvaraz] proudly addressed one of the brave men of his army named Honah, the prince of the Arab cavalry brigade: "Arise now and go through [the army]. Select from it your own brigade of about ten thousand valiant men. Then march against [the Khazars] [g282]. Do not wait to choose a battlefield, do not draw up your forces in battle array, and do not draw your sword from its scabbard as though seeking vengeance from the enemy. Do this so that [the Khazars] may not boast to their people that they were defeated by the sword. Rather, trample them beneath the hooves and chests of your horses, and scatter them like dust in the wind. Do this and other things so that, having destroyed their front, you may advance and penetrate as far as the king and his camp. Battle with him alone. And when you have completely destroyed them, call the place of battle the 'grave of the enemies.' Behold, this is what I say to you."
[78] When [Shahrvaraz's candidate, Honah,] this proudest of men, heard [these words] from [Shahrvaraz] he swelled up even more. He arose proudly, reviewed his troops, and then went against the enemy. Now when the enemy became informed about his approach, they laid an ambush on the road and awaited his arrival. [The other] half of their army was drawn up ready to confront [the Persians]. When the two armies clashed, [the Khazars] immediately took flight before them. At that point [those Khazar troops in the ambuscade] jumped out at [the Persians] from all sides. [The Khazars] surrounded [the Persian brigade] like fire attacking rushes on the banks of Lake Gegham [Lake Sevan]. They did not spare a single one of them, nor was even one man left to bring the bad news [about the deaths] of so many men. Truly, their pride had turned back on them [g283], for Man does not become strong through his own power. It is God Who makes his opponent weak.
[The Khazars] plundered the corpses and gathered up the ornaments of [the Persians'] horses, [the army's] lances, gold-plated swords, shields, and costly robes skillfully dyed and fashioned by the Byzantines. Then they shared this entire pile among themselves. In accordance with their custom, they slit the ears of the beautiful horses and cut their nostrils, docked their mane and forelock, and cut the tail, skin and bone, down to a cubit in length, thus disfiguring them to make them look like pack-mules.
When this arrogance [of the Persians] had also been punished, every warrior, every man who wore a sword at his side, realized that the authority of kings and the power of generals was as nothing before them.
Then the cauldron of the North turned his face against his own sons and fought them, visiting the fullness of his anger on his young cubs and punishing one [crime] a thousandfold and two, ten thousandfold.
Now that I have begun to speak about the fearful and terrible retribution visited upon our enemies, my thoughts search among many [Biblical] texts [g284]. Was there an example of a deed which might outdo the drownings of Pharaoh, the raising of Moses' hands like a cross to smite Amalech, the massacres of Gideon, the titanic valor of the son of Jesse, the terrible fear which seized the Assyrians in the night, and the like? But now let us return to the thread of our narrative again, for the Lord performed great things for us and we have not yet comprehended them.
[The Khazars] advanced through the passes of the three lands of Armenia, Iberia/Georgia, and Aghuania. When they halted there, terrible news arrived from the destructive lion of the north, Jebu Xak'an himself, for his insatiable cub Shat': "Brigands have pounced on me," he said, "and you shall never see my face again. For instead of securing [my conquests], I expanded my kingdom [into lands] unsuitable for me. And so, my arrogance has caused me to fall from my lofty station. Do not stop to destroy the people who are with you, but try to escape from them. Otherwise they, learning what has developed, may make haste to tear you to shreds. Alas, I am lost and have become childless [g285].
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