24. When they eventually grew quiet, they gave us leisure to observe what was inside the tent (for we had not immediately entered when the door was thrown open, but stood at some distance waiting for the signal to go in). I will describe that scene. The emperor himself was seated on a couch decorated with two head-rests. The couch was raised on a high platform and overlaid with gold. Under his feet was a stool.
A magnificent robe gave him an air of great distinction. Very proudly he held up his head and puffed out his chest (an effort that caused his cheeks to take on a deep red tinge), while his eyes, with their far-away gaze, showed plainly that he was thinking profoundly and wholly given up to his own meditations.
The Ancient Heroes
Then the fixed gaze relaxed, and it was as if he had come from troubled deeps to the calm of some haven. All round him were circles on circles of warriors. The nearest circle, and the smallest ones was composed of the most important persons, the leading representatives of the nobility, men who rivalled the stately grandeur of the Ancient Heroes. And there they stood, their own exalted rank an inspiration to their juniors. Around them were their lieutenants and the front rank fighters, grouped in a second circle.
With these stood some soldiers of inferior battalions and certain high-ranking company commanders, on the emperor’s left. Surrounding these again we saw the light-armed troops without armour, and behind them all the allied forces which had joined him from different barbarian nations. There were Italians, and Scyths from the Taurus, men of fearful appearance, dressed in fearful garb, both alike glaring fiercely about them.
They were not alike in other respects, for while the one tribe painted themselves and plucked out their eyebrows, the other preserved their natural colour; the one made their attacks as the spirit moved them, were impetuous and led by impulse, the other with a mad fury; the former in their first onslaught were irresistible, but they quickly lost their ardour; the latter, on the other hand, were less impatient, but fought with unsparing devotion and a complete disregard for wounds.
These then were the warriors who rounded off that circle of shields, armed with long spears and single-edged battle-axes. The axes they carried on their shoulders, and with the spiked ends of the spears jutting out before and behind them the intervals between the ranks were, so to speak, roofed in.
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