The Huns wear fox-skin caps and for warmth in winter two long fur coats, the one with the hair turned outwards, the other with the hair turned inwards. A man's rank is shown by the sort of fur that he wears: the common person wears dog's or wolf's skin, but the nobleman sable. Their breeches are of goatskin. They carry gerfalcons on their fists for hawking, by which means they obtain a great quantity of wild geese and other game. Their other chief sport is wrestling from horse-back. They are very quarrelsome; yet, when two men fight, no third man dares intervene to part them, not even a brother or father of either man. Murder is punished by death (unless the murderer was intoxicated at the time), and so are fornication, and adultery, and theft, and the making of water upon a camp-fire, and even lesser offences, unless these are committed outside the clan or tribe or confederation of tribes, in which case all is permissible. Their personal habits are most filthy, and they do not wash, but smear their faces with horse-tallow. They worship the blue sky and employ magicians and, for fear of evil spirits, no sick man of them may be visited by any but his servants. They are terrified of thunder and lightning, and hide in their tents during storms. Marriage with them is by capture or pretence of capture, and a son inherits and marries all his father's wives except his own mother. Their weapons, as I have told, are light bows and arrows, and tough lances and curved broadswords. In battle the nobler men wear leather coats armoured in front with overlapping plates; but not behind, because they consider this cowardly. They talk an almost unintelligible language, piping like birds. For the most part they live in disharmony, tribe with tribe and clan with clan, but occasionally a single nobleman rises to be a prince having many clans subservient to him, and is called a Cham. It is when a Cham arises that the two Empires must beware of raids over the frontier. So much for the Huns.
This victory was the occasion of my mistress Antonina's journey to Daras: the Empress Theodora sent her there to Belisarius with a letter of personal congratulation and presents. As was natural, the Emperor Justinian also sent a letter and presents, but he was unaware that Theodora was doing the same, for she had not taken him into her confidence. The two missions sailed independently. Justinian's presents were a ceremonial robe exquisitely brocaded in heavy thread of gold and pearls; and an illuminated missal bound in carved ivory; and a valuable relic – the authentic begging-bowl of the blind St Bartimaeus, whom, according to the Evangelist Mark, the Saviour restored to sight. This bowl, which had come to Justinian from the treasures of a monastery lately dissolved on account of its immorality, was of olive wood, silver-grey with age. It was not adorned, as these relics usually are, with precious metals and jewels, but was a simple begging-bowl of the sort that beggars still commonly use on our church-porches and in our Squares. Around the rim had been carved at some time or other the Greek words ' Poverty and Patience'. In the letter, written in Justinian's own hand, there was great praise for Belisarius's skill in battle and his loyalty to the Imperial cause, and an encouragement to repeat his glorious deeds, blessed by God, if ever the heathen Persian dared again to violate our frontier. But at the same time Justinian counselled the utmost economy in fighting men: while the present poverty in soldiers continued, the injunction to patience carved on the holy relic must be observed religiously.
