Then, suddenly, he was hit in the right side. It was not a superficial wound, and the blood flowed freely at once from the deep gash. Apparently he was unaware of the blow at first, but when he saw the trickle of blood, he tried to staunch it with his hand. He realized he had been mortally wounded and in sheer desperation tried to regain his own lines. He did, in fact, get some little way from our army, but as he was now unable to turn his horse’s head — his body had lost all strength and he was fainting–he gave a gentle moan, a last gesture, dropped his reins and slid out of his saddle to the ground, a pitiable sight.
85. Even when our men saw him lying there, they did not recover their bravery. They still reined in their chargers, for fear lest the enemy were planning an ambush. However, as Maniaces’s attendant squire was some distance away and his horse, free to roam now cantered up and down the space between the two armies, all of them, in one great mob, rushed up to the body. The sight that met their eyes was astounding, so great was the area of ground covered by that sprawling corpse. The head they cut off and brought it back to their own general, whereupon a host of men claimed to have killed him.
Imagination dictated
Descriptions of the murder were supplied as invention or imagination dictated, but since it was impossible to demonstrate the truth of these stories, they invented another, to the effect that certain unknown horsemen had fallen upon him and cut off his head. Many such accounts were fabricated, without any convincing evidence. On the other hand, they did claim, frorn the fact that he was wounded in the side, that the weapon must have been a lance. Yet the man who inflicted the wound was still unknown, right up to the day when I wrote this history.
86. That, at all events, was the manner of his death. Maniaces had undoubtedly suffered injustice during his life, although one cannot commend all that he did. As for his army, some got away to their native countries without attracting the enemy’s attention, but the majority deserted. The emperor was presented with the rebel’s head before his army actually returned to the capital, and he had it impaled at the top of the Great Theatre, suspended in mid-air for all men to see, even at a distance. Then, with the air of a man who has been delivered from some wave that was about to overwhelm him, like a man who had won some respite from danger, he gave thanks to God.
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