This will be enough to say about Valens, and it is fully confirmed by the testimony of records contemporary with me. But it is proper not to omit the following story. At the time of the oracle of the tripod, for which, as I have said,Cf. xxix. 1, 7. Patricius and Hilarius were responsible, he had heard of those three prophetic verses, of which the last is: When in Mimas’ plains the war-god Ares rages.Cf. xxix. 1, 33. Being uneducatedLit. unfinished, see xxi. 10, 8. and rude, he disregarded them at first, but as his very great troubles increased he became abjectly timid, and in recalling that prediction used to shudder at the mention of Asia, where, as he heard from the mouths of learned men, Homer and Cicero have written of a mountain called Mimas, rising above the city of Erythrae.A city of Ionia. For Mimas, see Homer ( iii. 172) and Cicero ( xvi. 13a, 2); opposite the island Chios, and part of Mount Tmolus.

Finally, after his death and the departure of the enemy, it is said that near the place where he was thought to have fallen a monument made of a heap of stones was found, to which was fastened a tablet engraved with Greek characters, showing that a distinguished man of old called Mimas was buried there.Cedrenus ( p. 314 B) and Zonaras (xiii. 16, p. iii, 32 A) speak of this, and say that the inscription read: Here lies Mimas, a Macedonian general. They connect Valens’ fears, not with the tripod, but with a dream of the emperor’s.