stated above, we arrived at Constantinople before the Carian gate and waited with our horses, in no slight rain, until the eleventh hour. But at the eleventh hour, Nicephorus, not regarding us, who had been so distinguished by your mercy, as worthy to ride, ordered us to approach; and we were led to the aforesaid hated, waterless, open marble house. But on the eighth day before the Ides (June 6), on the Saturday before Pentecost, I was led into the presence of his brother Leo, the marshal of the court, and chancellor; and there we wearied ourselves out in a great discussion concerning your imperial title. For he called ye not emperor, which is Basileus in his tongue, but, to insult ye, Rex, which is king in ours. And when I told him that the thing signified was the same although the terms used to signify it were different, he said that I had come not to make peace but to excite discord; and thus angrily rising he received your letters, truly insultingly, not in his own hand, but through an interpreter. He was a man commanding enough in person but feigning humility; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
On the seventh day before the Ides (June 7), moreover, on the sacred day of Pentecost itself, in the palace which is called the crown hall, I was led before Nicephorus—a monstrosity of a man, a pygmy, fat-headed and like a mole as to the smallness of his eyes; disgusting with his short, broad, thick, and half hoary beard; disgraced by a neck an inch long; very bristly through the length and thickness of his hair; in colour an Ethiopian; one whom it would not be pleasant to meet in the middle of the night; with extensive belly, lean of loin, very long of hip considering his short stature, small of shank, proportionate as to his heels and feet; clad in a garment costly but too old, and foul-smelling and faded through age; shod with Sicyonian shoes; bold of tongue, a fox by nature, in perjury and lying a Ulysses. Always my lords and august emperors ye seemed to me shapely, how much more shapely after this! Always magnificent, how much more magnificent after this! Always powerful, how much more powerful after this! Always gentle, how much more gentle henceforth! Always full of virtues, how much fuller henceforth. At his left, not in a line but far below, sat two
