From Egypt, the Arabs swept west toward Carthage and the lands surrounding it, lands the Romans had regained from the Vandals during the reign of the Justinian for whom I was named. That was one of the reasons Constans went to Sicily, where he met his death: he used the island as a base from which to assail the Arabs in their movement against Carthage. And while my grandfather lived, Carthage stayed in Roman hands. How it was lost, again, will be told in its own place.

Even before this time, the Arabs, curse them, had done a thing the Persians never did in all their centuries of war against us Romans. They took to the sea, endangering the Roman Empire in that new fashion. Like all the line of Herakleios, Constans my grandfather was a man who believed in going straight at the foe. He assembled the Roman fleet, and met that of the Arabs off the coast of Lykia, the southwestern region of Anatolia.

Before the two fleets joined battle, my grandfather dreamt he was in Thessalonike. He told this to a man who knew how to interpret dreams, asking what it meant. And the man's face grew long, and he said, "I wish you had not dreamt this dream."

As I have said, I never met Constans, but I can imagine the fearsome glare he must have given the fellow. "Why?" he would have growled.

The man who could interpret dreams had courage, for he answered with what he saw: "Your being in Thessalonike signifies, 'Give victory to someone else,' for that is the meaning of the words. You would do far better, Emperor, not to engage the enemy tomorrow."

My grandfather went out and fought the sea battle anyhow. He-

Christ and all the saints, Brother Elpidios, that's Herakleios and those who sprang from him, right there in a sentence. They weren't always right, but they were always sure. So Justinian could see that in his grandfather, could he? Too bad he never could see it in himself.

Go on, go on, I pray you. I did say I'd break in from time to time. Go on.