You'll remember, Brother Elpidios, that the true name of Philippikos who overthrew Justinian that second time was Bardanes, so he was an Armenian himself. That accounts for the synod he called, the one that condemned the sixth ecumenical synod. Whatever you call him, though, he lasted only a couple of years on the throne himself, and then he went onto the dung heap, and his miserable synod with him.

What? You didn't remember that? I forget- twenty years ago, when Justinian met his end, you were a boy, or at most a youth. What did you care then about Philippikos's real name? How time goes, Brother. How time goes.

I went on, "When that fraud of a Polykhronios said he could use the lying doctrines of the monothelites to raise the dead, who hoped he would? My uncles- my father's brothers. With my own eyes I saw them. And did he raise the dead? No! God let that poor man stay dead, to show us that dogma was false. My father didn't believe. I didn't believe. But my uncles did! After that, soldiers, do they deserve to wear the crown?"

Many men shouted, "No!" But others kept up their vain and foolish chant: "We believe in a Trinity- let us crown all three brothers!"

"Hear me, then, soldiers!" I cried to them. This was to have been Theodore of Koloneia's part, but I had been with him and my father when they devised their scheme, and I was up on the shield now. So I was the one who set it forth: "Let ten of your leaders come forward to me. They will meet with my father and the nobles of the Empire to discuss this matter. The rest of you, go ba ck to Sykai. By God I swear you will learn from your leaders tomorrow what my father has decided."

I waited, looking out at them, watching them chew that over to see what it tasted like. They must have liked the flavor well enough; the only trouble we had was keeping the number of self-proclaimed leaders down to ten, for ten times that many tried to come forward. But ten would do nicely, and the excubitores, under Theodore's direction, chose a mix of officers and private soldiers who did indeed seem to have some gift of leadership.