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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 4, 44. Of the Lombards and Mummolus

After this, three Lombard dukes, Amo, Zaban, and Rodan, invaded Gaul.¹ Amo took the way by Embrun, and pushed as far as the domain called Macho in the territory of Avignon, which Mummolus had received as a gift from the king; here he pitched his tents. Zaban, coming down by Die, reached Valence, where he encamped. Rodan advanced to Grenoble, where he set up his pavilions. Amo subdued the province of Arles with the towns round it, and marching as far as the stony plain near Marseilles,² stripped the country both of its herds and of its men. He made preparations to besiege Aix, but withdrew on receipt of twenty-two pounds of silver. Rodan and Zaban dealt in like manner with the towns to which they came. As soon as Mummolus heard this news, he set his army on the march and came upon Rodan, who was attacking Grenoble. But as the army had great difficulty in crossing the Isère, through God’s guidance an animal which entered the river revealed a ford, and in this way they easily reached the farther bank. At sight of them, the Lombards forthwith drew their swords and rushed to the attack. In the battle thus joined, they were so grievously smitten that Rodan, wounded by a lance, took refuge high in the mountains. Breaking his way through trackless forests with the five hundred men who remained to him, he joined Zaban, then besieging Valence, and told him all that had befallen. They abandoned all their plunder and returned to Embrun, where Mummolus encountered them with an innumerable host. When they joined battle, the Lombard forces were cut to pieces, and their dukes returned to Italy with a remnant of their men. They had gone as far as Susa, where the inhabitants received them ill, especially as Sisinnius, the emperor’s master of the soldiery, resided there. Then one feigning himself a servant of Mummolus presented a letter to Sisinnius in the presence of Zaban, giving him greeting in Mummolus’s name, and adding: ‘Lo! he himself is nigh at hand.’ At these words Zaban left the city with the utmost speed and went farther At this news Amo also set out homewards, collecting all the booty seized on his march. But the snows so impeded him that he had to abandon his spoil, and he hardly escaped with a few companions. For they were all terrified by the prowess of Mummolus.

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