The historian Publius Herennius Dexippus has generally received a poor press from historians for his works which are written of as lacking in style unequal of Thucydides. Perhaps this is the case for his History picking up where Dio Cassius left off, but for the fragments that do remain to us of his work 'The Scythian Wars' they show a fairly elaboate and well-conceived style equal of the praise doted on him. However, why recount, when you can read for yourself the first of the remaining remnants of his history preserved for us by Byzantine writers?

Marcianopolis, so the local people say, takes its name from the sister of the emperor Trajan. Since the Scyths think that they could take the city by storm, they did bother with an immediate assault, but instead gathered together a large number of stones before the city walls so as to make use of the heaps and masses of them in the siege-to-come without any shortages. They thought that they would kill a great number of men on the city walls and force their enemies to take to the defense rather than the offence and so easily take the city. However, the people in the city, who had long before laid in provisions for a siege, were emboldened by one Maximus, a man of low birth who devoted his life to philosophy and at that moment was ready to perform not only the deeds of a commander, but of an excellent soldier, who counseled them that when the enemy attacked them virulently with their long-range weapons they should resist by standing under the defenses and defend themselves by holding up their shields so as to absorb and turn their opponents missiles. When the barbarians decided they had enough stones in readiness, they in vast numbers encircled the city walls with some of loosing missiles and others operating their long-range weapons letting fly a constant flow of projectiles so as to make the barrage of them one after another seem a very bitter hailstorm. Yet the people in the city fought back defending themselves ably holding out as they had been commanded to do. Because of their lack of any success, the barbarians' supply of stones was soon exhausted along with their supply of missiles to be launched by hand of by bow and so their expectation that they would take the city without any effort was lost as they lost heart and at the summons of their commanders withdrew setting up camp not far from the city since it was the time when the sun was toward the west. After passing not very many days there, they came back again and surrounded the city fall firing on it with their long-range engines. Then Maximus told the people in the city it was the opportune moment to attack. Here is what happened. Taking heart at the previous withdrawal of the barbarians, [the people in the city] raised up a shout and loosed the missiles and projectiles they had, upon the densely packed barbarians, who, due to the unexpected resistance that they had not been prepared to meet and their sheer numbers which the people in the city could not fail to miss, were forced to withdraw since the Scyths knew they could not get back at the Mysians. In addition, due to the defenses and the timely resistance of the men from the court, they exhausted by wounds, since they could do no more, withdrew empty-handed.

The Scythians [also] laid siege to Side, which is a city in Lycia. As city had no lack of supplies within and a body of men not slothfully disagreeable to the action, they constructed engines of war and set them up on the city walls. However, they had an answer for this devising their own devices. For this purpose they constructed wooden towers of equal height with the city walls and moved them from underneath to get near the walls. Some of the towers were covered with iron beaten out and stuck out aways from the wood, while others were covered with hides so as not to be susceptible to fire. In response to this device, the people of the city responded with their own by setting up large, straight planks where their enemy was about to bring up their mechanisms setting up beside them oblique wooden beams and platforms and putting up entranceways in their midst as high as a man's chest so that they fight from higher up. In doing this, they put down in a circle prepared garments and fleece skins so that these defensive barriers should not be easy to set fire to and the erected constructs not be easy to take without great violent effort. When they were put to the test afterwards, fierce fighting broke out on both sides so that staying on became pointless for the Scythians and they had no prospects [of success], so they withdrew.

Under Aurelian when the Vandals were utterly defeated by the Romans, they sent deputations to the Romans for the cessation of hostilities and coming to an agreement. After much being said with one another between the emperor and the barbarians, the gathering broke up and on the following day the body of the Roman soldiers was reconvened where the emperor asked what was agreeable to them concerning the present matter, to which, they seeing their good fortune and thinking of the security of their property, all aloud they made known their wish that they were all ready for an end to this war. The men assembled there were in accord. The kings and rulers of the barbarians arriving as it had been said by them handed over their captives meeting with no less honor and welcome. And after this, they came to an agreement and peace was made. By this agreement, two thousand Vandal cavalrymen were to fight alongside the Romans some of them being selected from their numbers for the alliance and others who willingly joined the army. The remaining body of Vandals all together started for home with the Roman governor providing for their needs up until the Ister. The greater part of their numbers made it back unharmed, but those who in violation of the terms spread out to take plunder freely they were slain by the commander of the foreign legions numbering no less than five hundred. It was as though they were traveling through allied land, so they became puffed up by their peace with the Romans and neglecting all rank and file made some sudden raids with the approval of a chief and did not small amount of injury to the countryside. For this action their king ordered the culpable shot down by arrows. The remaining Vandals were scattered and headed for home. The Roman emperor then sent the greater part of his infantry and cavalry to Italy. After spending not very numerous days there, he gathered together the force about him, the bodyguard of the commander, the allied Vandals, and the children given to him as hostages and he himself set out for Italy hastening because of the presence there of the Juthungians again.

The Cecropian tribe has raised mighty, famous
men in strength, stories, and the Muses,
one of whom is Dexippus who wrote history
covering a long span of time in impeccable style.
Some of it he saw himself, others parts reading in books
He found the utter unturning way of history.
A great man he was, who looking over ten thousand eyes
has spelled out the deeds of years.
Word spread through Greece of the newly bloomed
tale given by Dexippus to history
For that these children of that famous parent
give this tomb made of stone.

Here is what Photius says of him in his Library.

Read The Events after Alexander by Dexippus in four books. Also read another short historical work covering events in summary until the reign of Claudius. Read as well his Scythian Wars in which he records the battles and remarkable deeds of the Romans and Scythians with one another. His style is without excess and is both dignified and of quality such that (might one say it) he is another Thucydides in clarity especially in the records of the Scythians.

The Suda

Dexippus: Herennius calling himself Dexippus was an Athenian and a rhetor flourishing under the Roman emperors Valerian, Galienus, Claudius II, and Aurelian.

John Tzetzes: Chiliades

John Tzetzes: Letter to Manuel I Comnenus

To our mighty and holy Emperor Kyrios Manuel the Porphyrogenitus

I, your unworthy servant salute your most mighty God-appointed Majesty, most mighty emperor, and I hope I may be the messenger of well-sent news for you from well-sent dreams if Your Majesty should accept the Scythian horse as your ally. For I, your majesty's unworthy servant "neither a prophet, nor diviner of augurs" nor an abbot, nor a priest, nor anyone else sharing the virtue, have had dreams, almost prophecies and oracles, where I sometimes know their meanings. I dream them not falling asleep not due to gluttony, drunken bouts, or in an queer state, but sober, abstinent from drink, and not sleeping at all. As many people know of our conduct and disposition, I shall now tell what happened to me Sunday last. Since I am accustomed to not hang about the markets or go about the thoroughfares, I went to bed to sleep though I could not sleep, since a cloud of flees greater than that immeasurable army of Xerxes were attacking me and assailing my defenses from all sides. I tossed and turned all night long assailed by this mal greater than the wheel of Ixion until the dawning day , when since I had not closed my eyes with the pain and since I was still not asleep, I decided to walk to the nearby market of Leomakellos and meet Basil, a goldsmith by trade, near the perfumer Stratonikos Kondos's workshop who I found reading a book. At first, I thought the book was some poor one or the Holy Bible but as I heard him reading, I said to him, "Kyrios Basil, that's not the Scythian Wars by Dexippus is it?" He said to me, "Yes", and I said, "And who gave you it?" He said to me, "The bull officer." There are two bull officers, the father Theodore by name and his son Constantine the deacon, so I decided it must have been the son who gave it to him. I was astonished threefold at this because such a little lettered man such as Basil having been educated only in his primary and elementary letters would read such a book and because I had thought he had lived many houses away but now lived close to Stratonicus's workshop, and also because it was a book I had wanted myself and the bull officer had given it to the said goldsmith. The book's binding was damaged and some of the pages looked as though they had been ravaged by fire. As I was saying, in spite of how the book is, it has good work inside with no care being shown for the pages and the binding. At any rate, I figured that it would benefit your Imperial Majesty to know that Basil the gold-smith your most mighty Imperial Majesty's, who previously used to frequent below Stratonikos's working gold receiving the Scythian horse in alliance with the bull officer, the general Theodore, or his eldest ordained son, Constantine, who seal and bind the things across from one another in the workshop of Kontos Stratonikos, that is to say with the help of God and the said saints receiving as another ally in gold the Scythian horse, you may shortly (kontos) and in brevity render victories. As an unworthy servant, friend of the emperor and a patriot, I wrote to you.