LXXVII. In narrating what the women of the place did, I may perhaps not be believed by those who come after us, (but) at the present day there is no one of those who care to learn things that has not heard all that was done, even though he be at a great distance from us. Many women then met and conspired together, and used to go forth by stealth into the streets of the city in the evening or morning; and whomsoever they met, woman or child or man, for whom they were a match, they used to carry him by force into a house and kill and eat him, either boiled or roasted. When this was betrayed by the smell of the roasting, and the thing became known to the general who was there (in command), he made an example of many of them and put them to death, and told the rest with threats that they should not do this again nor kill any one. He gave them leave however to eat those that were dead, and this they did openly, eating the flesh of dead men; and the rest of them were picking up shoes and old soles and other nasty things from the streets and courtyards, and eating them. To the Roman troops however nothing was lacking, but everything was supplied to them in its season, and came down with great care by the order of the emperor. Indeed the things that were sold in their camps were more abundant than in the cities, whether meat or drink or shoes or clothing. All the cities were baking soldiers' bread by their bakers, and sending it to them, especially the Edessenes; for the citizens baked in their houses this year too. by order of Calliopius the hyparch, 630,000 modii, besides what the villagers baked throughout the whole district, and the bakers, both strangers and natives.