Given that the emperor Basiliscus, as Harmatos was his relative, unsuspectingly permitted him to meet Zenonis the empress, [and] since there was frequent converse between them and since their beauty was not easy to overlook, both loved each other extraordinarily. There were castings of glances at each other and continuous turns of their faces and exchanges of smiles; and after these things the problem was one of keeping love hidden from sight. When they had communicated the situation to Daniel the eunuch and Maria the waiting-woman, they managed to cure this with the medicine of intercourse,[1] and Zenonis through flattery convinced Basiliscus that her lover should have the chief positions in the state. But Theodoric seeing Harmatos honored above all was vexed since he was surpassed in reputation by this young man who thought only of his hair and other bodily training.[2] Harmatos, deranged by the limitless supply of money and honor, supposed no one would surpass him in bravery. And this dementia controlled him to such an extent that he took up the accoutrement of Achilles and thus rode around on horseback and pranced around his house near the hippodrome.[3] And being called Pyrrhus[4] by the mob of the people in their acclamations incited him to be fixated on this sort of repute; if they called him this because he had a ruddy complexion they were saying something reasonable,[5] but if it was intended as praise of bravery they were beguiling [him] as [one would] a child; for he did not smite heroes like Pyrrhus, but he was a womanizer like Paris.[6]