Menander [writes]: "for the Romans did not fence [camps] off with ditches earlier nor indeed did they have this sort of knowledge at all in their repetoire until Mauricius the son of Paulos began the war in the east. But then, when he held the generalship and it was leading him by a direct route to be emperor,[1] he initiated this sort of thing, which he had noticed that their idleness made necessary. For the matter had been one that the Romans did not want and it had sunk into oblivion. For labour [is] enemy to hesitation."