2.2.1-3
1. At this point Vittigis, the leader of the Goths, already worsted in the war, sent two envoys to Chosroes to persuade him to march against the Romans. These men were not Goths, in case they were exposed and frustrated his plan, but Ligurian priests (ἱερεῖς) who were attracted to this enterprise by rich gifts of money. 2. One of these men, who seemed to have the higher rank, undertook the embassy by assuming the appearance and title of a bishop which did not belong to him at all, while the other followed as his attendant. 3. In the course of their journey they came to the lands of Thrace where they hired a man from there to be an interpreter of the Syriac and Greek tongues, and without being detected by any Romans they reached the land of Persia. As they were at peace, they were not keeping strict guard over that region.
In what follows, Procopius gives the speech of the envoys to the king and says that it met with his favourable reaction.
6.22.15-20
15. Among them this idea also was advanced, that the emperor of the Romans had never been able to make war upon the barbarians in the West before he had made a treaty with the Persians. 16. It was then that the Vandals and Moors had been destroyed and the Goths had suffered their present misfortunes. Consequently, if someone once more instigated the king of the Medes to clash with the emperor Justinian, the Romans thereafter would never be able, once that nation had been stirred to war against them, to carry on another war against any people in the world. 17. This suggestion pleased Vittigis himself and the other Goths. It was decided, therefore, that envoys should be sent to Chosroes, the king of the Medes, but that they should not be Goths, in order not to reveal the true nature of the embassy and thereby frustrate the negotiations, but Romans, who were to make him an enemy again of the emperor Justinian. 18. Accordingly they bribed two priests of Liguria with great sums of money to undertake this service. 19. One of these men, who seemed to be the more worthy, undertook the embassy assuming the appearance and the title of bishop, which did not belong to him at all, while the other followed as his attendant. 20. Vittigis gave them a letter written to Chosroes and sent them off. Chosroes, influenced by this letter, committed outrageous acts against the Romans in time of peace, as I recounted in an earlier book.
(trans. Dewing, rev. Kaldellis 2014: 74-75, 363-64)