Triumph

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In a matter of weeks the command situation deteriorated; a far from chastened John Vitalianus engaged in an attempt to undermine Flavius Belisarius and Narses did nothing to squash this, which implied that he would not be averse to the miscreant’s aims. As usual, Procopius had his ear to the ground, and through reliable informants quickly established within the ranks of the new arrivals was able to report that Photius would face a counter embassy at the Imperial Court from those who supported a man who had now become a rival.

Flavius was worried Narses might underestimate the Goths, reminding him of the fortresses they held on the Tiber, an arc of eight strongholds with Ravenna to the north and Auximus to the south. Any neutral person studying a map would see the combined Byzantine forces as being surrounded with their backs to the Adriatic, rather than being in the ascendant.

Matters were rendered more complicated because Narses point-blank refused to discuss strategy in private, insisting that any decisions should be arrived at with the aid of the men who would be tasked to carry them out. Flavius suspected he found it easier to decline to cooperate in company than he would if they were alone. His main point was to insist that by remaining in Ariminum over the winter they were safe, with the sea at their back and a strong fleet in support.

He refused to accept that the security of Rome was vital, that to the people of the Italian peninsula the city had an almost mythical standing as the ancient capital of the Republic as well as the present centre of the Christian faith. Flavius suspected Narses knew as he did of that symbolic importance; it was just another example of his playing to the gallery of his own officers.

‘I would wish to march on Milan, Narses, not return to Rome. The siege there is being pressed hard and Mundus has already told us he will struggle to hold for much longer. Besides which, there is a Goth army in the field for us to fight and defeat.’

‘And a hundred leagues to march, which will take us away from the security I have just alluded to. That not only renders us exposed, it will risk us losing Ariminum and Ancon, the very cities we must hold. Let your Goths come to us.’

The argument carried on but to little avail and that presented Flavius with a real dilemma. Prior to any attack on Ravenna, which he heartily wished to undertake, he felt the need to ensure his rear was secure. Ever since landing in Italy he had gone to great lengths to guarantee that he could safely withdraw from any forward position without having to forfeit the campaign. There were those even amongst his own officers who saw this as overcautious; he did not, given the alternative might be complete destruction.

He tried to persuade Narses to combine with him on an assault on Auximus to open the route to the south as well as providing an alternative road to Rome. He refused and if the reasons were frustrating they were cogently argued by a man who was no stranger to warfare or generalship; his opinions, even if Flavius disagreed with them, were based on his appreciation of the military situation and could, objectively examined, be just as valid.

As ever a compromise was reached: Flavius would winter in the west, which would relieve the supply situation in an area much ravaged by warfare. But with a few weeks remaining of the campaigning season, Narses would join with him in seeking to take Urbinus. This Goth enclave was the closest to Ariminum and it dominated the Via Flaminia, the direct route to Rome. Milan would be left to fend for itself, which meant an inevitable capitulation.

Even in this, division was quick to show: John Vitalianus advised Narses to camp separately to Belisarius, who had set up his siege lines to the west of Urbinus. Staying to the east of the city it underlined their lack of confidence in a successful outcome, John being particularly of the opinion that the city, well supplied with food and water, would never fall before the onset of winter obliged the Byzantines to move on.

As usual envoys were despatched to offer terms of surrender, these brusquely rejected, which provided enough of an excuse for Narses, urged on by his favoured inferior, to abandon the attempt and retire on Ariminum, this despite the fact that Flavius had begun the construction of the siege engines necessary to achieve a successful assault. Not given to begging Flavius did try, but to no avail.

‘And by halving our forces, Narses brings about that which drives him away.’

It was plain Martinus, acting as his senior subordinate, did not know what to say to comfort his general and ended up proposing the wrong alternative, which to him seemed the only one to make sense.

‘So we march on to Rome?’

Flavius, normally the calmest of men, positively snarled his response. ‘I will take Urbinus without any aid from Narses.’

It required all of his force of personality to drive on the various commanders in an enterprise in which they had little faith – Martinus was not alone in thinking half a host could not carry out such a task. The building of a tower and the construction of a ram required that Flavius harry men who had picked up on the dejection of their officers, a disposition that was doubly evident on the morning chosen for the primary assault.

To quell the pessimism it was necessary that their general very visibly lead from the front, a position of great danger as he was dressed in fine armour and was riding a white horse underneath his very recognisable personal standard. He knew if he fell then any forward movement would cease, not that there was a great deal to begin with, the approach being agonisingly slow given the rumbling tower setting the pace.

The gates opening before him came as jolt enough to stop him dead. A party of Goths emerged to throw aside their arms before approaching the now stationary Flavius Belisarius. Sat astride his fidgeting horse, Flavius had to grip hard with his knees to keep it steady as the embassy came within hailing distance. Their message was brief: Urbinus was his and it was a capitulation, there being no request for terms.

‘Pursue Narses, Martinus, and inform him that Urbinus is ours.’ The voice went from triumphant to bitter. ‘And when you do, ensure that John Vitalianus is with him.’

‘Do I say why it fell so easily?’

That was put to Flavius with a grin; Martinus thought he knew what the answer would be and he was not disappointed.

‘No details, just be brief and do not forget to gloat.’

Flavius was left, as Martinus departed, to reflect on the way God had favoured his purpose once more. Surely it was divine intervention that had dried up the wells on which Urbinus depended for water, for it had come about from no action of his, the result being that holding out against the siege became impossible.

‘They will find out in time, but let them wonder at their caution until they do.’

The response was initially encouraging but ultimately depressing; pricked into action Narses sent John Vitalianus off to take Caesena, the Goth stronghold that controlled the road to Milan. Hurriedly pressed it miscarried with heavy loss of life, though John, determined to match Belisarius with a success, bypassed his failure and drove the Goths out of Forocornelius, which left very exposed the capital of Ravenna.

The news reached Flavius just as he took a second enemy fortress on the Via Cassia to the north of Rome; that arc of Goth pressure that had so concerned him was now very close to being utterly broken. But it had happened at a time when to fully exploit it was impossible. With winter upon the land, cold weather, heavy rains in the lowlands and snow blocking the Apennine passes campaigning became impossible.

It was in these conditions that Photius returned from Constantinople. ‘It pains me to say this to you, Father, but my mother may have had more influence on the decision than any representations I made.’

‘Did Justinian indicate as much?’

Photius shook his head. ‘There was no doubt Theodora knew of the dispute with Narses, it was the talk of the court, and from all you have told me the Emperor would be unlikely to act without including his wife.’

Flavius was perplexed; Theodora did not trust him and as far as he knew she had a high degree of faith in Narses. He had sent Photius in the hope that he would get a private audience with Justinian and extract from him a favourable decision without involving her. This forced him to acknowledge he had been naive and not for the first time; Antonina was in constant correspondence with her imperial friend so the idea that his differences with Narses were unknown in Constantinople was risible.

He could not avoid searching for motives, given Photius was telling him that Theodora had a hand in the decision to recall Narses, which had him frowning as he racked his brain to try to untangle that which was and would always be concealed: the devious mind of the Empress.

‘Does something still trouble you, Father?’ asked Photius, reacting to the expression.

‘Many things trouble me, my son, but now that Narses has been recalled the major one of those is removed. And the double windfall is I get to keep the men he brought with him from Illyricum.’

It was later, in conversation with Procopius, that a possible solution was arrived at. If Theodora did not trust anyone, Flavius knew she was adept at picking out who to rely on in any given situation. Always alert to threats to her person she would have more than one to guard against and it was possible she needed Narses in close proximity to ward off the machinations of different powerful courtiers.

‘There again, Justinian may have just seen the sense of what I have been telling him for years. Two men cannot successfully command an army.’

Procopius was not prepared to believe that, his expression said so.

Two pieces of information came to depress Flavius prior to his departing Rome in the spring. One was the information that the slave girl who had told him of his wife’s adulterous behaviour had been murdered shortly after he left Sicily, this while Antonina and Theodosius were still there.

The second piece of information made him feel even worse. Pope Vigilius had not, as he had promised, put Silverius through an ordeal of examination by bishops. Instead he had shipped him to a waterless island and left him there to starve to death, the pity being that the perpetrator was not in Rome when this became known. Perhaps it was for the best Vigilius had decamped to Naples, because Flavius, in a combination of rage and misery, might have committed sacrilege by personally lopping off his head.

‘There is no point in asking him if he is responsible, Magister,’ Procopius counselled, when they discussed the possibility of arraigning him. ‘He will deny that he gave any orders to kill Silverius and blame his minions. Besides, do you think he would have dared to act without at least a nod from the Empress? To confront him with the crime is to confront her.’

‘The killing of that maid troubles me as much.’

‘And again you have had only denial.’

That had been a stormy occasion and one in which Antonina had reacted with fury at the accusation of being behind the death of her maid, described by his wife as a loose creature inclined to seek to satisfy her carnal needs in inappropriate places and with questionable company, that very likely being the cause of her death.

If Flavius did not believe it he had no way to refute accusations aimed at a woman he barely knew. Macedonia had been one of several maids who served his wife, and in any case, such attendants did not tend to last long before something they had done, probably an innocent act, saw them dismissed.

‘Even if you had proof, which you do not …’

The response to what was obvious and left unsaid by Procopius came with a sigh. ‘Theodora would rush to defend Antonina and I would not get justice.’

‘No.’

With so much to do in preparing the next part of the campaign it was not possible to brood on such matters. Flavius did, however, commission a small shrine to the memory of those for whose deaths he felt responsible and that, to the surprise of many, was dedicated not just to Silverius and Macedonia, but also to Constantinus. Asked why by Photius, the reply he gave was true to the way he felt.

‘If I had tried to understand him more, included him more in my thinking, trusted him more, he might have had faith in me to be lenient.’

‘He despised you, Father. Remember, too, he tried to kill you. He deserved his fate for that and not just the stolen daggers.’

‘I was looking into his eyes when he went for his knife, Photius. He was sure I was determined on his execution and for nothing more than his patrician birth. How can it be that I cannot convince a man that I would not hate him for that?’

‘Am I allowed to say that you are berating yourself for no purpose? These are but minor matters in that in which you are engaged.’

Flavius shook himself, Photius was right.

If Narses had gone home, John Vitalianus had not and since he had his own numerous comitatus the option of not employing him did not exist. For security against his potential malice Flavius sent him north with Martinus as his commander, their task to ensure the forces that had retaken Milan stayed north of the River Po and did not come to the aid of the their comrades as Flavius advanced on Ravenna.

The spies Procopius still had in the retinue of Witigis were able to tell of the Goth King’s manoeuvres. Over the winter he had tried to enlist help from the Lombards, a barbarian tribe resident in Pannonia on the northern border of Illyricum, only to discover that Justinian had beaten him to an alliance that would keep them neutral.

His next move was just as dangerous; envoys had been sent to the Sassanids in the hope they would put pressure on the eastern Byzantine border, which threatened would be bound to draw soldiers away from Italy, affairs in that area always taking precedence over other borders. To lose to the Sassanids imperilled the whole Eastern Empire. Such information only confirmed in Flavius the need to bring matters to a conclusion. He had the troops he needed and the inferior commanders he could trust to act as he wished, even John Vitalianus. If that officer did not act for love of his general, his personal ambition was enough to drive him on.

Cautious as ever, the first task was to invest Fisula and free the land route from Rome to Genoa, while simultaneously launching an attack on Auximus and securing the Byzantine rear. This had been anticipated by Witigis, who well understood his enemy. The city was garrisoned with hardened Goth warriors, supplied until its storerooms were bulging and its walls made fully effective to support a fortress that already enjoyed the intrinsic defence provided by its natural features, standing as it did on the peak of a steep-sided hill that dominated the landscape.

Flavius approached Auximus at the head of a ten-thousand-strong army in which he could repose the kind of faith he had enjoyed when he first landed north of Rhegium. His soldiers were healthy, eager for the fight and willing to follow where he led, their spirits raised even more when their general was immediately favoured with some of his famous luck.

His forward elements were able to catch outside the walls a substantial foraging party, entirely unaware of the speed of the Byzantine approach, and engage them. Many of the Goths were killed but an equal number, thanks to their fighting ability, escaped, which told the man come to overwhelm them of the calibre of what he faced and, after he had ridden round the base of the hill, affected his assessment of the tactics to be used, these outlined at his first conference.

‘No major assaults will be attempted. We cannot get siege equipment to rest against those walls, the slope makes that impossible. Auximus cannot be taken by storm. We must starve them out, so make the camps you construct solid, given we may be here for a long time, and make sure they cannot forage.’

No assaults did not mean no activity; close attention was paid to seek out any chinks in the Goth defences, ways in which their fighters exposed themselves, that provided by the need they had, in order to preserve their dry feed, to gather pasture on the hillside. A party would emerge daily to scythe the abundant hillside grass. It was natural for the Isaurian infantry camped closest to the walls to sally forth and harass them and their escorts.

This led to a series of small infantry engagements in which not much damage was done to either side. That altered when the Goths set an ambush; hiding unseen in one of the ravines, old and deep watercourses that scarred the mound, a strong group of warriors emerged to pin the exposed Isaurians, able to get between them and safety. Given the Goths were vastly superior in both numbers and close-quarters fighting ability, few of Flavius’s men survived.

Doubly galling was the fact that they were able to repeat the tactic on more than one occasion as the too-eager-to-fight and hot-tempered Isaurians repeatedly allowed themselves to become trapped. The commanders further down the slope could see the threat as it emerged – those at which it was aimed were in ignorance – but lacked means to communicate with their men and control their actions.

Conscious of the effect such defeats had on morale and knowing that to forbid any action would be just as depressing, Flavius cast about for a solution, surprised that it was Procopius who came up with an answer. He proposed a method of controlling both the advance and the retreat by using the differing sounds of infantry and cavalry trumpets. One could be employed to initiate an attack on the grass cutters while the other could be used to ensure the infantry withdrew as soon as any threat emerged.

The magister’s secretary had never been short on self-regard but his thin chest positively bulged when this proved to be a success, allowing the infantry to interfere with the Goths’ foraging while suffering no losses themselves. In time that grass cutting wound down; the Goths were eating their horses, not feeding them.

However well supplied, their holding out had always rested on the hope that Witigis would march to their relief but, determined to hold his capital he did not stir from Ravenna. Instead he instructed the Goth garrison of Milan to move out of the city and head south in order to draw off the Byzantines. On their way they would face Martinus and John Vitalianus, now camped on the southern bank of the Po.

The news Flavius received told him that the Goths had reached the river but showed no sign of attempting to cross it and continue on to Auximus. His orders to his juniors were explicit: they too should stay where they were camped; a Goth force north of that wide, fast-flowing river was no threat to him.

If things were proceeding as planned, there was always a devil in warfare and now a real Lucifer emerged. News came that the Franks were moving south with what sounded like a massive host. Even allowing for exaggeration as to their real numbers, it was their intentions that mattered.

In theory the Franks were allied to both competing forces, but did that still hold true? If they combined with the Goths, Flavius would be obliged to beat a hasty retreat for the questionable security of Rome, for against such numbers not even that great fortress could be certain to hold.