Triumph

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

If the behaviour of Bessas had been well short of that required up till now, the failure of the attempt to resupply Rome did nothing to improve it. From denying food to the citizens he extended that to his soldiers, who now found they were required to acquire their rations from rich senators who had bought them from their commanding general. Needless to say the prices Bessas charged his middlemen was high – he was having new coffers made to hold his burgeoning fortune – and so ever higher was that paid by the desperate.

Badly fed soldiers no longer bothered to carry out their responsibilities and it was a brave officer, himself forced to barter for his supplies, who even hinted at any punishment for a dereliction of duty. The mass of the citizens of Rome, becoming skeletal, cared nothing for who ruled the city only for who might feed them. Only the corpses that began to fill the streets were indifferent.

The Isaurians had ever been a bane to Flavius Belisarius: numerous and usually infantry, rarely cavalry, they were badly led and with leaders averse to doing any training to alter such deficiencies, only ever effective when he had taken a personal hand in how they were led. The story emerged, as so many did in this troubled campaign, long after the events themselves. Four junior Isaurian officers had lowered themselves from the walls and gone to Totila to offer him a way into the city by the Asinarian Gate, for which they were responsible.

The Goth King had seen the hand of wily Flavius in this – a trap that would cost lives, diminish his standing and dent the morale of his army – so he declined to accept. Undeterred, those same Isaurians had returned to him twice more to renew their offer until he finally accepted they might be telling the truth. Even then he took the precaution of sending two of his own trusted bodyguards to ensure the traitors were telling the truth. They reported back that the walls were barely manned.

In darkness and silence Totila deployed his army, but it fell to no more than a handful of his axe-bearing Goths to climb the ropes let down by the Isaurians and be the first to breach the defences. The axes were employed to smash the bars holding shut the great gate, and that opened, allowed Totila to lead his men into a city where there was no will to mount an internal defence.

Those who did not seek sanctuary in one of the dozens of churches fled out of every gate the city possessed that provided a chance of escape. Bessas was to the fore of that, leaving so hurriedly that his dozens of bulging coffers were left behind for Totila, who was to reward the Isaurian defectors not only with much of the gold but with offices rich in spoils to run the city of Rome.

Totila punished the wealthy and powerful who had traded with Bessas by giving his men a free hand to plunder their villas and warehouses, but he showed a better appreciation of his priorities by feeding the needy citizens. The Goths were afforded another advantage: Rome fell to Totila in December and he would thus winter within its walls and not in the camps surrounding the city, rapidly becoming fetid. His next act was to despatch a body of Roman divines to offer Justinian peace.

Bessas, at present nowhere to be seen, was not the only insubordinate inferior Flavius had to deal with. All his attempts to oblige John Vitalianus to march north and combine with him failed. John could claim that he faced his own threats – Totila had sent a token force south to contain him – but it was insufficient in number to justify the excuse.

Now holding the capital, Totila could release more men to take back control of the fertile south of the peninsula. That they failed brought on an unexpected response: he decided to raze the walls of Rome and render it indefensible. In addition he set out a plan to fire all the important buildings, including structures that dated from the time of Augustus Caesar, an act that would diminish Rome’s importance.

The desperate appeal from Flavius Belisarius to desist bore fruit; the sender pleaded for preservation of ancient glories and also pointed out that Totila, holding the city, would be fouling the value of his own possessions. Added to that Justinian would be unlikely to grant peace to such a despoiler. The Goth relented but with a good third of the defences torn down he felt he could leave Rome without even a token garrison for, even if the Byzantines retook the city, they would be unable to hold it.

Sending a strong force south to contest Apulia, Calabria and Lucania with John Vitalianus, and that included many senatorial hostages from Rome, he left a robust force camped at Tibur five leagues to the east of the city – a day’s forced march – this to deter the Byzantines holding Portus, while personally retiring on Ravenna.

Betrayal was not confined to the likes of Bessas; the loyalties of the Italian Peninsula had become so fractured that treachery had become a commonplace and Totila was as subject to that as Flavius. Spoletum and Perusia were brought back to Byzantium by treachery but it was really the capital city that mattered, both for its size and emotional appeal.

Sure Totila was gone, Flavius set forth at the head of a much diminished comitatus, men he had recruited on his being given the Italian command and now numbering no more than a thousand effectives, to reconnoitre what had been left behind. Betrayed by an informer they rode straight into an ambush by the Tibur Goths, who had marched from the east to confront him. The Byzantines were outnumbered and it was only the generalship of Flavius added to the discipline of his personal troops that saved what should have been a rout.

The Goths attacked expecting panic but as had happened before they found their enemies quick to form up for battle, with a speed that reversed the prospects of an easy victory. Flavius led his fighters into the melee with no care for his person, slashing to left and right at mounted opponents and ignoring the blows that got past his shield and were landed on his armour. As had also happened in previous engagements, he needed to be rescued by his bodyguards but not before he was the victim of several minor wounds.

The Goths lost more than Flavius, yet he was forced to retire to Portus once more, to bathe and have such gashes and abrasions treated, to be made aware – and not for the first time, as he examined old scars and recalled other areas of his body rendered black and blue by combat – of how lucky he had been in so many years of battle to still be whole.

‘You are a fool to risk yourself. You’re a general, you should behave like one.’

This was the constant lament from Antonina, who could not be barred from observance of his latest lacerations and bruises. It would have seemed like sympathy if he had not wondered, instead, if her concern was prompted by fear for her own needs should he expire. Only Flavius alive made her of use to Theodora.

Justinian responded to the peace offer from Totila by advising the Goth to treat with his representative in Italy. Flavius knew as much as the Goth that he was in receipt of a refusal. The war had to go on, but with little faith from the general in command that he could repeat his previous success; he had neither the men to do so nor, in the likes of Bessas and John Vitalianus, inferior commanders who would unquestioningly obey his orders, the former because of his greed, John through the connection he had to Theodora through his marriage.

Not a man to rest, even with odds so heavily stacked against him, and sure he had both luck and God with him, Flavius left Portus with nothing but token protection and marched with all the men he could muster on Rome, which he entered into unopposed to find much destruction. Time was not on his side and he needed new gates made, added to which there was a huge stretch of wall to be repaired.

Bluff was needed; ramparts were erected that would not withstand much in the way of assault or mining but he made sure that was hidden on the outer face by adding a smooth coating of lime. Employing the ditch he had dug prior to the previous siege Flavius had stakes placed in the base to make it more of an obstacle. Most important of all were the supplies he brought in to the city, which could not rely as it usually did on the ravaged countryside that surrounded it.

Totila did not make it to Ravenna; the news of the Belisarius move obliged him to reverse his course and make for Rome, where he expected a quick return to the status in which he had left it. Yet the Goth army moved at no great pace, giving Flavius over three weeks to effect repairs, so what the enemy was faced with, a lack of gates notwithstanding, looked formidable; it was not, but show was as good as strength when that was the only choice.

Totila did not hesitate to attack, he threw his men forward with no preparation at the open spaces where the gates once stood, these now filled with the best troops Flavius could deploy. They held because the Goths, in such a constrained killing zone, could not deploy sufficient numbers to overpower the defence and, pressing forward, they were at the mercy of murderous archery and rocks thrown from the parapets to either side.

Exhaustion and the approach of nightfall brought the fighting to an end but it was renewed at first light, only this time Flavius had decided not to stay on the defensive and that threw the Goths into such confusion that, when assaulted, they fell back. The danger for Flavius now was a too eager pursuit and it was only by riding out at the head of his fastest cavalry that he could get ahead of his own fighting men and, having ordered a withdrawal, could cover their retreat.

On the third day he again varied his tactics, leading his whole force out of Rome to confront Totila on open ground. That it was luck that carried the day rather than better soldiering was later accepted. The man bearing the standard of his king fell and the banner with him, which indicated to the Goths their leader had perished and that caused a degree of panic. In some disarray they did recover the standard but the heart had gone from their purpose and, since he held the ground, Flavius could claim to have been victorious.

Whatever decided Totila to abandon his attempt to take Rome – it was suspected to be arguments amongst his nobles – the Goth King withdrew to the east to winter, this while Flavius set about the task of once more making the city the formidable obstacle it had been on his first campaign. When the next season arrived, Rome had warehouses bulging with food, a strong garrison, solid walls and new gates.

Copies of the keys to the city had been sent to Justinian.

What drew Totila off were the activities of John Vitalianus. The Goth decided he was a thorn he had to excise and he marched south with a large part of his army to effect this. By avoiding the roads and using mountain tracks he avoided John’s scouts and managed to surprise him in his encampment, which he attacked after the sun went down. While that was a success in the sense that the Byzantines fled, it failed, due to the darkness, in his main aim, which was destruction.

Unbeknown to the Goths, reinforcements were beginning to arrive from Justinian, the largest contingent from Armenia, but they were immediately reduced in number by being caught in an ambush by Totila, the price paid for their commander refusing to put himself under the orders of John Vitalianus and thus caught unprepared and exposed.

An even larger contingent was coming with Valerian, magister militum per Armeniam, but he took the view that it was too late in the year to begin campaigning and settled down to winter in Illyricum. It took a direct order from Justinian and the arrival of spring to get Valerian to move across the Adriatic.

There he combined with John Vitalianus and Flavius, who had left Rome under the command of a general called Conon. Totila was not idle; he knew where his enemies were and brought all the forces he could muster south to fight them in what became a to and fro set of engagements that were far from decisive for either side.

Rome came close to being lost again due to the behaviour of Conon; he had, no doubt, heard of the kind of monies Bessas had made when he held the city and he set out to copy his behaviour, selling food at inflated prices and controlling what came into the city. This time the citizens rebelled and the soldiers, unpaid for a year, declined to intervene.

Conon was murdered in the Senate House and, realising how far that put them beyond the approval of Constantinople, they sent a message to Justinian threatening to hand the city over to Totila if their crimes were not pardoned and the troops supposed to protect them paid, both demands rapidly acceded to.

Flavius calculated that he did not have the men to beat the Goths, and thanks to his subordinates the mood of the natives was no longer one of welcoming the men from the east as liberators. With a war seemingly endless, in which their homes and crops were either destroyed or seized and their wealth expropriated by both sides, the circumstances did not exist for a repeat of the previous conquest without the deployment of overwhelming force.

Sending piecemeal packets would not serve, the fighting would go on but to no conclusion. That message required to be sent back to the capital, and since he assumed that all his previous pleas for more men had to bypass the suspicions of Theodora, he decided that the appeal should be made to the Empress, and there was only one envoy he could think of who might persuade her.

‘My place is here by you.’

‘Your place is like mine, Antonina, where the empire needs you. I require you to go to Theodora-’

‘Require!’ was the huffy response.

‘I need more soldiers and a lot of them. I need you to persuade the Empress to cease to worry about what ambitions I might have and think of the good of the empire as well. I can write to her, I can send someone else, but I have no one in my entourage or among my officers who can do that which you will find easy. Not only to get to see her immediately but to have her listen.’

She was far from convinced and there was also the possibility of Antonina seeing the disadvantage of giving up the role Theodora had allotted to her.

‘Do you too think I hanker after the diadem?’ That got no answer. ‘What can I do to convince you? I could have had the title of Western Emperor and I said no. That would have made you Theodora’s equal.’

Sounding genuine took some effort; he had not been entirely against the notion Procopius had advanced, that in such a role he could cast his less than wholehearted companion aside. Even thinking about it now, he was not sure he would not have been tempted, despite the threat to his soul. Procopius had countered that fear by hinting at a papal dispensation.

‘I could never be her equal,’ Antonina insisted, not entirely convincingly.

‘And you are all the better for it.’ Given he rarely even came close to flattery with his wife, that had some effect. ‘You have often hinted that I do not treat you with the respect you deserve.’

‘Like a chattel most of the time, and when was the last time you came to my bed?’

Flavius did not react with his usual excuse of being either too busy or in recovery from some fight or other; he was long past feeling much passion for Antonina. Yet he had never said so, having, through a natural kindness that had appalled both Procopius and Photius, declined to employ words that would wound her feelings. There was also the residual thought, which was far from flattering to him, that insulting her would not be wise.

‘There is no more important mission to be undertaken. The only person of greater standing than you Antonina, is me, and I cannot leave my command without being suspected of rebellion, the very thing I choose to utterly deny. Must I plead with you?’

A soft probing response. ‘You would make it known that I am important?’

‘Not important, vital.’

A pout now. ‘You know that some of your officers feel free to insult me at any time of their choosing.’

They don’t, Flavius thought, but you, my dear, see an insult in a want of adulation.

‘I have not observed it,’ was the feeble response.

‘Then, Flavius,’ she hissed, ‘as I have always contended, you are blind.’

The way she paced a bit, her arms hugging her body, he knew to be role playing. When she stopped and looked at him he felt certain she was about to agree to his request.

‘I want you to call a meeting of all your senior officers.’

‘Why?’

‘If you are going to announce the need for an embassy to Constantinople and if you are so insistent that I am the only one you can trust to carry it out, that is something I would wish to be stated in public.’ The voice hardened. ‘I want to see the faces of those who feel free to slight me when you announce that.’

‘Of course,’ came the reply; it was small price to pay so she could gloat.

‘And as soon as that has been arranged you must go aboard a fast galley to Dyrrachium and on my authority employ every means at your disposal to make the fastest journey possible.’

That clearly appealed: to be able to order every posthouse resident to provide her with transport. Antonina loved ordering her maids around; now she would be able to command men to obey. To watch her swell as her mission was announced, to a gathering of officers who could not fathom why they had been summoned, had amusing elements to Antonina’s husband. In her it produced obvious and rather unbecoming conceit.

Antonina never returned to Italy. She made a fast journey and what came back, sent by her and brought to Flavius by imperial messenger, was much more telling. Theodora was no more; she had died after a short illness and by the tone of Antonina’s letter, the fate of the Army of Italy was of secondary concern. What would she do now her patron was gone?

The message from Justinian arrived right on the heels of that from his wife; it was a categorical order that Comes Flavius Belisarius relinquish his command in the peninsula and return with all speed to Constantinople.