Attila:The Scourge of God

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘Good,’ growled Arnegliscus to Aspar, as a vexillatio of heavy horse, the Albigensian Cataphracts, thundered past. They were the last unit of the Eastern Army to be inspected that day, on the plain outside Marcianopolis, capital of the province of Moesia Secunda and the largest city of Thrace. ‘In fact, I have to say very good,’ he conceded stiffly. ‘You’ve done an excellent job. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ acknowledged Aspar, the Master of Soldiers’ second-in-command. He was grateful for the metamorphosis Arnegliscus had undergone since the disaster of the Thracian Chersonesus. The big German appeared to have learnt from his mistakes at that battle; chastened, he had accepted the unsparing criticism handed out by Aspar and by Areobindus, his other leading general, and allowed them a free hand in building a new army from the shattered remnant that had survived the slaughter.

The defeat had forced the East Romans to sue for peace. In the three years following the treaty drawn up between the Huns and the veteran Eastern general Anatolius, Aspar and Areobindus had achieved wonders in recruiting and training a new force to resist the Huns, should they attack again. But in other respects — quite apart from the harsh tribute exacted by the Huns under the terms of the treaty — these had been terrible years. The winter of the year of the Peace of Anatolius was the severest in living memory, resulting in large-scale deaths of both livestock and humans. There had followed dreadful floods which had washed away whole villages, and in the capital there had been riots, plague, and failing food supplies. In the east and south, the frontiers had been threatened by Persians, Isaurians, Saracens, and Ethiopians. Still, despite the onslaughts of nature, Huns, and hostile neighbours, the East had survived. A new army had been raised, trained, and equipped; thanks to Nomus, the Master of Offices, the Illyrian section of the Danubius frontier had been quietly re-fortified and re-garrisoned. And the sturdy peasantry and tradesmen (so different from the semi-serfs of the West, ground down by rapacious tax-collectors), had shown commendable resilience and toughness in face of a succession of catastrophes. Perhaps, Aspar dared to hope, the worst was past and this year of the consuls Aetius (for the third time) and Symmachus would mark a turning-point in the fortunes of the East. But these hopes were to prove vain.

Later that year, rumours began to filter across the Danubius hinting at gathering storm-clouds in the north-west; Attila was reported to be mustering his warriors for a second invasion of the East. Then, on the twenty-sixth of January of the new year,¹ came the greatest calamity of all: on a night of torrential rain, the citizens of Constantinople were awakened by a violent earthquake.

Constantine, the Praetorian prefect, was working late in his office in the palace on a knotty legal case when the tremors struck. A loud rumbling, like a cascade of rocks, filled his ears and the mosaic floor beneath him suddenly heaved upwards, flinging him through the air to crash against a wall. In horrified disbelief, he watched the pillars at the end of the room begin to twist and bend like branches in a storm. Strong man though he was, Constantine knew a moment of pure terror as he stumbled from the building seconds before it collapsed behind him in an avalanche of rubble. The moonlit scene in the sheeting rain was like a description of the nether regions from Virgil’s Aeneid: above him, the mighty Hippodrome trembled but stood firm, but further down the slope towards the Harbour of Julian on the Propontis, buildings were swaying and toppling like children’s toy brick houses. Everywhere, the crash of falling masonry was punctuated by the shrieks and moans of trapped victims. Fighting his instinct to start organizing rescue teams, Constantine struck out west towards the sea-walls, where the absence of large buildings should make the going safer. In addition to key judicial and financial duties, Constantine was responsible for the maintenance of public works, the most important being the Walls of Theodosius, which guaranteed the capital’s security.

The aftershocks and ominous rumbling stopped as suddenly as they had begun, the succeeding stillness and silence almost shocking by contrast. Hugging the sea-wall, which seemed to have sustained comparatively little damage, Constantine hurried past the harbours of Kontoskalion and Eleutherius, to reach the Theodosian Walls at the Golden Gate as dawn was breaking. The sun’s early rays disclosed an appalling sight: tower after tower, together with the intervening stretches of rampart, reduced to jumbled heaps of brick and stone. Walking along the course of the bulwark, Constantine counted fifty-eight towers destroyed out of ninety-six — an open invitation to an invading enemy. And beyond the Danubius, the hordes of Attila were gathering. .

It was a moment of supreme crisis, but Constantine rose to the occasion. Somehow, he had to find a solution to a seemingly impossible problem: how could he get the Walls rebuilt before the Huns were upon them? There weren’t enough builders and masons in all Thrace, let alone Constantinople, to complete the work in time. Suddenly an idea came into his mind, one of those happy inspirations that can change the course of history. His first reaction was to reject it out of hand; it was crazy, it couldn’t possibly work. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that perhaps it just might. At any rate, there was nothing to lose by putting it to the test. Summoning the leaders of the opposing circus factions, the Blues and the Greens, he addressed them in the Hippodrome from the imperial box, the Kathisma: an unheard-of liberty, which carried the death penalty, but who was telling?

‘Gentlemen, there are three things you should know,’ he began. ‘One, the Walls have collapsed for over half their length. Two, the Huns are about to attack. Three, the only people with sufficient organization and manpower to repair the Walls before the Huns get here, are yourselves. There’s just one problem-’

‘We don’t like each other very much,’ interjected one of his hearers. ‘In fact, we hate each other’s guts.’ A roar of sardonic mirth greeted this sally.

‘An understatement,’ laughed Constantine, beginning to enjoy himself despite the dire circumstances. A tough, pragmatic individual, unflustered when it came to making rapid decisions which might have far-reaching consequences, he assessed the mood of his audience. These were hard, greedy, combative men, always spoiling for a fight, who lived for money and excitement. The most effective way to harness that raw energy, the prefect decided, was to pit the rival colours against each other as competing teams, each responsible for its own section of collapsed Wall. When he put the suggestion to them, it was greeted with delighted approval. Such a contest — on a mind-boggling scale, and with the added spice of a deadly race against time — provided just the sort of challenge they found irresistible.

‘If we’re agreed, here’s the plan,’ said Constantine. ‘Many of you will have suffered damage or destruction of your homes, and loss or injury of family members, in the earthquake. Go home now and attend to your affairs. For those whose homes have been destroyed, temporary accommodation will be built. Injured relatives will have priority treatment at monasteries, and the field hospitals which will be set up without delay. Tomorrow, report outside the Walls with your faction’s supporters. God bless you, and good luck.’

Work started the following day, on schedule. Sixteen thousand loyal supporters were divided up by the architects and master masons supervising the work, into gangs working in shifts, and field kitchens were set up to provide a constant flow of meals. To Constantine’s relief and gratification, the Walls began to rise again with astonishing speed, the rival factions vying to outdo each other, while Anatolius bought time from the advancing Huns, by spinning out negotiations to repay arrears of tribute. In the incredible time of two months the ruined sections were rebuilt — not in any rough-and-ready improvised way, but as a massively solid, finished piece of work, with, in addition, a second lower line of walls and towers to its fore and, in front of that, a parapeted terrace, then a moat. As the last blocks were being mortared into place, the news arrived that the Huns, their numbers swollen by subject Ostrogoths and Gepids, were swarming forward, only days away. But Constantine was quietly confident that, behind his mighty barrier, the city was now safe. And so long as Constantinople stood, so would the Eastern Empire.

¹ 447.