Count Belisarius

CHAPTER 9

It was ten years before Belisarius returned to the Persian frontier. Of what happened in the East during his absence, especially the further misfortunes that overtook our dear Antioch, I promise you a round account when my story reaches that point. Meanwliilc a few words will suffice. King Kobad died, shortly after Belisarius s recall, at the age of eighty-three, but not before ordering a further invasion of our territories. His forces were so strong that in Roman Armenia our soldiers were obliged to retire into their walled cities while the Persians laid the country waste. The succession to Kobad's throne was then disputed by three claimants. These were Khaous, the legitimate heir; one-eyed Jamaspes, the second in age, as regent on behalf of his infant son (himself debarred because of his deformity); and Khosrou, the youngest, whom Kobad had nominated in his will. Khosrou was acclaimed by a vote of the Grand Council and duly crowned. He soon destroyed his brothers, who revolted against him, and all their male heirs. But he did not feel himself secure upon the throne, even after this massacre, and decided to come to terms with Justinian.

These twin eyes of the world therefore synoptically signed a peace, named 'The Eternal', under which all territory whatsoever conquered by cither side during the late wars should be restored, and Justinian should pay Khosrou a large sum for the perpetual maintenance of the Persian garrison at the Caspian Gates — some 800,000 gold pieces — and, without dismantling the fortifications of Daras, agree to with-draw his advanced headquarters to Constantina, which was less dangerously close to the frontier. There was also a curious condition: that the pagan philosophers who had fled to the Persian Court from Athens when Justinian closed the University there, four years previously — poor Symmachus was among their number — should be allowed to return temporarily to the Roman Empire, without fear of persecution, for the purpose of setting their affairs in order and of collecting a library of the pagan Classics for Khosrou's own edification. Justinian agreed to this, content that he had dealt the Old Gods their death-blow not only at Athens but throughout his dominions: he had everywhere converted their venerable temples into Christian churches and sequestrated their treasures.

So much for Persia. But Theodora was right in anticipating trouble from the factions, and Justinian in consenting to the recall of Belisarius — but for whom, as I shall show, he would certainly have lost his throne and almost certainly his life.

Must I repeat what I have already said about the virulence of the hatred between the Blues and Greens? Preoccupied now by increasingly bitter disputes as to the nature of the Son, they were engaged in justifying a Gospel prophecy. For, according to the Evangelist Matthew, Jesus told His twelve Apostles, when He first sent them out preaching Christianity: 'Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's foes shall be the members of his own household.' So it was in many a Christian household in the City. Son and daughter perhaps wore the Blue favour, and were Orthodox two-nature people, while father and mother and daughter-in-law wore the Green and maintained the single nature. They threw kettles of boiling water at one another as they sat at meals, or poisoned the wine; and blasphemed most learnedly. If the Greens set up a statue of a victorious charioteer and inscribed it: 'To the glory of Such-and-Such, winner of the Foundation Stakes, and the greater glory of Christ single-natured', the Blues would gather together at night and deface the inscription, then behead the statue and paint it blue; however, the Greens would perhaps retaliate by attempting to set fire to some wine-shop or other which the Blues used as their headquarters. It was not safe to be out in the streets after dark, not for physicians hurrying to attend the sick, nor for priests going at a more leisurely pace to administer the last Sacrament to the dying, nor for midnight adulterers, nor even for the poorest sort of outcasts. Gangs of young coxcombs ranged the streets at night, murdering and robbing indiscriminately; and the police were either bribed or terrorized into inertness. The war was even waged against the dead. Holes were bored at night in the tombs of departed factionists, and through them were dropped lead tablets of execration: 'Sleep unsoundly, vile Blue [or Green] until Judgement Day, dreaming of Green [or Blue) victories, and awake only to be damned to everlasting perdition!'

The Greens had been easily the stronger faction in the days of Anastasius, and had enjoyed his royal favour, and been awarded the best seats in the Hippodrome. But Theodora insisted on Justinian's reversing these conditions. The Blues were given the best seats now, and favoured in every possible way — by political and Court appointments and grants of money, and especially by legal protection, the Greens' monopoly of justice in the lower courts having at last been broken. It may be imagined that the Greens did not yield to the Blues without a struggle, and a very fierce one. While they had been the bullies they had made the Blues sing very small; and the Blues were now having their revenge, behaving, I admit, in a rather more violent and arbitrary way than the Greens had ever done. Robberies with violence became frequent in broad daylight, and if a Green happened to be killed and the murderer arrested by the police it was enough for a Blue official to swear in court that the Green had been the aggressor: the accused was at once dismissed with a caution. The carrying of arms by any private citizen was unlawful, but the enactment had become obsolete. The contemporary fasliion was to wear short cutlasses by day concealed under the tunic, strapped along the thigh; while at night everyone carried arms openly. One result of these street disorders was that false jewellery came into fashion: substantial citizens no longer appeared in jcwcl-studdcd golden belts and valuable rings, but wore brass and glass instead.

Justinian intended his persecution of the Greens only as a temporary measure. When he had chastened them thoroughly he would allow them equality with the Blues, and try to preserve a balance of power between the two Colours. But meanwhile he made it a very unpleasant thing to be a Green. There were mass desertions to the Blue cause and much assistance to the Blues from criminals, who trusted that the wearing of a Blue favour would afford them immunity. Extraordinary scenes were now witnessed. Young women joined faction murder-gangs and killed and were killed along with the men. (It must be noted that women can have only an indirect interest in the factions: for they have not been admitted since pagan times to watch the chariot-races in the Hippodrome, unless they have happened, as in the case of Theodora and my mistress Antonina, to be the performers' own women-folk.) Then there were cases of needy or greedy sons levying blackmail on their prosperous fathers: 'If you do not give me a hundred gold pieces I will come tonight with my gang and burn your warehouse down.' As a matter of course anybody with a grudge against a neighbour who was not known to be a Blue denounced him as a Green. The murder-hour had now receded from dusk to the early afternoon; the young roughs prided themselves on being able to kill casual passers-by with a single sword-stroke, like professional executioners. It was a particularly bad year for money-lenders: the gangs used to visit them in their offices, on behalf of debtors of the faction, and compel them at dagger-point to hand back the loan-contracts. Also, women and boys, even of the upper classes, were forced to submit to the amorous wishes of the gang-leaders, and there were actually cases of public rape committed in the streets by groups of factionists, as in a captured barbarian city. To crown all, Justinian instituted a heresy-hunt against the Greens; so that priests and monks began wearing the Blue favour and taking part in faction politics. These heresy-hunts were used as an excuse for dissolving rich monasteries and sequestrating their treasures.

A great many prominent Greens fled away from the City to distant parts of the Empire, out of Justinian's immediate reach, and even across the frontier to Persian or barbarian territory. I could feel no pity for them, because my former master Damocles' miserable death was due to the hard hearts of the Greens; and I sympathized with the Empress, too, for avenging the injustice with which the Greens had treated her family when she was only little Theodora, the Bear Master's daughter. But Cappadocian John, who had long deserted the Greens and was now a leading Blue, was Justinian's chief instrument in the religious persecutions. Though no soldier, he had been appointed Commander of the Guards. He fdlcd the Treasury writh the monastery spoils, grew richer than ever by retaining part of his takings, and delighted in watching the torture of miserable heretics. John made a great show of respect for Theodora, but she treated him with polite contempt, and my mistress Antonina needed no encouragement to follow her example. Theodora was aware, of course, that Cappadocian John slandered her to Justinian. 'I shall wait patiently for twenty years, if need be,' she confided to my mistress, 'like the elephant of Severus.'

The elephant of Severus is commemorated by a statue close to the Royal Porch, nearly opposite the main entrance to the Hippodrome. It had waited twenty years to catch a certain money-changer on whose evidence its master had been committed to a debtor's prison, where he had died. At last, while taking part in a procession, it had recognized the money-changer in the crowd lining the street and had seized him with its trunk and trampled him to death. Investigations proved clearly that the money-changer had been a thief and a perjurer, so the elephant was honoured with this statue, which represents it with its master seated upon its neck. The motto is: 'It will be avenged at last.' Many who labour under private and public injustice comfort themselves with the elephant's message.

You may wish to hear more of Justinian as Emperor, how he behaved. The man was a mass of contradictions: most of which, however, were to be explained as the result of great ambitions struggling with cowardice and meanness. Justinian wished, it seems, to make himself remembered as 'Justinian the Great'. His talents would indeed have been equal to the task if he had only been less of a beast in spirit. For he was incredibly well-informed and industrious and agile-minded and accessible, and no drunkard or debauchee. On the other hand, he was as irresolute as any man I ever met, and as superstitious as an old church-widow. There was something about him, inexpressible, that made one's flesh creep — whatever it was, it certainly was not greatness, rather a sort of devilishness. He had decided, after studying the history-books, that sovereigns are honoured as 'Great' for four main reasons: for successful home defence and foreign conquest, for the imposing of legal and religious conformity on their subjects, for the building of great public works, for personal piety and stern moral reform. He set to work on these lines.

He began on the legal side with a recodification of the laws, and I own that this was greatly needed. No single code existed, but a variety of codes side by side, all contradictory, obsolescent, and obscure, so that a judge could not give a fair decision in any but the simplest cases, even if he so wished. Justinian's industrious legal officers eventually ordered the great confused mass into a single fairly intelligible and not wholly contradictory system — but it took no less than 3,000,000 lines of writing to do this. If only he and his judges and lawyers and the general population had been the moral equals of this formidable task. Religious conformity he tried to attain by the smelling out of heresies; but he was not consistent in this, because, for fear of Theodora, he chiefly persecuted Jews and Samaritans and pagans and the minor sects of Manichees and Sabellians and such-like, while allowing the Monophysite and Nestorian heresies, wherever there was no proved connexion with Green faction politics, to continue unchecked. Not only were they rife in the provinces, but he allowed them to be exported by foreign missions to Ethiopia and Arabia. His great public works consisted chiefly of the building and restoring of monasteries and churches. These were, of course, profitless to the Empire (except in a vague spiritual seme) and not to be compared with the building and restoring of aqueducts and roads and harbours and granaries, to which he did not pay nearly so much attention. His plans for foreign conquest, of which he made Helisarius his chief instrument, I shall soon have occasion to mention more fully.

His moral reforms were for the most part inspired by Theodora, and were extremely severe. Now, it had been a very long time since a really capable woman had been in so powerful a position as Theodora was. That was the fault of the Church, which — having originated in the East, where women are little better than playthings or slaves or beasts of burden — tended to seclude women from public life and give them no education worth the name. In pagan times the Empress had often been the second ruler of the state and had acted as a powerful check on the caprices of the Emperor; and this was made possible because she had been brought up in a free and educated atmosphere, not severely confined to the women's quarters until called upon to marry some man whom she had never seen — as is the rule now with women of the upper classes. Theodora was no fool of the priests. She had seen the world, and she understood men and politics, both lay and ecclesiastical. She ruled Justinian as absolutely as it is said that the great Livia once ruled Augustus, the first Emperor of the Romans.

Theodora determined gradually to restore wives to the powerful position that they had lost. This bias of hers explains Justinian's legislation, which she sponsored, against prostitutes and sodomites. While husbands were free to take their pleasure in the public brothels or with state catamites, their wives could not easily manage them. The Association of Procurers, formerly under Imperial protection, was broken up; and procuring made a criminal offence. Sodomy was now punishable by castration, and there was also a great rounding up of common prostitutes of the sort who charge a few pence only and are known as 'the infantry'. Theodora called'these unfortunates 'a standing offence to the dignity of women'. She allowed them three months to make themselves respectable by marriage; then, if still obstinately unmarried, they were arrested again and shut up in the so-called Castle of Repentance on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. (A considerable number of the 500 women confined there jumped to death from the casdc walls in their vexation and boredom.) But to those who chose marriage Theodora offered a dowry, and a great many benefited by her generosity. Nevertheless, she did not touch 'the cavalry', as the more accomplished prostitutes were called, who were their own managers, possessed valuable jewellery, and were organized as a guild. She employed them as her secret agents, and provided good physicians for them when they fell sick.

It was a bad time for husbands. Theodora made it quite plain that wives no longer needed to live chaster lives than they. If a husband had been companying with prostitutes — as practically every husband did at some time or other — the wife was at perfect liberty to amuse herself with lovers. If he then grew angry with her, she could make an immediate appeal to Theodora and bring a counter-charge against him, of cruelty, or failure to support his family, or something of the sort; and Theodora never failed to bring the charge home, accepting the wife's account of the matter without question. Often a jealous husband had to pay a fine amounting to double the wife's dowry; which was then handed over to her in Court, after a small deducation had been made for costs. He was also likely to be scourged and usually given a few days in prison. Husbands after a time grew very careful how they behaved themselves, and also very careless how their wives behaved. The scourge was a five-strapped leather whip with an iron tag at the end of each strap; and the public slaves laid on extremely hard.

As a good example of Theodora's way with husbands, let me describe how the son of the Master of Offices fared. He wished to marry a second cousin of his; but Theodora, who had decided to match him with the Lady Chrysomallo's daughter, told him that this was quite out of the question: she disapproved of marriages between cousins. He was obliged to yield, of course, because Theodora was to the Court what an old grandmother is to the members of a large country family. He was lucky enough to be marrying the Lady Chrysomallo's daughter, who was young and pretty and intelligent; but after the wedding he grumbled to a friend of his that the girl had been 'tampered with'. The fact was that the Lady Chrysomallo, though nominally a Christian, kept to the customs of her family — which, because of its connexions with the Hippodrome, was a pagan one. Thus the girl, instead of presenting her husband with an intact maidenhead, had undergone the traditional pagan ceremony'of dcflorcscence- namely, equitation of the stone phallus of a Priapic image, to induce fertility. The bridegroom's complaint came to Theodora's ears, and she was very angry. ' What airs these young gentlemen give themselves to be sure I' she cried. 'I suppose he has never in all his life tampered with a girl himself! "Tampered" indeed!' Then she gave orders that he should be tossed in a blanket by her servants, just as vain and unpopular schoolboys are tossed on the way to school by their schoolfellows. And, after the tossing, they thrashed him.

Theodora, as the story of Severus's elephant reminds me, never lost a chance of paying off an old score. The patrician Hicebolus was among the first to pay for his former ill-treatment of Theodora: he was brought back from Pentapolis on a charge of sodomy, Theodora herself judging the case, was convicted (not without justice) and sentenced to castration. He died of blood-poisoning after the operation.

Here, too (because of the sequel), I should tell the comic story of Hippobates, the old Senator who came to Theodora's audience one morning to appeal to her for justice against Chrysomallo's husband, one of her gentlemen-in-waiting, who owed him money. This Hippobates had once in the old days been brought by a friend — none other than the Demarch of the Blues — to spend an evening at the clubhouse. He was expected to choose one of the ladies to pair off with, while the Demarch chose another, but for some reason or other he did not feel equal to female company. Then instead of plainly confessing-as a man of honour would have done- that he was a Christian, or impotent, or that he preferred the other sex, or whatever else ailed him, he began to find fault with the physical charms offered him. Indaro was too tall and too square-shouldered, he said; and Theodora too skinny, and her mouth was too large; and my mistress had red hair, which he could not abide, and 'a mattock-shaped face'. I forget what was wrong with Chrysomallo — perhaps her hooked nose. Since he was a detestable old satyr, all felt relieved to be excused from entertaining him. Still, he had no right at all to criticize the ladies in this way, and his remarks were strongly resented. It was unfortunate that the Demarch had introduced him, for the ladies must keep on the very best terms with the Demarch. Otherwise, they would have punished him in the humiliating ways in which they were adept.

Theodora knew in advance that Hippobates was coming to appeal for the money, so she had everything carefully prepared for his reception. He entered with a very unhappy countenance, and grovelled most abjectly as he kissed her insteps, and pretended to weep. I do not think that he realized that Theodora the Empress was Theodora of the club-house, whom he had once insulted. She asked him kindly what his trouble was. He began in a most unbecoming beggar's whine:' Oh, Resplendency, it is a grievous matter for a patrician to be penniless. My creditors dog my steps, duns rap perpetually at my door, I have hardly a crust of bread in my house. I entreat you, most gracious and lovely Empress, to persuade your servant to pay me the money that he owes me.'

Theodora began: 'Oh, most excellent and Illustrious Hippobates

…' From behind the curtains a concealed choir of eunuchs, formed into two semi-choruses, broke into a mysterious, soft chant:

First Semi-chorus: Excellent Hippobates, You have a bald pate! Second Semi-chorus: Excellent Hippobates, You have a bad breath! Full Chorus: You have a big belly, Excellent Hippobates — Bald pate, bad breath, Big belly too!

She turned to my mistress: 'My dear Lady Antonina, did you hear a queer noise then?' 'No, Resplendency.' 'And you, Lady Chrysomallo?' 'Nodiing at all, Majesty.'

'It must have been a singing in my head. Proceed, Hippobates!'

Hippobates, not daring to notice what he had heard, nervously recommenced his petition: 'If a patrician like myself runs short of money, through no fault of his own, he is ashamed to mention the incongruous fact to his creditors. They would not at first wish to believe it. When they did finally realize that he was a beggar, he would have to suffer social disgrace as well as bankruptcy; and social disgrace, as you know, Your Loveliness…'

Theodora began again: 'Oh, most excellent and Illustrious Hippobates…' And again the concealed choir struck up, a little louder this time:

First Semi-chorus: Excellent Hippobates,

You have a humped back! Second Semi-Chorus: Excellent Hippobates, You have a hernia! Full Chorus: You have haemorrhoids, Excellent Hippobates — Hernia, humped back, Haemorrhoids too!

'Lady Chrysomallo, did you hear anything then?'

'No, Resplendency.'

'And you, Lady Antonina?'

'Not a murmur, Majesty.'

'I could have sworn I heard a sort of noise. But proceed, Hippobates!'

And still he had to pretend to have heard nothing himself. Each time he began his petition the choir broke in upon it, and each time the verses were increasingly scurrilous. In the end, he had to give it up, retiring in frantic discomfiture, but with the obligatory serene obeisance.

The sequel was that his creditors, who had originally prompted his appeal to Theodora, became more insistent than ever, until he was forced to apply to his old friend, the Demarch of the Blues, who sent a group of factionists to protect Hippobates' house. There ensued a riot, in which two of the creditors, who were Greens, were killed and a number of Blues wounded. News of the disturbance reached the Palace; and Cappadocian John, aware that Hippobates was out of favour with Theodora but not realizing that some of the men engaged had been sent from Blue military headquarters, thought that he would please Justinian by intervening in the name of public order. He sent a strong force of Guards to the scene of disturbance, who arrested Blues and Greens indiscriminately, several of each Colour. A hurried trial was held, four of them were sentenced to decapitation for being found in possession of weapons, and three to the gallows for conspiracy to kill; and all were marched off to execution.

It happened that the gallows rope was not stout enough. It broke twice — under the weight of a Green and of a Blue. These miserable men fell to the ground and were left lying for dead, it being assumed that their necks had been broken. That evening, however, some monks sought out the bodies and found life still in them; and conveyed them to St Lawrence's Hospital, where they recovered. This Hospital was a sanctuary. But Cappadocian John arrested them again, violating the sanctuary, and put them into the State Prison (which, with the police-barracks, comprised a whole wing of the Brazen House on the side nearest to the Hippodrome).

The Demarch of the Blues then took a remarkable resolution. He went at once under a flag of truce to Green headquarters, and in an interview with the Demarch of the Greens suggested joint action against the police who had dared to interfere in the traditional feud between the two Colours. The Demarch of the Greens was most eager to declare a temporary truce. The thirteenth day of January was near, the date of the New Year's Races. They agreed that, after their usual loyal greeting to Justinian as he entered the Hippodrome, they should all, Blue and Green alike, appeal for the release of the prisoners, whose lives God had spared by a miracle, and for the dismissal of Cappadocian John — whom the Blues loathed as a turncoat and envied for his wealth, and whom the Greens hated as a traitor and oppressor. So this was done, and I think that Theodora had a hand in the plot. But Justinian took the matter very coolly and made no reply to the appeals for release, which continued throughout the day, after each of the twenty-two races that were run.

The two Demarchs then agreed on more vigorous action and on a common watchword, which was 'Victory!', for the two factions. That evening after the races they surrounded the State Prison and demanded the persons of the two men who had been removed from sanctuary. No answer was given them, so they set fire to the porch with torches. The flames spread and destroyed the whole wing, police-barracks and all. Most of the prisoners were rescued, but a number of warders and police were burned to death. The Guards, who sympathized with the rioters, did not intervene. Their own quarters in the centre of the Brazen House had not been attacked, and the fire was now under control.

The next morning Justinian decided to continue the Races as usual without taking any notice of the outrages committed; but the factionists surrounded the Palace, demanding the dismissal of Cappadocian Jolin and of Tribonian the Lord Chief Justice, and of the City Governor. When there was still no reply, and no Guards or police arrived to disperse them, the factionists knew that they were at liberty to riot to their hearts' content. First, they heaped wooden benches, dragged from the Hippodrome, against a number of public buildings and set fire to them. Then under the cover of the smoke and confusion they began joyfully murdering, robbing, raping, and plundering. Convinced Blues showed a preference for damaging Green property, and convinced Greens for damaging Blue property; but most of the rioters were not particular in their choice of victims, because of the truce. The watchword was, as I have said, 'Victory!' and the combined Colours won a great victory indeed over the City. Soon the central district was alight in several places; the fire-brigades did not attempt to extinguish the outbreaks — most of the firemen themselves were busy looting. The flames spread unchecked. Fortunately it was a windless day, or the whole City would have burned down. There was a general rush to the docks, where people offered the boatmen enormous fees to ferry them across to safety on the Asiatic shore.

I was at our suite in the Palace as usual, in attendance on my mistress Antonina, and I must confess that the whole household was terrified, in spite of Belisarius's calm, not to say scornful, demeanour. Imperial orders came that none of us should leave the Palace grounds under any pretext. Vigorous action of some sort should clearly have been taken long ago, but Theodora could do nothing with Justinian, who was praying in his private chapel. Cappadocian Jolm had disappeared, and the Guards, in the unburned part of the Brazen House, were consequently without orders. However, the rabble would certainly have slaughtered them if they had attempted to intervene. Belisarius was still nominally Commander of the Armies in the East, but had no authority in the City. When my mistress urged him to offer Justinian his services and those of his Household cuirassiers — they were quartered not far away — he refused: as a servant of the Emperor he must not speak out of turn, but wait for orders. No orders came. Justinian was as obstinate as a mule; praying fervently and assuring Theodora that Heaven would provide.

At last, on the fifteenth day of January, Justinian moved to end the disorders. His method was to appeal to the Christian scruples of his subjects. He sent out a deputation of bishops and priests with banners and a parcel of sacred relics — a small portion of the True Cross, and the authentic horn of the Patriarch Abraham's ram, which will be sounded upon Judgement Day, and the serpent-shaped rod of Moses with which miracles were once done in Egypt and Sinai — and, besides these, the bones of Zoc the virgin martyr and of some other martyrs of lesser importance. But no miracle resulted, and the clergy were forced to retreat to the Daphne Palace, pursued by a smart shower of stones and bricks. Justinian was watching from a balcony and called out: ' Oh, protect them, quickly! Let someone go out at once and protect them!' Belisarius went out, glad of an opportunity for action, with a party of forty Thracian-Gothic soldiers who were on permanent duty in the Daphne colonnades; and drove the rioters back, killing a number of them, so that the clergy returned with the relics undamaged.

This action of Belisarius's enraged the factions, which were now altogcdicr out of control. On the next day Justinian sent out a herald to the Square of Augustus to announce that Cappadocian John had resigned his command and that the City Governor and Tribonian, the Lord Chief Justice, had also retired from office. (Tribonian had been so busy with his work of re-codifying the laws that he had not had sufficient time to supervise the administration of justice.) But this concession was no longer enough to restore peace, especially as the truce between the factionists had been broken in quarrels over the division of plunder, and the Green cause had revived with unexpected strength. By the seventeenth of January there had been sacked and burned: the churches of St Sophia and St Irene, and the Royal Porch, which was a famous library containing among other curiosities the complete works of Homer written upon the intestines of a serpent forty yards in length, and the Baths of Zeuxippus lying between the Brazen House and the Hippodrome, and the silversmiths' colonnades, and the High Street as far as the Square of Constantine. A vast amount of treasure was thus destroyed. We domestics watched the fires from an upper window and did not dare to go to bed at night for fear of being burned to death if we did.

It was not until the fifth day of the riots, which was the eighteenth of January, that Theodora managed to persuade Justinian to enter the Hippodrome and make a public appeal for peace. The Hippodrome runs parallel with the Palace, on the slope leading down to the Sea of Marmora. At the northern end are two towers, and stables, chariot-sheds, and offices for the entertainers, and, high up to one side, at the point commanding the best view of the start, the Royal Box surmounted by the gilded horses from Chios. This Box was reached by a private colonnade from the Daphne Palace, skirting St Stephen's Church, so Justinian did not need to risk driving through the public streets. Holding a copy of the Gospels, he appeared in the Royal Box before the packed Hippodrome and began one of those vague paternal exhortations to peace and harmony, combined with vague promises, which are usually effective, after a riot, when popular heat is beginning to cool somewhat and the graver sort of people have begun to reckon up the damages. But it proved perfectly useless, because not backed up by any show of force. Half-hearted cheers came from the Blue benches, interspersed with hisses — but yells of execration from the Greens, who were now in the ascendant again, many deserters having returned to their old allegiance. Stones and other missiles were thrown at the Royal Box, as once in Anastasius's time, and Justinian retired precipitately, the mob streaming out of the Hippodrome in pursuit of him. Thereupon the Thracian-Gothic Guards withdrew from the Palace and joined their fellows in the Brazen House. The mob plundered and burned down the extensive block of Palace buildings, adjacent to St Stephen's Church, which was the residence of the eunuchs of the Civil Service.

Now, the least worthless perhaps of Anastasius's worthless nephews, of whom one or other had been expected to succeed to the Throne before Justin seized it, was Hypatius. He had served under Belisarius at Daras, somewhat ingloriously indeed — it was his squadron that had been forced from the trenches on the right wing when the Immortals charged; but it could at least be held of him that his ambitions did not exceed his capacities. As soon as the riots broke out he came modestly to Justinian, with his brother Pompey, and said that the Greens had made approaches to him, offering him the Throne; that he had indignantly refused to countenance any movement on his behalf, and that to show his loyalty he now put himself at Justinian's disposal. Justinian praised and thanked Hypatius, though unable to understand his frankness in admitting that he had been offered the Throne — unless possibly as an attempt to disarm suspicion and seize the supreme power as soon as a favourable opportunity offered. But after this attack on the Palace, Justinian sent word to him and Pompey that they must leave at once if they did not wish to be executed as traitors. As soon as dark came, they slipped away, very unwillingly, and managed to enter their houses unnoticed. Unfortunately the news somehow reached the Greens that Hypatius was at large. They surrounded his house, forced it open, and carried him off in triumph to the Square of Constantine. There, at the centre of a tightly packed, screaming crowd, he was duly proclaimed Emperor, and crowned with a golden collar for want of a diadem, though the remainder of the insignia was available, having been plundered from the Palace. Hypatius was genuinely unwilling to accept the Throne; and his wife Mary, a pious Christian, wrung her hands and wailed that he was being taken from her along the road to death. But the Greens were not to be gainsaid.

Green representatives went to the Senate House and demanded that an oath of allegiance be sworn to Hypatius. The Senators (as always happens in cases of this sort) did not wish to commit themselves. Their loyalties were fairly evenly divided; though most of them were professedly Blues, many were secret Greens who regretted the 'good times of Anastasius', as they called them, and despised the upstart Justinian. They took refuge in rhetorical talk, coming to no decision. At the Palace, too, there was a certain number of Senators assembled, all Blues and all very frightened. Justinian himself was trembling with fear and asking everybody he met — man, woman, or eunuch; patrician, commoner, or slave — what he ought to do next. A regular Council was hurriedly called together. Most of those wretched cowards advised instant flight, on the ground that the Palace Guards were clearly not to be depended upon and that the Greer..; now dominated the City. Only Belisarius, with Mundus, favoured a vigorous stand against the rebels — Mundus was Commander of the Armies in Illyria, and happened to have arrived in the City two days previously to sec about remounts for his cavalry.

Theodora entered the Council Chamber uninvited. She was so terrible in her scorn and rage that not only Justinian himself but everyone else present would sooner have died a hundred times than oppose those blazing eyes. She said: 'This is all talk, talk, talk, and as a woman of sense I protest against it, and demand that strong action be taken at once. This is already the sixth day of the disturbances, and each day I have been assured that "the matter is well in hand", and that "God will provide", and that "all possible steps are being taken", and so on and so forth. But nothing has been done yet — only talk, talk, talk. Bishops sent out with frivolous relics. The Gospels flourished in the faces of a great rabble of impious pigs — and then we run away when they grunt and squeal! You seem almost to have decided on flight, Justinian the Great. Very well, then, go! But at once, while you still possess a private harbour and boats and sailors and money! If, however, you do go, remember: you will never be able to return to this Palace, and they will hunt you down in the end and put you to a miserable and deserved death. No secure place of escape is left to you. You could not even take refuge at the Persian Court: because once, greatly against my advice, you mortally insulted Khosrou, who is now King, by refusing to adopt him as your son. But go, I say, go, take your chance in Spain or Britain or Ethiopia, and my scorn follow with you! As for myself, may I never be separated from this purple, or survive the day when my subjects fail to address me by my just and full titles. I approve the old saying: "Royalty is a fair burial-shroud." What are you waiting for? A miracle from Heaven? No, gird up your robes and run, for Heaven hates you! I shall remain here and face whatever doom my dignities enjoin upon me.'

Then Mundus and Belisarius put themselves under Theodora's orders — for nobody else seemed inclined to give them any. Justinian was wearing a monk's habit, as if for humility, but rather for a disguise should the Palace be attacked again. He was hard at prayer in the Royal Chapel, his face covered with the coarse brown cowl. At this juncture an unexpected message came from Hypatius to Theodora: 'Noblest of women, since the Emperor suspects me and will do nothing for me, I beg you to trust my loyalty and send soldiers to release me from this predicament.' Theodora thereupon told Belisarius to place himself at the head of the Guards, rescue Hypatius, and bring him back to the Palace. Belisarius summoned the men of his Household who were encamped in the Palace grounds, and Mundus summoned his escort of Herulian Huns. The two forces together did not amount to more than 400 men, for the greater part of Belisarius's people had been lent to the Imperial Forces and were away in Thrace, under the command of Armenian John, enforcing the collection of taxes. Belisarius desired Mundus to take his Huns round by the winding alley called 'The Snail' to the Gate of Death, at the south-cast of the Hippodrome, dirough which the dead bodies of gladiators had formerly been dragged. He was to wait there for orders. Then Belisarius himself rode with his people through the Palace grounds to the end of the High Street, where the Senate House is, and turned left to the gates of the Brazen House. Finding no sentry outside and the gates still shut, he rapped with the pommel of his sword and shouted: 'I am Belisarius, Commander of the Armies in the East. Open in the name of his Sacred Majesty, the Emperor Justinian!' But no answer came. The soldiers preferred, like the Senate, to wait on events. The gates were of massive brass and not easily forced, so after a second summons he went back to the Palace and reported to Theodora that the Guards were not available. She told him that he must do what he could with the few men at his disposal.

He decided to go past St Stephen's Church, now also burned, and straight up to the Royal Box. To do so he must pass dirough the ruins of the Eunuchs' Residence, which were still smouldering. Every now and then a wall would collapse or a sudden fire blaze up again. The horses were terrified by the smoke, and would not face it, so he gave the order to dismount and sent them back. Wetting their cloaks and wrapping them about their faces, his people rushed across in twos and threes and reached the Blue Colonnade of the Hippodrome (it is ornamented with sheer lapis-lazuli) which mounts gradually to the Royal Box. But they found the door at the end barred and guarded. It was dangerous to force it: that would mean fighting a way in darkness up a narrow staircase, while perhaps a crowd of Greens was sent round to attack them in the rear. Belisarius gave the order to turn about. This time he led his people along to the main entrance of the Hippodrome, on the northern side, between the towers.

I cannot say what the Greens were doing in the Hippodrome all this time, but I know that the Demarch and Democrat of the Greens both made boastful speeches, while the Blues present sat in glum silence. It was now plain that the Greens had succeeded in appointing an Emperor of their own colour; and the Blue Demarch bitterly repented having made that truce with them. Then suddenly a cry arose and Belisarius was seen marching into the Hippodrome, with his sword drawn, at the head of his mail-clad soldiers. He turned and called out to Hypatius as he sat in the Box above him: 'Illustrious Hypatius, it is the Emperor's seat that you have taken; and you have no right to occupy it. His orders are that you return at once to the Palace and place yourself at his disposal.'

To the general surprise (for oidy the leading factionists were aware how unwilling a monarch he was), Hypatius rose obediently and moved towards the door of the Box; but the Demarch of the Greens, who was seated near him, roughly forced him back into his chair. Then a crowd of Greens began to threaten Belisarius's men. He charged along the benches at them. They yelled and scrambled back in disorder. They were only a mob of City loafers, and their weapons were adapted for murder, not for fighting; moreover, they wore no armour. So Belisarius's 200 men, fully armoured, were fully a match for their thousands. Meanwhile Mundus, waiting outside the Gate of Death, heard the roar of alarm from within, and realized that Belisarius's people were engaged. He charged in with his Huns against the Greens, who were leaping over the barriers into the arena, and slaughtered them in droves. Some of them tried to take refuge on the pedestals of the statues ranged along the central barrier — that of the Emperor Theodosius with the napkin in his hand, and the three great twisted serpents, brought from Delphi, which once supported the priestess's tripod there, and the statues of famous charioteers, including one of my former master Damocles which Theodora had recently erected there — but these fugitives were soon pulled down and killed. Then the Blues, who were all seated together as usual, joined in the fight. Led by two of Justinian's own nephews, they made a rush for the Royal Box and, after a severe struggle, killed the Green Demarch and his men, secured Hypatius and Pompey and handed them over to Rufinus, who was assisting Belisarius. Rufinus conducted them to the Palace by way of the narrow staircase and the Blue Colonnade.

The Greens had now recovered from their surprise and began to fight desperately. Belisarius and Mundus were forced to go on killing methodically until once more the silk-clad simpletons with their billowing sleeves and their long, pomaded hair retreated in panic. At last Belisarius was able to withdraw some of his men peaceably to the North Gate and send others to guard the remaining gates; and Mundus also called off his Huns. But there was no holding back the Blues, who would now be satisfied only with a total extermination of the Greens. Belisarius and Mundus did not think it wise to interfere: they stood and grimly watched the fratricidal slaughter, as one might watch a battle between cranes and pygmies — with sympathies somewhat perhaps inclined to the side of the pygmies, who were almost as inhuman as the cranes, though not less grotesque in appearance. When it was clear that the Blues had won a handsome victory (in the names of the double-natured Son of his Vice-regent, the double-dealing Emperor), Belisarius returned to the Palace for further orders, and Mundus with him. Soon my mistress was embracing her dear husband, all bespattered with blood as he was. But a whole horde of Blues from the suburbs, where the Colour was very strong, now came running up with all sorts of weapons and burst into the Hippodromc to assist in the massacre. They had been armed at the Arsenal by Narses, who had bribed the Democrat of the Blues to call for volunteers against the usurping Hypatius. They were followed by the Guards from the Brazen House, equally eager now to show their loyalty to Justinian by a butchery of the Greens.

Thirty-five thousand Greens and a few hundred Blues were killed outright before the day ended, and a great many more were severely wounded. The crowd had also attacked the Green stables — killing grooms, and hamstringing the horses and burning chariots. Then began a furious hunt for unrepentant Greens throughout the City, and by the next morning there was not a man or woman left who was still wearing the hated favour.

When Hypatius and Pompey were brought before Justinian he said to Belisarius: 'Excellent, but you should have caught these traitors sooner, before half our City was burned down.' Then he sentenced them to death — the action of a scoundrel, as Theodora told him to his face. But his answer was, as usual, a soft one. What a fellow he was, even in those days!

Thus ended the so-called Victory Riots, and with them, for a time at least, the feud between Greens and Blues. The Greens were utterly broken, and Justinian stabilized this happy state of affairs by putting an end by edict to all chariot-racing in the City. However, it was revived again a few years later; so the Green faction was bound to be revived too. The Blues could not, after all, compete against themselves. In a few years' time the Greens had become as rowdy as ever, gathering together under the protection of their Colour all elements in the City hostile to the Emperor and to the Orthodox Faith; and once more there were murder-gangs abroad at dusk.

Belisarius was always neutral — a White, as in his schooldays; but my mistress Antonina was a Blue, because of the wrong done to her father, and because of the club-house, and because of Theodora, who was her sworn friend.