Count Belisarius

CHAPTER 17

Belisarius wrote to the Emperor, acquainting him drily with Narses' 'loyal scruples' against deferring to his military judgement; he asked for a new warrant confirming his authority as supreme commander of the Armies in Italy. My mistress Antonina wrote to Theodora at the same time, using a less diplomatic term for Narses' disgraceful behaviour. Justinian's answer was long in coming.

Meanwhile Belisarius kept his patience and even managed to persuade Narses to join him in the siege of Urbino. This city is built on a steep hill, and has only one approach on level ground, namely from the north, where the walls are raised higher in compensation. The Gothic garrison, confident in the strength of their walls and their well-stocked granaries, refused an invitation to surrender; Belisarius would have to take the city by assault or stratagem. There was no aqueduct entrance to explore, the inhabitants being supplied with water by a perpetual spring within the city; he must therefore attempt to breach the walls. With this end in view he had a cloister built, superintending the work himself. A cloister is a connected series of pent-houses on wheels, each pent-house consisting of a stout timber frame roofed with osier hurdles of the sort that shepherds use to form their sheep-cotes, the hurdles being covered with raw hides. This cloister was to be advanced against the northern stretch of the fortifications, and under its protection a large number of soldiers with picks and shovels would begin undermining the wall. Usually the posts of a cloister are eight feet high, but Belisarius added another yard to them in order to leave space for a subsidiary roof, for greater protection. The roof of a cloister is built at a steep angle so that stones bounce off harmlessly; the hides are kept constantly damp to prevent them from being set on fire. Belisarius incorporated half a dozen battering-rams in the cloister.

The walls of Urbino were very solid and the ground very rocky: which accounted for there being no fosse. Narses and Bloody John had already lost patience, Bloody John swearing that the place was impregnable — had he not made an unsuccessful attempt upon it himself on his way to Rimini when it was held only by a few men? So on the tenth night of the siege they marched their divisions away, without informing Belisarius where they were going. Narses went to hold Rimini, Bloody John to raid along the coast beyond Ravenna as a means of enriching himself: for in all that north-eastern territory of Aemilia and Venetia there were no strong fortresses to which the Goths could retreat in safety with their treasures.

Belisarius was left to press the siege of Urbino with 1,800 men. The 2,000 Goths of the garrison, aware of what had happened, laughed and jeered at him. But the cloister was soon in position, while his best archers, perched on a scaffolding behind and protected by a screen, picked off the sentries on the battlements.

Though the miners worked vigorously, by the third day they had not yet dug down to the foundations of the wall, and the rams, swung in unison, still made no noticeable impression on it. Then the Goths succeeded in pushing down a whole merlon upon the roof of the cloister. It broke through, but killed nobody, for the archers on the scaffolding gave warning in time. Belisarius reckoned that it would be two months at least before the wall collapsed, and made no secret of this to his remaining officers. Judge then of his surprise, and ours, when on the fourth day, having been strangely quiet for the two preceding days, the Goths of the garrison appeared between the embrasures of the battlements with their hands raised in token of surrender. By midday the terms had been agreed upon between Belisarius and their commander, and Urbino was ours.

What had occurred must be ascribed to plain good luck, but plain good luck was no more than Belisarius deserved at this juncture. Narses would not have agreed about this. Indeed, when the news reached him at Rimini he was so overcome with jealousy that for days he would not cat at the common mess-table, for fear that he might betray his real feelings and so seem disloyal to the Emperor. Narses, by the way, carried about with him, in a gilt shrine, a little glass image of the Virgin Mother of Jesus, which he would consult before undertaking any important step. He used to tell his officers: 'Our Lady has warned me not to listen to the plan you suggest.' Or: 'Our Lady agrees with mc that the project I have formed is a sound one.' On this occasion the Virgin had said nothing. She might well have notified him that the perpetual water supply at Urbino would suddenly fail and the garrison surrender from thirst — for then he would not have put himself in so foolish a position.

Now, in digging the usual fosse for his camp, Narses had accidentally struck a spring of water and, on Bloody John's advice, diverted it into troughs in his horse-lincs for the more convenient watering of his horses — just as Belisarius had once done at Capoudia. This diversion of the spring had an unsuspected connexion with the failure of the city's water supply. The irony of it was that Narses was really responsible for the fall of Urbino- and, moreover, never knew! By restoring the water to its former channel we were able to quench Urbino's thirst again. Nobody was admitted to the secret but myself and two of my fellow-domestics, masons by trade, who came with me to the abandoned camp and did the necessary work under my direction. We had orders to hide the spring again under a pile of rocks, for Belisarius might find it necessary to hold Urbino against enemy attack one day.

The motto 'Patience in Poverty', on the bowl of St Bartimaeus, which Justinian had given to Belisarius and Belisarius had lent to the monks, recurred to my mind. Our forces were still further reduced by the necessity of sending Martin with a thousand men to the relief of Milan. Belisarius (my mistress Antonina always at his side) undertook the siege of Orvieto with the mere 800 trained men left him, and some Italian recruits: the town lay too close to Rome to be allowed to remain in Gothic hands.

Martin was no hero. When he reached the right bank of the River Po he was afraid to cross with so small a force against Uriah's army of Burgundians and Goths — which consisted of not less than 70,000 men. Uliaris, who was with Martin, in command of a half-squadron of the Household Regiment, agreed with him that the odds were too great to face. The Governor of Milan sent a messenger to Martin — the messenger passed in disguise through the Gothic lines and swam acros- the river — imploring that an army be sent at once to his relief. Milan, which is a city of 300,000 inhabitants and next to Rome the most beautiful and prosperous in all Italy, was facing starvation. 'We are reduced to eating dogs and rats and mice and dormice; and several cases of cannibalism have already been reported.'

Martin made excuses: he had no boats in which to transport his stores across the river. But he undertook that the siege would be raised within three weeks if they could hold out so long. He sent a messenger to Belisarius at Orvieto, with orders to ride night and day: Belisarius was begged to send Bloody John inland up the valley of the Po from Acmilia. 'With John's help', Martin wrote,' we can perhaps save Milan.'

Belisarius then sent a fast messenger to Bloody John, acquainting him with the straits in which the Milanese were, and ordering him to join forces with Martin and relieve the city.

Bloody John wrote back in downright refusal — he would take orders from Narses alone. He added unfeelingly: 'So the Milanese are eating dormice? I have read in the Natural History of the celebrated Pliny that these little creatures were forbidden to the Romans of old by Cato the Censor as being too luxurious a delicacy for the table.'

Thereupon Belisarius wrote to Narses at Rimini, reminding him that the divisions of an army are like the limbs of a human being, and must be controlled and directed by a single authority, the head. 'I would abandon the siege of Orvieto and hurry to Milan with my 800 cuirassiers, but that I must remain in the neighbourhood of Rome — I cannot leave the defence of the city wholly to the Roman levies. Also, a forced march of 300 miles through Tuscany in the present bad weather would be the ruin of my horses. I implore you in the name of God, send your friend John, and Justin the grand-nephew of our master the Emperor, with all available forces to assist Martin. Or go yourself, and derive whatever glory from the campaign you may desire.'

Thus pleadingly addressed, Narses gave Bloody John the required permission; but it was too late. Consider. Martin's messenger had 300 miles to cover from the Po to Orvieto; and Belisarius's messenger 300 miles to cover before he reached Bloody John, who was at Padua; and Bloody John's messenger to Belisarius 300 miles likewise, not hurrying cither; and then Belisarius's messenger to Narses at Rimini nearly 200 miles more. There was a further delay caused by Bloody John's having an unseasonable bout of malarial fever. By the time that he had recovered and was ready to set out for Milan with 4,000 cavalry, and boats on ox-wagons for the passage of the Po, the city had fallen. This was already the beginning of the year 539, the year of the tailed comet.

The lives of the thousand men of Belisarius's garrison at Milan were spared by the Goths and Burgundians on their entry; but by order of Uriah all males of the civil population except mere children were butchered, to the number of 100,000, and at the very altars of the churches where they took sanctuary. The soldiers made free with the women, of whom as many as were of any use were taken away as slaves; the Burgundians being allowed first choice in recognition of their services. The old and ugly and infirm were left behind to starve. All the children were taken off by the Goths. The fortifications of Milan were dismantled and the churches levelled to the ground: the Catholic churches by the Arian Goths, but the Arian ones by the Catholic Burgundians. Great fires started and spread unchecked, and one-half of the city was demolished.

Martin and Uliaris returned to Orvicto. When Belisarius heard of the fate of Milan he was so shocked that he would not admit them to his presence, and throughout that campaign he did not speak another word to Uliaris except to give him necessary orders. Uliaris, he said, could have done some small thing for the honour of the Household Regiment — could at least have raided the Gothic communications.

At last a message came from the Emperor Justinian, recalling Narses on the ground that he could no longer be spared from his office as Court Chamberlain, and confirming Belisarius's appointment as supreme commander, under himself, of the Armies in Italy. Justinian did not reprove Narses, even when he learned of the massacre at Milan, which Narses might have prevented, but continued to behave with great friendliness towards him. Narses took away from Italy a thousand of the men whom he had enlisted for service there. Also, his departure was the excuse for a revolt of the 2,000 Meridian cavalry who were under his direct command. They refused to accept orders from Belisarius and marched into Liguria, pillaging the open country as they went; there they concluded a peace treaty with Uriah, selling him all their slaves and spare possessions and being granted fertile lands to colonize in the neighbourhood of Como. But by a sudden change of heart, to which these barbarous people are no less liable than a city mob, they repented and marched all the way back to Constantinople by way of Macedonia, hoping to be pardoned by the Emperor through the intercession of Narses. (Narses did not fail them.)

Thus Belisarius was left in supreme command indeed, but with a field army, you would say, of no more than 6,000 trained men. However, he had now recalled the garrisons left behind in Sicily and the South of Italy and replaced them with Roman levies, and he had also made soldiers of a sort out of the Italian peasantry, so that 25,000 men were available for campaigning purposes. Five thousand he sent under Justin to besiege Fiesole. Three thousand under Bloody John, togther with 3,000 more under another John, who was surnamed The Epicure, he sent up the Po valley to resist any attempt on Uriah's part to join forces with Wittich at Ravenna. Belisarius himself with 11,000 men settled down to the siege of Osimo, the capital city of Picenum.

At this point the bounds of my story widen again. To the westward they cross the River Rhone in Prance, to the eastward they cross the Euphrates, to the northward the Danube, to the southward the deserts of Africa. King Wittich was still at Ravenna. The garrison of Osimo now appealed for assistance, but he replied only with empty assurances that God was on the side of the Goths. He did not dare to lead his troops out of the city, since our infantry outposts guarded the causeways over the marshes, being posted behind strong barricades. Rimini, too, was in our hands; cavalry could be summoned from there by bonfire signal at short notice should Wittich's Goths attempt to force the barricades. Uriah's return from Milan was blocked by the forces under Bloody John and John the Epicure, and his Burgundian allies had returned to their own country. Wittich felt like a creature trapped.

Then an old merchant of the large Syrian colony resident at Ravenna came to him and said: 'How is it that the Emperor Justinian has been able to spare forces for the conquest of Africa and of so much of your own dominions? It is surely because he first bought peace with the Persians, and thus could spare Belisarius, the commander of his Eastern armies, for service here in the West. If you were to persuade the Great King to cross the Euphrates in force, then Belisarius would soon be recalled to the East to deal with the new threat. For the Emperor has only this one general of genius, and must pass him up and down across his dominions like the shuttle across the web of a loom. King Wittich, send an embassy to the Great King and, at the same time, another embassy to Theudebert, King of the Franks. Let these embassies inform each monarch that the other has promised to make a flank attack in force against the Roman Empire.'

Wittich asked:' But how can any of us Goths go safely on embassies across the entire Eastern Empire? The Emperor's men would surely arrest my envoys. Moreover, none of us can speak the Persian tongue.'

The Syrian replied: 'Send priests. They will not be suspected. Let them travel in the company of Syrians, who go everywhere, know every language, have friends in every land.'

Wittich embraced the idea. Willing priests were found, and Syrian guides, the priest destined for Persia assuming the temporary rank of bishop for greater security. The two embassies went out by sea together, in two small boats, taking advantage of the tide on the next moonless night, and eluded our flotilla. At Ravenna there are rides, a common phenomenon on the shores of the Ocean but not seen elsewhere in the Mediterranean. (It has recently been observed that tides are regulated by the moon.) Only at certain hours can ships navigate the channel across the extensive shallows and enter the port; which is what protects Ravenna so securely against attack from the sea.

A month later, considering the matter again, King Wittich sent two more embassies, similarly composed, to the Moors in Africa, and to the Lombards, a Germanic race recently arrived on the farther bank of the Upper Danube, suggesting that they, too, should strike in concert with the Persians and Franks. The four embassies all succeeded in reaching their destinations. In every case but that of the Lombards the answer was: 'Yes, we will strike, and soon.' The Lombards replied cautiously: 'We will do nothing until we have news that the armies of the other nations are in motion; for we are at present the trusted allies of the Emperor.'

None of us would have suspected King Wittich of understanding world politics sufficiently to foment trouble on distant frontiers of our Empire; for no German had ever considered doing such a thing before. But he was hard pressed, and ready to accept the advice even of Syrians, whom usually he despised as lying Oriental heretics.

The year drew on; it was now the fifth since we had first landed in Sicily. Fiesole and Osimo both refused to capitulate. The Gothic garrisons being large and the defences strong, our only hope was to reduce these fortresses by famine. Belisarius did not allow his army to deteriorate and diminish during the siege, as Wittich had done with his before Rome. On the contrary, he employed these months in the training of his Italian levies, exercising them in continual manoeuvres; he made their rates of pay correspond with the skill that they had attained in the handling of arms and other military arts. He also raised several fresh battalions, providing officers from the ranks of the Household Regiment — among his 'biscuit-eaters' there were numerous Thracians and Illyrians whose native dialect was a sort of Latin. But the new levies were no great improvement upon the Roman city troops. The Italian soil, once so prolific of heroes, has become exhausted in the course of centuries: the Italian has no stomach for a fight, for all his bluster and boasting. Belisarius regretted that he could not use the Gothic prisoners that he captured, for they were strong, bold men, easily trained. Instead, they were being sent to the East and to Africa to fight for the Emperor there.

Of the siege of Osimo I can recall few incidents worth relating. Old soldiers have told mc that their experience confirms mine: the incidents at the beginning of a campaign recur sharply to the memory, but as the years of war drag on a man notices less and less and becomes sluggish, so that his attention is not stirred except by some extraordinary sight.

There were frequent skirmishes that summer on the slope of the hill between the city walls of Osimo and our camp. The Goths would creep out at dusk to cut fodder for their horses, and our patrols would engage them; on moonlight nights there would be very sharp fighting. It was down that hill one morning, against a battalion of our infantry advancing in line, that the Goths suddenly rolled a huge number of wagon-wheels with long knives and sickles lashed to the hubs. By good luck not a man of ours was hurt; the Goths had miscalculated the direction of the slope, and the wheels swerved harmlessly away into a wood, from which we recovered them. It was on that slope too that, riding out one morning with my mistress, I was witness to an unforgettable sight. A number of Goths under an officer were out on the hill-side cutting fodder by daylight; and a company of Moors, dismounted, went out to stalk them, creeping up a grassy ravine. But the fodder-cutting party was a bait concealing an ambush: as the Moors emerged from the ravine with a loud yell, up sprang another party of Goths to meet them and there was a hand-to-hand tussle, many men falling on both sides. The officer in command of the fodder-cutting party, who was wearing gilded plate-armour but no helmet, was killed by an upward stab of a Moorish javelin in the groin — plate-armour, intended for mounted use, has a weakness at this spot. The Moor who had struck the blow uttered a cry of triumph and, seizing the corpse by its yellow hair, began dragging it off. Then a Gothic spear flew and neatly transfixed the Moor's two calves a few inches above each heel, as one skewers a hare's hind-legs with a twig for greater case in carrying it home. But the Moor did not release his hold. He crawled slowly downhill like a caterpillar, arching and flattening out, dragging the corpse behind him. All this my mistress and I saw with our own eyes from the shelter of a holly tree. One of our trumpeters now blew the Alarm, and a troop of Bulgarian Huns galloped past us up the hill to the rescue. The leading Hun picked up the Moor, javelin and all, and threw him across the back of his horse. The Moor would still not let go his corpse, which bumped and clattered along the ground as they rode back to safety.

Another memorable occasion was the fight at the cistern. This cistern was built on the steep ground to the northward of Osimo, close to the walls. It provided the garrison's chief, but not only, water-supply; it was fed by a small trickle of pure water and protected by a vault to keep the water cool. The Goths used to fill their pitchers at it by night, with a strong covering party posted all around. Five Isaurians now volunteered to destroy it, if they were provided with the necessary cold chisels, hammers, and crowbars, and protected while they worked. Early the next day Belisarius brought up his whole army and posted them in a circle at intervals around the wall. Long ladders were held in readiness, as if for an escalade. When the Advance was sounded and the attention of the Goths engaged, the five Isaurians would slip unobtrusively inside the cistern and begin their work of demolition.

The enemy waited quietly for the expected attack and held their fire until our men should be within easy range. The trumpets blew, there was shouting and shooting from our men, but the ladders were advanced only at a single point, 300 paces from the cistern; here the Goths came crowding up to repel the attack. In spite of this diversion the Isaurians did not escape notice as they scrambled up the rock and stole inside the cistern. The Goths realized that they were the victims of a ruse and made a furious sortie from the postern-gate close by, intending to capture the five men. Belisarius led an immediate counterattack and held them off. It was bitter work, for the Goths were more numerous and had the advantage of the steep hill; but Belisarius's companions were sure-footed Isaurians and Armenian mountaineers, who loved this sort of fighting. Like them, Belisarius fought on foot, wearing only a buff-coat and armed with two javelins and a cutlass. He kept urging them to renewed efforts, though their losses were heavy. The longer the five Isaurians could work undisturbed in the cistern, he reckoned, the shorter would the siege be.

The Goths retreated about midday. As Belisarius rushed forward in pursuit a sentry on the neighbouring tower took a steady aim at him with a javelin; he cast, and the javelin came darting surely down. Belisarius did not sec it, for the sun was shining in his eyes from the south, immediately over the edge of the battlements. It was the spearman Unigatus, at Belisarius's side, who saved his life. Being a much shorter man than his master, he was already under the shadow of the wall and could sec the javelin coming. He leaped forward and sideways, catching at it. The long head pierced his palm and cut all the sinews of the fingers, so that lie was crippled in that hand for the rest of his life. But he said: 'To save my lord Belisarius, I would gladly have interposed my breast.'

Belisarius went down into the cistern himself. Though the Isaurians had been hammering and heaving away with all their might at the big stone blocks, they had not succeeded in shifting so much as a pebble. It was the habit of the men of old to build not for a year, or even for a lifetime, but for ever. The stones were jointed so closely together and the interstices filled with so iron-hard a cement that it seemed a place hollowed out of the living rock. There was nothing else for it but to do what Belisarius had a natural repugnance against doing: he fouled the good water by throwing into the cistern the corpses of horses and quicklime and poisonous shrubs. The Goths, who were already reduced to eating grass, must now rely on a single well inside the fortifications and on rain-water from the house-roofs caught in tubs. But this was a year of drought, and no rain fell.

Fiesole yielded from famine in the month of August, and Belisarius displayed the captive leaders to the garrison at Osimo, hoping to persuade them to yield. Yield at last they did, for Belisarius offered them generous terms. He would not make slaves of them, but they must renounce their allegiance to King Wittich and swear loyalty to the Emperor Justinian, and also give up half their wealth to our men in lieu of plunder. By now they were angry with Wittich for abandoning them to their fate when his armies were still much more numerous than those of Belisarius — who was a soldier after their own hearts. They all volunteered to serve in the Household Regiment. They were picked men, and Belisarius enrolled them gladly. Thus the last of the fortresses southward from Ravenna had fallen to our arms.

Meanwhile King Wittich's nephew Uriah had been encamped at Pavia on the upper Po, prevented by the two Johns from marching to help his uncle at Ravcima. One day in June he heard good news — the embassy to King Theudebert had taken effect and 100,000 Franks had crossed the Alps and were marching to his aid through Liguria. These Franks are Catholics in name only, and still retain many of their bloodthirsty old German customs; they have, moreover, a greater reputation for perfidy than any race in Europe. They are not horsemen, like the Goths and Vandals, their distant kinsmen, except that a few lancers accompany each of their princes and that every gau-leadcr is mounted as a mark of dignity. They are infantry, very brave and very undisciplined; and are armed with broadswords, shields, and their dreaded franciscas. These franciscas are short-handled, double-headed axes which, as they charge, they throw in a concerted volley; the blow from such an axe will shatter any ordinary shield and kill the man behind it.

Soon King Theudebert's forces reached the bridge-head over the Po at Pavia, which Uriah held; and the Goths welcomed them heartily. But the moment that the first battalions of the Franks had crossed unmolested, a dreadful surprise awaited Uriah. The Franks broke ranks and ran here and there, chasing Gothic women and children; and sacrificed those they captured, as the first fruits of war, by hurling them headlong into the river! This was an old custom of their pre-Christian days, but they justified it on Orthodox grounds: as the fitting treatment for Arian heretics who denied that Jesus Christ was the equal of His Almighty Father! Uriah's Goths were so taken aback by the horror of this sight that they fled away in a mad rush to their camp. Pursued with volleys of hurtling axes, they did not stop to defend the camp — there was a general stampede down the road towards Ravenna. They burst through Bloody John's outposts in their tens of thousands; and hundreds were shot down as they streamed past his camp.

Then Bloody John gathered his bodyguard together and galloped towards the Gothic camp, believing that Belisarius had made a surprise move through Tuscany, and that it was he who had routed the Goths. By the time that he had learned his mistake the Franks were swarming down the road; he fought a sharp engagement and was worsted. Abandoning Ins camp, with all his pillage of two years in it, he retreated to Tuscany. King Theudebert had won the whole western part of Liguria at a single stroke.

It had been a year of drought; and, because of the dangers of the time, farming activities had been interrupted throughout the north of Italy. The little corn that had been planted withered before it came to an ear, and the stocks in the granaries and barns had long ago been commandeered by King Wittich for his armies, or by the Milanese who had revolted against him, or by the Herulians in their raids. Consequently, when the Franks had consumed the provisions which they found in the two captured camps, they were forced to subsist on the flesh of oxen cooked in the waters of the Po, which was running very low that year and was tainted with corpses. An army composed entirely of infantry has a narrower range of foraging than a cavalry army, and the Franks are heavy caters. Thus they suffered great distress. When August came they were attacked by dysentery, and no less than 35,000 of them died.

Belisarius wrote King Theudebert a letter reproaching him for the breach of faith with his ally the Emperor Justinian; he suggested that the pestilence was a divine retribution for this and for the cruel murder of the Gothic women and children. Theudebert did not contradict him, and presently marched home. But Western Liguria was left a desert, and it is computed that 50,000 Italian peasants died of starvation that summer.

The Moors in Africa were also defeated in this year by Solomon; and the Lombards therefore thought it convenient to remain where they were, unless perhaps the Persians should strike their promised blow and Justinian be forced to draw away all his western armies to save Syria and Asia Minor from invasion. Then, unsolicited, a powerful nation drove at the Empire from another quarter — the Bulgarian Huns, united under a powerful Cham for the first time for thirty years. They were easily able to force the passage of the Lower Danube. Justinian had, for years past, been gradually denuding his northern frontier fortresses of men to supply his armies in the West, and this without raising a single new battalion or squadron; and had allowed the fortresses themselves to fall into disrepair, considering the building of new churches to be a more glorious practice than the patching of old ramparts. I must here interrupt my account of the great Hunnish raid with a description of a Paradise which Justinian, at enormous expense, had constructed for Theodora and himself on the Asiatic coast of the Sea of Marmora, not far from the city, and on the site of a temple of Hera. The Summer Palace of this Paradise, surrounded by trees and vines and flowers, was at once acknowledged the most beautiful private building in the world, just as St Sophia was the most beautiful sacred one. Marble and the precious metals were lavished upon it, and the baths and colonnades outshone in luxury any that Corinth itself had boasted before the earthquake. Because of the difficulties of the currents in the Straits, Justinian built out two long jetties here — sinking countless chests full of cement in the deep water, to form a private harbour. This great undertaking is worthy of mention here not only because it represented an additional drain on the Treasury, but also because it was the southern tide-mark of the Hunnish raid.

The Dulgars, then, overran the whole of the Balkans as far southward as the Isthmus of Corinth, capturing no less than thirty-two fortresses as they went; and the whole diocese of Thrace as far as Constantinople itself, where they broke through the long walls of Anastasius and were only restrained by the inner wall that the Emperor Theodosius had built, stoutly defended by Narses. Some of them crossed the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos and raided in Asia Minor, being with difficulty driven off from the gates of Justinian's new Paradise. Two hundred thousand prisoners, 500,000 dead, vast quantities of treasure, the destruction of fifty prosperous towns: such was the price that the Bulgars exacted of Justinian for his false economy in the matter of troops and fortifications. They returned home unmolested.

Belisarius was gathering all his forces to press the siege of Ravenna; and another small Imperial army sailed over to assist him from Dalmatia. But Ravenna is the most difficult city in the world to capture, because of its geographical position. The great Theoderich besieged it unsuccessfully for three years; on the landward side the marshes kept him out, and on the seaward side the shallows and fortifications — that he won it at last was a diplomatic not a military victory. It seemed likely that Belisarius, too, must be content to wait for three years. King Wittich had huge stocks of com and oil and wine in the city, and at his request an additional supply was being sent by Uriah down the River Po from Mantua.

But a few weeks later, in spite of all this, Wittich was in a most difficult position with regard to food supplies. First, the drought had so shrunken the stream that Uriah's com barges grounded in the shallows at the mouth of the river and were unable to proceed southward through the connected series of lagoons which form the waterway to Ravenna; the entire convoy was captured by Hildiger, whose patrols were very active and alert in this quarter. Then a second blow was struck against Wittich in Ravenna itself by his own wife, Matasontha. She contrived, during a thunderstorm, to set fire secretly to the two largest granaries in the city. The damage was ascribed to lightning. Wittich conceived the idea that God hated him and was grinding his face in the dust.

King Theudebert of the Franks now sent envoys to Wittich at Ravenna. Because the Franks were still supposedly his allies, Belisarius permitted them to pass through his lines, but only on condition that his own envoys should be permitted to accompany them and hear what they had to say to Wittich, and plead the cause of the Empire. Theodosius was chosen as Belisarius's representative and acquitted himself well enough.

The Frankish envoys proposed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Goths, boasting that they could send half a million men across the Alps and bury 'the Greeks' under a mound of axes. They said that they would be content to take no more than one-half of Italy in payment for their aid.

Theodosius then pointed out that the Franks were wholly untrustworthy as allies, having accepted subsidies from both sides and made war on both; that mobs of infantry would stand no chance of victory against disciplined bodies of cavalry; and that to offer a Frank half a loaf of bread was to give away the whole loaf, together with bread-knife and platter. If King Wittich made his peace with the Emperor he would at least save something from the wreck of Ids hopes. The Gothic ambassadors sent to Constantinople during the armistice at the close of the siege of Rome had asked for terms which neither justice nor the military situation warranted; Wittich would be well advised now to throw himself upon the clemency of the Emperor, whose generosity to a fallen foe had been proved in the case of King Geilimer and of many a lesser chief.

King Wittich listened attentively to Theodosius, dismissed the Franks, and sent fresh ambassadors to Constantinople. While he waited for their return, the Gothic Alpine garrisons made their submission to Belisarius; and Uriah's army, moving down from Mantua, was so reduced by desertions that he could do nothing more to assist his uncle, but must turn back again as far as Como.

We camped outside Ravenna, and the winter drew on. There was no fighting, but the vigilance of our guards and patrols was not relaxed. Not a single sack of corn was allowed to enter Ravenna, nor a single ship to run the blockade. It was during this period that my mistress renewed her former intimacy with Theodosius, to relieve the tedium of her life. He had a good singing voice and revealed a talent for musical composition; they would sing ducts together, very prettily, and accompany themselves on a lyre and a fiddle. One of Theodosius's songs was an outline of why the Italians should love the Greeks: this war of liberation had given them a merry time indeed-massacre, rape, arson, enslavement, famine, plague, cannibalism. The verses were so graceful that nobody could think the sentiments they expressed disloyal. Throughout this period Theodosius and my mistress behaved towards each other with exemplary discretion.

It was in this summer that Theodora's brother-in-law Sittas, who was commanding in the East as Belisarius's successor, was killed in a casual border skirmish in Armenia. He was the only general of reputation in these parts, and his death caused the Persians great joy. King Khosrou decided to break the Eternal Peace in the following spring. Wittich's priestly ambassadors had assured him, through their Syrian interpreter, that the Franks and Moors would assist the Goths by campaigns in the West. Khosrou's first answer had been: 'If we strike from the East, our royal cousin Justinian will abandon his conquests in the West and bring Belisarius against us with all his forces. For Rome is far away from his capital, but Antioch is near. This will benefit your Goths, but not us.'

The priests could not find a convincing answer. But the interpreter was equal to the occasion. I must now disclose a circumstance of which I became aware only after this Syrian plot had matured, but which I shall not withhold from you here — since it will perhaps add to your interest in what I am about to relate: the interpreter was none other than my former master Barak! In a private audience with the Great King, Barak protested that there was nothing to fear from Belisarius. It was an open secret, he said, that Belisarius intended to remain in Italy. In the new year he would throw off his allegiance to Justinian, proclaim himself Emperor of the Western World, and make common cause with the Goths and the Franks; North Africa would be included in his dominions.

'When we have news that Belisarius has so proclaimed himself, we shall invade Syria at once,' said Khosrou, well pleased.

But Barak said: 'King of Kings, it surely would be more consonant with your dignity if you struck without waiting for Belisarius to act? Then his assumption of the Diadem might seem to be encouraged by your invasion of Syria, rather than contrariwise.'

Khosrou seemed impressed by this argument and, recalling Wittich's envoys, gave them the promise to do what they asked of him.

Returning to Italy, these priests re-entered Ravenna, pretending that they had merely been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Places, and gave Wittich their hopeful news. But Barak went to Pavia and there told Uriah, as a joke, of the ingenious lie that he had invented for Khosrou's benefit.

Justinian had spies everywhere, even in the Persian Court, and he heard the story long before Uriah did. Believing that Belisarius was indeed about to betray him, he grew very troubled. He immediately called Narses and Cappadorian John and Theodora to a consultation.

Theodora said: 'That is a mere Syrian tale and without foundation. Because you choose to surround yourself with liars, rogues, and cheats at Court, do you refuse to recognize that such a thing as honour can exist among the officers of your armies?'

But Narses said: 'I suspected this very thing, Majesty. That is why I withheld my obedience from Belisarius.'

And Cappadocian John: 'He his been planning this for many years. Why else did he put the responsibility on Your Clemency for refusing Wittich's peace-terms during the siege of Rome? It was partly to draw more reinforcements to his standards and partly to discredit Your Clemency; so that when he at last proclaims himself Emperor his mildness will be contrasted with your severity.'

Narses said: 'The Italian levies he is raising are another proof of his intentions.'

And Cappadocian John: 'He was planning this revolt six years ago when he was at Carthage, as Constantine and his brother-officers wrote to warn your Clemency. He delayed it then for strategical reasons, considering that while Sicily and Italy were in Gothic hands Africa could not be safely held. But now that the Goths are so near defeat he aims higher.'

Justinian asked: 'What shall we do, friends? Advise us. We are in great fear.'

Narses answered: 'Without delay, offer King Wittich such easy terms as he will be glad to accept. Then Belisarius will not dare to proclaim himself Emperor, being unable to out-bid your Clemency in generosity to the Goths. As for our own officers in Italy, they are weary of war. It is all one to them what treaty you sign with King Wittich.'

Cappadocian John agreed. 'Allow King Wittich to keep one-half of his treasure and all his Italian dominions that lie to the north of the Po.'

But Theodora said: 'Truly it surprises me that with so many false friends and open enemies in the East, Belisarius does not in fact do what he is unjustly accused of planning to do. Count Boniface long ago was forced to treachery in Africa by similar libels against him at the Emperor's Court. So Africa was lost to us.'

Justinian replied softly: 'My dearest, do not meddle in this matter, we beg. Our mind is made up.'

Thus it was that ambassadors arrived from Constantinople with such terms as Wittich was overjoyed to accept. Belisarius, leading them to the gates of Ravenna, inquired of them what precisely the terms were; but they said that they were forbidden to tell him as yet. When they came out again and showed him the treaty signed by Wittich and merely needing Belisarius's own signature for ratification, he was aghast. He could only think that the Emperor had been misinformed as to the hopeless military situation of the Goths. He refused to sign until a confirmation in writing, duly scaled, should arrive from Constantinople.

Then Bloody John and Marin and John the Epicure and Valerian and even Bessas began criticizing him behind his back for prolonging the war unnecessarily. Belisarius, hearing of this, called them all to a conference and asked them to speak frankly: did they really consider that the terms were appropriate ones?

They all said: 'Yes, we think so. We cannot capture Ravenna, and it is too much to ask our men to stay encamped on the fringe of these marshes for who knows how many years. In any case, the Emperor has evidently decided to end the war as soon as possible'

'Then I do not wish to implicate you in the apparently disloyal action that I am taking in withholding my signature from this treaty. As you are aware, the Code makes the infringement of orders by an officer in war-time a capital offence, and His Serenity the Emperor is my supreme commander. I shall ask you to put in writing the view that you have just expressed.' But he meant equally that, if he could force Wittich to sign a treaty more favourable to ourselves, this document with their signatures would be evidence to Justinian of the difficulties that he had to contend with among his own staff. For he still held the view that Justinian trusted him to act according to his discretion.

They consented to sign.

A most strange tiling now happened. Uriah, thinking over the ingenious lie which Barak had told King Khosrou, decided that it would be an extremely happy solution if Belisarius did indeed proclaim himself Emperor! No nobler or more capable man existed, and it would be fatal for Italy to be ruled not from Rome or Ravenna but from distant Constantinople: Africa had already felt the cruel disadvantages of a lost independence of government. With Belisarius as Emperor, the Goths would naturally remain the dominant military power, the Italians being unfit for any but civil duties, and would have the benefit of Belisarius's instruction in the art of winning battles. Uriah smuggled a message into Ravenna to his Aunt Matasontha, whom he knew to be disaffected to his Uncle Wittich, telling her that if the Gothic nobles inside the city invited Belisarius to become their sovereign, he could answer for those outside. She called a secret Council, at which Uriah's suggestion was voted upon and carried by a large majority'. The nobles despised Wittich and held Belisarius in admiration; besides, Ravenna could not have resisted long in any case, because of the destruction of the granaries.

Thus Belisarius received a secret invitation from the Gothic Council to become Emperor of the West. Their messenger was soon followed by another from Wittich, who had heard of the Council vote. Wittich declared that he was perfectly willing cither to resign his monarchy or pay homage to Belisarius as Emperor.

Belisarius informed nobody of this offer except my mistress Antonina. He cried indignantly: 'How can they mistake me for a traitor to my Emperor? What have I ever done to earn such an insult?'

Antonina laughed and said: 'But the Emperor himself is of their opinion.'

'How do you mean?'

'Read this!'

The letter she gave him to read was one that she had just received from Theodora. It gave a sour account of the meeting between Justinian, Narses, Cappadocian John, and herself. Theodora was greatly angered at Justinian's ill-mannered rebuke to her in the presence of the two councillors, and had evidently written the letter as a sort of revenge. The letter closed in something of this style:' My dearest friend Antonina, if it is true after all, which I greatly doubt, that you husband contemplates this bold step, do not in loyalty to me dissuade him from it. If he has never contemplated it, persuade him to it. For he is the only man alive who is capable of restoring law, order, and prosperity to Italy and Africa, and thus defending our western flank. Only let him send back to us his Eastern troops when he can spare them, and remain at peace with us. Do you be my royal cousin at Rome, and think tenderly of me, and send me frequent news of yourself, and for the sake of old times favour the Blue faction in your Hippodrome. Then I shall continue to love you as always. To explain shortly: my Sacred Husband is jealous of your Illustrious husband's victories. I cannot promise that he will not do him some great injury one day. If Belisarius were to break his allegiance now it would be a wise and justifiable act, and of great benefit to the world.'

Belisarius's eyes flashed as he thrust Theodora's letter into the live coals of a charcoal brazier; he did not speak until the parchment was wholly consumed. Then he said: 'The faith of Belisarius is worth more to him than fifty Italics and a hundred Africas.'

Then he called his officers together. 'Tomorrow,' he announced, ' we enter Ravenna in peace. Warn your men.'

They all stared at him. Justinian's ambassadors were present too.

'Does this not please you?'

'Oh, my lord! But the Goths? Do they surrender?' 'How else should we enter?'

Belisarius secretly assured the Gothic envoys that none of the citizens of Ravenna should be either robbed or enslaved, and swore an oath to that effect on a copy of the Gospels. But he said: 'As to the title of Emperor, give me leave not to assume it by proclamation until I am inside your city. When King Wittich does homage to me, that will be the sign for the trumpets to sound the Imperial salute'

The next day we marched along the causeway into the city and took possession of it. As our men passed through the streets in close order the Gothic women, watching in their doorways, spat in their husbands' faces, saying: 'So few, and such miserable little men! Yet you always allowed them to defeat you.'

The husbands answered:' No, it was not they! It was that handsome tall general who rode by at their head on the white-faced bay. He did everything. He is to be our new ruler. He is the wisest, noblest, boldest man who ever lived. He is Belisarius.'

Belisarius accepted the submission, not the homage of Wittich; and, though the Goths expected him at any moment to proclaim himself Emperor, he gave no sign. But they were satisfied to wait, because he kept his oath about not enslaving or plundering the people of Ravenna, seizing only tie royal treasures in the Emperor's name, and because he brought in a few ship-loads of provisions. Further, he allowed all the Goths who owned lands to the south of the Po to leave the city and return to cultivate them. This was a safe step, for all the fortified towns in the South were now garrisoned by his troops.

For the first few days Belisarius was certainly allowing the Goths to believe that he would, before long, accept the Diadem. My mistress Antonina, growing hopeful, asked him: 'Have you then taken the wise decision?' To which he replied: 'Yes, that of continuing loyal to my oath as a general. It would have been wrong to let slip any opportunity for occupying the enemy's capital without loss of life.'

My mistress Antonina was so angry with him for respecting an oath sworn long ago to a scoundrel that she would hardly speak to hint Theodosius seemed angry too, perhaps because he had been promised by her the governorship of Rome when Belisarius became Emperor. He told Antonina in private: 'In order that Belisarius may keep his faith virginal, Italy must be destroyed.'

She asked: 'How destroyed?'

Theodosius answered: 'Belisarius will be recalled, and the destruction will come about through greedy tax-gatherers, unjust laws, stupid generals, wilful subalterns, mutiny, revolt, invasion. You will see.'