Count Belisarius

CHAPTER 18

Ravenna is a city of paradoxes. It is built on piles in a lagoon. 'The frogs in Ravenna greatly outnumber the citizens,' they say, 'and its mosquitoes outnumber even the angels of Heaven.' The sea, however, is gradually receding from the coast, so that the harbour which the Emperor Augustus built is now orchard land. 'Apples grow on the masts in Ravenna harbour,' they say. A yard or two below the surface of the soil water is always struck, which is inconvenient for the building of walls and the burial of corpses; but the water is brackish, and the inhabitants rely on rain-catchment for drinking and cooking. They say: 'Here the dead swim and the living go thirsty. Here waters stand and walls fall.' A colony of retired Syrian traders is settled at Ravenna, all very pious; whereas the local priests are mercenary and inclined to disregard Canon law. 'Here Syrians pray, but priests practise usury,' they say. There is no hunting to be had in the neighbourhood, and no sport but hand-ball at the baths; nevertheless, because of the damp a man must take vigorous exercise to keep in health. As a result, many wealthy civilians belong to a militia and practise military exercises on the parade-ground and in the tilt-yard; but the garrison-officers, from sheer boredom, join literary clubs in order to improve their education. 'Here men of letters play at being soldiers, and soldiers at being men of letters,' they say. To these many paradoxes was now added a man who could have been a sovereign but would not, and a man who would have liked to remain a sovereign but could not.

Paradoxical, too, was the discovery that my former master Barak, so knowledgeable in relics, had been piously adoring in a local church a relic of St Vitalis which, as any historical expert would tell you, cannot possibly have been his: I found a votive offering hanging in the church to commemorate Barak's miraculous cure from gall-stones by means of this relic. And for Barak a whole series of paradoxes was in store. He came to Ravenna to claim a great reward from Belisarius for having suggested to the Goths that he should be invited to become Emperor of the West. But Belisarius, so far from rewarding him, arrested him at my instance on that thirty-three-year-old charge of forgery, and sent him under guard to Constantinople to stand his trial. However, in his report on the case Belisarius did not mention Barak's part in the plot to make him Emperor: he regarded the whole transaction with such distaste that he preferred to suppress all reference Co it. At Constantinople Barak secured an honourable release by bribery, and though by now seventy years of age, resumed his long-interrupted task as overseer of monuments in the Holy Places. It was Ids pleasure to refresh the blood-marks on the pillar of scourging; and to renew the hyssop-sponge at Golgotha, which the piety of pilgrims had worn almost to nothing; and to discover at Joppa, buried in an old chest during the persecutions of the Emperor Nero, a startling number of early Christian relics of the first importance and in an agreeably sound state of preservation.

Fortunately we left Ravenna before the mosquito season began. Bloody John had written a warning letter to Justinian as soon as he became aware that the Goths had offered the Diadem to Belisarius. Justinian immediately recalled Belisarius, commending him warmly for his magnificent services and hinting that he would soon be employed in a yet wider field. Belisarius would have wished first to settle accounts with Uriah's army, now reduced to a mere thousand men, but he would not risk Justinian's displeasure by any further act of apparent disobedience. He therefore ordered his household to begin packing up, preparatory to moving. When Uriah at Pavia heard of this he was surprised and greatly disappointed; for he had believed that Belisarius still intended to proclaim himself Emperor. He concluded that Belisarius, weighing the strength of the Imperial troops hostile to him against that of the Gothic armies, considered that the step was too risky. He therefore persuaded his fellow-nobles to elect as Gothic king a certain Hildibald, who was a nephew of the Visigothic King of Spain; the prospect of a military alliance between the Goths of Italy and the Goths of Spain would perhaps tip the balance of Belisarius's judgement in favour of accepting the Diadem. Hildibald undertook to go to Ravenna and there do homage to Belisarius at once.

But Belisarius scornfully refused this renewed offer, and in the spring of the year of our Lord 540 we set sail for Constantinople again, leaving Pavia still untaken. Justinian meanwhile appointed eleven generals of equal rank — including Bloody John — to command the armies in Italy; these were united only in their jealousy of Belisarius and in their greed of money and power. At Belisarius's departure they proved incapable of concerted action, and did not even make any serious attempt to capture Pavia. However, Bloody John arranged for Uriah's murder by the new king, Hildibald; and then Uriah's death was avenged on Hildibald himself; and then one Erarich was elected but soon assassinated. Finally, the dangerous crown passed to Hildi-bald's young nephew Teudel. Thus in seven years seven monarchs had reigned over the Goths.

The civil governor appointed to rule Italy for Justinian was Alexander, surnamcd 'The Scissors'; formerly a money-changer, he had first come to the attention of the authorities at Constantinople as an adept clipper of the gold coinage. From every fifty coins that passed through his hands he would clip the equivalent of five, and this without making the coins seem any smaller. Cappadocian John, so far from punishing him for this fraud, had employed him in increasing the face-value of the gold in the Military Treasury by the same methods, and in other dishonest transactions. The Scissors soon showed such ingenuity in finding new ways of raising taxes that he was adjudged worthy of the highest offices. He had recently acted as chief tax-gatherer under Solomon in Africa. The problem of procuring money for Justinian's enormous expenditure was more pressing than ever now, because of the Bulgarian raids which had impoverished so wide an extent of country. The Scissors practised his usual extortions on Italy; and whatever treasure the war had spared he contrived to seize for his royal Master, who allowed him to retain five per cent of his takings as commission. Moreover, nobody could accuse The Scissors of partiality: he snipped away not only the fortunes of the Goths and Italians but the pay and rations of the Imperial troops as well. Theodosius's gloomy forecast of the future of Italy was proving correct in every article. But of this more will be told later.

Just before we had sailed King Khosrou of Persia had begun his threatened invasion of Syria. It was not an altogether unjustified one, because Justinian had been in secret treaty with the White Huns who live beyond the Caspian Sea, trying to bribe them to invade Persia from the North; and with the old King of the Saracens, trying to detach him from his allegiance. Being dissatisfied with the terms he offered, they had put Khosrou in possession of both sets of correspondence. Khosrou tried the southern route once more, marching along the right bank of the Euphrates from the plains of Babylon, and crossed the frontier unopposed. Having only cavalry with him, he reached

Sura after six days' march; and captured it by a trick during a truce arranged for the discussion of capitulation terms. After a conference with the Imperial representative, the bishop of the town, he had escorted him back with honour to the principal gate — then sent a party of men rushing forward with a baulk of timber to block the gateway. Before the people of Sura could remove the baulk a squadron of Persian cavalry had swept in and down the main street. Sura was sacked and burned to the ground; its inhabitants enslaved and taken away to Persia.

Our commander in Syria was the same Boutzes who had fought on the left wing at Daras. His headquarters were at Hierapolis, another six days' march up the river. On hearing of Khosrou's approach, Boutzes exhorted the citizens and soldiers to a resolute defence of the city — then, collecting his light cavalry, took to flight with the utmost speed. Khosrou marched against Hicrapolis. Finding that the fortifications were strong, he agreed not to press the siege if he were given a ransom of 100,000 pieces of gold. The citizens, alarmed by the fate of Sura, paid the money. After this, Khosrou turned westward and came to Beroca, where he found the fortifications more vulnerable than those of Hicrapolis and therefore fixed the ransom-money at 200,000 pieces of gold. Here, too, the citizens consented, but when they came to collect the money they found that they could only raise one-half of it; the Imperial tax-gatherersespecially my mistress's son Photius, who had become one of Justinian's most heartlessly efficient agents-had been busy in this country of late. Fearful of Khosrou's anger, therefore, the principal citizens and the soldiers of the garrison deserted the walls of Beroca and fled for safety to the citadel. Khosrou stormed the deserted walls and, furious at being trifled with, as he had burned half the city down. However, upon finding that the money had not been paid simply because there was none, he forgave the debt and continued his march towards Antioch.

Justinian, when the news of the invasion reached him, had immediately sent his nephew Germanus — the one who had helped to put down the mutiny in Africa — to inspect the defences of Antioch. These were in good enough repair, but had one vulnerable point: a large broad rock, Orocasias, which stood close up against the walls at the highest point of the circuit. Just as Hadrian's mausoleum had been a standing threat to the walls of Rome until it had been incorporated in them as an outwork, so with this rock Orocasias. Germanus decided that it must be fortified at once. The only alternative was to cut a broad, deep fosse to separate the wall from the rock (which stood only fifteen feet below the level of the battlements), and to raise the height of the wall. But the civic authorities of Antioch refused to do anything in the matter. They said that there was no time to complete any building or trenching before Khosrou arrived, and that to be interrupted in the work would be to reveal gratuitously the one weak part of the defences. If they found themselves unable to defend the city, they would try to buy Khosrou off; in fact, the Patriarch Ephraim wrote secretly to Khosrou, offering to collect any reasonable sum in ransom — he suggested 100,000 in gold. But Justinian now sent a circular letter to all governors of cities, forbidding them to pay ransom money under penalty of death. The Patriarch, afraid to face Khosrou empty-handed, fled northward into Cilicia, as a number of other rich citizens prudendy did. Six thousand cavalry now arrived from the Lebanon to reinforce the garrison; their commanders closed the gates, so that flight became impossible.

King Khosrou's advance-guard soon appeared within sight of Antioch. His ambassador came under the walls and declared the Persian demands — they exactly corresponded with the Patriarch's offer. For 100,000 he would spare the city and pass on with his army.

The inhabitants of Antioch are a very disorderly, unserious sort of people. They treated the ambassador with no sort of respect — pelting him with filth and shooting arrows all about him. If Belisarius with only 5,000 trained men, they argued, could hold a much bigger city for a whole year against 150,000 Goths, why should not they with 9,000 hold Antioch against Khosrou's army of 50,000 Persians? Moreover, Belisarius had been given little help by the unwarlike Roman civilians, whereas in Antioch the Blues and Greens had formed a sort of local militia; their faction-fights, which were conducted in a more open and courageous fashion than at Constantinople, had given them soldierly enthusiasm. So it happened, after all, that 10,000 volunteers swelled the regular forces, and one-half of these at least wore chain-armour and carried weapons. Unfortunately, the rock Orocasias itself was not defended. It is my opinion that if 300 good men had climbed outside the fortifications and stationed themselves on its steep crest they could have warded off any attack. But a different plan was adopted: long wooden stages were slung from ropes between the towers at this point, so that the defenders could fight from two tiers with arrows and javelins from the staging above, with swords and spears from the battlements below.

On the morning following the refusal of his peace-terms King Khosrou sent part of his army down into the valley of the Orontes, to make assaults at various points of the city wall there while he went up the hill with a picked force against Orocasias. Those wooden stages were the undoing of Antioch. As the archers and javelin-men stationed on them were working hard to make the Persians keep their distance, with reinforcements continually rushing down from the towers to them, suddenly the ropes gave way — and planks and soldiers fell with a tremendous crash on top of the crowded parapet beneath. Hundreds were cither killed or gravely injured; and horrible cries went up, which the Persians answered with yells of triumph.

The men in the adjoining towers, not knowing what had happened, imagined that the wall itself had collapsed and that the Persians were forcing an entrance. They deserted their posts and rushed downhill into the city; arrived at the gate which leads to the suburb of Daphne, they shouted that they had seen Boutzes in the distance coming to their relief with an army and must hurry out to join forces with him. Nobody believed this story, but there was an immediate rush of civilians to quit Antioch while a chance still offered, the Daphne gate being the only one against which the Persians were making no attack. Then the whole cavalry force withdrew from the fortifications and converged at a gallop on this single gate, riding down the civilians and clambering out over a barrier of dead and dying. Soon Antioch was deserted of all troops except a few regular infantry and the city militia. The militia-men who had survived the collapse of the staging abandoned the Orocasias wall as soon as they realized that their flanks were no longer protected by the regulars. They drew up at the bottom of the hill, resolved to defend the streets. The Persians scaled the walls with ladders and entered without difficulty.

The militia-men then gave a brisk display of street-fighting in the approved Hippodrome tradition, with cobblestones and rapiers and bludgeons. The Blues attacked with their war-cry 'Down with the Greens!' and the Greens with their war-cry 'Down with the Blues!', and the Persians were forced to give ground against them. But King Khosrou, posted in a captured tower, observed that this was only a rabble army, and sent a squadron of his Immortals charging up the street. The militia broke, and a massacre began in which immense numbers of people of both sexes perished. Antioch was sacked, and in the Cathedral Khosrou found extraordinary stores of gold and silver, enough to pay for the whole campaign twice over. As a punishment for the street-fighting, he ordered the whole city to be burned down, with the exception of the Cathedral — for he said that he had no quarrel with the Patriarch. Even the suburbs were destroyed, more thoroughly even than by the earthquake of thirteen years previously. Half a million people were left homeless and starving. He assembled 100,000 of the younger and more active sort and comforted them thus: 'I shall bring you back safely with me to my own country and build you a new city on the banks of the Euphrates, which is a finer river by far than your Orontes. You shall have baths and market-places and a public library and a hippodrome — everything that you could possibly desire!'

Then he marched to Seleucia, the port of Antioch, and bathed in the sea, in fulfilment of a vow that he had made to the Sun God; and then up the Orontes to Apamea, where he again enriched himself with church treasures. There the people opened their gates to him, so he did not burn the city, and even allowed them to keep their most priceless possession — a half-yard of wood sawn from the base of the True Cross. Age and rottenness had made this relic phosphorescent, so that it shone in the dark, which was held miraculous. The priests kept it in a golden chest studded with jewels. But Khosrou took the chest.

It was at Apamea that he ordered a chariot-race in his own honour. 'Mark you,' he said,'the Green Colour must be given the precedence, since the Emperor Justinian and his Empress have, my ministers inform me, too long shown an unjust bias in favour of the Blue.' In Persia chariots are used only in parades and ceremonial processions; Khosrou therefore did not realize that the sport was competitive. The four chariots were released from the 'prisons', the charioteers strove with cry and blow for the lead, and the First Blue soon gained the inner berth: he shot fifty paces ahead of the Second Blue, with the two Greens a long way behind. Khosrou grew very angry and, seeing in the Blue chariots an emblem of the Emperor, he cried out: 'Stop the race, stop that Caesar! He has impertinently stolen the lead from my two chariots.' Persian soldiers rushed out into the arena and formed a barrier with lances. The Blue charioteers pulled up, for fear of impaling their horses, and the Green chariots were allowed to take the lead and win. This was the foullcst race ever seen in a hippodrome (and I could tell you of some pretty foul ones). The audience laughed uproariously, and Khosrou beamed at them, not realizing that the joke was against himself. 'Stop that Caesar' became a catchword in racing circles all over the world. Khosrou was of a naturally irritable and sarcastic temper. For example, he would ridicule the misfortunes of the people whose cities he destroyed by pretending to weep and saying: 'Alas, poor Christians, it was your misguided loyalty to our foolish, greedy cousin of Constantinople that brought you to this!' He was not altogether a bad man, however.

From Apamca he returned home, not by the way that he had come but by Edessa and Carrhae and Constantina and Daras. He accepted a mere 5,000 in gold as ransom-money from Edessa, though at first he had intended to storm it, because the Mages with him advised him against any such attempt. For his vanguard twice missed their road on their way there, and when at last they found it he suddenly began to suffer great pain from an abscess under a tooth in his lower jaw. The people of Edessa were not surprised to escape so slightly. They claim that Jesus Christ Himself once sent a letter to a citizen of Edessa who had invited Him to leave the foolish Galileans to their fate and come as an honoured guest to teach in Edessa. Jesus is supposed to have written: 'I cannot come, because of the prophecies in the Scriptures, but all good fortune shall attend you as long as you live, and I shall protect your city from attack by the Persians for ever.' This does not read to me as a likely reply in the circumstances: there was no threat from Persia in Jesus's day. Nevertheless, the men of Edessa have inscribed it in gold letters on the city gate; and as a protective charm it has only once failed to work.

While King Khosrou was still close to Edessa an embassy arrived from Justinian, agreeing to the terms suggested as a price for the restoration of the Eternal Peace — namely, an annual payment of 400,000 in gold, besides what had already been taken in the course of the campaign. As an act of grace Khosrou now offered to sell all the captives that he was bringing back from Antioch at a bargain price to the people of Edessa — who are notoriously kind-hearted. They collected, in addition to the ransom money of 5,000 pieces, the equivalent of fully 50,000. This sum was made up in silver and small money, and even in cattle and sheep, the voluntary contributions of farmers. The very prostitutes held a meeting, at which it was decided that all jewels whatsoever belonging to members of their guild should be added to the ransom money. Unfortunately, Boutzes arrived at this point, and announced that Edessa had disobeyed the Emperor in paying Khos-rou the 5,000. He forbade any more to be paid, and informed Khosrou that the people of Edessa had reconsidered the matter and would not conclude the bargain. He was angry with Khosrou that the ransom-price for his own brother Coutzes, captured thirteen years previously, had been fixed at an impossible sum, so that Coutzes had died in prison. As an act of private justice, Boutzes kept all the money from Edessa for himself; and Khosrou carried the captives off with him.

This was early in July. The news now reached King Khosrou that Belisarius had returned to Constantinople. He hurried home, contenting himself with extorting small sums of protection money from Constantina and the other cities through which he passed. He refused money from Carrhae, on the ground that it was not a Christian city but continued true to the Old Gods. At Daras he made a demonstration; then, levying a further 5,000 pieces there, passed back across the Persian frontier, well pleased with himself. As for the captives, he built them their new Antioch by the Euphrates, and they were by no means disappointed with it: a great many of them renounced Christianity and returned to the worship of the Old Gods in the temples that he built for them. Symmachus, the Athenian philosopher, came here too and opened an academy for the study of the doctrine called neo-Platonism — a sort of Christianity not complicated by the story of Jesus Christ or by arguments as to His nature. At the Hippodrome of New Antioch the Green Colour was under King Khosrou's particular protection, and was given all the best horses.

But as soon as Justinian heard that Khosrou was back in Persia he tore up the new treaty.

This, then, was the shameful story that greeted us in July on our arrival at Constantinople from Ravenna: in the three months Khosrou had cost Justinian a sum that ran into I cannot say how many millions, and exposed both the weakness of his defences and the cowardice of his troops. Few officers of distinction had accompanied Belisarius and my mistress home, and no troops except the Household Regiment, which by enlistment of Goths, Moors, and Vandals had now swelled to 7,000 men. These were all bold, sturdy fellows; for if ever any outstanding courage was shown by any fighter, whether he belonged to enemy or allied forces, Belisarius was always quick to engage him and turn him into a first-class soldier. At the defence of Rome the Household Regiment had so often borne the brunt of the Gothic attack that the Romans used to exclaim in wonder: 'The Empire of Theoderich undermined by the household of a single man!'

With us came a large train of captives, headed by King Wittich and Queen Matasontha and the children of King Hildibald. We also brought all the public treasures of Ravenna. These consisted of some ten millions in gold and silver bars and coin; the ancient regalia of the Empire of the West; great quantities of miscellaneous gold and silver plate, including the treasures captured by Theoderich in his wars in France and the treasures of the Arian Church (which Justinian had ordered to be dissolved); and the Roman standards captured long ago at the Battle of Adrianople, together with the very diadem that the Emperor Valens had worn on that disastrous day.

Of the standards and the crown Belisarius said, as we were Hearing home: 'The defeat at Adrianople is avenged at last. Ah, if my Uncle Modestus had only lived to sec me bring these back, what a classical banquet he would have spread for us!'

My mistress agreed: 'Yes, and what a more than classical speech he would have delivered!'

Belisarius was, I think, contrasting in his mind the sort of welcome that his uncle would have given him with what might, in the worst case, be expected from Justinian because of this atmosphere of slander and suspicion at Court. It was not that Belisarius was ambitious of honours and titles: he was satisfied merely with the sense of a task well done. But being naturally warm-hearted he was easily chilled by un-generosity in others. He was hoping, no doubt, for Justinian's sake as much as for his own, that all suspicions would vanish upon his return and the slanderers be confounded.

If I am right in so interpreting his thoughts, a great disappointment was in store for him. Never before in the world, I think, has a loyal and victorious general received so cold a welcome home from his Emperor. The city mob went perfectly wild in its expressions of admiration for Belisarius, acclaiming him as their only sure defender against the Persians. But Justinian was so jealous that he withheld the deserved triumph; nor did he even make a public exhibition of the Gothic spoils. These were landed privately at the Imperial port and stored in the Porphyry Palace, where none but members of the Senate were permitted to view them. Justinian was for not giving any of the money to Belisarius; for fear, I suppose, that he would scatter it to the crowd as largesse and so increase his popularity. But Theodora insisted that he should have at least half a million for the expenses of his household, because the men drew no pay or rations from public funds unless on active service. During all his wars, Belisarius not only gave his Household Troops extra pay and rations out of his own pocket, but made good their losses in arms and equipment — which was not at all a usual practice: he also awarded them rings and chains of honour for any signal military exploit and pensioned off the sick and wounded who were incapacitated for further fighting. More than tills, if any old soldier came to him and said, as it might be, ‘I lost an arm in your first Persian campaign and have come to beggary at last,' he would give him money, though the man had not been under his direct command at all. Such generosity, of course, increased the suspicion of Justinian whose standard of what was due to distressed veterans was a niggardly one.

The citizens used to say of Belisarius: 'He is a sort of monster. No man ever saw him drunk; he dresses as simply as his station allows; so far from being lecherous, he has not so much as cast a longing eye on a single one of his captured women though greater beauties than the Vandal and Gothic ladies do not exist in the world; he is not even a religious enthusiast.' Accompanied by my mistress and a large retinue of cuirassiers, he would leave his house in the High Street on foot every day and walk all the way to the Square of Augustus to attend to his business at the War Office, and later to pay his duty to his Sovereigns. The crowd never tired of staring at his tall figure and frank, grave face, and at the soldiers marching with even tread behind him. These were dark-skinned, delicate-featured Persians, and blond, yellow-haired Vandals, and big-limbed, auburn-haired Goths, and bow-legged, slant-eyed Huns, and Moors with crinkly black hair and hooked noses and thick lips. People used to stare at my mistress and whisper: 'She is a sort of monster, too. She destroyed many Goths herself, aiming with a catapult, and it was she who relieved Rome' I once overheard a priest say of her: 'Well did Solomon prophesy of this harlot in the Books of Proverbs: "She hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to Hell, going down to the chambers of death." '

Then, although only a distorted imagination could have read Belisarius's genuine modesty as affectation, Narses and Cappadocian John told Justinian: 'He is contemplating a rebellion. Look how he courts the favour of the mob, so that his least movement through the streets becomes a sort of festival procession. The radiance of Your Own Glorious Majesty is by contrast dimmed for the vulgar eye. He believes now that the two Empires are his for the taking: he has come here to Constantinople to make a parade of his captives, and will in due time attempt to snatch the Diadem from Your Serenity's sacred brow. Be the first to act.'

Justinian, being cowardly, put them off, saying:' I have no evidence as yet.' He was afraid of Theodora, to whom my mistress Antonina was so dear a friend; besides, if Khosrou made another invasion in the following year, Belisarius alone would be capable of stemming the attack.

As for King Wittich, he paid homage to Justinian and even renounced his Arian errors; so that he was raised to patrician rank and given great estates in Galatia — which marched with those that had been awarded to Geilimer. But the marriage between him and Matasontha was dissolved at their joint request. As a reward for her services in the matter of the burned granaries, Matasontha was permitted to marry Justinian's own nephew Germanus, the one who had helped to put down the mutiny of Stotzas. The other Gothic captives were formed into cavalry units and sent to guard the Danube frontier. So much, then, for the Goths.

At Constantinople we saw for the first time the completed church of St Sophia. The architect was Anthcmius of Trallcs. Justinian had told him: 'Spare no expense to make this the most beautiful and lasting building in the world, that God's name and mine may be glorified.' Anthemius was equal to the task. It is his name that deserves the principal glory; for Justinian merely approved his designs. If any other names are to be honoured, let them be those of Isidore of Miletus, Anthemius's assistant, and of Belisarius, whose Vandalic victory provided both the treasure which paid for the construction of the Cathedral and the necessary slave-labour.

The Cathedral overtops all the neighbouring buildings, lofty though they are. To compare greater with less, it is like some huge merchant ship anchored among ferry-boats in the Horn. Its proportions are so nicely calculated, however, that there is nothing brutal or forbidding in its size. It has, on the contrary, a graceful but serious nobility which I can only express by saying: 'Had Belisarius been as fine an architect as he was a soldier, that is the sort of church which he would have built.'

St Sophia's is more than 200 feet broad, and 300 feet long and 150 feet high. A huge cupola crowns it; and, as one gazes up from within at the ceiling, which is inlaid throughout with pure gold, it seems as though the whole structure must collapse at any moment, for there are no cross-beams or central piers to support it, but each part springs inward and upward to the central point of the cupola. The citizens tell country visitors: 'A demon, at the Emperor's command, suspended the cupola from the sky by a golden chain until the other parts were raised to meet it.' Many visitors take this pleasantry for truth.

There are two porticoes, each with a domed roof inlaid with gold, one for male and one for female worshippers. Who could worthily describe the beauty of the carved columns and the mosaics with which the building is adorned? The place resembles nothing so much as a spring meadow under a broad golden sun, with the great freestone pillars of the transept rising from it like trees; many different colours of marble have been worked into the walls and floor — red and green and speckled purple and straw-colour and butter-yellow and pure white, with here and there the blue sheen of lapis-lazuli. Exquisite carving and chasing and moulding make every detail delightful, and the numerous windows in the walls and cupola flood the transept with light. To appreciate this building and to worship in it the Wisdom to which it is dedicated one does not need to be an Orthodox Christian; and it is open at all times even to poor worshippers, so long as they have not offended against the laws and behave in a seemly manner. A beggar can enter and imagine himself an emperor, standing in the midst of such lavish splendour; only a few parts of the building are barred to him — such as the sanctuary, which is plated with 40,000 pounds' weight of glittering silver, and certain private chapels. As for relics of the saints and martyrs, they are stored here in profusion, and some of the inner doors are made of wood that (they say) once formed part of Noah's ark.

It was during a visit to St Sophia's, I believe, that the conviction came upon Theodosius that he was living a very aimless life, and that he would be at ease again only if he returned to his monastery. It was not that he was more truly a Christian now than before, but that at Ephesus his life had been regulated according to a strict rule and he had not needed ever to think what to do next. Theodosius was no vicious man; indeed, in accepting the monastic restraint upon the passions, he was enduring what most men would have found unbearable. He was aware, too, that he was the subject of continual gossip in connexion with my mistress Antonina, being called her plcasure-boy; and my mistress, in order to stifle this gossip, always addressed him with humiliating harshness in public, though very affectionately in private. Theodosius was also very weary of war and could not face the prospect of still another campaign- especially in the East, where Belisarius was likely soon to be sent: great heat always made him sick and empty-headed. He therefore secretly packed up a few possessions one night, took a passage on a fast merchant vessel, and went off to Ephesus; leaving behind him a short note of apology and farewell.

My mistress was so grieved at his disappearance that she could not touch food or conduct her daily business, and presently took to her bed. She was forty years old now, and the anxieties of the Italian campaign had given her an anxious, haggard look, of which no cosmetics or massage could rid her. Also, the change of her blood had recently begun, so that she was in a nervous and irritable state; she fell into a melancholy from which Belisarius, for all his love and patience, could not rouse her. It seems that she took Theodosius's departure as a sign that her great beauty (which he used to celebrate, courtier-fashion, in songs of his own making) had left her, together with all her widely acknowledged wit and charm. I consider that Belisarius showed true magnanimity on this occasion. When she confessed that only the presence of Theodosius could revive her, he went directly to Justinian and made a humble petition that Theodosius be recalled.

Justinian consented to write to the Abbot of Ephesus, desiring him to release Theodosius from his vows and send him back; but Theodosius claimed the right to become a monk as one that no human authority, not even the Emperor's, could deny him.

When, in the spring, King Khosrou resumed his military operations and Belisarius was sent hurriedly to the frontier to oppose him, my mistress remained behind in the city, saving that in such low spirits she would be only a hindrance to him.