Count Belisarius

CHAPTER 24

How can I bear to tell of the final cruelty, not possessing his patience or great heart who suffered it? My story has reached the year of our Lord 564, when Justinian had completed the eightieth year of his life and the thirty-seventh of his reign. The Empire was at peace at last, but it was such peace as a sick man attains after the crisis of a violent fever; and none can say, will he recover or will he the.

The Emperor had grown slovenly in appearance and slovenly in speech; and — this stout champion of Orthodoxy, this harsh persecutor of heretics — had now himself lapsed into a scandalous heresy concerning the nature of the Son.

It had been Theodora's view that the body of Jesus Christ had been insensible to fleshly passions and weaknesses, and was in fact incorruptible flesh, and therefore not human flesh; for the character of all ordinary flesh is to corrupt, she said, unless it be converted into a mummy, in the Egyptian fashion, or frozen by accident in a solid block of ice. But the Orthodox view was that Jesus, until the Resurrection, subsisted in corruptible human flesh, and that to deny this was Monophysitism, and detracting from the greatness of the sacrifice that Jesus had made for mankind.

Justinian brought forward Theodora's view (which in her lifetime he had always opposed) as a new discovery of his own; having her arguments fresh in his memory. In an edict he stigmatized those who held the opposite view as 'worshippers of the corruptible'. He required all patriarchs and bishops to assent to this novel article of faith. In trepidation they begged leave to consider the matter for a while. But the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was a careful scholar and a very upright man, tore his clothing and put dust on his head, exclaiming in such terms as these: 'This is worse even than the heresy of the Monophysites — it verges upon the blasphemy of the filthy Manichees, who declare that the two natures of the Son are contradictory. For, my dear brothers, if Jesus Christ, when living here upon earth, was in truth insensible to passions and weaknesses (as His Clemency would have us believe) what shall we say of the famous weeping for Lazarus, and of those protests on the Cross — the plea that the cup of suffering be put from Him? Such acts, testified to by the Holy Evangelists, would be cither madness or false feigning if the body of Jesus had, forsooth, been the invulnerable body of a deity.'

The Cathedral clerics informed against the Patriarch, and he was deposed.

Belisarius expressed no opinion on these matters. When Sergius, a leading Senator, questioned him about them, he replied: 'It is difficult enough to live according to the commands of Christ, without perplexing oneself with philosophical inquiries as to His nature. I would as soon busy myself with a critical study of the personal character of the Emperor.'

Sergius looked closely at him to sec whether there was sharp satire hidden in his words, but answered: 'Best of men, would not such a study be most illuminating?'

Every day Belisarius attended the Emperor at the Palace; unless the Court was in recess, when he would visit his estates and go hunting there. He remained frugal in habits, generous to the poor, beloved by his friends, and between him and my dear mistress Antonina no words ever passed but words of love and understanding. My mistress conformed to the Christian code of manners, and had by this time abandoned all her pagan ways — except that she still used certain innocent charms for the cure of toothaches and headaches and for immunity from witchcraft. So calm and orderly was the tenor of their lives that it seemed as if they were taking a slow walk together towards the grave, hand in hand, and that no further obstacle would be set in their path, or disaster overtake them.

But Justinian hated Belisarius with an unconquerable hate, and loathed the prospect of dying, to leave his enemy in the enjoyment of unchecked fame and prosperity.' He has stolen our glory,' was Justinian's cry. 'Our ungrateful subjects have a greater regard for him than for the Sacred Person of their Emperor.'

The infamous Procopius, who had been military secretary to Belisarius in all his wan, had spent some years in writing a long history of them. Being a downright, cantankerous man, not given to flatten-, he had told the bitter truth, concealing little or nothing about the treachery of this general and the incompetence of that, and had given due credit to Belisarius for his many victories gained against such enormous odds. He had not directly blamed Justinian for his caprice, incompetence, cruelty, procrastination, meanness, ingratitude, yet had told the historical facts in so straightforward a way that no person with sense, reading them, could fail to form a most unfavourable opinion of the monarch or to conceive the greatest admiration for the general. This history was at last sent to the copying schools at Alexandria, where it was published. It had circulated widely before Justinian became aware of it's existence, some five years before the Battle of Chettos.

When Procopius heard that the Emperor was angry and realized that he was in danger of death, he wrote an abject apology. He begged his Master to believe that, if he had written ill, Belisarius was to blame for having given him false information; and he undertook not only to withdraw all copies of the book, but also to write a historical work in eulogy of Justinian's own mighty deeds. Justinian pardoned him, gave him a pension, and raised him to patrician rank. Procopius took good care to speak only slightingly of his former patron, whom he no longer saluted in the streets, in order to retain the Emperor's favour. But Justinian was greatly dissatisfied when the work of eulogy was at last delivered to him. It proved to be only an account of his abstemiousness, his learning and piety, of churches built and fortifications raised. He had expected the former history to be rewritten in another style, so that he and not his subject Belisarius would be given credit for the conquest of Africa and Italy. He stopped Procopius's pension.

Then Procopius in the bitterness of his heart wrote a book of libels not only upon Belisarius and my mistress Antonina but upon the Emperor himself and dead Theodora. Sometimes he told the truth, sometimes he distorted the facts, sometimes he lied — according to his vindictive purposes. (Even I, Eugenius, was introduced into this farrago: for example, I was supposed to have assisted my mistress in the murder of the maid Macedonia: whose tongue, he said, was cut in little pieces and cast into the sea.) Procopius boasted to his friends: ' I have written a book that will put mildew and blight upon the names of certain great ones who have wronged me' But he kept the book from all eyes, intending it for posterity.

In the autumn after the Battle of Chettos, a fresh conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor was formed by a group of senators, headed by Sergius and Marcellus (the same who had been forgiven by the Emperor for his part in the former plot of Artaban the Armenian). The conspiracy was accidentally discovered and the leaders forced to betray the names of their accomplices. Among these leaders was Herodian, the general who had once surrendered Spoleto to King Teudel as an act of spite against Belisarius and then deserted to the Goths; after Teudel's death he had surrendered Cumae to Narses, and been pardoned by Justinian. On Herodian's return to Constantinople, Belisarius had taken action against him in the courts and recovered the debt of 50,000 pieces of gold which had figured in the story of the surrender of Spoleto. Hcrodian now, to escape the certain punishment of death, ransomed himself by a false confession that Belisarius was the originator of the plot against Justinian's life. At his suggestion Apion the Public Prosecutor sent his agents to break into Procopius's house in search of documents incriminating Belisarius. Here, locked in a chest, they found the revengeful book of anecdotes. Apion read it, and thereupon threatened that Procopius would be strangled for his insults, to the Emperor's Majesty — unless he consented to give such evidence as would secure Belisarius's conviction as a traitor. Procopius consented, and the book was returned to him. Now it will be understood why I name him the infamous Procopius.

Apion came to Belisarius's house early one morning, accompanied by two shorthand writers to the Crown and a party of soldiers. They found him playing at hand-ball before his plunge in the swimming-pool. I was among the players, keeping the goal. Belisarius greeted Apion cheerfully and said: 'Are you not the newly appointed Public Prosecutor? This is indeed an early call. Will you join us at breakfast after I have had my plunge?'

Apion answered very gravely: 'His Sacred Majesty's business cannot wait cither for your breakfast or mine, nor for any cold plunge. Put on your garments immediately, Count Belisarius. I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of high treason. Soldiers, seize these domestics; their evidence will be needed.'

Belisarius said to mc: 'Eugenius, note down the score of goals; we will conclude this game at some other time. Then beg your mistress, the Lady Antonina, to descend as soon as she conveniently can.'

But they prevented me from fetching my mistress. Apion said: 'The domestics of the Illustrious Antonina are also to be detained.'

Belisarius dressed himself and invited Apion and the soldiers to come into the tepid room, the day being cold. There Apion read out his warrant, in some such words as these:

To the Illustrious Patrician Belisarius, Count of the Imperial Stables, Commander of the Imperial Bodyguard and of the Armies in the East, Greeting I

Know, Belisarius, by these presents that we Justinian, your Emperor, are displeased with you and require you to submit peacefully to our officer, the Distinguished Public Prosecutor Apion, when he comes with soldiers to apprehend you.

You have repeatedly, over a course of many years, proved yourself a disloyal and mischievous subject, caring more for your own safety, wealth, and glory than for the Sacred Interests of your Master; as the following record will make clear.

First, in the fifth year of our reign, you did permit half of our City of Constantinople to be plundered and burned by the factious mob, before taking action against the ring-leaders, the traitors Hypatius and Pompey.

Item, when we sent you against the Vandals in Africa in the sixth year of our reign you did propose and intend to usurp our sovereignty in that Diocese; but certain loyal generals warned us of your guilt and we recalled you before you could do us that mischief.

Item, when we sent you against the Goths in Italy, in the eighth year of our reign, you did wilfully disregard our written instructions and conclude a peace with the enemy other than that we had authorized. You furthermore did enter into secret correspondence with the Goths and offer yourself to them as a candidate for the Empire of the West, again intending and proposing to usurp our sovereignty; but once more we prevented you. You returned home to this City leaving the Goths unconquered, which was a great hindrance to us.

Item, when we sent you against the Persians, in the thirteenth year of our reign, you avoided battle with them and allowed them to return home unmolested and to destroy our great city of Callinicum.

Item, in the fourteenth year of our reign, when we sent you once more against the Persians, you failed to take advantage of the King's absence, he being then at the task of devastating our territory of Colchis: you did not cross over into Assyria and by waste the land and rescue the captives taken at Antioch, though that would have been an easy matter; nor did you cut off the King's retreat from the said territory of Colchis.

Item, in the same year you also uttered treasonable words against our beloved Empress, Theodora, now with God.

Item, in the seventeenth year of our reign, when we sent you once more against the Goths in Italy, you accomplished nothing of note, wasted our treasure and forces and returned home after five years, leaving the Goths to be defeated at last by our faithful Chamberlain Narses. From Italy you wrote contumacious and threatening letters to us, and on your return were a party to a conspiracy against our life made by Artaban the Armenian.

Item, in the thirty-second year of our reign, after you had neglected out fortifications and the troops under your command, thus encouraging a barbarian inroad, you arrogated for yourself the glory of the repulse of these Huns, which belonged first to God Almighty and next to ourselves; just as in former times you had attempted to usurp the glory which we won against the Persians, Vandals, Moors, Goths, Franks, and other nations, making a show of yourself to the City mob and courting their favour with largesse.

What patience and long-suffering we have displayed, how many times we have pardoned you for your impudent acts and words!

Now, in this thirty-seventh year of our reign, it has come to our notice that you are implicated in another plot against our life. Our generals Herodian and John (vulgarly surnamed 'The Epicure') confess that you attempted to seduce them from their loyalty to us, and the Distinguished Patrician, Lord Procopius, who was formerly your military secretary, has denounced you to us for the same heinous crime. These confess that you agreed with them for a set day when a murderous attack should be made upon us with swords in our very Council Chamber, while we sat upon our Throne, and wore the Sacred vestments of Royalty. They feigned to consent, but were full of fear and repeated your words to our officers.

Know then, Traitor, that our royal pardon, so often freely granted, must be withheld at last; for a criminal who sinned constantly when his locks were black, and sins still while his locks are white, is not redeemable to virtue. It would be weakness in us to forgive beyond the scriptural limit of seventy times seven.

Obey!

Belisarius asked Apion when he had finished: 'Who prepared this warrant for His Clemency's signature?' Apion answered: 'I myself.'

'You seem by your speech to be a Thracian from the district of Adrianople. Do I recognize you after the lapse of so many years? Were we not schoolmates together under the learned Malthus?'

Apion's face grew red, for he could not forget what a mean figure he had cut in the eyes of his schoolfellows. He answered: 'That is neither here nor there.'

We domestics were led away to the prison and put to the torture, one by one — both slaves and freedmen, from the youngest foot-page to Andreas and myself, who were both close upon seventy years of age. We were racked and scourged; and twisted cords were bound tightly around our foreheads, and our feet were burned in a charcoal brazier. For some the torture was made more severe than for others. I was chained in a cell with Andreas before we were taken out to the torture. He had witnessed the arrest of Belisarius, and was hot with fury against Apion. 'The Public Prosecutor has followed a most glorious career while his schoolfellow was commanding the armies of the Emperor — quills, ink, parchment, humility, bribery! After twenty years as spare clerk, he attains the dignity of shorthand writer to the Crown; twenty years more and he is Assistant Registrar-General. Five more and he is Public Prosecutor, waited upon subserviently by the whole tribe — copy-clerks, messengers, process-servers, gaolers, policemen. A little copy-clerk boasts to his comrades: "The Distinguished Apion honoured me with a smile today, and remembered my name." Now bribes are taken, not offered; humility is laid aside. He is the fearful Torture-Master — lord of chains, scourges, racks, branding-irons, the taste of which now awaits us.' Andreas also said: 'That snivelling little Apion! I can still sec him crouched in a comer of the schoolroom, glowering at us because he was given no spiced bun — having shirked the snow-battle with the oblates. O bun of discord! I think we must persuade the President of the Streets to remove the Elephant from his pedestal and set up a statue of the distinguished Apion in his place.'

Andreas died under the torture, but in order to vex Apion he did not utter a single cry. I yelled and screamed without ceasing. I knew that to do so would cither satisfy the officer of the torture chamber or else disconcert him, so that he would say to the slave:' Enough for the moment, fellow: relax the cords, unscrew!' All my cries were: 'Long life to his Gracious Majesty!' and 'I know nothing, nothing.' So I escaped. Of the bodily injuries that I received that day I shall not trouble you. I am a person of no importance.

The inquisitors asked me again and again: 'Did you not hear the traitor Belisarius in conversation with Marcellus the Patrician — did he not utter treasonable phrases? Sec, here are written the words which your fellow-domestics heard him speak one evening at dinner with your mistress. Are you sure that you did not hear the same words yourself? They all swear that you were present.'

I denied everything and maintained that Belisarius was the best and kindest and most loyal of men. However, others confessed to all that was necessary, because of the torture.

I was not present at the trial, which took place in the month of January behind closed doors. They say that Belisarius made no reply to any of the charges except to deny them. There were wilder ones than those of treason. For he was accused of committing sodomy upon his adopted son Theodosius and filthiness upon his stepdaughter Mattha. He asked leave to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution — Herodian, John the Epicure, and Procopius; but this was refused by Justinian, who judged the case in person. They say also that when Justinian taunted him with the mockery of a fair trial, by asking: 'Are there any reputable witnesses whom you would wish to call, my lord, to testify that you are no traitor?' he replied: 'There are four.'

'And who are they? Arc they present in the city?'

'No, Clemency.'

'Name them, nevertheless.'

'Geilimer, formerly King of the Vandals; Wittich, formerly King of the Goths; Khosrou, the Great King of Persia; Zabergan, Grand Cham of the Bulgarian Huns. These know to their cost that I am no traitor.'

My mistress Antonina was charged as an accomplice. They say that when she was brought into Court she spoke in a rambling way, as if already in her dotage, bringing up foul memories of Justinian's life before he became Emperor. Her talk, they say, was very fanciful and sarcastic. She said: 'My friend Theodora of the Blue club-house had a little lap-dog, most gluttonous and lecherous. She used to talk theological nonsense to him all night and feed him with lumps of raw meat; and he was a fawning, inquisitive little dog and would lick every foot in the city and sniff at every street comer. We called him Caesar, but he had a barbarous Gothic name before that.'

She also said: 'Your worship, I knew a little, smiling, rosy-checked man once who committed fornication with three generations of women.' (She meant the Lady Chrysomallo, her daughter, and granddaughter.) 'He offered prayers to Beelzebub and never learned to speak good Greek. But in pity I was courteous to such a little, smiling, rosy-checked man.'

Justinian was agitated. He closed her case in haste: 'This noble lady has lost her wits. She must be put in charge of doctors. She is not fit to plead.'

Yet my mistress continued: 'The pretty girls of the Blue clubhouse all made the same complaints about Phagon the Glutton. They said that his demands on them were unnatural; that he was stingy with love-gifts; that he confused spiritual ecstasy with that of flesh — worshipping the corruptible; and that he smelt of goat.'

'Remove her, remove her!' Justinian cried in a shrill voice.

'Of goat and incense mixed. He was a bed-wetter, also, and had warts upon his thighs.'

The sentences were promulgated. The penalties were various. To some death by the axe, to some death by the rope, to others lifelong imprisonment. To Herodian and John the Epicure, pardon.

My mistress was confined in the Castle of Repentance which Theodora had built at Hieron, and her property given into the keeping of the Church. Belisarius's life was spared. But he was deprived of all his honours and all his possessions in land and treasure, and disqualified even from drawing the common dole. But still another fearful vengeance was taken upon him. Alas, now! Let me write it quickly: the light of both his eyes was quenched in the Brazen House that same evening with red-hot needles.

My mistress, prostrate on her pallet in the sick ward of the Castle, called for me at midnight and said: 'Eugcnius, do you fear the Emperor more than you love me and my dear husband?'

'What do you ask of me, mistress? I am yours to command.'

'Eugenius, take a boat across the Bosphorus and stand near the Brazen House, but out of sight; and be ready to act as a guide to my Belisarius when he is set free tomorrow. They will release him very early before the streets are full of people.'

I waited in the Square of Augustus, near the Brazen House, for many hours. At dawn I saw him rudely thrust out of the gate by two drunken soldiers. One cried: 'Go and seek your fortune now, old man. You are free as air.'

'Ay,' cried the other.' No money, no home, no eyes, no fame!'

But a young corporal came out and reproved them: 'You are two ill-conditioned beasts, who have never raised your heads above your trough of swill. Go now at once, I order you, and lie upon your backs on the pavement of the Brazen House. Gaze up at the mosaics on the ceiling and observe the pictured battles there. You will sec the great victories of the Tenth Milestone and Tricameron, and the capture of Naples, and the defence of Rome, and the victory at the Mulvian Bridge. From whom does the Emperor in those pictures receive the spoils of victory — kings and kingdoms and all that is most valued by monarchs? Why, from this Belisarius, whom you now insult in his blindness, denying that any fame remains to him!'

Belisarius, turning his sightless face towards the Corporal, said: ' Softly, best of men! Whom the Emperor hates, shall his soldiers praise?"

The Corporal replied: 'My father fought in Persia and in Africa with your Household Squadron, and fell at Rome defending Hadrian's mausoleum. If these ruffians take fame from you, they dishonour my father's memory. Accept this broken spear-staff, brave one, to steady your faltering steps. I do not care who hears me say: "Fame cannot be quenched with a needle." '

The streets were empty of all but scavengers and homeless beggars. Belisarius, staff in hand, walked with many pauses down the High Street, across the coloured marble flags of the pavement; I followed him at a little distance. When he reached the statue of the Elephant he stopped to finger the rugged legs of the beast. I heard him mutter idly to himself: 'Behold now Behemoth whom I made with thee; he eateth grass like an ox. His bones are as strong pieces of brass, his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God.'

Presently he spoke again more to the purpose, quoting from the same book:' Behold I cry out of wrong but I am not heard, I cry aloud but there is not judgement He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths. He hath stripped me of my glory.'

Then I spoke sofdy from behind him and said: 'My lord, this is I, Eugenius the eunuch. My dear mistress Antonina sent me here to be your guide.'

He turned and reached out his hand for mine, drew me to him, and embraced me. Then he asked anxiously after my mistress, and I gave him her sorrowful messages of love. As we walked on, he ate the white bread and fruit that I had brought from her for his breakfast.

Belisarius asked me to guide him to the suburb of Blachernae; he went with such great strides through the empty squares and streets that it seemed rather that he was guiding me than I him. Nobody heeded us. An easterly wind brought the smell of new bread from the municipal bakeries, which he remarked upon; and as we passed through the docks in the district of Zeugma he snuffed with his nose and said: 'I smell cinnamon and sandalwood and sailors. This blindness will make a very dog of me.'

At last we came to the monastery of St Bartimaeus at Blachernae. There Belisarius rapped with his staff on the postern gate, and a lay-brother opened.

Belisarius demanded to sec the Abbot, but the lay-brother replied: 'He is at his accounts; I cannot disturb him for such as you.'

Belisarius said: 'Tell him, I beg, that my name is Belisarius.'

The lay-brother laughed at what he judged to be a pleasantry. For Belisarius was dressed in a commoner's tunic, soiled by prison wear, and had a dirty clout fastened over his eyes.

The lay-brother joked: 'And my name is the Apostle Peter.'

Through the door I perceived the monk Uliaris passing along a passage on some errand. I cried out to him: 'Brother Uliaris, to the rescue!'

Uliaris hurried to the door. When he perceived Belisarius's fate, he wept bitterly and cried out:' O dear friend, O dear friend!' — not finding other words.

Belisarius said: 'Uliaris, beloved comrade, go, I beg you, to your reverend Abbot and obtain from him a certain possession of mine, which I once lent to his predecessor until I should have need of it. It is the wooden begging bowl of St Bartimaeus, your patron: the hour of my need is now.'

Uliaris went to the Abbot, who at first would not yield up the bowl. He protested that it was a sacred relic, not to be handled by profane hands, and, moreover, a great source of revenue to the monastery; and that the Emperor would be angry if charity were shown to Belisarius.

Uliaris told the Abbot: 'God will assuredly curse our house if we withhold this bowl from the rightful owner, by whose generosity we have benefited these thirty years.'

Then the Abbot consented, though unwillingly, and gave Uliaris the key to the jewelled chest in which the bowl was kept. Uliaris came out again to us and delivered up the bowl.

Belisarius traced the carved inscription with his finger, repeating aloud the words 'Poverty and Patience'. Uliaris was still so oppressed by grief and astonishment that he found no words of farewell. He embraced Belisarius and went inside again.

Belisarius and I now made our way to the suburb of Deuteron by the Golden Gate. We stopped at the portico of a church of the Virgin. Here Belisarius sat down to beg on the steps; but the beadle, not knowing him, drove him away roughly. He suffered the same treatment at the Churches of St Anne, St George, St Paul, and the Martyr Zoe. For these beadles reserve the church steps for certain professional beggars who pay them a proportion of their alms in return for the privilege. At last he asked me to guide him to the monastery of Job the Prophet, not far off, where at last he met with kindness. For a beggar already posted there recognized him and rushed to weep upon his neck; it was Thurimuth, the guardsman, again fallen on evil times.

Belisarius sat down against a buttress of the cloister, crossing his legs. By this time the streets had begun to fill. With the bowl upon his lap he called in a clear, proud voice: 'Alms, alms! Spare a copper for Belisarius! Spare a copper for Belisarius who once scattered gold in these streets! Spare a copper for Belisarius, good people of Constantinople! Alms, alms!'

At this strange cry, which seemed a command rather than a plea, a great crowd began to gather; and a common wonder gave place to common indignation when they recognized their former hero and saviour — a blind beggar at the roadside. Soon money rained into the bowl, silver and gold pieces mixing with the copper. Though some shrouded their faces with their cloaks as they gave, there were many men of rank and substance who did not so conceal themselves, and also many women.

Now certain of his veterans gathered at the news. They formed as it were a bodyguard to prevent the people from pressing too closely upon him, so that each passed by singly, paying his debt of gratitude to Belisarius for the city's deliverance from the Huns. Thurimuth had fetched a sack: as often as the bowl was filled he emptied the coins into the sack and gave the bowl to Belisarius again. Before evening fell forty thousand people had passed, and there were many sacks full of money. But still Belisarius chanted: 'Spare a copper for Belisarius, good people of Constantinople! Alms, alms!' All gave according to their quality — poor old women gave farthings, and children halfpence. Even the prostitutes contributed silver from their night earnings. One man brought a broad gold piece, quoting: 'Whose is the image and superscription?' It was an example of the medal struck after the conquest of Africa, proclaiming Belisarius 'The Glory of the Romans'.

When Justinian heard what was happening he was both angry and alarmed. The temper of the people was rising, and there were disloyal shouts in the streets and demonstrations before the Palace. On the walls of the public buildings were scrawled in chalk such phrases as these: in Latin, 'Justinianus ab injustitiis' (Justinian, so called for his injustices) and, in Greek, 'Samson in his blindness destroyed a King and his Court.'

Justinian sent hurriedly for his Chamberlain, and ordered that a pardon be drafted; which he signed, restoring to Belisarius all his titles and property. Presently the blind man was escorted in honour back to his own house by his faithful veterans. He divided among them the money which he had collected — it amounted to 200 gold pieces for each man. But the bowl he returned to the Abbot.

My mistress Antonina was now released from the Castle of Repentance. For the few weeks that remained to Belisarius of life, he enjoyed perfect serenity. My mistress Antonina was constantly by his side; and every day three or four of his veterans called upon him for a gossip about old times, arranging the turns among themselves. He was forbidden to leave the grounds of his house, for Justinian was afraid of the people; but such regard was shown for him, and so many people were anxious to call upon him, that it seemed rather that he held a Court here than lived under a sentence of detention.

Belisarius died in his sleep on the thirteenth day of March in the year of our Lord 565. It was thought a remarkable thing, when his body was laid out for burial, that he had no scars at all to show for so many bloody battles fought all the world over. My mistress Antonina, who took his death calmly, as he would have wished, said: 'Ay, the only injuries that he ever suffered were at the hands of his own Emperor.'

Before the year was out, on the thirteenth day of November, Justinian, too, was dead, of a gangrene. Where the souls of each went, let the Christians dispute. But they say that Justinian's end was both noisome and weird; and that as he finally gave up the ghost, squeaking with terror, the voice of the Father of Lies rang through the Palace rooms, in sinister parody of the Scriptures: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

Justinian had his desire in outliving his enemy Belisarius. But, of the four persons so closely linked together in this story — Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius, Antonina — the longest-lived was my dear mistress. After Belisarius's death she became very quiet, and soon I was the only person for whom she had a word. Finally, she asked me to take her to the convent where her daughter Joannina was now Abbess; and there, not long after making her peace with Joannina, she died. She bequeathed all her money to the same convent, except for an annuity sufficient for my needs.

I outlive even Narses. Let me tell of his end and then be done. At Justinian's death, Justin succeeded to the Empire — not his grand-nephew Justin, Germanus's son, but an elderly cousin, the son of Justinian's sister Vigilantia. Then Narses, still the Governor of Italy, was informed against by a deputation of Italians who came to Justin at Constantinople. Narses had ruled well and firmly, but the poverty of the country was such that his collection of the revenues could not but seem oppressive. Justin consented to dismiss Narses, writing to Italy that he was excused from further command because of his great age. Narses, yielding his authority and title to a certain Longinus, left his Palace at Ravenna, and retired to a villa at Naples. There he received an offensive private letter from Sophia, grand-daughter of Theodora's sister Anastasia, now Justin's Empress: in it Sophia cruelly observed that he did well to leave the profession of arms to men, and enjoined him to resume his former occupation of wool-spinning among the Palace maidens. The reason for this expression of ill-will was an un-forgiven slight that Narses had once put upon her while he was Chamberlain.

When Narses read her letter, he cried aloud: 'I will spin Her Resplendency such a thread as she shall not unravel all her life.' Thereupon he proceeded to spin a thread of intrigue with the enemy across the Northern frontier. (Though you may disbelieve it, Narses was ninety-four years of age, but as active in mind and body as many a man of fifty. At the age of ninety-one he had gained a great victory in the North against one Count Vidinus, a rebel, and against the Franks and Alemans who supported him.)

Justin had been aware that the savage Lombards were meditating an invasion of Italy, and was anxious that his friend Longinus, the new Governor of Italy, should gain the glory of repelling them. But Narses, having determined to be revenged on the Empress Sophia, sent a messenger to King Alboin of the Lombards, saying: 'The Emperor has removed mc from my command and thrown open the fertile fields of Italy to your resolute warriors.'

These Germans thereupon invaded Northern Italy by way of the Brenner Pass. Narses wrote to Justin, volunteering to repel Alboin if immediately restored to his command. But Justin paid no attention to him. Then the Lombards, whom Longinus lacked the resolution to oppose, seized all Italy to the north of the Po, and occupy it securely to this day. Narses died of remorse.

Now what must be said of Belisarius's patient submission to the cruelty and caprice of Justinian, his Emperor? Some have held, because of this, that his character stands far higher than an ordinary man's; others that it falls far below, being equal to that of a poltroon. The matter could be disputed endlessly. What holds more weight with me than any idle philosophical argument is my knowledge of Belisarius's own views. For, just as he did not hold with the Donatists of Africa, who refused to accept the Sacraments from the hands of an evil-living priest but only from one of unblemished reputation; so he did not hold with political Donatists, who constituted themselves critics of those set in authority over them, and ruined all by their disobedience and ignorance. For my part, being a domestic, I find the surest index to a man's character in his treatment of domestics: it mirrors the dignity with which he comports himself towards those set in authority over him. Belisarius was the sweetest master, I believe, that ever servant had.

There is this to be noted: though Justinian treated Belisarius execrably, he never once ordered him to perform any act that was plainly against the laws of God; for Belisarius would not have obeyed, be sure, holding the laws of God as superior to any commands of man.

And there is this too: Justinian, for all his supposed dealings with Beelzebub, was very zealous for the Christian faith. He kept vigils, fasted, built and enriched monasteries and churches, discouraged infidelity, enlarged the temporal powers of the bishops — and obeyed in all seriousness the ironic injunction of Jesus to turn the other check to those who smote it. Thus: he paid money to the Cham Zabergan who had devastated Thrace, he conferred patrician rank on Artaban the assassin, he honoured such proved traitors as Herodian and John the Epicure. After Theodora's death he even recalled the beggared Cappadocian John to the city from Alexandria and cosseted him again. Yes, to evil-doers the Emperor was extravagantly forgiving. But with honest men he was at a loss, since Christian doctrine chiefly instructs how to treat with sinners, oppressors, slanderers, and traitors, but gives little indication for the reward of natural virtue. (It is more blessed to give than to receive; to forgive than to be forgiven.) Thus Justinian rewarded Hypatius with death for his uprightness of conduct during the Victory Riots; and treated the noble Germanus with suspicion and disdain; and with Belisarius played the very fiend. My meaning is: I think that Belisarius pitied Justinian for wishing to be a Christian and yet wanting the knowledge of how to set about it.

According to the Evangelists, Jesus Christ spoke a parable once about a strayed sheep rescued at last by the shepherd; and drew the moral that there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just men who have no need for repentance. Here, no doubt, Jesus spoke ironically again, meaning by just men' the mean and self-righteous. But Justinian, in his old age, absurdly improving on the parable, seemed to have decided that the shepherd must insult and torture the single sheep who remained dutifully in the sheep-fold rather than stray out with his ninety-nine depraved fellows; and to have drawn the moral that there is indignation in Heaven when any person (other than the Son of God Himself) behaves with inflexible probity. This view is not uncommon among eminent theologians, luxuriously aware of their own sinful impulses.

'Under the Old Gods', my former master Damocles used to say, somewhat exaggerating the case, 'virtue was always honoured, ignominy frowned upon; the felon's cross was not gilded and jewelled; man did not revel in self-abasement.' But let anyone believe what he pleases. And if he happens to be a simple devotee of virtue, not a logic-chopping, hypocritical theologian or perverted ascetic, this story will not offend him, but contrariwise confirm him in his principles. For Count Belisarius had such a simple devotion to virtue, from which he never declined. Those of you for whom the Gospel story carries historical weight may perhaps say that Belisarius behaved at his trial before Justinian very much as his Master had done before Pontius Pilate, the Governor of Judaea — when unjustly accused of the very same crime, namely treason against the Empire; and that he suffered no less patiently.

So much, then, for these things.