Triumph

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Thinking the following day would be a repeat of its predecessor, Flavius was thrown when the object of the questioning went nowhere near the meeting at Edessa. Vicinus, who should have been chastened, looked supremely confident when he stood to speak to a hushed chamber. Now it was he who with some deliberation threw a glance at the balcony.

‘The senate has decided to call into question, Flavius Belisarius, certain of your decisions in your campaigns on the Persian border. I will put certain points to you and ask for an interpretation. I remind you that when you answer you do so before not only the senate of the Roman Empire but the Augustus whom we see fit to elevate to a position of guidance.’

Flavius, as Vicinus produced a dramatic pause, was thinking the word ‘guidance’ to be farcical; the assembly never dared challenge any decision made by Justinian or any of his predecessors all the way back to Octavian. The graveyards of the empire both east and west were full of the bones of those who had gambled and lost.

‘Added to that, you are answerable to God Almighty for the replies you provide.’

‘I have never doubted that the Almighty can see into the very depths of our souls and that sins committed in this life are paid for in the next.’

Meant to check Vicinus it failed; he flushed angrily. ‘You will confine yourself to answering what questions the senate puts to you. Your observations are not welcome.’

‘To some more than others,’ Flavius added pointedly. Such blatant defiance had Vicinus turn to the presiding officer, Decius, who responded with a sonorous rebuke.

‘Ancinius Probus Vicinus speaks for this house, Flavius Belisarius. When you defy him you likewise defy the senate, which will hardly bend us to whatever defence you produce.’

‘I ask that the charges be read out to me.’

‘A task I will happily undertake.’

Vicinus aimed his words at Decius who told him to proceed with a nod. His prosecutor then picked up a sheaf of papers and made his way to the well of the chamber there to wave them, though he obviously knew the contents off by heart as he made no reference to them as he spoke.

‘Item. That in the campaign of the Year of Our Lord, five-forty-one, you prematurely broke off fighting the enemy King Khusrow in order to rendezvous with your wife Antonina Belisarius at the fortress of Dara. In short, you placed your private desires ahead of the needs of you responsibilities.’

Flavius actually laughed, which brought a flush of anger to the cheeks of Vicinus. But he did not add any words to state how absurd such a notion was, given he had no desire that she should be at his side at all. That was dirty washing, not to be aired in public.

‘I hear no reply?’

‘While I suspect that given the inane nature of such an accusation you have more stupidities with which to accuse me.’

That got a look around the chamber from Vicinus. He was enjoying playing to the crowd, his face now wearing a smile that spoke of a deeper knowledge than his peers.

‘We are, my fellow senators, in the eyes of the accused, stupid.’

The voices of protest did not come from all the attendees, Flavius supposed it only emanated from the throats of those seeking to impress Theodora, and their desire to do so could be graded by their level of shouted rebuke.

‘By your actions you left isolated a substantial body of your own command. Your precipitate withdrawal handed back to Khusrow not only the recently captured city of Sisauranon, but in bypassing the fortress of Nisibis you failed to counter a thorn in the side of the empire. In what way do you plead?’

‘I retired because of plague in the army. Sisauranon was too far into Sassanid territory to be defended and there was no threat to our territory from Nisibis.’

‘No threat from Nisibis,’ Vicinus sneered. ‘Such a small matter that Anastatius Augustus, may God rest his soul, doled out a fortune in gold to build the fortress of Dara so that what you call “no threat” could be countered.’

‘There are many august people here in attendance, but few are soldiers, even less are commanders and none, I can say with confidence, have beaten the Sassanids in battle. I bow the knee to no man in that.’

Again Flavius was acutely aware of the way his words were received; that some of the senators were embarrassed when reminded of his famous victory, it was not enough to give him the impression that his statement altered the mood of the entire chamber.

‘Past splendours are not germane to this examination of your conduct, for what happened in forty-one was only a precursor to an even more telling dereliction shortly before you were called back to face this house. You are called upon to answer as to how it was possible that the Sassanid King could, at will, sack the city of Callinicum and enslave the entire population while you had an army in the field with the express purpose of opposing him. I might add he is now demanding we ransom these unfortunate captives.’

‘We agreed a truce, he broke it and it would not be the first time a ruler of the lands of Persia had broken a solemn undertaking.’

‘Solemn undertaking,’ Vicinus intoned, as if it were a disease as deadly as the plague. ‘And to whom was this “solemn undertaking” given?’

‘To me, as magister militium per Orientem.’

‘How convenient that you can produce this notion that is unknown to anyone else. Perhaps you would care to show where in writing this agreement exists.’

‘It was verbal and witnessed by my officers-’

‘Who would be the same men,’ Vicinus interrupted, ‘who saw you as a potential emperor? I doubt we can look to them for an honest assessment.’

‘You could if you were willing to try, which I sense is not your intention.’

Flavius was thinking of John the Cappadocian and his hints of the previous day. He had been foolish not to listen; at least he would have been prepared for this travesty of a trial, though he knew the outcome to have already been decided. Vicinus was not finished, as for the first time he consulted his papers and the list of further accusations poured out.

‘There is the matter of misappropriation of part of the Vandal treasure of North Africa, the tardiness of campaigning in Italy and questions regarding whether pay due to the army was instead diverted to your own coffers.’

On and on he went, there seeming to be no part of the past decades’ service in which Flavius had not either lined his own purse or, as a general, acted in a way inimical to the needs of the empire. It was odd to be so described and hear the disbelieving sighs of a group of men who were, unlike him, usually guilty of such crimes. It raised the nature of the word hypocrisy to heights never before achieved.

‘How do you plead?’ Vicinus demanded, holding up the list of supposed transgressions.

‘My conscience is clear,’ Flavius replied with slow deliberation, ‘but your own, Ancinius Probus Vicinus, is as clouded as that of the man from whose loins you sprang.’

‘Fellow senators,’ was the shouted response, those papers waved with fury this time. ‘Am I to be so traduced, and you with me, by such an ingrate? What honours has the empire bestowed on him only to find their faith misplaced?’

It was necessary for Flavius to detach himself from the proceedings as they continued, he refusing to grace the accusations with a reply, which carried on until the point where the ex-consul Decius asked that he remove himself while the chamber deliberated on how to respond. That he prayed was hardly surprising but it was not for forgiveness, if you discounted his own known sins, or for his life or eyesight, because he had to believe that not even Theodora would dare to be so vindictive with a man who was such a hero to the citizenry.

‘I beg not to be dishonoured.’

He begged for that in vain; the first act, sonorously pronounced by Decius but surely previously decided by the Empress, was to strip him of his title of magister. Next came the sequestration of nearly everything he possessed in terms of money and goods, though he was allowed to keep his villa south of Galatea. Lastly he was stripped of his comitatus, the best soldiers in the empire, they to be put up for auction to anyone seeking a military command and who had the means to fund their pay.

‘Finally, Flavius Belisarius, you are to attend daily the imperial palace so that at his own convenience the Emperor may call upon you to explain your manifest crimes and failures.’

If Flavius could not fathom the need for the last it soon became plain as, wandering the corridors with no real purpose, he was exposed to endless ridicule from anyone who chose to employ it; he was a pariah now and he would not be allowed to forget it, yet he harked back to Marcus Aurelius and the stoicism he had preached, so that when insulted he could smile in response, which did much to discomfit those seeking to diminish him.

The real problem was that he was barred from the audience chamber and had no contact by which he could apply pressure to Justinian to reverse the malice of his wife.

Of Antonina there was no sight; she made no attempt to contact him and he responded in kind. It was deeply wounding that part of the case presented by Vicinus must have been formed by her malevolence; no doubt she blamed him for the death of Theodosius, as if he could have fought off the disease that killed him. Or was it that she was such a dupe as to provide testimony coloured by her own twisted logic without a thought to the consequences?

Even ignored he was able to garner news of the state of fighting in the various theatres of war. In the east it was stalemate, which was of credit to Martinus, who had continued the Belisarian policy of containment. Matters were going well in Hispania, but in Italy the Goths had revived under a new king called Totila and his successes, allied to Byzantine losses, made for grim telling.

On leaving Ravenna his replacement, a patrician imperial administrator called Alexander had been appointed to rule Italy as a province of empire. He had turned out to be rapacious to an alarming degree, even going so far, it was reported, as to debase the coinage, the gold thus removed from the edges being split between himself and the imperial treasury, which kept quiet those stealing from that same sum of money in Constantinople.

His other acts, also condoned, were equally grasping. Alexander levied fines for the smallest perceived infringement and added to this was his accusation that the troops for whom Flavius had been responsible had been overpaid and thus must make restitution. He accused the Italians of underpaying Goth taxes going back to their invasion a century before and demanded such sums be made good, which infuriated the native citizens. In short, Alexander had undone all the good work Flavius had achieved in keeping the local population as supporters of Byzantine rule.

Worse, Alexander’s inferior commanders took their cue from him so that all over Italy there was now discontent at Byzantine rule and that had allowed the Goths to revive their military fortunes. The king who had taken the sceptre from Witigis, Ildibadus, had immediately sought to reverse the gains made by Flavius but with little success and part of that was brought on by an endemic Goth problem of internal dissension.

The ramifications of their disputes were tedious to relate and almost too tangled to comprehend but one fact was plain: Idilbadus had so alienated some of his close followers that one of them had taken advantage of his position to stab him to death and he was replaced by a tribal chieftain called Eraric.

In that leader they had seemingly found a fitting replacement for Theodahad, though his manoeuvres were aided by the inactivity of those who should have contained him, the numerous military commanders who now seemed more interested in fleecing the citizens of the towns over which they had control than fighting the Goths.

Even a pariah picked up gossip, although a good source of information was John the Cappadocian, who seemed willing to risk the displeasure of Theodora to openly communicate with him. Thus he knew of Eraric’s open request that he be granted the peace offered to Witigis, which involved the Goths surrendering all the lands south of the River Po.

‘I swear,’ John had informed him, ‘that these Goths make us look like saints. This Eraric has secretly offered to sell Justinian the whole of Italy.’

‘I can imagine the price to be high,’ had been Flavius’s jaundiced reply.

The price had proved too high for the Goths as well; Eraric should have known such an offer could not be kept from gossip and that proved to be the case. Murdered by his own troops the kingship had devolved onto Totila and in that king they had found a leader worthy of the title.

The moribund military commanders in Italy, prompted it was said by a furious Justinian, had finally roused themselves to react. Gathering in Ravenna they had set out to confront Totila who held Ticinum, the Goth city in which their rulers were chosen. Verona was on the way and it seemed sensible to take it first, but what the army in Italy now suffered from was the curse of divided command and it was not just two generals but several.

What followed, as passed to Flavius by John, had been an unmitigated disaster, yet at first the matter seemed easily settled. An imperial supporter resident in Verona had offered to surrender one of the gates and after much discussion and seeming reluctance to be responsible for taking advantage, one man had taken up the gauntlet. He was Artabazes, the former Governor of Sisauranon, who had entered Byzantine service with the men Flavius had sent back to Constantinople.

The reports indicated he had succeeded in taking control of the surrendered gate with as few as a hundred fighters, at which point he called for support from an army that was encamped too far away to speedily provide it. It was also a force in which endless discussion must proceed any action, so by the time it began to advance it was too late. When they finally arrived outside Verona, Artabazes and his men were in dire straits.

They held the curtain wall but the Goths, having seen how tardy was the Byzantine response, had retaken the actual gate, which left Artabazes and his men isolated. Pleas that an attack should be launched to aid them to withdraw fell to another lengthy and ultimately destructive dispute amongst the various generals and that left those still fighting no choice but to get away as best they could.

A few, including their leader, managed to get off the walls by rope; most were obliged to jump with the obvious consequence that those not killed in the attempt suffered such damage to their bones that they fell as easy prey to the enemies. With a failed attack the Byzantines moved on Ticinum unaware that Totila had decided to give them battle and was also moving on the river.

In sole command he proved to be a better opponent than the divided foes he faced. As Flavius had always insisted, division in the counsels of command could not but be observed by the men they led. That meant a lack of faith in proper leadership, which made the mood of the army fragile. This was proved by what followed.

By the simple ploy of fixing the Byzantine front and giving battle, then bringing up a force unknown in number that he had sent across the river previously to attack their rear, Totila induced the kind of panic inclined to affect any badly led force. Almost without having to fight, he watched as the Byzantines disintegrated and fled the field.

That had ended the year’s campaign but when fighting was renewed in the spring Totila held the initiative and he was rampaging at will through the peninsula. In order to bring some cohesion to the Byzantine forces Justinian despatched a general with the rank of praetorian prefect, which gave him full authority to act in the Emperor’s name. But despite having men at his disposal the prefect was both timid in his actions and quite unable to command those he had been sent to lead.

Totila had bypassed Rome and captured city after city to the south, few of which had walls to resist him, and given those that did contained enemies that would not move from their protection, he was able to range all over Apulia and Calabria, depriving Justinian of the revenues of those provinces needed to sustain a badly paid army. The result was a raft of defections.

The prize for Totila was Naples, well garrisoned and with a strong fleet on the way from Rome to reinforce that. It was to no avail; Totila knew they were coming and intercepted them with a fleet of his own, inflicting a stunning defeat and capturing their commander, who was obliged, when paraded before the walls of the city, to tell the citizens of Naples it could not look forward to relief, and after a truce of three months the city surrendered.

‘Flavius, how good it is to see you.’

These words from Antonina, who had appeared in a ghost-like fashion from behind one of the great columns of St Sophia, who had found her husband in prayer. He was, as usual, asking that those for whom he cared, alive or dead, had the Lord’s blessing, a point he made to his wife when she was informed of his entreaties.

‘Am I included in such supplications?’

This was asked with that air of faux innocence that Antonina had ever been able to contrive and the look on her face was one that held no hint of guilt for what had happened, either in his trial or since.

‘Would you consider you deserve to be?’ he replied, getting up from his knees.

‘I would hope that you think of me kindly. I am after all your wedded wife.’

‘And an example to all in the depth of your attachment.’

Intended to dent her carapace it failed utterly, as does water off the back of a duck, which reminded Flavius that he was, in many ways, no match for her, the fact of that reinforced by what came next.

‘I was much distressed by what happened to you.’

‘And so quick to show sympathy. I am touched.’

‘In fact,’ she continued as if he had not spoken, ‘I was saying to the Empress that I reckoned your punishment to be too harsh.’

‘I am sure she was moved by your opinion.’

‘Theodora takes heed of what I say. I have told her you would readily seek her forgiveness.’

Her sudden appearance was suspicious in itself, after many months in which she had been distant. But Flavius had now become so inured to monarchical manoeuvring that he felt he could discern the undercurrent of what was happening.

‘She has nothing to forgive me for.’

The response came with something close to a sneer. ‘It is a poor sinner who prays yet cannot see his faults.’

‘Why are you here, Antonina?’

‘In church? What an odd question.’

That failed to satisfy; he knew from long past that while she paid lip service to religion and could be called upon for a bit of chest beating if there was an audience to impress, her faith did not run deep. She was wedded to earthbound power not the celestial.

‘I have thought about you a great deal since …’ That got a pulled and anxious expression; she did not want to refer to his downfall too openly. ‘Your difficulty. I have racked my mind to find ways to help you.’

‘Don’t tell me. You have pleaded with Theodora to meet with me.’

The eyes shot wide. ‘How did you know?’

‘I decided, since I had nothing else to occupy me, to study how to be a courtier in this sin pit of a palace, a place in which you seem so much at home.’

That finally got through her defences. ‘You have no idea of the effort I have put in to intercede on your behalf.’

‘No, I have not,’ was the mordant reply.

‘And after much begging I have got Theodora to agree to meet with you.’

‘How kind.’

‘Indeed, if you were to accompany me now, she is alone in her apartments and I know, if I ask, she will receive you into her presence.’

He wanted to refuse, to tell his wife and through her Theodora, to go to perdition, but against that was his present state of limbo, which was driving Flavius mad. Also, he had to believe that this was in truth a summons and that meant there had to be a reason behind it. Was his pariah status about to be withdrawn?

‘I can hardly wait,’ he said, indicating that she should lead the way.

That did not encompass a far journey; St Sophia was attached to the imperial palace by a private passageway and soon Flavius found himself in the presence of Theodora, alone as had been promised.

‘Highness,’ he said with a bow.

‘Do I observe humility, Flavius?’

‘Who could not be humble in the presence of such prominence and piety?’

The look that got, for she could see the barb, was one that indicated he could still irritate her and easily, which pleased him. More important was the fact of her muted reaction; there was promise here and if he had prayed for the souls of others in church, he now uttered a silent one for himself.