Triumph

CHAPTER SEVEN

The thought of a decisive battle, never in truth far from his thoughts, played strongly on the mind of Flavius over the following days and he deliberately sought the views of the junior officers, those in closer contact with the troops. Thanks to past campaigns he knew many by name, and if few were as frank as they might be, what he heard indicated a degree of frustration: the Goths had ceased attacking the walls and too many were not the kind of soldiers he could employ in his hit-and-run tactics.

Being idle made them restless and that had begun to manifest itself in a spate of criminality, not anything out of control but a series of individual thefts or beatings that went right against the edict regarding respect for the local population, which had been an abiding tenet of Flavius ever since he first exercised command. What was the point of alienating people you may in future depend upon, especially if they were citizens of a city your emperor wished to rule?

Retribution, when a miscreant was apprehended, was swift and brutal; a rapid public hearing at which he presided and if proven guilty an immediate rope or a beheading. In one case, the rape of a young girl who had declined to leave the city, Flavius handed the perpetrator over to the citizens to do with as they wished and the man was brutally quartered, an act he hoped would strike enough fear into his own men as to cap any further transgressions.

In this judicial role he was obliged to have dealings with the important Romans – he had to accept that here in their city he and his men were Byzantines – given it was they who demanded justice. Flavius, always accompanied by Procopius, had been careful to consult with such men from the very first day of the occupation, eager to convey the impression that he was acting in the best interests of both Constantinople and Rome, regular meetings that took place in the building that housed the Roman Senate.

That body still gathered to debate as it had since the days of the Republic, even if it was a sham, as much as its namesake in Constantinople. There the Emperor made the decisions; in Rome it was the heads of the various clans, the leaders of the families who had for many decades controlled the city, oligarchs who sought for themselves the most lucrative offices, sinecures to be fought over in a morass of competing political aims, convenient alliances and endemic duplicity.

The most powerful groups had their less puissant clients, men who knew which way to vote to gain favour and profit. Such clans also employed armed retainers, while exercising control over the criminal cliques that lorded it in the various urban districts, associations that could always be relied on, when the needs of their overlords were unsatisfied by political negotiation, to either riot or intimidate.

The other source of power in the city lay with Pope Silverius, who in terms of wealth controlled more coin than even the collective senators. Rome had been for two centuries now a destination for pilgrims, many threadbare individuals but a goodly number of wealthy magnates in search of salvation. Every one, high and low, brought their gifts to the city where St Peter had founded their faith.

Was it the Pope who pressed for action, given that in a city under attack those revenues had dried up? A lifetime of observation had told Flavius that divines, whatever creed they ascribed to, cared as much for their coffers as the needs of their flock, too many times the former taking precedence. Had Silverius been whipping up discontent for his own venal ends while staying in the background?

However it had come about, the men he faced now were under pressure from a dissatisfied citizenry, keen to impress on Flavius their willingness to partake in the defence of their city, though not one of them even hinted at any personal involvement. Their volunteer cohorts, they insisted, would be a match for the Goths, a point of view that flew in the face of all previous experience: the same barbarians had encountered little difficulty in ruling the city, both lay and ecclesiastical, with a small garrison, so their claims sounded like vainglorious boasting.

Flavius suspected any untrained levies Rome fielded would be more of a hindrance than a help. Yet employ them he must, if only to keep these puffed-up politicians as well as Silverius on side, they collectively being as capable of causing him difficulties as providing his army with support.

Procopius was sure that some were secretly in touch with Witigis, even if he was himself a man they had once betrayed. Fail to heed their requests and they might undermine the entire defence of the city, though Flavius made a point of originally demurring before allowing himself to be persuaded. That way he flattered them.

‘My friends, I find my doubts assuaged and I am humbled by the strength of your feeling for the cause to which we all ascribe.’ He made a point of looking at the bishop Silverius had sent as a representative. ‘And does not your presence tell us of a divine will that it would be blasphemy to deny?’

The faces before him, hitherto full of eager persuasion, began to relax, while the bishop sought to look suitably virtuous. Glances were exchanged between them to ascertain they had heard right, answered with nods, this as Flavius underlined his point.

‘I have long considered when the time would be ripe to seek to fully defeat the Goths and you will be pleased to know I feel it is close at hand. To show that I have confidence in the men on whose behalf you have pleaded, when we move out to confront Witigis, I will employ them as a body and allot to them an important place in my plan of battle.’

Happy murmurs and smiles greeted this statement, which they took to mean an equal share in any plunder of the Goth camps. If they had seemed puffed up prior to what had been said they seemed to fill with even more conceit as the meaning sunk in: their levies were, militarily, to be treated as equals.

‘I know you too well,’ Procopius whispered as they left the senate chamber. ‘You never repose much faith even in our own infantry, never mind these Romans.’

Procopius spoke nothing but the unvarnished truth; if Flavius Belisarius had won many battles there had also been losses, and on those occasions it had been the flight of the infantry in the face of attacking cavalry that had brought on defeat.

He was not alone in suffering from this, it was the bane of every one of his contemporaries, both those who served the empire and its enemies. The army of the day had moved on from the brute foot soldier tactics of the legions. Now the effective arm was cavalry, infantry being raised to provide numbers only when some danger threatened.

This left whoever led them – even if he was inclined, and many were not – short of time to train them to do more than move forward and back as a body, the latter harder than the former, the greater requirement being that they hold their ground when attacked. In addition, they were rarely gifted with the kind of leadership that would meld them into a homogeneous body willing to engage in collective and mutually beneficial action.

Only when he had been given both time and space, as on the way to North Africa, had Flavius been able to pick and instruct their competent officers, while dismissing the inept, for they alone could inspire them to show courage. Lacking proper leadership and perceiving doom about to descend upon their ranks they broke and ran, only to pay the price of their panic as those same horsemen, whom they could not outrun, cut them down.

Flavius waited till he was well away from any risk of being overheard before he felt free to respond. ‘Never fear, Procopius, I will take good care to place them where they can do the least harm.’

Which he did, deploying them between the Porta Pancratia and the western walls, packed into a constrained section with the Tiber bridges at the back and stout masonry to their front, where they would remain until the main battle to the north-east of the city had produced a victory.

Yet Witigis had one of his camps on that flank, which needed to be dealt with, so he instructed Valentinus, now in command in that sector, to march out to confront the Goth forces on the Plains of Nero, his task to prevent them from being free to cross the Milvian Bridge, the sole route by which they could reinforce Witigis and participate in the main effort.

‘But you are to avoid battle. I will give you the Moorish cavalry to add to your own troops but you are to hold the Goths. Do not engage them closely unless orders come from me to do so and keep a firm grip on the Roman levies.’

The temptation to add ‘If possible do not use them at all’ had to be resisted lest it get back to the ears of those who had forced his hand; it was a message to impart in private.

Valentinus was not good at hiding his disappointment – he was being asked to act passively, not a command to be welcomed, so Flavius sought to assuage his pride. ‘It takes an exceptional general to avoid battle while still holding ground, which is why it falls to you.’

If that was fabrication it sufficed, having been stated before his peers, to satisfy that subordinate. This allowed Flavius to outline the rest of his thoughts, how they would deploy as well as his stated aim to make this a cavalry fight, given the number of horses taken from the Goths meant he could now mount a very high proportion of his army.

‘Will the Goths not seek to fight us close to the walls?’ asked Bessas.

‘I believe we have nothing to fear until we are fully deployed.’

To which Constantinus added, ‘Witigis will want this coming contest as much as we do.’

The Isaurians comprised the one major component not mounted; they had come to serve on foot and they would do so now as a body. Yet in terms of battle they were an unknown quantity, having arrived in Sicily as reinforcements. Since landing in Italy they had been given little deployment in the open, though they had the success of that raid through the Naples aqueduct as a laurel.

In the need to move north at speed, followed by the requirement to defend the walls of Rome, Flavius had been afforded no time to act on what he suspected to be their deficiencies. A good number of the men who led them were not of the stamp any general would have chosen, being too careful of their own comfort rather than that of their men.

Added to that they resented any reference to their lack of personal respect, Flavius having been at pains to point out, when he had the time, that men fought not for some great cause but for the fellow next to them and the faith they reposed in the man who was their leader.

His solution was, in part, to replicate the action taken at Naples; he flattered the senior Isaurian officers in whom he had little faith by giving them the higher status of cavalry and attaching them to the mounted foederati. They were replaced with two long-serving members of his own bodyguard, Principius and Tarmutus, the latter the brother of Ennes who had led the Isaurians into the Neapolitan aqueduct.

They would deploy in front of the moat; there the foot soldiers would be close to the city and, if they were broken, would not have far to run to get to a position of safety, while the moat would break the charge of any pursuing cavalry. Neither of the men he appointed questioned the need for such a precaution. If the day favoured Flavius it would be achieved by cavalry, the Isaurians then following up to occupy and pillage the Goth camps.

Yet they had another role and a vital one. Flavius was not the kind of general to assume victory would follow automatically from whichever action he initiated. If suffering previous defeats had been hard, they provided a valuable lesson: with two armies on the field, and on this occasion he would be outnumbered, a steady body of infantry was required to act as a backstop behind which his mounted forces, if thrown into retreat, could re-form.

The supposition that Witigis would do nothing to impede the movement of his enemies proved correct. He knew from numerous spies what was coming and made no attempt to close with the walls and prevent their exit. Quite the reverse: the Goths lined up before their own camps, further off than anticipated and silent as, with horns blaring and much shouting, their enemies formed up in three detachments of cavalry, each several thousand strong, before moving to within range of where their archery would be effective.

Opposite them in the front centre, the Goths had placed their best protected and heavily armoured infantry, providing security for their less numerous archers deployed to the rear, while Goth cavalry formed the two wings. The difference in reaction to the opening salvoes, compared to previous engagements, was telling; the Goths in the centre suffered less than they had previously by the clever use of their shields. Yet still there were casualties, only this time there was no breaking of their forward line. If a man fell, that merely closed up and the remainder held their ground.

Slowly but inexorably the distance between the two armies shortened as the Byzantines crept forward and with frustration being added to the mix – such a stoic resistance was infuriating – the cavalry began to attack the enemy line, the bucellarii, included, given they were running short on arrows. Great loss was inflicted with spears, but they too were diminished and that caused the gap to narrow sufficiently to allow close combat, Flavius’s men on horseback against Goths on foot in the centre, cavalry fighting cavalry on the wings.

Witigis had wisely held his centrally placed archers in reserve. But now with their enemies fighting right on their front line and, elevated by being mounted, they presented prime targets, more so the horses than the armoured riders, for without his mount a cavalryman was of little use.

Those who suffered from such tactics and ended up dismounted did not stay to fight on foot; with an abundance of horses held before the moat they streamed back to the city to secure a remount, unwittingly creating an opportunity for their enemies. Such conduct depleted the numbers attacking at a time when there was very little for the Goths to fear from archery and that was the point at which Witigis seized his opportunity.

The charge by the Goth right wing buckled the Byzantine left sufficiently to allow them to turn face-to-face combat into a melee. Now it was Byzantine cohesion that began to crack and as the left-wing cavalry sought to disengage enough to re-form, a near to impossible manoeuvre to carry out while under assault, it began to crumble.

Flavius, seeing what was happening, had the horns blown to order a general retirement, his intention being to re-form the whole behind the Isaurians, who would hold the Goths until he could renew his assault. With commendable discipline his centre and right divisions broke off in good order and successfully disengaged.

The trouble on the left was more acute; there the losses had been greater and the mixture of friend and foe more serious, which had rendered an increasing number horseless. They were straggling to the rear so there was no cohesion in the retirement on that flank, due to lack of numbers and enemy pressure. It broke into a near collapse and the disordered body of men retreated in some confusion, which would not have mattered if the Isaurians had held.

Seeing one-third of the cavalry before them in flight the mass reacted as infantry usually did: safety lay behind the moat and it was to that to which they now ran. This meant that without a shelter behind which they could re-form, the rest of the cavalry, albeit in proper formations, had no choice but to aim for the same sanctuary.

The greater mass of the Isaurians were now in a state of utter panic. They did not stop at the moat, instead making for the nearest gates, two placed at a point where they formed a tight angle into which the infantry now crowded, there to clamour at the mass of Roman citizens lining the walls. The gates, despite their pleading, remained closed.

Flavius, Constantinus, Bessas and all the other senior commanders were not idle; with the flat blades of their swords, added to hoarse and repeated shouting, they were busy ensuring that the cavalry formed up behind the moat to repulse their enemies. Only when a modicum of order was restored did it become obvious why they were being gifted the time. Not all of the Isaurians had broken; out in the fields stood two tight squares of infantry who between them had broken up the Goth pursuit.

Led by Principius and Tarmutus, this diminished force was seeking to do that which should have fallen to the whole. That they could not hold was obvious but before he could give them support Flavius had to mount a defence with his back to the walls of the now closed city, any pleas to the citizens to open the gates denied.

‘Is there anything more treacherous than a Roman, father?’

‘Remember we are Romans, Photius, despite what those swine call us.’

Some order was emerging, infantry being pushed forward to line the inner side of the moat while others were moving to destroy the wooden causeway by which the army had advanced and now retreated. This was stopped by Flavius, who gave permission to Ennes that he should try to rescue those who could be saved, especially his brother, Tarmutus.

Leading three hundred of the heavily armoured bucellarii, Ennes thundered over those timbers and initiated a full charge so that their sheer weight would break the Goth encirclement. Their comrades watched as they crashed through the lighter Goth cavalry, to create an avenue by which the remaining Isaurians, and there were now few, could flee, that followed by a fighting retreat.

Ennes personally carried out his brother over his saddle. Principius suffered harsher treatment; being dead, he was dragged back over the moat and once the men who had effected the rescue were safe Flavius ordered the causeway to be hacked down, watching as his triumphant enemy worked to get his forces into the proper formation to finish off what was now a trapped enemy.

‘Are we to die here?’ Photius asked, with a tremor in his voice.

‘If the citizens of Rome will not open the gates all we can do is cost the Goths dear. Now it is time to pray and comport your soul.’

How was it possible that so many thousands of men could be silent; if, like their general, they were praying there was no evidence, while over their heads the residents of the city also seemed to come to a collective holding of breath in anticipation of what was to come, a bloody massacre. Or was it in contemplation of the revenge Witigis would take upon their treacherous city?

Many were later to question the power of prayer, for no attack came; the Goths began to fall back, splitting up to return to their camps, which did nothing to break the silence, even when the fields on the eastern side of the moat were clear of everything but the dead and dying. Then from behind the defeated army came the sound of creaking as the great gates were opened.

That his troops began to cheer sickened Flavius; he had chanced everything to win a decisive victory and he had been beaten and then betrayed. It was a chastened general, his head hanging low, who rode back into the city.

‘Why did they not attack, Father?’

‘If you can communicate with God, Photius, ask him, for I have no answer. Ride to Valentinus and inform him of what has occurred. Whatever the state of his action he is to retire at once.’

‘And the occupants of the city?’

‘I cannot do to them what Witigis would have done, Photius.’ The voice lost its weary quality and became a hiss. ‘Much as it would give me pleasure to do so. Now go, time is pressing.’

On the Plains of Nero the orders issued by Flavius had been studiously obeyed. Valentinus had stood off and used controlled archery to pin the Goths in front of their camp but made no attempt to overcome them. If the men who led the Roman levies had been content to stay where they had been deployed all would have been well but, sure of their prowess and against orders, they marched out of the Porta Pancratia and, making their way through the abandoned building of an exterior suburb, debouched onto the plain.

The sheer number of that body, five thousand men setting up a huge cloud of dust, had to be the cause of what followed. The horns before Valentinus blew and suddenly his enemy melted away, abandoning their camp to occupy the nearest set of hills to the rear where they could mount a defence.

Seeing the enemy retreat, the Roman levies, hitherto in untidy lines, ceased to march in any kind of order. They began to run and did not stop until they were within the wooden rampart that protected the Gothic encampment, where they immediately fell into an orgy of looting. Not to be outdone and in fear of losing out, the Moorish mercenaries likewise set to, seeking to ensure they got their just share, their behaviour immediately copied by the mounted archers.

Valentinus had been in command of a well-disciplined force; within a few grains of sand he was seeking to impose some kind of order on a rabble, while the condition of that which had caused him to flee was not lost on his opposite number. Seeing the chaos before them the Goth cavalry began to advance, which immediately alarmed the Romans.

Attempts by Valentinus to get them to form up fell on deaf ears; men who had been looting now had only one aim, to get back within the walls of the city with everything they could carry. The Moors were now so muddled as to be useless, while the archers, who knew they could not stand alone, took the only course open to them and began to flee as well.

If the well mounted got to safety that was not an opportunity afforded to many of the others. Men on foot running from warriors on horseback had little chance and the slaughter was great. Nowhere was that more than at the gate itself, open but so crowded with panic-stricken Roman levies that it became a charnel house.

The last command Valentinus could issue, once he and his personal bodyguards had forced their way through the rabble, was to get that gate shut and let everyone still outside it pay for their greed. That was where Photius found him, tears streaming down his cheeks.