Count Belisarius

  Solomon launched his attack. But the Roman cavalry horses, being unaccustomed to the smell of camels, reared up and could not be persuaded to charge; and the Moors did a deal of damage with their javelins. Then Solomon dismounted the squadron of Thracian Goths – big, strong men in shirts of mail – and himself led them with raised shields and drawn swords against the ring of camels. They butchered 200 camels in no time, and broke the ring. The Moorish infantry fled in disorder; their cavalry did not come into action. Solomon captured all the women and all the camels; and 10,000 Moors were killed in the pursuit.

  The Moors recovered from their defeat a few weeks later and invaded the corn-growing country again with the biggest army that they had ever gathered together – so big that it was not only useless but self-destructive. Solomon surprised it at dawn one day, encamped on a mountain, and stampeded it into a ravine. In the confusion of flight these savages trampled one another down, and not a man of them thought of defending himself. Incredible though this may seem, 50,000 of them perished before the sun was high, and not a single Roman soldier received so much as a scratch. So great was the number of captive women and children that a healthy Moorish boy, whose price in the Constantinople market would not be less than ten gold pieces, could be bought here for two pieces of silver, the price of a fat sheep. Thus Rufinus and Aigan were avenged.

  The survivors of the Moors took refuge with their kinsmen on Mount Aures, a huge mountain thirteen days’ journey inland from Carthage on the border of Morocco. This mountain, which is sixty miles in circumference, is very easy to defend, and most fertile on its upper slopes, with plentiful springs of water. Thirty thousand fighting men now made it their headquarters for raids.

  As for the rest of Roman Africa: the inhabitants were now heartily wishing the Vandals back again – not only because of the Moorish raids, but because of Justinian’s tax-gatherers, who settled like hungry leeches on the land. The Vandals had also been leeches, but gorged leeches: they only taxed the farmers one-tenth of their produce, and were negligent in their collection of it. Justinian, on the other hand, required one-third, and made sure that he was paid promptly. Then, again, there was discontent in the Army because of the soldiers’ Vandal wives. It seemed no more than justice that the victorious soldiers should be awarded the fertile lands and well-built houses of those whom they had dispossessed. But by Justinian’s orders these properties were sequestrated and sold on behalf of the Imperial Treasury. The troops were given nothing of what they expected, but sent away to build and guard remote block-houses and expected to cultivate poor and waterless lands in the neighbourhood. The Vandal women made the loudest outcry against the injustice of this arrangement, goading their new husbands to insist upon proper redress. But Solomon had no authority to satisfy their demands.

  There was still another cause for complaint in the Army, and a fair one in my opinion, caused by Justinian’s foolish zeal for the Orthodox faith. Solomon’s forces included, as you know, a squadron of 500 Thracian Goths and Pharas’s 300 Herulians, and about 200 other barbarians from beyond the Danube: these were all Arian heretics. But Justinian had sent an order for the extirpation of the Arian heresy and the persecution of Arian priests; he forbade any Arian to receive any of the Sacraments unless he recanted, or to have his children baptized. This rule applied not only to the surviving Vandals – old men and women, and the wives and stepchildren of the soldiers – and to Roman African converts to the heresy, but also to these brave soldiers, who never before had been thus affronted.

  Solomon’s reports of the situation in Africa were so disquieting that Belisarius pleaded with Justinian that the Arian soldiers should be allowed to receive the Sacraments from their own priests, as was customary. But Justinian protested that to do this would be an impious act and would imperil his own chances of salvation. Belisarius could not press the matter. He next asked Justinian to find reinforcements for Solomon (who had also been obliged to send an expedition against bandits in Sardinia) to be used as block-house troops, while the original troops should be garrisoned in Carthage and given, not palaces and parks perhaps, but decent houses and lands to content them. Justinian seemed to agree, and gathered a force of 20,000 men from Thrace and the Persian frontier, replacing them with the new Vandal squadrons. Then he told Belisarius in a public audience that he must soon return to Carthage with them and take over the governorship from Solomon. However, this was all a deception. Justinian had another war in mind. The troops were not intended for Africa, but for the conquest of Sicily.

  I have mentioned the claim made by Belisarius, on Justinian’s behalf, to the promontory of Lilybaeum. It was referred by the Gothic Governor of Sicily to Queen Amalasontha, Regent of Italy and Sicily and Dalmatia and South-eastern France for her young son Athalrich, with whom Justinian had made the treaty which enabled Belisarius to revictual at Syracuse on his way to the capture of Carthage. Queen Amalasontha officially took the view that on the extinction of the Vandal monarchy Lilybaeum had reverted to her own patrimony. But privately she did not wish to quarrel with Justinian, since it was a most precarious position to be queen over the Goths, who had always thought it below their dignity to be ruled by a woman.

  Her father, the great King Theoderich, had been a miracle among barbarians. He was of that Ostrogothic nation which won the great victory at Adrianople, as related in a former chapter, and subsequently became allied to the Emperor of the East and protected his frontiers for him. Not many years later, at the suggestion of the Emperor of the East, nearly the whole nation, led by Theoderich from Thrace, migrated in wagons to Italy, to make war against a barbarian general who had deposed the Emperor of the West. Only a few thousands remained behind. King Theoderich conquered and killed the usurper, and seized Italy for himself and his people. Ruling justly, wisely, and long, he restored prosperity to the whole of Italy; and, while nominally the vassal of the Emperor at Constantinople, retained complete independence of action. Though no scholar himself, Theoderich was a friend to learning. The Goths – who, like all Germans, prefer barbaric to civilized virtues – could not accuse him of softness; for he was the best horseman and the best archer in his dominions, and avoided luxury like the plague. His noblest quality was his religious tolerance: though an Arian heretic, he permitted complete religious liberty to Orthodox Christians, and to heretics of any reputable sort, throughout his dominions.

  Amalasontha inherited her father’s courage and ability, and was, besides, very beautiful. But she had few friends among the Gothic nobility; when at Theoderich’s death the crown passed to her ten-year-old son, Athalrich, with herself as regent, they interfered in all her arrangements, even in Athalrich’s education. Theoderich had wished him to become a cultivated man, capable of conversing on equal terms with Emperor or Pope or Roman senator, and had put him under grave tutors; but this barbarian gentry insisted that the youth be allowed to run wild with companions of his own age and learn to drink and drab and ride cock-horse and swagger about with his sword loose in his scabbard, just as they themselves had done when young.

  The result was that Athalrich grew to be a young ruffian. He came to despise his mother and, egged on by his companions, openly threatened to seize the management of the country from her. She treated him with gentle scorn, but secretly prepared to leave Italy with a shipful of treasure – a quarter of a million in gold coin – and take refuge with Justinian at Constantinople. She even sent a letter informing him of her intentions, and he replied with a warm welcome. However, she succeeded in assassinating the three young nobles who were causing her the most trouble; and thus found it unnecessary to sail. But it is a long way from Ravenna, where Amalasontha’s Court was, to Constantinople. Justinian became impatient for further news. He sent an envoy to Amalasontha, ostensibly to take up the matter of Lilybaeum with her, but in reality to find out why she did not come; and he also sent two bishops, ostensibly to confer with the Pope on a knotty point of doctrine, but in reality for secret talks with a certain Theudahad, Theoderich??
?s nephew, who had inherited great estates in Tuscany – the district lying on the coast northward from Rome. Now, Amalasontha had recently summoned Theudahad to Ravenna and reproached him for his unjust seizure of the lands of Roman citizens, his neighbours, as also of lands belonging to the Crown; and had obliged him to make restoration and apology.

  The envoy and the bishops returned, with the welcome news that Theudahad, in return for a settled income and an estate at Constantinople, was willing, for hatred of Amalasontha, to betray Tuscany to Justinian’s soldiers whenever he cared to send an army of occupation; and that Amalasontha was secretly willing to transfer her regency of Italy to Justinian on the same terms – since she could not long continue to control her son. But her official reply in the matter of Lilybaeum was a denial that Justinian had any right to it.

  Then a sudden event changed the whole complexion of events. Young Athalrich, his health undermined by drink and debauchery, fell into a decline and died. Amalasontha, who only ruled by virtue of being his mother, was thus, according to Gothic law, relegated to private citizenship. She decided to choose at once a noble Goth, by marriage to whom she could still remain queen. There was, she thought, no more suitable person to become her husband than this same Theudahad, her cousin (of whose intrigues with Justinian she was unaware, as he of hers): an elderly, unsoldierly man, unlike any other of the Goths in having taken to the study of philosophy and to the writing of Latin hexameter verse. He would no doubt feel honoured by a union with herself, and would allow her to rule in his name without interference. She therefore proposed marriage to him, emphasizing the advantage of thus protecting himself against the hostility both of the Gothic nobility, who despised him for his learning, and of the Italians, who hated him for his rapacity. Nobody had a better claim to the throne than he, she said, but without her he could not hope either to seize or hold it. He consented, with every appearance of pleasure, and was duly crowned king, and acclaimed as such by the Goths; for no other claimant of royal blood appeared. But Amalasontha had over-reached herself. What should Theudahad do, as soon as he had the crown on his head, but violate his sacred oath to her that he would not meddle in public business. He actually excluded her from his council room and carried her off to a small island of his in a Tuscan lake, keeping her a close prisoner there.

  When Justinian heard of Theudahad’s action, he was more pleased than he pretended to be. He sent another envoy to Italy, to inform Amalasontha that she would be given all the support against her enemies that she needed; and the envoy had instructions not to conceal this message from Theudahad or from any of his nobles. He hoped thus to throw the whole kingdom into confusion. But by the time that the envoy arrived in Italy, Amalasontha was dead: the relatives of the three young men whom she had killed had persuaded Theudahad to avenge their death. She was surprised one summer afternoon as she was bathing with her women in the lake, and her head forced under the water until she drowned.

  Now, though Justinian continued to protest his great love for Theodora, she also was relieved at this queen’s death, whom she regarded as a rival. It was true that Amalasontha, whom Justinian had known when she was a child, was of better birth than Theodora and a little younger and far more beautiful. Cappadocian John put it about that Theodora had arranged the assassination herself.

  Here then was Justinian’s pretext for a war – the murder of an innocent woman, his ally. He found an augury of success in the unpopularity and inefficacy of King Theudahad, whose verses did not even scan, it was said, and whose philosophical capacity was nothing. But Theudahad heard and believed a rumour, arising out of Theodora’s jealousy of Amalasontha, that the perfidious Justinian had indeed intended to invade Italy with his army and marry Amalasontha, having first divorced Theodora; further, that he had planned to persecute the Goths as heretics. He offered this story to his Court as an excuse for the murder of his wife. They approved of his actions; for it was now clear at least that Amalasontha had been carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Justinian. But Theudahad officially assured Justinian’s envoy that the murder had been committed without his knowledge and against his wishes.

  I have now made it clear why Belisarius was ordered to take an army to the invasion of Sicily, which lay at the extremity of King Theudahad’s dominions, and the population of which, moreover, was highly discontented. Sicily, the granary of Rome, had for some time been suffering from poor harvests due to bad weather and an exhaustion of the soil, so that the farmers did not find it easy to pay the tithe-tax that the Goths levied on them. In the autumn of the year of his Consulship, Belisarius set sail for this island. Antonina came with him (and I with her), and her boy Photius, and Theodosius too. But the forces under his command amounted only to 12,000, not 20,000. At the last moment Justinian detached 8,000 and sent them to Mundus (the Commander of the armies in Illyria who had assisted Belisarius in quelling the Victory Riots) with orders that he should lead them against the Goths in Dalmatia, as a diversion. Dalmatia, with the whole of the north-eastern coast of the Adriatic sea, was under Gothic rule at this time. Justinian also planned to injure the Goths in yet another quarter. He wrote to the Franks, who since the baptism of King Clovis had been Orthodox Christians, that they would now have a chance to invade the Gothic territories between the Alps and the Rhône; and that this would be a holy war against Arian heretics, blessed by their spiritual father, the Pope.

  The weather was favourable and the voyage pleasant. We landed at Catania early in the month of December. The people there, remembering how honestly we had treated them on our former visit, gave us a welcome. They complained greatly of the Goths, and asked us whether we could not stay a little longer with them this time; for nobody but Belisarius knew that we were not continuing our voyage to Carthage, as had been announced. At last Belisarius openly declared his intentions, announcing himself as their protector and sending messengers to all the principal cities with invitations to submission. Within a few days the whole of Sicily had surrendered to him without a blow, with the single exception of Palermo. Here the Gothic forces of the island concentrated, taking refuge behind the fine fortifications. But even Palermo yielded with unexpected suddenness. Belisarius sailed into the harbour, which was not protected by a boom, and found that the masts of most of his vessels were considerably higher than the adjacent fortifications. What was easier than to hoist up boats by a pulley between mainmast and foremast and fill them with trained archers? (Yet so simple a plan would not perhaps have occurred to an ordinary general.) These archers could shoot straight along the streets of the city and prevent anyone from showing his head out of a doorway, unless in a side-street. Belisarius threatened, unless Palermo yielded speedily, to shoot fire-arrows and burn the houses down. So the townsfolk compelled the Goths to surrender.

  You may doubt whether so short a paragraph as the last can decently cover the story of how a fertile island, full of splendid cities and no less than 70,000 square miles in extent, was recaptured from the barbarians by our Imperial troops. Yet I cannot recall any relevant circumstance that I have omitted which would swell the single paragraph to two. It was the name of Belisarius that captured Sicily rather than his army – assisted by the short-sighted zeal of the Orthodox Christians, who expected to receive better treatment at the hands of Justinian, their co-religionist, than from the Arian king. On the last day of the year, then, when Belisarius’s term of office as Consul expired, he marched unopposed into the capital city of Syracuse, and there laid down his rods and axe, as the expression was. As he entered, he distributed largesse of gold and silver to the citizens from the personal treasure captured from the Goths who had opposed him at Palermo; and was hailed as their deliverer.

  Justinian’s envoy remained in Italy and observed the disturbing effect on King Theudahad of the news of Belisarius’s landing at Catania, and of the news that simultaneously came from Dalmatia to the effect that Mundus had stormed Spalato. Theudahad saw himself threatened with the fate of King Geilimer the Vandal, his kinsm
an – for Geilimer and he had an aunt in common. Without consulting with his Council, he made a secret offer to the envoy to cede Sicily to Justinian and send him beside a yearly tribute of a crown of gold weighing 300 pounds; and a permanent detachment of 3,000 Gothic cavalrymen and their horses to serve either in North Africa or on the Persian frontier, as Justinian pleased, and to be kept up to strength with yearly drafts of men and remounts. He also renounced his right to sentence Italian priests and patricians to death, or to confer patrician rank on any person without the consent of Justinian or his successors. He even agreed that the responses of the factions in the Hippodrome at Rome, whenever he took his place as President, should couple in loyal salutation Justinian’s name with his own, and that a statue of Justinian should flank every statue raised to himself, standing on the right side, which is the more honourable one. This was to acknowledge the suzerainty of the East over the West. Theudahad put these undertakings in writing. He was in great terror, and wished to lay up a treasure of gratitude for himself in Constantinople, if ever it should be necessary for him to escape there from Italy.

  But when further news came of the fall of Palermo and of the bloodless occupation of Sicily, Theudahad’s heart failed him. He wondered whether the terms he had offered Justinian to prevent him from pressing the invasion of Italy were not perhaps insufficient; to promise Sicily to Justinian when he had already taken it might be regarded as an impudence – and of what worth was an offer of 3,000 soldiers and a yearly tribute amounting to a mere 20,000 in gold, and an abandonment of the right to create or punish patricians? He recalled the envoy, who was already on his way back, and took him into his intimate confidence, first binding him with the most dreadful oaths to keep the secret. The secret was that if Justinian rejected these terms Theudahad was prepared to better them. He would resign his title of kingship and hand over to Justinian the whole government of Italy. All that he asked in return was a comfortable private life, preferably near some centre of learning in Asia Minor, on a freehold estate with a secure annual rent-roll of at least 80,000 gold pieces a year. A messenger of his own accompanied the envoy with this offer in writing, but it was only to be produced if Justinian did not accept the other one.