Ambassadors are chosen for their loyalty and self-sacrifice to the cause of their royal master; thus Justinian’s envoy did not hesitate to risk spiritual disaster by breaking his oath to Theudahad. He advised Justinian to refuse the first offer, for Theudahad’s messenger had a better one in readiness for him. This offer was then produced, and Justinian accepted it with alacrity. None the less, he was for haggling about the rent-roll of the estate, until Theodora laughed at his notion of business – to risk losing all Italy for the sake of a few sacks of coin.
So far, everything was going so well for Justinian that he can hardly have been blamed for believing that God regarded him with especial favour – a belief of which the servility of his courtiers did nothing to disabuse him. But, before the envoy had time to return to Italy and ratify the treaty with Theudahad, the whole political situation suddenly changed again. Two pieces of news persuaded Theudahad that he had been a fool after all and had over-estimated Justinian’s power to hurt him.
The first piece of news concerned Mundus. After his capture of Spalato, he had come in contact with a large Gothic army and, after a stubborn battle in which both sides lost heavily, defeated it – but had himself been killed in pursuing the beaten enemy. It was reported that the Imperial forces were so reduced in numbers and spirit by this unlucky victory that they had returned to Illyria without even leaving a garrison behind at Spalato. The other piece of news was that a serious mutiny had broken out in North Africa, and that Belisarius was about to withdraw his forces from Sicily in order to restore order there. How true this African news was I shall presently tell. But its effect on Theudahad was so great that he spoke most insultingly to Justinian’s envoy when he arrived, and even threatened to kill him on a baseless charge of adultery with a lady of the Court; he greatly repented of having written as he had to Justinian, and now declared that the envoy lied and that the two offers signed by himself were forgeries.
The Gothic noblemen of the Council believed Theudahad. They could not think that their elected king had been so cowardly and treacherous as appeared from Justinian’s message, which agreed to take Italy under his sovereignty and give Theudahad the estate that he demanded. They decided that the embassy was merely a clever manoeuvre on Justinian’s part to set them at odds with their king. So the envoy and his suite were kept close prisoners, and Theudahad sent a message of defiance to Justinian by a common trader, accusing him of double-dealing and treachery – Theudahad knew that the Goths would kill him if he did not immediately vindicate his honour by some vigorous action. He also sent an army to re-occupy Spalato, since the Romans had retired from it again; and began to behave oppressively to Orthodox priests throughout Italy, and threatened the Pope with death or dismissal if he was caught in any further secret dealings with Constantinople.
The Goths had little confidence in Theudahad, nevertheless, because he wrote verses in Latin and argued with Greek rhetoricians and prided himself upon his far-fetched learning. For them a few wild German ballads of battle, together with the Paternoster and the Arian Creed in the same tongue, were sufficient culture. They had not degenerated, as the Vandals had, under the luxurious spell of civilization; but neither had they profited by their sixty years’ residence in Italy to improve their good sense by literary education. That they had little respect for Theudahad was due not so much to the sterile character of his learning as to the very fact of his having learning. Thus they neglected to reinforce their barbarian fighting qualities with such military knowledge as can be derived from books. In especial, they had not studied the arts of fortification or siege-craft.
CHAPTER 13
TROUBLE IN AFRICA AND IN SICILY
CONSIDER the matter from the Gothic point of view. What danger could they reasonably fear from a mere 12,000 men, a large part of whom were infantry? Italy was theirs, and they had been living on the friendliest terms with the native population for two generations. They had plentiful supplies of food, and a fleet and money and military stores; they could easily put 100,000 horsemen into the field and 100,000 foot-archers; they possessed a number of very strong walled cities. Add to this that the Imperial troops who had landed in Sicily, though professedly champions of the Orthodox faith, were for the most part Christians only by courtesy, and could not even make themselves understood by the native Italians, who spoke Latin, not Greek; and you will understand that when the Goths heard of the African mutiny and of the death of Mundus they no longer considered the name of Belisarius to be a serious factor in the situation.
To tell of the mutiny. It broke out at Easter of the following year, the year of our Lord 536. A few days later Solomon landed at Syracuse from an open boat with a few exhausted companions, and stumbled up from the quay to Belisarius’s headquarters in the Governor’s Palace. It so happened, that afternoon, that I was in a small room with my mistress and Belisarius and Theodosius, where we had retired after luncheon, and something not unlike an argument was in progress. Theodosius had made a rather too pointed joke at the expense of some tenet of the Orthodox faith, to the amusement of my mistress Antonina.
Belisarius did not smile, but asked Theodosius in a puzzled way whether he had relapsed to Eunomianism.
‘No,’ replied Theodosius. ‘Indeed, I never held that opinion seriously.’
‘Well. But since you have become converted to true doctrine I do not understand why you should joke as you do.’
Antonina defended Theodosius: she said that to laugh at the things that one held dear was not inconsistent with loyalty to them. When Belisarius disagreed, she changed from defence to attack, and asked him why, if Orthodoxy meant so much to him, he allowed heretics of every variety to enlist in his Household Regiment.
Belisarius answered: ‘That is another matter altogether. Every man has a right to what religious beliefs he pleases, and a duty to himself not to be persuaded from them by force; but he has no right to injure his neighbour’s sensibilities by asserting such beliefs offensively. I was born in the Orthodox faith, and early pledged myself to it. It offends me to hear its doctrines idly abused, as I would not myself idly abuse the faith of any honest man.’
‘And if you had been born an Arian?’
‘Doubtless I should have remained an Arian.’
‘Then all religious views are true doctrine if sincerely held?’ my mistress pressed him.
‘I do not accept that. But I say that it is good to keep faith and good to respect the feelings of others.’
Theodosius made no apology for the joke that had offended his godfather. All that he would say was: ‘I hold no brief for any heresy. I grant you that Orthodox doctrine can be logically defended against all heresies – especially given certain mystical premisses, such as that the Pope at Rome holds the keys of Heaven in succession to St Peter.’
Belisarius replied, stiffly: ‘I do not see that logic has any part in true religion.’
Theodosius laughed. ‘A sceptical comment indeed, Godfather.’
Belisarius explained, his temper still unruffled: ‘Religion is faith, not philosophy. The Ionian Greeks invented philosophy to take the place of religion; and it made a cowardly and deceitful race of them.’
Then my mistress Antonina asked: ‘But is not philosophy needed to steel one against possible injuries? Is it good to keep faith with those who may injure one?’
‘It is good to keep faith and to forgive injuries. To break one’s faith is to injure oneself.’
Theodosius remarked: ‘But the weaker a man’s faith, the less he will injure himself by breaking it.’
Belisarius replied gently: ‘Do not let that concern us, Godson. We are all people of honour here.’
Here I intercepted a swift glance that passed between my mistress and Theodosius, as if to say: ‘Ah, dear Belisarius, you flatter us. Perhaps our sense of honour is not so fanatical as yours.’
I have never forgotten that conversation, and that glance, in the light of my mistress’s subsequent relations with Theodosius. This at least is sure: t
hat Theodosius had allowed himself to be baptized only as an aid to personal advancement, and was no more a Christian than I or my mistress. He once confessed to her: ‘The only writer on Christianity that I have ever read with satisfaction was Celsus.’ This Celsus is anathema. He lived in pagan times, and wrote about the early Christians with witty severity. He even went to Palestine to investigate the parentage of Jesus, and claimed to have found Him recorded in the military records as the son of one Pantherus, a Greek soldier of Samaria. ‘And it is noteworthy,’ Theodosius said, ‘that, according to the Evangelist John, Jesus did not deny His Samaritan origin when the priests charged him with it.’
Everyone is entitled to his own faith or opinions, as Belisarius maintained. But Theodosius concealed his thoughts from everyone but my mistress Antonina – if indeed he revealed them to her. Although I did not believe the stupid servants’ gossip about my mistress and Theodosius – such as that they had once been observed kissing behind a screen and, on another occasion, emerging together from a dark cellar – I nevertheless felt a strong presentiment that one day passion would seize hold of my mistress and the young man and bring ill luck both on Belisarius and on themselves. For being an atheist, or at least a sceptic, what moral scruples had Theodosius? As for my mistress, she had lived a very loose life in the old days, and had not by any means been faithful to her husband the merchant, looking upon her body as her own possession to dispose of as it best pleased her. Her love for Belisarius was undeniable; but whether it would restrain her from indulging any passion that she might feel for Theodosius I could not foresee.
When Belisarius said: ‘We are all people of honour here,’ I was sad. I loved him as a noble hero, and my loyalty to him was only second to the loyalty that I felt for my mistress, in gratitude for the great consideration with which she had always treated me.
It was at this moment that Solomon was announced. He came panting into the room, hardly able to speak. My mistress sent me for a cup of wine to revive him, which he presently drank. My discretion being beyond question, I was permitted to remain and hear the story that he told us.
The Vandal women were at the bottom of the trouble, Solomon said. They had persuaded their new husbands that the Emperor had defrauded them of their marriage-dowries – of the houses and lands that belonged to them in their own right. These same women had also stirred up indignation against Justinian’s oppressive religious edicts: all Arians being strictly debarred from the Sacraments and even forbidden a little holy water with which to sprinkle their children for baptismal purposes. There was now a whole crop of newly born Arian children who, if they happened to die without baptism, would be damned everlastingly; and this caused their fathers, Thracian Goths and Herulian Huns, great concern. The mutiny had been agreed upon for Easter Sunday, which fell that year on the twenty-third day of March. The conspirators decided to assassinate Solomon as he was attending a ceremony in honour of the Resurrection of Christ, in the Cathedral of St Cyprian. Solomon did not have the least suspicion of his danger, because the secret had been extraordinarily well kept. Yet half the soldiers of his own bodyguard were in the plot, being married to Vandal wives and wishing to share in the distribution of land and houses.
The moment chosen for the assassination was that of the solemn elevation of the Host before the high altar (an action which is held to endow it with miraculous properties); for the whole congregation would then be prostrated in reverence, and a sudden, murderous blow could easily be struck. But when the Arian soldiers entered with their hands on the hilts of their daggers, encouraging one another with nods and nudges, they were overcome by a sudden sense of awe. The vastness and richness of the Cathedral, the soft, solemn chanting of the choir, the candles and the incense, the banners and the garlands of spring flowers, the venerable priests in their embroidered robes, the unarmed congregation at prayer in festival dress – all this created a profound impression on the Arians. They could commit murder but not sacrilege. As they halted, irresolute, the silent-footed sacristans and dog-beadles came gliding up to them, plucking at their sleeves imperiously, motioning for them to prostrate themselves with the rest. One by one they obeyed, and took part in the remaining ceremonies just as if they had been of the Orthodox faith. But when they were outside again, each of them accused his neighbour of cowardice and softness and swore that he himself would have dared the deed if only a single other man had stood by him.
They made these quarrelsome declarations in the public marketplace, and Solomon soon came to hear of the matter; but when he ordered their arrest the men of his bodyguard showed no readiness to obey him. Then the conspirators, joined by a number of other dissatisfied soldiers, left Carthage and began plundering in the suburbs.
Solomon found himself powerless against these malcontents: his own troops refused to march against them. On the fifth day he called a general assembly in the Hippodrome, where he addressed the assembled soldiers and sailors and police-officers, attempting to win a renewed oath of loyalty from them. But they howled him down and threw stones, and presently began beating and killing their own officers. They cut the throat of Solomon’s Chief of Staff; and then Pharas the Herulian, who resolutely proclaimed himself loyal to his bloodbrother Belisarius, was mortally wounded by the arrows of his own men. These Herulians had been brewing kavasse again, for the bee had been restored to them.
Soon the mutiny became general, the whole army began to plunder the shopping district in the centre of Carthage and the warehouses by the harbour. Then, but for their not burning any houses down or wearing Green or Blue favours, it might have been Constantinople in the Victory Riots – with no Belisarius at hand to restore order. For the time being Solomon took sanctuary in the Lady Chapel of Geilimer’s Palace, but escaped as soon as he was able and made for the docks. There he commandeered a boat and, after ten days’ rowing, here at last he was.
When Belisarius had asked Solomon a few questions he announced to Antonina: ‘I am going to Carthage immediately. It is what the Emperor would expect of me. Do you stay here and act as my Deputy.’
‘What troops will you take with you?’
‘A hundred cuirassiers.’
‘You will be killed, madman.’
‘I shall be safely back here before the month is out.’
‘I must come with you, Belisarius.’
‘I can trust only you with my affairs here.’
‘I cannot trust myself. Let me come with you. I will not be denied.’
‘Antonina, in this you must obey me. I order you in the Emperor’s name.’
Thus it was that my mistress, though against her will, remained behind at Syracuse with Theodosius; and she did not expect to see Belisarius again. If it is true that she ever broke her marriage-vows sworn to Belisarius, this was the occasion. But she always denied that she had done so, and none could contradict her, for she had always been a very discreet woman. It is my task as a historian to tell the truth, but it is also my duty as a faithful domestic not to traduce my mistress. Fortunately this task and that duty do not conflict. I know nothing for certain: so much I can swear.
In Carthage the mutineers, having plundered the city to their hearts’ content and taken formal possession of what houses and lands they fancied, marched out to join forces with another group of mutineers of the column to which Solomon had entrusted the wearisome siege of Mount Aures. Their combined squadrons soon amounted to 7,000 men, and in addition there were a thousand Vandals. Four hundred of these were escaped captives. They had lately been on their way to the Persian frontier from Constantinople; but off the Island of Lesbos they had overpowered the crews of their transports and sailed not to Antioch but back to North Africa, where they disembarked in a lonely spot near Mount Pappua and marched to Mount Aures. They had intended to ally themselves with the rebel Moors, but instead joined the Imperial mutineers, who welcomed them warmly. The remaining Vandals were refugees who had been hiding in obscure places ever since the capture of Carthage and now dared to come into t
he open at last. Horses were found for them at the posting-houses.
The mutineers chose as their commander a private soldier, an energetic and capable Thracian named Stotzas, and then marched back to Carthage, proclaiming the whole Diocese a Soldiers’ Republic. No opposition at all was expected from the citizens. They arrived outside the walls at dusk on the seventh day of April and bivouacked there, planning to march in on the following morning. But that very evening Belisarius arrived by sea with his 100 chosen cuirassiers and immediately began to search through plundered Carthage for a few loyal troops; and before morning had gathered together 2,000. Of these, 600 were Roman African recruits of the cavalry police-force, and 500 were Vandals, men beyond middle age, whom Belisarius had allowed to live unmolested in their homes, and who in gratitude now volunteered to help him. There was also a number of friendly Moors. Of soldiers who had not mutinied there were no more than 500. But it was a saying that Belisarius’s name was worth 50,000 men. When the mutineers heard of his sudden arrival, they considered themselves outnumbered by 52,000 to 8,000, and immediately broke camp and fled back to the interior. They were heading for Mount Aures, where they intended to make common cause with the Moors. Belisarius pursued and overtook them fifty miles out of the city, at Membresa, an unwalled town by the River Bagrades. Here was a new sort of battle for him to fight: against his own soldiers.