Count Belisarius

  The only hope now left of taking Naples lay in the method of surprise. But where was the vulnerable spot in the defences to be found?

  CHAPTER 14

  THE SIEGE OF NAPLES

  BELISARIUS studied the fortifications of Naples from every angle. He could detect no weak place in the whole circuit that would repay the use of battering-ram or mine, but tried a surprise assault from the harbour by night; sending a party of Isaurian mountaineers, who are born cragsmen, to scramble up the lofty walls at a point where rotting mortar provided hand-holds and foot-holds. One man reached the battlements and quietly made a rope fast to a merlon, and then his companions swarmed up by this rope; but they were detected by a Jewish sentry, who roused his fellow-Jews in a neighbouring guardhouse. Before more than four or five of the mountaineers had gained a lodgement, the rope was cut by the Jews, and they were all hurled to death over the battlements. The same ill-luck also overtook an attempt on the landward side. Here at dusk Belisarius managed to draw a long, thick rope across a projecting turret – by first shooting an arrow across it, that carried a silken thread, to which a string was then attached and pulled across, which in turn drew with it a cord, which cord served to pull across the rope. The two ends of the rope were then tied together, and men swarmed up on either side, balancing one another. But again the sentries were alert, and cut the rope, so that the men fell to their deaths. Belisarius also tried to burn a gate down by heaping barrels of oil and resin against it, but it was flanked by two strong towers, and our men were driven off with stones and javelins, and many were left dead at the gate.

  After the siege had been in progress for eighteen days a former member of the Household Regiment, an Isaurian now serving as an officer in the Isaurian infantry, came to Belisarius and asked: ‘Lord, what is the worth of Naples to you?’

  Belisarius replied smiling: ‘If it were given me now, so that I could march on to capture Rome before winter sets in, it would be worth a million in gold. If the gift were delayed until the spring I should have small use for it’

  The Isaurian said: ‘One hundred gold pieces for every man in my company and five hundred each for my officers and one thousand for myself and two thousand for the private soldier who has found the weak spot that you told us to find for you!’

  ‘I would double that,’ cried Belisarius, starting up. ‘But I pay only when the keys of the city are in my hand.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the Isaurian. Then he brought forward the private soldier.

  This man, a rough, unkempt fellow, told Belisarius his story. It had occurred to him to crawl along the dry conduit of the aqueduct, from the point where it had been cut, a mile or more away, to where it entered the city. He wished to see whether the end was perhaps closed by a grating or some other obstacle. It was an easy journey – he was able to walk nearly upright, and there were frequent ventilation holes above him in the brick vaulting. At last he reached a place where the tunnel narrowed to a hole in a rock, large enough to admit a boy, though impassable by a soldier in full armour. This rock was not granite, but some soft, volcanic rock which could easily be cut away with a pickaxe. He could see, a few yards away on the other side, light coming from above as if the aqueduct was unroofed at that point, and he could also make out a number of wind-fallen olives, a ragged headkerchief, and some broken crockery. He had then returned and next day walked along the road beside the aqueduct, looking for signs of an olive-tree overhanging the roof at any point, but could see none. He therefore concluded that the rock was inside the city somewhere.

  Belisarius took twenty Isaurians of this man’s company into the secret, but nobody else. He gave them muffled hammers and chisels and baskets and set them at enlarging the hole, which he first inspected himself. They must work as silently as possible. At midday they reported that the hole was large enough to admit the passage of a man in full armour, and that beyond it the aqueduct tunnel was three times the height of a man, and that a part of the brick roof had fallen in at this spot. The roots of an olive-tree had broken through the lower course of brick-work, deriving sustenance in normal times from the water of the aqueduct. The tree itself was outside the aqueduct, but one of its branches was spread across the hole in the roof. They brought the ragged headkerchief back with them, and some olives. Belisarius examined these things and said: ‘The cotton kerchief has been newly washed and blown from where it was put to dry; and these are cultivated olives, not wild ones. Be sure that the tree is growing in some old woman’s backyard.’

  Then he sent another warning to the Neapolitan City Fathers: ‘If you do not surrender your city tonight you will have lost it tomorrow, for I know how to take it. I swear this on my honour, which I am not accustomed to pledge idly. If you disbelieve me I shall be offended. When we storm the walls, I cannot promise that there will be no violence.’

  But they did not believe him.

  That night he sent 600 mail-clad men down the aqueduct, though at first they were most unwilling to go, saying that they were soldiers, not sewer-rats. My mistress’s son Photius asked to have the honour of leading them, but Belisarius would not entrust so difficult an undertaking to a mere boy; though he allowed him to bring up the rear and be responsible for reporting progress. It occurred to Belisarius that 600 men in armour, stumbling however carefully down the dark aqueduct, would surely make a great noise; so he decided to drown the noise by a diversion.

  He had with him an old acquaintance – Bessas, the Thracian Goth, who had been present at the banquet of Modestus. He was a veteran of fifty now, but still strong and full of fight. Belisarius desired this Bessas to go out with some of his fellow-Goths to a point near the entrance of the aqueduct and there engage the enemy sentries in talk in their own language, as if trying to bribe them to surrender the city. Bessas’s men were to make as much clatter as possible, scuffling among the stones in the dark and indulging in loud horse-play as if drunken.

  The ruse succeeded. Insults, shouts, cheers, jokes were exchanged, Gothic ballads were sung, Bessas loudly proclaimed his loyalty to the Emperor Justinian and the Gothic sentries theirs to King Theudahad; and the 600 men passed through the aqueduct without being overheard. They carried lanterns with them, to give them courage.

  The leading man, the Isaurian who had originally discovered the way, wore no mail-coat, and was armed only with a dagger. When he reached the place where the roof was broken, he climbed up the side of the aqueduct from the shoulders of a comrade. Gaining a hand-hold on a projecting brick, he mounted higher, and after a struggle reached the top. A long strap was thrown to him; this he fastened to the branch of the olive-tree and then put a leg over the wall and looked around him. As Belisarius had foreseen, it was the courtyard of a house. Nobody was about. He beckoned with his hand, and four men in armour, including an officer, soon joined him in the court. Then he stole into the house, which was ruinous but occupied. It was now past midnight.

  As he climbed in through the window his nostrils were assailed by the sour smell of poverty. He was in the kitchen; in the moonlight he saw a single cup and a single plate on a wretched table, where the owner had supped. Pausing, he heard a weak cough from the next room and a mumbling noise that could only come from an aged woman in prayer. He was upon her before she could scream, his dagger raised; but this was only for a moment. He took from his bosom the same ragged kerchief that he had shown to Belisarius, and returned it to her with a smile of friendship. He also gave her a lump of cheese, which she smelt and then ate delightedly. The officer now came in. He asked in Latin where her house was situated and who her neighbours were. She described its location and said that her neighbours were poor folk like herself, from whom there was nothing to fear. The 600 men were signalled to climb up. They stepped into the courtyard, which was a large one, one by one, massing themselves together. Photius returned to report to Belisarius that all was well so far.

  Belisarius had a party with scaling-ladders ready in a lemon-grove not far from the aqueduct. As soon as he heard the
two trumpet-flourishes from the city, and saw from the swinging of lanterns where exactly on the northern course of the circuit-wall the Isaurians had gained a lodgement, he brought these ladders up hurriedly and ordered an escalade. Constantine, to whom had been entrusted the task of preparing the ladders, had under-estimated the height of the wall, so that they were short by a good twenty feet; he lengthened them, however, by lashing them together, two and two, and little time was lost. The Isaurians had captured two towers and a considerable stretch of wall between them, so it was not long before 2,000 men had mounted and joined them there. Naples was as good as captured.

  The only defenders who fought with true courage were the Jews. They knew that they had little hope of freedom if captured, Justinian being a persecutor of their religion; he blamed all Jews for the complicity of their ancestors in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But at last they, too, were overpowered. The gates being opened by some of the citizens, in swarmed the rest of the army.

  Naples was given up to plunder for the rest of the night, and many acts of savagery were done which Belisarius was powerless to prevent. Especially violent were 200 Massagetic Huns, heathen, who had elected not to return to their own country, preferring to serve with Belisarius. They broke into the churches, robbed the church-treasuries, and killed the priests at the altars – a sacrilege which distressed Belisarius when it was reported to him, especially as these were churches of the Orthodox faith. In the morning he announced an amnesty and put an end to the looting. The soldiers had to be content with their plunder of money and jewels and silver plate, for he took away from them the Neapolitan women and children whom they had seized as slaves and restored them to their families. Then he held a court of justice, as he had done in Carthage at its capture. He informed the 800 Gothic prisoners that they would be sent to Constantinople and there given the choice either of becoming unpaid manual labourers or of serving as paid soldiers of the Emperor on the Persian frontier. They assured him that they would choose to remain soldiers, and he praised them.

  While this court was in progress, an official messenger of the Italian Civil Service – ghastly faced, exhausted, spattered with mud – was admitted to Belisarius’s presence. He carried with him a letter from King Theudahad to Honorius, the City Governor of Rome. He had not broken the seals, but believed it to be a message of the utmost importance and secrecy, for he had been roused from sleep long after midnight and kept waiting for six hours while it was being penned. Being a loyal Roman who hated the heretical Goths, he had at great danger to himself passed disguised down the Appian Way and brought this letter to the hand of conquering Belisarius, Vice-Regent to His Sacred Majesty the Emperor Justinian, who was Vice-Regent to God Himself. As he passed through the town of Terracina, at dusk, he had been questioned by a Gothic officer; to avoid capture or delay, he had stabbed the Goth in the belly and left him dying on the road.

  Belisarius broke the seals of the letter and soon began to laugh so heartily that we feared for his senses. At last, recovering his gravity, he read out to the assembled company, in sonorous tones, the following document:

  King Theudahad to the Illustrious Honorius, Governor of the Eternal City Rome, Greeting!

  We regret to learn from your report that the brazen elephants placed in the Sacred Way (so named after the many superstitions to which it was consecrated of old) are falling into decay.

  It is to be much regretted that, whereas these animals live in the flesh for more than a thousand years, their brazen effigies should be so soon crumbling to ruin. See, therefore, that their gaping limbs be strengthened by iron hooks, and that their sagging bellies be underpinned by massive masonry.

  The living elephant, when it falls prostrate on the ground, as often occurs when it is helping men to fell trees, cannot rise again unaided. This is because it has no joints in its feet; and accordingly in the torrid lands frequented by these beasts you may often see numbers of them lying as if dead until men approach to help them to stand upright again. Thus this creature, so terrible by its size, is in point of fact not equally endowed by Nature with the tiny ant.

  That the elephant, however, surpasses all other animals in intelligence is proved by the adoration which it renders to Him whom it understands to be the Almighty Ruler of all. Moreover, it pays to good princes a homage which it refuses to tyrants.

  This beast uses its proboscis, that nosëd hand which Nature has awarded it in compensation for its very short neck, for the benefit of its master, accepting those presents which will be most profitable to him. It always walks cautiously, mindful of that fatal fall into the hunter’s pit which was the prelude to its captivity. At its master’s bidding it will exhale its breath – which is said to be a remedy for the human headache, especially if it sneezes.

  When the elephant comes to water, it sucks up in its trunk a vast quantity, which at a word of command it will squirt forth like a shower. If anyone has treated it with contempt, it will pour forth such a stream of dirty water over him that one would believe a river had entered his house. For this beast has a wonderfully long memory, both of injury and of kindness. Its eyes are small but move solemnly. There is a sort of regal dignity in its appearance, and while it recognizes with pleasure all that is honourable, it evidently despises scurrilous jests. Its skin is furrowed by deep channels, like those of the victims of the foreign disease named after it, elephantiasis. It is on account of the impenetrability of its hide that the Persian Kings use the elephant in war.

  It is most desirable that we should preserve the likeness of these creatures, and that our citizens should thus be familiarized with the sight of the denizens of foreign lands. Do not therefore permit them to perish, since it adds to the glory of Rome to collect all specimens of processes by which the art of workmen has imitated the productions of wealthy Nature in far parts of the world.

  Farewell!

  The messenger was crestfallen and angry that the letter was such a silly one; but Belisarius soothed him with compliments upon his courage and loyalty. He gave him a reward of five pounds of gold, which is 360 gold pieces, and enrolled him as a courier on his own staff. Belisarius said that the letter was of far greater value than appeared at first reading: it indicated clearly that King Theudahad was busying himself with scholarly trifles instead of attending to the defence of his kingdom. ‘Now I can march against Rome without anxiety,’ he told us.

  Had this King continued in command of the Gothic armies, Belisarius’s task would have been a light one indeed. For he had made no warlike preparations at all, assuring his nobles that all was well: a mongrel barking at a pack of wolves would very soon be eaten up. Theudahad regarded it as unnecessary to send a relief force to Naples, which could stand a siege, he said, twice the length of that to which Troy had been subjected by the Greeks of old. He would not listen to any remonstrances. ‘Let Belisarius first break his teeth on Naples; afterwards we can fill his mouth with mud.’

  Then when news came that Naples had fallen, the patience of his nobles was at an end. They declared that he had evidently sold the city to the Emperor; that to live in scholarly ease somewhere, anywhere, enriched through the betrayal of his subjects, was now his only object in life. They called an assembly at Lake Regillus, not far from Terracina, to which he was not invited. There they raised on their shields a brave general named Wittich, and acclaimed him king. This Wittich, who was of humble birth, had not many years previously gained a great victory for Theoderich against the savage Gepids on the banks of the Save. So little of a scholar was he that he could hardly sign his own name.

  King Theudahad, who was on his way from Tivoli to Rome, to consult some works in the public library there, did not delay for a moment when he heard the news – spurring off to his palace at Ravenna. Ravenna was the securest place of refuge in Italy, being protected by marshes (over which ran two defensible causeways) and by a sea too shallow to allow ships of war to approach the fortifications. But Wittich sent a man to hunt him down, who rode harder for revenge than
Theudahad rode for fear, having lately been deprived by Theudahad’s order of a beautiful heiress promised to him in marriage. This man galloped day and night and finally overtook Theudahad, after a ride of 200 miles, at the very gateway to Ravenna. There he caught him by the collar, pulled him from his horse, and cut his throat as if he had been a hog or wether.

  King Wittich marched to Rome, ahead of Belisarius. There he announced his election to the kingship and called a grand council of Goths. It became clear at this council that Gothic affairs were all in confusion. Not only were the forces for home defence scattered all over Italy, but the principal field army had gone north-westward across the Alps, to protect Gothic possessions this side of the Rhône against the Franks whom Justinian had bribed to attack them. Another army was in Dalmatia before Spalato. When Wittich reckoned up the forces at his immediate disposal, they amounted to no more than 20,000 trained men; and to outnumber Belisarius merely by two to one did not afford him the least confidence of victory.

  He therefore decided to leave a garrison in Rome strong enough to defend it against assault, to make peace with the Franks, to marshal his forces at Ravenna, and within a few weeks to be back again in overwhelming strength to drive us into the sea. The Roman Senate assured King Wittich of their loyalty, which he strengthened by taking distinguished hostages from them; and the Pope Silverius himself, who had been under Theudahad’s suspicion of secret correspondence with Constantinople, swore a solemn oath of allegiance to him. Then Wittich marched to Ravenna, and at Ravenna he married (though much against her will) Matasontha, Amalasontha’s only daughter, and thus engrafted himself into the house of Theoderich. From Ravenna he sent messages of friendship to Justinian, asking him to withdraw his armies: for the death of Amalasontha, he said, had been avenged by that of Theudahad.