By the late afternoon the attack had everywhere failed. In shooting against so dense a mass as the Goths presented, the worst archers in the world could hardly have failed to cause great destruction; and we had a number of quick-firing marksmen with us and a plentiful supply of arrows. We reckoned the enemy losses that day as upward of 20,000 killed or disabled. The Goths withdrew sullenly to their camps, and all that night we could hear psalm-singing and lamentations as they buried their dead. On the following morning we were ready for them again; but no new attack was made at any point, nor for many days afterwards.
Belisarius had written to Justinian once more, explaining his need of 30,000 reinforcements and urging that at least 10,000 be sent without an hour’s delay. Before the letter could reach Constantinople news came that reinforcements were already on their way. But it seemed that they numbered a mere 2,000 and had been forced by bad weather to winter in Greece, unable to cross the Adriatic Sea. There was no indication that they were the advance-guard of an army of reputable size. Belisarius knew now that he would be confined within the walls of Rome for three or four months longer at least. Provisions were still being brought into the city at night, by the gates on the southern side, but not in sufficient quantities to feed 600,000 persons for any length of time. He therefore ordered the speedy evacuation to Naples of all women, children, and aged people, and of all other civilians, except priests and senators and such, who were incapable of bearing arms.
Between dusk and dawn the Goths now kept close inside their palisaded camps; this was the fighting hour of the Moors, who were excused ordinary duty, but spent their nights outside the city walls. They would ride out in parties of three or four, wearing clothes of the colour of mud; and, tethering their horses in some clump of trees, hide in ditches by the wayside, or behind bushes. They would then spring upon single soldiers, cut their throats, rob them, and gallop away. Sometimes, combining their parties, they would destroy quite large companies of Goths. They used especially to lie in wait near the Gothic camp latrines, which were in each case dug outside the ditch, in order to catch men who were taken short in the night. They also haunted the horse-lines and the grazing paddocks. It was from fear of these Moors, as I say, that the Goths learned to keep close to their camps all night. So the long processions of evacuated civilians went out unmolested, night after night; and no Gothic camp covered the road that they took.
The first party was sent to the Port of Rome, where our fleet was; from there they took ship to Naples. But the rest were forced to go on foot all the way, carrying bundles or pushing handcarts heaped with household treasures. Processions of 50,000 and upwards went out nightly, straggling down the Appian Way. It was a lamentable sight to see them go, and many were the tears shed by these poor folk at the Appian Gate, and by the men whom they left behind. But at least they had a good road to travel by. The Appian Way is built of hard lava, as firm and unbroken as when it was first paved, hundreds of years ago under the Republic. Furthermore, Belisarius provided each party in turn with a cavalry escort for the first stage of the journey, and gave them sufficient food to last until they came to Naples.
On the day after the departure of the first party from the Port of Rome, which lies eighteen miles from the city, King Wittich seized the fortifications at this place; we had been unable to spare troops to guard them, and sailors are not fighters. Hitherto convoys of stores had reached us in barges from the Port, hauled up the river by oxen. We were now cut off from the sea, and our fleet retired to Naples. This occurred in April. In May we were put on half-rations of corn. In June the reinforcements arrived from Greece, under a general named Martin: 1,600 heathen Slavs and Bulgarian Huns.
These Slavs, who have curiously European features for so wild a race, had recently appeared in great force on the banks of the Danube, dispossessing the Gepids. They are horse-archers and excellent fighters if well fed, well paid and well led; and are also men of their word, but very dirty in their habits. Justinian had provided them with body-armour and helmets – usually they wear only leather jerkins and trews. He had also paid a great sum of money on their account to the priests of their tribe: for the Slavs have all things in common, and the priests, by whose ministrations they worship the Lightning God, act as their treasurers. When these Slavs learned that Belisarius was of their race and even knew a little of their language, they became well disposed to him; and so did the Huns (whom I have already described) on finding a few fellow-tribesmen of theirs in his Household Regiment held in great honour.
Belisarius now proposed to take the offensive against the Goths, though 1,600 men are not 10,000. He did not wish the new arrivals to feel that they were cooped up like prisoners in the city; as soon as they had been posted to their stations and given instruction in their guard-duties he staged a demonstration for their benefit. In broad daylight he sent out from the Salarian Gate 200 of his Household cuirassiers, under an Illyrian named Trajan, a troop commander and a wonderfully cool fellow. Following the orders that they had received, these men galloped to a little hill within sight of the walls and there formed up in a ring. Out rushed the indignant Goths from the nearest camp, snatching up their weapons and mounting their horses in great eagerness to attack them. By the time that it takes a Christian to say a Paternoster slowly, Trajan’s men had shot 4,000 arrows into their disorderly column and killed or wounded 800 horsemen; but as soon as the Gothic infantry began to arrive Trajan’s men galloped off, shooting from the saddle. They accounted for 200 more Goths before they returned, without a single casualty, to the shelter of the gate, where they entered under covering fire from a massed battery of catapults. Observe: the Gothic horsemen were armed only with lance and sword, and those of their infantry who were archers wore no body-armour and would go nowhere without the escort of mail-clad spearmen, who were very slow of foot. It was not to be wondered at that Trajan’s men had it all their own way. A few days later a second force of 200 cuirassiers went out, but with a hundred Slavs attached to them for instructional purposes. They, too, seized a small hill, shot down Goths by the hundred, retired. A few days later still another force, Household cuirassiers and Bulgars, did the same thing. In these skirmishes the Goths lost 4,000 men; yet Wittich did not draw the obvious moral as to the inferiority of his armament, believing that the success of our men had been due merely to their daring. He ordered 500 of his own Royal Lancers to make a similar demonstration on a hill near the Asinarian Gate. Belisarius sent out a thousand Thracian cavalry under Bessas; the Goths were shot to pieces, hardly a hundred escaping back to their camp. The next day Wittich, who had reviled the survivors for cowards, sent out another lancer squadron of similar size. Belisarius let the Slavs and Bulgars loose on them, and every Goth was killed or taken prisoner.
The summer advanced slowly. One night a convoy came up from Terracina with sacks of coin for the payment of the troops, and with another sort of treasure for my mistress’s household, namely the person of Theodosius. I must record that, although she greeted him very kindly, my mistress was so busy with her management of military affairs that the young man no longer seemed half her life; she had little time now for his sly witticisms and graces. She was prouder than ever before of being Belisarius’s wife: there were continual praises of him in every common soldier’s mouth and in almost every officer’s, and her name was respectfully coupled with his. Theodosius, on the other hand, was a person of little importance, after all. He was not even a good marksman with a bow, and only a fair horseman – my mistress judged people mainly by these standards now, taking her duties very seriously. But she found a use for him as legal secretary to her husband. Soon it came to my ears that Constantine was reviving the old scandal among his brother-officers; and that the Catholic clergy were privately using the scandal to discredit our household among the civil population. But I said nothing, since we had troubles enough.
The same convoy also brought in a number of wagons of corn. They were the last that reached us, for the Goths now began to blockade th
e roads closely. Seven miles south-westward from the city two great aqueducts intersected, enclosing a considerable space with their enormous brick arches; by filling up the open intervals with clay and stones the Goths made a strong fortress, to which they built outworks. Here they placed a garrison of 7,000 men and were thus in command of both the Latin Way and the Appian Way. Even before the winter closed down on us there was great distress in Rome for lack of food. The remaining citizens, though impressed by Belisarius’s frequent successes, refused to volunteer for active service; they grew more disaffected than ever, especially after a partial reverse that we suffered, which I shall soon describe.
It was by my mistress Antonina’s vigilance that the treachery of the Pope Silverius was revealed. Belisarius had deputed to her the task of granting civilians permission to leave the city on business. She was very sharp in detecting any fraud – before she undertook this task a great number of Romans needed for defence work had managed to escape on various pretexts. One day a smooth-spoken priest came before her and asked permission to be absent for two or three nights: he had left a book in the sacristy-cupboard of his parish church near the Mulvian Bridge, and now wished to consult it. My mistress asked: ‘What book?’ He answered that it was the letters of St Jerome. She knew that no priest in his senses would risk passing through the Gothic lines merely to fetch these out-of-date, ill-tempered letters – of which, moreover, copies were surely to be had in any church library in Rome. But she concealed her suspicions and granted him a pass. The priest was arrested that night as he was passing out of the Pincian postern-gate. Sewn in his skirt was found a letter to King Wittich, signed by all the leading senators and by the Pope himself, offering to open the Asinarian Gate to admit the Gothic army on such a night as Wittich might appoint.
I should explain that Belisarius, in order to be as free as possible from judicial work that might interfere with his military duties, had also deputed to Antonina the settling of all civilian disputes and the punishment of all civilian offenders, though disputes and crimes of the military still came up before him. My mistress held a daily court in her quarters at the Pincian Palace. When she told him the names of the traitors and showed him the letter, he was angry but not astonished: he was aware that Wittich had threatened to kill the Roman hostages that he had at Ravenna if Italy continued to hold out against him. Belisarius did not think it just, however, that merely because the traitors were persons of such distinction they should be tried by himself rather than by her. Indeed, he was glad that the case lay in Antonina’s jurisdiction: he would have been ashamed, as a devout Christian, to sit in judgement on the spiritual head of his Church. My mistress certainly had no such scruples, being still a pagan at heart. She said: ‘A traitor in a mitre, or a traitor in a helmet – where is the difference?’ Nevertheless, Belisarius was present at the trial, not wishing to seem a shirker of responsibility. My mistress, being unwell that day, reclined on a couch; he sat at her feet as her coadjutor.
The Pope Silverius, summoned before the court, appeared in full regalia of gold and purple and white silk, as if to overawe my mistress. He had his Fisherman’s ring on his finger, his pastoral staff in his hand, the great jewelled tiara on his head. Behind him followed a retinue of bishops and deacons, splendidly gowned. But these were instructed by my mistress Antonina to wait in the first and second ante-chambers, according to their rank.
The Pope Silverius rapped with his staff on the floor and asked my mistress: ‘Why, Illustrious Antonina, Sister in Christ, have you brought us here, rudely interrupting our devotions with your impetuous summons? What ails you that you could not instead come to our Palace, as courtesy demanded?’
She bent her brows in the style of Theodora and, disdaining any reply to his question, asked him directly: ‘Pope Silverius, what have we done to you that you should betray us to the Goths?’
He feigned indignation: ‘Would you accuse the anointed successor of the Holy Apostle Peter of a miserable felony?’
But she: ‘Do you think that because tradition entrusts you with the Keys of Heaven you have power also over the keys of the Asinarian Gate?’
‘Who accuses us of this treachery?’
‘Your own signature and seal.’ She showed him the intercepted letter.
‘Adulteress, it is a forgery,’ he bellowed at her.
‘Be respectful to the court, cleric, or you shall be scourged,’ she threatened. Then she confronted him with the parish priest, who had made a full confession without any necessity of torture.
The Pope Silverius trembled for shame, yet continued to deny his guilt. The nine senators who had also signed the letter were now produced in witness against him. They had already thrown themselves on the mercy of my mistress, and tearfully blamed the Pope to his face for seducing them from their loyalty.
My mistress delivered her verdict, after a short conference with Belisarius: ‘Whereas the sentence that the Law requires to be inflicted on traitors, during the defence of a city, is mutilation of the features, and to be paraded for public insult through the streets, and then to be put to a disgraceful death at the stake, we yet have more regard for the good name of the Church than to keep strictly to the letter of the law. None the less, a shepherd who sells his flock to the Arian wolf cannot be allowed to retain his crook. Eugenius, disrobe this priest and give him the monk’s robe hanging on the peg yonder. Silverius, you are deposed from your bishopric, and leave the city tonight.’
Although the clerics of the Papal retinue were appalled at the sacrilege when the sentence was announced to them, they could not dispute the human justice of it. I approached the Pope and took away his pastoral staff, his ring, and his tiara, laying them upon a table. Then I conducted him to a room where the regional sub-deacon was waiting. He removed all Silverius’s priestly garments, until he stood before us only in his shirt – and not a hair-shirt, either, but a fine silk one embroidered with flowers like a woman’s chemise. Then we gave him the monk’s robe and put it over his head, and tied the cord for him, all without a word.
When we brought him back into the court my mistress addressed him, saying: ‘Spend the rest of your days in repentance, Brother Silverius, as did your illustrious predecessor, the first Bishop of Rome, after similarly breaking faith with his Master. He finally made amends by martyrdom in the Hippodrome of Caligula, close to the city – but so much sanctity we do not expect of you.’
Belisarius said nothing all this time, and appeared very ill at ease.
Silverius was escorted out of the Palace by two Massagetic Huns, who placed him in the guard-room at the Pincian Gate; that night he left the city for Naples, and the East.
His subordinates met to elect a new Pope. The deacon Vigilius was the successful candidate – having gone to the trouble of bribing the electors with a matter of 15,000 gold pieces. Gold was more highly prized by these greedy clerics than ever before. The civil population was allowed only a very small corn-ration, which it would eke out with cabbage and such green herbs as nettle and dandelion and hare’s ear; but good food in plenty only gold could purchase. During that summer soldiers took to making nightly raids on the harvest-fields behind the Gothic lines, cutting the heads of corn off by the handful with sickles and thrusting them into sacks slung over the backs of their horses. A sack of corn fetched a hundred times its peace-time price.
As winter drew on, these supplies ceased: sausages made from mule-flesh were the only palatable supplement to the meagre corn-ration that even the wealthiest purse could buy. Cats, rats, and axle-grease were eaten. Of wine alone there was no great shortage, since Belisarius had requisitioned all stocks from private cellars for public distribution. The city was very close to famine; yet, strangely enough, I never saw a single under-nourished priest. ‘Ah,’ said my mistress drily, when I remarked on this to her, ‘the ravens feed them, as they miraculously fed the Prophet Elijah.’
As for the nine senators who had attached their names to the intercepted letter, Antonina could not in justice
punish them more severely than the Pope. She banished them, confiscated their goods, and sent them out of the city in Brother Silverius’s company. Belisarius was still uneasy: other Romans as well might be implicated in the plot. He therefore employed locksmiths to change or interchange the locks of all the gates twice a month, so that it would be more difficult for traitors to obtain a key to fit them. He also appointed officers for guard duty at these gates according to an irregular roster, to make it impossible for any of them to be bribed in advance to open any particular gate on any agreed night. To make the watches less tedious my mistress had formed bands of musicians from the theatre to give frequent concerts at every gate; but for greater vigilance on these occasions Belisarius set outposts beyond the fosse, chiefly Moors, and every outpost had a watchdog trained to growl at the least sound of approaching feet.
I must pause here just long enough to relate how cleverly my mistress Antonina managed these musicians. If any musician played ill my mistress would seize his instrument from him and show him: ‘The tune goes so.’ And she would taunt them, ‘O you miserable Romans, you cannot fight and you cannot fiddle. Of what use are you?’ To this an aggrieved daring musician once replied, attempting to abash her with obscenity: ‘We are great adepts at procreation.’ She replied coldly: ‘In this at least you surpass your fathers.’ The joke was repeated from mouth to mouth, and has become one of the most famous of her many sayings.
The reverse of which I promised to tell was due to the elation of our troops at the success of the cavalry skirmishes. They were impatient of Belisarius’s policy of gradually wearing down the enemy’s forces and courage, and clamoured for a general engagement. It was his policy never to discourage a warlike spirit in his men, but he did not think that the time was yet ripe for a pitched battle. The enormous difference in size between the armies still remained, and the Goths, though discouraged, were still fighting courageously. He tried to keep his men busy with more frequent sorties. But on two or three occasions he found that the Goths were ready for him, having been warned of his intentions by deserters. The Roman population now began to clamour for a battle too – or at least for a speedy end to the siege, one way or the other. He could no longer refuse the plea: he must not lose the respect of his men, or allow the civil population to become unmanageable.