The largest Gothic camp lay a mile beyond the mausoleum of Hadrian in what is called the Plain of Nero. Belisarius was anxious that his main attack against the camps outside the Pincian and Salarian Gates should not be hindered by enemy reinforcements hurried up from that quarter. He therefore ordered the Moorish cavalry to make a feint against the Goths there as soon as he was engaged; they were to ride out from the Aelian Gate under an officer named Valentine. After them would follow a force of city infantry, drawing up in defensive formation a short distance outside the gate. He told these Romans to look as much like soldiers as possible, but did not expect any serious fighting from them. His main attack he would make with cavalry alone. He had increased his cavalry forces by 1,000: in the recent fighting a great number of riderless horses had been captured, and part of the Isaurian infantry had converted itself – very successfully – into cavalry. The remaining Isaurians pleaded to be allowed also to take part in the battle. He could not refuse them, but stipulated that a few of them must remain on the walls and at the gates, to stiffen the city levies and to manage the catapults and scorpions and wild asses.
Early one autumn morning Belisarius led out his cavalry through the Pincian and Salarian Gates; the Isaurian infantry followed behind. Wittich was waiting for them, warned as usual. He had mustered every available man from his four northern camps, drawing up his infantry in the centre of his line and his cavalry on the wings; he stood at a distance of half a mile from the city, to allow more room for pursuit when he had overwhelmed us.
At nine o’clock the battle began, and Belisarius did just as be pleased at first, because the Goths stood on the defensive. He had divided his cavalry into two columns, one to each flank, which poured thousands of arrows into their dense mass. But to keep their infantry amused, a few small bodies of our Isaurian spearmen came up between, very close to their centre, and challenged equal bodies of Goths to combat; they were victorious in every such encounter. After a while the enemy cavalry began to retreat, their infantry keeping pace with them. By midday our men had pressed them back against their most distant camps. But here their archers came into action at last and, protected by huge shields, began shooting at our horses from the top of the ramparts. Before long so many of our cavalry were either wounded or unhorsed that no more than four full squadrons survived to resist fifty of theirs. To have broken off the engagement at this point, however, would have meant abandoning our infantry to its fate. At last the Gothic right wing took courage and charged. Bessas, who was commanding the cavalry on our left, fell back on the infantry; the infantry did not hold, and the whole line began to retire. It was easy enough for our cavalry to fight a rearguard action, but the slower-moving infantry suffered heavily. In all we lost a thousand men, whom we could ill spare, before covering fire from the siege-engines on the walls halted the rush of the enemy. Some of the Roman soldiers shut the Pincian Gate against the returning men, but my mistress and I were there with a few trusty spearmen. We resisted, killing several, and opened the gate again.
In the Plain of Nero meanwhile the two other armies had stood facing each other for a long time – the city levies drawn up in a formidable line, several thousand strong, with a screen of Moorish cavalry in front. The Goths had acquired a superstitious fear of the black-faced Moors by now; the Moors knew this, and kept harrying them with sudden charges, hurling their javelins and retiring with whoops of laughter. At midday the Moors made an unexpected charge in mass. The Goths, who outnumbered them by thirty to one, turned and fled to the Vatican Hill, leaving their camp unguarded. Valentine marched the whole army forward across the plain, intending to seize the Gothic camp and leave the Roman infantry to guard it while he and the Moors made a raid northward to destroy the Mulvian Bridge. Had this plan succeeded, Wittich would have been compelled to abandon his northern camps, since all food supplies for them came down the Flaminian Way and across this bridge. But when the rabble of Roman infantry began to plunder the Gothic camp, the Moors were loath to be deprived of their share of the plunder and joined in the merry work. Presently a few enemy scouts ventured down from the Vatican Hill and observed what was happening. They prevailed on the others to make an effort to recapture the camp. Soon the Goths came charging back in their thousands, and Valentine could not restore order in time: he was driven from the camp and forced back to the walls again, with heavy losses.
This was the last pitched battle which Belisarius consented to fight during the long defence of Rome.
Still no reinforcements arrived from Constantinople. Though we did not know it at the time, it was Cappadocian John who prevented their dispatch: apparently he insisted to Justinian that not another man could be spared. My mistress was for writing to Theodora, but Belisarius did not think it appropriate that his wife should appeal to the Empress in a military matter which directly concerned neither of them. Nevertheless, she did write, secretly, at the end of November, on the day that Silverius was deposed, making her plea a postscript to her lively account of the trial. Theodora would, my mistress knew, be delighted to hear of Silverius’s humiliation, for he had angered her recently by refusing a request of hers – not backed by Justinian’s authority – to reinstate a Patriarch who, though a most energetic and worthy man, had been removed from his see for Monophysite leanings. ‘The new Pope promises to be more obliging’, my mistress Antonina wrote to Theodora.
It was now very difficult for Belisarius to keep the civil population in good heart, for they were subsisting on a diet consisting almost wholly of herbs. Pestilence broke out and carried off 12,000 of them; but the soldiers still had their daily corn-ration and their wine and a little salted meat, so not many of them died. Sorties were made every two or three days, when it was found that the Goths were by no means so eager as before to come to grips with our horse-archers. Nobody enjoys being shot at and being unable to reply; but Wittich had not thought to form a corps of horse-archers of his own.
Of the smaller incidents of the siege I could write endlessly. There are a few stories concerned with wounds that must not be left untold. On the day that Theodosius entered Rome with the convoy Belisarius had engaged the attention of the enemy with brisk skirmishes at the other gates. The Household Regiment was heavily engaged, and on their return that evening two of the cuirassiers presented an extraordinary sight. One of them, Arzes, a Persian formerly belonging to the Immortals, came riding back with an arrow sunk in his face close to his nose; and another, a Thracian called Cutilas, came back with a javelin sticking in his head and waving about like a plume. Neither of them had paid the least attention to these wounds, but had continued fighting indefatigably, to the horror and alarm of the Goths, who cried: ‘These are not men but demons.’
The javelin was afterwards drawn from Cutilas’s head by a surgeon; but the wound grew inflamed, and he was dead in two days. Arzes, however, was examined by the same surgeon, who pressed the back of his neck and asked: ‘Does this pressure hurt?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Arzes. Then the surgeon opened the skin at the back of Arzes’ neck. He found the point of the arrow, caught hold of it with a pair of forceps and, having first cut off the shaft close to the nose, tugged the arrow through, barb and all. Arzes fainted with the pain, but his blood was healthy: the wound healed up without any suppuration. He led the next sally, and survived the war.
On another occasion, Trajan, the troop-commander whose exploits I have already mentioned, was pierced close above the right eye and near the nose by the long, barbed head of an arrow. The shaft had been insecurely fastened to it, and fell off at the moment of impact. Trajan continued fighting. For days and months after his comrades expected him to drop dead at any moment; but he lived on and suffered no pain or inconvenience, though the barbed head remained imbedded in his flesh. Five years later it began slowly to emerge again. Twelve years more, and he was able to pluck it out like a thorn.
But as strange a story as any concerns the wound of Chorsomantis, Belisarius’s armour-bearer. This was not a deep or a very remarkable wo
und, being a mere spear-prick in his shin, but it kept him in his quarters for several days, with poultices of wound-wort wrapped around it. In consequence he was absent from the pitched battle, in which a number of his comrades distinguished themselves. When he was well again he swore to be avenged on the Goths for this ‘insult to his shin’, as he called it. His white mare having recently foaled, he now had the necessary milk from her for brewing kavasse; and kavasse he brewed. One day after his midday meal, having drunk a good deal of this liquor, Chorsomantis armed himself, mounted his mare, and rode to the Pincian postern-gate. He told the sentry on duty there that the Illustrious Lord Belisarius had entrusted him with a mission to the enemy’s camp. As Chorsomantis was known to enjoy Belisarius’s fullest confidence, the sentry did not doubt his word; the gate was unlocked for him.
The sentry watched Chorsomantis ride easily over the plain until an outpost of the Goths, a party of twenty men, sighted him. Taking him for a deserter, they came spurring eagerly forward, each hoping to win the mare for his own booty. Chorsomantis drew his bow. Twang! twang! twang! – down went three Goths, and the others turned hurriedly about. He shot three more of them as they fled, then returned towards the city at a slow walk, holding in his mettlesome mare. A troop of sixty Goths now came charging down on him, but he turned and galloped about them in a half-circle. He killed two more men, wounded two, and completed the circle with the slaughter of four more. I happened to be watching from the rampart, ran hurriedly and called to my mistress, who was in conference with the officers of a guard-house near by, begging her not to miss this extraordinary spectacle. ‘Here’s a man has gone mad,’ I cried.
She recognized the mare: ‘No, not mad, my good Eugenius. That is only our Chorsomantis avenging the insult to his shin.’
Then Chorsomantis was caught between two enemy troops; but he charged clean through the nearer one, using his lance and sword this time. We cheered loudly, for we saw that he was safe at last, if he wished. My mistress ordered a strong covering fire from the catapults to assist his return, but our cheer determined him to continue the fight. He turned yet again and disappeared from our view, driving some of the enemy before him, but pursued by others. We heard distant shouts and cries for a good while longer as the fight continued towards their camp.
In the end a Gothic cheer from close to their palisade informed us that Chorsomantis was no more. While many Christians made the sign of the Cross upon their breasts and offered a prayer for his soul my mistress cried out with a loud pagan oath: ‘By the body of Bacchus and the club of Hercules, that was an angry man!’
CHAPTER 16
RETIREMENT OF THE GOTHS
THE news that had come from Africa in the spring of this year was gloomy indeed. Solomon had recently sent a column of Imperial troops against Stotzas from Numidia, but Stotzas had persuaded them to join in the mutiny, in spite of the prestige that he had lost through his defeat by Belisarius. Except for the towns of Carthage and Hippo Regius and Hadrumetum, the whole Diocese was lost to Justinian again. However, it was one thing to be the ring-leader of a successful mutiny and another to govern a Diocese: Stotzas found that he had little authority over his men, who complained that he did not provide them with regular rations or pay or attend to their comforts, and that they were little better off now than before. Later in the year we heard that Justinian had sent his nephew Germanus to proclaim an amnesty in his name to all deserters; and that the mutineers considered the offer a very handsome one, since it included back pay for all the months of the mutiny. Stotzas’s forces were now gradually melting away. At last we heard that Germanus had defeated Stotzas and his Moorish allies in the field, and that Stotzas had fled to the interior of Morocco in the company of a few Vandals; and that all was quiet again, though the whole Diocese was greatly impoverished. Belisarius wrote to Germanus, suggesting that he send him as reinforcements the Herulians and Thracian Goths who had been among the mutineers; in Italy there were no laws forbidding the Sacraments to Arians, and he could make good use of these brave men.
At Rome there was plain famine now. The distressed citizens came again to plead with Belisarius to fight another pitched battle, and so end the siege, one way or the other, at a single stroke. They even told him: ‘Our misery has become so profound that it has actually inspired us with a sort of courage, and we are ready, if you insist, to take up arms and march with you against the Goths. Rather die under the merciful sword-stroke or lance-thrust than from the slow and tearing pangs of hunger.’
Belisarius was ashamed to hear so degrading an avowal from the mouths of men who still bore the proud name of Romans. In dismissing them he said that if they had volunteered twelve months previously to learn the business of fighting, by now he might have good use for them: as it was, they were useless to him. Belisarius was aware that the Goths were in a very difficult position themselves – the pestilence had spread to their camps, which were insanitary, and destroyed many thousands of them. There had also been a breakdown in their food-supply from the north, owing to floods and mismanagement. But his own position was worse; and if the relieving force that was rumoured to be on its way did not soon arrive he was lost.
He now took the bold step of secretly sending out two columns, of 500 good troops and 1,000 Roman levies each, to surprise and occupy the fortified towns of Tivoli and Terracina. If both actions were successful he would not only have decreased his ration-strength but turned from besieged to besieger: Tivoli and Terracina commanded the roads by which food-convoys were now reaching the Goths. He urged my mistress Antonina to leave Rome with the force sent against Terracina, and from there continue to Naples and hurry the reinforcements forward to him as soon as they arrived. In reality he was anxious for her health, because her great exertions and the badness of the food had weakened her greatly; and she had frequent fainting fits. Besides, to be the only woman in a besieged city is no happy fate. After some hesitation she agreed to go, resolved by whatever means to revitual the city before another month had passed.
On the last night of November we slipped out of the city, 1,500 of us, by the Appian Gate. I, for one, was so happy to be away that I began to sing a Hippodrome song, ‘The Chariots Fly’, forgetting the order of silence; an officer struck me roughly over the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and I ceased singing in the middle of my verse. We passed the aqueduct fortress in safety, the Goths having abandoned it because of the pestilence; and a few days later we occupied Terracina without incident, for the small Gothic garrison fled at sight of our banner. We filled our bellies in this place, eating cheese and butter and fresh sea-fish for the first time for many months.
My mistress and I and Procopius the secretary, who came with us, set out from Terracina with an escort of twenty soldiers; yet we reached Naples with more than 500! Our way had taken us past the encampment of those cavalrymen who had deserted at the Mulvian Bridge long before. A number of other deserters had since joined them there. When my mistress offered them all a free pardon, they fell in behind her. And at Baiae we found a number of our wounded, who had been sent to take the waters there, now sufficiently recovered to be able to fight again. But Naples – where the volcano Vesuvius was rumbling ominously, and scattering the ashes that induce such fertility in the vineyards that they fall upon – Naples had happy news for us. A fleet had just arrived from the East with 3,000 Isaurian infantry on board, and was anchored in the bay; and, besides this, 2,000 cavalry under Bloody John had landed at Otranto and were moving up towards us by rapid marches.
Soon our army of 5,500 men was ready to march to the relief of Rome. We had collected great quantities of grain and oil and sausages and wine to take with us. Bloody John had assembled a large number of farm-wagons, requisitioned with their teams in his passage through Calabria; we loaded the grain on these. John undertook to escort the convoy into Rome along the Appian Way – if the Goths attacked, the wagons would provide him with a useful barricade in the barbarian style. My mistress took command of the Isaurian fleet i
tself, storing all the other provisions in it. The weather being fine, we sailed to Ostia at once, agreeing to meet John there four days before Christmas Day.
At the mouth of the River Tiber is an island two miles long and two miles broad. On the northern side is the strongly fortified Port of Rome, connected with the city by a good road along which, in times of peace, barges are drawn up the current by teams of oxen. On the southern side is Ostia, which was once of greater importance than the Port of Rome, but has long lost its trade and declined to a mere open village. This is because the road from here to Rome is unsuitable as a towpath: it was found cheaper to tow goods up the river in barges than to haul them along the road in wagons. Besides, the harbour of Ostia had grown too shallow for convenient use, a great quantity of silt having been carried down the river and retained by the artificial island built at the harbour mouth. However, the Goths now held the Port of Rome, and Ostia was the only other port in the neighbourhood; so to Ostia we went, and found it undefended.
Meanwhile Belisarius, informed of the approach of the convoy, decided to deal the Goths a heavy blow to the northward, in order to distract their attention from what was happening on the river. One early morning, therefore, he ordered a thousand light cavalry under Trajan to ride out from the Pincian Gate against the nearest Gothic camp and shoot arrows over the palisade, inviting a skirmish. The Gothic cavalry soon gathered from the other camps. Trajan retired, according to orders, as soon as they charged, and was pursued back to the city walls. This was only the beginning of the battle. The Goths did not know that our men had been busy in the night removing the buttressed wall with which the Flaminian Gate had long been blocked from inside. From this unexpected quarter burst Belisarius himself at the head of his Household Regiment and, forcing his way through an intervening outpost, charged their confused column in the flank. Then Trajan’s men turned about, and the Goths were caught between the two forces. Very few escaped.