Shortly before this agreement was made a venerable institution came to a sudden end. For of the Roman Senators and their families, 300 persons whom Teudel had kept as hostages beyond the Po were butchered in revenge for his death; and the rest, hurrying from Sicily to Rome on news of its capture, were intercepted by the Goths near Vesuvius and likewise destroyed without mercy. The Order had not been revived, and never, I think, will be. Its only excuse for continuance during the last few hundred years had been its riches and its ancient traditions of culture. Justinian inherited the riches; the traditions could not be either recovered or established afresh. So much then for the Senatorial Order of the West, and for King Teudel, and for the Goths – whose name is now extinct in Italy, though there are still Visigothic Kings ruling in Spain.
The end of Bessas: he redeemed his loss of Rome by his success in Colchis, where he recaptured Petra, the capital, from the Persians; and died in honour at Constantinople, not long afterwards. But Petra was once more taken by the Persians. Then a strange coincidence – Dagistheus, the Roman commander at Petra, redeemed his loss of that city by his success in Italy; for it was he who recaptured Rome, lost by Bessas, for Narses.
Narses, who remained in Italy as Governor, won a second great battle on his own account, so that this time the credit goes to his own studies of the art of war. A huge army of Franks had marched down into Southern Italy. Narses surprised their main body at Casilinum in Campania when (as before in Belisarius’s time) they had lost half their numbers from dysentery. The Frankish army consisted wholly of infantry armed with sword, spear, and throwing-axe. Narses offered to oppose them with his own infantry; but, as the Franks charged in column, he enveloped their flanks with his squadrons and shot them to pieces at a hundred paces’ distance, which was out of the range of their axes. The Franks dared not move forward for fear of being charged on either flank, nor did they dare to break column and attack the cavalry – their art of war demands that they keep close order on all occasions. They died together in a heap, and only five men of 30,000 succeeded in escaping. Narses, perhaps to avoid Justinian’s jealousy, ascribed the credit for this victory entirely to the miraculous image of the Virgin that he carried with him, who warned him of all important events.
When Justinian heard of Taginae and Casilinum he praised God and was exceedingly happy. ‘Ah,’ he is reported to have said, ‘why did we not think to send our valiant Narses to Italy long ago? Why did we recall him from the previous campaign, upon a jealous complaint of Count Belisarius? Many lives would have been saved and much treasure spared if we had only trusted to our Narses. We blame ourselves for displaying too great consideration for the feelings of Belisarius, a cowardly and stupid officer; but perhaps such excess of generosity is pardonable in a sovereign.’
Then he returned to his theological studies and, convinced that Italy was safe, that King Khosrou meditated no further mischief on the Eastern frontier, and that the barbarians to the North could be bribed or tricked into fighting one another, he neglected his armies and fortifications more than ever before.
Belisarius, as Commander of the Armies in the East and of the Imperial Guards, three times approached him, begging him to consider the danger to the Empire. After the third attempt an Imperial order came: ‘His Serenity forbids this subject to be raised again. God will defend His people who trust in Him, with a strong right hand.’
*
One day, in the autumn of the year of our Lord 558 – which was the year of Bloody John’s death, in a hunting accident, after having obediently served with Narses in his Italian campaign, and the tenth year of our renewed residence in Constantinople – Belisarius was handed a message by the master of a Black Sea trading vessel. It was written in the shaking hand of an old man, on a dirty strip of parchment.
‘Most Illustrious Belisarius, who rescued my life from Cappadocian John fifty years and more ago, in an inn near Adrianople in Thrace, when you were only a little lad: the time has come to show that Simeon the burgess does not forget this debt of gratitude. The Bulgarian Huns carried me off as a slave long ago in a raid upon Thrace, but have treated me with indulgence because of my skill as a saddler. I have learned their barbarous language and am admitted to their councils, and I confess that I am now better situated in many ways than when I was the slave of rapacious tax-collectors. Only, I miss the good wine of Thrace and the warmth of my well-built house. Know, then, that this winter, if the Danube freezes again, as the weather prophets foretell, a Bulgarian horde will overrun Thrace. They boast that they will attack Constantinople itself and take such plunder as was never taken before since the world began. Zabergan leads them, a capable Cham. Twenty thousand men ride with him. Warn the Emperor. Farewell.’
Belisarius brought the letter to the Emperor’s attention. Justinian asked: ‘Why this torn strip of parchment, reeking of the docks? Is this a proper document to show an Emperor?’
‘A dirty beggar, Your Majesty, who sees smoke curling from the upper windows of a great house, is privileged to come rushing into the hall with a warning cry of “Fire!” The inmates thank him for his timely warning and excuse his rags and rude address.’
Justinian said: ‘This, Illustrious Belisarius, is surely one of those military ruses for which you are justly famous? You wish to frighten us by a forgery into increasing our armies and rebuilding the fortifications of the city, knowing well that we have forbidden you to mention the matter directly. We are not deceived, but forgive you for your errors. See to it, my lord, that all disloyalty be banished from your heart. For in times of old there have been generals in this Court who urged upon their Emperors the raising of new armies, pretending an emergency, but planning to use them against the State. Search your heart, my lord, and if you find sin there, pluck it out with Christ’s help, for He will grant you strength.’
Now, in the Square of Augustus, opposite the Senate House, Justinian had placed a colossal equestrian statue of himself; it stands upon a very lofty pedestal plated with the finest pale brass. He is shown there in armour of antique pattern and wearing a helmet with an immensely long plume. In his left hand is an orb surmounted by a cross. His right hand is raised in a gesture which is intended to mean: ‘Begone, enemies!’ But he carries no arms, not even a dagger, as if the gesture and the frown on his face were sufficient discouragement. And indeed in the latter part of his reign he treated his armies as if he had no further use for them. The fact was that Justinian, ambitious of greatness, had acted like the nameless rich man, mentioned in an anecdote by Jesus Christ, who began building a house for himself without first counting the cost, and so fell into debt and ridicule. Justinian’s eye, it was said in the city, was the bully of his stomach: he wasted his substance on vain religious luxuries, neglecting his practical military needs.
All agreed that he should never, in the first place, have attempted the conquest and occupation of Africa and Italy with the meagre forces at his disposal. Despite the almost miraculous successes of Belisarius, the double task had proved too heavy for the Imperial armies to perform. True, they still held Carthage and Ravenna, but protracted campaigns had brought these prosperous and well-governed lands to almost complete ruin. Meanwhile, the Northern and Eastern frontiers were weakened by the absence of their garrisons and reserves, and many times breached by invasion, so that a general catastrophe had been only narrowly avoided. The price for the reconquest of the Western Empire was, in a word, its devastation, and the devastation also of Syria, Colchis, Roman Mesopotamia, Illyria, and Thrace: the revenues of which diminished pitiably. Justinian was now obliged to institute a policy of retrenchment; and characteristically began to apply it in the department of Imperial Defence, rather than in that of Ecclesiastical Endowment; hoping, by the foundation or embellishment of still more monasteries, nunneries, churches, to bribe the angelic hosts to assist him, as at other times he had bribed Franks, Slavs, and Huns with gifts of gold or military equipment. He publicly justified his superstitious confidence by the words spoken by Jesu
s to the Apostle Peter when he resisted the guards of the Jewish High Priest and cut off the ear of one of them: ‘Put up again thy sword into its place. For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ He was the more wedded to his pacifism in that he had no fears for his own safety: the soothsayers whom he secretly consulted had all assured him that he would meet a natural death at last in his own bed in the Sacred Apartments of the Palace.
On Christmas Day the Huns crossed the frozen Danube. When the news reached the Court the Emperor ordered masses to be said in all the principal sanctuaries, and spent his whole night in vigil at St Irene’s Church; but took no other action. The Huns divided into two bodies, the one to ravage Greece, the other under their Cham Zabergan himself to capture the city. They swept across Thrace unopposed. Being heathen, they felt no respect for churches or convents: they robbed and raped indiscriminately, sending back wagon-loads of treasure and droves of captives along the winter roads and across the Danube. The escorts of these convoys, savage horsemen, forced the pace with whips or the prick of swords; and any captive who fell and did not instantly rise was killed without mercy – even women overtaken with labour pains. The Huns, though in general well-behaved among themselves, count the whole world of Christians as their natural prey, and would think no more of spitting a baptized infant on a lance than they would of transfixing a fawn in the chase.
Zabergan pressed on. The long walls of Anastasius, built across the peninsula at thirty-two miles’ distance from the city, were no obstacle to his horsemen: being ruinous in very many places, with no soldiers available to man the breaches, no catapults or other engines ready for use in the towers. On the Feast of the Three Kings, Zabergan camped by the banks of the river Athyras, twenty miles from the city, and panic suddenly overcame the Constantinopolitans. For the public squares were full of unhappy refugees from the villages, with grey faces and small bundles, shouting: ‘They come, the Huns come – like a furious herd of wild bulls destroying as they go! O God have mercy upon us!’
This cry spread through the streets: ‘God have mercy upon us!’ Then every citizen asked his neighbour: ‘Where are the men of the Imperial Guard? Where are the city militia? Will no one restrain these Bulgarian devils from storming the inner walls and burning the city down, and destroying every one of us?’
Great crowds of them hired boats and fled across the Bosphorus into Asia Minor, 50,000 persons crossing in a single day.
The Emperor Justinian spent the greater part of these days kneeling in his private chapel. He repeated again and again: ‘The Lord is strong. He will deliver us.’ The only step of a practical nature that he took was to order that all churches in the suburbs, and all his villas too, should be immediately stripped of their treasures, and these conveyed to the Imperial private port, to be loaded on barges.
At last he sent for Belisarius, and asked: ‘How is it Illustrious Belisarius, Count of our Stables and Commander of our Guards, that you have sent no soldiers to repel these heathen savages?’
Belisarius replied: ‘Your Sacred Majesty gave me titles of honour but not the authority that customarily goes with them; and forbade me to mention the unprepared and undisciplined condition of your forces. Three times, on my return from Italy, I presented the same report to you: pointing out that your ministers sold commissions in the Guards to untrained civilians, that no military drill was practised by the soldiers nor any weapons provided, that your stables were empty of cavalry-horses. You ordered me to have no fear for the safety of this city.’
‘You lie, you lie,’ yelled Justinian. ‘If ever by the grace of God we survive this trial of our faith, you shall be made to suffer dreadful things for your neglect of our armies and fortifications, and not all your boasted victories will save you from the rope.’
Belisarius asked: ‘But my order meanwhile, Your Majesty?’
‘Go and die like a brave man, though you have lived a coward. Gather together what forces you can and meet the Bulgars in the field, thus imitating my gallant Narses – not skulking behind walls as your custom is. Only in this way can you atone for your follies.’
Belisarius made his obeisance, and left the Sacred Presence. But Justinian called his admiral and asked him secretly: ‘Is my fleet well provisioned? What weather can we expect in the Mediterranean if we are obliged to sail?’
Belisarius sent a crier through the streets to shout as follows: ‘Count Belisarius, by order of his Sacred Majesty the Emperor, will lead an army against the Hunnish invaders. The city militia will take their stations upon the wall of Theodosius according to their Colours, and will provide themselves with what arms they can find. The Imperial Guards will parade under their officers, whose duty it is to see that they are horsed and fully armed, and march down to the Golden Gate, there to await further orders. All veteran soldiers present in this city who have ever served as cuirassiers with the said Count Belisarius in the wars are desired to gather forthwith on the Parade Ground; he will put himself at their head and provide them with arms and horses.’
Belisarius went to the Dancing Masters of the Green and Blue factions. ‘In the Emperor’s name, I commandeer all the shirts of mail and spears and shields that are worn in the Hippodrome spectacles and in the stage-plays.’ He also went to the Race Masters of the Green and Blue factions. ‘In the Emperor’s name, I commandeer all the horses in the Hippodrome stables.’ Of bows and arrows he found sufficient at the Palace and a number of carriage-horses in the Imperial stables, and a few chargers. Thus he found equipment for his veterans.
The Parade Ground is famous in history as the place where Alexander the Great reviewed his troops before setting out for the conquest of the East. Here Belisarius’s veterans came crowding from every part of the city – men on whom the years had bestowed most dissimilar fortunes. Some were well-clothed and stout, some in rags and pale, some limped, some strutted. But the light of valour shone in every face, and they cried one to another: ‘Greetings, comrade! It is good when old soldiers meet together.’
There were many reunions between former comrades-in-arms who had not met for a number of years, the city being so large. It was: ‘You still alive, old Sisifried? I had thought you died with Diogenes on the retreat from Rome’, and ‘Why, comrade Unigatus, I saw you last at the siege of Osimo, when the javelin pierced your hand’, and ‘Hey, comrade, do you not know me? We bivouacked together in the Paradise of Grasse under a quincunx of fruit-trees, four and twenty years ago, a few days before the Battle of the Tenth Milestone.’ I was there with my mistress Antonina, and had many affectionate greetings from old associates, which warmed my heart.
But there were some who had even longer campaigning memories than myself. There were two men who had raided with Belisarius against the Gepids and these same Bulgarians when he was a beardless young officer.
From a wrestling-school in the suburbs came white-haired Andreas, Belisarius’s former satchel-slave and bath-attendant, who had retired from the wars after his two great feats of single combat before Daras. He said: ‘In my wrestling-school I have kept supple and strong, my Lord Belisarius, though I am sixty-five years of age. See, I wear the white-plumed helmet that you gave me as a reward at Daras. I have kept it well scoured with sand. Let me be your standard-bearer!’
When they were all assembled, a few more than 300 men, there came sliding up a tall figure, lean with fasting and clad in a monk’s robe. He caught at Belisarius’s bridle and said: ‘O my brother Belisarius, for this one day I put off my robe and lay down my scourge and resume chain-armour. For though I trust that I have made my peace with Heaven for my sins and follies, and especially for the killing of our dear comrade, Armenian John, I cannot die content until I have regained your trust and affection, which I forfeited by my negligence before Milan.’
Belisarius dismounted from his horse and embraced the monk, replying: ‘Uliaris, you shall command a hundred men of this force. I have heard of your holiness and good works among the begging brothers of St Bartimaeus, and I ac
cept you as a loan from God.’
Trajan (recently rid of the arrow-head which had been lodged so long in the flesh of his face) commanded another hundred men. He had gained great glory with Narses in Italy. He now kept a tavern at the docks. Thurimuth, the same who had fought so well in Belisarius’s second Italian campaign, commanded the remaining troop. He had fallen on evil days and had not long been released from prison; but I do not recall whether it was for felony or heresy that he had been imprisoned. Belisarius allotted each man to a troop, and it was seen that he remembered the name of every one of them who had ever been among his biscuit-eaters, and his record. Next he mounted them, and gave them arms and armour. They were all greatly exhilarated by now. ‘Belisarius for ever!’ they cried, and ‘Lead us at once against the enemy!’
Belisarius was moved. But he replied: ‘Comrades, in remembering the glorious battles of long ago do not forget how they were won. They were won not only by courage and skill with arms but by prudence.’
They rode in column, clattering down the High Street. The people cheered and cried: ‘Evidently God is with us still – for here comes Belisarius!’
My mistress rode beside him on a palfrey, carrying her head like a young bride; and I followed close behind her on a jennet. She wore a fine red wig, her face was brave with rouge and white lead, and her shrunken bosom well padded. It was only standing close that one could read her age in the wrinkled hands and yellowed eyes, the drawn cheeks and flabby neck.
We came through the suburb of Deuteron to the Golden Gate, where all was confusion – everyone shouting orders, nobody obeying. Not more than fifty of the 2,000 men of the Guards who had answered the summons were provided with horses; nor, apart from two or three officers, did I see a single man wearing a mail-shirt or properly armed; one could be sure that not as many as would make a full company had ever attended a military parade. Even the city militia were a better force of men; for a few score of both the Blue and Green contingents had practised archery at the city butts (shooting on feast-days for the prize of a goose or a sucking-pig or a flagon of wine); and many more had fought by night with swords in faction-feuds.