Count Belisarius (27 page)

At the time that the Germans were converted to Christianity by one Ulfilas, a contemporary of the Emperor Constantine, who translated the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue – all but the Books of Kings, which he feared might inflame their military passions – this Arian heresy was a widely-held one and had nearly become the orthodox view of the whole Church. The Germans welcomed it because it seemed a simple, barbarian creed, substantiating their own conception of the Deity. The Arians hold that the Father is immeasurably superior to man, and that there is no real mediation between the Father and man: not even the Son, who never perfectly knew the Father and while He lived here on earth was subject to all the affections of man, such as anger, grief, despair, humiliation – as is indeed described by the Evangelists. Nevertheless, the Son (according to these Arians) is a sort of demigod: not God, but a middle being, of a different substance from, and perfectly unlike, the Father, who existed before the world and was created out of nothing and became man. Since the Germans already believed in a God of immeasurable power and freakish temper, whom they called Odin, and also in a demigod and racial ancestor called Mann (which is the German for ‘man'), who originated out of practically nothing, their change of faith was one of names rather than of beliefs. They now agreed to abstain from human sacrifices, because these (according to their new faith) had been forbidden by God since the time of the Patriarch Abraham; but continued to engage in bloody wars and massacres. For, though the good Ulfilas had omitted the Books of Kings from his translation, he had included the Book of Joshua, which tells of the merciless massacre by the Jews of such pagan tribes as they met in their ‘promised land'.

To the Vandals, Roman Africa was a promised land too, and resembled
Canaan of old in its vineyards and corn-fields and fig-plantations and walled cities. But when the moving multitude was already close to Carthage they were coolly informed by Count Boniface that he had made a mistake: the Emperor, or rather the Empress Regent, now trusted him again, and there was no need for Vandal allies – would they, please, return to Andalusia, and he would pay them for their trouble. Naturally they felt grossly insulted and refused to go. From allies they became enemies and defeated Boniface in battle; after which they occupied not only one-third of the lands about Carthage, but the whole Diocese of Africa, enslaving the inhabitants.

Carthage itself, which next to Rome was the greatest city of the Western Empire, held out for some years. But this was because it was supplied with food from the sea and had very strong fortifications, which the Vandals were not experienced enough as engineers to reduce; not because of any heroism among the defenders. The Roman Africans had become unwarlike, owing to centuries of peace, the richness of the soil, and the enervating heat. Further, they were divided among themselves by the Donatist schism. This, for once, was not a heretical view about the nature of the Son, but a quarrel about Church discipline: the Donatists held that to be blessed by a priest who lived an evil life or who had committed some such impious act as burning a religious book when ordered to do so by the civil authorities, was no blessing, and that no sacerdotal act whatsoever performed by such a person was valid. But the Orthodox theory was that the water of life could flow through the jaws of a dead dog (as it was expressed) and still heal the soul. The Donatists formed a separate communion, separating themselves from the Orthodox in order to avoid contamination by them. The Vandals made an alliance with these Donatists, as a temporary convenience: they were Donatistical, too, in their Arian way, they said.

The Vandal King, lame Geiserich, who had somehow been born an Orthodox Christian, was now an Arian; and soon began persecuting all the non-Arians of Africa, whether Donatists or Orthodox or heretics of whatever sort, with all the violence of a convert. At last the whole Diocese of Africa was under his power, and as a precaution against revolt he dismantled the fortifications of all its towns but Hippo Regius and Carthage, both of which he garrisoned strongly. Then he increased his fleet and began capturing islands, among them Sardinia and the Balearic islands, and raiding the coasts of Spain and
Italy and even Greece. His principal feat was the sack of Rome, from which, after a fortnight's stay, he carried away immense booty, public and private – including the golden treasures of Solomon's temple that Titus had brought to Rome centuries before, and one-half of the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jove, which was of fine bronze, plated with gold. As I have mentioned, it was because of Geiserich's depredations that Belisarius's maternal grandfather had abandoned Rome for Constantinople.

The Emperor of the West – for the Eastern Emperors at Constantinople still had colleagues at Rome in those days – was unable to resist these many acts of piracy; but a punitive expedition was sent to Carthage from Constantinople. It consisted of 100,000 men carried by the most formidable fleet of ships ever embarked on the Mediterranean Sea; and they should have had no difficulty at all in overwhelming the Vandals. Geiserich pretended the utmost deference to their commander, and obtained from him an allowance of five days in which to ‘prepare the city for surrender', as he put it. Then he secretly collected his forces and on the fourth night sent fire-ships sailing into the Imperial fleet, following up with armed galleys. Between blazing fire and savage Vandals the surprised Romans were utterly destroyed. Only a few battered ships and a few hundred soldiers returned to Constantinople. This disaster took place two generations before the reign of Justinian.

Since then there had been several successors to Geiserich, who had decreed that among his descendants the regal power should always pass entire to the eldest surviving male. This was to prevent the partition of the kingdom, with a consequent weakening of central authority, and also the troubles that so often occur when a regency is proclaimed on behalf of a child ruler. Thus, the eldest son of the king would not inherit at his father's death, while he had an uncle or granduncle living, but must yield the succession to him. Geiserich did not perhaps sufficiently consider that this law of succession tended to favour princes who were more remarkable for their longevity than for the soundness of their wits.

At the time of Justinian's accession the Vandal king was Hilderich. He had signed a defensive alliance with the King of the Goths who ruled in Italy. (By this time, the whole Western part of the Empire – though nominally under the sovereignty of the Eastern Emperor at Constantinople, there being no longer an Emperor at Rome – was
dominated by various German allies, who acted as its garrison. They had chosen its most fertile regions to settle in, and were all Arian heretics.) Hilderich was also on good terms with the Eastern Emperor and continued to send to Constantinople the annual tribute-money agreed upon by Geiserich in the peace treaty which ratified his conquests. He was an old man, unfit for public business, and almost as suspicious in temperament as Justinian himself. The widow of his predecessor was still alive, a sister of Theoderich the famous Gothic king. She had brought with her as dowry a guard of 6,000 Gothic cavalry and the sovereignty of Lilybaeum, which is a promontory in Sicily only 100 miles distant from the coast of Carthage; and somebody assured Hilderich that this former queen intended to murder him and seize Carthage for the Goths. He had her confined to prison and subsequently strangled, and massacred the 6,000 Goths. This greatly offended Theoderich; he broke off his alliance with the Vandals, but would not risk a military expedition against them.

Justinian was a personal friend of Hilderich's, and there was a frequent exchange of letters and presents between them. Hilderich had befriended Justinian at Rome at the time when he was an unimportant hostage at Theoderich's Court; and Justinian also valued Hilderich for his indulgence to the Orthodox Catholics – previous Vandal kings had persecuted them savagely. When news came to Constantinople that Hilderich had been deposed and imprisoned by his nephew Geilimer, Justinian was affronted. He felt that Geilimer should be taught a lesson; for he himself had once been in the same sort of position as Geilimer, when his Uncle Justin grew decrepit and for the last two years was Emperor only in name. He considered that he had chosen the virtuous course in having been content with the tide of Regent instead of anticipating sovereignty, and that this gave him a special right to protest to Geilimer. It was a mild letter, according to diplomatic usage: to the effect that, if the old man were released and restored to his royal dignities, God would be favourable to Geilimer and Justinian would be his friend.

Geilimer's excuse for imprisoning Hilderich had been a slanderous accusation that he had become a secret convert to Orthodoxy and wished to bequeath his throne to Justinian; so he made no reply to the letter when the ambassadors brought it, except an unseemly noise with his mouth. Hilderich was put into a darker and more disagreeable dungeon than before.

Justinian wrote again, more firmly this time, to the effect that Geilimer had seized the royal power by violence and must expect the divine retribution which usurpation always invites. He demanded that Hilderich be at least sent to Constantinople to end his life in comfortable exile, and threatened to declare war on the Vandals if this were not done.

Geilimer replied that Justinian had no right to meddle in the internal politics of the African kingdom; that Hilderich had been deposed as a traitor – an action approved by the Vandal Royal Council at Carthage; and that, before making war, Justinian should recall what had happened to the last fleet that visited Carthage from the East.

Justinian would not have granted King Khosrou such easy treaty-terms if he had not already considered the possibility of withdrawing some of his forces from the Persian frontier for an expedition against the Vandals. But when he mentioned the project to his chief ministers they all advised him against it as extremely dangerous. They were right enough in their view, of which Cappadocian John, as Commander of the Guards and now also Quartermaster-General of the Imperial forces, was the spokesman. Carthage lay at least 140 days' journey away from Constantinople by land. To transport an adequate force there by sea would mean the requisitioning of a vast quantity of ships; and this would greatly hamper the Empire's trade. It was difficult enough to raise troops for frontier defence in the North and East, without wasting them in unnecessary wars at the other end of the world. Even if it were possible to defeat the Vandals, it was strategically unwise to occupy North Africa unless one also controlled Sicily and Italy – which Justinian could not hope to do. Besides, the expense of such an expedition would run into millions. Cappadocian John was also afraid, though he did not say so, that Justinian, in his efforts to raise the necessary money, would go carefully into the accounts of the Quartermaster-General's office at the War Ministry and find evidence there of frauds on a large scale.

His arguments, however, decided Justinian against the project. Everyone was relieved, especially the Treasury officials, who would have been responsible for raising vast sums of money in new taxes. The generals, too, felt easier: each of them had feared that his own merits would single him out as commander of the expedition against the Vandals.

Then a bishop came from Egypt, asking for an immediate audience
at the Palace; for he had dreamed a dream of some importance. Justinian received him with his customary affability and the Bishop explained that God Himself had appeared in this dream and ordered him to go and rebuke the Emperor for his irresolution: ‘For if he will only undertake this war in defence of the honour of My Son, whom these Arian heretics impiously deny to be My equal, I will march before his armies in battle and make him master of Africa.' This message is less likely to have emanated from the Deity than from a group of African Orthodox clerics, friends of Hilderich's who had fled from Carthage on Geilimer's accession. But Justinian gave it perfect credit, and assured the Bishop that he would obey the divine order at once. These, then, were the circumstances in which he called for Belisarius, whose loyalty and courage had been proved beyond all doubt in the Victory riots. He told him in Theodora's presence: ‘Fortunate patrician, it is to you that we are entrusting the capture of Carthage!'

Belisarius, who had been warned by my mistress what Justinian really had in mind, replied: ‘Do you mean me alone, Your Serenity, or a dozen commanders each of equal authority with me? For if you mean the former, I can offer you loyal gratitude; but if the latter, only loyal obedience.'

Justinian was about to prevaricate when Theodora broke in: ‘Do not trouble the Emperor with unnecessary questions. Certainly he means you as sole commander, do you not, my dear Justinian? You, Narses, see that the commission is drafted at once and brought to the Emperor for signature: the Illustrious Belisarius is to be described there as vice-regent to the Emperor. The great distance between Carthage and the City will unfortunately make it impossible for the Emperor to give his advice in urgent matters, or to ratify high political appointments and treaties with the necessary dispatch. Write, therefore, good Narses: “The orders of the Illustrious Belisarius, Commander of Our Armies in the East, shall, during the conduct of this expedition, be deemed to be Ours.” ‘

Justinian blinked and swallowed a little when the matter was arranged for him in this style. But he did not venture to return to his original plan of multiple command. It was politically plausible in that no one general could hope to gain all the glory and so become a possible rival to himself; but would have been disastrous from the military point of view – as had already been proved in Persia in Anastasius' day. He signed the commission.

This was in the autumn of the year of our Lord 532, a few months after the riots, and the winter was spent in making all necessary preparations. My mistress was glad that the expedition was not sailing until the spring, for about New Year she was expecting a child by Belisarius, and she had determined not to be left behind when he went to the wars. She intended to find a foster-mother for the child and give it into Theodora's charge. This she did, and the child proved to be a daughter whom they named Joannina. The Emperor and Empress stood sponsors for it at the font. This was the only child that my mistress bore to Belisarius, and she proved a disappointment to them in the end.