Count Belisarius (33 page)

The letter disturbed Belisarius greatly. He could not deny that he was in treaty with the Moors for supplying him with cavalry, or that he had set many of the elder Vandals at liberty, or that he had been dispensing justice from King Geilimer's throne, or that he had reviled his officers and men, in the interests of discipline, standing on the mound that early morning in the camp at Tricamaron. It was only the conclusion as to his loyalty that was falsely drawn. He decided to take no action against Bloody John or Constantine or even to let them know that he had seen the letter. A few months later a flattering message came from Justinian, not mentioning the slander and telling him to do just as he wished – either to return to Constantinople with the spoils and Vandal prisoners or to send them back under a subordinate and remain in Africa. Then my mistress Antonina insisted that he should return promptly in order to clear himself of suspicion. She was particularly anxious lest her friend Theodora should think her
disloyal or ungrateful. With this message from Justinian came cavalry reinforcements, to the number of 4,000, under good officers, including one Hildiger, who was already betrothed to my mistress's daughter, Martha; so that Belisarius now felt at liberty to withdraw most of his own Household cuirassiers, and the Massagetic Huns, to escort the Vandal prisoners.

He chose as Governor in his place the eunuch Solomon, in whom he had the greatest confidence, and by the spring, after handing over to Solomon the detailed instructions for the proper government of Africa that had come from Justinian, he could sail away, my mistress Antonina with him.

We who were returning to Constantinople did not envy Solomon his task at Carthage, for Justinian's instructions made it clear that the Governor of the newly won kingdom must not depend on Constantinople for further forces, but must raise local levies, and economize in garrison troops by repairing defence works and building blockhouses along the frontiers. Eighty thousand Vandal cavalrymen had failed to check the Moorish raids – yet their task must be successfully taken over by a tenth of that number of our men, and the lands stolen by the Moors won back. Africa must be also reassessed for taxation, and the Arian heresy and the Donatist schism sternly put down. The reason why not all Belisarius's cuirassiers had come with us was that at the last moment a report arrived at Carthage of a slight Moorish rebellion in the interior. Belisarius, at Solomon's request, left behind Rufinus and Aigan with 500 chosen men to act as a punitive force. That number seemed sufficient.

We sailed home by way of Tripoli and Crete – an uneventful voyage – and in midsummer of the year of our Lord 534 we entered the Bosphorus again. We were given a tumultuous welcome at the docks, and a royal welcome at the Palace. My mistress Antonina and the Empress Theodora embraced with tears; and Justinian was so elated by the extraordinary value of the treasure unloaded from our ships and so impressed by the sight of our 15,000 stalwart prisoners that, forgetting his suspicions of Belisarius, he called him ‘our faithful benefactor' and took him by the hand. As Commander-in-Chief of the armies, however, he assumed all the official credit for the defeat of the Vandals; and in the preamble to his new Digest of Laws (published on the day of the Tricamaron battle) he had already styled himself ‘Conqueror of the Vandals and Africans' – Pious, Victorious,
Happy, and Glorious – and, without mentioning that anybody else had shared in the victory, referred to ‘the sweats of war and the night-watches and fasts' on his own part that had secured it. The triumph to be celebrated was his own, not Belisarius's: for no private citizen has been awarded a full triumph since the Empire was founded, lest he should be puffed up by victory and become a rival to the throne. As I say, the Emperor, even if his warlike exertions are confined to sending off an expedition from the docks with his blessing and congratulating it on its safe return a year or more later, is always the victorious Commander-in-Chief.

None the less, Theodora insisted that he play the same sedentary part in this triumph as he had played in the victory and leave the procession to the conduct of Belisarius. He agreed. On the anniversary day of the capture of Carthage, Belisarius came out from his private residence close to the Golden Gate in the Wall of Theodosius, and passed in procession down the whole two-mile length of the High Street. He went on foot, preceded by priests and bishops singing a solemn Te Deum and swinging censers; not, as the ancient custom was, riding in a chariot preceded by trumpeters. The street was decorated with flowers and coloured silk hangings and wreaths and congratulatory greetings, and thronged with wildly cheering crowds. At each of the great squares through which we passed – the Square of Arcadius, the Ox Market, the Amastrian Square, the Square of Brotherly Love, the Bull Square (where the University professors and students were assembled), and finally the Square of Constantine (where the City militia were drawn up on parade) – the City ward-masters came with gifts and words of welcome and a fanfare of trumpets was sounded. Behind Belisarius, who was accompanied by Cappadocian John and other distinguished generals, rode his cuirassiers and the marines and the Massagetic Huns (who were to return home by way of the Black Sea on the following day), and behind these the Vandal prisoners, in chains, headed by Geilimer in a purple cloak, with his cousins and brothers-in-law and nephews. Then followed all the spoils of Africa heaped on wagons.

These were extraordinary spoils, the richest ever carried in any triumph in the world before; for though the soldiers at Tricamaron had plundered the camp, that treasure was only a tithe of what was collected at Carthage and Hippo and Bulla and Grasse and elsewhere from the city treasuries and royal palaces and seats of the nobility. It
consisted of the Vandals' accumulated trading profits from overseas and their revenues from Africa – the surplus of a hundred years – and the spoils of Geiserich's extensive piracy. The Vandals had been a small and oppressive aristocracy in a fertile, teeming land, and what they were too lazy to spend on public works they had hoarded. So, heaped on these carts were millions of pounds of bar-silver, and sacks of silver and gold coin, and quantities of bar-gold, and golden cups and dishes and salt-cellars encrusted with gems, and golden thrones and golden carriages of state and statues of gold, and copies of the Gospel bound in gold and studded with pearls, and heaps of golden collars and girdles, and gold-inlaid armour – in short, every luxurious and beautiful object that can be imagined, including priceless antiquities from King Geiserich's sack of the Imperial Palace at Rome and of the Temple of Jove on the Capitoline Hill. There were also a great number of sacred relics: bones of martyrs, miraculous images, authentic garments of Apostles, the nails from St Peter's cross on which he was crucified upside down.

But the most wonderful and venerable spoils of all were none other than the sacred instruments of Jewish religious worship that were made by Moses in the Wilderness at God's express command and later installed at the Temple in Jerusalem. They are described in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Exodus: the sacred shew-bread table of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold, and its accompanying golden spoons and bowls and dishes; and the seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold with its tongs and snuff-dishes; and the golden Mercy Seat, and its two attendant gold cherubim with outspread wings. These things Geiserich had stolen from Rome, where they had been brought by the Emperor Titus after his capture of Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant itself had disappeared. Some say that it is in France somewhere, with certain other Temple spoils, in the hands of the Frankish King, and others that it is at Axum in Ethiopia, and others that it is sunk at the bottom of the River Tiber at Rome, and others that it was long ago caught up to Heaven out of the reach of sacrilegious hands.

The Senate met the procession and joined it at the Amastrian Square, and so did droves of monks, and other clergy. The monks behaved in the rowdiest way, gloating over the spoils, especially the sacred relics which Justinian had promised them for their churches.

In the days of the Roman Republic the victorious general rode with
his captives through the streets of the City, and for that one day was supreme in power. The enemy king or chieftain, if he had been captured, was offered as a human sacrifice at the close of the ceremonies. How customs have changed since those heroic times! Observe Geilimer free of chains: as the procession finally reaches the Hippodrome, where Justinian is awaiting it, seated in the Royal Box, he enters with the rest. He removes his purple cloak and, mounting up to the throne, makes obeisance to Justinian; and is then graciously raised up and pardoned. He is given a royal warrant which confers on him vast estates in Galatia for himself and his family; and, in addition, the title of Illustrious Patrician if he consents to renounce his Arian heresy. Observe also Belisarius, the victor, who approaches the throne, removes his purple cloak and makes obeisance at the Emperor's feet; and is given no estate, no words of gratitude, but informed merely that he has obeyed orders well.

You may ask how Geilimer comported himself on this trying occasion. He neither laughed nor wept, but shook his head sadly and wonderingly and continued to repeat over and over again, as a sort of charm, the words of the Prophet Ecclesiastes: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' Shortly afterwards he retired with his family to Galatia, and there lived to a comfortable old age, remaining true to the Arian faith. As for the other Vandal prisoners: the most warlike of them were formed into cavalry squadrons and sent to the defence of the Persian frontier, but first Belisarius had his pick of them for his Household Regiment. The remainder were used as labourers for the building of churches or as oarsmen in the Imperial galleys.

Afterwards Justinian was told by Theodora that if he wished to win the title ‘The Great' he must be magnanimous and show Belisarius some worthy mark of favour. He therefore appointed him Consul for the year following, and even struck a medal: his own head on the obverse, and Belisarius riding in full armour on the reverse, with the inscription ‘The Glory of the Romans' — a unique honour in our City. Belisarius's induction as Consul took place on New Year's Day. Seated in his ivory chair of office, which was supported by Vandal captives, and with an ivory wand in his hand, he made another short progress through the City from his quarters in the Palace to the Senate House. As he went he distributed largesse to the crowd from his own private spoils of war — gold and silver coin, cups, girdles, brooches – to the value of 100,000 gold pieces. But my mistress Antonina, whose
prudence in the matter of the water-bottles will be recalled, took care that he should not beggar himself. When the mob clamoured for more, she told them herself that they were shameless creatures and would strip Belisarius not only of all he had won in Africa but of what he had inherited from his parents or saved of the gifts awarded him by the Emperor. To show the foresight of my mistress in matters of economy, I must tell you that she had, while still at Carthage and without Belisarius's knowledge, removed a very large quantity of coin from Geilimer's treasure, choosing all the more recently minted Imperial money that she could find, so that its origin should not be suspected, and hidden it away against a rainy day. For Belisarius's household expenses were enormous, and there never was a more generous man to the needy and unfortunate.

The sacred relics were distributed among the churches, appropriately to the dedication of each, and every church of importance received something. But one small, anonymous community of very poor monks, who lived by begging and occupied a ruinous house in the suburb of Blachernae, did not share in all this bounty. Their abbot came to Belisarius presently and asked him, in Christ's name, whether he had perhaps some trifle of his own that he could give them; for while he was in Africa they had prayed for his success night and day.

He replied: ‘Venerable Father, yours is a fraternity of poor begging brothers who have small regard for silver or gold, and I shall therefore give your house no object that may distract their minds from religious thoughts. But I shall lend you a famous relic, the begging bowl of St Bartimaeus, which the Emperor himself gave me after the fight at Daras, and you shall display it in your house and keep it as a reminder of your vows of poverty, patience and virtue. Remember, it is a loan only, since I cannot seem ungrateful to His Sacred Majesty. One day I may have need for it again.'

Thenceforth this house was never without food and drink, for it became a centre of pilgrimage, and was thereafter known as the monastery of St Bartimaeus.

As for the golden Mercy Seat and the golden seven-branched candlestick and the shew-table and the other Jewish treasures, Justinian was persuaded by the Bishop of Jerusalem to return them to that city. The Bishop argued that they had brought no luck to the men of Rome, whose dominion had passed to the barbarians, nor to the Vandals, whom Justinian himself had defeated. They plainly carried a curse
with them. Justinian sent them back to Jerusalem, to the very building where they had once been stored for a thousand years – the Temple of Solomon, which was now a Christian church. What a grand source of profit for the clergy there! The Jews lamented that they were still deprived of their holy instruments of worship, and prophesied that the Christians would before long be cast out of Jerusalem; but this has not come to pass in my time.

When the news of Belisarius's conquest of Africa reached the Persian Court, King Khosrou was surprised and vexed. He sent a congratulatory embassy to Justinian asking, half in earnest, half in joke, for his share of the spoils of Carthage. But for the Persian peace, he said, Justinian would never have been able to spare troops for Carthage. Justinian pretended to take the joke in good part, and sent Khosrou a valuable gold dinner service. So the Eternal Peace still remained in force.

There is no need to give a detailed account of my mistress's life in Constantinople during the days that followed our return from Carthage. She was again in attendance on Theodora, and spent her leisure time in parties and pleasure excursions and visits to the theatre. Theodosius was constantly with her, and a good deal of loose talk about their friendship was current at Court; but Belisarius, since Theodosius was his godson, disdained to take any notice of it, treating the young man with every mark of confidence.