Count Belisarius (35 page)

Here then was Justinian's pretext for a war – the murder of an innocent woman, his ally. He found an augury of success in the unpopularity and inefficacy of King Theudahad, whose verses did not even scan, it was said, and whose philosophical capacity was nothing. But Theudahad heard and believed a rumour, arising out of Theodora's jealousy of Amalasontha, that the perfidious Justinian had indeed intended to invade Italy with his army and marry Amalasontha, having first divorced Theodora; further, that he had planned to persecute the Goths as heretics. He offered this story to his Court as an excuse for the murder of his wife. They approved of his actions; for it was now clear at least that Amalasontha had been carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Justinian. But Theudahad officially assured Justinian's envoy that the murder had been committed without his knowledge and against his wishes.

I have now made it clear why Belisarius was ordered to take an army to the invasion of Sicily, which lay at the extremity of King Theudahad's dominions, and the population of which, moreover, was highly discontented. Sicily, the granary of Rome, had for some time been suffering from poor harvests due to bad weather and an exhaustion of the soil, so that the farmers did not find it easy to pay the tithe-tax that the Goths levied on them. In the autumn of the year of his Consulship, Belisarius set sail for this island. Antonina came with him
(and I with her), and her boy Photius, and Theodosius too. But the forces under his command amounted only to 12,000, not 20,000. At the last moment Justinian detached 8,000 and sent them to Mundus (the Commander of the armies in Illyria who had assisted Belisarius in quelling the Victory Riots) with orders that he should lead them against the Goths in Dalmatia, as a diversion. Dalmatia, with the whole of the north-eastern coast of the Adriatic sea, was under Gothic rule at this time. Justinian also planned to injure the Goths in yet another quarter. He wrote to the Franks, who since the baptism of King Clovis had been Orthodox Christians, that they would now have a chance to invade the Gothic territories between the Alps and the Rhône; and that this would be a holy war against Arian heretics, blessed by their spiritual father, the Pope.

The weather was favourable and the voyage pleasant. We landed at Catania early in the month of December. The people there, remembering how honestly we had treated them on our former visit, gave us a welcome. They complained greatly of the Goths, and asked us whether we could not stay a little longer with them this time; for nobody but Belisarius knew that we were not continuing our voyage to Carthage, as had been announced. At last Belisarius openly declared his intentions, announcing himself as their protector and sending messengers to all the principal cities with invitations to submission. Within a few days the whole of Sicily had surrendered to him without a blow, with the single exception of Palermo. Here the Gothic forces of the island concentrated, taking refuge behind the fine fortifications. But even Palermo yielded with unexpected suddenness. Belisarius sailed into the harbour, which was not protected by a boom, and found that the masts of most of his vessels were considerably higher than the adjacent fortifications. What was easier than to hoist up boats by a pulley between mainmast and foremast and fill them with trained archers? (Yet so simple a plan would not perhaps have occurred to an ordinary general.) These archers could shoot straight along the streets of the city and prevent anyone from showing his head out of a doorway, unless in a side-street. Belisarius threatened, unless Palermo yielded speedily, to shoot fire-arrows and burn the houses down. So the townsfolk compelled the Goths to surrender.

You may doubt whether so short a paragraph as the last can decently cover the story of how a fertile island, full of splendid cities and no less than 70,000 square miles in extent, was recaptured from the
barbarians by our Imperial troops. Yet I cannot recall any relevant circumstance that I have omitted which would swell the single paragraph to two. It was the name of Belisarius that captured Sicily rather than his army – assisted by the short-sighted zeal of the Orthodox Christians, who expected to receive better treatment at the hands of Justinian, their co-religionist, than from the Arian king. On the last day of the year, then, when Belisarius's term of office as Consul expired, he marched unopposed into the capital city of Syracuse, and there laid down his rods and axe, as the expression was. As he entered, he distributed largesse of gold and silver to the citizens from the personal treasure captured from the Goths who had opposed him at Palermo; and was hailed as their deliverer.

Justinian's envoy remained in Italy and observed the disturbing effect on King Theudahad of the news of Belisarius's landing at Catania, and of the news that simultaneously came from Dalmatia to the effect that Mundus had stormed Spalato. Theudahad saw himself threatened with the fate of King Geilimer the Vandal, his kinsman – for Geilimer and he had an aunt in common. Without consulting with his Council, he made a secret offer to the envoy to cede Sicily to Justinian and send him beside a yearly tribute of a crown of gold weighing 300 pounds; and a permanent detachment of 3,000 Gothic cavalrymen and their horses to serve either in North Africa or on the Persian frontier, as Justinian pleased, and to be kept up to strength with yearly drafts of men and remounts. He also renounced his right to sentence Italian priests and patricians to death, or to confer patrician rank on any person without the consent of Justinian or his successors. He even agreed that the responses of the factions in the Hippodrome at Rome, whenever he took his place as President, should couple in loyal salutation Justinian's name with his own, and that a statue of Justinian should flank every statue raised to himself, standing on the right side, which is the more honourable one. This was to acknowledge the suzerainty of the East over the West. Theudahad put these undertakings in writing. He was in great terror, and wished to lay up a treasure of gratitude for himself in Constantinople, if ever it should be necessary for him to escape there from Italy.

But when further news came of the fall of Palermo and of the bloodless occupation of Sicily, Theudahad's heart failed him. He wondered whether the terms he had offered Justinian to prevent him from pressing the invasion of Italy were not perhaps insufficient; to
promise Sicily to Justinian when he had already taken it might be regarded as an impudence – and of what worth was an offer of 3,000 soldiers and a yearly tribute amounting to a mere 20,000 in gold, and an abandonment of the right to create or punish patricians? He recalled the envoy, who was already on his way back, and took him into his intimate confidence, first binding him with the most dreadful oaths to keep the secret. The secret was that if Justinian rejected these terms Theudahad was prepared to better them. He would resign his title of kingship and hand over to Justinian the whole government of Italy. All that he asked in return was a comfortable private life, preferably near some centre of learning in Asia Minor, on a freehold estate with a secure annual rent-roll of at least 80,000 gold pieces a year. A messenger of his own accompanied the envoy with this offer in writing, but it was only to be produced if Justinian did not accept the other one.

Ambassadors are chosen for their loyalty and self-sacrifice to the cause of their royal master; thus Justinian's envoy did not hesitate to risk spiritual disaster by breaking his oath to Theudahad. He advised Justinian to refuse the first offer, for Theudahad's messenger had a better one in readiness for him. This offer was then produced, and Justinian accepted it with alacrity. None the less, he was for haggling about the rent-roll of the estate, until Theodora laughed at his notion of business – to risk losing all Italy for the sake of a few sacks of coin.

So far, everything was going so well for Justinian that he can hardly have been blamed for believing that God regarded him with especial favour – a belief of which the servility of his courtiers did nothing to disabuse him. But, before the envoy had time to return to Italy and ratify the treaty with Theudahad, the whole political situation suddenly changed again. Two pieces of news persuaded Theudahad that he had been a fool after all and had over-estimated Justinian's power to hurt him.

The first piece of news concerned Mundus. After his capture of Spalato, he had come in contact with a large Gothic army and, after a stubborn battle in which both sides lost heavily, defeated it – but had himself been killed in pursuing the beaten enemy. It was reported that the Imperial forces were so reduced in numbers and spirit by this unlucky victory that they had returned to Illyria without even leaving a garrison behind at Spalato. The other piece of news was that a serious mutiny had broken out in North Africa, and that Belisarius was about
to withdraw his forces from Sicily in order to restore order there. How true this African news was I shall presently tell. But its effect on Theudahad was so great that he spoke most insultingly to Justinian's envoy when he arrived, and even threatened to kill him on a baseless charge of adultery with a lady of the Court; he greatly repented of having written as he had to Justinian, and now declared that the envoy lied and that the two offers signed by himself were forgeries.

The Gothic noblemen of the Council believed Theudahad. They could not think that their elected king had been so cowardly and treacherous as appeared from Justinian's message, which agreed to take Italy under his sovereignty and give Theudahad the estate that he demanded. They decided that the embassy was merely a clever manoeuvre on Justinian's part to set them at odds with their king. So the envoy and his suite were kept close prisoners, and Theudahad sent a message of defiance to Justinian by a common trader, accusing him of double-dealing and treachery – Theudahad knew that the Goths would kill him if he did not immediately vindicate his honour by some vigorous action. He also sent an army to re-occupy Spalato, since the Romans had retired from it again; and began to behave oppressively to Orthodox priests throughout Italy, and threatened the Pope with death or dismissal if he was caught in any further secret dealings with Constantinople.

The Goths had little confidence in Theudahad, nevertheless, because he wrote verses in Latin and argued with Greek rhetoricians and prided himself upon his far-fetched learning. For them a few wild German ballads of battle, together with the Paternoster and the Arian Creed in the same tongue, were sufficient culture. They had not degenerated, as the Vandals had, under the luxurious spell of civilization; but neither had they profited by their sixty years' residence in Italy to improve their good sense by literary education. That they had little respect for Theudahad was due not so much to the sterile character of his learning as to the very fact of his having learning. Thus they neglected to reinforce their barbarian fighting qualities with such military knowledge as can be derived from books. In especial, they had not studied the arts of fortification or siege-craft.

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the matter from the Gothic point of view. What danger could they reasonably fear from a mere 12,000 men, a large part of whom were infantry? Italy was theirs, and they had been living on the friendliest terms with the native population for two generations. They had plentiful supplies of food, and a fleet and money and military stores; they could easily put 100,000 horsemen into the field and 100,000 foot-archers; they possessed a number of very strong walled cities. Add to this that the Imperial troops who had landed in Sicily, though professedly champions of the Orthodox faith, were for the most part Christians only by courtesy, and could not even make themselves understood by the native Italians, who spoke Latin, not Greek; and you will understand that when the Goths heard of the African mutiny and of the death of Mundus they no longer considered the name of Belisarius to be a serious factor in the situation.

To tell of the mutiny. It broke out at Easter of the following year, the year of our Lord 536. A few days later Solomon landed at Syracuse from an open boat with a few exhausted companions, and stumbled up from the quay to Belisarius's headquarters in the Governor's Palace. It so happened, that afternoon, that I was in a small room with my mistress and Belisarius and Theodosius, where we had retired after luncheon, and something not unlike an argument was in progress. Theodosius had made a rather too pointed joke at the expense of some tenet of the Orthodox faith, to the amusement of my mistress Antonina.

Belisarius did not smile, but asked Theodosius in a puzzled way whether he had relapsed to Eunomianism.

‘No,' replied Theodosius. ‘Indeed, I never held that opinion seriously.'

‘Well. But since you have become converted to true doctrine I do not understand why you should joke as you do.'

Antonina defended Theodosius: she said that to laugh at the things that one held dear was not inconsistent with loyalty to them. When Belisarius disagreed, she changed from defence to attack, and asked
him why, if Orthodoxy meant so much to him, he allowed heretics of every variety to enlist in his Household Regiment.

Belisarius answered: ‘That is another matter altogether. Every man has a right to what religious beliefs he pleases, and a duty to himself not to be persuaded from them by force; but he has no right to injure his neighbour's sensibilities by asserting such beliefs offensively. I was born in the Orthodox faith, and early pledged myself to it. It offends me to hear its doctrines idly abused, as I would not myself idly abuse the faith of any honest man.'

‘And if you had been born an Arian?'

‘Doubtless I should have remained an Arian.'

‘Then all religious views are true doctrine if sincerely held?' my mistress pressed him.

‘I do not accept that. But I say that it is good to keep faith and good to respect the feelings of others.'

Theodosius made no apology for the joke that had offended his godfather. All that he would say was: ‘I hold no brief for any heresy. I grant you that Orthodox doctrine can be logically defended against all heresies – especially given certain mystical premisses, such as that the Pope at Rome holds the keys of Heaven in succession to St Peter.'