Count Belisarius (37 page)

They said little in answer, but Constantine hinted obscurely that Belisarius did not know both sides of the story. He had had no intention of insulting Belisarius, but rather of honouring him in giving no obedience to a wife who did not consult his true interests. Constantine would say no more, and left Belisarius puzzled.

But on that same evening one of my fellow-domestics, a girl named Macedonia, came privately to Belisarius and warned him that my mistress Antonina and Theodosius were lovers, and that this had become a common scandal. She said that it was no doubt because of this that Constantine and the generals had been so unwilling to obey our mistress. Macedonia made the disclosure out of revenge, for my mistress had tied her to a bed-post two days before and whipped her for misbehaviour. The misbehaviour was an ignoble love-affair with the seventeen-year-old Photius, who had come with us to Sicily. Macedonia thought it unjust that our mistress, who was a married woman, should commit adultery and yet unmercifully whip her for mere fornication.
But she had no proof of our mistress's guilt and was therefore obliged to invent evidence. She persuaded two little pages, Moorish royal hostages, to support her story. They wanted revenge on our mistress because as hostages they had expected to be treated as princes; but when their parents revolted our mistress gave them menial work to do and also whipped them when they pilfered or behaved in an unseemly way. They were such accomplished liars, or Macedonia had schooled them so well, that Belisarius could not but believe their story, which was most circumstantial; and it was to him as if he were on a vessel whose anchor-cable had snapped in a sudden storm. But Macedonia had bound him by an oath not to reveal to his wife from whom the accusation had come, or to call herself and the pages in witness to any charge of adultery. Belisarius's hands were thus tied. I had no notion myself of what was on foot, but I could see that he was suddenly most miserable and also angry beyond measure. However, he contrived to hide his feelings from his wife, pleading a sick stomach and anxieties about affairs at Carthage and about the insubordination of his generals.

What thoughts were passing through his mind I cannot tell, but I can make a fair guess. In the first place, I think, he wished to kill Theodosius for his ingratitude and treachery, and a natural jealousy was not absent from his heart either. Next, he wished to kill my mistress Antonina for her faithlessness to him, especially as he had trusted her absolutely and lived a chaste life. Next, he wished to kill himself, for very shame: Theodosius was his adopted son, and the crime was therefore incest. On the other hand, it was his duty as a Christian to forgive his enemies. My mistress had hitherto been the best of wives to him, and he still loved her passionately; and he remembered that lately she had pleaded to be allowed to accompany him to Carthage, though it might be to her death. She had, moreover, told him plainly that she did not trust herself alone in Syracuse; so it seemed to Belisarius that Theodosius had seduced her by some evil art or other, against her inclinations.

I shall not wrong Belisarius by suggesting that there was another consideration that weighed with him, though it would have been foremost in the mind of any other man in his position: that my mistress would be supported by Theodora, who would not hesitate to punish him ‘for putting on airs' if he took any revenge for her adultery. To be tossed in a blanket was the least punishment that he could
expect in such a case. Fear of Theodora would not have swerved him from any course that he regarded as the honest one; but it is possible that even in his anguish of mind he remembered his loyalty to Justinian, who had ordered him to prosecute this war against the Goths. Any hasty or violent action that he might take in the matter would provoke the enmity of Theodora; and, if he were recalled, North Africa and Sicily would soon be lost again to the Empire. As he was aware, none of his subordinates, though many of them were brave men, had any grasp of the strategical situation, or any capacity for leadership.

He sent for me that same evening and spoke to me alone and said: ‘Eugenius, you have been more than a servant, you have been a good friend to your mistress and myself. Can I trust you with a secret mission? Unless it is swiftly accomplished by some discreet person I think that I shall go mad.'

I said: ‘Yes, my lord. If it concerns either your welfare or that of my mistress.'

He charged me with fearful threats not to reveal the mission to a soul; and presently told me what I was to do. I was to go to Theodosius and tell him: ‘Here is a monk's robe, and here are scissors with which to clip your hair in monkish fashion, and here is a purse of money and at the docks there is a vessel sailing for Ephesus tomorrow at dawn. The master's name is So-and-So. If you do not go aboard her at once, you will be a dead man. At Ephesus you must enter a monastery and take vows of perpetual chastity.' But I was not to mention the name of Belisarius on any account.

I grew afraid. I had never seen the equable Belisarius so excited in all my experience of him, not even on that early morning in the captured camp at Tricamaron. Yet I also feared my mistress. If Theodosius were to tell her from whom this warning message came, she would suspect me of plotting against her, and perhaps kill me. It was dangerous to give Theodosius such a message without reporting it first to her, yet I could not refuse the mission; and, besides, I considered it to my mistress's advantage that Theodosius should be removed from the scene without further scandal. I went trembling to Theodosius and gave him the message, telling him how unwilling a messenger I was. Knowing my character, he believed me and recognized that the warning was a serious one.

He guessed from whom it had come, and said: ‘Tell my godfather
that truly I do not know why he is angry with me, unless I have been unjustly slandered. I have a clean conscience but many enemies.'

When I begged him not to tell my mistress Antonina that the message had come through me, he swore that he would not. He kept the oath honourably, I must allow. He took the robe and the scissors and the money and went straight to the docks, without sending any message to Antonina. Then I went back and reported Theodosius's words to Belisarius.

You may imagine how frantic with alarm my mistress was when her dear Theodosius disappeared without a word: she naturally feared that he had been murdered, perhaps by Constantine, and was inconsolable. Not suspecting Belisarius, she called on him to institute an immediate search for Theodosius, which he consented to do. I myself was commissioned to find out when and where he was last seen. It was not difficult for me to set my mistress's mind at rest, knowing where to look. I soon found a couple of soldiers at the docks who could swear to having seen Theodosius; for it seems that he had not adopted the monk's habit until he was aboard. Thus she knew at least that he had gone voluntarily. But she was resolved to get to the bottom of the matter. Some new air of triumph in the demeanour of Photius, whom she knew to be jealous of Theodosius, aroused her suspicions; it was easy to deduce that Macedonia was concerned with Theodosius's disappearance. In the end she frightened a full confession out of the two pages.

Meanwhile, Photius had injudiciously confided the secret to Constantine; and Constantine, still smarting from my mistress Antonina's treatment of him, was only too pleased to have the laugh of her and Belisarius. On the morning of the second day after Theodosius's disappearance, meeting Belisarius in the principal square, he saluted him and said, grinning: ‘You were right to chase away that Thracian Paris, great Menelaus; but the fault lay rather with Queen Helen.'

Belisarius did not trust himself to make any reply, and therefore turned his back on Constantine. Many soldiers saw him do so, who had not heard the original remark, and it caused a bad impression.

My mistress Antonina now spoke openly to Belisarius. What passed between them I do not know. But she convinced him that Macedonia had been lying, and it was clear that he felt both exceedingly relieved and exceedingly ashamed of himself. He sent a fast vessel to recall Theodosius; and Macedonia was whipped, branded, and confined to
a nunnery for the rest of her life. The page-boys were also whipped and branded, and sent to work in the silver-mines. That my mistress with my help pulled out Macedonia's tongue, cut her in pieces, and threw the pieces into the sea is a lie told many years later by the secretary Procopius to discredit her. I do not say that Macedonia was undeserving of this punishment, or that my mistress did not threaten it in her anger.

Soon all was well again between my mistress and her husband. But Theodosius had not yet returned to us, the ship that was sent after him having failed to overtake him. However, Belisarius wrote to him at Ephesus, urging him to return, and also made a public confession of his own mistake, on the day of Macedonia's trial. All talkative tongues were silenced for fear.

Belisarius now awaited Justinian's order for the invasion of Italy; but it was long in coming, because Justinian had been disconcerted by the news of Mundus's death. He was instructed to do nothing as yet, but to hold himself in readiness until he should hear of the recapture of Spalato; and then march against Rome. Spalato was re-occupied in September by the reinforced Illyrian army, and in October Belisarius heard news of this and was able to begin his march. He had been greatly assisted in his plans by my mistress, who during his absence in Africa had been carrying on secret negotiations with King Theudahad's son-in-law, who commanded the Gothic forces in Southern Italy. She had persuaded this fellow, with whom she had contrived to become acquainted, to promise to desert his army on the day that our invasion of his territory began. Therefore, when Belisarius, leaving garrisons behind at Palermo and Syracuse, the defences of which he had greatly improved, crossed the Straits of Messina and marched against the town of Reggio (where the gold-mines are), this Vandal coward deserted to us with a few of his companions, and left his men leaderless. He went to Constantinople, where, renouncing his Arian faith, he was made a patrician and given great estates. King Theudahad, hearing the news, envied him.

The invasion of Southern Italy was thus not a running battle but a progress, the Goths scattering in all directions. We encountered not the least opposition as we marched up the coast accompanied by the fleet, until early in November when we came to Naples. This noble city was strongly fortified, and held by a garrison of Goths which was said nearly to equal our own army in numbers.

There are four ways of dealing with a reputedly impregnable fortress. The first is to leave it alone and attack the enemy in some weaker place. The second is to starve it out. The third is to force its capitulation by bribe, threat, or deceit. The fourth is to take it by surprise, after discovering that it has, after all, some weak spot which the enemy in his confidence has overlooked. Belisarius could not leave Naples alone; if he did, it would serve as a rallying point for all the scattered Gothic forces within a hundred miles. From the shelter of those massive walls, columns could be detached for the re-conquest of Southern Italy – the small garrisons that he had left behind in its principal cities would be overwhelmed. Nor could he starve Naples out, since it was plentifully supplied with grain, the principal granaries of the African corn-trade being situated within the walls; besides, delay at Naples would give the Goths time to assemble a huge army against him in the North. But it was not impossible that the city might be persuaded to capitulate by an impressive threat.

First he anchored his fleet in the harbour out of range of the siege-engines on the city-walls and camped in the suburbs, where in an attack at dawn he easily captured an outwork of the fortifications by escalade. Then he sent a letter to the Neapolitan City Fathers, informing them briefly that he expected them to surrender the city to him without further delay.

The Italian mayor came to him, under a flag of truce, but with two Goths as witnesses; he was not at all obliging, and as good as told Belisarius that he was trying to create a false impression of overwhelming military strength when his forces were extremely meagre. ‘I regard it as a most unfriendly action,' the Mayor said, ‘to put on us native Italians the burden of replying to your message. The soldiers of the garrison are Goths, and we dare not oppose them, since we are unarmed. Nor will they surrender to bribes and threats, because King Theudahad sent them here only the other day with orders to hold out to the last man – first taking their wives and children away from them as hostages, threatening to kill them if the city were lost. My suggestion is that you do not waste time here, but push on to Rome. For if you take Rome, Naples will certainly surrender also, and if you fail to take Rome, Naples will not be of much service to you.'

Belisarius answered curtly: ‘I do not ask you for any lessons in strategy. But I will tell you this. I have soldiered for many years now, and I have seen many cruel sights in the sack of places which have not
surrendered when called upon. I heartily wish to avoid such experiences at Naples. If you persuade the Gothic garrison to surrender, all your ancient privileges shall be confirmed and increased, and the garrison shall be at liberty either to join the Imperial forces or to march out of the city under safe conduct But' – here he turned to the Gothic witnesses – ‘I warn you Goths that, if you choose to fight, your fate will be that of King Geilimer and his Vandals.'

A Goth answered: ‘Is it not true that Carthage, which lived happily under the Vandals and surrendered at discretion to your army, has recently been plundered by the Emperor's soldiers?'

Belisarius replied: ‘Not by the Emperor's soldiers, but by those of the Devil'

The Goth said: ‘That is all one to us.'

Then the conference broke up; but the Mayor secretly assured Belisarius that he would do his best, to persuade his fellow-citizens to open the gates in defiance of the Goths, who in reality numbered only 1,500 men. However, 300 good men would have sufficed to hold so strong a city against 30,000, and Belisarius had no more than 10,000 troops with him, having been obliged to detach 2,000 men for garrison duty in Sicily and Southern Italy.