Count Belisarius (43 page)

As winter drew on, these supplies ceased: sausages made from mule-flesh were the only palatable supplement to the meagre corn-ration that even the wealthiest purse could buy. Cats, rats, and axle-grease were eaten. Of wine alone there was no great shortage, since Belisarius had requisitioned all stocks from private cellars for public distribution. The city was very close to famine; yet, strangely enough, I never saw
a single under-nourished priest. ‘Ah,' said my mistress drily, when I remarked on this to her, ‘the ravens feed them, as they miraculously fed the Prophet Elijah.'

As for the nine senators who had attached their names to the intercepted letter, Antonina could not in justice punish them more severely than the Pope. She banished them, confiscated their goods, and sent them out of the city in Brother Silverius's company. Belisarius was still uneasy: other Romans as well might be implicated in the plot. He therefore employed locksmiths to change or interchange the locks of all the gates twice a month, so that it would be more difficult for traitors to obtain a key to fit them. He also appointed officers for guard duty at these gates according to an irregular roster, to make it impossible for any of them to be bribed in advance to open any particular gate on any agreed night. To make the watches less tedious my mistress had formed bands of musicians from the theatre to give frequent concerts at every gate; but for greater vigilance on these occasions Belisarius set outposts beyond the fosse, chiefly Moors, and every outpost had a watchdog trained to growl at the least sound of approaching feet.

I must pause here just long enough to relate how cleverly my mistress Antonina managed these musicians. If any musician played ill my mistress would seize his instrument from him and show him: ‘The tune goes so.' And she would taunt them, ‘O you miserable Romans, you cannot fight and you cannot fiddle. Of what use are you?' To this an aggrieved daring musician once replied, attempting to abash her with obscenity: ‘We are great adepts at procreation.' She replied coldly: ‘In this at least you surpass your fathers.' The joke was repeated from mouth to mouth, and has become one of the most famous of her many sayings.

The reverse of which I promised to tell was due to the elation of our troops at the success of the cavalry skirmishes. They were impatient of Belisarius's policy of gradually wearing down the enemy's forces and courage, and clamoured for a general engagement. It was his policy never to discourage a warlike spirit in his men, but he did not think that the time was yet ripe for a pitched battle. The enormous difference in size between the armies still remained, and the Goths, though discouraged, were still fighting courageously. He tried to keep his men busy with more frequent sorties. But on two or three occasions he found that the Goths were ready for him, having been warned
of his intentions by deserters. The Roman population now began to clamour for a battle too – or at least for a speedy end to the siege, one way or the other. He could no longer refuse the plea: he must not lose the respect of his men, or allow the civil population to become unmanageable.

The largest Gothic camp lay a mile beyond the mausoleum of Hadrian in what is called the Plain of Nero. Belisarius was anxious that his main attack against the camps outside the Pincian and Salarian Gates should not be hindered by enemy reinforcements hurried up from that quarter. He therefore ordered the Moorish cavalry to make a feint against the Goths there as soon as he was engaged; they were to ride out from the Aelian Gate under an officer named Valentine. After them would follow a force of city infantry, drawing up in defensive formation a short distance outside the gate. He told these Romans to look as much like soldiers as possible, but did not expect any serious fighting from them. His main attack he would make with cavalry alone. He had increased his cavalry forces by 1,000: in the recent fighting a great number of riderless horses had been captured, and part of the Isaurian infantry had converted itself – very successfully – into cavalry. The remaining Isaurians pleaded to be allowed also to take part in the battle. He could not refuse them, but stipulated that a few of them must remain on the walls and at the gates, to stiffen the city levies and to manage the catapults and scorpions and wild asses.

Early one autumn morning Belisarius led out his cavalry through the Pincian and Salarian Gates; the Isaurian infantry followed behind. Wittich was waiting for them, warned as usual. He had mustered every available man from his four northern camps, drawing up his infantry in the centre of his line and his cavalry on the wings; he stood at a distance of half a mile from the city, to allow more room for pursuit when he had overwhelmed us.

At nine o'clock the battle began, and Belisarius did just as be pleased at first, because the Goths stood on the defensive. He had divided his cavalry into two columns, one to each flank, which poured thousands of arrows into their dense mass. But to keep their infantry amused, a few small bodies of our Isaurian spearmen came up between, very close to their centre, and challenged equal bodies of Goths to combat; they were victorious in every such encounter. After a while the enemy cavalry began to retreat, their infantry keeping pace with them. By midday our men had pressed them back against their most distant
camps. But here their archers came into action at last and, protected by huge shields, began shooting at our horses from the top of the ramparts. Before long so many of our cavalry were either wounded or unhorsed that no more than four full squadrons survived to resist fifty of theirs. To have broken off the engagement at this point, however, would have meant abandoning our infantry to its fate. At last the Gothic right wing took courage and charged. Bessas, who was commanding the cavalry on our left, fell back on the infantry; the infantry did not hold, and the whole line began to retire. It was easy enough for our cavalry to fight a rearguard action, but the slower-moving infantry suffered heavily. In all we lost a thousand men, whom we could ill spare, before covering fire from the siege-engines on the walls halted the rush of the enemy. Some of the Roman soldiers shut the Pincian Gate against the returning men, but my mistress and I were there with a few trusty spearmen. We resisted, killing several, and opened the gate again.

In the Plain of Nero meanwhile the two other armies had stood facing each other for a long time – the city levies drawn up in a formidable line, several thousand strong, with a screen of Moorish cavalry in front. The Goths had acquired a superstitious fear of the black-faced Moors by now; the Moors knew this, and kept harrying them with sudden charges, hurling their javelins and retiring with whoops of laughter. At midday the Moors made an unexpected charge in mass. The Goths, who outnumbered them by thirty to one, turned and fled to the Vatican Hill, leaving their camp unguarded. Valentine marched the whole army forward across the plain, intending to seize the Gothic camp and leave the Roman infantry to guard it while he and the Moors made a raid northward to destroy the Mulvian Bridge. Had this plan succeeded, Wittich would have been compelled to abandon his northern camps, since all food supplies for them came down the Flaminian Way and across this bridge. But when the rabble of Roman infantry began to plunder the Gothic camp, the Moors were loath to be deprived of their share of the plunder and joined in the merry work. Presently a few enemy scouts ventured down from the Vatican Hill and observed what was happening. They prevailed on the others to make an effort to recapture the camp. Soon the Goths came charging back in their thousands, and Valentine could not restore order in time: he was driven from the camp and forced back to the walls again, with heavy losses.

This was the last pitched battle which Belisarius consented to fight during the long defence of Rome.

Still no reinforcements arrived from Constantinople. Though we did not know it at the time, it was Cappadocian John who prevented their dispatch: apparently he insisted to Justinian that not another man could be spared. My mistress was for writing to Theodora, but Belisarius did not think it appropriate that his wife should appeal to the Empress in a military matter which directly concerned neither of them. Nevertheless, she did write, secretly, at the end of November, on the day that Silverius was deposed, making her plea a postscript to her lively account of the trial. Theodora would, my mistress knew, be delighted to hear of Silverius's humiliation, for he had angered her recently by refusing a request of hers – not backed by Justinian's authority – to reinstate a Patriarch who, though a most energetic and worthy man, had been removed from his see for Monophysite leanings. ‘The new Pope promises to be more obliging', my mistress Antonina wrote to Theodora.

It was now very difficult for Belisarius to keep the civil population in good heart, for they were subsisting on a diet consisting almost wholly of herbs. Pestilence broke out and carried off 12,000 of them; but the soldiers still had their daily corn-ration and their wine and a little salted meat, so not many of them died. Sorties were made every two or three days, when it was found that the Goths were by no means so eager as before to come to grips with our horse-archers. Nobody enjoys being shot at and being unable to reply; but Wittich had not thought to form a corps of horse-archers of his own.

Of the smaller incidents of the siege I could write endlessly. There are a few stories concerned with wounds that must not be left untold. On the day that Theodosius entered Rome with the convoy Belisarius had engaged the attention of the enemy with brisk skirmishes at the other gates. The Household Regiment was heavily engaged, and on their return that evening two of the cuirassiers presented an extraordinary sight. One of them, Arzes, a Persian formerly belonging to the Immortals, came riding back with an arrow sunk in his face close to his nose; and another, a Thracian called Cutilas, came back with a javelin sticking in his head and waving about like a plume. Neither of them had paid the least attention to these wounds, but had continued fighting indefatigably, to the horror and alarm of the Goths, who cried: ‘These are not men but demons.'

The javelin was afterwards drawn from Cutilas's head by a surgeon; but the wound grew inflamed, and he was dead in two days. Arzes, however, was examined by the same surgeon, who pressed the back of his neck and asked: ‘Does this pressure hurt?' ‘Yes,' replied Arzes. Then the surgeon opened the skin at the back of Arzes' neck. He found the point of the arrow, caught hold of it with a pair of forceps and, having first cut off the shaft close to the nose, tugged the arrow through, barb and all. Arzes fainted with the pain, but his blood was healthy: the wound healed up without any suppuration. He led the next sally, and survived the war.

On another occasion, Trajan, the troop-commander whose exploits I have already mentioned, was pierced close above the right eye and near the nose by the long, barbed head of an arrow. The shaft had been insecurely fastened to it, and fell off at the moment of impact. Trajan continued fighting. For days and months after his comrades expected him to drop dead at any moment; but he lived on and suffered no pain or inconvenience, though the barbed head remained imbedded in his flesh. Five years later it began slowly to emerge again. Twelve years more, and he was able to pluck it out like a thorn.

But as strange a story as any concerns the wound of Chorsomantis, Belisarius's armour-bearer. This was not a deep or a very remarkable wound, being a mere spear-prick in his shin, but it kept him in his quarters for several days, with poultices of wound-wort wrapped around it. In consequence he was absent from the pitched battle, in which a number of his comrades distinguished themselves. When he was well again he swore to be avenged on the Goths for this ‘insult to his shin', as he called it. His white mare having recently foaled, he now had the necessary milk from her for brewing
kavasse
; and
kavasse
he brewed. One day after his midday meal, having drunk a good deal of this liquor, Chorsomantis armed himself, mounted his mare, and rode to the Pincian postern-gate. He told the sentry on duty there that the Illustrious Lord Belisarius had entrusted him with a mission to the enemy's camp. As Chorsomantis was known to enjoy Belisarius's fullest confidence, the sentry did not doubt his word; the gate was unlocked for him.

The sentry watched Chorsomantis ride easily over the plain until an outpost of the Goths, a party of twenty men, sighted him. Taking him for a deserter, they came spurring eagerly forward, each hoping to win the mare for his own booty. Chorsomantis drew his bow.
Twang! twang! twang! – down went three Goths, and the others turned hurriedly about. He shot three more of them as they fled, then returned towards the city at a slow walk, holding in his mettlesome mare. A troop of sixty Goths now came charging down on him, but he turned and galloped about them in a half-circle. He killed two more men, wounded two, and completed the circle with the slaughter of four more. I happened to be watching from the rampart, ran hurriedly and called to my mistress, who was in conference with the officers of a guard-house near by, begging her not to miss this extraordinary spectacle. ‘Here's a man has gone mad,' I cried.

She recognized the mare: ‘No, not mad, my good Eugenius. That is only our Chorsomantis avenging the insult to his shin.'

Then Chorsomantis was caught between two enemy troops; but he charged clean through the nearer one, using his lance and sword this time. We cheered loudly, for we saw that he was safe at last, if he wished. My mistress ordered a strong covering fire from the catapults to assist his return, but our cheer determined him to continue the fight. He turned yet again and disappeared from our view, driving some of the enemy before him, but pursued by others. We heard distant shouts and cries for a good while longer as the fight continued towards their camp.

In the end a Gothic cheer from close to their palisade informed us that Chorsomantis was no more. While many Christians made the sign of the Cross upon their breasts and offered a prayer for his soul my mistress cried out with a loud pagan oath: ‘By the body of Bacchus and the club of Hercules, that was an angry man!'