Count Belisarius (53 page)

Belisarius answered: ‘I have been away from the East, as I say, for ten years, but have not forgotten so much as you may suppose. These Saracens are about to begin their Ramadan fast, when out of respect for their Sun God they fast all the daylight hours and abstain from any fighting for two whole months.' This silenced them.

A few days later Belisarius led his field army of 15,000 men across the Persian frontier and encamped about eight miles from Nisibis. With him, too, came 5,000 Arabs under the same King Harith ibn Gabala of Bostra, who had deserted him ten years before during the Unnecessary Battle, but who had been freely forgiven by Justinian for his perfidy. The Persians had learned such contempt for our armies that it was likely that they would leave the protection of their strong fortifications and come out against Belisarius. He hoped thus to defeat them and, heading off their main retreat and allowing only a squadron or so to escape to Nisibis, to capture the city, by sending a party of men, dressed in Persian armour, to mingle with these fugitives and keep the gates open for him. However, this plan was opposed by Peter, who thought that the Persians should be intimidated by a nearer approach. He insisted on encamping only a mile and a half away from the city.

Belisarius sent a message to Peter, saying that his courage was commendable but that if he fought and defeated the Persians where he was encamped they would have to retreat only a short distance to reach safety; and that he was acting directly against orders in taking up that position.

Peter replied: ‘I served with you some years ago on the Euphrates, where, though the Persians were then hundreds of miles away from a fortress, you hesitated to attack them. I pride myself that I am not afraid of the Persians. As for obedience, I am informed that recently at Ravenna you overrode the orders of the Emperor himself. Yet no harm came of it for you.'

Belisarius wrote again: ‘Circumstances alter cases. However, I do not propose to argue with you. If, against my orders, you maintain your bravado, do at least, I beg of you, be careful of a surprise attack, especially at the dinner-hour.'

The weather being extremely hot at midday, Peter's men took off their armour and stacked their arms, and a number of them went out in twos and threes to steal melons from the kitchen-gardens a few hundred yards from the walls of Nisibis. The Persian cavalry made a sudden sally from three gates and chased the melon-stealers back to their palisaded camp. The camp guards snatched up their arms in a hurry and ran to the help of their comrades, but were driven back in confusion. Peter was soon forced to abandon his camp with the loss not only of fifty men but of his regimental standard.

Fortunately Belisarius's look-out men had seen a cloud of dust from the direction of Nisibis, and reported this at once. It was a standing order in Belisarius's camp that dinner should be served in relays, only one-third of the men being off duty at a time; so within one minute of the trumpeter's blowing the Alarm the Household cuirassiers were pelting down the Nisibis road to Peter's rescue. Belisarius was at their head, with his Gothic recruits mounted on heavy horses, and found the Persians busy reforming their ranks after a hurried plunder of the camp. Separating into two columns for a double flank attack, they converged on the enemy at a gallop, shooting from the saddle and charging home with their long lances. The enemy arrows did not stop them, since, as I have already explained, Persian bows are too light for effective use against heavily armoured cavalry. The Goths had the satisfaction of breaking the Persian line at the first onset and driving them back in confusion on Nisibis. Peter's regiment was saved — but at the expense of Belisarius's plans; for the Persians, of whom 150 men fell in the skirmish, realized that Belisarius was back again on the frontier and had lost none of his former vigour. They did not venture to go out against him from the city; but displayed Peter's regimental standard from one of their towers, wreathing it in black sausages for derision.

Now that Belisarius had no hope of taking Nisibis by surprise, he decided to push on beyond it, knowing that no ordinary siege-craft could reduce it in less than twelve months or a year. The next fortress to the east was Sisauranum, some thirty-five miles distant; the garrison there, including the local militia, consisted of 4,000 men. Belisarius could afford to leave Nisibis with its garrison of 6,000 in his rear, but not both Sisauranum and Nisibis. He decided therefore to lay siege to Sisaruranum with his main forces, leaving a small containing force behind at Nisibis, and to send King Harith with his Arabs raiding across the River Tigris into the province of Assyria.

This part of Assyria had been free from Roman raids for centuries. The inhabitants lived in perfect security and were extremely rich. With King Khosrou absent in Colchis and the Persian frontier forces pinned in Nisibis and Sisauranum, King Harith's men found such easy plundering as they had never enjoyed before in all their lives. King Harith considered that it would be a great pity to share all this wealth with the Roman armies in his rear, as the agreement was, and therefore decided to return to his Court at Bostra by another way. With
him had come a squadron of the Household Regiment under Trajan, and another of Thracians under John the Epicure, to stiffen the Arab forces in case any serious resistance was encountered. But Harith deceived Trajan and John by instructing his scouts to report that a large army of Persians had cut in from the North behind the expedition and were lying in wait for their return at the Tigris bridge by which they had crossed. He announced that he was going home at once. John the Epicure, encumbered with booty, baulked at dealing with a whole army by himself and decided to follow Harith's example. Trajan, being his junior in rank, was forced to keep him company. The whole expedition therefore marched southward along the River Tigris until they came to the bridge at Nineveh, where they crossed over; John the Epicure and Trajan then returned to Roman territory across the desert by way of Singara and the lower reaches of the Aborrhas. King Harith reached Bostra in safety, with his booty, after a still longer march. (Justinian once more forgave this perfidious Arab, and some years afterwards, when he destroyed an army of the King of the Saracens, raised him to patrician rank, and received him with honour at Constantinople.)

Meanwhile Belisarius was expecting word from King Harith — or, failing him, from Trajan — as to what progress had been made and what Persian forces were stationed in Assyria. Receiving no message at all, he began to grow anxious. But he succeeded in capturing Sisauranum: being crowded with peasant refugees, it surrendered from famine after a six weeks' siege. Unlike the frontier cities of Daras and Nisibis, this city kept no permanent store of food as a safeguard against siege, and the suddenness of Belisarius's appearance had not permitted the collection of stocks of corn from the surrounding country. Belisarius's terms were generous: a free pardon for all the citizens — who were Christians of Roman descent, this being one of the cities handed over to Persia a century and a half before by the disgraceful treaty of Jovian — and for the 800 Persian horsemen of the garrison a choice between common slavery and enlistment in the Emperor Justinian's army. They chose to serve under Justinian and were later transferred to Italy to fight against the Goths — as the Goths enlisted in the Household Regiment had been transferred to Mesopotamia to fight against the Persians. The fortifications of Sisauranum were razed to the ground.

Still no news came from King Harith, and Belisarius feared that the
whole expeditionary force had been ambushed and destroyed. He now called a council of war and pressed for an advance across the Tigris — perhaps Harith was still holding out in some captured city or other, waiting for relief. But not one of the generals would support him in this project. Those from the Lebanon insisted on returning with their troops, now that the Saracens' Ramadan was over; while the others pointed out that their troops were suffering so severely from the heat that fully one-third of them were incapacitated for fighting. They began a disorderly clamour, the refrain of which was: ‘Take us back again. We will not cross the Tigris. We refuse to go farther. Take us back again.'

Thus by the bravado of Peter, the treachery of King Harith, the credulousness of John the Epicure, the cowardice of these other generals, Belisarius was robbed of what might have been the greatest of his victories. For when King Khosrou in Colchis heard of the Arab raid in Assyria and of Belisarius's capture of Sisauranum, he came hurrying back by the road which passes to the westward of Lake Van and along the eastern bank of the Tigris. He had already lost nearly one-half of his army by a cholera epidemic. He now lost one-half of what remained to him by a breakdown of his food supply — the frightening news of the cholera turned his commissariat-trains back to Iberia. He was delayed further by a landslide which carried away his new road at the most difficult point of the journey, so that he had to cut it afresh in order to pass. If Belisarius had now been able to cross the Tigris he would have intercepted Khosrou and, the Persians being in a pitiful state of starvation and disorder, would doubtless have added a third captured king to the gifts he had made to Justinian.

But it was not to be: Belisarius could not persuade his generals to march. He laid his sick in carts and retired past Nisibis to Daras.

In Constantinople strange things had been happening. To begin with, there appeared in the city an illegitimate son of Theodora's, born to her in Egypt during that one unlucky year when she went off to Pentapolis from the club-house. The father was a person of no importance — an Arabian merchant, recently dead; he had taken the boy (whom he christened John) off her hands. Theodora had told Justinian that she had never had a child; and when he conferred patrician rank on her she signed a document solemnly affirming this. Cappadocian John's hold on Theodora was his knowledge that this child existed:
his agents in Egypt had brought the story to him, but without any details to confirm it. Theodora could not be sure whether or not he was in possession of any evidence that would carry weight with Justinian; she herself had never been able to discover where her son was. At last the young man, John the Bastard, was told the secret of his birth by his dying father and came to Constantinople from Aden on the Red Sea, where they lived. He approached Theodora through my mistress Antonina, whose first husband, he knew, had been a business associate of his father's. If he expected to be greeted with maternal tears and kisses and given a prominent position at Court he was much mistaken. Theodora wasted no time, but declared him a lunatic and shut him up in a Bedlam, where he soon died. She had not loved the father, why should she love the son? Besides, he was a greedy, vain, illiterate fellow.

Theodora, with sighs of relief, told my mistress: ‘Now at last, my dearest, we can settle our account with Cappadocian John: I no longer have anything to fear from him.'

But Theodora knew that until Theodosius was brought back from Ephesus my mistress would be in no state of mind to assist in any plot of revenge. So, though my mistress was convinced that Theodosius would never be tempted to leave his retreat, Theodora let the Bishop of Ephesus, one of her Monophysite nominees, know that he must contrive to send the monk Theodosius back to Constantinople at once. The Bishop ordered the Abbot of the monastery, which had a very easy rule, to impose such heavy penances and restrictions on Theodosius that he would voluntarily demand absolution from his vows.

My mistress's hopes began to revive a little at this news, and she began thinking of ways to entrap and ruin Cappadocian John. Her first step was to cultivate the acquaintance of John's only daughter, Euphemia, a clever girl to whom he was devoted. Theodora had chosen a husband for her whom she did not in the least wish to marry. My mistress, playing upon Euphemia's bitterness against Theodora, gradually won her sympathies. Euphemia asked her one evening: ‘Illustrious Lady Antonina, dearest friend, why is it that you look so sad these days and scarcely smile at all? Is it anxiety for your brave husband at the wars?'

My mistress, who certainly had no intention of confiding to Euphemia how much she missed Theodosius, answered shortly: ‘I have little anxiety for my husband's safety in the field.' Then, by a sudden
inspiration she continued: ‘What distresses me is that the Emperor is so unreasonably suspicious of my husband's loyalty. I fear far more for his safety when he is here at Constantinople.'

Euphemia exclaimed: ‘Suspicious of Belisarius's loyalty! Why, nobody in the Empire is so devoted to the Emperor as he, surely?'

My mistress rose, carefully shut all the doors, and then whispered: ‘I have long been wishing to confide in someone, dearest child, for my heart is full to bursting with indignation at the ungrateful treatment that my noble Belisarius has received. He has enlarged the Emperor's dominions by tens of thousands of square miles and his treasure by tens of millions in gold, and brought him home captive two powerful kings — not to mention his quelling of the Victory riots, when the Emperor nearly lost his throne. But this miserable Justinian is jealous and treats him like a dog or criminal. Belisarius told me before he left: “Better any other Emperor than this! I feel absolved from my vows of loyalty to him, because of my prolonged ill-treatment at his hands.”'

Euphemia replied: ‘You and Belisarius have only yourselves to blame, dearest friend; for though you have the power, you hesitate to use it.'

My mistress replied without hesitation: ‘But child, we cannot undertake a military revolution unless we have the assistance of powerful ministers at Court. Your illustrious father, for instance, does not see eye to eye with us at all. If we had
him
on our side… By the way, he is the very man for Emperor in Justinian's place. My husband himself has no ambitions in that way, as you know: he is interested only in soldiering.'