Count Belisarius (66 page)

Belisarius replied: ‘Your Sacred Majesty gave me titles of honour but not the authority that customarily goes with them; and forbade me to mention the unprepared and undisciplined condition of your forces. Three times, on my return from Italy, I presented the same report to you: pointing out that your ministers sold commissions in the Guards to untrained civilians, that no military drill was practised by the soldiers nor any weapons provided, that your stables were empty of cavalry-horses. You ordered me to have no fear for the safety of this city.'

‘You lie, you lie,' yelled Justinian. ‘If ever by the grace of God we survive this trial of our faith, you shall be made to suffer dreadful things for your neglect of our armies and fortifications, and not all your boasted victories will save you from the rope.'

Belisarius asked: ‘But my order meanwhile, Your Majesty?'

‘Go and die like a brave man, though you have lived a coward. Gather together what forces you can and meet the Bulgars in the field, thus imitating my gallant Narses – not skulking behind walls as your custom is. Only in this way can you atone for your follies.'

Belisarius made his obeisance, and left the Sacred Presence. But Justinian called his admiral and asked him secretly: ‘Is my fleet well provisioned? What weather can we expect in the Mediterranean if we are obliged to sail?'

Belisarius sent a crier through the streets to shout as follows: ‘Count Belisarius, by order of his Sacred Majesty the Emperor, will lead an army against the Hunnish invaders. The city militia will take their stations upon the wall of Theodosius according to their Colours, and will provide themselves with what arms they can find. The Imperial Guards will parade under their officers, whose duty it is to see that they are horsed and fully armed, and march down to the Golden Gate, there to await further orders. All veteran soldiers present in this city who have ever served as cuirassiers with the said Count Belisarius in the wars are desired to gather forthwith on the Parade Ground; he will put himself at their head and provide them with arms and horses.'

Belisarius went to the Dancing Masters of the Green and Blue factions. ‘In the Emperor's name, I commandeer all the shirts of mail and spears and shields that are worn in the Hippodrome spectacles and in
the stage-plays.' He also went to the Race Masters of the Green and Blue factions. ‘In the Emperor's name, I commandeer all the horses in the Hippodrome stables.' Of bows and arrows he found sufficient at the Palace and a number of carriage-horses in the Imperial stables, and a few chargers. Thus he found equipment for his veterans.

The Parade Ground is famous in history as the place where Alexander the Great reviewed his troops before setting out for the conquest of the East. Here Belisarius's veterans came crowding from every part of the city – men on whom the years had bestowed most dissimilar fortunes. Some were well-clothed and stout, some in rags and pale, some limped, some strutted. But the light of valour shone in every face, and they cried one to another: ‘Greetings, comrade! It is good when old soldiers meet together.'

There were many reunions between former comrades-in-arms who had not met for a number of years, the city being so large. It was: ‘You still alive, old Sisifried? I had thought you died with Diogenes on the retreat from Rome', and ‘Why, comrade Unigatus, I saw you last at the siege of Osimo, when the javelin pierced your hand', and ‘Hey, comrade, do you not know me? We bivouacked together in the Paradise of Grasse under a quincunx of fruit-trees, four and twenty years ago, a few days before the Battle of the Tenth Milestone.' I was there with my mistress Antonina, and had many affectionate greetings from old associates, which warmed my heart.

But there were some who had even longer campaigning memories than myself. There were two men who had raided with Belisarius against the Gepids and these same Bulgarians when he was a beardless young officer.

From a wrestling-school in the suburbs came white-haired Andreas, Belisarius's former satchel-slave and bath-attendant, who had retired from the wars after his two great feats of single combat before Daras. He said: ‘In my wrestling-school I have kept supple and strong, my Lord Belisarius, though I am sixty-five years of age. See, I wear the white-plumed helmet that you gave me as a reward at Daras. I have kept it well scoured with sand. Let me be your standard-bearer!'

When they were all assembled, a few more than 300 men, there came sliding up a tall figure, lean with fasting and clad in a monk's robe. He caught at Belisarius's bridle and said: ‘O my brother Belisarius, for this one day I put off my robe and lay down my scourge and resume chain-armour. For though I trust that I have made my
peace with Heaven for my sins and follies, and especially for the killing of our dear comrade, Armenian John, I cannot die content until I have regained your trust and affection, which I forfeited by my negligence before Milan.'

Belisarius dismounted from his horse and embraced the monk, replying: ‘Uliaris, you shall command a hundred men of this force. I have heard of your holiness and good works among the begging brothers of St Bartimaeus, and I accept you as a loan from God.'

Trajan (recently rid of the arrow-head which had been lodged so long in the flesh of his face) commanded another hundred men. He had gained great glory with Narses in Italy. He now kept a tavern at the docks. Thurimuth, the same who had fought so well in Belisarius's second Italian campaign, commanded the remaining troop. He had fallen on evil days and had not long been released from prison; but I do not recall whether it was for felony or heresy that he had been imprisoned. Belisarius allotted each man to a troop, and it was seen that he remembered the name of every one of them who had ever been among his biscuit-eaters, and his record. Next he mounted them, and gave them arms and armour. They were all greatly exhilarated by now. ‘Belisarius for ever!' they cried, and ‘Lead us at once against the enemy!'

Belisarius was moved. But he replied: ‘Comrades, in remembering the glorious battles of long ago do not forget how they were won. They were won not only by courage and skill with arms but by prudence.'

They rode in column, clattering down the High Street. The people cheered and cried: ‘Evidently God is with us still – for here comes Belisarius!'

My mistress rode beside him on a palfrey, carrying her head like a young bride; and I followed close behind her on a jennet. She wore a fine red wig, her face was brave with rouge and white lead, and her shrunken bosom well padded. It was only standing close that one could read her age in the wrinkled hands and yellowed eyes, the drawn cheeks and flabby neck.

We came through the suburb of Deuteron to the Golden Gate, where all was confusion – everyone shouting orders, nobody obeying. Not more than fifty of the 2,000 men of the Guards who had answered the summons were provided with horses; nor, apart from two or three officers, did I see a single man wearing a mail-shirt or properly
armed; one could be sure that not as many as would make a full company had ever attended a military parade. Even the city militia were a better force of men; for a few score of both the Blue and Green contingents had practised archery at the city butts (shooting on feast-days for the prize of a goose or a sucking-pig or a flagon of wine); and many more had fought by night with swords in faction-feuds.

Belisarius would have added these archers to his small army, but they refused, saying that their obligation was to defend the walls only, and that it was against the laws to lead them out of the city.

From a tower beside the gate we heard the Demarch of the Blues (for the Greens held the other half of the wall) shouting: ‘Is there never a man among you all who understands the management of a catapult? There are catapults in every tower and a good store of bolts.'

My mistress Antonina cried out gaily in answer: ‘No, never a man, but an old woman in a red wig, a veteran of two defences of Rome! To me she said: ‘Come, Eugenius, old soldier, let us teach these recruits their trade.'

So we two dismounted and went up into the tower, where we renewed the ropes of the catapults, which were rotten, and oiled the winches. Then we went from tower to tower, instructing the men at the catapults and scorpions how to repair and handle their machines, and how to lay a sight. If any man did not pay proper attention, or seemed clumsy, my mistress would call him ‘bastard of a Green heretic' and switch him over the shoulders with her riding-whip, shaming him before his mates.

Meanwhile Belisarius gathered the weaponless Guards together and added a thousand able-bodied Thracian peasants to them, taken from among the refugees. He told the officers: ‘Yonder is a pleasure park of the Emperor's, surrounded by a palisade of stakes. Lead your men there and let them bring back two stakes each from the palisade. These must serve instead of swords and spears. For shield, collect metal salvers and dishes from private houses.'

Then this unwarlike rabble marched out through the gates, Belisarius riding at the head with his 300 veterans. My mistress and I watched him go, with pride and foreboding. She said softly, disregarding the regiment of civilians who followed unhappily behind, like a train of captives: ‘Three hundred was the number of the Greeks at Thermopylae, according to the old song. Not a man of them returned, but their name will live for ever.'

I replied, with a smile, to cheer her: ‘Unlucky souls, who had no Belisarius to command them!'

But she: ‘Against ten or twenty thousand Huns what are these few worn-out men riding out to meet them in battle, by the orders of the Emperor? You expect a miracle, Eugenius?'

I replied: ‘I do, having seen many.'

At the village of Chettos, two miles from Melantias, where the Cham Zabergan was encamped, Belisarius set his men to dig a ditch and pile a rampart; and every man planted one of his two stakes on the rampart to form the stockade, keeping the other to carry as a spear. Belisarius sent his veterans forward to dispose themselves as if they were cavalry pickets of a large, widely extended army. Behind them, on a front of five miles, the infantry burned numerous sentry-fires at night; and by day (for the weather had been rainless) dragged bushes along the roads and raised huge clouds of dust.

On the second night an important message came, carried by a peasant boy. It was from old Simeon again, whom the Huns had brought with them as a guide and interpreter. He reported that Zabergan's forces numbered not much more than 7,000 picked cavalry, the remainder of his force having taken the road to Greece; and that they would attack the camp in three days' time, because this was a lucky day in their Calendar.

‘And in mine,' cried Belisarius, ‘for it is the birthday of my wife Antonina.'

The camp at Chettos was further strengthened with a barrier of thorn-bushes; ploughshares and harrows were scattered in front of the gates to do the work of caltrops. The veterans joked together, calling this ‘The Pincian Gate', and that ‘The Flaminian', and a little hill to the south was ‘The Mausoleum of Hadrian'.

Zabergan learned at last that he had no army against him worth the name, but only the aged Belisarius and a few reckless men. He therefore thought it sufficient to send 2,000 Huns, under his brother, to overwhelm the Imperial camp. Their way led through a wide, thick forest, in which there was a narrow defile: this was a notorious haunt of bandits, whose habit it was to lie in wait for prey among the thick bushes that fringed the track. Here Belisarius prepared an ambush. On one side of the track he hid Trajan's troop, on the other Thurimuth's; and behind them, lining the steep sides of the defile, his army of ‘spectators', as he called his stake-armed infantry.

Let me not lengthen the tale unnecessarily. The Huns rode into the ambush without a thought of danger. At the trumpet signal Belisarius and Uliaris charged them suddenly with the remaining troop – Andreas, well ahead of the rest, carried the standard. After the lance, the sword: Belisarius fought in the front rank, cutting and thrusting with all his old precision. For a moment the standard was in jeopardy; but Andreas killed a Hun who tried to snatch it from him, plunging a dagger in his belly. Then Trajan and Thurimuth charged from the rear with their troops, while every man of the spectators yelled as fiercely as if this had been a chariot-race, clashing stakes against mock-shields as though impatient for the order to charge. The Bulgars were terrified. They could not use their bows in that narrow place, nor display their skill in cavalry manoeuvre. They were wearing only buff-coats; which made them the less able to resist the furious onslaught of the mail-clad veterans. They gave way suddenly and streamed back in headlong rout.

Belisarius pressed the pursuit, not heeding the arrows that the Huns fired as they fled; his horses could not easily be wounded, because of the metal poitrails he had improvised for them. His own arrows stung more than the Huns'. Four hundred of the enemy were killed, including the brother of Zabergan, whom Uliaris had transfixed with his lance in the first charge. The remainder fled back to Melantias, crying: ‘Home, brothers, home! The spirits of the dead are upon us – aged men with fiery eyes and white hair streaming!' They gashed their cheeks with their nails in sign of lamentation.

The Cham Zabergan broke camp and retreated with his whole army. Belisarius followed him, stage by stage. He had entered that battle with 300 armed men only and finished it with 500. The newcomers were Thracian peasants, chosen from among the recruits as men accustomed to horses and to the use of a light bow for hunting; they had been given the horses and arms of the dead Bulgars. Belisarius's dead numbered three only, though many were wounded; Unigatus, who had fought bravely with his one good arm, died of his wounds a few days later.

Belisarius sent a dispatch to the Emperor: ‘Obeying your Sacred orders, we have conquered the enemy and are pursuing him.'

In the streets, jubilation and ceaseless praise for Belisarius – ‘This victory of his outshines every former one'; in the Palace, mortification and muttering.