Lost to the West (14 page)

Never before had the citizens of the Roman Empire seen such construction, at such a pace. The dusty city of the emperor’s birth, Tauresium, was refurbished and renamed Justiniana Prime; hospitals and baths sprang up, and fortifications were strengthened. Bridges spanning mighty rivers were constructed, and inns were spaced along the major highways for the imperial post to change horses. The most impressive work, however, was saved for Constantinople. A sumptuous new Senate house, colonnaded with creamy white marble pillars
and topped with fine carvings, rose near the city’s central square to replace the burned one. Three statues of barbarian kings were set up, all bowing before a large column surmounted with an equine statue of Justinian in full military dress.
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To the west of his column, the emperor built a massive subterranean cistern to feed the city’s numerous fountains and baths and to provide fresh water for all of its inhabitants. Constantinople gleamed with new construction, but, for the emperor, this was merely the prologue. He now turned to the project which would surpass them all.

The Hagia Sophia was undoubtedly the most important structure that had been destroyed in the riots. Originally built by Constantius II to house the mystery of the Holy Communion, it had been demolished by rioters more than a century before when the great golden-tongued reformer Saint John Chrysostom had been exiled to Georgia. The emperor Theodosius II had rebuilt it eleven years later along the same rather uninspired lines, and most in the city assumed that the familiar outline would soon greet them once again. Justinian, however, had no intention of following the tired plans of an earlier age. This was a chance to remake the cathedral on a whole new scale, something worthy of his vision for the empire. It was to be nothing short of a revolution, equal parts art and architecture, the enduring grandeur of the emperor himself frozen in marble and brick.

Little more than a month after the Nika riots, construction began on the mighty showpiece of his reign. Choosing two architects who had more vision than practical experience, Justinian told them to create a building unlike anything else in the world. Sheer scale wasn’t enough—the empire was full of grand monuments and immense sculpture. This had to be something different, something fitting for the new golden age that was dawning. Expense, he informed them, wasn’t an issue, but speed was. He was already in his fifties, and he
didn’t intend to have some successor apply the final coat of paint and claim it as his own.

The two architects didn’t disappoint. Rejecting the classical basilica form that had been used for three hundred years, they came up with a bold and innovative plan.
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Building the largest unsupported dome in the world, they put it on a square floor plan and distributed its weight over a cascading series of half-domes and cupolas. The riches of the empire were poured into its construction. Each day, gold arrived from Egypt, porphyry from Ephesus, powdered white marble from Greece, and precious stones from Syria and North Africa. Even the old capital provided a quarry for the new, as columns that had once stood in the Temple of the Sun in Rome were carted off to adorn the rising church.

The building seemed to grow at a breathtaking rate. The architects split their crew of ten thousand men into two parts, placing one group at the south end and the other at the north end. Spurred on by the presence of the emperor—who daily visited the site—the two teams raced against each other, speeding up the building to a frenetic pace. In the end, it took only five years, ten months, and four days from the laying of the first stone to the completion of the building—a remarkable achievement in any age, much less one without modern machines.
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Stepping through the great doors reserved for the emperor and patriarch into the vast interior of the Hagia Sophia for the first time, Justinian was overwhelmed, struck by a vision of heaven made real in every graceful curve and sweeping arch.
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The cavernous interior dome, 107 feet high and spanning nearly four acres, was decorated
with simple crosses and completely covered in gold, seemingly floating above the ground as if “suspended from heaven itself on a golden chain.” Candles and lamps were hung from the upper galleries, outlining the interior in an unforgettable glow and casting soft light over the glittering mosaics. From the floor rose multicolored columns topped with intricate scrollwork and deeply carved with the complex monograms of Justinian and Theodora. At the front of the church, a massive fifty-foot iconostasis was hung with great silver disks engraved with images of Mary, Jesus, and the saints. Beyond lay the high altar, sheltering an unrivaled collection of relics, from the hammer and nails of the Passion to the swaddling clothes of Christ. Even the wood surmounting the great imperial door was unlike any in the world, composed as it was from an ancient fragment of Noah’s Ark. Marveling at the stunning panorama, Justinian stood silently, drinking it in. After a long moment, those closest heard him whisper, “Solomon, I have surpassed you.”

T
he emperor wasn’t in the habit of making idle boasts, nor had he forgotten his great dream of redressing the embarrassing situation of a Roman Empire that didn’t include Rome. The aftermath of the Nika revolt had given him a measure of domestic peace, and he could now concentrate on his plan to reconquer the lost lands. Predictably, there were plenty of people telling him that it couldn’t be done. Chief among them was John the Cappadocian, who, like any treasurer worth his salt, was looking at it from a financial standpoint and didn’t think it made economic sense. He remembered all too clearly the disaster of Basiliscus’s African invasion, which had crippled the imperial economy for nearly sixty years. Pleading with Justinian not to risk the empire’s resources on an unnecessary campaign, he succeeded in getting the emperor to drastically reduce the size of the force to be sent with Belisarius. On the one hand, this ensured that the empire could survive the expedition’s failure; but on the other, its small size seemed to invite the very failure it was trying to avoid. It
hardly mattered to Justinian, however; he had an unwavering faith in the abilities of his general.

In the late summer of 533, Belisarius sailed with eighteen thousand men and, more important for posterity, his personal secretary, Procopius, who would write a firsthand account of the campaign. Arriving in Sicily to pick up new supplies, the campaign got its first lucky break when it was discovered that the Vandal fleet was away putting down a revolt in Sardinia, a diversion that Justinian had carefully encouraged. Belisarius moved quickly to take advantage of the opportunity. Disembarking on the coast of what is now Tunisia without seeing a single Vandal soldier, the Byzantines found a land ripe for the taking.

For years, the Vandal overlords had been alienating the native African population by trying to covert them to Arianism, and, after crushing numerous revolts, the paranoid barbarians had finally torn down the walls of their cities to prevent their seditious subjects from ever resisting again. So Belisarius arrived to find Africa’s great cities shorn of their defenses and filled with a population that welcomed him as a deliverer.

Sixty-five years before, Basiliscus had dithered within sight of his ships until the Vandals had cut him to pieces, but Belisarius, with barely a tenth of his numbers, headed straight for Carthage—the only of all the Vandal cities to have maintained its walls. His aim was to draw Gelimer out and strike a quick knockout blow while surprise was on his side, but when he was only ten miles from the city, his scouts reported a massive Vandal army waiting just ahead in a carefully planned ambush. Prudence seemed to dictate a strategic withdrawal to a neutral ground, but Belisarius was anxious to come to grips with Gelimer. Trusting his instincts, the great general plunged ahead.

Most of Gelimer’s veteran troops were off fighting in Sardinia, so the Vandal king had made the mistake of padding his numbers with raw recruits. This gave him an impressive-looking army, but since it was too large to be effectively commanded by a single person, he was
forced to divide the command with his brother. Unfortunately for Vandal Africa, Gelimer’s inexperienced brother was completely incompetent and proceeded to get his entire wing annihilated by blundering into the Byzantine vanguard. Gelimer tried to save the day by charging forward, but his troops took one look at Belisarius’s terrifying Hunnish allies and fled, trampling their own forces in their haste to get away. Somehow Gelimer managed to rally his men, but just as the weight of his superior numbers was beginning to force the Byzantines back, he stumbled on the body of his brother and was overcome with grief. Refusing to budge until the body was given a proper funeral, Gelimer lost whatever momentum he had gained, and a sudden charge by Belisarius shattered the Vandal army.

The way to Carthage was now clear, and the victorious general entered the cheering city in triumph, taking possession of Gelimer’s palace in time to eat the feast prepared for the Vandal king. The city’s population turned out to greet him, scattering flowers before his horse and waving branches. Some feared looting and destruction like the last time a Roman army had taken Carthage, but Belisarius had instructed his men carefully
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This wasn’t an occupation; it was a liberation. After more than a century under the barbarian boot, a treasured province was welcomed back into the Roman Empire. There was no swagger or requisitioning. Food was paid for at a fair price, and discipline was strictly enforced.

The conquering army didn’t stay for long. Gelimer’s veteran Vandal troops had returned from Sardinia, and the furious king was now marching with his surviving brother to retake his capital. By cutting the aqueduct that provided fresh water to the city, the Vandals forced Belisarius to abandon the city to face them. Choosing a vast plain that would give advantage to neither side, Belisarius drew up his forces for the decisive contest of the war.

The two sides heaved against each other, sweating under the
blazing North African sun, and, imperceptibly at first, the heavily outnumbered but more-disciplined Byzantines began to push the Vandals back. Gelimer surged forward, trying to encourage his men, but history repeated itself as his brother was cut down in front of him in the vicious fighting. Paralyzed with grief, the king halted, and his wavering troops broke completely before the Byzantine charge. Vandal thoughts were now only of escape, and men clawed and flailed their way frantically through the confusion toward the distant mountains rising from the dusty African plain. Thousands of them were cut down in flight, soaking the battlefield with barbarian blood before Belisarius wearily called off the pursuit.

The victory shattered the Vandals so thoroughly that they virtually disappeared from history. Gelimer survived to flee into the mountains and fight on, but by the time winter was over, he realized it was a lost cause and surrendered. Belisarius entered the bustling city of Hippo in triumph and found there both Gelimer’s vast treasury and the looted riches of Rome. Within a few months, Sardinia, Corsica, and Gibraltar had fallen, and his extraordinary victory was complete. The Vandal kingdom had been extinguished in little more than a year, and the watching world had been put on notice. The empire was returning to claim its own.

Leaving a subordinate to finish mopping up resistance, Belisarius gathered his spoils and the most prominent captives and sailed for Constantinople. Justinian greeted his general with euphoria. The stunning reconquest of North Africa had vindicated all his cherished dreams of reuniting the empire. He’d proved all the doubters wrong and added immense prestige to both empire and emperor. Somehow Justinian had to communicate his thanks and he characteristically chose an extravagant reward. Belisarius, he announced, would be granted a triumph.

There was no higher honor a Roman general could receive, but no triumph had been awarded outside of the imperial family since 19 BC
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For Justinian, however, steeped as he was in history, such a fact was yet another witness that his reign signified the return of the glorious ancient empire.

The young general strode through the ecstatic crowds into the Hippodrome, his face painted red, and the bright sun gleaming off his armor. At his side—as was traditional—stood a slave holding a golden wreath above his head and whispering into his ear, “Remember, you are but a man.”
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Following him, beneath the fluttering insignias of the Vandal kingdom, came Gelimer, his family, and the best-looking specimens of Vandal prowess. Behind them, ranged out in a seemingly endless baggage train, came the spoils of war: solid-gold thrones, jewel-encrusted chariots, the silver menorah that Titus had seized from Jerusalem in AD 71, and all the treasures the Vandals had plundered from Rome. Entering the Hippodrome, the mighty procession found the entire population on its feet, as far above them Justinian and Theodora sat enthroned in the imperial box. The noise rose to a deafening crescendo as Gelimer tore off his royal robes and was forced to kneel in the dust before the emperor. Groveling with the ruins of his power around him, the fallen king was heard to whisper a verse from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

As much as Belisarius would have liked to stay in Constantinople and enjoy the rewards of his recent campaign, the emperor had other plans for him. As far as Justinian was concerned, the conquest of North Africa had only paved the way for the more symbolically important conquest of Italy, and there was no reason to delay. Ordering the fleet to be prepared immediately, the emperor sent Belisarius with seventy-five hundred men to take Sicily, while another general led the main army through Dalmatia into northern Italy.

The invasion was perfectly timed. The Goths were reasonably popular with the rank-and-file Italians, but the main chink in the armor of their support was religion.
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The church had long been the
vehicle for Roman culture and civic values—the clergy still dressed in their Roman aristocratic robes (now called vestments), even though their congregations had adopted barbarian dress—and this acted as a great dividing line between those who were civilized and those who were not. For all their warm relations with their subjects, the Goths were still Arian heretics who could never really be fully accepted.