Triumph (5 page)

With horses no longer winded, Flavius could lead his men back towards Rome, though he chose a different route by which to seek to enter the city, aware that if the enemy had been blooded, it was not beaten and they were bound to follow in pursuit. This would have presented no danger at all if the man in command of the Porta Salaria, two entrances east of the Flaminia, had not refused to open the gates.

‘Belisarius is dead,’ came the call from the battlements.

That got the furious and shouted rejoinder from Photius. ‘Fool of a Roman, you are addressing Flavius Belisarius.’

‘The Byzantine general, never! I know you for a barbarian and I will not be a fool for your trickery.’

‘Your head will adorn your gate if you do not open up.’

The head disappeared, leaving Flavius no one with whom to argue. On leaving the city he and his men had been trailed by the curious on foot and in dog carts, nothing to remark upon as it was a commonplace. Such creatures would have seen the opening of the fighting, perhaps even the concerted attempts by the Goths to isolate him, and had, once they hot-footed it back to the city, no doubt chastened by the sight of real fighting as against the romance, spread the rumour he had been killed.

If that was bad, it was worse given the Goth pursuit was now too close to ignore. Flavius was trapped with his back to the walls of Rome and left with no room to contemplate making for another more easterly gate. To accept battle is one thing; to be forced to fight is never comfortable and Flavius verbally had to remind his men of what they now faced, either victory or certain death.

With just enough time to prepare he led them forward, this time in a disciplined line, each rider knee to knee with his nearest compatriots, which would on contact present to the enemy an impenetrable wall of spears. Nor did he order a gallop; the pace was a steady if fast canter, which suited the heavy horses his men rode for they would, having discharged a hail of arrows, then hit the enemy with their weight as well as the spear points of those who rode them.

The Goths would never have faced the like; few warriors in these times had, for cavalry once released were usually lost to whoever commanded them. Not the
bucellarii
; this kind of fight was that for which they had been created, the type of warfare for which they practised and now, instead of being to the fore, Flavius, as well as his unit commanders, had fallen back to become part of that continuous line.

The Goths tried to meet them as a body but could not, doing so in a disordered and dog-legged fashion after the assault of archery, which saw their front horsemen die in droves. Within no time at all the rest broke off the contest and retired from the field. Flavius had no intention of pursuing them so he called for the horns to be blown and in an equally disciplined way his men swung their mounts and headed back to the Porta Salaria. As they approached, the gates swung open to allow them entry.

‘Find the fool that kept them closed against us,’ Flavius ordered.

‘And hang him, General?’

‘No. But a severe flogging and the stocks will do him no harm. It will alert the other gate wardens to have a care.’

With the Milvian Bridge lost, albeit Flavius had never really expected to hold it, Witigis could now proceed to invest as much of the city as he could with the forces he had and his plan was not hard to discern. He began to construct fortified camps opposite six of the eastern gates, from the Porta Flaminia to the Porta Praenestine. A seventh was built to the west on the Plains of Nero to mask the Porta Cornelia, which meant that Witigis could deploy against the only other exterior crossing of the Tiber, hard by the massive Tomb of Hadrian.

The fourteen aqueducts feeding the city were broken, which had been anticipated, it being a standard ploy, though Flavius made sure that they were well blocked on the city side to avoid any repeat of Naples. The Goths then began the construction of siege towers, the mining of the walls to weaken them, as well as sorties to dam the moat with earthen crossings so that such engines could be got closer to the walls.

Aware now of precisely what he faced, Flavius assigned the threatened gates to his most senior subordinates, Constantinus and Bessas, taking command of the two most vulnerable personally. He ordered that a second stone wall be built within the Porta Flaminia to provide double security and placed in various locations upon the parapet catapults as well as piles of stones, some to be fired by the ballistae, the larger rocks to be dropped on ascending crowns.

One difficulty was the provision of bread; the water from the aqueducts had been used to drive the mills that ground the corn, which had been stockpiled and was plentiful. With those now cut a solution needed to be found so that the city could bake bread and
would not starve. It being February the Tiber was flowing fast, fed by the melting snows of the glacial Apennines, so Solomon had boats placed in the river that would drive the mills on the fast current and when the Goths tried to break this with huge floating logs a chain across the Tiber was used to protect them.

Two weeks passed before any real threat seemed imminent, time in which the Goth leader sought to open talks with Flavius, offering him the chance to withdraw unmolested, these being quickly rebuffed. Even as these overtures were being made, work on both the camps and the siege equipment continued, indicating that there had been no expectation that the offer would be accepted.

Witigis prepared to launch his attack on the seventeenth day since that furious encounter at the Milvian Bridge. The grey dawn revealed the Goth forces drawn up before the two gates to the east of the Flaminia, of which Flavius had taken personal command, the Pinciana and the Salaria, these presenting ground suitable for the advance of the Goth assault engines, towers and rams.

Flavius Belisarius had in his hand his own bow, giving orders that no one was to fire a single projectile before him. Out on the flat and fertile fields the Goth horns blew and, pulled by huge teams of oxen and surrounded by dense bodies of men, the siege towers and battering rams began their slow crawl towards the walls. On the parapet the only sound was that of men praying for salvation should they fall.

T
he very sound of the Goth advance, made up of numerous features, was designed to unnerve the defenders: cracking whips to drive on the lowing oxen, blowing horns splitting the chill morning air while spears and swords were used to batter hard leather shields. The grinding of rough wooden wheels over hard ground was accompanied by the cacophonous yelling of the assaulting warriors, this while those they faced stood in total silence.

Every eye was on the man in command, standing like a statue, his gaze steady and his bow strung with an arrow but not yet raised to fire. If there were those who would see this pose as artificial, as one that implied death held no terrors, they would be wrong. This was what Flavius Belisarius had trained for since he was a boy, under the tutelage of his own father, Decimus, and those the centurion had put in to teach him the art of war.

He had rewarded his sire by being the best of his age, faster on his feet, quicker of eye with a sword, able to outcast his fellows with his spear and superbly adept with the weapon he now held, the kind of bow he had helped to design, given the Hun pattern that had dominated the battlefield for decades did not suit his heavy cavalry.

As to losing his own life, Flavius had long given no consideration
to the possibility. Having witnessed his father and three older brothers die through treachery he had felt since that day his own existence had no other value than the service he could provide to the empire of which Decimus Belisarius had been so proud.

In part, too, and so deeply buried as to be far from openly acknowledged, was shame that he had survived. Should he too not have expired alongside them in a fight that perfidy had made death the only possible outcome? He had, as a youngster, taken as his hero the stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, who held that no man was master of his own destiny and to pretend otherwise was folly. If it had been hard to hold to the tenets of that philosophical soldier as witness to the massacre of his family, he was still imbued with it as a core belief.

He could sense the men he led becoming anxious; surely he was allowing the enemy too much licence in their approach, permitting them to get so close to the walls that the faces of the enemy, or what could be seen under their helmets, was in plain view. There was a collective sigh as his bow was slowly raised to be drawn, and if the chosen target was a mystery it did not remain so for long following the release.

There were warriors atop the nearest siege tower, not many to avoid overburdening the oxen, but enough to present a mark. The first arrow was still in the air as Flavius slotted home a second from his quiver and he was reaching for a third when the man at whom he had originally aimed took the bolt in the neck, two more of his compatriots following before they even guessed they were under attack. Then came the order to fire and suddenly the air was full of flying death as the body of defending archers sent off their first salvo.

That it fell on the enemy soldiers was to be expected; the vehemence of Flavius Belisarius was not. He ordered that they should concentrate on the oxen pulling the battering rams and the siege towers, for to kill
them was to render such engines of war useless; there was no human agency able to replace the pulling power of these beasts.

There was as yet little counter fire to worry about, archery not being as predominant in the Gothic force, a point Flavius had noted in that first encounter. Added to that they would be required to fire on a high arc, which obliged them to stop and aim, thus rendering each bowman an easy, static target. The towers and rams slowed as the bleating oxen were first weakened then began to expire, those dying dragging down their fellow beasts, this before they got close enough to present a danger to the curtain wall or the towers that abutted the gates.

Flavius was no longer present to observe; he had chosen these gates to personally defend because if the flat ground used by the citizens of Rome for growing food favoured the Goth engines of war, it also, once they became stuck, allowed him a chance to sally forth and counter-attack. Solomon had been left on the parapet to provide the signal Flavius wanted, one that told him the Goth assault had faltered and was in confusion.

With Photius once more at his side, he ordered the gate before him opened so he and the cavalry he led could debouch onto the open ground, where they gathered into a formidable formation that made standing against them hazardous, especially for men fighting on foot. Witigis had not brought forward his horsemen, which left the field free to his opponent and Flavius took full advantage, rampaging forward to drive back an assault that was already lacking in momentum, the Goths falling back behind those now static siege engines.

To his rear, runners emerged from the open gate carrying flaming torches, others bearing amphorae of oil, this poured over the wooden constructs before the flames were applied. With the Goth foot soldiers stuck, Witigis got his horsemen mounted, no doubt expecting the customary charge from his enemies needed to drive home the reverse.

Flavius failed to oblige; with superb discipline and on command, the
bucellarii
of his
comitatus
reined in their mounts. Once certain the rams and towers were well alight they shepherded the men who had fired them back through the gates, which were quickly shut.

Witigis had launched several simultaneous assaults, indeed there was good reason to believe that the effort just repulsed had acted as something of a feint to pin the main defence. Once back inside the walls and dismounted, Flavius was brought news from the other places at risk, the most dangerous being on the Porta Cornelia hard by Hadrian’s Tomb on the western walls.

There, abundant foliage and the remains of exterior buildings had allowed the enemy to get close to the base without suffering too many casualties and this obliged the archers placed there to lean far out to take aim, this obviously exposing them, which led to losses that soon became too serious to sustain. Also, the catapults placed on the roof of the mausoleum were of no use since they could only fire outwards.

Running out of stones to drop on the heads of their ladder-climbing enemies and with too many wounded bowmen to hold by arrow fire, Constantinus had ordered broken up the numerous classical statues that adorned the rim of the massive tomb. These were then hurled at their enemies in sufficient quantity to drive them back and thus render them vulnerable to the catapults.

Word came that an assault on the Porta Pancratia, also on the west bank of the Tiber but further to the south of Hadrian’s Tomb, had likewise been repulsed. Yet as this good news was being delivered, word of real threat came from the Porta Chiusa, three gates to the south of the attack Flavius had just smashed.

He had known from his very first inspections this was a vulnerable spot: due to natural subsidence the original wall had collapsed and a new one had been built on the outer side to shield the damaged section.
The Goths, as well as employing siege engines, had been mining under that outer wall, and given they were seemingly successful, there was danger of a collapse. If they followed that up they would press hard and, unaided, his men might not be able to hold.

Such an emergency required the presence of the man in command, the sight of which raised the spirits of those facing the enemy. Here was Flavius Belisarius, who had so often outwitted his opponents. That he did now; the space between the two walls was known as the Vivarium, it being used to graze livestock, but there were none there now and it represented an empty zone, one Flavius saw he could use to advantage.

Instead of seeking to oppose the Goth mining he let it proceed, and soon, as a battering ram was added to effort, the sound of crashing masonry filled the air, followed by a billowing cloud of dust, proof a breach had been created. The first of the attackers who came clambering over the pile of debris could not do so in any real order. What faced them across the greensward Vivarium was not another wall but one where the rubble of the previous collapse had been so raised as to make it defensible.

The sight of such an unexpected obstacle took the verve out of the Goth thrust; it was obvious the man leading the attack was at a loss to know how to proceed against a hindrance he and his men were seeing for the first time. Flavius sent forward his Isaurians to engage them, throwing the Goth ranks into confusion and such disorder that they sought to withdraw through the breach they had just made. Climbing to get clear, the rubble was no easier than their entry and that left them as easy prey to the spears and swords of their enemies.

As soon as the withdrawal turned into flight, Flavius came forward with his cavalry and that ensured a second rout, one that again allowed his men to fire the engines of war the Goths had abandoned and send, in the smoke from all along the east wall, a message to
Witigis that his first attempt to retake Rome had failed abysmally.

Even if it was to be the first of many such a reverse, it must provide a dent to their morale, while that of the men Flavius led must likewise soar to see the enemy so comprehensively repulsed. Added to that, it might still the grumbles of those Roman citizens who feared the city was indefensible.

‘Your Imperial Eminence must be aware that with the troops I have at my disposal, and having had to detach numerous bodies to act as garrisons in those places which have surrendered to your authority in the southern half of Italy, I can do no more than hold what I have without either reinforcements or some act of others to draw off Witigis and his forces. Lacking that, if I can repel attempts to retake Rome, I cannot break the siege and proceed to fulfil that aim with which you charged me.’

Procopius finished reading the despatch that, once approved, would be sent to Justinian and he looked to his general for authorisation; it had, of course, been discussed prior to composition and included a report on the successful repulse of the first attempt by Witigis to take the city. The information regarding garrisons was accurate; close to a full third of his army was thus engaged and he feared to gather them to him and leave the route south open to rupture.

His secretary and
assessor
was forced to await a response. Flavius was deep in thought, Procopius wondering if those ruminations might include reflections on the nature of the man they both served. It was no secret between them that Procopius reposed less faith in Justinian than the army commander. Flavius talked of him as a friend, Procopius saw him as a fickle weathercock too much influenced by his endemically suspicious wife.

Always seeing plots to depose her husband – that some were real
was true but to such a vivid imagination more were pure fantasy – Procopius was as aware as his master that the Empress Theodora saw Flavius Belisarius as a major threat, not only to Justinian but through him to her own person, and her reasoning, to a disinterested mind, was understandable if misplaced.

The man who had won the Battle of Dara on the Persian frontier, the first victory against the Sassanid Empire for several decades, and defeated the Vandals in North Africa was popular in a capital city where those who held the reins of power were not, being seen as honest and straightforward in his dealings, a reputation spread by the very men he led into battle.

The imperial couple stood at the apex of empire and tended to be blamed for everything seen to be wrong, not least the endemic corruption of the empire’s officials with whom the common folk had to deal. Justinian had worked hard since coming to power to curb the depredations as well as the perceived rights the patrician class had abrogated to themselves over centuries: well-paid sinecures and offices in a vast and sprawling empire in which the diversion of monies intended for the imperial treasury was too easy and justice in the courts went to those with the deepest purse.

In trying to promote men of merit regardless of class, Justinian had become locked in a battle of wills with what he called a hydra-headed monster, a nexus of self-interest so tangled it defied full comprehension. The empire must be governed; those qualified to do so and who were incorruptible were too few for the tasks that required execution, all layered into a system: tax-collecting, provincial governance, judicial oversight and military commands.

Added to that there was a relentless campaign of vilification from those who felt threatened by moves to suborn their privileges, while neither Justinian nor Theodora were free from the taint of being born
into the wrong class by those who cared deeply for their bloodlines. Justinian’s father might have been a patrician but his mother came, like the Emperor Justin and thus his succeeding nephew, from a clan of what were held to be Illyrian peasants.

This was a charge often levelled at Flavius as well by the patricians among his officers, Constantinus included, though never publically. Thanks to Procopius and what he called his confidants it was no secret; there was little that happened or was said in the various villas occupied by his subordinates that the man in command did not know about.

The background of Theodora being even more dubious, it was the subject of endless salacious gossip and graffiti, which had the imperial palace as a hotbed of sexual infamy. This left the imperial couple more feared than loved, especially her because she was known to be capricious. In truth, Theodora was no innocent; she had been mistress to another man before she met and enthralled Justinian.

That coming together had taken place in one of the low taverns down by the capital’s docks where the future emperor felt so utterly at home, more so than he did in the homes of the wealthy. There, fathers were keen to present to him, as the nephew of a successful general close to the reigning emperor, their daughters, hypocrisy being no bar to patrician ambitions.

The Empress had been one of the exotic dancers who provided dissolute if enticing entertainment, and if some hinted that she had snared her spouse by sex or sorcery, then Flavius knew more than most what an enthusiastic article he had been, having himself visited these establishments in the company of his now emperor and been amused by his attraction to those of low birth and even lower morals.