Count Belisarius (19 page)

At sunrise on the day after Firouz's messenger had come, the lookout on the battlements reported clouds of dust rising along the road from Harmodius, a village near Mygdon in the direction of Nisibis. Soon the Persian columns came in sight, forming up in close order out of range of the Roman bows; with infantry, concealed behind enormous oval shields, in the centre, and cavalry on either flank. It was estimated that their army numbered 40,000 men. But Belisarius's comment was: ‘There are few generals capable of controlling forty thousand men in battle. Firouz no doubt would feel easier in mind if the armies were more equal in numbers.'

The Persians tried to provoke the Romans to attack by challenging and derisive shouts, but they held their ground and kept silence; and for a long time nothing happened. The Romans did not even retire for their midday meal as their custom was, but cold food – salt pork and wheaten cakes and wine – was distributed to them at their stations. Firouz had been convinced that the sight of his enormous forces would frighten our men out of their wits, and that the luncheon-hour would be a good enough excuse for the more cowardly commanders to withdraw their forces. He still anticipated no serious fighting. ‘Wait,' he said. ‘They are only Romans. Soon they will think better of it.' But nothing happened.

Late in the afternoon the household troops of a Persian named Pituazes, who commanded on their right flank, came riding out against Boutzes's Thracian cavalry, who were opposite him. Boutzes had sworn to Belisarius to fight that day in loyal co-operation with the rest of the forces, and be drawn into no private adventures. As had been agreed, therefore, he withdrew slightly from the trench as soon as Pituazes's men, all mounted on greys, came at him. His object was to decoy the Persians across and then to turn and charge them while they were still bunched at the bridges, not yet properly deployed. The Persians, however, did not venture to cross the trench after all, so Boutzes and his men returned to their station, shooting from the saddle as they went. The Persians retired. These Persian horsemen have highly ornamented weapons and shields and especially beautiful quivers, and wear gloves (for which our men ridicule them) but no helmets. They also carry riding-whips; for whips our men have no use in battle.

Seven Persians fell in this skirmish, and Boutzes sent a party out beyond the trench, who brought the bodies back. Then the two armies stood watching each other for a few minutes more in silence. Firouz is said to have remarked to his staff that the Romans kept remarkably good order, but that he would send for the garrison of Nisibis, 10,000 more men, and doubtless their arrival on the following day would have the effect of breaking the enemy's obstinate mood. Then a young Persian, whose name I do not know, an aristocrat by his dress and weapons, galloped out on a beautiful chestnut horse, towards the Roman centre. He knew some words of Greek and, as he reined in suddenly, he uttered a loud challenge to single combat, undertaking to cut into small pieces any Roman knight who dared oppose him.

Nobody accepted the challenge, because there was a general order that ranks should not be broken on any pretext whatsoever. The young man continued shouting and brandishing his spear and laughing contemptuously. Suddenly there was a murmur from the sidetrench on the Roman left. A horseman, bending low over his horse's neck, came dasking over a bridge, past the Massagetic Huns in the angle, and went straight for the Persian. The Persian saw the charge too late. He tried to avoid it by suddenly whipping his horse forward, but the lance struck him full on the right breast and toppled him over. He lay stunned. The Roman, hastily dismounting, cut his throat – as if he had been a sacrificial animal. A mighty shout went up from the Roman army, and from the walls of Daras, which were crowded with townspeople. At first it was thought that the hero was Boutzes, avenging the capture of his brother Coutzes. But when the victor rode back at leisure across the trench, leading off the Persian's horse, with the dead Persian thrown over the saddle, it was seen who he was – bold Andreas the bath-attendant!

For Andreas, whose duties were light and whose character was energetic, had for some time, unknown to Belisarius, been taking part in the early morning cavalry exercises under Boutzes, who was now Belisarius's Master of Horse; and his training as a wrestler had made him a formidable fighter. Belisarius sent a staff officer to him, congratulating him, with a present of a white-tufted steel cap and a white-pennoned lance and a gold neck-chain as a sign that he wished to give him sergeant's rank in his Household cuirassiers. But the Master of Offices, who was acting as marshal to Belisarius, deplored the breach of discipline – though delighted with Andreas's success. He sent a message to all commanders of squadrons that nobody else must answer another challenge to single combat, under penalty of a severe whipping. Belisarius took the Master of Offices to task over this, because it was a threat that could not be carried out. A man who rode out to accept a challenge would either be victorious, in which case there would be a popular outcry against his punishment; or else defeated, in which case the Persian would carry off his dead body out of range of Roman whips.

A second challenge soon came. It was from another Persian, who had been vexed that the first challenger had ridden out against the rules of courtesy. For there is a strict punctilio in these matters in the Persian army: the challenger must always be of the noblest family represented
in the battle. The second such challenger therefore came riding out rather to reassert his family's pride than because he was thirsting for combat. He was no youth, but a man in the prime of life; he managed his horse and weapons with an air of experienced decision. Nor did he shout excitedly like the youth whom Andreas had killed, but only cracked his whip with a stern ‘ho! ho!' at intervals in his slow ride down the Roman lines. At one point he reined in and called out something in Persian which was thought to be an invitation to Belisarius himself to come out against him. But when this was reported to Belisarius by some of his staff, who urged him to accept the challenge for the heartening effect that victory would have upon the army, he replied with contempt: ‘If he wishes for death, why does he not put his head in a halter, privately, instead of trying to implicate me as an accessory?'

So for a long time nobody went out against the second challenger. He was returning to the Persian lines, perhaps relieved at having performed an honourable obligation to his family without serious consequences to himself, when, as before, a sudden murmur rose: again a horseman, this time wearing a white-tufted cap and carrying a white-pennoned lance, came charging across the bridge. The Persian turned, grasped his lance, spurred his horse, and met the challenger in full career. Each lance glanced off the polished corselet against which it was driven; but somehow the horses, instead of passing each other, as usually happens in such a tilting match, crashed together head on with a clang of frontlet and poitrail and were thrown back on their haunches. The riders were projected forward and collided in mid-air, falling to the ground in a tumble together. This was the moment when every spectator held his breath. The Roman made the quicker recovery. As the Persian rose to his knee he struck him in the face with his fist, then seized his foot and threw him head over heels, in the well-known wrestling-school style; and dispatched him with a single blow of his dagger. Then a roar went up from the Romans behind the trenches and on the walls, even louder than before, and it was seen that it was again Andreas, in a sergeant's uniform of Belisarius's Household, who had taken it upon himself to maintain the honour of Rome. The Persians withdrew to their camp, judging the day ill-omened; and the Romans raised the victory song and marched back behind the walls of Daras.

But Andreas resigned his sergeant's rank in the Household Regiment.
He had done a great feat that day in sight of 70,000 men, and had then proved that it had been due to skill, not chance, by repeating it: however long he lived he would never surpass these twin glories, which would always be remembered by the camp-fires and in the wine-shops and in the written histories of war. He therefore returned to his towels and sponges and furnaces, a simple bath-attendant once more, and was never seen in armour again – except on a single, most urgent occasion, to which I shall refer in due course.

Early on the next morning the garrison of Nisibis arrived, increasing the strength of the Persians to 50,000 men of all arms, which was twice the strength of Belisarius's forces. He commented, when he heard the news: ‘Few as are the generals capable of controlling in battle an army of forty thousand men, there are still fewer who can control fifty thousand.' His conjecture that Firouz was somewhat embarrassed by the unwieldy size of his forces appeared to be justified. For they were now reorganized into two equal lines of battle, one supporting the other. Belisarius commented: ‘A drill-sergeant's solution. He could have used the front formations to mask Daras, and with the remainder struck at my communications!' Meanwhile he and the Master of Offices sent a joint letter to Firouz, suggesting that he withdraw the Persian army to Nisibis instead of forcing a desperate and unnecessary battle. The wording of this letter was for the most part Belisarius's, and one characteristic sentence has been recorded: ‘Nobody with the smallest claim to common sense enjoys fighting, even when fighting is necessary; and the general who begins hostilities has a grave responsibility not only to the men under his command but to his whole nation for the distresses and horrors that are inseparable from war.' The Master of Offices contributed a passage to the effect that negotiations for peace were about to be resumed by Justinian, whose ambassador was now on the way from Antioch, but that a clash at Daras would put an immediate end to all hopes of a peaceful settlement.

Firouz replied that Persia had been so often deceived by the peaceful protests of Roman ambassadors that her patience was exhausted: war was now the only remedy for wrongs. No peace treaty could any longer be taken seriously, especially if concluded by Roman oaths.

Belisarius and the Master of Offices replied that they had said as much as could honourably be said, and that the present correspondence would be fixed upon the Imperial standard next day – true
copies of their own letters and the Persian reply – as a witness to the God of the Christians that the Romans had made every effort to avoid a needless battle.

Firouz replied: ‘The Persians have a God too, more ancient than yours, and more powerful, and he will bring us safely into Daras tomorrow.'

Belisarius now addressed his forces, which were drawn up in mass behind the trench in the centre. He pitched his voice high and spoke slowly and enunciated clearly, so that every man heard as plainly as if it had been a conversation in a private room; and he spoke familiarly, first in Camp Latin and then in Greek, so that all might understand. He explained that the reason why Roman armies had not in the past invariably beaten the Persians, who were inferior to them alike in courage, arms and physique, was merely that their discipline had been faulty; and this was an easily remedied matter. If every man obeyed his officers, during both advance and retirement, defeat would be impossible. A battle should be fought by the common soldier as if it were a drill; and in drill it was surely easier to obey than to break ranks or act on a private impulse? The tactical control of the battle must remain in the responsible hand of the commanding general, namely himself, and he had given clear alternative instructions to his subordinate officers as to how to behave in this possible development of the battle and that. The common soldier should be so occupied with his own weapons, and with keeping formation, as to have no time to speculate irrelevantly on the general progress of the fighting. Full reliance must be placed on the tried intelligence and loyalty of the officers. He also made a laughing reference to the enemy infantry, only half of which consisted of trained soldiers. ‘You Roman recruits have in a short time learned to do one thing well, which is to shoot strong and straight; their recruits have also learned a single military art, and that is to protect themselves behind those enormous shields of theirs. They are merely crowds of rustics brought up for effect, like stage armies, and will prove a great embarrassment to their generalissimo before the day is over. They have spears in their hands, it is true, but this no more makes spearmen of them than if one were to arm them with flutes and call them snake-charmers!'

The warning was then given from the look-out tower that the Persians were beginning to marshal their forces; so, with loud cheers for Belisarius, the parade moved off. The heavy cavalry rode to their
stations on the flanks, the light cavalry posted themselves in the two angles of the re-entrant, the archers once more lined the nearer trenches, the phalanxes of spearmen posted themselves at the bridges with the javelin men behind and beside them. Then Pharas, the little bow-legged leader of the Herulian Huns, trotted up to Belisarius and said to him in the almost unintelligible trade-Greek that these Crimean savages use: ‘I not harm the Persians, not much, here under tall walls: send I behind that hill on the left, away. I hide behind that hill. When Persians come, I hurry to their behind; I charge, shoot, shoot.'

Belisarius eyed Pharas steadily, who dropped his gaze. Pharas evidently doubted the issue of the day and wished to be in a neutral position; his final charge would be against whichever side seemed to be winning the battle. Belisarius noticed that Pharas's finger was bleeding from a slight scratch: he therefore quickly seized it, for they were knee to knee, and thrusting it into his mouth sucked it. Then he said: ‘I have eaten your blood, Pharas: you shall be my
anda
, my blood-brother. Go now, dear Pharas, my
anda
, and do as you say. Hide behind that hill and charge the Persians neither too soon nor too late.' Pharas complained whimpering: ‘You eat my blood, now give me yours,
anda
!' For by this one-sided action he had come (according to Hunnish superstition) under Belisarius's magical power. But Belisarius replied: ‘After the charge has been made you may eat your fill. I have no blood to spare now,
anda
.' Thus Pharas was securely bound to loyalty.