Count Belisarius (26 page)

Green representatives went to the Senate House and demanded that an oath of allegiance be sworn to Hypatius. The Senators (as always happens in cases of this sort) did not wish to commit themselves. Their loyalties were fairly evenly divided; though most of them were professedly Blues, many were secret Greens who regretted the ‘good times of Anastasius', as they called them, and despised the upstart Justinian. They took refuge in rhetorical talk, coming to no decision. At the Palace, too, there was a certain number of Senators assembled, all Blues and all very frightened. Justinian himself was trembling with fear and asking everybody he met – man, woman, or eunuch; patrician, commoner, or slave – what he ought to do next. A regular Council was hurriedly called together. Most of those wretched cowards advised instant flight, on the ground that the Palace Guards were clearly not to be depended upon and that the Greens now dominated the City. Only Belisarius, with Mundus, favoured a vigorous stand against the rebels – Mundus was Commander of the Armies in Illyria, and happened to have arrived in the City two days previously to see about remounts for his cavalry.

Theodora entered the Council Chamber uninvited. She was so terrible in her scorn and rage that not only Justinian himself but everyone else present would sooner have died a hundred times than oppose those blazing eyes. She said: ‘This is all talk, talk, talk, and as a woman of sense I protest against it, and demand that strong action be taken at once. This is already the sixth day of the disturbances, and each day I have been assured that “the matter is well in hand”, and that “God will provide”, and that “all possible steps are being taken”, and so on and so forth. But nothing has been done yet – only talk, talk, talk. Bishops sent out with frivolous relics. The Gospels flourished in the faces of a great rabble of impious pigs – and then we run away when they grunt and squeal! You seem almost to have decided on flight, Justinian the Great. Very well, then, go! But at once, while you still possess a private harbour and boats and sailors and money! If, however, you do go, remember: you will never be able to return to this
Palace, and they will hunt you down in the end and put you to a miserable and deserved death. No secure place of escape is left to you. You could not even take refuge at the Persian Court: because once, greatly against my advice, you mortally insulted Khosrou, who is now King, by refusing to adopt him as your son. But go, I say, go, take your chance in Spain or Britain or Ethiopia, and my scorn follow with you! As for myself, may I never be separated from this purple, or survive the day when my subjects fail to address me by my just and full titles. I approve the old saying: “Royalty is a fair burial-shroud.” What are you waiting for? A miracle from Heaven? No, gird up your robes and run, for Heaven hates you! I shall remain here and face whatever doom my dignities enjoin upon me.'

Then Mundus and Belisarius put themselves under Theodora's orders – for nobody else seemed inclined to give them any. Justinian was wearing a monk's habit, as if for humility, but rather for a disguise should the Palace be attacked again. He was hard at prayer in the Royal Chapel, his face covered with the coarse brown cowl. At this juncture an unexpected message came from Hypatius to Theodora: ‘Noblest of women, since the Emperor suspects me and will do nothing for me, I beg you to trust my loyalty and send soldiers to release me from this predicament.' Theodora thereupon told Belisarius to place himself at the head of the Guards, rescue Hypatius, and bring him back to the Palace. Belisarius summoned the men of his Household who were encamped in the Palace grounds, and Mundus summoned his escort of Herulian Huns. The two forces together did not amount to more than 400 men, for the greater part of Belisarius's people had been lent to the Imperial Forces and were away in Thrace, under the command of Armenian John, enforcing the collection of taxes. Belisarius desired Mundus to take his Huns round by the winding alley called ‘The Snail' to the Gate of Death, at the south-east of the Hippodrome, through which the dead bodies of gladiators had formerly been dragged. He was to wait there for orders. Then Belisarius himself rode with his people through the Palace grounds to the end of the High Street, where the Senate House is, and turned left to the gates of the Brazen House. Finding no sentry outside and the gates still shut, he rapped with the pommel of his sword and shouted: ‘I am Belisarius, Commander of the Armies in the East. Open in the name of his Sacred Majesty, the Emperor Justinian!' But no answer came. The soldiers preferred, like the Senate, to wait on events. The gates
were of massive brass and not easily forced, so after a second summons he went back to the Palace and reported to Theodora that the Guards were not available. She told him that he must do what he could with the few men at his disposal.

He decided to go past St Stephen's Church, now also burned, and straight up to the Royal Box. To do so he must pass through the ruins of the Eunuchs' Residence, which were still smouldering. Every now and then a wall would collapse or a sudden fire blaze up again. The horses were terrified by the smoke, and would not face it, so he gave the order to dismount and sent them back. Wetting their cloaks and wrapping them about their faces, his people rushed across in twos and threes and reached the Blue Colonnade of the Hippodrome (it is ornamented with sheer lapis-lazuli) which mounts gradually to the Royal Box. But they found the door at the end barred and guarded. It was dangerous to force it: that would mean fighting a way in darkness up a narrow staircase, while perhaps a crowd of Greens was sent round to attack them in the rear. Belisarius gave the order to turn about. This time he led his people along to the main entrance of the Hippodrome, on the northern side, between the towers.

I cannot say what the Greens were doing in the Hippodrome all this time, but I know that the Demarch and Democrat of the Greens both made boastful speeches, while the Blues present sat in glum silence. It was now plain that the Greens had succeeded in appointing an Emperor of their own colour; and the Blue Demarch bitterly repented having made that truce with them. Then suddenly a cry arose and Belisarius was seen marching into the Hippodrome, with his sword drawn, at the head of his mail-clad soldiers. He turned and called out to Hypatius as he sat in the Box above him: ‘Illustrious Hypatius, it is the Emperor's seat that you have taken; and you have no right to occupy it. His orders are that you return at once to the Palace and place yourself at his disposal.'

To the general surprise (for only the leading factionists were aware how unwilling a monarch he was), Hypatius rose obediently and moved towards the door of the Box; but the Demarch of the Greens, who was seated near him, roughly forced him back into his chair. Then a crowd of Greens began to threaten Belisarius's men. He charged along the benches at them. They yelled and scrambled back in disorder. They were only a mob of City loafers, and their weapons were adapted for murder, not for fighting; moreover, they wore no
armour. So Belisarius's 200 men, fully armoured, were fully a match for their thousands. Meanwhile Mundus, waiting outside the Gate of Death, heard the roar of alarm from within, and realized that Belisarius's people were engaged. He charged in with his Huns against the Greens, who were leaping over the barriers into the arena, and slaughtered them in droves. Some of them tried to take refuge on the pedestals of the statues ranged along the central barrier – that of the Emperor Theodosius with the napkin in his hand, and the three great twisted serpents, brought from Delphi, which once supported the priestess's tripod there, and the statues of famous charioteers, including one of my former master Damocles which Theodora had recently erected there – but these fugitives were soon pulled down and killed. Then the Blues, who were all seated together as usual, joined in the fight. Led by two of Justinian's own nephews, they made a rush for the Royal Box and, after a severe struggle, killed the Green Demarch and his men, secured Hypatius and Pompey and handed them over to Rufinus, who was assisting Belisarius. Rufinus conducted them to the Palace by way of the narrow staircase and the Blue Colonnade.

The Greens had now recovered from their surprise and began to fight desperately. Belisarius and Mundus were forced to go on killing methodically until once more the silk-clad simpletons with their billowing sleeves and their long, pomaded hair retreated in panic. At last Belisarius was able to withdraw some of his men peaceably to the North Gate and send others to guard the remaining gates; and Mundus also called off his Huns. But there was no holding back the Blues, who would now be satisfied only with a total extermination of the Greens. Belisarius and Mundus did not think it wise to interfere: they stood and grimly watched the fratricidal slaughter, as one might watch a battle between cranes and pygmies – with sympathies somewhat perhaps inclined to the side of the pygmies, who were almost as inhuman as the cranes, though not less grotesque in appearance. When it was clear that the Blues had won a handsome victory (in the names of the double-natured Son of his Vice-regent, the double-dealing Emperor), Belisarius returned to the Palace for further orders, and Mundus with him. Soon my mistress was embracing her dear husband, all bespattered with blood as he was. But a whole horde of Blues from the suburbs, where the Colour was very strong, now came running up with all sorts of weapons and burst into the Hippodrome to assist in the massacre. They had been armed at the Arsenal by Narses, who had
bribed the Democrat of the Blues to call for volunteers against the usurping Hypatius. They were followed by the Guards from the Brazen House, equally eager now to show their loyalty to Justinian by a butchery of the Greens.

Thirty-five thousand Greens and a few hundred Blues were killed outright before the day ended, and a great many more were severely wounded. The crowd had also attacked the Green stables – killing grooms, and hamstringing the horses and burning chariots. Then began a furious hunt for unrepentant Greens throughout the City, and by the next morning there was not a man or woman left who was still wearing the hated favour.

When Hypatius and Pompey were brought before Justinian he said to Belisarius: ‘Excellent, but you should have caught these traitors sooner, before half our City was burned down.' Then he sentenced them to death – the action of a scoundrel, as Theodora told him to his face. But his answer was, as usual, a soft one. What a fellow he was, even in those days!

Thus ended the so-called Victory Riots, and with them, for a time at least, the feud between Greens and Blues. The Greens were utterly broken, and Justinian stabilized this happy state of affairs by putting an end by edict to all chariot-racing in the City. However, it was revived again a few years later; so the Green faction was bound to be revived too. The Blues could not, after all, compete against themselves. In a few years' time the Greens had become as rowdy as ever, gathering together under the protection of their Colour all elements in the City hostile to the Emperor and to the Orthodox Faith; and once more there were murder-gangs abroad at dusk.

Belisarius was always neutral – a White, as in his schooldays; but my mistress Antonina was a Blue, because of the wrong done to her father, and because of the club-house, and because of Theodora, who was her sworn friend.

J
USTINIAN
now planned a great expedition against the Vandals, a much-travelled people whose capital city was Carthage in North Africa; and, at Theodora's insistence, he entrusted the sole command to Belisarius.

Who the Vandals were and what they were doing in Africa can be told shortly. They were Germans of sorts, and first reported as residing on the frozen shores of the Baltic Sea at about the time that Jesus was alive on earth among the Jews. They migrated southward by slow stages to the rich plains enclosed by the Carpathian mountains, where they increased their numbers by alliance and intermarriage with the Hunnish tribes who already occupied this territory. By the time that the Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the State religion they had outgrown their new kingdom: because of a scarcity of provisions and the fertility of their women, a large number of them were obliged to cross over into the Roman Empire on this side of the Upper Danube, where they were given lands and the status of allies, and learned Roman methods of warfare. Two generations later they crossed the Danube again and invaded Germany, plundering and burning as they went, and then marched northward. They debated an invasion of the island of Britain, which had just been denuded of its Roman garrison. There were transports enough in the French ports, but the Vandals were not experienced sailors, and the English Channel seemed too rough a sea-passage. So, leaving Britain to the mercy of Saxon pirates, they invaded France instead, crossing the River Rhine on New Year's Eve when it was frozen over. For two years they raided and plundered in France, and then marched into Spain, where they established themselves in the southernmost part, and called their kingdom Andalusia. But a few years later they were invited to Carthage by Count Boniface, the Roman Governor of North Africa. Count Boniface had been wrongfully accused of plotting against his Emperor and needed allies to save him from a shameful death: he offered the Vandals one-third part of the lands about Carthage for their own if they came to his help.

The Vandals had made sailors of themselves while in Spain, though there was a law among the Romans decreeing death to anyone who should teach any German barbarians the art of building or managing a ship. So they crossed over by sea from one of the two rocky Pillars of Hercules, namely Gibraltar in Spain, to the other, which is Ceuta in Morocco, and then marched eastward along the coast. There were 200,000 of them in all, but only 50,000 fighting men, the rest being women and children and the aged; for they came all together and only a very few elected to remain behind. These Vandals were Christians, but like most other German tribes, they were Arian heretics. Alas, here is one more theory of the nature of the Son to expound.