Count Belisarius (46 page)

So ended the defence of Rome which Belisarius had first begun, contrary to all advice, in the December of the year before the last. I do not think that all history can show so large a city held for so long a time by a garrison so grossly outnumbered.

King Wittich retreated sullenly towards Ravenna, detaching large garrisons as he went for the defence of Osimo, Urbino, and other smaller fortresses. Belisarius felt the need of Bloody John and his 2,000 cavalry, and sent Hildiger hurrying to Rimini by another route to order his withdrawal. Rimini could more profitably be held by a detachment of infantry which had just landed from Dalmatia at Ancona, a port not far off. (Dalmatia was now ours again, Wittich having withdrawn to Italy the forces that were besieging Spalato; and troops could therefore be spared.) But Bloody John refused to withdraw.

This time he was not justified in disobeying orders. The fact was, he had a great deal of Gothic treasure collected in the city which he wished to retain for his own use instead of sharing it with the rest of the army. Hildiger therefore left at Rimini the infantry that he had brought from Ancona; but persuaded the 800 men of the Household Regiment, whom Belisarius had lent to Bloody John, to withdraw with him. King Wittich, determined to win here the success that had eluded him at Rome, settled down to besiege the city; and soon
Bloody John began to repent of having disobeyed orders, for there was great scarcity of provisions in Rimini, and Wittich was attacking with great resolution.

Now, it is not my purpose to write a history of the wars, but to tell the story of Belisarius. I forbear therefore to give a detailed account of this siege, yet I will say that Wittich attacked with scaling-towers propelled by hand from inside, not drawn by oxen; that Bloody John prevented their advance by hurried trenching; and that Wittich then decided to starve him out.

The situation at Rimini was soon more desperate than Belisarius realized. Nor was he in any position to march to the relief of his disobedient lieutenant, having sent a considerable part of his forces to Northern Italy, with the fleet, to capture Pavia and Milan; besides, the fortified towns of Todi and Chiusi, which lay between him and Rimini, must first be reduced. Nevertheless, the news that Wittich was besieging Rimini caused him such anxiety that, leaving only the Roman levies to garrison the city, he marched northward to its relief; and presently Todi and Chiusi surrendered to the terror of his name. He sent the Gothic garrison under escort to Naples and Sicily and continued forward. But our total forces did not now amount to 3,000 men, whereas King Wittich had increased his strength to 100,000 with new forces from Dalmatia.

Fortunately the letter addressed by my mistress to Theodora had taken effect at last. We had the welcome news that 7,000 further reinforcements had landed at Fermo in Picenum, on the eastern coast. Who should be in command of this army but the eunuch Chamberlain Narses! ‘Ah,' said my mistress Antonina to Belisarius, laughing, ‘I am glad that I sympathized with his military ambitions on our journey together to Daras. And he will prove a capable officer in spite of his age, I believe, if he can learn a little humility. But at the Court he has been accustomed to take orders from the Emperor and Empress only; you and I must handle him tactfully.'

Hildiger rejoined us at Chiusi, and we marched across Italy until we came in sight of the Adriatic Sea. At Fermo (which is a day's march away from Osimo) we joined forces with Narses, whom Belisarius and my mistress greeted in the friendliest possible way. But there was much merriment among the household at Narses' appearance. That he was dwarfish and big-buttocked and had a squint and a twisted lip had not seemed very ridiculous when he was gliding along the Palace
corridors with his usual great roll of documents in his hand, wearing his scarlet-and-white silk uniform and a golden chain of honour. But to see Narses, who had already long passed the grand climacteric of his years, strutting about in the latest fashion of plate-armour (inlaid with fishes and crosses and other Christian symbols) and high ostrich-plumed helmet and brocaded purple cloak, trailing a full-sized sword which was continually catching between his legs and tripping him up – that I assure you was a sight to raise a smile on the face of a man dying of the cholera. My mistress, though hardly able to keep a sober face herself, warned us privately not in any way to offend Narses' sensibilities; since he was in the Emperor's confidence, and could either greatly help or greatly injure Belisarius's cause, as he pleased – and Belisarius's cause was ours. With Narses came Justin the son of Germanus, grand-nephew to the Emperor.

King Wittich had sent 25,000 men to increase the garrison of Osimo, and this army barred the way to Rimini. An immediate council of war was held, at which Belisarius invited the general officers present to give their views in rising order of seniority. Valerian and Hildiger spoke first, expressing that, since Bloody John had twice disobeyed orders, first in advancing beyond Osimo without reducing it and then in not withdrawing from Rimini when desired to do so, he should be left to extricate himself from the difficulty as best he could. To march to his relief, skirting Osimo, was to endanger the whole army for the sake of 2,000 men. Between the Goths at Osimo and Wittich's field army encamped outside Rimini we would be caught as between hammer and anvil. Bessas agreed and added piously that Bloody John's avariciousness deserved whatever punishment God might think fit to impose. But Narses intervened; he pointed out, as though Belisarius had already agreed to follow their advice, that Bloody John's disobedience of orders was no reason for sentencing the brave soldiers under his command to massacre or slavery. ‘To do so, indeed, is to injure your own cause, and that of the Emperor. You may laugh at me as a mere theorist of warfare, but I shall not consent to any plan of action that sacrifices Rimini to private revenge.'

Belisarius raised his brows at this outburst. He replied: ‘Distinguished Chamberlain, is it not more charitable to withold condemnation of an offence until that offence is committed?' He was about to give his own opinion on the proper course to pursue, when the meeting was interrupted by a message from Bloody John, smuggled through
the Gothic lines by a daring Isaurian soldier. The message was that Rimini could not hold out more than seven days longer at most, after which it would surrender from starvation.

Belisarius then delivered his opinion: which was that Osimo must be masked by a small force – no more than a thousand men could be spared – encamped twenty miles away; the remainder of the army must hurry forward to the relief of Bloody John and his men. The only hope of forcing Wittich to abandon the siege was to deceive him as to our numbers, and for this reason we must divide into three armies and converge on Rimini with all speed. One army must march up the coast under Martin, a recently arrived general, and the fleet under Hildiger must keep pace with it. Narses and himself, with the best of the cavalry, must take the Apennine ridge-track, far inland. To this plan everyone agreed; and the start was made that very morning. My mistress went with Belisarius and Narses, and I with her, riding on a mule behind her palfrey. And a rough ride it was indeed, and an extremely hot one – for this was July, with not a breath of wind stirring among the rocks and pines. The mountain villages through which we passed were inhabited by miserable half-starved savages, who not only were not Christians but had never been converted to a belief in the Olympian Gods and still worshipped obscure aboriginal deities. But there was plenty of game in the valleys, and our scouts had fine sport. One of them even shot a bear, an animal which we had thought was extinct in Italy since the time of the Emperor Augustus. On the fifth day, after travelling some 200 miles and on a diet mainly of army biscuit and salt pork, we reached Sarsina, which is only one day's journey inland from Osimo. There our scouts came suddenly on a Gothic foraging party and drove them off with loss. Belisarius, in the vanguard, could easily have captured them all, but preferred to let them escape and spread the alarming news of our approach.

King Wittich, to whom the fugitives had given a very exaggerated account of our strength, expected us to march down the valley of the Rubicon and attack him from the north-west. But on the following evening he saw the distant glare of our camp-fires to the westward, and very numerous these were: every soldier had been instructed to light one and keep it heaped with fuel all night. To the south-eastward he saw the camp-fires of what seemed to be another huge army, which was Martin's brigade. And when day broke the sea was
covered with ships, and armed galleys came steering menacingly towards the harbour. The Gothic army abandoned its camp in a panic. Nobody obeyed orders or had any thought at all but to be the first man off up the Aemilian Way and into Ravenna. If Bloody John had been able to make a sortie at that moment the result might well have been decisive; but his men were so weak from starvation that they could hardly mount their horses, which themselves were mere bags of bones, since there was practically no grazing in Rimini.

Hildiger landed with a battalion of marines and captured the enemy camp, which contained a good deal of treasure and 500 badly wounded Goths. Belisarius did not arrive until midday. The boisterous and indiscreet Uliaris, who had accompanied Hildiger, told Bloody John that Belisarius, enraged with him for disobeying orders, had reproved Narses in a very rude manner for urging the immediate relief of Rimini. This was Uliaris's notion of a joke; Bloody John took it seriously as coming from one of Belisarius's oldest friends and was extremely angry.

Belisarius greeted him in a somewhat reserved way, but seeing how pale and emaciated the man looked said no more in the way of rebuke than: ‘You owe a great debt of gratitude to Hildiger, Distinguished John!'

Bloody John replied sourly: ‘No, but rather to Narses.' Saluting, he turned on his heel without another word.

As for the treasure that Bloody John had collected for himself and stored at Rimini, Belisarius distributed it equally among all the troops who had served with him before the arrival of Narses. This angered Bloody John still more. He went to Narses, whom he had known for some years, having been in command of a company of Palace Ushers, and complained that Belisarius had treated him very shabbily. Narses sympathized, and the two of them became fast friends, forming a coalition against Belisarius. Narses believed that it was disgraceful for an old, experienced statesman like himself, who shared the secrets of the Emperor, to take orders from a man half his age, a mere general; and also that he should be recompensed for having given up his secure and comfortable post at the Palace by being allowed to share the glories of the campaign with Belisarius. He meant by this, to share the command with him. Bloody John pointed out that nearly all Belisarius's own troops were now garrisoning various towns in Italy and Sicily – 200 men here, 500 there, 1,000 in another place – and that his
marching army was thus reduced to 2,000 swords; whereas Narses and John himself commanded five times that amount.

Now that Rimini had been relieved, Belisarius felt free to attack Osimo; but Narses began to oppose this and every other project that he put forward, trying to force him either to share or to resign his command. Valuable time was thus wasted, though the news that arrived from other parts of Italy was most disquieting and called for instant action. At last on my mistress's suggestion Belisarius called a council of generals and spoke frankly to them.

He said: ‘I am sorry to find, my lords and gentlemen, that you and I are in disagreement as to the proper conduct of this war. Most of you, I mean, are under the impression that the Goths are already completely conquered. This is far from being the case. King Wittich is at Ravenna with 60,000 Goths; there are nearly 30,000 more behind the walls of Osimo; between here and Rome there are several other fortified towns strongly held. Wittich has now sent an army under his nephew Uriah against our small garrison at Milan, and Liguria is his again. Worse: a large army of Franks, or at least of Burgundians, who are allies of the Franks, have recently crossed the Ligurian Alps and are reported to be joining forces with this Uriah. I have repeatedly urged upon you my considered opinion: that we should march against Osimo without further delay, meanwhile masking Ravenna with a small force, and also send a large relief force to Milan. You have sullenly opposed these plans. I shall now assert my authority, by converting them into definite orders.'

Nobody replied for some time. Then Narses spoke. ‘It is not practicable to divide our forces in this way, my lord. The soundest strategy would be to march northward past Ravenna and seize the whole Venetian coast, thus drawing Uriah away from Milan; and at the same time to blockade Ravenna by sea and land. To attack Osimo would be a waste of energy, since Osimo will fall when Ravenna does. But do you take your own few forces to Milan or Osimo or the Moon or wherever else you wish. I intend to do as I have said with the men whom I have brought with me.'

Belisarius asked: ‘And our garrison at Milan, Distinguished Chamberlain? What of them?'

Narses replied: ‘They must extricate themselves as best they can – just as Bloody John would have been forced to do at Rimini but for my insistence.'

Belisarius controlled his rising indignation. ‘My Lord Narses,' he said gently, ‘you forget yourself – and the truth' Then he called to his secretary Procopius: ‘Where is the document that recently came for me from the Emperor?'

Procopius found the document. It was one that Justinian had signed without Narses' knowledge, being forced to do so by Theodora. Belisarius read out in his low, even voice:

‘We have today sent our Lord Chamberlain, the Distinguished Narses, to Picenum with certain of our regiments. But he shall have authority over our armies in Italy only as specifically appointed to a command by the Illustrious Belisarius, who has held and must continue to hold the supreme authority under us. It is the duty of all Imperial officers serving in the Western Empire to obey the said Belisarius implicitly, for the public good of our Empire.'