Count Belisarius (69 page)

Then the Abbot consented, though unwillingly, and gave Uliaris the key to the jewelled chest in which the bowl was kept. Uliaris came out again to us and delivered up the bowl.

Belisarius traced the carved inscription with his finger, repeating aloud the words ‘Poverty and Patience'. Uliaris was still so oppressed by grief and astonishment that he found no words of farewell. He embraced Belisarius and went inside again.

Belisarius and I now made our way to the suburb of Deuteron by
the Golden Gate. We stopped at the portico of a church of the Virgin. Here Belisarius sat down to beg on the steps; but the beadle, not knowing him, drove him away roughly. He suffered the same treatment at the Churches of St Anne, St George, St Paul, and the Martyr Zoe. For these beadles reserve the church steps for certain professional beggars who pay them a proportion of their alms in return for the privilege. At last he asked me to guide him to the monastery of Job the Prophet, not far off, where at last he met with kindness. For a beggar already posted there recognized him and rushed to weep upon his neck; it was Thurimuth, the guardsman, again fallen on evil times.

Belisarius sat down against a buttress of the cloister, crossing his legs. By this time the streets had begun to fill. With the bowl upon his lap he called in a clear, proud voice: ‘Alms, alms! Spare a copper for Belisarius! Spare a copper for Belisarius who once scattered gold in these streets! Spare a copper for Belisarius, good people of Constantinople! Alms, alms!'

At this strange cry, which seemed a command rather than a plea, a great crowd began to gather; and a common wonder gave place to common indignation when they recognized their former hero and saviour – a blind beggar at the roadside. Soon money rained into the bowl, silver and gold pieces mixing with the copper. Though some shrouded their faces with their cloaks as they gave, there were many men of rank and substance who did not so conceal themselves, and also many women.

Now certain of his veterans gathered at the news. They formed as it were a bodyguard to prevent the people from pressing too closely upon him, so that each passed by singly, paying his debt of gratitude to Belisarius for the city's deliverance from the Huns. Thurimuth had fetched a sack: as often as the bowl was filled he emptied the coins into the sack and gave the bowl to Belisarius again. Before evening fell forty thousand people had passed, and there were many sacks full of money. But still Belisarius chanted: ‘Spare a copper for Belisarius, good people of Constantinople! Alms, alms!' All gave according to their quality – poor old women gave farthings, and children halfpence. Even the prostitutes contributed silver from their night earnings. One man brought a broad gold piece, quoting: ‘Whose is the image and superscription?' It was an example of the medal struck after the conquest of Africa, proclaiming Belisarius ‘The Glory of the Romans'.

When Justinian heard what was happening he was both angry and
alarmed. The temper of the people was rising, and there were disloyal shouts in the streets and demonstrations before the Palace. On the walls of the public buildings were scrawled in chalk such phrases as these: in Latin, ‘
Justinianus ab injustitiis
' (Justinian, so called for his injustices) and, in Greek, ‘Samson in his blindness destroyed a King and his Court.'

Justinian sent hurriedly for his Chamberlain, and ordered that a pardon be drafted; which he signed, restoring to Belisarius all his titles and property. Presently the blind man was escorted in honour back to his own house by his faithful veterans. He divided among them the money which he had collected – it amounted to 200 gold pieces for each man. But the bowl he returned to the Abbot.

My mistress Antonina was now released from the Castle of Repentance. For the few weeks that remained to Belisarius of life, he enjoyed perfect serenity. My mistress Antonina was constantly by his side; and every day three or four of his veterans called upon him for a gossip about old times, arranging the turns among themselves. He was forbidden to leave the grounds of his house, for Justinian was afraid of the people; but such regard was shown for him, and so many people were anxious to call upon him, that it seemed rather that he held a Court here than lived under a sentence of detention.

Belisarius died in his sleep on the thirteenth day of March in the year of our Lord 565. It was thought a remarkable thing, when his body was laid out for burial, that he had no scars at all to show for so many bloody battles fought all the world over. My mistress Antonina, who took his death calmly, as he would have wished, said: ‘Ay, the only injuries that he ever suffered were at the hands of his own Emperor.'

Before the year was out, on the thirteenth day of November, Justinian, too, was dead, of a gangrene. Where the souls of each went, let the Christians dispute. But they say that Justinian's end was both noisome and weird; and that as he finally gave up the ghost, squeaking with terror, the voice of the Father of Lies rang through the Palace rooms, in sinister parody of the Scriptures: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

Justinian had his desire in outliving his enemy Belisarius. But, of the four persons so closely linked together in this story – Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius, Antonina – the longest-lived was my dear mistress. After Belisarius's death she became very quiet, and soon I was
the only person for whom she had a word. Finally, she asked me to take her to the convent where her daughter Joannina was now Abbess; and there, not long after making her peace with Joannina, she died. She bequeathed all her money to the same convent, except for an annuity sufficient for my needs.

I outlive even Narses. Let me tell of his end and then be done. At Justinian's death, Justin succeeded to the Empire – not his grandnephew Justin, Germanus's son, but an elderly cousin, the son of Justinian's sister Vigilantia. Then Narses, still the Governor of Italy, was informed against by a deputation of Italians who came to Justin at Constantinople. Narses had ruled well and firmly, but the poverty of the country was such that his collection of the revenues could not but seem oppressive. Justin consented to dismiss Names, writing to Italy that he was excused from further command because of his great age. Narses, yielding his authority and title to a certain Longinus, left his Palace at Ravenna, and retired to a villa at Naples. There he received an offensive private letter from Sophia, grand-daughter of Theodora's sister Anastasia, now Justin's Empress: in it Sophia cruelly observed that he did well to leave the profession of arms to men, and enjoined him to resume his former occupation of wool-spinning among the Palace maidens. The reason for this expression of ill-will was an unforgiven slight that Narses had once put upon her while he was Chamberlain.

When Narses read her letter, he cried aloud: ‘I will spin Her Resplendency such a thread as she shall not unravel all her life.' Thereupon he proceeded to spin a thread of intrigue with the enemy across the Northern frontier. (Though you may disbelieve it, Narses was ninety-four years of age, but as active in mind and body as many a man of fifty. At the age of ninety-one he had gained a great victory in the North against one Count Vidinus, a rebel, and against the Franks and Alemans who supported him.)

Justin had been aware that the savage Lombards were meditating an invasion of Italy, and was anxious that his friend Longinus, the new Governor of Italy, should gain the glory of repelling them. But Narses, having determined to be revenged on the Empress Sophia, sent a messenger to King Alboin of the Lombards, saying: ‘The Emperor has removed me from my command and thrown open the fertile fields of Italy to your resolute warriors.'

These Germans thereupon invaded Northern Italy by way of the
Brenner Pass. Narses wrote to Justin, volunteering to repel Alboin if immediately restored to his command. But Justin paid no attention to him. Then the Lombards, whom Longinus lacked the resolution to oppose, seized all Italy to the north of the Po, and occupy it securely to this day.

Narses died of remorse.

*

Now what must be said of Belisarius's patient submission to the cruelty and caprice of Justinian, his Emperor? Some have held, because of this, that his character stands far higher than an ordinary man's; others that it falls far below, being equal to that of a poltroon. The matter could be disputed endlessly. What holds more weight with me than any idle philosophical argument is my knowledge of Belisarius's own views. For, just as he did not hold with the Donatists of Africa, who refused to accept the Sacraments from the hands of an evil-living priest but only from one of unblemished reputation; so he did not hold with political Donatists, who constituted themselves critics of those set in authority over them, and ruined all by their disobedience and ignorance. For my part, being a domestic, I find the surest index to a man's character in his treatment of domestics: it mirrors the dignity with which he comports himself towards those set in authority over him. Belisarius was the sweetest master, I believe, that ever servant had.

There is this to be noted: though Justinian treated Belisarius execrably, he never once ordered him to perform any act that was plainly against the laws of God; for Belisarius would not have obeyed, be sure, holding the laws of God as superior to any commands of man.

And there is this too: Justinian, for all his supposed dealings with Beelzebub, was very zealous for the Christian faith. He kept vigils, fasted, built and enriched monasteries and churches, discouraged infidelity, enlarged the temporal powers of the bishops – and obeyed in all seriousness the ironic injunction of Jesus to turn the other cheek to those who smote it. Thus: he paid money to the Cham Zabergan who had devastated Thrace, he conferred patrician rank on Artaban the assassin, he honoured such proved traitors as Herodian and John the Epicure. After Theodora's death he even recalled the beggared Cappadocian John to the city from Alexandria and cosseted him again. Yes, to evil-doers the Emperor was extravagantly forgiving. But with honest men he was at a loss, since Christian doctrine chiefly instructs
how to treat with sinners, oppressors, slanderers, and traitors, but gives little indication for the reward of natural virtue. (It is more blessed to give than to receive; to forgive than to be forgiven.) Thus Justinian rewarded Hypatius with death for his uprightness of conduct during the Victory Riots; and treated the noble Germanus with suspicion and disdain; and with Belisarius played the very fiend. My meaning is: I think that Belisarius pitied Justinian for wishing to be a Christian and yet wanting the knowledge of how to set about it.

According to the Evangelists, Jesus Christ spoke a parable once about a strayed sheep rescued at last by the shepherd; and drew the moral that there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just men who have no need for repentance. Here, no doubt, Jesus spoke ironically again, meaning by ‘just men' the mean and self-righteous. But Justinian, in his old age, absurdly improving on the parable, seemed to have decided that the shepherd must insult and torture the single sheep who remained dutifully in the sheep-fold rather than stray out with his ninety-nine depraved fellows; and to have drawn the moral that there is indignation in Heaven when any person (other than the Son of God Himself) behaves with inflexible probity. This view is not uncommon among eminent theologians, luxuriously aware of their own sinful impulses.

‘Under the Old Gods', my former master Damocles used to say, somewhat exaggerating the case, ‘virtue was always honoured, ignominy frowned upon; the felon's cross was not gilded and jewelled; man did not revel in self-abasement.' But let anyone believe what he pleases. And if he happens to be a simple devotee of virtue, not a logic-chopping, hypocritical theologian or perverted ascetic, this story will not offend him, but contrariwise confirm him in his principles. For Count Belisarius had such a simple devotion to virtue, from which he never declined. Those of you for whom the Gospel story carries historical weight may perhaps say that Belisarius behaved at his trial before Justinian very much as his Master had done before Pontius Pilate, the Governor of Judaea – when unjustly accused of the very same crime, namely treason against the Empire; and that he suffered no less patiently.

So much, then, for these things.

THE END