ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
BOOK V
.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE RETURN OF BELISARIUS.
At the point where we left the narrative of the fight for the possession
of Italy the struggle had been proceeding for nine years. We had reached the
spring months of 544. Totila, in the two years and a-half of his kingship, had
beaten the Imperial generals in two pitched battles by land, and in one
engagement by sea had opened to himself the Flaminian Way by the capture of
Petra Pertusa, could march freely from one end of
Italy to the other, had taken Naples and Benevento, and was threatening the
southern port of Otranto. The Roman generals, without concert or courage or
care for their master's interests, were shut up in Rome, in Ravenna, in
Spoleto, and a few other still untaken strongholds, more intent on plundering
the wretched Italians than on defending the Imperial cause.
At this point of the struggle the Emperor, with a heavy heart,
recognized the truth of what all his subjects had doubtless for many months
been saying, that the only hope of saving any part of his Italian conquests lay
in employing the man who had first effected them. Belisarius, now no longer
Master of the Soldiery, but only Count of the Sacred Stable, was to be relieved
from the comparatively useless work of superintending the Imperial stud and
sent to reconquer Italy. But the Belisarius who came back to the peninsula in
544 to measure swords with Totila was a different man from the triumphant and
popular hero who had sailed away from Ravenna in the spring of the year 540.
First came the certainty of Antonina's unfaithfulness, the attempt to punish
her, the sacrifice of his brave helper Photius, the unworthy and hollow show of
reconciliation forced upon him by the imperious Theodora; a reconciliation
which left husband and wife still strangers to one another, rival and hostile
powers though dwelling in the same palace. These events, the bitter fruit of
the year 541, had already aged and saddened Belisarius. Then in the year 542 he
lost even the semblance of his master's favor, and
became an utterly broken and ruined man.
It was in that year that a pestilence, one of the most terrible that
have ever devastated the East, visited Constantinople. It arose in Egypt, and
in its leisurely course sought out and ravaged every corner of the Roman and
Persian worlds, not sparing the new barbarian kingdoms. For four months it hung
heavily over Constantinople, the number of deaths rising at one time to five
thousand daily. The markets were deserted, all ordinary crafts were abandoned,
the cares of tending the patients in their terrible delirium and of burying the
dead overtaxed the energies of their unstricken relatives. The work of burial
had at length to be undertaken by the Emperor, who employed all the household
troops for the purpose. Even so, it was impossible to dig graves fast enough to
supply the terrible demand, and at length they were satisfied with stacking the
corpses in a large and deserted fortress, which was roughly roofed over when it
would hold no more. A sickening odour filled all Constantinople when the wind
happened to set towards the city from this horrible charnel-house.
Justinian himself was one of those who were struck down by this terrible
pestilence, and for a time it seemed that he, like the great majority of those
attacked, would fall a victim to the disease. The situation of Theodora was
full of peril. The victims of her cruelty and avarice had left avengers who
were all eager for her blood. The life of that weak, plague-stricken, probably
delirious patient was all that intervened between her and death at the hands of
an infuriated populace; unless, indeed—and this seemed the desperate woman's
only chance of retaining life and power—the imminent death of her husband could
be concealed long enough to give her time to assemble the senate in the palace,
and to have some pliant nephew, or some popular general, who would promise to
make her his wife, clothed in the purple and presented to the Romans in the
amphitheatre as the new Augustus.
Such were the calculations of Theodora, as, under that form of
government, they were sure to be the more or less avowed calculations of every
ambitious and childless Empress. There was still, however, the army to be
reckoned with, that supposed embodiment of the Roman people in arms by which in
old time the title Imperator had been exclusively conferred. The Eastern army
was jealous and uneasy. A rumour reached it that Justinian was already dead :
and at a hastily-summoned military council some generals were heard to mutter
that if a new Emperor were made at Constantinople without their consent they
would not acknowledge him. Suddenly the whole aspect of affairs was changed by
the unlooked-for recovery of Justinian. The ulcer, which was the characteristic
mark of the disease, probably began to suppurate freely, and the other
dangerous symptoms abated: such, at least Procopius tells us, was the almost invariable
course of the malady in the small number who recovered. Now were all other
voices hushed in a chorus of servile loyalty to Justinian and Theodora; and the
officers who had been present at that dangerous council hastened to clear
themselves of suspicion by each accusing someone else of treason to the present
occupants of the throne. Two parties soon declared themselves. On the one side
were John surnamed the Glutton, and Peter; on the other, Belisarius and a
general named Buzes, a greedy and self-seeking man,
but one who had held the high offices of Consul and Magister Militum per Orientem.
Theodora ordered all the generals to repair to the capital, caused a
strict enquiry to be made into the proceedings at the so-called treasonable
council, and decided, whether rightly or wrongly we cannot say, that Belisarius
and Buzes had acted in opposition to her interests.
Her vengeance on Buzes was swift and terrible.
Summoning him to the women's apartments in the palace, as if she had some
important tidings to communicate, she ordered him to be bound and conveyed to
one of her secret dungeons. “Dark, labyrinthine, and Tartarean” says Procopius,
were the underground chambers in which she immured her victims. Here, in utter
darkness, unable to distinguish day from night, with no employment to divert
his thoughts, dwelt for twenty-eight months the former Consul and Master of the
Host. Once a day a servant entered the prison, forbidden to hear or utter a
word, and cast his food down before the captive as to a dumb brute, dumb as a
brute himself. Thus he remained, men generally supposing him to be dead and not
daring to mention his name, till Theodora, taking pity on his misery, in the
third year of his imprisonment released him from his living tomb. Men looked
upon him with awe, as if he had been the ghost of Buzes.
His sight was gone and his health was broken, but we hear of him again, three
years after his liberation, as commanding armies and as a person of importance
at the Imperial court.
As for Belisarius, it was not thought desirable to proceed to such
extreme lengths in his punishment, and there was probably even less evidence
against him than against Buzes of having discussed
the succession to the throne in a treasonable manner. There was, however, a
charge, which had been vaguely hanging over him for years, of having
appropriated to himself the lion's share of the treasures of Gelimer and
Witigis, and having brought only a remnant of those treasures into the palace
of the Emperor. His recent Eastern campaigns, too, though they had not added
greatly to his fame, were reported to have added unduly to his wealth. The law
or the custom which regulated the division of such booty was perhaps not book
very clearly defined, and it might be urged with some reason that such splendid
successes as those of Belisarius, achieved against such overwhelming odds, made
him an exception to all rules. It is admitted, however, by Procopius that his
wealth was enormous and worthy of the halls of kings; and from the way in which
the subject is handled by this historian, for so many years his friend and
follower, we may fairly infer that this charge was substantially a just one.
The chief blot upon the character of Belisarius, as upon the character of the
general who in modern times most resembles him, Marlborough, was avarice.
Unlike Marlborough, however, he was lavish in the spending, as well as greedy
in the getting of money. His avarice was the child of ostentation rather than
of mere love of hoarding. To see himself surrounded by the bravest warriors in
the world, to look at their glittering armour, to feel that these men were his
dependants, and that the world said that his household alone had delivered
Rome, this was the thought dearest to the heart of Belisarius. For this he laboured
and heaped up treasure, not always perhaps regarding the rule of right.
All this splendour of his, however, was now shattered at a blow. If it
was not safe to shut up Belisarius in a Tartarean dungeon, it was safe to
disgrace him, and it was done thoroughly. The command of the army of the East
was taken from him and given to his old lieutenant, Martin, the same who
galloped with Ildiger along the Flaminian Way,
bearing the General's message to Rimini, the same who was sent with Uliaris to relieve Milan, and who failed so disgracefully
in his mission. Not only was the command taken from Belisarius, but, by an
unusually high-handed exercise of power, his splendid military household was
broken up. All those valiant life-guardsmen, both horse and foot-soldiers,
taken from the master whom they had served with such loyal enthusiasm, were
divided by lot among the rival generals and the eunuchs of the palace. The
glittering armor and gay accoutrements of course went
with the wearers. Some portion of the treasure of the chief, that which he had
brought home from the Eastern campaign, was conveyed by one of the Empress's
eunuchs to her own palace. All the band of devoted friends who had hitherto
crowded round the steps of Belisarius were now forbidden even to speak to him.
As Procopius, himself no doubt one of these forcibly silenced friends, has
said, “A bitter sight in truth it was, and one that men would have scarce
believed possible, to see Belisarius walking about Byzantium as a common man,
almost alone, deep in thought, with sadness in his face, ever fearing death at
the hands of an assassin”.
All this time Antonina dwelt with him in the same house as a stranger,
mutual resentment and suspicion separating the hearts that had once been so
fondly united. Now came out the better side of Theodora's character in the
scheme which she devised to reconcile these two divided souls, and at the same
time to repay some part of her debt of gratitude to Antonina by restoring to
her the love of her husband. Those who prefer it may accept the theory of
Procopius, that the whole humiliation of Belisarius had been contrived by the
cruel ingenuity of the Empress for the sole purpose of bringing him helpless
and a suppliant to his wife's feet. To me it seems more probable that the
disgrace of the General was, at least in appearance, justified by his
questionable conduct concerning the treasure; that it was partly caused by the unslumbering jealousy of Justinian, and partly by
Theodora's resentment for some incautious words of his at the military council;
but that the idea of introducing Antonina's name into the settlement of the
dispute, and reconciling Belisarius by one stroke both to his wife and to the
Emperor, was due to some unextinguished instinct of good in the heart of the
cruel Empress, and should not be set down against her on the page of history.
One morning Belisarius went early to the palace, as was his wont,
attended by a few shabbily-dressed followers. The Imperial pair appeared to be
in no gracious mood towards him; the valetaille of
the palace, taking the cue from their masters, flouted and insulted him. After
a day thus drearily spent, dispirited and anxious, he returned to his palace,
looking this way and that, to see from which side the dreaded assassins would
rush forth upon him. “With this horror at his heart he went into his chamber
and sat there upon the couch alone, revolving no noble thoughts in his heart,
nor remembering the hero that he once had been, but dizzy and perspiring, full
of trembling despair, and gnawed with slavish fears and mean anxieties”. So
writes Procopius, somewhat forgetful of the difference between physical and
moral courage, and, for private reasons of his own, unnecessarily severe on
these
'Fears of the brave and
follies of the wise'
Antonina
was walking up and down in the atrium, feigning an attack of indigestion,
apparently longing to comfort her lord, but too proud to do so unasked. Then,
just after sunset, came a messenger from the palace, named Quadratus, who,
rapidly crossing the court, stood before the door of the men's apartment and
called in a loud voice, “A message from the Empress”. Belisarius, who made no
doubt that this was the bearer of his death-warrant, drew his feet up on the
couch and lay there upon his back, with no thought of self-defense,
expecting death. His hopes revived at the sight of the letter which Quadratus
handed to him, and which ran thus:
“Theodora
Augusta to the Patrician Belisarius .
What you have done to us, good Sir, you know very well. But I, on
account of my obligations to your wife, have resolved to cancel all these
charges against you for her sake, and to make her a present of your life.
Henceforward, then, you may be encouraged as to the safety of your life and
property, but it rests with you to show what manner of husband you will be to
her in future”.
A rapture of joy thrilled the heart of Belisarius as he read these
words. Without waiting for the departure of the messenger he ran forth and fell
prostrate before Antonina. He kissed her feet, he clasped her robe; he called
her the author of his life and his salvation; he would be her slave, her
faithful slave henceforward, and would forget the name of husband. It was
unheroic, doubtless, thus to humble himself at the feet of the woman who had so
deeply wounded his honor; but it was love, not fear,
that made him unheroic. It was not the coward's desire of life, it was the
estranged lover's delight in the thought of ended enmity that unmanned
Belisarius. For two years he had bitterly felt that
‘To be wroth with one we love
Both work like madness in the brain'
And now that a power above them both had ended this agony, he forgot the
dignity of the Patrician and the General in the almost hysterical rapture of
the reconciled husband.
That reconciliation was an abiding one. Whatever were the later sins of
Antonina, we hear no more of discord between her and Belisarius, rather of his
infatuation in approving of all her actions. But the friends who had helped the
injured husband in his quarrel found themselves the losers by this ‘renewing of
love'. Photius, obliged to hide himself in the squalid habit of a monk at
Jerusalem, called in vain for aid to his mighty father-in-law. Procopius
probably found his career of promotion stopped by the same disastrous
reconciliation, and now began to fashion those periods of terrible invective
which were one day to be stored in the underground chambers of the Anecdota, menacing ruin to the reputations of Antonina, of
Theodora, of Justinian, even of the once loved Belisarius.
Out of the sequestered property of the General the munificent Empress
made a present to her husband of thirty hundred-weight of gold, restoring the
rest to its former owner. In order that her family might become possessed of
the rest by ordinary course of law, she began to arrange a marriage between her
grandson Anastasius and Belisarius's only daughter Joannina.
The entreaties of Belisarius that he might be allowed once again to lead
the Eastern army against Chosroes were disregarded, partly on account of the
remonstrances of Antonina, who passionately declared that she would never again
visit those countries in which she had undergone the cruel indignity of arrest
and imprisonment. The ‘respectable' but not ‘illustrious' office of ‘Count of
the Sacred Stable' was conferred upon him, to show that he was again received
into some measure of Imperial favor. When it became
more and more clear that the divided and demoralized generals in Italy would
never make head against Totila, the Emperor graciously assigned him the task of
repairing all the blunders that had been committed in that land since he left
it four years previously. At the same time a promise (so it is said) was
exacted from him that he would ask for no money from the Imperial treasury for
the war, but would provide for its whole equipment at his own expense. Thus
feebly supported by his master, with his splendid band of household troops
dispersed among the eunuchs of the palace, with his own spirit half broken by
all the sorrows and humiliations of recent years, he was not likely to threaten
the security of Justinian, nor to be heard of as Emperor of the West. Whether
this needy and heart-broken man would cope effectually in war with the young
and gallant Totila was another question, and one which will be answered in the
following chapters.
