ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
BOOK V
.
CHAPTER XXIV.
NARSES AND TOTILA
Immersed in theology and intent on the damnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Justinian would gladly have forgotten the
affairs of Italy. Sixteen years ago he had sent his soldiers and his invincible
General on an expedition which he perhaps hoped would prove, like the Vandal
campaign, not much more than a military promenade. Victory had come far more
slowly in Italy than in Africa, and in the very moment of his triumph the prize
had slipped from his grasp and the whole work had to be done over again. Ever
since Totila was raised upon the shields of the Goths, ill-success, scarcely
varied by one or two streaks of good-fortune, had attended the Imperial arms,
and now only four points on the coast—Ravenna, Ancona, Hydruntum,
Crotona—owned allegiance to the Empire. As a source of revenue, the country for
whose reannexation such large sums had been expended
was absolutely worthless; and on the other hand, whenever the Imperial wished
to erect a new church or fortress in Thrace or Asia Minor to commemorate his
name and to be described with inflated rhetoric in the De Aedificiis of Procopius, the finance-minister, if he were an honest man, was sure to
remind him of the long arrears of pay due to the starving troops in Italy, and
of the absolute necessity that any money that could be spared should be
remitted to Ravenna. Thus it came to pass that Justinian already in 549 was
sick of the very name of Italy, and would have been willing to sit down
satisfied with its loss, but that, as already stated, Vigilius and the other
Roman refugees incessantly pressed upon him with their petitions for help, and
their not unreasonable complaints of the ruin which his policy, if it was to
stop short at this point, would have brought upon them.
There was, then, to be another expedition to Italy. Germanus being
untimely dead and Liberius hopelessly incapable, the question arose who should
be the new commander of the forces. John the nephew of Vitalian, who had passed
the winter of 550 at Salona, had the military talent necessary for the post,
but, notwithstanding his recently-formed connection with the Imperial house, he
was still too little superior to the other generals by character or position to
make it probable that they would accord to him that unquestioning obedience,
the want of which had already proved so fatal to the Emperor’s interests.
In these circumstances Justinian decided to offer the command of the new
Italian expedition to his Grand Chamberlain Narses, who eagerly accepted it.
The choice of this man, an eunuch, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, one
whose life had been spent in the enervating atmosphere and amid the idle labours
of an Imperial presence-chamber, would have seemed the extremity of madness to
the stout soldiers of the Republic by whom the title Imperator had first been
worn. Yet, in truth, this choice proved to be another instance of Justinian's
admirable knowledge of men, and great power (when he gave his intellect fair
play) of adapting his means to the required ends. Narses (who lived for more
than twenty years after the date we have now reached), though short in stature
and lean in figure, evidently still possessed good health, and faculties quite
undimmed by age. In his previous campaign in Italy, fourteen years before, he
had shown no small strategic talent, and he had for ever secured the grateful
affection of the stout soldier John, who would now willingly concede to him an
obedience such as any other general would demand in vain. The two together,
Narses as the wily much meditating brain, and John as the vigorous swiftly
smiting arm, might be expected to do great deeds against even the gallant
Totila. And throughout Italy, wherever the Roman armies might move, recovering
cities or provinces for the Empire, the presence of a man who came straight
from the Sacred Majesty of the Emperor, and had been for the past twenty years
or more a Cabinet-minister (as we should say) of the highest rank, would
command the unhesitating and eager obedience of all that official hierarchy
whose instinct it was to obey, if it could only be assured that its orders came
direct from Imperial Power.
The announcement that the Eunuch was to command the Italian army was
received with a shout of applause by all who hoped to share in the expedition.
Narses, unlike many previous eunuchs at the Imperial Court, had always been
conspicuous for his free-handed generosity. Many a barbarian soldier of fortune
had already found himself opportunely enriched by the Grand Chamberlain’s favour.
These longed to show their gratitude by the alacrity of their service; while to
those who had not yet experienced his benefits the lively sense of favours to
come proved an equally powerful stimulus to action. With the zealous Catholics
also throughout the Empire the appointment of Narses was in the highest degree
popular, since his piety towards God and his devotion to the Virgin Mother were
notorious throughout the Court, as they soon became notorious throughout the
army. It was believed by his soldiers that the Illustrious Cubicularius had supernatural visitations from the Mother of God, and that she announced to
him by some secret but well-known sign the favourable moment for his troops to
move forward to battle. Such a belief was, in the existing temper of men's
minds, by itself a powerful aid to victory.
Above all, Narses, as being one of the innermost governing council of
the Empire, could ensure that his expedition should not be starved, as the
second expedition of Belisarius had been starved, into failure. There was no
talk now, as there had been then, of the General himself providing the sinews
of war. The Imperial exchequer was now freely drawn upon. The long-standing
arrears of the soldiers' pay were discharged. Liberal offers were made to all
new-comers: and soon the usual motley host which called itself a Roman army was
gathering round the Eunuch's standards, full of martial ardour for the fray,
full of martial cupidity for the plunder of Italy.
It was a satire on the policy of Justinian that Narses, eager to reach
Salona on the Adriatic coast and there assemble his army, was actually stopped
at Philippopolis in Thrace by a horde of Hunnish savages—probably the Kotrigur Huns whose raids have been already alluded to— who
had penetrated into the Empire and were ravaging far and wide the Thracian
villages. Fortunately, however, for the Italian expedition, the Hunnish torrent
parted itself into two streams, one of which pursued its journey towards Constantinople,
while the other moved south-westward to Thessalonica. Between the two hordes
Narses adroitly made his way across Macedonia to Salona, where he spent the
remainder of the year 551 in organizing an army for the invasion of Italy.
The news that this supreme effort was to be made for his overthrow
quickened the energy of Totila, and at the same time increased his efforts to
win the favour of the Roman people. While closely pressing both by sea and land
the siege of Ancona, in order that the Imperialists might have no base of
operations in all the long interval from Ravenna to Crotona, he also, as has
been already said, brought back many of the captive Senators to Rome, and
encouraged them to repair the desolations which he had himself caused, and
which, we are told, were most conspicuous in the part of the City that lay on
the west of the Tiber. The King's care for the rebuilding of the City gained
him some little favour from the Romans, who, in the estimation of Procopius,
surpassed all other populations in love for their City and pride in its
adornment; but the Senators, paupers and still feeling themselves like
captives, wandered ghost-like amid the scenes of their vanished splendour, and
had neither the spirit nor the resources to assist, themselves, in the work of
restoration.
As we have seen in previous chapters, Totila had paid more attention to
his fleet than any of the Ostrogothic Kings who preceded him, and was by no
means disposed tamely to yield to Byzantium the dominion of the seas. Three
hundred ships of war were sent by him to cruise off the western coast of
Greece, omitting no opportunity of plundering and distressing the subjects of
the Empire. Their crews ravaged the island of Corcyra and the little islets
near it, landed in Epirus, and laid waste the territory round the venerable
fane of Dodona and Augustus's more modern City of Victory, and then, cruising
along the coast, fell in with and captured some of the ships that were carrying
provisions to the army of Narses at Salona.
The siege of Ancona was, however, the chief operation in which Totila's forces were engaged: and that city, sore pressed
both by sea and land, saw itself apparently on the eve of surrender to the
Goths. Valerian, who seems to have been responsible for the government and
defence of Ancona, was at this time staying at Ravenna, and finding himself
unable to afford any effectual help with the forces which he had collected
there, sent messengers to John at Salona with an earnest exhortation to avert
the ruin to the Emperors affairs which must result from the capture of so
important a sea-port. John was convinced, and ventured, in defiance of the
express orders which he had received from the Emperor, to dispatch a squadron
for the relief of Ancona. Valerian met him at Scardona on the coast of Ulyria, and concerted measures for
the coming expedition, and soon the two generals, with fifty ships under their
orders, crossed the Adriatic and anchored off the little town of Sena Gallica
(the modern Sinigaglia), sixteen miles north-west of
Ancona. On the other side the Goths had forty-seven ships of war, which they
filled with some of their noblest soldiers and with which they sailed to meet
the enemy, under the command of two admirals, Giblas and Indulph. The latter officer was one who had once
been a soldier in Belisarius's own bodyguard, but, like so many of his
comrades, disgusted by the Imperial ingratitude, had deserted to the standards
of Totila. Scipuar, who had been joined in command
with these two officers, remained with the rest of the army to prosecute the
siege of Ancona by land.
Off Sinigaglia then the two fleets anchored,
and both sides prepared for action. John and Valerian haranguing their troops
insisted on the immense importance of raising the siege of Ancona and the
hopelessness of their own position if they allowed the Goths on this day to
obtain the command of the sea. Indulph and Giblas scoffed at the new audacity of the accursed Greeks
who had at last ventured forth from the creeks and bays of Dalmatia in which
they had so long been hiding. A feeble and unwarlike race, born to be defeated
in battle, this sudden display of rashness on their part was the result of mere
ignorance, but must be at once repressed by Gothic valour before it had time to
grow to a dangerous height.
Notwithstanding these vaunting words, the Greeks, those children of the
sea, who, from the days of Cadmus, had spread their sails to every breeze that
ruffled the Aegean, vanquished the Goths, those hereditary landsmen, whose
forefathers had roamed for centuries in the Sarmatian solitudes. The wind was
light, and as ship grappled ship the battle assumed the appearance of a
hand-to-hand encounter by land rather than a sea-fight. But the Goths,
deficient in that instinctive sympathy between the sailor and his ship which
belongs to a nation of mariners, failed to keep their vessels at proper
distances from one another. Here a wide- yawning interval invited the inroad of
the enemy; there several ships close together became a terror to their friends,
and lost all power of maneuvering. The orders of the
generals became inaudible in the hubbub of angry voices as each Gothic
steersman shouted to his fellow to leave him ampler sea-room. Intent on
averting collision with their countrymen by poles and boat-hooks, the Goths
were unable to attend to the necessities of the battle. Meanwhile the Imperial
mariners, who had kept their ranks in perfect order, were perpetually charging
into the gaps in the line of the barbarians, surrounding and cutting out the
ships which were left defenseless, or keeping up a
storm of missiles on those parts of the line where the hostile ships were
thickly entangled with one another, and where the interlacing masts showed like
net-work to the eye of a beholder. The barbarians fell into the torpor of
despair, and saw the chance of victory float away from them without making an
effort to turn the tide. Then to torpor succeeded panic, and they steered their
ships for headlong flight, flight which delivered them yet more utterly into
the hands of the Romans. Indulph indeed with eleven
of his ships succeeded in escaping from the scene of action; but, despairing of
further resistance by sea, landed his men in the first harbourage and burned
his ships to prevent their falling into the power of the enemy. All the other
Gothic ships were either sunk or taken by the Romans, and Giblas himself was taken prisoner.
The Goths who had succeeded in escaping from the scene took the dismal
tale of defeat to the army before Ancona, who at once raised the siege and
retreated to the shelter of rock-built Osimo. John and Valerian then appeared
upon the scene, occupied and perhaps plundered the recent Gothic camp,
abundantly revictualled Ancona, and then returned to Salona and Ravenna
respectively, having by this achievement struck a heavy blow at the power and
yet more at the self-confidence of the Goths in Italy.
About the same time another disaster befell the Gothic cause. The
respectable but feeble Liberius was removed from the government of Sicily, and
Artabanes the Armenian was appointed in his stead. Avenger of Areobindus,
governor of Carthage, Master of the Soldiery, aspirant to the hand of
Justinian's niece, conspirator against Justinian's life, in all the varied
phases of his career, whether loyal or disloyal, Artabanes had always shown
courage and capacity; and he now abundantly justified the generous confidence
reposed in him by the forgiving Emperor. He attacked the Gothic garrisons in
Sicily with such vigour and blockaded so effectually those who would not meet
him in the field that they were all speedily forced to surrender, and Sicily
was lost to the Goths.
John, the governor of Africa, endeavoured to rival the exploits of
Artabanes by sending an expedition to subdue Corsica and Sardinia. These
islands, on account of their long subjection to the Vandals, were looked upon
as forming part of the African province and as naturally following its fortunes,
but the result of the maritime supremacy of Totila during the last few years
had been to annex them to the Ostrogothic kingdom. The armament which the
Carthaginian governor now dispatched to Sardinia commenced in regular form the
siege of Cagliari; but the Gothic garrison, which was a powerful one, sallied
forth from the city and inflicted such a severe defeat on the besiegers that
they fled headlong to their ships, and the reconquest of the two islands had to
be for the time abandoned.
Notwithstanding this slight gleam of success, the defeat at Sinigaglia, which left the Imperial fleet mistress of the
sea, and the loss of Sicily, threw Totila and his nobles into a state of deep
dejection. We learn at this point of the story that their hold upon the north
of Italy had for some years been insecure, if it had not been altogether lost.
The Franks of the Sixth Century, according to Procopius, adopted the ungenerous
policy of always turning their neighbours’ troubles to profitable account, by
seizing their most precious possessions when they were engaged in a life and
death struggle with some powerful enemy. In pursuance of this policy Theudibert, grandson of Clovis, had descended into the
valley of the Po (probably in the early years of Totila’s heroic reign), and had annexed to his dominions, or at least had made subject
to tribute, the three provinces of Liguria, Venetia, and the Cottian Alps, or,
to speak in the language of modern geography, the whole of Piedmont and
Lombardy. The Goths, knowing that it was hopeless for them to contend at once
against the Empire and the Franks, acquiesced for a time in this usurpation,
and even made a kind of league of amity with Theudibert,
the question of the precise apportionment of his Italian territory being by
common consent adjourned till the war with the Empire should be ended.
Gladly would Totila now have ended that war by some peaceful compromise.
With Northern Italy in the power of the Franks, with Central and Southern Italy
reduced well-nigh to a desert by seventeen years of war, he was prepared to
relinquish all claim to the comparatively uninjured provinces of Sicily and
Dalmatia, to pay a large tribute for the portion of Italy which was left to
him, and to form a league of perpetual alliance with the Empire. It can hardly
be doubted that for the Eastern Emperors themselves, from the mere Byzantine
point of view, as well as for Italy and the world, such an arrangement would
have been better than what was really in store for them if it was rejected,—the
truceless enmity of the savage Lombard. But Justinian, even when most weary of
his Italian enterprise, would listen to no proposals for abandoning de jure any
one of his claims. He hated the very name of the Goths, and longed to extirpate
them from the soil of the Empire. Thus all the many embassies of Totila,
whatever the terms proposed, never returned with a message of peace.
About this time, however, the Emperor himself had recourse to an embassy
in order to detach the Franks from the Gothic alliance. King Theudibert was now dead, having been accidentally killed
while hunting wild bulls in a forest; and to his son Theudibald,
a feeble and sickly youth, Leontius the senator, ambassador of Justinian,
addressed his remonstrances and his requests. And certainly the complaints of
their former ally, addressed to the Franks of that day, seem to have had some
foundation in truth. “Justinian”, said the ambassador, “would never have
undertaken his enterprise against the Goths without the promise of your
cooperation, for which he paid large sums of money. You refused your promised
assistance and stood aside while we with vast labour and peril conquered the
country, which you then most unjustly invaded, appropriating some of its
provinces. We might blame, but we rather beseech you for your own sakes to
depart out of Italy; for ill-gotten gains such as these will bring you no
prosperity. You say that you are in alliance with the Goths: but the Goths have
been your enemies from the beginning, and have waged against you one unceasing
and unrelenting war. Just now, through fear, they condescend to be your
flatterers, but if they once get clear of us, you will soon find out what is
their feeling towards the Franks. The ambassador concluded by exhorting Theudibald to undo what his father had done amiss, by
firmly renewing the former alliance between the Franks and the Empire.
Theudibald piteously replied that his father could not have been the clever robber of his neighbours’
property whom the ambassadors described since he himself was by no means
wealthy. He thought the Emperor would have been rather pleased than otherwise
to see his enemies the Goths despoiled of three important provinces, and he
could truly say that if he could be proved to have taken anything from the
Empire he would straightway restore it. He then commissioned a Frank named Leudard to return as his envoy with Leontius to
Constantinople; but nothing seems to have resulted from the visit of the
ambassador.
With these negotiations the winter of 551 wore away. Early in the spring
of 552 occurred the relief of Crotona, so long the base of the Imperial
operations in the south of Italy. Its garrison, hard pressed by the Goths, sent
a message to Artabanes, the governor of Sicily, that unless speedily relieved
they must surrender the city. Artabanes at the time was unable to help them,
but Justinian himself, hearing of their distress, sent orders to the detachment
which guarded the pass of Thermopylae to set sail with all speed for Italy and
raise the siege of Crotona. Strange to say, so great was their dispatch and so favourable
the breezes that they appeared in the bay before the arrival of the day fixed
for the surrender of the city. The sight of the ships filled the besiegers with
terror. They fled in all directions, eastwards to Tarentum, and southwards to
the very edge of the Straits of Messina; and the Gothic governors of some of
the other towns of Southern Italy, Tarentum itself and the ‘lofty nest of Acherontia' began to treat for the surrender of those
places to the Imperial generals.
Deep discouragement everywhere was creeping -over the hearts of the
defenders of the throne of Totila, and meanwhile the great and well-equipped
host which Narses had been so long preparing at Salona was at last on its way.
The sum total of the Imperial army does not seem to be given us by our
historian, but we hear something of the multifarious elements of which it was
composed. The two armies of John and of his father-in-law Germanus formed the
nucleus of the host, but besides these there was the other John, nicknamed the
Glutton, with a multitude of stout Roman soldiers. There was Asbad, a young Gepid of extraordinary bravery, with four
hundred warriors, all men of his own blood. There was Aruth, a Herulian by birth but Roman by training, by inclination,
and by marriage, who led a large band of his countrymen, men who especially
delighted in the perils of the fight. Philemuth, also
a Herulian, perhaps of purer barbaric training, who
had served in many previous campaigns in Italy, was followed by more than three
thousand men of the same wild and wandering race, all mounted on horseback. The
young Dagisthaeus, probably also of barbarian origin,
was released from the prison into which he had been thrown on account of his
miserable mismanagement of the war waged with Persia in the defiles of Mount
Caucasus, and was allowed to have another chance of vindicating his reputation
as a general and his loyalty as a subject of the Emperor. In the same army was
to be found a Persian prince himself, Kobad, nephew of Chosroes, grandson and
namesake of the great King who had waged war with Anastasius. This prince, whom
in his youth conspirators had sought to seat on the throne of the Sassanids,
had been condemned to death by his merciless uncle, and had been only saved by the
humane disobedience of the General in Chief (or Chanaranges)
to whom the murderous order had been entrusted, and who eventually paid for his
compassion with his life. Many of his countrymen, refugees like himself from
the tyranny of Chosroes, followed Kobad to the war in a strange land and in
defence of a stranger s claims.
We have left to the last the most important in the eyes of posterity of
all this motley horde of army of chieftains. Audoin, King of the Lombards, rode
in the train of Narses at the head of two thousand five hundred brave warriors,
who had for their personal attendants more than three thousand men also skilled
in war. The mention of these two classes shows us that we are already
approaching the days of the knights and squires of chivalry. We hear not much,
it is true, of the actual deeds of Audoin in the following campaign, but his
importance for us consists in the fact that he is the father of the terrible
Alboin, who, sixteen years after the time which we have now reached, will on
his own account be crossing the Alpine wall and descending with his savage
horde into that fertile plain which thenceforward will to all ages be known as
Lombardy. Thus continually do we see the Roman foederatus becoming the
conqueror of Rome. Thus did Theodosius lead Alaric in his train over the Julian
Alps and show him the road to Italy.
Huns in great numbers, squalid and fierce as ever, but useful soldiers
when deeds of daring and hard endurance were needed, urged on their little
steeds at the sound of the Imperial bugles. It was indeed a strange army to be
charged with asserting the majesty of the Roman Empire and reuniting to it the
old Hesperian land. Could a Cincinnatus or a Regulus have looked upon those
wild tribes from beyond the Danube and those dark faces from beside the
Euphrates, all under the supreme command of an eunuch from under the shadow of
Mount Ararat, he would assuredly have been perplexed to decide whether they or
the soldiers of Totila had less claim to the great name of Roman.
But ethnological considerations such as these were beside the mark. A
common passion, the hope of the spoil of Italy, fused all these discordant
nationalities into one coherent whole. The purse-strings of the Emperor were
loosened; and over the whole army hovered the genius of the deep-thoughted
Narses, willing to part freely with the treasures of his master, and his own,
if only his shaking hand might pluck the laurels which had been denied, in the vigoor of middle age, to the mighty Belisarius.
Imperial army marched round the head of the Adriatic Gulf: but when it
came to the confines of Venetia it found the passage barred by order of the
Frankish King. The real reason for this hostile procedure was that for the
moment it seemed a more profitable course to keep, than to break, the oaths
which the Franks had sworn to the Goths; but the pretext alleged, namely, the
presence of the Lombard auxiliaries, foes to the Frankish name, in the army of
Narses, had probably also some genuine force. Already these races, which for
the following two centuries were to contest with one another the right to
plunder Italy, eyed one another with jealous hostility, each foreseeing in the
other an unwelcome fellow-guest at the banquet.
Nor were the Franks the only enemies who intervened between the Imperial
host and the friendly shelter of Ravenna. More to the west, Teias,
one of the bravest of the young officers of Totila, barred the way at Verona
against any invader who should seek to enter by the Pass of the Brenner. At the
same time, as he hoped, he had so obstructed the bridges over the intricate
rivers and canals of Lombardy as to make it impossible for Narses to pass him
without fighting a pitched battle.
Narses, as Totila was well aware, did not possess a sufficiently large
flotilla to transport his army directly across the head of the Adriatic Gulf
from the mouth of the Isonzo to Classis; but in his perplexity his skilful
lieutenant, John, who was well acquainted with the country between Aquileia and
Ravenna, suggested to him an expedient by which the few ships which he had
might render signal service to the army. The scheme was this : for the soldiers
to march close to the sea, where the country, intersected as it is by the
mouths of the Piave, Brenta, Adige, and Po, would offer no field for the
hostile operations of the Franks, and to use the ships, which were to accompany
them within signaling distance, for the transport of
the soldiers across the river-estuaries, perhaps also in some cases across the
actual lagoons. This difficult operation was successfully effected; the flank,
both of the Frankish generals and of Teias, was
turned, and Narses with all his army reached Ravenna in safety. Justin, who had
been left in charge of Ravenna by Belisarius, and Valerian, the recent victor
at Sinigaglia, joined their forces, which were
apparently not very numerous, to those of Narses.
After a tarriance of nine days at Ravenna there came an insulting
message from Usdrilas, who was holding Bimini for the
Goths: “After your vaunted preparations, which have kept all Italy in a
ferment, and after trying to strike terror into our hearts by knitting your
brows and looking more awful than mortal men, you have crept into Ravenna and
are skulking there, afraid of the very name of the Goths. Come out, with all
that mongrel host of barbarians to whom you want to deliver Italy, and let us
behold you, for the eyes of the Goths hunger for the sight of you”. Narses, on
reading these words, laughed at the insolence of the barbarian, but set forward
nevertheless with the bulk of his army, leaving a small garrison under Justin
at Ravenna. On his arrival at Rimini he found that the bridge over the Marecchia—that noble structure of Augustus which was
described in an earlier chapter—was effectually blocked by the enemy. While the
soldiers of Narses, some of whom had crossed the river, were looking about for
a ford convenient for the passage of the bulk of the army, Usdrilas,
with some of his followers, came upon them. A skirmish followed, in which, by a
rare stroke of good fortune, the Herulians in the
Imperial army slew Usdrilas himself. His head,
severed from his body, was brought into the camp of Narses, and cheered both
General and soldiers by this apparent token of divine favor upon their enterprise. The General, however, determined not to stay to
prosecute the siege of Rimini, but availed himself of the discouragement of the
enemy, caused by the death of Usdrilas, to throw a
pontoon bridge across the Marecchia and proceed on
his march southwards. “For he did not choose”, says Procopius, “to molest
either Ariminum or any other post occupied by the
enemy, in order that he might not lose time and fail in his most
important enterprise by having his attention diverted to minor
objects... After passing Ariminum [and, we may add,
Fanum,] he departed from the Flaminian Way and struck off to the left. For the
position of Petra Pertusa, which have described in a
previous book of my history, and which is exceedingly strong by nature, having
been occupied long before by the enemy, rendered the Flaminian Way altogether
impassable to the Romans. Narses, therefore, being thus obliged to quit the
shortest road, took that which was available”.
We see, from this passage of Procopius, that again, as in previous
stages of the war, the possession of Petra Pertusa (the Passo di Furlo) exercised an important influence on the movements of the
combatants. As it was now in the hands of the Goths, Narses was compelled to
leave the broad highway of Flaminius and to keep southwards along the Adriatic
Gulf till he could find a road which would take him into the Via Flaminia at a
point on the Romeward side of the Passo di Furlo.
Such a road, as I read his movements, he found before he reached Sinigaglia. Taking a sharp turn to the right near the mouth
of the Sena (Cesano), he would be brought, by a march
of about thirty-six miles up the valley formed by that stream and across the
uplands, to the town of Cales (Cagli). Here the
Imperial army would be once more upon the great Flaminian Way, having in fact
turned the fortress of Pertusa, but they would be
still among narrow defiles, where the road is often carried by narrow bridges
over rocky streams. An attack at this part of their course might have easily
thrown the army into disorder, and we may be sure that Narses and his chief
officers would breathe more freely when, after fourteen miles' march up a sharp
ascent crossing and recrossing the torrent of the Burano, they came at length,
at the posting-station Ad Ensem, to the crest of the
pass, and saw a broader and less difficult valley spreading below them to the
south. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of this posting-station (represented by
the modern village of Scheggia), Narses probably
encamped and prepared for battle, being aware of the near neighbourhood of the
Gothic host. The words of Procopius, who states that the camp was pitched “upon
the Apennine mountains” and yet “upon a level spot” describe with great
accuracy the exact situation of Scheggia.
Meanwhile Totila, after receiving the news of the untoward events which
had happened in Venetia, tarried for some time in the neighbourhood of Rome to
give the soldiers of Teias, now outflanked and
useless, time to rejoin his standards. When all but two thousand of these had
arrived he started upon the northward march, through Etruria and Umbria. His
movements were quickened by hearing of the death of Usdrilas and the ineffectual attempt of the garrison of Rimini to arrest the progress of
the invaders. Knowing that the pass of Furlo was blocked, he was probably
uncertain as to the precise point at which Narses would seek to traverse the
great Apennine wall that intervened between him and Rome. Scanning doubtless
with eagerness every possible outlet through the mountains, he had reached the
little town of Tadinum. Further north he had not been
able to penetrate, before Narses arrived upon the crest of the pass.
Here then, upon the Flaminian Way, but high up in the heart of the
Apennines, must be fought the battle which was to decide once and for ever the
embittered quarrel between the nation of the Ostrogoths and Eastern Rome. The
place is worthy to be the theatre of great events. It is close to the ‘House of
two Waters' from which flows on one side a stream that eventually swells the
waters of the Tiber and passes out into the Tyrrhene Sea, on the other the torrent of the Burano, which pours itself through rocky defiles
northwards to the Adriatic. The valley itself is a sort of long trough sloping
gradually towards the south. On the eastern side, with their summits for the
most part invisible from this point, rise some of the greatest mountains of the
Apennine chain, snow-crowned Monte Cucco, Monte Catria with its grand buttress,
Monte Corno, Monte Strega looking like a witch's hand with five skinny fingers
pointing upward to the sky. On the opposite side of the valley, upon our right
as we look towards Rome, rises a lower but more picturesque range of hills.
These sharp serrated summits, so clearly defined against the sunset sky, are
Monte S. Ubaldo and Monte Calvo, the mountains of Gubbio. At their base, hidden
from us because on the other side of them lies the little city of Gubbio, dear
to scholars for its precious Eugubine Tables which enshrine the language of
ancient Umbria, and dear to painters for the frescoes of Nelli, one of the most
reverent of the artists of Umbria.
The distance between Scheggia and Tadino is about fifteen miles, agreeing closely enough with
the distance of one hundred stadia which, according to Procopius, intervened at
first between the camps of the two generals. But a more precise identification
of the site of the battle I am not able to furnish. I have no doubt that it was
fought south of Scheggia and north of Tadino; but Procopius, whose campaigning days were over,
and who was evidently not himself present at the battle, does not, I fear,
enable us to fix the site more accurately than this.
As soon as Narses had encamped his army he sent an embassy to Totila,
strongly recommending him to lay down his arms and abandon the hopeless task of
resisting, with his handful of disorderly followers, the whole might of the
Roman Empire. If, however, the ambassadors perceived him still bent on battle
they were to ask him to name the day. Totila haughtily rejected the counsels of
his foe, and when asked upon what day he proposed to fight, replied: “In eight
days from this time”. Narses suspected a stratagem and prepared for battle on
the morrow. He had read his enemy's mind aright. On the very next day Totila
suddenly appeared with his whole army and encamped at the distance of two
bowshots from the Imperialists.
A hill of moderate height (probably an outlier of the main Apennine
range) looked down upon both armies, and commanded a path by which the Imperial
host might be taken in rear. The possession of this hill was at once seen to be
a matter of great importance to either side, but Narses was beforehand with
Totila in seizing this coign of vantage. Fifty picked footsoldiers were sent to occupy it during the night, and when day dawned the Goths, from
their encampment opposite, saw these men drawn up in serried array, and having
their front protected by the bed of a torrent running parallel to the only
path, before alluded to. A squadron of cavalry was sent to dislodge them, but
the Romans kept their rank, and by clashing upon their shields, so frightened
the horses of the Goths that they were able to lay low many an embarrassed
rider with their spear-thrusts. The cavalry fell into helpless confusion, and
retired discomfited. Again and again with fresh squadrons of horse did Totila
attempt to dislodge them, but the brave Fifty kept their ground unbroken. The honours
of this fight fell pre-eminently to two men, by name Paulus and Ausilas, who stepped forth, Horatius-like, before their
comrades to bear the stress of battle. They laid their scimitars on the ground
and drew their bows, slaying a horse or a man with each discharge, so long as
there was an arrow in their quivers. Then drawing their swords they lopped off
one by one the spear-heads which the Goths protruded against them. By these
repeated strokes the sword of Paulus was at length so bent as to become quite
useless. He threw it on the ground and, with his unarmed hands, seized and
broke no fewer than four of the spears of the enemy. This desperate valour more
than anything else daunted the Gothic assailants and compelled them to abandon
their attempt upon the hill where the Fifty were posted. Paulus was rewarded
after the battle by being made one of the guardsmen of Narses.
Now were the two main armies drawn up in battle array, and in that
position they were harangued by their respective leaders Narses congratulated
his troops on their evident superiority to the band of robbers and deserters
who composed the Gothic host; a superiority which, by the Divine favour, was
certain to bring them the victory. He reviled the soldiers in the hostile army
as the runaway slaves of the Emperor, their King as a leader picked out of the
gutter, and declared that it was only by tricks and thievish artifice that they
had so long been able to harass the Empire. Lastly, he dwelt upon the ephemeral
character of all the barbaric royalties, contrasting them with the settled
order, the deep vitality, the diuturnity (if such a word may be allowed us) of
the mighty Roman State. Totila, perceiving that a shiver of admiring awe ran
through the Gothic lines at the sight of the mighty host of the Empire, called
upon his comrades for one last effort of valour, a last effort, since
Justinian, like themselves, was weary of the war, and, if discomfited now,
would molest them no more forever. “After all, why should any soldier fly? The
only motive could be love of life, and he was infinitely safer, to appeal to no
higher motive, fighting in the ranks with the enemy than after he had once
turned his back before them. Nor were they really the formidable host which
they seemed. Huns, and Longobards, and Heruli, a
motley horde got together from all quarters, like the miscellaneous dishes of a
club-feast, they had no bond of unity, no instinct of cohesion. Their pay was
the only inducement to fight that they could understand, and now that they had
received that, it would not be surprising if, in compliance with the secret
orders of their national leaders, they absolutely melted away from the ranks on
the field of undesired battle”
Narses, who had evidently the superiority in numbers as well as in
equipment, drew up his troops in the following order. In the centre he
stationed his barbarian allies, the Lombards and the Heruli, and, as he was not
over-confident of their stability, he directed them to dismount and fight on
foot, in order that flight might not be easy if they were minded to fly. All
his best Roman troops, with picked men from among the Hunnish barbarians, men
who for their prowess had been selected as body-guards, he stationed on his
left wing, where he himself and his lieutenant John were in command. This
portion of the army was covered by the hill before described, which was held by
the fifty valiant men, and which seems to have been ‘the key of the position'.
Under this hill, and at an angle with the rest of his line, Narses stationed
two bodies of cavalry, numbering respectively one thousand and five hundred.
The five hundred were to watch the Roman line and strengthen any part which
might seem for the moment to be wavering. The thousand were to wait for the
commencement of the action, and then to strain every nerve in order to get to
the rear of the Goths, and so place them between two attacks. On the left wing
were the rest of the Roman troops under John the Glutton, together with
Valerian and Dagisthaeus. On each flank was a force
of four thousand archers, fighting, contrary to the usual custom of Roman
archers in those days, on foot. Looking at the tactics of the Roman general as
a whole, we perceive an almost ostentatious disregard of what might happen to
his centre. He was determined to conquer with the wings of his army, determined
that Totila, not he, should make the attack, and that when the enemy attacked
he should be outflanked and surrounded by the picked troops on his right and
left. We have no particulars as to the Gothic order of battle. We know only
that Totila drew up his troops in the same manner as the enemy had done, that,
unlike Narses, he relied a good deal on the effect to be produced by his cavalry,
and that he ordered his warriors to use no weapon but the spear, herein,
according to Procopius, committing a fatal blunder, and, in fact, handing the
game over to the Romans, whose soldiers, more elastic in their movements and
trusted with greater freedom by their commanders, might thrust with the spear,
transfix with the arrow, or hew down with the broad sword, each as he found he
could fight most successfully.
There was a pause, a long pause, before the two armies encountered one
another. It was for Totila to commence, and he, knowing that the last two
thousand men of the army of Teias were on their way
to join him, purposely postponed the signal. Various demonstrations filled up
these waiting hours of the morning. Totila rode along his line, with firm voice
and cheery countenance, exhorting his men to be of good courage. The Eunuch-General
appealed not to the patriotism or the manhood of his miscellaneous horde of
warriors, but to their avarice, riding in front of them and dangling, before
their hungry eyes, armlets, twisted collars, and bridles, all of gold. “These”,
said he, “and such other prizes as these shall reward your valour if you fight
well today”.
Then rode forth Cocas (once a Roman soldier but now serving Totila) and
challenged the bravest of the Imperial host to single combat. An Armenian, Anzalas by name, accepted the challenge. Cocas rode
impetuously on, couching his spear, which he aimed at the belly of his
antagonist. A sudden swerve of the Armenian, made at the right moment of time,
saved his life and enabled him in passing to give a fatal thrust at the left
flank of his antagonist. With a crash fell Cocas from his horse and a great
shout from the roman ranks hailed this presage of victory.
Still the Gothic two thousand lingered, and in order further to pass the
time, Totila, who had been practiced from his youth in all the arts of
horsemanship, gratified the two armies with an extraordinary performance.
Richly dressed, with gold lavishly displayed on helmet, mail, and greaves, with
purple favours fluttering from his cheek-strap, his pilum and his spear, he
rode forth on his high-spirited horse between the opposed squadrons. Now he
wheeled his horse to the right, then sharply to the left. Anon he threw his
heavy spear up to the morning breezes, stretched out his hand and caught it by
the middle in its quivering fall. Then he tossed the spear from hand to hand,
he lay back in his saddle he rose with disparted legs, he bent to one side,
then to the other; he displayed in their perfection all the accomplishments of
the Gothic achievements. Strange anticipation of the coming dawn of chivalry!
Strange but fatal contrast between the lithe form of the young barbarian hero,
rejoicing in his strength, and the bowed figure of the withered and aged Eunuch
whose wily brain was even then surely devising the athlete's overthrow. Still
further to delay the battle, Totila sent a message to Narses inviting him to a
conference; but the Eunuch declined the offer, saying that Totila had before
professed himself eager for the fight, and now might have his wish.
At length, just at the time of the noonday meal, the expected two
thousand arrived in the camp. Totila, who had drawn back his army within their
entrenchments, bade them and the new-comers take food and armour with all
speed, and then led them forth precipitately, hoping to catch the Imperial host
in the disorder and relaxation of the midday repast. Not so, however, was
Narses to be outwitted. This sudden attack was the very thing which he had
looked for, and to guard against its evil consequences no regular luncheon, no
noontide slumber, had been permitted to his men. Their food had been served out
to them while still under arms and keeping rank, as to the knights of a later
day—
‘Who
drank the red wine through the helmet barred'.
Moreover, true to his policy of taking the Goths in flank, he had turned
his straight line into a crescent, drawing back his barbarian centre and
trusting to the eight thousand archers on his wings to give a good account of
the enemy.
These tactics were completely successful. Totila’s charge of horse failed to reach the Imperial center,
and while they were engaged in this hopeless quest, the eight thousand archers
kept up a murderous discharge of arrows on their flanks. The Lombards and
Heruli also, whose disposition for fighting had been up to the last moment
uncertain, threw themselves into the fray with unexpected eagerness, so that
Procopius is doubtful whether they or their Roman fellow-soldier displayed the
more brilliant valour.
For some time the Gothic mounted spearmen maintained the unequal fight,
but when the sun was declining their heavy masses came staggering back towards
the supporting infantry. It was not an orderly retreat; there was no thought of
forming again and charging the pursuing foe. It seemed to the Romans that the
hearts of the Goths had suddenly died within them, as if they had met with an
army of ghosts, or felt that they were fighting against Heaven. The flight of
the cavalry was so headlong and so violent that some of their own friends were
trampled to death under their horsehoofs.
The contagion of fear imparted itself to the supporting infantry. They
probably knew themselves outnumbered, they saw themselves outflanked, and they
fled in irretrievable disorder. The Imperialists pressed on unpitying, slaying
Gothic warrior and Roman deserter with equal fury. Some of the vanquished cried
for quarter and obtained it at the time, but were soon after perfidiously slain
by their captors. In all the Gothic army none were saved except by headlong
flight.
And where the while was Totila, he of the gold-embossed shield and
purple-fluttering spear? One account states that, being disguised as a common
soldier, he was wounded by an arrow, shot at a venture, at the beginning of the
fight, and that his departure from the field, together with the depression
resulting from such an apparent sign of the anger of Heaven, caused the
subsequent disorder. Another account, that which Procopius seems to have
preferred, related that the Gothic King, still unwounded and possibly in mean
disguise, fled at nightfall with four or five followers, on swift horses, from
the battlefield. They were closely pursued by some Imperialist soldiers,
ignorant of the rank of the fugitive. One of these, Asbad the Gepid, was about to strike Totila in the back with his spear. A young Goth
belonging to the royal household cried out, "Dog! what mean you by trying
to strike your own lord?”. The incautious exclamation revealed the secret of Totila's identity, and of course Asbad thrust in his spear with all the greater vigor. Scipuar (the recent besieger of Ancona) wounded Asbad in the foot, but himself received a stroke which
hindered his further flight. The companions of Asbad tarried to dress the wound of their fallen friend. Totila's companions, who thought they were still pursued, hurried him on, though
mortally stricken and now scarcely breathing. At length, at the village of Caprae, thirteen miles from the battlefield, they stopped
and tried to tend his wound. But it was too late; in a few minutes the hero's
life was ended.
The traveler who is journeying from Gubbio to Tadino, when he is drawing near to the latter place, sees
from the bridge over the Chiascio a little hamlet
among the hills to the right, which bears the mar of Caprara. There seems no
good reason for doubting that this is the place, formerly known as Caprae, to which the faithful Goths bore their pallid
master, and where they laid him down to die.
According to the other story heard by Procopius, Totila was forced by
the intolerable pain of his wound to quit the field of battle, and ride by
himself to Caprae, but at that place was compelled to
alight and have his wound dressed, in the course of which operation he died.
The Romans had no knowledge of the death of their great enemy till a
woman of the Goths informed them of the fact, and offered to show them the
grave. They disinterred the dead body, looked at the discolored features, saw that they were indeed those of Totila; then, without offering any
further indignity to the corpse, they hurried off with the glad tidings to
Narses, who was piously thanking God and the Virgin for the victory.
In the month of August messengers arrived to Constantinople bearing the
tidings of victory, attesting them by the bloodstained robe and gemmed helmet
of the Gothic king, which they cast at the feet of the Emperor in his stately
Hall of Audience.
And thus ended the career of the Teutonic hero Baduila—for
we must restore him his own name in death—a man who perhaps more even than
Theodoric himself deserves to be considered the type and embodiment of all that
was noblest in the Ostrogothic nation, and who, if he had filled the place of
Athalaric or even of Witigis, would assuredly have made for himself a
world-famous name in European History. If the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy
might but have lived, Baduila would have held the
same high place in its annals which Englishmen accord to Alfred, Frenchmen to
Charlemagne and Germans to the mighty Barbarossa.
