Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  My fears that the Gothic war-band we had driven off was merely part of Vitiges’ advance guard proved groundless. The King of the Goths was still at Ravenna, but news of the defeat outside Perugua seems to have spurred him into action.

  He divided his enormous host, sending part of it into Dalmatia. In an attempt to distract the Goths, Justinian had ordered the remains of Mundus’s troops in Illyria to cross the border and do as much damage as they could before withdrawing again.

  Vitiges then led the rest of his army, which still numbered some one hundred and fifty thousand men, south towards Rome. Belisarius hurriedly recalled Bessas and Constantine, instructing them to leave small garrisons in the towns we had captured.

  Bessas, who unwisely despised the Goths and rated them poor soldiers, was slow in retreating, and almost caught by the vanguard of the Gothic host. He managed to extricate himself, not without heavy loss, and led the survivors of his command in an undignified scramble back to Rome.

  I was ordered to accompany the main part of Constantine’s force back to the city. The Goths pressed hard on our heels as we rode at a hard gallop along the Via Flaminia, the ancient road leading to the Flaminian Gate. Constantine called a halt when we reached the Milvian Bridge, two miles north of Rome.

  This great stone causeway over the Tiber had been the scene of an epic battle between the Emperor Constantine and his rival Maxentius, some two hundred years previously. Constantine won, and went on to move the capital of the empire from Rome to a decrepit fishing port on the Bosphorus, which he modestly named after himself.

  The bridge was the main route to Rome, and the Goths would have to cross it. Knowing this, Belisarius built an enormous wooden tower on the southern side of the river, six levels high and with fighting platforms for archers to rain missiles down on anyone advancing over the bridge. The tower commanded the passage over the river, and was manned with a strong garrison of Isaurians.

  Constantine hailed the soldiers in the tower as we rested our horses on the northern side before crossing.

  “There is a fine difference between an orderly withdrawal and headlong flight,” he said, “I don’t want the barbarians to think we are running away.”

  Running away was precisely what we were doing, but again I didn’t want to shatter his delusions.

  I shaded my eyes to look north. As expected, I glimpsed a great storm of dust rolling across the plains, and felt the earth tremble slightly underfoot, like a distant earthquake.

  “They are coming,” one of my soldiers said bleakly.

  I swallowed. They were coming. A hundred and fifty thousand Goths, hot for revenge against the pathetic handful of Romans that had dared to invade their land.

  The siege of Rome had begun.

  14.

  The Goths came on fast, ignoring our garrisons at Narni and Spoleto and Perugua. Vitiges was not to be distracted from the main prize, and all of the obstacles Belisarius had strewn in his path failed to impede his advance for a second. All, save the tower guarding the Milvian Bridge.

  Our soldiers, including myself, crowded the walls beside the Flaminian Gate to watch the innumerable squadrons of the Gothic vanguard march into view.

  Like locusts, Procopius had described the Gothic host, and it seemed an apt description. A horrified silence fell over our men as the enemy spread across the land north of the bridge.

  One hundred and fifty thousand men. It sounds meaningless, a mere statistic, until you see them in the flesh. It was as though Hell had vomited up its legions of the damned, rank after rank, squadron after squadron of barbarians.

  I still call them barbarians, an arrogant conceit I picked up from the Romans, but they were no undisciplined horde of savages. They had learned the art of war from Rome, and deployed with a smooth, calm efficiency that would have brought a happy tear to the eye of Agricola or Scipio Africanus.

  “Vitiges is in no hurry,” remarked Procopius, who stood to my left, “he likes to sup his vengeance cold, this one. Pity. I had hoped he would charge at Rome like a bull, and dash his brains out against our defences.”

  “We are dead men,” a soldier muttered to my right, “how can we resist such a multitude? Belisarius has brought us to our deaths.”

  “Stop whimpering,” I said angrily, “the Goths have not won a single victory against us. Every time we fight them, they surrender or run away screaming, like frightened children.”

  He smiled bitterly. “I would think twice before facing a hundred and fifty thousand children, sir.”

  “A hundred and fifty thousand, or half a million, it makes no odds,” I said dismissively, “they cannot cross the bridge. Let them sit on the northern banks of the Tiber and shout insults at us. They will soon grow hoarse with shouting, and turn for home.”

  Brave words, uttered with conviction, but it was all an act. I knew the Goths were not children, and that the tower over the Milvian Bridge could not hold them forever, but I was trying to play the role of an officer and raise morale. Judging from the cynical expressions of the soldiers who heard me, I had overplayed it.

  Belisarius intended the tower to delay the Gothic advance, obliging them to waste valuable time building boats or marching around to find some other bridge. Such an enormous host could only be kept in the field with difficulty, and would eventually start to break up. Once that happened, Belisarius could ride out and destroy the scattered Gothic armies in turn.

  Such was my understanding of his strategy. The morning after our return to Rome, he led out a thousand of his men to camp on the shores of the Tiber and observe the movements of the enemy. He took Bessas with him, which meant my little command was part of the expedition.

  Had I know what would follow, I might have feigned illness or injury, anything to keep me safe inside the walls of Rome.

  It was a sharp morning in the dying days of winter, cold and with a smattering of frost on the ground, but with the scent of spring and renewal in the air. Some of the pessimism among our men had died away, for the Goths had not moved overnight, and the dark mass of their army was still encamped beyond the northern side of the bridge.

  Belisarius wore his golden armour, as though on parade, and rode his famous white-faced bay. I remember being cheered by the sight of him riding at the head of the column, our peerless general, with the purple and gold imperial standard fluttering above his head.

  We spread out in a double line and approached the bridge at an easy canter. The Goths had no catapults or ballistae set up on the northern side of the bridge, and we were well out of bow-shot. I imagined Belisarius standing on the southern banks of the Tiber and thumbing his nose at the enemy, and smiled.

  Half a mile from the bridge, our trumpeters sounded the halt. We reined in with practiced discipline, and Belisarius trotted forward a few steps, leaning forward in the saddle to study the tower.

  Suddenly he wheeled his bay in a circle and galloped back to our line. “Back!” I heard him shout, his voice hoarse and urgent, “back to the city, at once!”

  More trumpets sounded, not ours, but from the north. Hundreds of Gothic cavalry were pouring over the bridge. For a terrible moment I thought the tower had been abandoned, but then I saw helmets gleaming on the upper levels. I waited, expecting our Isaurians to unleash a deadly hail of arrows.

  Nothing happened. Even as our trumpets squealed the retreat, and I barked at my men to turn about, the full horror of the situation dashed over me like freezing water.

  The men in the tower were Goths. Somehow they had seized it during the night, slaughtering or driving away the garrison. That was impossible. Our sentries on the Flaminian Gate kept a constant vigil on the tower. If the Goths had attempted an assault, the Isaurians would have sounded the alarm. Belisarius kept a strong body of Hunnish lancers on permanent alert, ready to ride out and aid the garrison.

  The Goths moved fast, determined to catch Belisarius in the open before he reached the safety of the city. We fled back across the plain with the taste of fear in our mouth
s. I lashed my horse’s flanks with my spurs until the poor animal bled, growling at her to find an extra burst of speed.

  Belisarius reached the Flaminian Gate and shouted at the soldiers on the ramparts to admit us. They hesitated.

  “What ails you?” he screamed, snatching off his helmet, “why do you delay? See, it is me, your general! Open the gates!”

  They refused to obey. Terrified by the sudden onset of the Goths, the men on the rampart abandoned all notions of duty and courage, and thought only of their own safety.

  Belisarius cursed and railed at them, threatening all kinds of dire punishments, to no avail. They vanished, and we were left stranded outside the city with thousands of baying Goths closing in behind us.

  A lesser man might have lost his head completely. Belisarius wheeled around, his face ashen, and addressed his officers.

  “You, sirs! Why are you standing there like a pack of lost sheep? Bessas, your cohort will form the left flank. Constantine, the right. I will lead my guards in the centre. Move!”

  He was going to attack. It seemed insane, but what else could we do, save wait to be slaughtered?

  I barely had time to think. Bessas roared us into line, forming up in a single column on the left, while Belisarius arranged his guards. My horse neighed and tossed her head, and I soothed her with a trembling hand, gulping and breathing fast as I observed the approach of the Goths.

  Some two to three thousand had crossed by now, and were thundering towards us in a wild, all-out charge. Their red and black banners streamed in the wind, while the sound of their deep-throated war-yells rolled like thunder across the plain.

  To oppose that rapidly advancing horror was to embrace death. Another few seconds, and I might have shied away, my courage stretched and snapped beyond endurance, but the sound of the trumpets called me to my duty.

  “Charge, charge, charge!” howled Bessas, kicking his own bay into life. His cohort surged after him, straight at the solid wall of iron and horseflesh flowing towards us.

  Then I heard it, another cry leaping from thousands of Gothic throats and rippling around the field like a forest fire:

  That is Belisarius! Kill the bay! Kill the bay!

  Our general’s fame had worked against him. His golden armour and white-faced bay were famous across the known world, and he made no attempt to hide himself, galloping at the head of his guards, his lance aimed at the heart of the Gothic line.

  Then we were among them. I found myself guarding against two Goths at once, taking their blows on my shield. The half-healed cut on my right shoulder burst. Warm blood flowed down my arm as I struggled to hold my beaten and dented shield upright.

  One of the Goths was young, with just a frizz of blonde hair on his chin and upper lip, and too eager. I leaned back in the saddle, his spatha slashed inches past my face, and darted forward to stab at his throat. Caledfwlch’s blade slid easily in and out of his flesh, and he jerked and tumbled away, blood gushing down his breastplate.

  The second Goth tried to beat me down with sheer strength. He almost succeeded. Chips flew from the ragged edges of my shield as his sword scraped and banged against it. I let him blow himself out, and then gave him the point, missing his eye but smashing in several of his teeth.

  “Guard the general! Guard the general!”

  Bessas’ voice, rising above the clash of weapons and the wild howls of the Goths. A gap appeared to my right among the waves of horsemen. I briefly glimpsed Belisarius, locked in a duel with an enormous Gothic chieftain over twice his size.

  The combat seemed unequal, but Belisarius’ sword was the quicker, and whipped out the chieftain’s throat. His opponent had no sooner fallen than his Guards clustered around him, raising and interlocking their shields to form an impenetrable wall around their master.

  Bessas had led his troop to join the wall, and was bawling at the rest of his command to fall in line. Belisarius had to be protected. If he fell, our cause was lost.

  I shouted at my men to obey. We attached ourselves to the left flank, and more men flowed in behind us, until a ring of wood and metal was presented to the Goths. I gritted my teeth, gasping at the pain of my re-opened wound and the impact of spears and javelins thudding against my tattered shield.

  After a time the Goths gave back, and it was safe to lower my shield and take stock. They were retreating towards the river, leaving a great number of dead and wounded scattered across the plain.

  Constantine had charged to the rescue, hitting them in flank and rolling them up while they tried to break our line. I saw Belisarius, untouched despite the best efforts of the enemy, raise his sword and order another charge.

  “Drive them to the river!” he shouted, “drown these beasts in the Tiber, and give their souls to Hades!”

  I was sweating, bleeding, panic-struck, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. Another charge into this inexhaustible horde of devils was beyond me, but we did it, spurring forward and pursuing the fugitives, coming up with them even as they tried to re-form on the banks of the river.

  I washed Caledfwlch in Gothic blood, until I was red to the shoulders and could barely see for a film of sweat and dirt and gore. We butchered them like pigs, but still more stormed across the Milvian Bridge, including a squadron of spearmen on foot, many thousands strong.

  A good part of our command was scattered or slain, and we had no hope of resisting the Gothic infantry. Their ring-mail shined like mirrors in the cold winter sun, and the sight of their long-axes sent a shudder through me, awakening bad memories of the desperate fight for the walls at Naples.

  Belisarius signaled the retreat, but the Flaminian Gate was still closed against us. In desperation, he led us onto a rising patch of ground, about midway between the river and the city. There he arranged us into a sort of human fortress, with half our remaining soldiers dismounted and forming a hollow circle of shields, while the remainder waited inside, resting their horses and preparing to sally forth when Belisarius gave the order.

  A third of my men were dead, and the survivors every bit as bloody and exhausted as their chief. I stood, leaning on a borrowed spear for support, blinking away blood and sweat from my eyes as fresh waves of Goths charged towards our miserably slender battle-line.

  Kill Belisarius! Kill Belisarius!

  “What about the rest of us, you bastards!” I shouted back, a moment of grim humour in the face of disaster. I am still rather proud of it, considering death was about to stretch out his bony hand and snuff out my candle.

  It was then I witnessed the noblest and most heroic act of the war. A young officer named Valentinian – I learned later that he was a great friend of Photius – suddenly broke out of our line and galloped straight at the advancing spears.

  His mare foundered, unwilling to hurl herself on the points, but he vaulted from the saddle and vanished among the throng. The disciplined, stately Gothic advance stumbled to a halt as men in the forward ranks turned to strike at Valentinian, who had leaped to his feet. He struck left and right with his sword, mowing down Goths like ripe corn, careless of the forest of spears that stabbed and thrust at him.

  At last, slathered in blood, Valentinian fell, and was run through as he lay squirming on the ground. His sacrifice had a great effect on the Goths, who ignored the shouts of their captains and failed to resume their advance.

  Perhaps they eyed us nervously, thinking that we were all like Valentinian, ready to fight to our last breath in defence of Rome. Thank God they could not see into my heart. I was spent, all used up, shaking with terror and fatigue, ready to lie down and welcome eternity. Another Gothic assault would have rolled over my head.

  Belisarius acted before the spell cast by Valentinian’s sacrifice broke. “Withdraw,” I heard him say. His trumpeter sounded the weary note, and we began our retreat back to the city. The men on foot resumed their horses from the cavalry in the middle, and formed a rearguard as we retreated in good order.

  The Goths stood and watched us go,
like thousands of statues arranged in long lines. A strange hush fell over the field.

  Our toils were not done, not yet. Twilight was sweeping in from the west, rendering everything dim and uncertain. As we passed beyond the ditch that lay outside the walls, a groan rippled down our line. The gates were still shut.

  Drums started to beat behind us. The sound of doom. How long before the Goths recovered their courage?

  “Soldiers,” said Belisarius, addressing the sentinels on the Flaminian Gate, “for the love of God, open the gates. Do so, or bear my curse.”

  His voice sounded hollow and exhausted. Despite fighting in the front line for so many hours, he had not taken a single wound, but his golden armour was torn and dented, and liberally coated in blood. His helmet was gone, mangled in the fighting, and the light of the dying sun reflected from a sheen of perspiration on his balding scalp.

  “We dare not, sir,” replied one of the men on the gate, “if we open the gates, the Goths might force entry to the city.”

  Miserable coward! Black rage welled up inside me. I would have started forward and hurled obscenities at him, had others not already done so.

  “Open those damned gates!” hollered Bessas, his bulky frame shaking with anger, “or I’ll have the lot of you flayed alive and fed to the dogs!

  Still the sentries prevaricated, and the sound I had dreaded reached my ears: the deep, drawn-out drone of a bull-horn. The Goths were advancing again.

  “Constantine,” Belisarius snapped, but the young officer had anticipated his orders and was already shouting at the battered remains of his squadron to form up.

  Where they found the strength, God knows, but Constantine led them in one of his wild, fearless charges at the Gothic lancers advancing at a trot towards the city. Surprised, for they thought us spent, they were routed after a brief and vicious melee, and scattered back towards their own lines.

  Constantine’s men suffered severe losses, but this last success was enough to embolden the sentries on the rampart. Shame-faced, they at last opened the gates to admit us.