A Struggle for Rome, v. 2

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER II.

  While the Goths were assembling at Regeta, the powerful army ofBelisarius had invested the hard-pressed city of Neapolis in a widesemicircle.

  Rapid and irresistible as a fire in dry heather, the army of theByzantines had advanced from the southernmost point of Italy to thewalls of the Parthenopeian town, meeting with no resistance, for,thanks to Theodahad's man[oe]uvres, not a thousand Goths were to befound in all these parts. The short skirmish at the Pass of Jugum wasthe only hindrance with which the Greeks had met.

  The Roman inhabitants of Bruttia, with its towns, Regium, Vibo andSquillacium, Tempsa and Croton, Ruscia and Thurii; of Calabria, withGallipolis, Tarentum, and Brundusium; of Lucania, with Velia andBuxentum; of Apulia, with Acheruntia and Canusium, Salernum, Nuceria,and Campsae, and many other towns, had received Belisarius with joy,when, in the name of the Emperor, he promised them deliverance from theyoke of the heretics and barbarians.

  To the Aufidus on the east and the Sarnus on the south-west, Italy waswrested from the Goths; and the walls of Neapolis was the firstobstacle which broke the rush of the inimical flood which wasthreatening to overwhelm all Italy.

  The camp of Belisarius was worthy of the name of a splendid spectacle.In the north, before the Porta Nolana, stood the camp of the "bloody"Johannes. To his care was entrusted the Via Nolana, and the task offorcing the way to Rome. There, on the wide levels, in the corn-fieldsof the industrious Goths, the Massagetae and the yellow-skinned Hunsexercised their small rough horses.

  Near them were encamped the light-foot of the Persian mercenaries,dressed in linen coats, and armed with bows and arrows; heavy Armenianshield-bearers; Macedonians with lances ten feet long, called sarrissi;and large troops of Thessalian, Thracian and Saracen horsemen, who,condemned to a hated inactivity during the siege, did their best tooccupy their leisure time by inroads into the neighbouring country.

  The camp in the centre, exactly on the east of the city, was occupiedby the main army; Belisarius's large tent of blue Sidonian silk,with its purple standard, towered in the middle. Here strutted thebody-guard which Belisarius himself had armed and paid, and which onlythose who had distinguished themselves by valiant deeds were allowed tojoin, gay in richly-gilded breast-plates and greaves, bronze shields,broad-swords, and halberd-like lances. These men were frequentlypromoted to the highest rank.

  The kernel of the foot-soldiers was formed by eight thousand Illyrians,the only worthy troop sent by Greece itself; and here, too, wereencamped, under the command of their native chiefs, the Avari,Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and even Germans, as well as Herulians andGepidae, whom Belisarius was obliged to enlist at a heavy price, inorder to cover the want of native soldiery. Here, too, were the Italianemigrants and many deserters.

  Finally, the south-western camp, which stretched along the coast, wascommanded by Martinus, who superintended the service of the implementsof siege. Here stood, stored up, the catapults and balistae, the ramsand slings; here mingled Isaurian allies and the contingents sent bynewly-recovered Africa; Moorish and Numidian horsemen and Libyanslingers. And almost all the barbaric races of three-quarters of theglobe had here their representatives; Bajuvars from the Donau, Alemannifrom the Rhine, Franks from the Maas, Burgundians from the Rhone, Antaefrom the Dniester, Lazians from the Phasis, and the Abasgi, Siberians,Lebanthians and Lycaonians from Asia and Africa, all well skilled inarchery.

  Out of such heterogeneous materials was the army composed, with whichJustinian hoped to drive away the Gothic barbarians and liberate Italy.

  The command of the outposts, always and everywhere, was entrusted tothe body-guard; and the chain of stations extended round the city fromthe Porta Capuana almost to the waves of the sea.

  Neapolis was badly fortified and weakly garrisoned. Less than athousand Goths were there to defend the extensive ramparts against anarmy of forty thousand Byzantines and Italians.

  Earl Uliaris, the commander of the city, was a brave man, and had swornby his beard not to deliver up the fortress. But even he would not havebeen long able to withstand the far superior force and generalship ofBelisarius, had not a fortunate circumstance come to his assistance.This was the premature return of the Grecian fleet to Byzantium. When,namely, Belisarius, after having rested his troops and re-ordered hisarmy in Regium, had given the command for a general advance of the landand sea forces to Neapolis, his navarchus Konon had showed him an orderfrom the Emperor, till then kept secret, according to which the fleetwas to sail, immediately after landing the troops, to Nicopolis on theGrecian coast, under the pretext of fetching reinforcements, but inreality to fetch Prince Germanus, the nephew of Justinian, with hisimperial lancers, to Italy, where he was to observe, control, and, incase of need, check the victorious steps of Belisarius, and, ascommander-in-chief, to protect the interests of the suspicious Emperor.

  With deep vexation Belisarius saw his fleet set sail just at the momentwhen he needed it most, and he only succeeded, after much urgency, ingaining the promise of the navarchus to send him four war-triremes,which were still cruising off Sicily. So Belisarius, when he preparedto besiege Neapolis, was, indeed, able to enclose the city to thenorth-east, east, and north-west with his land forces--the western roadto Rome, defended by the castellum Tiberii, was successfully kept byEarl Uliaris--but he was not able to blockade the harbour nor preventfree communication by sea.

  At first he comforted himself with the fact that the besieged likewisehad no fleet, and could therefore derive little benefit from thisfreedom of movement; but now he was, for the first time, baffled by thetalent and temerity of an adversary whom he afterwards learned to fear.

  This was Totila, who had scarcely reached Neapolis after the fight atthe pass, had scarcely aided Julius in showing the last honours to theremains of Valerius, and in drying Valeria's first tears, than hebegan, with restless activity, to create a fleet out of nothing. He wascommodore of the squadron at Neapolis, but King Theodahad, as we know,had, in spite of his remonstrances, ordered the whole fleet out of theway of Belisarius to Pisa, where it was appointed to guard the mouth ofthe Arnus. So, from the very beginning, Totila had nothing under hiscommand but three small guard-ships, two of which he had later lost offSicily; and he had returned to Neapolis despairing of every possibilityof defending the city towards the sea. But when he heard the incrediblenews of the return home of the Byzantine fleet his hopes revived, andhe did not rest until he had--out of fishing-boats, merchant-craft,harbour-boats, and the hastily-repaired disabled ships on thewharves--formed a little fleet of about twelve sail, which couldneither defy a storm at sea nor cope with a single man-of-war, butcould still do good service, such as to provide Baiae, Cumae and othertowns to the north-west, which would otherwise have been completely cutoff, with victuals; to observe the movements of the enemy on the coast,and plague them with repeated attacks; in which Totila himself oftenlanded in the south at the rear of the Grecian camp, surprised--nowhere, now there--some troop of the enemy, and spread such insecurity,that the Byzantines at last only ventured to leave the camp in strongdetachments, and never dared to stray far, while Totila's success gavefresh courage to the hard-pressed garrison of Neapolis, who werewearied by incessant watching and frequent combats.

  Notwithstanding this partial success, Totila could not hide fromhimself that his position was very grave and that as soon as a fewGrecian ships should appear before the city it would be desperate.

  He therefore used a portion of his boats to convoy a number of theunarmed inhabitants of Neapolis to Baiae and Cumae, angrily repelling thedemand of the rich, that this means of safety should be granted only tothose who paid for it; and taking rich and poor, without distinction,into his saving vessels.

  In vain had Totila repeatedly and earnestly begged Valeria to fly inone of these ships, under the protection of Julius; she would not yetleave the tomb of her father; she would not part from her lover, whosepraise as protector of the city she was only too much delighted to hearproclaimed by al
l voices.

  So she continued to reside in her old home in the city, indulging inher sorrow and in her love.