A Struggle for Rome, v. 2

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  At mid-day Procopius rode into Ravenna.

  He carried with him four letters: the letter of Justinian toBelisarius, the letters of the King of the Franks to Cethegus andBelisarius, and a letter from Belisarius to Witichis.

  This last had been written by Procopius and dictated by Cethegus.

  The ambassador had no suspicion of the mood in which he should find theKing of the Goths and his beautiful Queen.

  The healthy but simple mind of the King had begun to darken, if not todespair, under the pressure of continual misfortune. The murder of hisonly child, the terrible wrench of parting from his beloved wife, hadshaken him to the very soul; but he had borne it all in the hope ofsecuring victory to the Goths.

  And now this victory obstinately tarried.

  In spite of all efforts, the state of his people became more hopelessevery month. With the single exception of the battle fought and won onthe march to Rome, fortune had never smiled upon the Goths.

  The siege of Rome, undertaken with such proud hopes, had ended in awoeful retreat and the loss of three-fourths of the army. New strokesof fortune, bad news that followed each other like rapid blows,increased the King's depression, until it degenerated into a state ofdull despair.

  Almost all Italy, except Ravenna, was lost. Belisarius, while yet inRome, had sent a fleet to Genoa, under the command of Mundila theHerulian, and Ennes the Isaurian. The troops had landed withoutresistance, had conquered the sea-ruling harbour of Genoa, and, fromthat point, almost all Liguria.

  Datius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, himself invited the Byzantines tothat important city. Thence they easily won Bergomum, Comum, andNovaria.

  On the other side, the discouraged Goths in Clusium and the half-ruinedDertona surrendered to the besiegers and were led prisoners out ofItaly.

  Urbinum, after a brave resistance, was taken by the Byzantines; alsoForum Cornelii and the whole district of AEmilia by Johannes. The Gothsfailed to retake Ancona, Ariminum, and Mediolanum.

  Still worse news presently arrived to increase the despondency of theKing. For meanwhile famine was making ravages in the wide districts ofAEmilia, Picenum and Tuscany.

  There were neither men, cattle, nor horses to serve the plough. Thepeople fled into the woods and mountains, made bread of acorns, anddevoured grass and weeds.

  Devastating maladies were the consequence of insufficient orunwholesome nourishment.

  In Picenum alone perished fifty thousand souls; a still greater numbersuccumbed to hunger and pestilence on the other side of the IonianGulf, in Dalmatia, Pale and thin, those still living tottered to thegrave; their skins became black and like leather; their glassy eyesstarted from the sockets; their intestines burned as if with fire.

  The vultures despised the corpses of the victims of pestilence;but human flesh was devoured by men. Mothers killed and ate theirnewly-born children.

  In a farm near Ariminum only two Roman women had remained alive. Thesewomen murdered and devoured, one after another, seventeen men, who,singly, had sought a shelter in their house. The eighteenth awoke asthey were about to strangle him in his sleep. He killed the fiendishwomen, and discovered the fate of their earlier victims.

  Lastly, the hopes placed in the Franks and Longobardians were utterlydestroyed.

  The Franks, who had already received large sums for the promised armyof alliance, were silent. The messengers of the King, who were sent tourge the fulfilment of their promise, were detained at Mettis,Aurelianum, and Paris; no answer came from these courts.

  The King of the Longobardians sent word that he could decide nothingwithout the consent of his warlike son Alboin. That the latter wasabsent in search of adventures. Perhaps he would at some time reachItaly; he was an intimate friend of Narses. Then he could observe thecountry for himself, and advise his father and his countrymen as to thecourse to be taken.

  It is true that the important fortress of Auximum withstood, formonths, all the efforts of the powerful army which besieged it underBelisarius, accompanied by Procopius. But it wrung the King's heartwhen a messenger (who had, with much difficulty, stolen his way throughthe two investing armies to Ravenna) brought him the following messagefrom the heroic Earl Wisand:

  "When Auximum was entrusted to my care, thou saidst that therewith Ishould hold the keys of Ravenna; yea, of the kingdom. Thou badest meresist manfully until thou camest thyself with thy whole army to myassistance. We have manfully resisted not only Belisarius, but famine.Where is thy relief? Woe to us if thy words are true, and with thisfortress the keys of our kingdom fall into the enemy's hands! Cometherefore, and help us; more for the kingdom's sake than for our own!"

  This messenger was soon followed by a second: Burcentius, a soldierbelonging to the besieging army, who had been bribed with much gold.His message ran--the short letter was written in blood:

  "We have now only the weeds that grow between the stones to eat. Wecannot hold out longer than four days more."

  As this last messenger was returning with the King's reply, he fellinto the hands of the besiegers, who burnt him alive in sight of theGoths before the walls of Auximum.

  And the King could give no help.

  The small party of Goths in Auximum still resisted, although Belisariuscut off the supply of water by destroying the aqueducts and poisoningthe remaining wells with the corpses of men and animals, thrown in withlime.

  Wisand still fiercely repelled every attack. On one of these occasionsBelisarius only escaped death at the sacrifice of one of hisbody-guard.

  Finally, Caesena, the last of the Gothic towns on the AEmilia, was thefirst to fall; and then Faesulae, which was besieged by Cyprianus andJustinus.

  "My poor Faesulae!" exclaimed the King, when he learned this lastdisaster, for he had been the Count of that town, and close to it laythe house where he had lived so happily with Rauthgundis;--"My poorFaesulae! the Huns will run riot in my deserted home!"

  When, later, the garrison taken prisoner at Faesulae were led in chainsbefore the eyes of the defenders of Auximum, and reported to the latterthe hopelessness of any relief from Ravenna, the famished troops ofWisand compelled him to surrender.

  He stipulated for himself a free escort to Ravenna. His men were ledprisoners out of Italy.

  And, so deeply sunk was the courage and patriotism of the conqueredtroops, that, led by Earl Sisifrid of Sarsina, they accepted serviceagainst their own countrymen under the flag of Belisarius.

  The victor had strongly garrisoned Auximum and then led the army backto the camp before Ravenna, where he now again took the command, whichhad been entrusted to Cethegus during his absence.

  It was as if a curse rested upon the head of the Gothic King, who sosorely felt the weight of his crown.

  As he could not ascribe the cause of his failure to any weakness oroversight on his own part; as he did not doubt in the justice of theGothic cause, and as his simple piety could see nothing but the hand ofHeaven in all his misfortunes, he conceived the torturing thought thatGod was punishing the Goths for some unforgiven sin committed byhimself, a conviction imparted to his conscience by the then dominatingdoctrine of the Old Testament no less than by many features of the oldGermanic legends.

  Day and night the King was tortured by this idea, which undermined hisstrength and resolution. Now he tried to discover his secret guilt; nowhe reflected how he could at least turn aside the curse from hispeople.

  He would long since have abdicated, but that such an act at such amoment would have been considered cowardly both by himself and others.So this escape from his misery--the quickest and best--was closed tohim.

  His soul was bowed to the very earth. He often sat motionless forhours, silent and staring at vacancy; at times shaking his head orsighing deeply.

  The daily recurring sight of this resigned suffering, this dumb andhopeless bearing of an oppressive fate, was not, as we have said,without effect on Mataswintha. She thought that lately the eyes ofWitichis rested upon
her with an expression of sorrow and even ofbeneficence.

  And vague hope--which is so difficult to destroy in a livingheart--remorse and compassion, attracted her more powerfully than everto the suffering King.

  They were now often thrown together by some common errand of mercy.

  For some weeks the inhabitants of Ravenna had begun to suffer want,while the besiegers ruled the sea from Ancona, and received plentifulprovisions from Calabria and Sicily.

  None but rich citizens could afford to pay the high price asked forcorn.

  The King's kind heart did not hesitate, when he had provided histroops, to share the wealth of his magazines--which, as we have seen,contained sufficient for the wants of all for more than double the timerequired for the arrival of the Franks--amongst the poor of the city.He also hoped for the arrival of many ships laden with corn, which theGoths had collected in the northern districts of the Padus, and whichlay in that river, waiting for an opportunity to reach Ravenna.

  In order to avoid any misuse of his bounty, or extravagance in thegranting of rations, the King himself superintended the distribution;and Mataswintha, who one day met him among the groups of gratefulpeople, placed herself near him upon the marble steps of the Basilicaof Saint Apollonaris, and helped him to fill the baskets with bread.

  It was a touching sight to see this royal pair standing before thechurch doors, distributing their gift to the people.

  As they were standing thus, Mataswintha remarked among the crowd--formany country-people had fled to the city from all sides--sitting uponthe lowest step of the Basilica, a woman in a simple brown mantle,which was half drawn over her head.

  This woman did not press forward with the others to demand bread, butleaned against a high sarcophagus, with her head resting upon her hand,and, half concealed by the corner pillar of the Basilica, lookedsharply and fixedly at the Queen.

  Mataswintha thought that the woman was restrained by fear, pride, orshame, from mixing with the more importunate beggars who pushed andcrowded each other upon the steps, and she gave Aspa a basket of bread,telling her to go down and give it to the woman. With care she heapedup the sweet-scented bread with both her hands.

  As she looked up, she met the eye of the King, which rested upon herwith a more soft and friendly expression than she had ever seen before.

  She started slightly, and the blood rushed into her cheeks as she castdown her beautiful eyes.

  When she again looked up and glanced towards the woman in the brownmantle, she perceived that the place by the sarcophagus was empty. Thewoman had disappeared.

  She had not observed, while filling the basket, that a man, clad in abuffalo-skin and a steel cap, who had been standing behind the woman,had caught her arm and drawn her away with gentle violence.

  "Come," he had said; "this is no place for thee."

  And, as if in a dream, the woman had answered:

  "By God, she is wonderfully lovely!"

  "I thank thee, Mataswintha," said the King, in a friendly manner, whenthe rations for the day had been distributed.

  The look, the tone, the words, penetrated her heart.

  Never before had he called her by her name; he had ever met and spokento her only as the "Queen."

  How happy those few words from his mouth had made her; and yet howheavily his kindness weighed upon her guilty soul!

  Evidently she had earned his more affectionate feeling by her activecompassion for the poor.

  "Oh, he is good!" she cried to herself, half weeping with emotion. "Ialso will be good!"

  As, occupied by this thought, she entered the court of the left wing ofthe palace, which was assigned to her--the King inhabited the rightwing--Aspa hurried to meet her.

  "A messenger from the camp," she eagerly whispered. "He brings a secretmessage from the Prefect--a letter, in Syphax's handwriting--in ourlanguage. He waits for a reply."

  "Leave me!" cried Mataswintha, frowning. "I will hear and readnothing.--But who are these?" And she pointed to the steps leading fromthe court to her apartments.

  There, upon the cold stones, crouched women, children, and sick people,clothed in rags--a group of misery.

  "Beggars," said Aspa; "poor people. They have lain there the wholemorning. They will not be driven away."

  "They shall not be driven away," said Mataswintha, drawing near.

  "Bread, Queen! Bread, daughter of the Amelungs!" cried many voices.

  "Give them gold, Aspa. All that thou hast with thee; and fetch----"

  "Bread, bread. Queen--not gold! No more bread is to be had for money inall the city."

  "It is dispensed freely outside the King's magazines. I have just comethence. Why were you not there?"

  "Queen! we could not get through the crowd," said a haggard woman. "Iam aged, and my daughter here is sick, and that old man is blind. Thestrong and young push us away. For three days we tried to go in vain.We could not get through."

  "Yes, and we starve," grumbled the old man. "O Theodoric! my lord andKing, where art thou? Under thy rule we had enough and to spare!Then the poor and sick were not deprived of bread. But this unhappyKing----"

  "Be silent," said Mataswintha. "The King, my husband"--and a lovelyflush rose into her cheeks--"does more than you deserve. Wait here. Iwill bring you bread. Follow me, Aspa." And she hastened away.

  "Whither goest thou?" asked the slave, astonished.

  Mataswintha drew her veil closely over her face as she answered:

  "To the King!"

  When she reached the antechamber of the King's apartments, thedoor-keeper, who recognised her with amazement, begged her to wait amoment.

  "An ambassador from Belisarius has been admitted to a private audience.He has been in the room already for some time, and no doubt will soonleave it."

  Just then the door of the King's apartment was opened, and Procopiusstood hesitating upon the threshold.

  "King of the Goths," he said, as he once again turned round, "is thatyour last word?"

  "My last; as it was my first," answered the King, with dignity.

  "I will give you time--I will remain in Ravenna till to-morrow----"

  "From this moment you are welcome as a guest, but not as anambassador."

  "I repeat: if the city be taken by storm, all the Goths who are tallerthan the sword of Belisarius--he has sworn it--will be killed! Thewomen and children will be sold into slavery. You understand thatBelisarius will suffer no barbarians in _his_ Italy. The death of ahero may be tempting to you, but think of the helpless people--theirblood will accuse you before the throne of God----"

  "Ambassador, you, as well as we, are in God's hand. Farewell."

  And these words were uttered with such majesty, that the Byzantine wasobliged to go, however reluctantly.

  The simple dignity of the King had had a strong effect upon him; butstill more upon the listening Queen.

  As Procopius slowly shut the door, he saw Mataswintha standing beforehim, and started back, dazzled by her great beauty. He greeted herreverently.

  "You are the Queen of the Goths!" he said. "You must be she."

  "I am," said Mataswintha. "Would that I had never forgotten it!"

  And she passed him with a haughty step.

  "These Germans, both men and women," said Procopius, as he went out,"have eyes such as I have never seen before!"