A Struggle for Rome, v. 3
Page 11
CHAPTER VII.
When news arrived in the golden palace of the Caesars at Byzantium ofthe lost battles on the Padus and at Mucella; of the renewed siege ofRome, and the loss of Neapolis and almost all Italy, the EmperorJustinian, who had already imagined the West again united to the East,was awakened from his dream of triumph in a terrible manner.
It was now easy for the friends of Belisarius to prove that the recallof that hero had been the origin of all these disasters.
It was clear that as long as Belisarius had been in Italy victory hadfollowed victory; and no sooner had he turned his back, thanmisfortunes crowded one upon the other.
The Byzantine generals in Italy openly acknowledged that they could notreplace Belisarius.
"I am not able," wrote Demetrius from Ravenna, "to meet Totilain the open field. Scarcely am I able to defend this fortress in themarshes. Neapolis has fallen. Rome may surrender any day. Send usagain the lion-hearted man, whom, in our vanity, we dreamed we couldreplace--the conqueror of the Vandals and the Goths."
And Belisarius, although he had sworn never again to serve theungrateful Emperor, forgot all his wrongs as soon as Justinian smiledupon him. And when, after the fall of Neapolis, he actually embracedhim and called him "his faithful sword"--in truth, the Emperor hadnever believed in the general's rebellion, but was envious of hissovereign position--Belisarius could no longer be restrained byAntonina and Procopius. As, however, the Emperor feared the expense ofa second enterprise in Italy (besides that of the Persian wars, whichNarses conducted successfully but expensively in Asia), avarice andambition produced a struggle within him, which would, perhaps, havelasted longer than the resistance of Rome and Ravenna, had not PrinceGermanus and Belisarius proposed an expedient. The noble Prince wasimpelled by the wish to revisit Ravenna and the tomb of Mataswintha,and to revenge her memory on the rude barbarians, for Cethegus haddeclared that the cause of the tragic end of this incomparable womanwas that her mind had been disordered in consequence of her forcedmarriage with Witichis.
Belisarius, on his side, could not endure that all his fame should beimperilled by Totila's success. "For," asked his enemies at court,"could he really have conquered a people who, within the year, hadagain almost made themselves masters of Italy?"
He had given his word to annihilate the Goths, and he would keep it.
So, influenced by these motives, Germanus and Belisarius proposed toconquer Italy for the Emperor at their own expense. The Prince offeredhis whole fortune for the equipment of a fleet; Belisarius all hislately reinforced body-guard and lance-bearers.
"That is a proposition after Justinian's own heart!" cried Procopius,when informed of it by Belisarius. "Not a solidus out of his ownpocket! And perhaps the laurels of fame and a province for this world,and the wholesale destruction of heretics to rejoice Heaven andTheodora! You may be sure that he will accept, and give you hisfatherly benediction into the bargain. But nothing else. You,Belisarius, I know, can be as little kept back as Balan, your piebald,when he hears the call of the trumpet; but I will not see yourlamentable fall."
"Fall? Wherefore, Raven of Misfortune?"
"This time you have both Goths and Italians against you. And you couldnot conquer the first when Italy was _for_ you."
But Belisarius only reproached him with cowardice, and presently wentto sea with Germanus.
The Emperor, in fact, gave them nothing but his blessings and the greattoe of the holy Mazaspes.
The Byzantines in Italy breathed again when they heard that an imperialfleet had anchored off Salona, in Dalmatia, and that the army hadlanded.
Even Cethegus, to whom the news was brought by spies, exclaimed with asigh:
"Better Belisarius in Rome than Totila!"
And the King of the Goths was filled with anxiety. He determined firstof all to discover the strength of the Byzantine army, in order todecide upon what course he would take. Perhaps it would be necessary toraise the siege of Rome, and advance to attack the army of relief.
Belisarius sailed from Salona to Pola, where he mustered his ships andmen. While there, two men came to him, who announced themselves to beHerulian mercenaries, therefore Goths, but speaking Latin well. Theysaid that they had been sent by Bonus, one of the commanders ofSpoletium.
They had succeeded in passing the Gothic lines, and they pressed thecommander-in-chief to come to the relief of that place. They begged forexact particulars as to the strength of his army and the number of hisships, in order to be able to revive the sinking courage of thebesieged by trustworthy reports.
"Well, my friends," said Belisarius, "you must perforce embellish yourreport; for the truth is, that the Emperor has left me entirely to myown resources."
All the day long he showed these messengers his army and fleet.
The night following the messengers had disappeared.
They were Thorismuth and Aligern, who had been sent by King Totila, andnow furnished him with the much-desired particulars.
So, from the very beginning, fate was against Belisarius, and the wholecourse of this campaign was unworthy of the fame of that great general.
It is true that he succeeded in running into the harbour of Ravenna,and providing that city with provisions.
But, the very day that he arrived. Prince Germanus was attacked by afatal malady while visiting the tomb of Mataswintha.
She had been buried in the vault of the palace, near the graves of herbrother and the young King Athalaric.
Germanus died, and, according to his last wish, was buried beside thewoman he had loved so truly.
In a little niche in the same vault there reposed a heart which hadever beat warmly for Queen "Beautiful-hair."
Aspa, the Numidian slave, would not outlive her beloved mistress.
"In my home," she had said, "the virgins of the Goddess of the Sunoften voluntarily leap into the flames which receive the Godhead.Aspa's goddess, the lovely, bright, and kind, has left her. Aspa willnot live forlorn in the cold and darkness. She will follow her Sun."
She had heaped up flowers in the death-chamber of her mistress--heapedthem still higher than on the day when she had prepared the same smallroom for a bridal chamber--and had kindled unknown combustibles andAfrican resin, the stupefying odours of which drove away all the otherslaves. But Aspa had spent the night in the room.
The next morning Syphax, attracted by the well-known but dangerousodour, which reminded him of his country's sacrificial customs, wentsoftly into the room, which was as silent as the grave. AtMataswintha's feet, her head buried in flowers, he had found hisAntelope--dead.
"She died," he told Cethegus, "for love of her mistress. And now I havenone left on earth but you."
After the burial of Germanus, Belisarius left Ravenna with the wholefleet.
But his very next undertaking, an attempt to surprise Pisaurum, wasrepulsed with great loss.
And King Totila, now acquainted with the small number of Belisarius'stroops, had sent skirmishers, under the command of Wisand, supported bya few ships of war, to take Firmum, which was situated on the samecoast, almost under the generals very eyes.
The Byzantines, Herodian and Bonus, surrendered Spoletium to EarlGrippa, after the lapse of thirty days, during which they had hoped forreinforcements from Belisarius in vain.
In Assisium the commander of the garrison was a man of the name ofSisifrid, a Goth who had deserted in the days of the fall of Witichis.
This man well knew what was in store for him, should he fall intoHildebrand's hands, who besieged the fort in person. Hatred of suchtreason had enticed the old man from the siege of Ravenna to completethis task of retribution.
The Goth obstinately defended the town, but when, during a sally, theaxe of the old master-at-arms sent him to the other world, the citizensobliged the Thracian garrison to yield. Many aristocratic Italians,members of the old Catacomb conspiracy, three hundred Illyrianhorsemen, and some chosen body-guards of Belisarius, were takenprisoners.
In Bruttia, the fortress of Ruscia, the most important harbour forThurii, surrendered to the bold Aligern.
Belisarius now despaired of reaching Rome by land. On hearing of theterrible distress of that city, he determined at once to attempt torelieve it by running the blockade of the Gothic fleet.
But as he sailed round the south point of Calabria, off Hydrunt, afearful storm dispersed his ships; he himself, with a few triremes, wasdriven southward as far as Sicily, and the greater part of his ships,which had taken refuge in a bay near Croton, were there surprised andtaken by a Gothic squadron sent by the King from Rome, which had lainin ambush near Squillacium. These prizes proved to be an importantaddition to the Gothic fleet, for, as we shall see hereafter, theGoths, were thereby enabled to attack the Byzantines in their islandsand coast-towns.
After this blow, the forces of Belisarius, which had been weak from thevery first, became completely powerless.
Generalship and valour could not replace missing ships, warriors, andhorses.
The hope that the Italians, as in the first campaign, would revolt tothe Emperor's commander-in-chief, proved vain.
Thus the whole enterprise was a complete failure, as we are told byProcopius in unsparing words.
The Emperor left all petitions for reinforcements unanswered. And whenAntonina repeatedly begged for permission to return, the Empress sentthe mocking reply, "that the Emperor dare not venture, for the secondtime, to interrupt the hero in the course of his victories."
So, lying off Sicily, Belisarius spent a miserable time of doubt andhelplessness.