Siege of Rome

by David Pilling

  Procopius rubbed his thin hands and gave an enigmatic smile. “Belisarius told me you were proud. I suppose a man with nothing save his name and an old sword must cleave to pride. Step carefully, Coel, and be wary lest you fall further.”

  He said nothing more, but lapsed into a brooding silence as the boat sculled across the dark waters to the looming bulk of Belisarius’ flagship.

  This was the largest galley in the fleet, and one of the few old-fashioned Roman warships still in use. It was of the type called a bireme, with two staggered banks of oars and a long, narrow prow. Biremes were usually propelled by oars, with just a single sail, but this had been converted into a three-mast vessel. Unlike the lumbering transports and the smaller dromons, the galley had a sleek, dangerous look, and resembled some kind of dormant sea-monster as she lay resting at anchor inside the harbour.

  We drew alongside, and a rope-ladder was let down the side. I was the first up, helped aboard by two brawny Sicilians.

  I half-expected Belisarius to be there to greet me, but doubtless the general had more pressing matters to attend to. The ship’s captain, a heavy-set Greek with a long pink scar running from his temple to his jaw, regarded me with impatience.

  “You’re to get below,” he said, jerking his thumb at the hatchway leading to the bowels of the ship, “and stay there until sent for. Quickly, if you please. I haven’t slept for two bloody days, and there is still much to do.”

  I obeyed, and clambered down the ladder into the damp, musty-smelling space below deck. Even though the ship lay at anchor in peaceful waters, her gentle motion was enough to make my guts churn a little. The smell of tar and the salt tang of the sea in my nostrils brought back memories of the nightmarish voyage to Africa.

  Procopius followed me down the ladder. “I am also a poor sailor,” he said, noting my pained expression, “but with luck our voyage shall be a short one.”

  “Why do I have to hide down here?” I demanded, trying to ignore the thought of being cooped up below deck in a pool of my own vomit when the fleet sailed for Sicily.

  “Your enemies may or may not know where you are,” he replied, “I have little doubt you were followed from Belisarius’ house, but the agents of Narses and Theodora cannot touch you here, aboard the general’s own flagship. This is his territory. Any violation of it would be perceived as a direct insult to Belisarius. Whatever petty grudges and feuds that may exist, Rome cannot afford to alienate its greatest soldier.”

  He pursed his thin lips and leaned against a bulkhead. “For now, at any rate. If Belisarius fails in Italy, he will be dead or disgraced, and you will be fair game.”

  I had discerned as much, and was anxious to get away from Constantinople as far and as swiftly as possible. “When does the fleet put to sea?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow, if all goes to plan. Mundus is already laying siege to Salona, and Belisarius can afford no delay.”

  A few more hours, then, and I would be safe. “What if Theodora and Narses send agents after me? No-one would notice a few men disguised as soldiers.”

  “Perhaps. Theodora, at least, has no need for such crude stratagems. Her greatest agent will be among us, in plain view.”

  It took me a moment to fathom his meaning. “Yes,” he said, reacting to the horror on my face, “Antonina is coming with us.”

  4.

  The fleet put to sea the next morning, propelled down the straits of the Bosphorus by a fair wind and the cheers of the multitude gathered on the docks. Their cheers were mingled with the dirge-like chants of the priests, clashing cymbals, screeching trumpets, and the tolling of every church bell in the city.

  Before the African expedition, the Emperor and the Patriarch came to the harbour in person to give the fleet their blessing. They did so again now, though the Patriarch was so old he had to be carried in a litter. I heard the roar of the crowd treble in volume as Justinian arrived, preceded by the droning of bull-horns and escorted by six hundred of his personal guard, the Excubitors.

  Heard, but did not see. I was confined below deck with two Huns to protect me and ensure I stayed hidden. They were a couple of surly, yellow-skinned brutes, typical of their race, and dripping with weaponry.

  “No need to watch me so closely, boys,” I said with feigned cheerfulness, “I’m quite happy where I am.”

  At last the moment I dreaded arrived. The ship began to move. I crouched in a corner, draping my cloak over me as a blanket and preparing for the worst.

  The histories will tell you that the Roman fleet encountered no difficulty on the short voyage from Constantinople to Sicily. No storms delayed our progress, the winds were constant, and the Sicilian coast completely undefended. The Emperor’s ruse had worked. The Gothic fleet, such as it was, had sailed north carrying troops and supplies to reinforce their garrisons in Dalmatia.

  To me, trapped below deck in the grip of sea-sickness, the voyage was a miserable and painful ordeal. The Huns kindly provided me with a bucket, which they emptied at regular intervals. Procopius visited me once or twice, to give me updates and check that I hadn’t puked myself to death.

  “You are a better sailor than you claimed,” I whispered during one of his visits.

  Procopius smiled weakly. He was even paler than usual, and trembled slightly, but his illness was nothing compared to mine. I could not walk, or eat, and shivered uncontrollably like a sick dog.

  “Courage,” he replied, “we will soon be on dry land, and there will an end to this damned creaking and lurching. Belisarius means to land at Catania.”

  This made sense. Catania was a desolate, rocky stretch of dried lava, near the base of Mount Etna. He had landed there before on the way to North Africa.

  “What then?” I asked, drawing my blanket closer around me. My guts gave a sudden heave, and Procopius’ answer was delayed while I retched feebly into the bucket.

  “We march on Palermo,” he said when I was done, “once the principal city falls, the rest of Sicily will follow. An easy conquest.”

  Too easy, was my initial thought. Even a dotard like Theodatus would surely not have left the island undefended. My suspicious mind spun all kinds of alternatives. Perhaps the Goths were waiting in force at Palermo, to attack our much smaller army as we marched inland. Perhaps their fleet was hidden, somewhere among Sicily’s northern coastline, and would emerge to fall upon ours at Catania.

  “What of Antonina?” I asked, dragging my mind away from these dreadful scenarios, “does she I know I am aboard?”

  “Oh yes. I was with Belisarius when he mentioned your presence to her, two days ago. Our tame Briton, he called you.”

  I swallowed hard, and rested my head against the hull. “How did she react?”

  Procopius shrugged. “She didn’t. As far as her husband is aware, you mean nothing to her. She must have known you were aboard anyway.”

  He squatted down on his haunches. “Attend to me, Coel,” he said severely, “for your life is most certainly in danger. Antonina has brought her son, Photius, the fruit of one of her previous marriages.”

  I blinked at him. The name was vaguely familiar to me, but I had never seen Photius, and knew nothing of him.

  “He is very young, barely grown to manhood,” Procopius added, “and has inherited his mother’s courage and fair looks. There, unless he is a better actor than I judge him to be, the resemblance ends. There is no deceit in him. Rather, he is impulsive, and constantly at Belisarius’ elbow, begging him for a command. Eager to win glory at the point of a sword.”

  “Is he a threat to me?” I asked, who cared nothing for Photius or his ambitions.

  “Possibly. He adores his mother, though she appears to care nothing for him. There is little he would not do to win her approval.”

  “Including murder?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. Antonina would not hesitate to use him as a weapon against you. The question is whether he would agree to it.”

  Procopius thought for a moment, tapping his finger-ti
ps together. “I think,” he said eventually, “that Belisarius should give this valiant young man a chance to prove himself.”

  His eyes bored into mine. “Yes. Photius should be among the first to be sent ashore. Perhaps he can be dispatched on a scouting mission inland, with just a few men for company. Picked men.”

  I knew what Procopius was implying. It filled me with revulsion, but I was too old and battle-hardened to be entirely scrupulous.

  “You would go to such lengths, for me?” I asked quietly, “why?”

  “Belisarius values you, as an officer and a friend,” he replied, rising, “he asked me to see you safe. He commands, and I obey. Not that I have any objection to seeing Antonina thwarted. She hates me, as she hates anyone with influence over her husband. She wants Belisarius all to herself.”

  “Does she love him?”

  Procopius gave a dry chuckle, the nearest he ever got to laughter. “Like an epicure loves his dinner. Antonina will eat him alive and then toss away the bones.”

  I remained below deck until the fleet made landfall at Catania, which lies on the east coast of Sicily, facing the Ionian Sea. Despite the harsh and rugged landscape, there was a city here, much reduced from its former wealth and status after being sacked by the Vandals. The garrison offered no resistance, and opened the city gates to our soldiers after Belisarius promised not to sack the town or molest the inhabitants.

  I was sick of concealment, and of languishing in my own stench in the stuffy hold. The Huns were sick of me too, and watched impassively as I crawled feebly up the ladder onto deck.

  The sunlight was dazzling, and I had to shade my eyes until they grew used to the unaccustomed glare. I tried to stand on the deck as it gently rose and fell beneath me, but my shaking legs gave way.

  A strong hand gripped my forearm as I fell, and hauled me upright. “Steady, old man,” said a familiar voice, “we shall have to find you a stick to lean on.”

  I opened my eyes a crack and gazed on the rugged, dark-skinned features of Bessas, one of Belisarius’ chief cavalry officers. He was a Thracian of Gothic origin, fluent in the Gothic language, and I had often overheard him croaking songs in that harsh, guttural language.

  Belisarius was a good judge of officers, and could scarcely have chosen a better man to lead his cavalry in Italy. Not only did Bessas speak the language of the enemy, but he was a tough, resourceful veteran of many campaigns, in his mid-fifties or thereabouts, and strong as a bull. His fingers had a grip like steel on my wasted arm. If he had increased the pressure, he might have snapped the bone.

  “Coel, isn’t it?” he asked after I had mumbled my thanks, “our sickly Briton. God help us, you look like you’ve puked out your innards. I thought the Britons were a seafaring race?”

  “I am the exception,” I groaned, clutching my aching belly, “though doomed to spend my life being dragged back and forth across the sea.”

  Bessas smiled and patted me roughly on the back. “You can go ashore at once, if you like, ” he said, “look there.”

  He pointed at the hundreds of longboats and other smaller vessels that populated the stretch of ocean between our fleet and the coast. The city of Catania was visible to the east, dominated by the brooding shadow of Mount Etna. Procopius had informed me that the volcano last erupted during the days of the Roman Republic, and swamped the greater part of the city in an ocean of boiling lava and hot ash.

  Our entire army was disembarking, with a calm order and efficiency that made for a stark contrast to the last time I had witnessed a Roman army disembark, on the north coast of Africa. There all had been chaos and haste, as our sickness-ravaged soldiers struggled to shore in terror of the Vandals falling upon them at any moment.

  I spotted Belisarius on the foredeck, standing among a little knot of officers and advisors. Procopius was among them, listening and nodding gravely while the soldiers talked. He was wearing his enigmatic little smile, and I could guess his opinion of what was being said.

  Thankfully, there was no sign of Antonina, though a golden-haired young man among the officers might have been Photius. “I was appointed one of the general’s personal guard,” I said, “my place is by his side.”

  “Admirable,” smirked Bessas, “but you’re no use to him in your current state. Go ashore and recuperate. For now, the conquest of Sicily will have to proceed without you.”

  He gave me back to my Hunnish guards, who had followed me above deck like a couple of faithful hounds, and barked at them to take me ashore. Somehow I found the strength to climb down a rope ladder into one of the launches. I took my place alongside a group of Isaurian archers, and listened in silent misery to their excited chatter as the boat rowed into the shallows.

  I could see our army deploying on the broad plain south-west of the city, thousands of tiny doll-figures busily pitching tents and digging temporary fortifications. As usual, Belisarius was taking no chances. The majority of his troops would camp outside the city, along with the baggage, while troops of light horse were sent out to scout the countryside.

  Anxious to be rid of boats and sailing, I dropped over the side as soon as it seemed safe, and staggered through warm, waist-deep waters towards the beach. The Huns dogged my steps, which was a comfort. Nobody watching could have any doubt that I was well-guarded, and still enjoyed the favour and protection of Belisarius.

  From Catania the army marched north-west, leaving a garrison of two hundred men to hold the city. Belisarius had furnished me with a horse, and I rode at an easy peace in the rearguard, enjoying the peace and beauty of the island. Sicily basked in the autumn sun, and the lengthy, oppressive heat of summer had given way to a pleasant mildness. The hedges on the roadsides were loaded with prickly pears. When my stomach had eased, I promptly ruined it again by indulging in too much of the succulent fruit, and afforded the troops much amusement by throwing up in a ditch.

  Our army hugged the coast, while the fleet kept in sight to the east, but there was no need for such precautions. As Procopius had predicted, Sicily was an easy conquest, and we encountered no resistance on the march to Palermo. The native farmers presented us with gifts of bread and fruit, and expressed warm enthusiasm at being rescued from the tyranny of the Goths.

  Some tyranny, I remember thinking as I looked around at the prosperous little villages and fertile, well-tilled farmland. The Sicilians had no cause to hate their occupiers.

  “They might soon have cause to hate us,” remarked Procopius when he rode down the line to speak with me, “if we are defeated in Italy, the Goths will exact a bloody revenge for their treachery. If we are victorious, and the island remains part of the Empire, the Emperor will squeeze them for everything they have. Sicily produces abundant crops of grain. Justinian will take it all in annual tribute, leaving the inhabitants to live on grass.”

  Palermo was approached from the south via a road winding through craggy mountains. Belisarius sent horsemen ahead to scout the route. I saw Photius among them, his fair hair gleaming like burnished gold as he galloped at the head of a troop of Herulii. They returned unscathed – Procopius had had no opportunity to put his murderous little plan into effect – to report that the road was unguarded.

  The city was an astonishingly beautiful sight, its whitewashed walls gleaming like pale diamond. I first saw it from a ridge overlooking the bay. Blue mountains enclosed and concealed Palermo from the landward side, and the sea from the east. I shaded my eyes and glimpsed the first of our ships rounding the headland to the south.

  I also saw that the harbour was undefended. The garrison had closed the gates against us, but the city was open to assault from land and sea. There was no Gothic army lying in wait, hidden among the mountains. Either deliberately or through sheer negligence, Theodatus had left Sicily to its fate.

  Keen to score a bloodless victory, Belisarius sent forward messengers to demand Palermo’s surrender. The garrison sent back a haughty reply, ordering the Romans to withdraw from their walls or face destruction.


  That night Belisarius summoned his officers to a council of war. My presence was also required, along with five other members of his personal guard. I struggled into my heavy chain mail and crested helmet, and limped down to the general’s pavilion.

  “I will not waste time in a siege,” said Belisarius, thumping his fist on the table set up in the middle of his tent. A map of Sicily rested on the table, with various lead markers representing our forces.

  Bessas was present, along with Constantine and Valentinian, the general’s two other chief officers, and Galierus, the admiral of the fleet. Procopius was there in his capacity as secretary. He briefly glanced up at me as I came in, and then sidelong at Photius.

  Seen at close quarters, Antonina’s son had something of the Greek god about him. Tall and blonde, well-made and impossibly handsome in a sculpted sort of way, he seemed to glow with a strange inner light, putting the rest of us in the shade. All his attention was on Belisarius, and he paid me no heed whatsoever.

  “Then we must take the city by storm,” said Bessas, leaning over to study the map, “I suggest an attack at dawn from east and west. The Gothic garrison will be spread thin to repel us. Bloody work, but it can be done.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from Constantine and Valentinian. Like him, they were a couple of hard-faced veterans. The three of them put me in mind of a pack of old mastiffs.

  Steel flashed in the gloom of the tent. Photius had drawn his spatha, and slapped it down on the table. “General, I beg the honour of leading the vanguard!” he piped in the high-pitched, breaking voice of adolescence, “I will be the first man up the ladders!”

  Procopius smirked, and the officers looked unimpressed, but Belisarius regarded him fondly. “I think not, brave Photius,” he said gently, “your mother would nail my skin to the walls of Palermo if any harm befell you.”