covers many of peace, they were disposed to announce the possession of Sicily. "The emperor is not less generous," replied his lieutenant, with a disdainful smile, "in return for a gift which you no longer possess ; he presents you with an ancient province of the empire; he resigns to the Goths the sovereignty of the British island." Belisarius rejected with equal firmness and contempt the offer of a tribute; but he allowed the Gothic ambassadors to seek their fate from the mouth of Justinian himself; and consented, with [Dec. 21, 837] seeming reluctance, to a truce of three months, from the winter solstice to the equinox of spring. Prudence might not safely trust either the oaths or hostages of the Barbarians, but the conscious superiority of the Roman chief was expressed in the distribution of his troops. As soon as fear or hunger compelled the Belisarius reGoths to evacuate Alba, Porto, and Centumcellæ, their place was cities of Italy instantly supplied; the garrisons of Narni, Spoleto, and Perusia, were reinforced, and the seven camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the calamities of a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius, bishop of Milan, were not without effect; and he obtained one thousand Thracians and Isaurians, to assist the revolt of Liguria against her Arian tyrant. At the same time, John the Sanguinary,107 the nephew of Vitalian, was detached with two thousand chosen horse, first to Alba on the Fucine lake, and afterwards to the frontiers of Picenum on the Hadriatic sea. "In that province," said Belisarius, "the Goths have deposited their families and treasures, without a guard or the suspicion of danger. Doubtless they will violate the truce: let them feel your presence, before they hear of your motions. Spare the Italians; suffer not any fortified places to remain hostile in your rear; and faithfully reserve the spoil for an equal and common partition. It would not be reasonable," he added with a laugh, "that, whilst we are toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more fortunate brethren should rifle and enjoy the honey." raise the A.D. 538, The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for The Goths the attack, and was almost entirely consumed in the siege of lege of Rome. Rome. If any credit be due to an intelligent spectator, one March third at least of their enormous host was destroyed, in frequent and bloody combats under the walls of the city. The bad fame and pernicious qualities of the summer air might already be imputed to the decay of agriculture and population; and the evils 107 Anastasius (p. 40) has preserved this epithet of Sanguinarius, which might do honour to a tiger. 108 of famine and pestilence were aggravated by their own licentiousness and the unfriendly disposition of the country. While Vitiges struggled with his fortune; while he hesitated between shame and ruin; his retreat was hastened by domestic alarms. The king of the Goths was informed by trembling messengers, that John the Sanguinary spread the devastations of war from the Apennine to the Hadriatic; that the rich spoils and innumerable captives of Picenum were lodged in the fortifications of Rimini; and that this formidable chief had defeated his uncle, insulted his capital, and seduced, by secret correspondence, the fidelity of his wife, the imperious daughter of Amalasontha. Yet, before he retired, Vitiges made a last effort either to storm or to [Aqua Vhgo] surprise the city. A secret passage was discovered in one of the aqueducts; two citizens of the Vatican were tempted by bribes to intoxicate the guards of the Aurelian gate; an attack was meditated on the walls beyond the Tiber in a place which was not fortified with towers; and the Barbarians advanced, with torches and scaling-ladders, to the assault of the Pincian gate. But every attempt was defeated by the intrepid vigilance of Belisarius and his band of veterans, who, in the most perilous moments, did not regret the absence of their companions; and the Goths, alike destitute of hope and subsistence, clamorously urged their departure, before the truce should expire, and the Roman cavalry should again be united. One year and nine days after the commencement of the siege, an army, so lately strong and triumphant, burnt their tents, and tumultuously repassed the Milvian bridge. They repassed not with impunity: their thronging multitudes, oppressed in a narrow passage, were driven headlong into the Tiber, by their own fears and the pursuit of the enemy; and the Roman general, sallying from the Pincian gate, inflicted a severe and disgraceful wound on their retreat. The slow length of a sickly and desponding host was heavily dragged along the Flaminian way; from whence the Barbarians were sometimes compelled to deviate, lest they should encounter the hostile garrisons that guarded the high road to Rimini and Ravenna. Yet so powerful was this flying army that Vitiges spared ten thousand men for the defence of the cities which he 108 [By the P. Aurelia is meant not the old P. Aurelia (on the Via Aurelia, in the Transtiberine region) which Procopius knew as the P. Scti. Pancratii, but a gate on the east bank, opposite the Ponte San Angelo. It does not appear however that the guards of this gate were to be drugged, but the guards who were stationed to defend a weak part of the wall between this gate and the P. Flaminia (P. del Popolo). Proc., B.G., 2, 9.] The lose Rimin was most solicitous to preserve, and detached his nephew Uraias, Α the bravest troops of the East. The rock of the Apennine was forced; ten thousand veterans moved round the foot of the mountains under the command of Belisarius himself; and a new army, whose encampment blazed with innumerable lights, appeared to advance along the Flaminian way. Overwhelmed with astonishment and despair, the Goths abandoned the siege of Rimini, their tents, their standards, and their leaders; 109 and Vitiges, who gave or followed the example of flight, never halted till he found a retire to shelter within the walls and morasses of Ravenna. Ravenna the Roman A.D. 538 To these walls, and to some fortresses destitute of any mutual Jealousy of support, the Gothic monarchy was now reduced. The provinces generals. of Italy had embraced the party of the emperor; and his army, gradually recruited to the number of twenty thousand men, must have achieved an easy and rapid conquest, if their invincible powers had not been weakened by the discord of the Roman chiefs. Before the end of the siege, an act of blood, ambiguous and indiscreet, sullied the fair fame of Belisarius. Presidius, a loyal Italian, as he fled from Ravenna to Rome, was rudely stopped by Constantine, the military governor of Spoleto, and despoiled, even in a church, of two daggers richly inlaid with gold and precious stones. As soon as the public danger had subsided, Presidius complained of the loss and injury; his complaint was heard, but the order of restitution was disobeyed by 109 [Before the relief of Ariminum, Belisarius and Narses held a council of war at Firmum (Fermo), and the influence of Narses decided that it should be relieved. The objection to that course was the circumstance that Auximum, which the Goths held, would threaten the rear of the relieving army; the motive of most of the objectors was personal hostility to John.] stantine the pride and avarice of the offender. Exasperated by the delay, Presidius boldly arrested the general's horse as he passed through the forum; and with the spirit of a citizen demanded the common benefit of the Roman laws. The honour of Belisarius was engaged; he summoned a council; claimed the obedience of his subordinate officer; and was provoked, by an insolent reply, to call hastily for the presence of his guards. Constantine, viewing their entrance as the signal of death, drew his sword, and rushed on the general, who nimbly eluded the stroke, and was protected by his friends; while the desperate assassin was disarmed, dragged Death of Con- into a neighbouring chamber, and executed, or rather murdered, by the guards, at the arbitrary command of Belisarius. 110 In this hasty act of violence, the guilt of Constantine was no longer remembered; the despair and death of that valiant officer were secretly imputed to the revenge of Antonina; and each of his colleagues, conscious of the same rapine, was apprehensive of the same fate. The fear of a common enemy suspended the effects of their envy and discontent; but, in the confidence of approaching victory, they instigated a powerful rival to oppose the conqueror of Rome and Africa. From the domestic service of the palace and the administration of the private revenue, Narses the eunuch was suddenly exalted to the head of an army; and the spirit of an hero, who afterwards equalled the merit and glory of Belisarius, served only to perplex the operations of the Gothic war. prudent counsels, the relief of Rimini was ascribed by the leaders of the discontented faction, who exhorted Narses to assume an independent and separate command. The epistle of Justinian had indeed enjoined his obedience to the general; but the dangerous exception, "as far as may be advantageous to the public service," reserved some freedom of judgment to the dis The eunuch To his 110 This transaction is related in the public history (Goth. 1. ii. c. 8) with candour or caution, in the Anecdotes (c. 7) [leg. 1] with malevolence or freedom; but Marcellinus, or rather his continuator (in Chron.), casts a shade of premeditated assassination over the death of Constantine. He had performed good service at Rome and Spoleto (Procop. Goth. 1. i. c. 7, 14); but Alemannus confounds him with a Constantianus comes stabuli. [In the Public History Procopius dares to observe that this was the only iniquitous act committed by Belisarius and that it was foreign to his nature; for he was generally very lenient. The implication is explained in the Secret History, where Procopius states that Constantine would have been let off if Antonina had not intervened. The cause of her grudge against Constantine is told below, p. 336. Procopius adds (Anecd. 1) that Justinian and the Roman aristocracy did not forgive Belisarius for Constantine's death. This episode offers a good instance of the relation between the Military and the Secret History. Mr. Hodgkin can hardly be right in supposing that Constantine actually wounded Belisarius. The words are άφνω τε αὐτὸ (the dagger) ἐπὶ τὴν Βελισαρίου γαστέρα ὦσεν, which signify merely an attempt to wound.] creet favourite, who had so lately departed from the sacred and familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise of this doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to the siege of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and marched away to the conquest of the Æmilian province. The fierce and formidable bands of the Heruli were attached to the person of Narses; 111 ten thousand Romans and confederates were persuaded to march under his banners; every malecontent embraced the fair opportunity of revenging his private or imaginary wrongs; and the remaining troops of Belisarius were divided and dispersed from the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the Hadriatic. His skill and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Firmness and Urbino was taken,11 112 the sieges of Fæsulæ, Orvieto, and Auxi-Belisarius mum, were undertaken and vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was at length recalled to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions were healed, and all opposition was subdued, by the temperate authority of the Roman general, to whom his enemies could not refuse their esteem; and Belisarius inculcated the salutary lesson that the forces of the state should compose one body and be animated by one soul. But in the interval of discord the Goths were permitted to breathe; an important season was lost, Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of Italy were afflicted by an inundation of the Franks. authority of Italy by the 538, 539 When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent Invasion of ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by Franks, A.D. the common ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy enterprise against the Arians. The Goths, as their wants were more urgent, employed a more effectual mode of persuasion, and vainly strove, by the gift of lands and money, to purchase the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of a light and perfidious nation.113 But the arms of Belisarius and the revolt of the Italians had no sooner shaken the Gothic monarchy than Theodebert of Austrasia, the most powerful and warlike of the 111 They refused to serve after his departure; sold their captives and cattle to the Goths; and swore never to fight against them. Procopius introduces a curious digression on the manners and adventures of this wandering nation, a part of whom finally emigrated to Thule or Scandinavia (Goth. 1. ii. c. 14, 15). 112 [c. Dec. 21, A.D. 538. Urbs Vetus was taken early in 539; Fæsulæ and Auximum, about October or November in the same year. See Clinton, F.R. ad ann.] 113 This national reproach of perfidy (Procop. Goth. 1. ii. c. 25) offends the ear of la Mothe la Vayer (tom. viii. p. 163-165), who criticises, as if he had not read, the Greek historian. |
