The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01 (31 page)

And yet, progressive as he was in many ways, in others Chosroes was very much the child of his time. His wars with the Byzantine Empire, for example, were fought not for conquest but, unashamedly, for plunder. Thus, studiously ignoring first a letter from Justinian in which he was sternly reminded of his treaty obligations under the 'Eternal Peace' and, later, one from Theodora - addressed to a minister but clearly intended for the Great King to see - promising rich rewards in return for non-intervention ('for my husband will do nothing without first seeking my advice') he crossed the imperial frontier in March
540
and captured the town of Sura on the upper Euphrates, whose handful of defenders took one look at the size of the army marching against them and sensibly withdrew. From there he passed on to Beroea (the modern Aleppo), setting fire to the city when the populace failed to raise the
4,000
pounds of silver he had demanded as a ransom, and so in early June found himself before the walls of Antioch - politely drawing his army aside to allow the newly arrived garrison,
6
,000
strong but panic-stricken, to flee for its life. The citizens, however, did not give in so easily. They fought with determination and courage, Greens and Blues standing side by side on the ramparts and many of them dying where they stood. Sheer force of numbers allowed Chosroes finally to carry the day; but when he did so he made the people of Antioch pay dearly for their resistance. The great cathedral was stripped of all its gold and silver, and even of the polychrome marbles that adorned its walls; the other churches were similarly pillaged - except that of St Julian, which owed its salvation to its privileged position among the foreign embassies. Meanwhile the Persian soldiery satisfied its various lusts in the traditional manner, to the point where at least two distinguished ladies are said to have flung themselves into the Orontes to escape its attentions.

With all the wealth of Antioch loaded on to his baggage wagons, and before setting out on a triumphal tour of northern Syria during which he proposed to exact heavy tribute from every -city he visited, Chosroes could afford to be generous; he therefore offered peace to Justinian in return for only a little more blood money:
5,000
pounds of gold to be paid at once, plus
500
more each succeeding year. The Emperor had no choice but to accept and pay up; and Chosroes returned to Persia, profoundly satisfied with his campaign. But he was back the following year, when an opportunity arose which, even if it meant a further breach of his treaty obligations, he could not possibly miss.

At the far south-eastern corner of the Black Sea lay the small, semi-autonomous kingdom of Lazica, sometimes known as Colchis. Its ruler,
King Gobazes, had in the past been content to be a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor, who had caused him and his immediate predecessors little trouble; but Justinian had recently sent in a personal representative, who had established various imperial monopolies and so antagonized the people that Gobazes in despair appealed to the Persian King. Lazica was a poor country, and would normally have offered Chosroes little temptation; on the other hand, as Gobazes was not slow to point out, it would provide him with a bridgehead on the Black Sea from which he could sail directly against Byzantium and make contact with other potential allies, notably the Huns. So it was that the spring of
541
saw Chosroes once again invading the Empire at the head of his army and marching into Lazica - where, after a pitched battle with the defenders which exacted a heavy toll on both sides, he captured its principal port, the strongly fortified city of Petra.
1
The summer would probably have been still more disastrous for Byzantium had it not been for a simultaneous expedition by Belisarius; even this proved, however, to be an oddly lacklustre affair. Ignoring Lazica altogether, he headed straight for Mesopotamia, crossing into Persian territory near Nisibis; but, deciding that this great fortress was too strong for him, he bypassed it and captured only one relatively unimportant town, Sisaurani, before the Mesopotamian summer and an outbreak of dysentery among his soldiers forced him to retire.

There seemed to be little in him of the old Belisarius: little of the energy, the cunning and the infinite resourcefulness that had brought him, while still under thirty, to the top of his profession and made his name famous throughout the known world. In
540,
after his return from Ital
y, he had been expected to head straight for the East as ordered; instead, he had remained in his palace at Constantinople, showing himself little in public and seeing only a few close friends. When he did at last set out on campaign he seemed unable to take even minor decisions without seeking the advice and approval of his associates, to whom he appeared somehow distant and preoccupied; and so indeed he was. He had become obsessed by the infidelity of his wife Antonina - infidelity in which she was being abetted and protected by the Empress herself.

Theodora and Antonina had long been friends; but their friendship was further cemented in the course of
541
by their joint conspiracy against the Empress's most hated enemy, the
Praetorian Prefect John of Cap
padocia. John was well known to have imperial ambitions; and it was an

1 Not, of course, to be confused with the caravan city of southern Arabia, which was by this time already deserted and in ruins.

easy matter for Antonina to entice him to a secret meeting and persuade him to talk about how he planned to achieve his objective, while Theodora's spies remained in hiding, listening to every word. He was arrested, found guilty and dispossessed of his enormous wealth, but he was not condemned to mutilation or execution. His fate - the compulsory taking of holy orders, followed by exile in the comfortable diocese of Cyzicus on the Marmara - was, it was generally agreed, a good deal better than he deserved.

As a result of this intrigue, Antonina was able to call on the Empress for help in a domestic drama of her own, which reached a crisis at this time. For several years she had been involved in a passionate liaison with a young man named Theodosius - an indiscretion made more reprehensible by the fact that he was the godson of her husband and herself, and their adopted child. The extent to which Belisarius knew of this affair and condoned it is uncertain: Procopius's account - the only one that we have
1
- is a positive minefield of improbabilities and obvious exaggerations. But the young general possessed his full share of personal vanity and had no wish to be shown up publicly as a cuckold. He had raised no objection when Antonina told him that for the first time in their married life she would not be accompanying him on his new campaign, since he was well aware that she was at that moment engaged on delicate business with the Empress; but he was shattered when, a month or two after his own departure, he received reliable information that Theodosius - who had sought temporary refuge from the scandal by attaching himself to a monastery at Ephesus - had now returned to the capital and was living once again under his godmother's roof.

Belisarius's informant was none other than his stepson Photius - the son of Antonina by an earlier association - who had accompanied him to the Persian front. Photius cordially detested his mother, whom he suspected (with some justification) of having plotted to kill him; and when he received the news of her recent behaviour from a friend newly arrived from Constantinople he lost no time in passing it on to his stepfather. Together, the two decided on a plan of action. By this time the intrigue against the Cappadocian had been satisfactorily concluded and Antonina had announced her intention of coming east. When she did so, it was reasonably certain that Theodosius would return to Ephesus; at that moment Photius, taking advantage of his mother's absence, would follow him there and abduct him, putting him away in some remote and secret prison where he could cause no further trouble.

1
Secret History,
i-iii.

Antonina arrived, and to her astonishment found herself immediately under arrest; meanwhile Photius had set off for Ephesus, taking with him one of his mother's eunuchs from whom he had gathered, with morbid satisfaction, further intriguing information about her private life. On reaching the city he found that Theodosius had been warned of his approach and had taken refuge in the church of St John; but the local archpriest, in return for a small bribe, handed him over without a word. Photius sent him off to a remote castle in Cilicia, and himself returned to the capital.

In doing so he made a grievous mistake; for by the time he reached Constantinople Antonina had somehow contrived to send the Empress an appeal for help. Photius was arrested in his turn, together with a number of other close friends of his stepfather; several of them, Procopius tells us, suffered imprisonment and even death for no other reason than their friendship. Photius himself was subjected to unspeakable tortures, but steadfastly refused to reveal the whereabouts of Theodosius. He was to languish in the palace dungeons for three years before he succeeded - with the unexpected assistance of the Prophet Zechariah, who appeared to him in a dream - in escaping to Jerusalem. Procopius bitterly reproaches Belisarius for having made no move to help his stepson after his own return to Constantinople; he may be right to do so, and the accusation has certainly left a stain on the general's character. But with Antonina - to whom, on the Empress's orders, he had become officially reconciled - and Theodora herself in league against him, it is not easy to see what he could have done.

Eventually Theodora tracked down the young man by other means, and restored him to the arms of his mistress; soon afterwards, however, Theodosius died of dysentery - foul play was not, as far as we know, suspected - and a great weight was lifted off Belisarius's spirit. Back in the East in
542,
he was plainly himself again. Procopius delightedly describes how he received an ambassador from Chosroes:

. . . He set up a tent of heavy cloth known as a
pavilion,
and seated himself within it . . . and he arranged his soldiers as follows. On either side of the tent were Thracians and lllyrians, with Goths beh
ind them, and next to these Her
ulians, and finally Vandals and Moors. And their line extended a great distance across the plain, for they did not remain standing always in the same place, but stood apart from one another and wandered about, looking casually and without the least interest upon the envoy of Chosroes. And not one of them had a cloak or any other outer garment on his shoulders, but they sauntered about in linen tunics and trousers, tied loosely with girdles. And each one carried a horse-

whip, but for weapons one had a sword, another an axe, another an uncovered bow. And all gave the impression that they were eager to be off on the hunt, with never a thought for anything else
...

And when Abandanes [the envoy] came to Chosroes he advised him to take his departure with all possible speed. For he said that he had met a general who in manliness and wisdom surpassed all other men, and soldiers such as he had never seen.
1

So the Great King turned back and, concludes Procopius, 'the Romans were loud in their praises of Belisarius, who seemed to have achieved greater glory in their eyes by this affair than when he brought Gelimer or Vitiges captive to Byzantium.' As usual he exaggerates; but it is clear that the old Belisarius touch was once more in evidence.

As it happened, the
542
campaign proved indecisive, owing to an outbreak in both camps not of the usual dysentery or typhoid but of bubonic plague - an outbreak that was to prove one of the worst in Byzantine history. Beginning in Egypt, it quickly spread across all the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean to Constantinople, where it raged for four months, the toll rising to some
10,000
a day and, on one particular day,
16,000
- as many as the entire army in Italy. The proper burial of the dead soon became impossible; the corpses were carried off to a huge, long-abandoned fortress where they were piled up until they reached the roof. Daily life in the city came to a standstill; the surrounding fields lay unharvested, the markets were closed, the mills and bakeries fell idle with no one to work them. In consequence, plague was succeeded by famine. By the time the disease had run its course, the number of its victims was estimated at
300,000
- perhaps two out of five of the population.

Among those stricken was Justinian himself. For weeks during that nightmare summer he lay between life and death - leaving the supreme authority of the state in the hands of his wife and simultaneously introducing a new and urgent question to be considered - that of" the succession. Theodora knew that her whole future was at stake. She and Justinian were childless; if her husband were to die, her only chance of retaining her power lay in arranging for him to be succeeded by a ruler of her own choice: a trusted courtier, perhaps, or some faithful old general with whom she could go through a ceremony of marriage, just as her predecessor Ariadne had done with Anastasius half a century before.

1
History of the
Wars,
ii,
n.

Traditionally, however, the choice of Emperor lay with the army, most of whose senior officers were away in the East. By the time they heard of Justinian's illness, it seemed to them more than likely that he was already dead; and at a hastily convened meeting in Mesopotamia they agreed that they would refuse to recognize any ruler chosen at Constantinople in their absence and without their consent. Reports of this meeting in their turn were brought back to the capital, but not before Justinian was out of danger; and Theodora, feeling herself once again secure, flew into a fury. Two generals in particular were believed to have instigated the meeting. One of them, Buzes, a former Consul and
magister militum per orientem,
was flung into the by now notorious dungeons, where he languished in total darkness for twenty-eight months, emerging, it was said, more like a ghost than a man.

The other was Belisarius. He was too popular, and too powerful, to be dealt with in the same way as his subordinate, and Procopius asserts that none of the charges levelled against Buzes could conclusively be brought home to him. How this can be is not altogether clear: it may be that he was not physically present at the fateful meeting - though he must surely have endorsed its decisions. In any case, another pretext had to be found; and he was now accused of having enriched himself unduly with Vandal and Gothic treasure that should properly have been delivered to the Emperor. Here at least Theodora might be said to have had a case: Belisarius certainly made no secret of his immense wealth. His passage through the streets of Constantinople, mounted on a sumptuously caparisoned charger and followed by a regiment of his private barbarian bodyguards, had for some years savoured more of some royal progress than of a citizen of the Empire about his lawful occasions. On his return to the capital after the premature close of the
542
campaign, the Empress struck. First, the general found himself relieved of his Eastern command; next, his magnificent household was disbanded, his picked spearmen and footguards being distributed among his brother-officers and the palace eunuchs, who drew lots for them. Finally, his accumulated treasure was confiscated at Theodora's command - by the simple expedient of sending round one of her personal attendants with orders to bring everything of value straight to the imperial palace.

It was not till the following year,
543,
that Justinian recovered sufficiently to reassert his authority. Soon afterwards Belisarius was pardoned and partially restored to favour; his treasure, too, was returned to him - with the important exception of thirty hundredweight of
gold, which Theodora had graciously bestowed on her husband as a present - and the seal was set on the reconciliation by the betrothal of Joannina, his and Antonina's only child, to the Empress's grandson Anastasius. In a letter to him at this time, Theodora emphasized that she had forgiven him because of her close friendship with his wife; but it seems reasonably clear that there was another reason, far more cogent, for the general's reinstatement. In the outlying provinces of the Empire, the situation was deteriorating fast. Across the Mediterranean, an insurrection started by the Moorish tribes was spreading with terrifying speed throughout the province of Africa; in Italy, the Goths under Totila were also striking back and had already recaptured Naples. Only in the East had the year begun on a note of hope, King Chosroes's warlike intentions having been frustrated by a renewed outbreak of plague as well as by a rebellion fomented by one of his sons. But even here, the late summer brought disaster: an immense Byzantine army of some
30,000
men - the largest that Justinian had ever raised - marched into Persian-held Armenia and was annihilated by a far smaller Persian force.

This was, in short, no time to keep the Empire's one general of genius dishonoured, disarmed and humiliated in Constantinople; he was desperately needed in the field. Belisarius for his part asked nothing better. He at first hoped to go back to the Persian front, but this prospect was firmly blocked by Antonina: never again, she insisted, would he return to that part of the world in which she had been so grossly insulted. Theodora, predictably, supported her; and Belisarius received instead the supreme command of the imperial army in the West. But here again disappointment awaited him. Old scores, it seemed, had not yet been entirely settled. It was not with the rank of
magister militum
as he had assumed, but merely with that of
comes stabuli,
Count of the Stable, that he returned in May
544
- sadder, wiser and, though still only in his fortieth year, infinitely more tired - to Italy.

There is no more convincing testimony to the brilliance of Belisarius than the collapse of Byzantine power in Italy after his departure in
540.
With his triumphal entry into Ravenna that spring it must have seemed to everyone - Greek, Goth and Italian alike - that the whole peninsula had been recovered for the Empire. True, there were one or two small pockets of resistance, notably in Verona and Pavia, where the Gothic nobles acclaimed a young chieftain named Hildebad as their new King; but Hildebad's effective army amounted to no more than
1
,000
men, and
it seemed inconceivable that he could hold out longer than a few more weeks at most.

Nor would he have done so, if Belisarius had remained in Italy - or even, in all likelihood, if Justinian had appointed a competent successor. But the Emperor did no such thing. Instead, he left five subordinate generals jointly to consolidate the Byzantine hold on Italy as best they might, giving no single one of them authority over the rest. With the arguable exception of John, nephew of Vitalian, who for all his other faults was an excellent commander in the field, these generals were all distinctly second-rate: one, also named John, was known as
Phagas
,
the Glutton; another, Bessas, was a turncoat Goth; the other two, Vitalius and Constantian, were relatively recent arrivals from Dalmatia. On Belisarius's departure, they divided up the territory between them and gave themselves over to a single object - plunder. Within weeks, the demoralization of the Byzantine army was complete. By the end of the year Hildebad had built up a considerable force of his own - it included a good many deserters from the imperial ranks - and was in effective control of all Italy north of the Po.