CHAP. XLIII. Recovered by Belisa rius, A. D. 547, February. his intention of sparing the city, he stationed an army at the distance of one hundred and twenty furlongs, to observe the motions of the Roman general. With the remainder of his forces, he marched into Lucania and Apulia, and occupied on the summit of mount Garganus 14 one of the camps of Hannibal. The senators were dragged in his train, and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania: the citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile; and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary solitude.16 The loss of Rome was specially retrieved by an action, to which, according to the event, the public opinion would apply the names of rashness or heroism. After the departure of Totila, the Roman general sallied from the port at the head of a thousand horse, cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city. Resolved to maintain a station so conspicuous in the eyes of mankind, he summoned the greatest part of his troops to the standard which he erected on the Capitol: the old inhabitants were recalled by the love of their country and the hopes of food; and the keys of Rome were sent a second time, to the emperor Justinian. The walls, as far as they had been demolished by the Goths, were repaired with rude and dissimilar materials; the ditch was restored; iron spikes 17 were profusely scattered in the highways to annoy the feet of the horses; and as new gates could not sud 14 Mount Garganus, now Monte St. Angelo, in the kingdom of Naples, runs three hundred stadia into the Adriatic sea (Strab. 1. vi. p. 436), and in the darker ages was illustrated by the apparition, miracles and church of St. Michael the archangel. Horace, a native of Apula or Lucaña, had seen the elms and oaks of Garganus labouring and bellowing with the north wind that blew on that lefty coast (Carm. ii. 9. Epist. ii. i. 201). 15 I cannot ascertain this particular camp of Hannibal; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the neighbourhood of Arpi (T. Liy. xxii. 9. 12. xxiv. 3. &c). 16 Totila. ... Romam ingreditur. . . ac ever it muros domes aliquantas igui comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in prædam accepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Campaniam captivos abduxit Post quani devasta inem, xl aut amplius dies, Roma fuit ita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, nisi (nulla?) bestia morarentur (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54). 17 The tribuli are small engines with four spikes, one fixed in the ground, the three others erect or adverse (Procopius, Gothic. I. ii. c. 24. Just, Lipsius, Poliorce.v, 1. v. c. 3). The metaphor was borrowed from the tribuli (land caltrops), an herb with a prickly fruit common in Italy (Martin, ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 153. vol. ii. p. 33). XLIII. denly be procured, the entrance was guarded by a Spartan CHAP. rampart of his bravest soldiers. At the expiration of twenty-five days, Totila returned by hasty marches from Apulia, to avenge the injury and disgrace. Belisarius expected his approach. The Goths were thrice repulsed in three general assaults; they lost the flower of their troops; the royal standard had almost fallen into the hands of the enemy, and the fame of Totila sunk, as it had risen, with the fortune of his arms. Whatever skill and courage could achieve, had been performed by the Roman general: it remained only, that Justinian should terminate, by a strong and seasonable effort, the war which he had ambitiously undertaken. The indolence, perhaps the impotence, of a prince who despised his enemies, and envied his servants, protracted the calamities of Italy. After a long silence, Belisarius was commanded to leave a sufficient garrison at Rome, and to transport himself into the province of Lucania, whose inhabitants, inflamed by Catholic zeal, had cast away the yoke of their Arian conquerors. In this ignoble warfare, the hero, invincible against the power of the Barbarians, was basely vanquished by the delay, the disobedience, and the cowardice of his own officers. He reposed in his winter-quarters of Crotona, in the full assurance, that the two passes of the Lucanian hills were guarded by his cavalry. They were betrayed by treachery or weakness; and the rapid march of the Goths scarcely allowed time for the escape of Belisarius to the coast of Sicily. At length a fleet and army were assembled for the relief of Ruscianum, or Rossano,18 a fortress sixty furlongs from the ruins of Sybaris, where the nobles of Lucania had taken refuge. In the first attempt the Roman forces were dissipated by a storm. In the second they approached the shore; but they saw the hills covered with archers, the landing-place defended by a line of spears, and the king of the Goths impatient for battle. The conqueror of Italy retired with a sigh, and continued to languish, inglorious and inactive, till Antonina, who had been sent 18 Ruscia, the nava'e Thuriorum, was transferred to the distance of sixty stadia to Ruscianum, Rossano, an archbishopric without suffragans. The republic of Sybaris is now the estate of the duke of Corigliano (Riedesel, Travels into Magna Græcia and Sicily, p. 166....171). VOL. V. M M CHAP. Final recal of Belisarius, to Constantinople to solicit succours, obtained, after the death of the empress, the permission of his return. Instead The five last campaigns of Belisarius might abate the envy of his competitors, whose eyes had been dazzled A. D. 548. and wounded by the blaze of his former glory. September. of delivering Italy from the Goths, he had wandered like a fugitive along the coast, without daring to march into the country, or to accept the bold and repeated challenge of Totila. Yet in the judgment of the few who could discriminate counsels from events, and compare the instruments with the execution, he appeared a more consummate master of the art of war, than in the season of his prosperity, when he presented two captive kings before the throne of Justinian. The valour of Belisarius was not chilled by age; his prudence was matured by experience, but the moral virtues of humanity and justice seem to have yielded to the hard necessity of the times. The parsimony or poverty of the Emperor compelled him to deviate from the rule of conduct which had deserved the love and confidence of the Italians. The war was maintained by the oppression of Ravenna, Sicily, and all the faithful subjects of the empire; and the rigorous prosecution of Herodian provoked that injured or guilty officer to deliver Spoleto into the hands of the enemy. The avarice of Antonina,, which had been sometimes diverted by love, now reigned without a rival in her breast. Belisarius himself had always understood, that riches, in a corrupt age, are the support and ornament of personal merit. And it cannot be presumed that he should stain his honour for the public service, without applying a part of the spoil to his private emolument. The hero had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, but the dagger of conspiracy 19 awaited his return. In the midst of wealth and honours, Artaban, who had chastised the African tyrant, complained of the ingratitude of courts. He aspired to Præjecta, the emperor's niece, who wished to reward her deliverer; but the impediment of his previous mar 19 This conspiracy is related by Procopius (Gothic. 1. iii. c. 31, 32.) with such freedom and candour, that the liberty of the Anecdotes gives him nothing to add. XLIII. riage was asserted by the piety of Theodora. The pride CHAP. of royal descent was irritated by flattery; and the service in which he gloried, had proved him capable of bold and sanguinary deeds. The death of Justinian was resolved, but the conspirators delayed the execution till they could surprise Belisarius disarmed, and naked, in the palace of Constantinople. Not a hope could be entertained of shaking his long-tried fidelity; and they justly dreaded the revenge, or rather justice, of the veteran general, who might speedily assemble an army in Thrace to punish the assassins, and perhaps to enjoy the fruits of their crime. Delay afforded time for rash communications and honest confessions: Artaban and his accomplices were condemned by the senate, but the extreme clemency of Justinian detained them in the gentle confinement of the palace, till he pardoned their flagitious attempt against his throne and life. If the emperor forgave his enemies, he must cordially embrace a friend whose victories were alone remembered, and who was endeared to his prince by the recent circumstance of their common danger. Belisarius reposed from his toils, in the high station of general of the East and count of the domestics; and the older consuls and patricians respectfully yielded the precedency of rank to the peerless merit of the first of the Romans.20 The first of the Romans still submitted to be the slave of his wife; but the servitude of habit and affection became less disgraceful when the death of Theodora had removed the baser influence of fear. Joannina their daughter, and the sole heiress of their fortunes, was betrothed to Anastasius the grandson, or rather the nephew, of the empress, whose kind interposition forwarded the consum 21 20 The honours of Belisarius are gladly commemorated by his secretary (Procop. Goth. 1. iii. c. 35. l. iv. c. 21). The title of Erparnyos is ill translated, at least in this instance, by præfectus prætorio; and to a military character, magistur militum is more proper, and applicable (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 1458, 1459). 21 Alemannus (ad Hist. Arcanam, p. 68), Ducange (Famile Byzant. p. 98), and Heineccius (Hist. Juris Civilis, p. 434), all three represent Anastasius as the son of the daughter of Theodora; and their opinion firmly reposes on the unambiguous testimony of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 4, 5.... Buyarpid twice repeated). And yet I will remark, 1. That, in the year 547, Theodora could scarcely have a grandson of the age of puberty; 2. That we are totally ignorant of this daughter and her husband; and, 3. That CHAP. Rome again taken by the Goths, A. D. 549. mation of their youthful loves. But the power of Theodora expired, the parents of Joannina returned, and her honour, perhaps her happiness, were sacrificed to the revenge of an unfeeling mother, who dissolved the imperfect nuptials before they had been ratified by the ceremonies of the church.22 Before the departure of Belisarius, Perusia was besieged, and few cities were impregnable to the Gothic arms. Ravenna, Ancona, and Crotona, still resisted the Barbarians; and when Totila asked in marriage one of the daughters of France, he was stung by the just reproach, that the king of Italy was unworthy of his title till it was acknowledged by the Roman people. Three thousand of the bravest soldiers had been left to defend the capital. On the suspicion of a monopoly, they massacred the governor, and announced to Justinian, by a deputation of the clergy, that unless their offence was pardoned, and their arrears were satisfied, they should instantly accept the tempting offers of Totila. But the of ficer who succeeded to the command (his name was Diogenes) deserved their esteem and confidence; and the Goths, instead of finding an easy conquest, encountered a vigorous resistance from the soldiers and people, who pa tiently endured the loss of the port, and of all maritime supplies. The siege of Rome would perhaps have been raised if the liberality of Totila to the Isaurians had not encouraged some of their venal countrymen to copy the example of treason. In a dark night, while the Gothic trumpets sounded on another side, they silently opened the gate of St. Paul: the Barbarians rushed into the city; and the flying garrison was intercepted before they could reach the harbour of Centumcellæ. A soldier trained in the school of Belisarius, Paul of Cilicia, retired with four hundred men to the mole of Hadrian. They repelled Theodora concealed her bastards, and that her grandson by Justinian would have been heir-apparent of the empire. 22 The aμаρryμara, or sins, of the hero in Italy and after his return, are manifested axapanahuntas, and most probably swelled, by the author of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5). The designs of Antonina were favoured by the fluctuating jurisprudence of Justinian. On the law of marriage and divorce, that emperor was trocho versatilior (Heineccius, Element. Juris Civil, ad Ordinem Pandect. P. iv. No. 233). |
