The news of Joannina's engagement set a public seal on the reconciliation of Theodora and my mistress with Belisarius. Theodora even persuaded the Emperor to witness the ceremonial exchange of gifts at Belisarius's house; and his presence there seemed a good omen for the renewed prosperity of Belisarius's domestic affairs. Belisarius and my mistress were escorted by a remnant of his Household Regiment400 Thracians who had passed to my mistress at Theodosius's death, and were now restored to their former master. But their 6,500 comrades-in-arms were still withheld from him.
Belisarius's recall from the East had brought disaster there. Justinian ordered an invasion of Persian Armenia, and reinforced the frontier armies until they amounted to nearly 30,000 men; but divided the command between no less than fifteen generals. Each general favoured and pursued a plan of campaign of his own; at Dubis, on the River Araxes, their disunited forces were routed by an army of only 4,000 Persians and fled wildly home, abandoning their plunder, their standards, and their arms. Several of these generals continued in their flight until their horses foundered, though there was now no enemy within thirty miles of them. Then Our Lady Plague proved an unexpected ally, spreading suddenly into Persian territory, which she had hitherto spared, and killing one man in every three throughout the Great King's dominions: else it would have gone ill with the Roman Empire. For, of 30,000 men, 10,000 men were killed at Dubis and 10,000 captured, together with all the transport of the army, heaped with baggage and plunder.
When Belisarius volunteered to go again to the East and rally the survivors, Justinian haughtily refused this plea. He withheld the true explanation, which was that he did not wish Belisarius to succeed once more where others had failed, and thus seem indispensable; but said, in his odious smiling way, that the Lady Antonina must henceforth accompany her husband on his campaigns as a surety for his loyal behaviour, and that the Lady Antonina would 'no doubt dislike a visit to the Persian frontier in view of her unfortunate experiences on a previous visit.'
Then he went on to say that if Belisarius greatly hungered for the battlefield he might return to Italy, to complete the task which he had neglected to finish. 'It was most unwise and not altogether loyal, my Lord Belisarius, to return to us at Constantinople before you had properly stamped out the last sparks of Gothic rebellion, which have smouldered ever since and at last burst into a menacing blaze'
Belisarius answered him, as patiently as ever: 'Give me back the remainder of my Household Regiment, Your Majesty, and I will do my best in the matter.'
Justinian sneered: 'For some new treachery, I suppose? No, no, General, I am too old and experienced a hare to be lured by such a lettuce-leaf. Besides, your former troops, all but a very few, have lately been taken from my Palace officers and drafted, as you know, to the Persian frontier — from where we cannot spare them. But why do you argue with us, you who were so recently a beggar? We will give you permission to recruit new troops wherever you please in our dominions; but since the recrudescence of war in Italy is clearly due to your former negligence, we shall require you to finance the expedition yourself. We have no money, but you are still possessed of an ample fortune. If you accept this charge we will bestow on you a great honour: we will create you Count of the Royal Stables. Let us know your mind tomorrow.' Then he dismissed him.
Belisarius accepted the terms — for he disdained to bargain. Presently he sailed for Italy with my mistress Antonina, whom I accompanied, and his 400 Thracians. His new title gave my mistress much amusement. She would say such things as this: 'My poor husband, you are created Count of the Augean Stables, but forbidden to cleanse them!' (The hero Hercules was commanded, as his fifth Labour, to cleanse the stables of Augeas in one day; accomplishing this by leading the Rivers Alpheus and Peneus through them.)
It was about this time that Solomon was killed in Africa, in battle with a raiding army of Moors. He had been a most capable Governor, though greatly hampered by an insufficiency of troops. The Roman Africans had long regretted those happy days of Vandal rule when the Moors were restrained in their hill-fortresses and the tax-gatherers from Constantinople had not yet begun to eat up the land. After Solomon's death the Moors massacred, burned, and destroyed without pity or fear of reprisal. The poorer the Diocese grew, the more heavily did the taxes fall on what wealth survived; for the assessment made in the year of Belisarius's Consulsliip had never been modified. Then came the plague. In those years of general disaster five millions of the population perished; then, so many fields being left untilled and un-watered, the desert broke in upon them. I think this fertile land will never recover from its misfortunes — or at least not so long as it remains within the Empire.
CHAPTER 21
What now follows is an account of five years of the most thankless campaigning, surely, that any general of repute ever undertook. Disappointment wearies, not only in the experience but in the telling of it. I shall therefore be brief and write down only enough of this, Belisarius's last campaign in the West, to prove that his courage and resource and vigour remained unaffected by thirty years of almost continuous campaigning, and that he did all that could possibly have been expected of him, and more.
It will be remembered that the Gothic crown had passed to a young prince named Teudel who could command at first no more than a thousand lances and had only one fortified city of any strength in his possession — Pavia. But he was the first capable sovereign to rule over the Goths since the death of Theoderich. By the quarrelsomeness and inactivity of the eleven Imperial generals that opposed him, he was able to increase his forces to 5,000 men and organize them into a well-equipped army. In the same year that Belisarius quarrelled with my mistress at Daras, Bloody John, Bessas, and the rest had received instructions from Justinian to 'crush the last remnants of the Goths'; but he was unwilling to entrust the supreme command to any one of them. They took the field with 12,000 men, including the garrison of Sisauranum that Bclisarius had captured and that had just arrived from the East. Chiefly because of their disagreement as to the equitable distribution of the booty that they expected to take, they were ingloriously defeated by Teudel, at Faenza: many thousands of their men were killed or captured and — unique disgrace — every single regimental standard was abandoned, though every single general escaped. Only the Persian squadron fought with courage, and for this reason lost more heavily than any other. Then each of the eleven generals led what remained of his own command into the shelter of a different fortress, so that the whole of Italy now lay open to Teudel's army.
Bloody John took the field again with reinforcements from Ravenna. Though still outnumbered, Teudel scattered Bloody John's army at a battle near Florence, and not only caused him heavy losses in killed and wounded but persuaded a great many of his men to desert to the Gothic army. Alexander ('The Scissors') had reduced the armies in Italy to a most despondent condition by stealing their pay and rations. No soldiers will fight for long without pay or proper food, except in the defence of their own homes and under a courageous leader. Besides, if there is discord among the officers, as here, the ranks soon come to know of it, and confidence is destroyed. Those who deserted to Teudel were putting themselves under the protection of a king who was a man of his word — a bold, active, generous leader who did not share his command with rivals.