‘The empire in the west has fared less well since the time of Julius Nepos.’
‘Him I have heard of, but only the name.’
‘He was raised to the purple by the Leo in 474 in place of a man the Emperor thought a usurper. Sadly, in less than two years Nepos was deposed by Orestes, his own magister militum.’
‘Now that is a nice name, Orestes.’
Flavius smiled indulgently and continued. ‘Nepos retired to Dalmatia, where he had previously acted as dux. Legally he still held the imperial title, but it was one only in name. Orestes was in all respects like the King of Italy. Then Orestes tried to raise his own son to the purple, treating after Leo’s death with the Emperor Zeno, but that failed. He in turn was killed by the leader of his foederati, a German mercenary called Odoacer and now he became the ruler of Italy.’
‘Not Nepos?’
‘He was murdered by the officers of his own comitatus.’
‘There are Greek plays that tell stories such as this.’
‘There’s been no Western Emperor since, but stability came with the rise of Theodoric.’
‘The famous Theodoric. I have heard they are calling him “the Great”.’
‘He may deserve it. He governed Italy with our consent and governed well.’
Theodoric had originally been a thorn in the flesh of Zeno — he had ravaged imperial territory and even threatened Constantinople before being diverted to Italy to fight Odoacer.
‘That war lasted three years, but finally he defeated Odoacer and captured Ravenna. Then Theodoric strangled him, killed him with his own hands at a banquet designed to cement a peace.’
That got Flavius a finger in the chest. ‘There are some people it is better not to dine with.’
‘Theodoric settled his followers in Italy, showing great care in the way he dealt with Zeno, then Anastasius and finally Justin. He never sought the title of emperor, content to be magister militum and to be raised to the rank of patrician.’
‘That makes him sound modest. I may not know as much as you do but Theodoric didn’t strike me as that.’
‘What’s in a title? He acted as he wished and we in the east valued harmony more than anything else. Theodoric gave us that and neither did he seek expansion. In all his dealing with Constantinople he was careful to always show respect. Better still, he made no attempt to convert the Italian citizenry to Arianism, allowing them to worship in their own faith. He’s been a bulwark against other threats, marrying three of his daughters, one to the King of Franks, another to the ruler of Burgundy and the third to a previous Vandal king of North Africa.’
‘No sons?’
‘No.’
‘And now he’s dead,’ Antonina whispered, with a yawn.
‘He is, and there was a great deal of conflict in Italy over his inheritance. Ripe, Justinian thinks, for us to intervene.’
She sat up and looked around; outside the gates of the city and well away from any dwelling they were not under any scrutiny. So when Antonina rolled towards him and began to kiss he could not find it within him to resist what followed. It was on the slow ride back to Constantinople that he asked her to marry him.
Theodora was delighted for a woman she saw as one of her closest friends; immediately on being told the news she announced that Justinian would give Antonina away and that she and he would be there to witness. The ceremony would be conducted by the Patriarch and the wedding feast would rival that of any Persian despot. Flavius was not consulted; he was too heavily involved in the expedition he had proposed and Justinian had agreed to.
Antonina was given a larger and grander set of apartments prior to the nuptials and it was to there the married couple would retire. The children of her previous marriage, Photius and Phoebe, acted as cup-bearers and the men who made up the imperial court, several hundred in number, as well as their wives, thought it politic to attend. Antonina insisted it was not out of regard for either her or her intended but a mark of their fear of Theodora.
All the pomp that the imperial establishment could muster was given to them gratis; a servant behind every chair, the best food the imperial kitchens could provide with wines from vineyards planted long before Constantine made this city his capital and it was a glittering occasion marred only by two things.
The clear doubt expressed by Flavius’s mother, fetched all the way from Illyricum, that this was a suitable match, and the behaviour of the mother of the bride, a raddled-looking woman who took to the contents of the imperial wine cellars with too much gusto and made an exhibition of herself by being both sick and unable to keep her feet, leading to her being carried from the feast.
It was at the conclusion that Justinian, having given his blessing to the newly-weds, announced that his trusted general Flavius Belisarius was about to be given sole command of an expedition to reconquer from the Vandals the provinces of Africa and the great city of Carthage. That raised a few eyebrows; Flavius had only recently been cleared from blame after an enquiry into his conduct as magister per Orientem, in which out of four battles he had lost three, though the lustre of Dara was undiminished.
And sole command was rare, but when Justinian had first proposed the task Flavius had insisted that he would not accept unless that condition was met. The army he led would be on its own once it landed, with nowhere to retreat to, barring its own ships. In such a situation there would be no time for conferences to decide what to do. Quick action would be required and that meant a single controlling hand.
Given that everyone had eaten and drunk well, the news — to many it was far from that — was greeted with loud cheers from the majority of guests, which allowed Justinian to bask in the glory of something he would only watch from a distance.
‘You can stay in Constantinople, Mother, we have room in these apartments for a dozen people.’
‘No, Flavius, the city does not suit me. I prefer the countryside where I now live and besides, you are not going to be here, are you?’
‘It is to where I will return.’
His mother was looking old and frail now and he wanted to say to her that if she went back to Illyricum this might be the last time they would spend together. Yet that seemed too final. He would have been hurt to hear her real reasons; she did not like his new wife and if the doubts she had expressed had been carefully couched they were a great deal deeper and more profound than she had ever let be known to her son.
‘If God permits, you will find the time to come to me. Now let us pray together for the memory of your father and brothers as well your success in battle and your safe return.’
There had been a great deal of diplomatic activity while the expedition had been in the planning stage, an area where Justinian was in his element; playing one person off against another, holding all the cards while his correspondent could see only one, was meat and drink for he was still the master intriguer. This was an area in which Flavius did not interfere but he knew that nothing would have been attempted if his emperor was not sure that all possible trouble would fall upon Gelimer.
The Vandal usurper had sought an alliance with Constantinople, one he wished to use against his own rebels. Those same insurgents were treating with Justinian for support against Gelimer and the Emperor was promising much and delivering very little in return. Finally Gelimer, sensing he was being pulled as would be a puppet, broke off his correspondence; those rebelling against him did not and the time had come to proceed.