He did not have to travel far in order to make contact with an enemy. The Sassanid twin to the Byzantine fortress of Dara was Nisibis, a mere three leagues distant and just as powerful a stronghold, certainly one holding a garrison large enough to pose a danger if just bypassed. Flavius dismayed many of his officers, men now thirsting for action, by ordering his surveyors to stay well away from the walls and to lay out the Byzantine camp at a distance, which required him to explain his thinking to his inferior in order to put a cap on much vocal muttering.
‘It is a poor commander who does not learn from his errors. When I fought Witigis outside Rome I paid no heed to the fact that he deployed his forces further away from the walls than seemed, at the time, necessary. Yet he had a clear reason to do so and it is one I now wish to adopt.’
A look around the assembly showed many an eager listener but also some expressions that hinted at either doubt, indifference or mystification.
‘The Sassanid spahed in Nisibis is Nabedes. He has substantial forces under his command and we have to assume him to be capable. Khusrow would not have entrusted to him such an important strategic asset as his major border stronghold if he was not a trusted subordinate. It is my belief that if we give him room he will come out from behind his walls to fight and drive us off, rather than accept to be put under siege.’
‘It is what you did at Dara,’ Photius added, now in a position to speak in support at such gatherings.
‘I did not venture so far, but then I had no intention of a pursuit. This time I wish to anticipate the possibility as Witigis did at Rome. Let Nabedes come to us, and if we can force him into a retreat, the gap between his army and safety could be so great that we might ruin the defence of Nisibis. If we succeed, the city will fall to us without the need to mount an assault.’
Obeyed by the majority, there were two men who thought they knew better than their general, the prime mover being a junior called Peter, like the late Constantinus a well-connected patrician who saw no reason to defer to a man of the character and breeding of Flavius Belisarius. The other commander, swayed by Peter even if he admired Flavius, was known as John the Glutton, given he was not a man to be any distance behind at mealtimes.
Declining to stop within the limit set, they marched on until not much more than a milia separated them from the enemy, a full half of the distance Flavius had decided upon. There was no time to recall them and besides, Flavius half wondered if Peter had inadvertently provided a temptation that the Sassanids would not be able to resist. With that in mind he sent word to the miscreant to stay where he was but to post a strong and alert guard against a night assault.
Dawn brought news that Nabedes had taken the bait. He was deploying his forces outside the walls, no doubt full of confidence based, Flavius suspected, on the way the Sassanids had routed every Byzantine force they encountered the previous year. Hubris in an enemy is ever a positive.
Orders were issued that the normal time of breaking to eat was to be postponed past noon, Flavius sure that would be the time the enemy, who knew well the habits of Eastern Roman armies, would launch their assault. It was as well he was ready, his forces drawn up to fight, for in the distance a huge cloud of dust told him that troops were moving in mass formations. By the time the message came from Peter that he was under attack – it had come while his men were, in another act of defiance, eating their midday rations – the main force was moving, with the Goth mercenaries well to the fore, eager to show their mettle.
They found the men led by Peter and the Glutton in dire straits, indeed they passed some of them fleeing the field. But so ferocious was the Goth assault they drove back the forward Sassanid elements and those troops recoiled on the supporting elements. Seeing the main Byzantine force closing at speed and with his army in some disarray, Nabedes ordered the retreat, the very outcome that Flavius had sought.
Yet thanks to Peter, the fight and flight was taking place too close to the walls of Nisibis and if the Sassanids lost substantial numbers, it was nothing like the amount that would have fallen had they had further to run. The main force got back through the gates not far off intact, which rendered impossible any chance of taking the city by a coup.
In dressing down his two errant commanders it was plain who had initiated the disobedience. Peter was sent back to Constantinople in disgrace and John the Glutton, the lesser offender, warned that any further insubordination would see him thrown into Justinian’s dungeons with no food, a warning he extended to his whole command when they met again to discuss what would happen now.
‘If we try to take Nisibis, Nabedes can hold out for the whole summer, so we must march on or our incursion is a waste.’
‘And leave him along our lines of communication, Magister?’ asked an inferior commander called Trajan. He had once been part of the Belisarian comitatus and was well trusted by the general who had promoted him.
‘We will achieve nothing here and it is to be hoped that Nabedes has been chastened by that which he has just experienced. He dare not lose Nisibis, given it would likely cost him his head, so I would have him cautious now and prepared to stay behind those walls.’
‘Do we not need supplies of food to come through Dara?’
The amusement that caused, the question being posed by the Glutton, made him blush, while everyone else added comments on his obvious girth until Flavius, with a raised hand brought it to an end.
‘The territory into which we are going to advance is fertile enough to support us. We need no supplies from our own possessions. The city of Sisauranon is no more than a day’s march to our front. That is our next objective.’
If the army marched on, Flavius did not; he kept a sharp eye on the gates of Nisibis for any sign that Nabedes might emerge, in which case he would swing his forces round to confront them. It was with a mixture of relief and disappointment that the spahed acted as predicted, the gates staying firmly closed, leaving him to ride hard to catch up with his strong rearguard.
There was no manoeuvring outside Sisauranon; as soon as they were properly deployed and their demand for surrender had been rebuffed, the Byzantines assaulted the walls with ladders, only to find them strongly held. Mounting losses caused that to be called off, which meant a siege; Flavius knew he would have to employ such a tactic: to leave two fortresses in his rear, who might combine their forces, was too dangerous.
Yet this place was not Nisibis, being nothing like as formidable, with walls in a poor state of repair and a smaller garrison. Sure it would succumb at some point, it did not require to be invested by his whole army so he detached the forces led by Arethas, as well as over a thousand of his bucellarii under John the Glutton, to raid across the Tigris.
Their task was to ravage at will in a region of Persia that had not seen conflict for decades and, being well watered and fertile, was rich because of it. To ensure John was not once more tempted to exceed his orders he was accompanied by Trajan. Once Sisauranon was captured and provided the information sent back by his raiders promised good rewards, Flavius would advance with the whole army to join them.
The first indication that he might take Sisauranon quickly came with the capture of a party of deserters, their reason for flight the fact that the city was so short of food they had been put on starvation rations. They also informed him it was full of Byzantine captives taken on the previous Sassanid incursion, it being the numbers of those, and the ransoms they might fetch, that had left the fortress lacking in sustenance for the defenders.