Unbeknown to the Goths, reinforcements were beginning to arrive from Justinian, the largest contingent from Armenia, but they were immediately reduced in number by being caught in an ambush by Totila, the price paid for their commander refusing to put himself under the orders of John Vitalianus and thus caught unprepared and exposed.
An even larger contingent was coming with Valerian, magister militum per Armeniam, but he took the view that it was too late in the year to begin campaigning and settled down to winter in Illyricum. It took a direct order from Justinian and the arrival of spring to get Valerian to move across the Adriatic.
There he combined with John Vitalianus and Flavius, who had left Rome under the command of a general called Conon. Totila was not idle; he knew where his enemies were and brought all the forces he could muster south to fight them in what became a to and fro set of engagements that were far from decisive for either side.
Rome came close to being lost again due to the behaviour of Conon; he had, no doubt, heard of the kind of monies Bessas had made when he held the city and he set out to copy his behaviour, selling food at inflated prices and controlling what came into the city. This time the citizens rebelled and the soldiers, unpaid for a year, declined to intervene.
Conon was murdered in the Senate House and, realising how far that put them beyond the approval of Constantinople, they sent a message to Justinian threatening to hand the city over to Totila if their crimes were not pardoned and the troops supposed to protect them paid, both demands rapidly acceded to.
Flavius calculated that he did not have the men to beat the Goths, and thanks to his subordinates the mood of the natives was no longer one of welcoming the men from the east as liberators. With a war seemingly endless, in which their homes and crops were either destroyed or seized and their wealth expropriated by both sides, the circumstances did not exist for a repeat of the previous conquest without the deployment of overwhelming force.
Sending piecemeal packets would not serve, the fighting would go on but to no conclusion. That message required to be sent back to the capital, and since he assumed that all his previous pleas for more men had to bypass the suspicions of Theodora, he decided that the appeal should be made to the Empress, and there was only one envoy he could think of who might persuade her.
‘My place is here by you.’
‘Your place is like mine, Antonina, where the empire needs you. I require you to go to Theodora-’
‘Require!’ was the huffy response.
‘I need more soldiers and a lot of them. I need you to persuade the Empress to cease to worry about what ambitions I might have and think of the good of the empire as well. I can write to her, I can send someone else, but I have no one in my entourage or among my officers who can do that which you will find easy. Not only to get to see her immediately but to have her listen.’
She was far from convinced and there was also the possibility of Antonina seeing the disadvantage of giving up the role Theodora had allotted to her.
‘Do you too think I hanker after the diadem?’ That got no answer. ‘What can I do to convince you? I could have had the title of Western Emperor and I said no. That would have made you Theodora’s equal.’
Sounding genuine took some effort; he had not been entirely against the notion Procopius had advanced, that in such a role he could cast his less than wholehearted companion aside. Even thinking about it now, he was not sure he would not have been tempted, despite the threat to his soul. Procopius had countered that fear by hinting at a papal dispensation.
‘I could never be her equal,’ Antonina insisted, not entirely convincingly.
‘And you are all the better for it.’ Given he rarely even came close to flattery with his wife, that had some effect. ‘You have often hinted that I do not treat you with the respect you deserve.’
‘Like a chattel most of the time, and when was the last time you came to my bed?’
Flavius did not react with his usual excuse of being either too busy or in recovery from some fight or other; he was long past feeling much passion for Antonina. Yet he had never said so, having, through a natural kindness that had appalled both Procopius and Photius, declined to employ words that would wound her feelings. There was also the residual thought, which was far from flattering to him, that insulting her would not be wise.
‘There is no more important mission to be undertaken. The only person of greater standing than you Antonina, is me, and I cannot leave my command without being suspected of rebellion, the very thing I choose to utterly deny. Must I plead with you?’
A soft probing response. ‘You would make it known that I am important?’
‘Not important, vital.’
A pout now. ‘You know that some of your officers feel free to insult me at any time of their choosing.’
They don’t, Flavius thought, but you, my dear, see an insult in a want of adulation.
‘I have not observed it,’ was the feeble response.
‘Then, Flavius,’ she hissed, ‘as I have always contended, you are blind.’
The way she paced a bit, her arms hugging her body, he knew to be role playing. When she stopped and looked at him he felt certain she was about to agree to his request.
‘I want you to call a meeting of all your senior officers.’
‘Why?’
‘If you are going to announce the need for an embassy to Constantinople and if you are so insistent that I am the only one you can trust to carry it out, that is something I would wish to be stated in public.’ The voice hardened. ‘I want to see the faces of those who feel free to slight me when you announce that.’
‘Of course,’ came the reply; it was small price to pay so she could gloat.
‘And as soon as that has been arranged you must go aboard a fast galley to Dyrrachium and on my authority employ every means at your disposal to make the fastest journey possible.’
That clearly appealed: to be able to order every posthouse resident to provide her with transport. Antonina loved ordering her maids around; now she would be able to command men to obey. To watch her swell as her mission was announced, to a gathering of officers who could not fathom why they had been summoned, had amusing elements to Antonina’s husband. In her it produced obvious and rather unbecoming conceit.
Antonina never returned to Italy. She made a fast journey and what came back, sent by her and brought to Flavius by imperial messenger, was much more telling. Theodora was no more; she had died after a short illness and by the tone of Antonina’s letter, the fate of the Army of Italy was of secondary concern. What would she do now her patron was gone?
The message from Justinian arrived right on the heels of that from his wife; it was a categorical order that Comes Flavius Belisarius relinquish his command in the peninsula and return with all speed to Constantinople.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
This was no homecoming in triumph; if not quite the reverse Flavius had no reason to expect any kind of grand welcome and nor was one provided. There was to be no docking at the private imperial harbour, the landing was in the main dock area. Yet Antonina, alerted to the vessel bearing his standard was in the offing, was on the quayside to greet him. As soon as he landed she rushed forward to kneel at his feet and having grabbed his hand, kiss it.
‘My prayers have been answered.’
The welcome threw Flavius; overt displays of affection had been rare in their marriage for quite a long time but it did not take much thought to discern Antonina’s reasoning: with Theodora gone she was without high-level protection and she would have reasoned, as had he, that Justinian had not recalled him at such a time to inflict on him any kind of punishment.