Justinian's envoy on this occasion was Narses, the Court Chamberlain. Off Lesbos, the ship in which he sailed overtook the one in which my mistress and I were, and he courteously invited her to join forces with him. Narses was a dwarfish and repulsively ugly figure; a native of Persian Armenia, he was reputedly the cleverest man in Constantinople and, of course, a eunuch. My playful mistress, to relieve the tedium of the journey, which occupied three weeks, began teasing Narses as 'a traitor to his sex'. For, as I overheard her one night whispering to her tiring-maid, Macedonia: 'He shows none of the usual traits of a eunuch-luxury, sentimentality, amorousness, and argumentative religiosity. He betrays not the least inclination to comb my fine auburn hair or fondle my pretty feet, and even seems to have no envy of my good looks; which is the most outstanding trait of all in a eunuch.' (I have omitted to mention that, not merely by virtue of expensive embellishments at the hands of hairdresser, chiropodist, manicurist, and the rest, but in her own natural right, my mistress was now known as one of the three most beautiful women in Constantinople; and the first place was, of course, unattainable, being reserved for the Empress.) Narses talked very practically on the problem of frontier defence, and recruiting, and the commissariat problem; and when he addressed the escort of Guards he gave clear, abrupt orders in a very good imitation of a military voice, which made my mistress smile a little. Her smile offended him, and he said so frankly.
Now, we eunuchs are a prominent feature of Eastern Roman civilization, and perform a very useful part in it. My own history was exceptional-most eunuchs are imported when young from the Black Sea shores, about Colchis, and educated at a special Palace School in the routine of the Imperial Civil Service, which is almost entirely controlled by eunuchs. It is a principle first learned by our Emperors from the Persian Court that eunuchs, since they are ineligible for sovereignty and incapable of founding dangerously powerful families, can safely be honoured with the royal confidence and used as a bulwark against the possible usurpation of the Throne by a conspiracy of powerful nobles. Eunuchs on the whole make milder and more loyal and more industrious officials than their unstoned colleagues, and their pettiness in routine matters-I do not deny the pettiness-is a strong conservative force. It has therefore long been the practice of rich middle-class families who have enough male children to carry on the line, deliberately to castrate one of the younger ones and dedicate him to a profitable career in the Civil Service. The bastard sons of Emperors too, or of their sons and daughters, are regularly castrated, in order to make useful citizens of them and prevent them from aspiring to the Throne. Nor are eunuchs debarred from the priesthood, as they were in pagan times from all priestly orders but that of the Attis priests of Mother Cybele. The City Patriarch himself is now frequently one of our number.
Thus, to be a eunuch is, in the worldly sense at least, more of an advantage than a disadvantage, as may also be seen by a comparison of slave-market prices. A eunuch house-slave fetches three times the price of an unstoned one; he is worth only a little less than a trained house-physician or a skilled artisan. But a eunuch is seldom a happy man, because the operation has almost always been performed on him before the age of puberty, and he secretly imagines that to be a whole man is something very fine; if only because whole men are apt to jeer at eunuchs and to swear that they would rather be blind or dumb or deaf, or even all three of these things together, than debarred from the sweet and wholesome act of love. Naturally, the eunuch has a ready answer to such boasting: that sex is a madness and never brought anyone much luck. But secretly, as I confess, he is apt to envy the man who can take a woman to bed with him and do more than embrace her as a sister and chastely kiss her eyes.
My mistress Antonina said to me once: 'For my part, my dear Eugenius, if I were not a woman I would much rather be a eunuch than a man; because men find it most difficult to find a mean, in sex, between debauchery and asceticism. That we women are regarded with such suspicion by the Church and so scurrilously preached against from the pulpits as tempters and destroyers, I have always understood as a roundabout confession that men envy the evenness of women. And this evenness the eunuch enjoys to a certain degree, and would enjoy it nearly to the full but for the jeers of the happy-unhappy unstoned. In this context, Eugenius, you should consider the fable of Aesop: of the fox who lost his tail in a trap and tried to persuade the other foxes how convenient such mutilation was. They jeered at him, saying that he only took this view because he was mutilated himself. Aesop is said to have been a eunuch domestic as you are. The moral implied in the fable is therefore not what it is usually taken to be, namely that misery loves company-as, for instance, monks, who have lost their liberty by taking strict vows, try to persuade their old friends to do the same. No, the moral is rather the impossibility of arriving at a logical decision in the question of whether men are happier with or without full sexual powers. For my part, I am happy to be a woman and not to be personally involved in the argument.'
My mistress said much the same to Narses. He had replied soberly to her chaff and told her his life-story, which explained why he was not contented with his sexual estate. He had been captured in battle when he was eleven years old, and had already at that tender age killed a man with his little sword-for he came of a well-known military family in Armenia. He detested office-work, he said, and hoped one day to persuade the Emperor to give him a military command; he had studied strategy and tactics intently all his life, and if he were only allowed the opportunity he believed that such royal gifts as he was now bearing to Belisarius would one day be brought in gratitude to him, or even perhaps greater!
It is well known that almost everyone in the world is discontented with his trade or profession. The farmer would Eke to be an emperor, the Emperor would like to plant cabbages; the lean captain of a trading-vessel envies the big-paunched wine-shop proprietor-who returns the envy, dissatisfied with his stay-at-home life. But it is wise not to laugh at such men when they pour out their dissatisfaction as a confidence: my mistress first learned this rule of tactful behaviour when working at the club-house in the old days. So she affected to realize that she had been mistaken in talking to Narses as to an ordinary unwarlike eunuch from Colchis, and to sympathize with his discontent. If ever he were rewarded for his great services to the State by a high military appointment she would be the first to congratulate him, she declared, and to wish him success. For the rest of that journey they were at peace; and he became a good friend of hers. A quarrel, an apology, and a reconciliation are as favourable an introduction to friendship as any. But you may imagine that my mistress could not take his military ambitions very seriously, even when he proved by his conversation with the two Guards captains who commanded his escort and hers to know a great deal more about the theoretical side of soldiering than they did. For though he had perhaps killed a man with his little sword at the age of eleven, that was forty-nine years ago, and since then he had hardly set foot outside the Palace; where for a long time, until his education was complete, he had worked at a loom in the company of the Palace women.
We went by sea, for the first part of our journey, in a warship with three banks of oars. It was a pleasant but not eventful voyage past the usual green hills and white cities. When at last we disembarked at Seleucia and came by road to Antioch I was delighted to see how quickly the ravages of the earthquake were being repaired: it was our dear, bustling, luxurious, old Antioch once more. Narses and my mistress were entertained by the local Senate and by the Blue-faction officials, who were very obliging to my mistress-and she to them. Then we took the paved road to Zeugma, famous for its pontoon-bridge, 120 miles away; from which it is another 200 miles, through mainly fertile country watered by four principal tributaries of the Euphrates, to Daras and the frontier. We travelled in post-gigs and found the heat very trying, in spite of awnings and briskly trotting ponies. From Edessa, where we halted for two days, we sent fast riders ahead to announce our approach.
When we arrived at Daras, etiquette demanded that the letters should be delivered not directly to Belisarius (and to the Master of Offices, who was also honoured with a letter from the Emperor) but to his domestics. My mistress greatly regretted that this should be so, because she knew the contents of Theodora's letter, which had been written in her presence. She would have given much to watch Belisarius's face as he read it. It went as follows:
'Theodora Augusta, spouse of Justinian, Vice-regent of God and Emperor of the Romans, to the Illustrious Patrician Belisarius, Commander of the Victorious Armies in the East: greeting!
'Tidings have come to my royal husband, the Emperor, and to myself, of your well-deserved success over the Persians. You are enrolled now with, the heroes of the past, and we praise you, because you have greatly benefited us, and we wish you well. Two of the Emperor's presents, the bowl and the missal, do honour to your religious nature, and the third, the cloak, is a foretaste of the appreciation in which you will be held at our Court on your return from duty and victories. It becomes me therefore-for a lady's presents to a retainer should be complementary to those given by her lord-to send you three other gifts by the hand of my trusted Lady of the Bedchamber, from which you may derive an altogether different sort of pleasure. The first of these gifts I have chosen for you because he wears your household badge and is, moreover, the most excellent of his race in our dominions; the second I send you because your plunder will have put you in need of it; and as for the third it is a present above rubies, and you will greatly incur my displeasure if you presumptuously refuse it. For it is a characteristic of Theodora that in gratitude she always gives of her best. Farewell.'
Belisarius sent word that the representatives of their Majesties were welcome, and presently received Narses and my mistress in the cool, arched tribunal-hall where he dispensed discipline and gave daily audiences to his subordinates and allies. Narses was admitted first, as emissary of the Emperor. Belisarius, it seems, greeted him affably, inquiring first after the health of his royal Master and Mistress and of the principal Senators and then for news of affairs in the City and Empire. They drank a cup of wine together on the tribunal, and Narses asked searching questions about the details of the battle. Belisarius answered, not in an off-hand manner as to a mere Palace eunuch, but considerately and in detail, weighing every word. Narses wished to know why Belisarius had temporarily dismounted the Massagetic Huns to defend the central trench. Belisarius replied: because the attack was a formidable one, and because nothing so greatly encourages hard-pressed foot-soldiers ('the latrine-men' as they are sometimes contemptuously called because of the many thankless tasks that they are called upon to perform) as when mounted comrades nobly renounce their opportunity for flight, by sending their horses back a little way under charge of grooms, and fight for once, cut and thrust, on their own legs.
Then the Emperor's presents were delivered, admired, and given thanks for; and soon Narses bowed and withdrew.
Meanwhile my mistress Antonina was sitting in the ante-room at the end of the hall, and Rufinus, who was now Belisarius's standard-bearer, was most attentive to her. But she answered his polite remarks in a confused, random manner, because, for once in her life, she was feeling altogether ill at ease. The matter had seemed simple and certain when Theodora and she discussed it at the Palace; but now, as she rose at the summons from the tribunal-hall, her knees were trembling and her tongue dry.
She stood half-way down the hall and signalled to her guards to lead forward the first of Theodora's three presents, which was a tall, fiery three-year-old bay stallion with a white blaze on its forehead and four white socks. It was to these marks that Theodora had referred when she wrote that her first present wore his household badge. A murmur of applause went up from the cuirassiers of the Household, who were standing at attention along the walls of the hall with their lances held upright at their sides, and from all the cavalry officers tanked around the tribunal. My mistress overheard Rufinus, who stood near her, muttering to himself: 'This one gift of the Empress's outweighs by itself the Emperor's three.' For it was indeed a superlative animal of the famous Thracian breed of which the poet Virgil makes mention in the fifth book of his Aeneid.
The stallion was led off to the stable, and my mistress Antonina beckoned for the second present to be brought forward. My mistress had been anxious lest this might perhaps not arrive in time, though we had sent it ahead from Antioch as soon as we had disembarked and overtaken it a day out from Edessa; but here it was-a consignment of 500 complete suits of cavalry mail-armour from the arms factory at Adrianople. Theodora knew that Belisarius's plunder included a large number of Persian horses, and inferred rightly that he would enrol in his own forces the sturdiest of the 3,000 prisoners that he had captured and make cuirassiers of them. But the Persian cavalry-armour which had fallen into his hands was not suitable, being both too thin and too complicated for use in the field; so these 500 suits were a most welcome gift. Again a murmur of applause arose, for it was seen that the steel helmets all carried white plumes. The Empress clearly understood the art of giving appropriate presents.
Then at last my mistress found her voice and spoke: 'The third gift, Illustrious Belisarius, is, by the order of Her Resplendency, my royal Mistress, to be delivered to you in private.'
Belisarius had not recognized her, she felt sure, because his voice was cool and natural as he replied: 'As my Benefactress wishes. But you, my lords and gentlemen, pray do not retire! The Illustrious Lady of the Imperial Bedchamber will perhaps be gracious enough to meet me in the ante-room from which she has just emerged, and deliver the third present to me there in the privacy that her Glorious Mistress requires of us.'
My mistress Antonina bowed and retired to the ante-room, and presently he entered and closed the door.
They stood facing each other without speaking, until at last she said in a low voice: 'It is myself, Antonina. Do you remember me-the dancing-girl at the banquet that your Uncle Modestus gave at Adrianople?'
Either he had never forgotten or else the memory now leaped suddenly back to his mind. He answered: 'And this is still myself, Belisarius.' He clasped her hands in his, and the third gift was taken.
Then Belisarius said: 'Tell your royal Mistress that never, I believe, in the whole course of history have such welcome gifts been given to a subject by his Imperial Mistress; and that I accept them in loving wonder at her marvellous divination of my needs and desires. But, O sweet Antonina, tell her that enjoyment of the third gift, immeasurably the best of the three, must be postponed until my recall from the wars; for I have a vow to keep.'
'What vow can that be, my dear Belisarius?' she asked him.
He replied: 'My officers and men have taken a vow upon the Gospels, in which I have joined them, that they will neither shave their chins, nor fall into the sin of drunkenness, nor either marry a wife or take a concubine, so long as they remain here on active service against the Persians.'
'Could you not appeal to the Patriarch for a dispensation from this vow?' she asked.
'I could do so, but I would not, because of the others, who must remain still bound by it. My beloved Antonina, whose image has lingered in my heart these fifteen years, be patient and wait! To know that when I return to the City the greatest reward in the world will be awaiting me, this surely will hasten the victorious return that the Emperor has wished for me.'
Though my mistress Antonina could not press him in a matter which touched his honour, neither could she conceal her disappointment. She asked: 'Oh, Belisarius, are you sure that you are not making excuses to gain time?' But this was pure rhetoric, for never was delight written so plainly on any man's face as on his.
Belisarius and my mistress returned to the tribunal-hall, and both resumed their official looks and accents. Belisarius recalled Narses, and invited both him and my mistress, and the officers of their escort, to a banquet with himself and his staff that night. My mistress had no further opportunity to speak to Belisarius in private, and both of them were careful not to reveal by word or look the great love that each felt for the other. The banquet was a sober affair, because of the vow against drunkenness which nearly everyone present had taken, and because table-delicacies are not easily procured at Daras. On the next morning Narses and she returned home, armed with letters of humble gratitude to their royal Master and Mistress. But Narses had guessed my mistress's secret, and whispered to her as soon as they were seated privately together in a gig: 'May he be as fortunate in your love, most Illustrious Lady, as you in his!'
My mistress replied in words that pleased him as much as his had pleased her: 'And may you, Distinguished Chamberlain, be as successful when the general's purple cloak flaps from your shoulders as you have been these many years while dressed in the stiff crimson silks of your Palace appointment.'
When we were back again at Constantinople my mistress found two letters from Belisarius waiting for her that had come by a quicker route. They were written in such simple, elegant language and indicative of such honest ardour that, since this love was not only sanctioned but positively enjoined upon the two of them by Imperial orders, she broke a life-long rule, and committed her own amorous feelings to writing. Many scores of long letters passed between them until his return to her some eighteen months later.
The next phase of the war was a Persian invasion of Roman Armenia; but it was energetically checked by Sittas, Belisarius's former comrade, who was brother-in-law to Theodora. The Roman name being now held in greater respect than formerly, a number of Christian Armenians from the Persian side presently deserted to the Imperial armies. Kobad also lost the revenues of the gold-mine at Pharangium, a town situated in a fruitful but almost inaccessible canyon on the border between the two Armenias; for the chief engineer there elected to put the city and mines under Roman protection. Kobad, with the obstinacy of old age, refused to withdraw his troops from the neighbourhood of Daras, though Justinian sent an embassy to re-open peace negotiations. Each side tried to fix the moral responsibility for the conflict on the other. Kobad told the Roman ambassador that the Persians had done meritoriously in seizing and garrisoning the Caspian Gates, which the Emperor Anastasius had refused to buy from the owner even at a nominal price; since, by doing so, he had protected both the Roman and Persian Empires from barbarian invasion. The garrison was costly to maintain, and Justinian should, in justice, either pay a half-share of the expenses or, if he preferred, send a detachment of Roman troops there sufficient to permit half the Persian garrison to withdraw in their favour.
Then King and Ambassador discussed the breach of an ancient treaty regarding frontier fortifications. The Roman fortification of Daras, Kobad pointed out, had made it strategically necessary for the Persians to keep a strong frontier force at Nisibis; and this again was an unfair tax on his country's resources, and was one injustice too many for him to accept. He now offered Justinian three alternatives to choose from: contributing to the defence of the Caspian Gates, dismantling the fortifications of Daras, renewing war. The ambassador understood the King to mean that a money tribute, speciously disguised as a contribution to common defence against the barbarian menace, would end the conflict.
Justinian could not yet decide whether or not to offer a money tribute. While he deliberated, Kobad was visited by the King of the Saracens, his ally, with a plan for a severe blow at the Romans. The Saracen was a tall, lean, vigorous old man, whose Court was at Hira in the desert, and who for fifty years had been raiding Roman territory between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian borders. He would appear suddenly from the wilderness with a force of a few hundred horsemen, plunder, burn, massacre, take prisoners-by the thousand sometimes-and then disappear again as suddenly as he came. Several punitive expeditions had been made against him, but all had been unsuccessful; for the art of desert warfare is only understood by those born to the desert. He had cut off and captured two strong Roman columns operating against him and held their officers to ransom.
This old king, then, suggested to Kobad that instead of campaigning as usual among the head-waters of Euphrates and Tigris, where the Romans had a number of walled cities to fall back upon if attacked, he should take a southerly route, which no Persian Army had ever taken before, following the Euphrates. At the point where the river-course turns from west to north he should strike across the Syrian desert. For here, beyond the desert, the Romans, trusting to the natural defences of waterless sand and rock, had built only few fortifications, and these were manned by no troops worth the name. If vigorously attacked, Antioch would fall into their hands without a struggle, because-he was justified in this comment-Antioch is the most unserious city in the entire East, the inhabitants having only four interests, namely wine, sex, Hippodrome politics, and religious argument. (Trade is not an interest, but a disagreeable necessity to which they submit in order to keep themselves in funds for the active prosecution of these four exciting interests.) What a magnificent city to plunder! And the raiders could return safely with their spoils long before any rescue could arrive from Roman Mesopotamia.
Kobad was interested but sceptical. If no Persian Army in the past had found this approach feasible, in what way had conditions altered to make it so? How would an army, unaccustomed to temporary starvation and thirst, maintain itself in the parched, pastureless desert?
The King of the Saracens replied to the first question that hitherto the Great King had never called upon an experienced Saracen for advice. As for the second question: the Persian force should consist entirely of light cavalry-infantry and heavy cavalry were ruled out-and they should make their expedition in the spring, when there would be ample pasture, even in the wildest desert, for those who knew where to look for it; and they should travel light; and the Saracens would be waiting for them, at a point on the river well within the Roman territories, with sufficient food and water for the last and most difficult stage of the journey.
Kobad was persuaded by the King of the Saracens, though Saracens are a notoriously faithless race; because he could surely have no motive in making these suggestions but to obtain Persian help in a profitable raid which was on too large a scale for himself to undertake alone. All that Kobad needed to guard against was treachery during the return journey, and he would therefore insist on the King of the Saracens leaving his two sons and two grandsons as hostages at the Persian Court at Susa until the campaign was over. The Saracen agreed to do so, and by March of the next year-the year following the battle of Daras-all preparations had been made. The expedition assembled at Ctesiphon in Assyria, 15,000 strong, under the command of an able Persian named Azareth.
They passed the Euphrates just above the city of Babylon and continued along the southern bank through uninhabited country until they reached the Roman frontier station at Circesium, where there were only a few Customs police. From there they pushed on rapidly astride the Roman road, which, after following the river for a hundred miles, curves south to Palmyra and Damascus. They were now joined by a large body of Saracens under their King; who told Azareth that the route lay straight across the desert to Chalcis, a walled town, which was almost the only obstacle to be encountered between them and Antioch, and this was no obstacle either, because it had a garrison of only 200 men. Azareth did not altogether trust the Saracens, though they had brought the stipulated amount of provisions. He therefore waited until scouts, sent ahead under Saracen escort, should report back that the desert pasture was plentiful, and that no ambush had been laid for them on the other side.
But to allow himself this delay was to underrate the energy of Belisarius, who had recently introduced a system of linked look-outs, with agreed smoke-signals, as a protection against frontier-raids. Within an hour of the Persians' arrival at Circesium, 200 miles across the Southern desert, Belisarius at Daras had learned the numbers and composition of their forces and had taken his decision. Leaving only slight garrisons behind in Daras and the other frontier cities, he harried by forced marches to the relief of Antioch at the head of all the trained troops that he could assemble-which, at such short notice, amounted to only 8,000 men; but he picked up reinforcements on the line of march to the number of 8,000 more. He took the southern road, by way of Carrhae (famous for the crushing defeat by the Persians of Crassus, colleague to Julius Caesar) and managed with his main cavalry forces to reach Chalcis, 300 miles way, in seven days, just in time to man the fortifications. But it was a close race, for by now Azareth was across the desert and only half a day's march away from Chalcis-among the very rocks where St Jerome and his mad fellow-ascetics once lived like angry scorpions, worshipping God indeed, but ungratefully rejecting God's creation of all pleasant and beautiful things. On the same morning Belisarius was joined by 5,000 Arab horsemen from the Northern Syrian desert, where they had been pasturing their horses. They were the subjects of King Harith ibn Gabala of Bostra in Transjordania, to whom Justinian paid a yearly sum in gold on condition that he checked Saracen raids on Syria. These Arabs were not reliable soldiers, however, and King Harith was suspected of having an understanding with the Saracens, because whenever there had been a Saracen raid his men had always arrived two or three days too late; but Belisarius was glad to have them with him, because in the absence of his infantry, who were still on the way, they increased his numbers to 21,000 men.
Azareth was disgusted with himself when his vanguard, pressing on to Chalcis, was suddenly thrown back on the main body by a Roman cavalry charge. He had let his opportunity slip, and could not now reach Antioch without risking a battle against the same general and the same troops that had fought so well at Daras. If he were defeated at such a distance from the frontier, and on the wrong side of the Syrian desert, it was unlikely that a single Persian would survive the return journey-the Saracens would save their own skins, melting into the desert which they knew so well. Even if he were victorious, he would not be able, probably, to prevent Belisarius taking refuge with the surviving remnant of his forces behind the walls of Chalcis. It would be dangerous to continue the raid on Antioch, with Chalcis lying uncaptured in his rear and Roman reinforcements on the way. So he took the wise decision to retrace his steps, with no gains and no losses, while he still had provisions and while the weather remained temperate. He consoled himself with the reflection that even if he had reached Chalcis before Belisarius, and pushed on to Antioch, and plundered it, then his forces-especially the Saracens-would have been disorganized by victory, and Belisarius would have intercepted him on his return and again had the advantage of choosing the battleground and standing on the defensive, as at Daras. The King of the Saracens agreed that retirement was now the only course; he did not dare to break his own forces up into small raiding parties and go off plundering to the southward, for fear that Azareth would report to Kobad that he had been deserted, and that Kobad would put his Saracen hostages to death. So the Persians and Saracens faced about and marched homeward, and Belisarius followed close behind them to make sure that they did not turn and come back again into Syria by some other route. Neither army hurried or attempted any hostilities against the other. Belisarius remained at a day's distance behind Azareth and encamped each night at the place which Azareth had abandoned that morning. He kept a sharp look-out on his own flanks and rear, in case of sudden surprise by tie Saracens.
It was the seventeenth day of April, and Holy Friday, the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus. The feast of Easter, which is the day on which He is said to have risen again from the dead, was due to take place two days later. The Persians had now regained the bank of the Euphrates and marched fifty miles along it to the point where the road from Damascus and Palmyra curves round to the river. It was clear that they meditated no alternative plan but would continue on their homeward march along the river. Now, Belisarius had, at Chalcis, severely reprimanded his vanguard commander for engaging the enemy without orders, and thus spoiling a tactical scheme by which the whole Persian Army was to have been trapped; and would have relieved him of his command but for the intercession of the Master of Offices. That Belisarius seemed to discourage the offensive spirit in his men and did not attempt to harry the retreating enemy, made the loud-mouthed talkers of his army accuse him of cowardice; but only behind his back as yet.
Then the Christian fanaticism of Easter, which is always celebrated by a great feast after forty days of frugal living and one or two complete fasts, overcame them. They clamoured to be led against the Persians so that they might win a resounding victory for celebration on Easter Sunday, the luckiest day in all the year. Belisarius that night entered the small town of Sura; but the Persians had been making so slow a pace, because they did not wish to seem in any hurry to return home, that part of his infantry had now come up with the cavalry. These battalions had not marched all the way to Chalcis, but had taken a short cut down the Euphrates, turning southward from the Carrhae road. Their arrival was the signal for renewed battle excitement: it was said that with 20,000 men Belisarius had no right to avoid engaging a dispirited and weary enemy.
On the following morning a number of officers came to Belisarius and informed him that his courage and loyalty were being called in question by their men, who could no longer be restrained from challenging the enemy. If he still attempted to hold them back there was likely to be a mutiny.
Belisarius was astonished. He explained that he must obey Justinian's explicit orders to avoid all unnecessary wastage of troops. The Master of Offices supported him in his view; but they were both argued down.
Then Belisarius ordered the bugles to be blown for a general assembly, and addressed the troops as follows: 'Men of the Imperial and allied forces! What dog has bitten you that you have sent your officers to me with so mad a request? Do you not know when you are well off? Here arc the Persians, who came into our territory with no less an intention than that of sacking the great city of Antioch, now forced by our prompt action to retreat, empty-handed and chagrined, back to Persia. "Do not spur a willing horse" is a proverb of proved merit, as you horsemen know, and it has appositeness here, especially when linked with the proverb "Leave well alone". So much for worldly wisdom; but let me further remind you in your Christian enthusiasm that the Scriptures strictly enjoin us "Thou shalt not kill!" This is interpreted, I hasten to say, as an injunction only against wanton slaughter, since otherwise we should be forbidden to serve as soldiers, even in defence of our country. But I must ask you to decide whether the battle which you wish to fight does not come under this very heading of wanton slaughter; for I can see no good reason for it myself. The most complete and happy victory is this: to confound one's enemy's plans while suffering no material or moral loss oneself And such a victory is already ours. If we force a fight on the Persians we shall not hasten their departure by a day, even if we are victorious; whereas if we are defeated…Here I must ask you to remember that Providence is kinder to those who fall into dangers not of their own choosing than to those who deliberately seek them out. We cannot afford to be defeated, remember! One last word: you know how even a rat will fight fiercely when cornered, and these Persians are by no means to be despised as rats. Moreover, this is Easter Saturday and all of you but those of the Arabians, who worship demons, and those of the Massagetic Huns, who worship the Blue Sky, have fasted since early last night and must keep your fast for twenty-four hours. Fasting men do not fight at their best, especially on foot. I refrain from reminding you infantrymen that you have marched three hundred miles in twenty days-a magnificent but exhausting feat-and that a number of the slower battalions are still on their way.'
But they would not listen to him and howled 'Coward' and 'Traitor' at him-cries in which even some of his officers joined.
He changed his tone and told them that he was delighted at their confidence and courage, and that if some good angel was perhaps prompting them to offer battle, it would be impious for him to check them; and that they could count on him to lead them vigorously against their hereditary foes.
He hurried out from Sura and caught up with the Persians at midday; and by harassing their rear-guard with constant arrows forced Azareth to turn about and fight. The river was on the Roman left; and on the opposite shore, a little down-stream, was the Roman trading city of Callinicum. Between the shrunken river and the great sloping banks which restrain it in the season of floods was a space of a few hundred yards; here the battle was fought.
It was a very bloody battle, and began with the usual exchange of arrows. Belisarius had put his infantry on the left, with the river providing a defensive flank, and King Harith of the Arabs, on the extreme right, on the rising bank. He took the centre himself with his cavalry. Azareth opposed the Saracens to King Harith's Arabs, who are of the same stock, and engaged the centre and right himself. The Persians fired two arrows to every one of the Romans; but, the Roman bows being much the stiffer and the more tightly strung, and the Persian armour being more for display than for defence, twice as many Persians fell as Romans in these exchanges.
The afternoon was drawing on, and neither side had the advantage, when Azareth suddenly led two squadrons of his best cavalry up the bank against King Harith. The Arabs turned to flight, which is the usual tactics of these desert fighters when charged, and thus left the Roman centre exposed. Azareth, instead of pursuing the Arabs, swerved round against the rear of the Roman centre-and broke it. A few cavalry squadrons, notably the Massagetic Huns and Belisarius's Household cuirassiers, held their ground and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy; but the rest dashed for the river and swam out to a group of sandy islands near the shore, where they were safe from pursuit. The Arabs made no attempt to retrieve the battle, but rode hurriedly back to their tents in the desert.
The Roman infantry consisted partly of those raw recruits from the south of Asia Minor whom Belisarius had trained in archery, and partly of trustworthy spearmen. The former were cut to pieces without making any attempt to use the swords which they carried; and they could not swim. These were the men who at Sura had been the loudest in their clamour for a battle. But Belisarius rallied the spearmen and formed them up in a semicircle with their backs to the river; and, with the survivors of his own squadron, dismounted, he warded off the Persian attacks until nightfall. They were only 3,000 men against the whole Persian army, and faint for want of food; but the front rank, kneeling on one knee, formed a rigid, unyielding barricade with their shields, from behind which their comrades fought with spears and javelins. Again and again the Persian cavalry charged, but Belisarius made his men clash their shields together and shout in unison, so that the horses reared up and threw everything in confusion.
When night fell the Persians withdrew to their camp, and a freight-boat from Callinicum ferried Belisarius and his comrades in batches across to the islands, where they spent the night. On the next day more boats appeared, and what remained of the Roman Army was transported to Callinicum, the horses swimming. The Easter Feast was celebrated there, but with little jubilation: the more ignorant and foolish Christians accounting for their defeat by saying that God died each Crucifixion Day and remained dead on the next day, until His Resurrection at Easter; and that therefore the battle should have been postponed for a day-for God, being dead, could not help them. This Belisarius wrote to my mistress in a letter, mocking at the would-be theologians.
The Persians stripped the Roman dead and their own, who were no less numerous. The detachment that had suffered most on our side was the Massagetic Huns: only 400 of their 1,200 survived, and most of these were wounded. Belisarius had lost one-half of his Household Regiment, which had consisted of 3,000 men. He waited for the rest of his infantry to arrive and then returned with them to Daras; his total losses were some 6,000 men.
Azareth returned to Persia and claimed a victory, but Kobad, before praising him, instructed him to 'resume the arrows'. It is a Persian custom that, when any military expedition sets out, each soldier deposits an arrow in a heap. These arrows are then bound together in bundles and kept under seal in the Treasury. When the campaign is over the survivors 'resume arrows and by seeing how many of these remain may calculate their losses. Seven thousand arrows remained unclaimed, so Kobad dismissed Azareth from his command with disgrace. The King of the Saracens also was blamed for his foolish advice, and the annual subsidy that he had long been drawing was discontinued.
Belisarius wrote a dispatch to Justinian, excusing himself for his losses, and the Master of Offices sent a confirmatory dispatch, explaining exactly what had happened and praising Belisarius's courage; so Justinian continued to place confidence in him. But my mistress wished that this senseless war were over, which could easily have been settled by the payment of a few thousand gold pieces and a few courteous phrases from the rulers of the opposing Empires. She must have shown her anxiety on Belisarius's behalf more plainly than she intended; for Theodora now persuaded Justinian to recall Belisarius, on the ground that a capable soldier was needed in the City as a protection against the increasing mob-violence of the Blue and Green factions. Sittas was appointed to deputize for him on the frontier.
So Belisarius returned, bringing his Household Cavalry with him; and married my mistress on the feast of St John the Baptist at St John's Church. It was an occasion of great pomp and joy, Justinian himself acting at the altar the part of my mistress's parent; for she had no male relatives surviving. Theodora settled upon her an extensive city property, with a huge annual rent-roll: she held that a woman who is beholden to her husband for every copper she spends is little better than a slave. My mistress warned Belisarius that in future she would accompany him on his campaigns, as Antonia the Elder had once accompanied the famous Germanicus in his campaigns across the Rhine, to their mutual comfort and the great advantage of Rome. To remain tamely at Constantinople in ignorance of what might be happening to him on some distant frontier and to be exposed to wild rumours of his defeat and death-this was a torture that she refused to bear again.
They occupied a great suite at the Palace, where there is room for everyone.
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