Who the Vandals were and what they were doing in Africa can be told shortly. They were Germans of sorts, and first reported as residing on the frozen shores of the Baltic Sea at about the time that Jesus was alive on earth among the Jews. They migrated southward by slow stages to the rich plains enclosed by the Carpathian mountains, where they increased their numbers by alliance and intermarriage with the Hunnish tribes who already occupied this territory. By the time that the Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the State religion they had outgrown their new kingdom: because of a scarcity of provisions and the fertility of their women, a large number of them were obliged to cross over into the Roman Empire on this side of the Upper Danube, where they were given lands and the status of allies, and learned Roman methods of warfare. Two generations later they crossed the Danube again and invaded Germany, plundering and burning as they went, and then marched northward. They debated an invasion of the island of Britain, which had just been denuded of its Roman garrison. There were transports enough in the French ports, but the Vandals were not experienced sailors, and the English Channel seemed too rough a sea-passage. So, leaving Britain to the mercy of Saxon pirates, they invaded France instead, crossing the River Rhine on New Year's Eve when it was frozen over. For two years they raided and plundered in France, and then marched into Spain, where they established themselves in the southernmost part, and called their kingdom Andalusia. But a few years later they were invited to Carthage by Count Boniface, the Roman Governor of North Africa. Count Boniface had been wrongfully accused of plotting against his Emperor and needed allies to save him from a shameful death: he offered the Vandals one-third part of the lands about Carthage for their own if they came to his help.
The Vandals had made sailors of themselves while in Spain though there was a law among the Romans decreeing death to anyone who should teach any German barbarians the art of building or managing a ship. So they crossed over by sea from one of the two rocky Pillars of Hercules, namely Gibraltar in Spain, to the other, which is Ceuta in Morocco, and then marched eastward along the coast. There were 200,000 of them in all, but only 50,000 fighting men, the rest being women and children and the aged; for they came all together and only a very few elected to remain behind. These Vandals were Christians, but like most other German tribes, they were Arian heretics. Alas, here is one more theory of the nature of the Son to expound.
At the time that the Germans were converted to Christianity by one Ulfilas, a contemporary of the Emperor Constantine, who translated the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue-all but the Books of Kings, which he feared might inflame their military passions-this Arian heresy was a widely-held one and had nearly become the orthodox view of the whole Church. The Germans welcomed it because it seemed a simple, barbarian creed, substantiating their own conception of the Deity. The Arians hold that the Father is immeasurably superior to man, and that mere is no real mediation between the Father and man: not even the Son, who never perfectly knew the Father and while He lived here on earth was subject to all the affections of man, such as anger, grief, despair, humiliation-as is indeed described by the Evangelists. Nevertheless, the Son (according to these Arians) is a sort of demigod: not God, but a middle being, of a different substance from, and perfectly unlike, the Father, who existed before the world and was created out of nothing and became man. Since the Germans already believed in a God of immeasurable power and freakish temper, whom they called Odin, and also in a demigod and racial ancestor called Mann (which is the German for 'man'), who originated out of practically nothing, their change of faith was one of names rather than of beliefs. They now agreed to abstain from human sacrifices, because these (according to their new faith) had been forbidden by God since the time of the Patriarch Abraham; but continued to engage in bloody wars and massacres. For, though the good Ulfilas had omitted the Books of Kings from his translation, he had included the Book of Joshua, which tells of the merciless massacre by the Jews of such pagan tribes as they met in their 'promised land'.
To the Vandals, Roman Africa was a promised land too, and resembled Canaan of old in its vineyards and corn-fields and fig-plantations and walled cities. But when the moving multitude was already close to Carthage they were coolly informed by Count Boniface that he had made a mistake: the Emperor, or rather the Empress Regent, now trusted him again, and there was no need for Vandal allies-would they, please, return to Andalusia, and he would pay them for their trouble. Naturally they felt grossly insulted and refused to go. From allies they became enemies and defeated Boniface in battle; after which they occupied not only one-third of the lands about Carthage, but the whole Diocese of Africa, enslaving the inhabitants.
Carthage itself, which next to Rome was the greatest city of the Western Empire, held out for some years. But this was because it was supplied with food from the sea and had very strong fortifications, which the Vandals were not experienced enough as engineers to reduce; not because of any heroism among the defenders. The Roman Africans had become unwarlike, owing to centuries of peace, the richness of the soil, and the enervating heat. Further, they were divided among themselves by the Donatist schism. This, for once, was not a heretical view about the nature of the Son, but a quarrel about Church discipline: the Donatists held that to be blessed by a priest who lived an evil life or who had committed some such impious act as burning a religious book when ordered to do so by the civil authorities, was no blessing, and that no sacerdotal act whatsoever performed by such a person was valid. But the Orthodox theory was that the water of life could flow through the jaws of a dead dog (as it was expressed) and still heal the soul. The Donatists formed a separate communion, separating themselves from the Orthodox in order to avoid contamination by them. The Vandals made an alliance with these Donatists, as a temporary convenience: they were Donatistical, too, in their Arian way, they said.
The Vandal King, lame Geiserich, who had somehow been born an Orthodox Christian, was now an Arian; and soon began persecuting all the non-Arians of Africa, whether Donatists or Orthodox or heretics of whatever sort, with all the violence of a convert. At last the whole Diocese of Africa was under his power, and as a precaution against revolt he dismantled the fortifications of all its towns but Hippo Regius and Carthage, both of which he garrisoned strongly. Then he increased his fleet and began capturing islands, among them Sardinia and the Balearic islands, and raiding the coasts of Spain and Italy and even Greece. His principal feat was the sack of Rome, from which, after a fortnight's stay, he carried away immense booty, public and private-including the golden treasures of Solomon's temple that Titus had brought to Rome centuries before, and one-half of the roof of the Temple of Capitoline Jove, which was of fine bronze, plated with gold. As I have mentioned, it was because of Geiserich's depredations that Belisarius's maternal grandfather had abandoned Rome for Constantinople.
The Emperor of the West-for the Eastern Emperors at Constantinople still had colleagues at Rome in those days-was unable to resist these many acts of piracy; but a punitive expedition was sent to Carthage from Constantinople. It consisted of 100,000 men carried by the most formidable fleet of ships ever embarked on the Mediterranean Sea; and they should have had no difficulty at all in overwhelming the Vandals. Geiserich pretended the utmost deference to their commander, and obtained from him an allowance of five days in which to 'prepare the city for surrender', as he put it. Then he secretly collected his forces and on the fourth night sent fire-ships sailing into the Imperial fleet, following up with armed galleys. Between blazing fire and savage Vandals the surprised Romans were utterly destroyed. Only a few battered ships and a few hundred soldiers returned to Constantinople. This disaster took place two generations before the reign of Justinian.
Since then there had been several successors to Geiserich, who had decreed that among his descendants the regal power should always pass entire to the eldest surviving male. This was to prevent the partition of the kingdom, with a consequent weakening of central authority, and also the troubles that so often occur when a regency is proclaimed on behalf of a child ruler. Thus, the eldest son of the king would not inherit at his father's death, while he had an uncle or grand-uncle living, but must yield the succession to him. Geiserich did not perhaps sufficiently consider that this law of succession tended to favour princes who were more remarkable for their longevity than for the soundness of their wits.
At the time of Justinian's accession the Vandal king was Hilderich. He had signed a defensive alliance with the King of the Goths who ruled in Italy. (By this time, the whole Western part of the Empire-though nominally under the sovereignty of the Eastern Emperor at Constantinople, there being no longer an Emperor at Rome-was dominated by various German allies, who acted as its garrison. They had chosen its most fertile regions to settle in, and were all Arian heretics.) Hilderich was also on good terms with the Eastern Emperor and continued to send to Constantinople the annual tribute-money agreed upon by Geiserich in the peace treaty which ratified his conquests. He was an old man, unfit for public business, and almost as suspicious in temperament as Justinian himself. The widow of his predecessor was still alive, a sister of Theoderich the famous Gothic king. She had brought with her as dowry a guard of 6,000 Gothic cavalry and the sovereignty of Lilybaeum, which is a promontory in Sicily only 100 miles distant from the coast of Carthage; and somebody assured Hilderich that this former queen intended to murder him and seize Carthage for the Goths. He had her confined to prison and subsequently strangled, and massacred the 6,000 Goths. This greatly offended Theoderich; he broke off his alliance with the Vandals, but would not risk a military expedition against them.
Justinian was a personal friend of Hilderich's, and there was a frequent exchange of letters and presents between them. Hilderich had befriended Justinian at Rome at the time when he was an unimportant hostage at Theoderich's Court; and Justinian also valued Hilderich for his indulgence to the Orthodox Catholics-previous Vandal kings had persecuted them savagely. When news came to Constantinople that Hilderich had been deposed and imprisoned by his nephew Geilimer, Justinian was affronted. He felt that Geilimer should be taught a lesson; for he himself had once been in the same sort of position as Geilimer, when his Uncle Justin grew decrepit and for the last two years was Emperor only in name. He considered that he had chosen the virtuous course in having been content with the tide of Regent instead of anticipating sovereignty, and that this gave him a special right to protest to Geilimer. It was a mild letter, according to diplomatic usage: to the effect that, if the old man were released and restored to his royal dignities, God would be favourable to Geilimer and Justinian would be his friend.
Geilimer's excuse for imprisoning Hilderich had been a slanderous accusation that he had become a secret convert to Orthodoxy and wished to bequeath his throne to Justinian; so he made no reply to the letter when the ambassadors brought it, except an unseemly noise with his mouth. Hilderich was put into a darker and more disagreeable dungeon than before.
Justinian wrote again, more firmly this time, to the effect that Geilimer had seized the royal power by violence and must expect the divine retribution which usurpation always invites. He demanded that Hilderich be at least sent to Constantinople to end his life in comfortable exile, and threatened to declare war on the Vandals if this were not done.
Geilimer replied that Justinian had no right to meddle in the internal politics of the African kingdom; that Hilderich had been deposed as a traitor-an action approved by the Vandal Royal Council at Carthage; and that, before making war, Justinian should recall what had happened to the last fleet that visited Carthage from the East.
Justinian would not have granted King Khosrou such easy treaty-terms if he had not already considered the possibility of withdrawing some of his forces from the Persian frontier for an expedition against the Vandals. But when he mentioned the project to his chief ministers they all advised him against it as extremely dangerous. They were right enough in their view, of which Cappadocian John, as Commander of the Guards and now also Quartermaster-General of the Imperial forces, was the spokesman. Carthage lay at least 140 days' journey away from Constantinople by land. To transport an adequate force there by sea would mean the requisitioning of a vast quantity of ships; and this would greatly hamper the Empire's trade. It was difficult enough to raise troops for frontier defence in the North and East, without wasting them in unnecessary wars at the other end of the world. Even if it were possible to defeat the Vandals, it was strategically unwise to occupy North Africa unless one also controlled Sicily and Italy-which Justinian could not hope to do. Besides, the expense of such an expedition would run into millions. Cappadocian John was also afraid, though he did not say so, that Justinian, in his efforts to raise the necessary money, would go carefully into the accounts of the Quartermaster-General's office at the War Ministry and find evidence there of frauds on a large scale.
His arguments, however, decided Justinian against the project. Everyone was relieved, especially the Treasury officials, who would have been responsible for raising vast sums of money in new taxes. The generals, too, felt easier: each of them had feared that his own merits would single him out as commander of the expedition against the Vandals.
Then a bishop came from Egypt, asking for an immediate audience at the Palace; for he had dreamed a dream of some importance. Justinian received him with his customary affability and the Bishop explained that God Himself had appeared in this dream and ordered him to go and rebuke the Emperor for his irresolution: 'For if he will only undertake this war in defence of the honour of My Son, whom these Arian heretics impiously deny to be My equal, I will march before his armies in battle and make him master of Africa.' This message is less likely to have emanated from the Deity than from a group of African Orthodox clerics, friends of Hilderich's who had fled from Carthage on Geilimer's accession. But Justinian gave it perfect credit, and assured the Bishop that he would obey the divine order at once. These, then, were the circumstances in which he called for Belisarius, whose loyalty and courage had been proved beyond all doubt in the Victory riots. He told him in Theodora's presence: 'Fortunate patrician, it is to you that we are entrusting the capture of Carthage!'
Belisarius, who had been warned by my mistress what Justinian really had in mind, replied: 'Do you mean me alone, Your Serenity, or a dozen commanders each of equal authority with me? For if you mean the former, I can offer you loyal gratitude; but if the latter, only loyal obedience.'
Justinian was about to prevaricate when Theodora broke in: 'Do not trouble the Emperor with unnecessary questions. Certainly he means you as sole commander, do you not, my dear Justinian? You, Narses, see that the commission is drafted at once and brought to the Emperor for signature: the Illustrious Belisarius is to be described there as vice-regent to the Emperor. The great distance between Carthage and the City will unfortunately make it impossible for the Emperor to give his advice in urgent matters, or to ratify high political appointments and treaties with the necessary dispatch. Write, therefore, good Narses: "The orders of the Illustrious Belisarius, Commander of Our Armies in the East, shall, during the conduct of this expedition, be deemed to be Ours."'
Justinian blinked and swallowed a little when the matter was arranged for him in this style. But he did not venture to return to his original plan of multiple command. It was politically plausible in that no one general could hope to gain all the glory and so become a possible rival to himself; but would have been disastrous from the military point of view-as had already been proved in Persia in Anastasius' day. He signed the commission.
This was in the autumn of the year of our Lord 532, a few months after the riots, and the winter was spent in making all necessary preparations. My mistress was glad that the expedition was not sailing until the spring, for about New Year she was expecting a child by Belisarius, and she had determined not to be left behind when he went to the wars. She intended to find a foster-mother for the child and give it into Theodora's charge. This she did, and the child proved to be a daughter whom they named Joannina. The Emperor and Empress stood sponsors for it at the font. This was the only child that my mistress bore to Belisarius, and she proved a disappointment to them in the end.
There were dismal feelings of foreboding in Constantinople when the details of the expedition were announced. The City Governor is reported to have said to Cappadocian John one evening at the Palace: 'I fear that this disaster may prove as great as the one that our grand-fathers suffered at the hands of Geiserich.'
And Cappadocian John to have replied cheerfully: 'That cannot be. For in that campaign we lost one hundred thousand men, no less; but now I have persuaded the Emperor to send only fifteen thousand, and most of these are infantry.'
The City Governor again: 'At what fighting strength do you reckon the Vandal army?'
Cappadocian John's reply: 'At more than a hundred thousand, counting their Moorish allies.'
The City Governor, astonished: 'Best of men, what possible hope of success can Belisarius have in that case?'
But Cappadocian John, shrugging: 'A bishop has a right to his dreams.' The phrase became proverbial.
The infantry were of good quality, mostly Isaurian mountaineers; Belisarius had been training them in marching and digging, as well as in the use of weapons. The cavalry numbered only 5,000, because of the difficulty of transporting horses a distance of some 1,500 miles. But among them were the remnants of the Massagetic Huns who had fought so well at Daras and by the Euphrates, 600 of them (for many of the seriously wounded had recovered); and Pharas's 400 Herulians; and Belisarius's well-trained Household Regiment of 1,500 cuirassiers. The remainder were Thracians who had served under Boutzes; but Boutzes himself had remained on the Persian frontier. Belisarius had entrusted the command of these Thracians to Rufinus and to a Massagetic Hun called Aigan, the son of Sunicas, whom Sunicas had commended to Belisarius as he lay dying on the battlefield. Belisarius's chief of staff was an Armenian eunuch named Solomon; he was a eunuch not by deliberate castration but by an accident which had happened to him when a baby in swaddling clothes, and had lived with soldiers all his life.
It needed a fleet of 500 transports to convey this army to Carthage. They were as mixed a collection of vessels as were ever brought together, their burden varying from 30 to 500 tons. They were manned by 30,000 sailors, for the most part Egyptians and Greeks from Asia Minor, and commanded by an Alexandrian admiral. Besides these transports there was a flotilla of ninety-two fast single-banked galleys, all decked in as a protection to the oarsmen in case of a sea-battle. There were twenty oarsmen to each galley, men of Constantinople of the sort called 'marines', who are paid above the usual rate because they can be used as infantry in an emergency. Cappadocian John was made responsible for victualling this fleet, and two officers were sent to the royal pastures in Thrace to round up 3,000 horses and have them ready at Heraclea, on the northern coast of the Sea of Marmora, when the fleet touched there.
We started at last, at the time of the spring equinox. Belisarius and my mistress had an impressive godspeed from Justinian and Theodora, and a blessing from the Patriarch of Constantinople. We embarked at the Imperial harbour, which is close to the Palace, at the point where the Sea of Marmora narrows into the Bosphorus. Here there are broad white marble steps, and gilded state barges, and ornamental trees from the East; and a graceful chapel in which are shown the authentic swaddling clothes of Jesus, and a portrait of him in later life attributed to the Evangelist Luke. Above the harbour stands a sculptural group of a bull in a death-struggle with a lion. We eyed it with superstitious interest, for the Bull is a symbol of the Roman armies, as the Lion is of North Africa. My mistress Antonina said, grinning, to the City Governor who stood by: 'I will wager you five thousand to two thousand that the Bull brings it off. The Lion is under-muscled, and the Bull, though small, is of the fighting breed.'
For good luck Justinian put aboard our vessel, the flag-ship of the fleet, a young Thracian who had just been baptized into the Orthodox Church. He was one of a dwindling sect, the Eunomians, whose peculiarity is that they deny that the Son can be God and eternal, on the grounds that He was once begotten: for eternal generation is, they say, a nonsensical idea. That which is begotten cannot possibly be of one substance with the unbegotten; and contrariwise. The unbegotten remains eternally unbegotten, and the begotten cannot deny the act of begetting. Therefore…But, at all events, this young man was converted from his heresies and became godson to Belisarius and my mistress Antonina, and took the new name of Theodosius.
He was the handsomest man I ever saw, and I have seen many. He was not so tall and magnificently muscled as Belisarius, but he was strongly and gracefully built and had an extremely mobile face. (The only defect that I could find in him was that the nape of his neck was a trifle narrow and had a deep cleft in it.) But besides all this he was the only man that my mistress had ever met who could talk her own particular sort of happy nonsense with her. Belisarius was witty and eloquent and affectionate and had all the qualities which are admirable in a man, and there was never a woman who was so lucky in her husband as my mistress. He was like the Sun that runs around the heavens-warming creatures and buildings; but, like the Sun, his circle was not complete-he could not shine from the North. It was an incapacity connected with his loyalties: faith and ignorance occupied that quarter of his orbit. But Theodosius shone from the North, as it were, with a laughing light, the quality of which is very difficult for me to express. I can only say that, whatever Belisarius lacked, with this Theodosius seemed to supply my mistress. It was little enough by comparison with what Belisarius had, yet extremely precious to her, even for its littleness.
It is almost impossible, I believe, for one man to love two women at the same time, without a secret reservation in his mind, 'this one I prize the most'. But a woman may very well be in such a situation, as my mistress soon discovered-at once the most happy and the most miserable one possible. She can reconcile the two in her heart, but in their relations with her each ignores her love of the other. The better man (and my mistress would never at any moment have failed to acknowledge Belisarius to be such) is tempted to behave rather unkindly towards her-from an inability to understand the phenomenon of radiance from the North, and from a desire to make a complete orbit of love around her. The other one is so free of jealous or intense feelings that he regards her loving someone else with as little seriousness as her loving himself. His equable humour makes any strong emotions seem absurd.
It was Theodosius's serene airiness in contrast with Belisarius's deep moral gravity that first made my mistress Antonina pair them together in her mind. There was the occasion of the drunken Massagetic Huns at Abydos; and then that matter of the water-bottles, as we neared Sicily. Both must be told about in detail.
After taking the Thracian horses aboard at Perinthus we continued down the Sea of Marmora until we came to the Hellespont, and anchored off Abydos one evening, intending to set sail early the next morning. The currents are very difficult here, and one needs a good north-easterly breeze to assist one in navigating them; but the next morning there was no breeze at all, so we were obliged to wait four days until one sprang up. The men, having been given shore-leave, found themselves at a loose end: there is not much to be done or seen in this part unless one has a taste for antiquities-then one may ride along the coast to the site of Troy and, dismounting, run around the Tomb of Achilles for good luck.
The Massagetic Huns carried with them what is called a 'bee', a sort of yeast that they put into mare's milk to make it ferment after they have beaten it in a bladder with a hollow club to thin it of its fatty parts. At Perinthus they had bought a quantity of mare's milk and treated it in this way, so that by now it was a very potent drink-they call it kavasse or kumys. In politeness to Aigan I tasted it once and found it far too pungent for my liking, though the after-taste was not unlike the taste of almond-milk; and there seemed something disgusting in its being drawn from a mare. But, as we say when the habits of others are not ours, 'Every fish to his own tipple', and 'Thistles are lettuce to the ass's lips'.
Belisarius did not know about the bee, and had taken what he thought were sufficient precautions against the soldiers supplying themselves with any intoxicating drink beyond the day's ration of sour wine, which they mix with their water to purify it. The Huns, then, had a drunken party ashore, in the course of which one of their number ridiculed two other Huns for losing their way in a ballad-and was immediately killed by them. Belisarius ordered a court-martial on the murderers, who seemed to take a very light view of the crime and pleaded drunkenness as an excuse: they were prepared, they said, to pay the customary blood-money to the dead man's kinsmen. But Belisarius held that to kill a fellow-soldier on the way to the war was a most infamous act. He asked Aigan what was the most infamous death that could be inflicted on a Hun, and Aigan replied 'death by impaling'.
The two Huns were duly impaled on the hill by Abydos, to the great indignation of their comrades, who declared that they were allies of Rome, not Romans, and that their own laws did not make death the penalty for manslaughter committed under the influence of drink. Belisarius paraded them for a personal address, and, so far from making an apology, told them that it was high time that their barbarous code was revised: drunkenness was, in his view, an aggravation of crime, not a mitigation, and while they served under him they must obey his laws. He warned them that he would not overlook any acts of private violence whatsoever committed against fellow-soldiers or prisoners or civilians, unless great provocation could be proved. 'This army must go to battle with clean hands.' Then he took possession of the bee, until such time as the Huns should be safely garrisoned in captured Carthage.
At supper that evening his table-companions sat silent. Belisarius, knowing what was on their minds, nodded in the direction of the hill and asked: 'And what is your frank opinion? And yours?' Armenian John replied: 'It was well deserved.' Rufinus said the same, and Uliaris grunted out: 'A man should not handle a weapon when he is drunk.' Finally, Theodosius, called upon for a comment, remarked carelessly; 'There should have been a third, surely?'
My mistress was the only person present who understood the mocking reference. Belisarius replied seriously: 'No, the other men at the camp-fire were not implicated, according to the evidence.' But my mistress looked at Theodosius and said: 'And if there had been a third, your godfather would not have rewarded him with a drink of wine.' At which Theodosius smiled gratefully to her, and no more was said; but it is a great bond between two strangers when they can carry on a private joke together without anyone, even their intimates, suspecting that their words hold more than they seem to do. For Theodosius meant something of this sort: that the hill suggested Golgotha, the place of the Crucifixion, but that there was missing from this impressive execution a third victim more glaringly innocent even than the other two. My mistress's remark about the sour wine was a reference to the merciful Roman soldier who gave Jesus to drink from the hyssop-sponge raised at the point of a spear.
Theodosius was not a religious-minded person. His baptism into the Orthodox faith had been a matter of convenience, as my mistress's had been, and he never lost the practical, faintly mocking way of looking at things that I have always found characteristic of the Thracians. He could detect inconsistency and pretentiousness even in the most admirable characters, though not setting himself up as a moral paragon. His emotions and thoughts were at least his own, not borrowed; he conformed outwardly to current conventions, yet in private he acknowledged no authority but his own sense of what was fitting.
As for the incident of the water-bottles: that occurred some weeks later on our way to Sicily. The voyage had been a much longer one than anyone had expected: because, though from Abydos we had a strong following wind which carried us out into the Aegean Sea as far as Lesbos, it dropped to almost nothing at this point, and we were three weeks in rounding the southern coast of Greece. Moreover, the speed of the whole fleet was that of the slowest ship, since Belisarius was anxious that no unit should become detached and arrive at Carthage before the rest of the fleet, thus preventing a surprise. He painted the mainsails of the three leading vessels, ours and two others, with broad vermilion stripes as a guide by day; at night he used stern-lanterns. No ship was allowed to steer more than a cable's length away from its neighbour. At times there was a good deal of bumping and cursing and use of boat-hooks, but no ship lost touch or was stove in.
Then the wind failed completely, and Belisarius ordered a general disembarkation at Methone, a town on the south-western promontory of Greece. This was done as a drill practised in full armour, and the inhabitants were most alarmed. The men were in a listless enough condition by now, and the horses too, so marches and sham-fights were the order until the wind rose again. It was extremely hot at Methone. The soldiers' biscuit-bread which had been brought in sacks from Constantinople began to turn mouldy and stink. Belisarius immediately used his Imperial warrant to requisition fresh bread from the neighbourhood, but did not obtain it before 500 men had died from colic.
He investigated the matter of the biscuits and reported to Justinian. His findings were that the biscuits had been supplied by Cappadocian John in his capacity as Quartermaster-General to the Forces; that, on account of the loss that fresh bread suffers in weight on being hardened to biscuit, the Quartermaster-General had been paid the customary one-fourth more for his contract than for an equal weight of fresh bread, in addition to a fuel allowance for the baking; that he had only slightly baked the bread, and thus not reduced its weight by the necessary one-quarter, while accepting payment as if for proper biscuit; and that he had also pocketed the fuel allowance, though his partial baking had been done for nothing at the furnaces that warm the Public Baths. Justinian later complimented Belisarius on his report, while exonerating Cappadocian John (who had found a scapegoat among his subordinates) from the suspicion of deliberate fraud.
But nobody, not even Cappadocian John, could be blamed for the tainting effect of the heat on the casks of fresh water that we shipped from our next port of call, the bland of Zante. Our voyage from Zante across the Adriatic Sea to Sicily was lengthened by sudden calms to sixteen days; and a miserable time it was, because this was now mid-June and cruelly hot weather. My mistress had taken the precaution at Methone of sending me to buy in the open market a number of glass jars of the sort used for pickling olives, to be filled with fresh water and stored in the bottom of the ship up to their necks in sand; it was my task to keep them moist with sea-water. The result was that ours was the only ship's company that had untainted water to drink; and this greatly embarrassed Belisarius, who made a pride of eating the same food as the men under his command, and drinking the same water. What made matters worse was that the supply of sour wine had given out, because of the unexpected length of the voyage.
Belisarius explained the position to his Household officers and asked their advice. He pointed out that there was not enough clean water to be worth the sharing with all the other ships' companies in the fleet; nor could he share with two or three only, for fear of jealousy. Perhaps the noblest course would be to follow the example of the great Cato, who once, on a sultry march in Africa, reproved a soldier for bringing him a helmetful of water when the rest of the army was thirsty, and dashed it to the ground; and of King David of the Jews, who had once done much the same thing with water brought to him from the well at Bethlehem. Now, these lieutenants of Belisarius were all cast in the same mould: they were heroes to a man and honourable to what seemed to me at times an extravagant degree. They were all convinced that they ought not to benefit by my mistress's prudence, but empty the water-bottles overboard! Naturally she grew very angry. At first nobody supported her in her view that it would be not only foolish but an insult to her to drink tainted water when she had been to the trouble of providing fresh-as anybody else with sense had been at liberty to do. Then Theodosius came forward smiling and said to her: 'Godmother Antonina, if nobody else wishes to be the first to forfeit empty honour by drinking your excellent water, I offer myself as a glad victim. Here is my cup. May I help myself? I shall not venture to accuse my godfather of disloyalty to his Emperor in risking the infection of dysentery when the safety of the expedition depends so largely upon his keeping in good health. But I shall at least remind the company that the five wise virgins in the Gospel parable would not have been praised if on learning that the five foolish virgins had forgotten to fill their lamps, they had poured their own oil away and disabled themselves from attendance on the midnight Bridegroom.'
In a dead silence he filled his cup and drank, throwing his head right back, then filled again and offered the cup to Belisarius. Belisarius held it for a moment in his hand, considering, and finally said: 'Theodosius, you are right: duty takes precedence of honour.' He sipped and handed the cup to Armenian John and Aigan, who sipped too. So here was another bond between Theodosius and my mistress, whose honour he had protected at the risk of losing his own.
We anchored in a desert place near the volcano Etna. There was water there, and grazing for the horses, and we still had enough sacks of biscuit from Methone to last us for some weeks. But Belisarius needed fresh supplies, especially of wine and oil and vegetables. He sent his secretary, Procopius of Caesarea, in a fast galley to procure these things at Syracuse, the capital city, and bring them to us at the port of Catania, where there was safer anchorage. Belisarius knew that a compact had lately been made between Justinian and the Gothic Regent of Italy, Queen Amalasontha (Theoderich's daughter, whose young son, Athalrich, was now king), according to which she should grant him an open market in Sicily for his armies if they happened to pass that way. Amalasontha had been glad to sign this, because her political position was precarious, and Justinian's friendship counted for much.
The Governor of Syracuse accordingly sent a number of vessels along the coast to us filled with the required provisions, and also a few boat-loads of horses to take the place of those that had died on the voyage. That we had not lost more was due to Belisarius's ingenious way of exercising them on ship-board: he had them hoisted in their stalls with a rope under their forelegs until they were standing balanced on their hindlegs. In this position they pawed and staggered about angrily in an attempt to regain their natural posture, and sweated out the bad humours. Procopius brought back extremely good news from Syracuse. A boyhood friend of his, a merchant from Caesarea in Palestine, had just received a cargo from Carthage; and his agent reported that not only did the Vandals not suspect that an expedition was approaching, but they had recently sent away their best forces under the command of Zazo, the brother of King Geilimer, to put down a revolt in Sardinia, which was a Vandal possession. That, further, there had been a successful revolt against the Vandals by the natives of Tripoli, the coastal district which lies between Carthage and Egypt, and that a naval force had been sent there also.
Belisarius decided that no further time must be lost. We sailed out from Catania and touched at the small islands of Gozo and Malta-it was at Malta that the Apostle Paul was once shipwrecked. Then up sprang a strong easterly wind; and by the next morning we had sighted the nearest point of the African coast, a desert promontory called Capoudia, which lies 150 miles to the east of Carthage. As soon as we were in shallow water we furled sail and anchored. Belisarius summoned a general conference of officers on the flag-ship: the question propounded being whether we should disembark here and march along the coast, protected by the fleet, or continue the voyage and make the landing at some point closer to Carthage.
The Egyptian Admiral spoke first, because he had a long experience of the coast-line. He pointed out that Carthage was nine days' march away along a harbourless coast. If the fleet kept pace with the army, standing close inshore, what would happen if a sudden storm sprang up? Two alternatives, equally dangerous, would have to be faced: of being driven ashore and wrecked or of being blown out of touch with the army. The coast was practically waterless, the sun grilling, and troops-in full equipment and carrying rations-would be exhausted by the march. He therefore proposed that we should sail up the coast to a point just short of Carthage, where there was a large lake, the Lake of Tunis, which would afford perfect anchorage.
Rufinus, speaking in support of the Admiral, reminded Belisarius that the Vandals could easily assemble an army five times our size; and that we should not have the protection of any walled towns on our nightly halts, because they had long ago dismantled the fortifications of every town in the Diocese but Carthage and Hippo Regius.
The general opinion of the conference was that the Admiral's plan was a sound one, and that to march slowly along the coast would be to risk losing the advantage of surprise. Belisarius withheld his opinion as yet. He asked the officers, each in turn, whether it was true that their troops had positively refused to fight a sea-battle if the Vandals came out against them.
They admitted that mere had been talk of this sort, because the Syracusan sailors in the food-ships had told frightening and incredible yarns about the Vandal fleet-how it consisted chiefly of fast vessels of 1,500 tons burden and five banks of oars that could carve their way through our fleet as a knife through cream cheese. But they swore that they themselves were not afraid, and undertook to induce their men to fight as bravely on sea as on land.
Belisarius then spoke: 'Comrades, I trust that you will not regard what I have to say as the words of a master, or fancy that I have delayed them to the last in order to close the discussion and compel your acquiescence. We are now aware of all the chief factors in the problem and, if you permit me, I shall sum up like a judge and deliver my verdict. But it will not necessarily be a final verdict. If any flaw in my reasoning is pointed out, I shall be most willing to consider an amendment.
'In the first place: it seems that the troops have given fair warning of their refusal to fight the Vandal fleet if it comes out against us, but declare themselves perfectly ready for any battles that may be fought on dry land, whatever the odds. You know as well as I do that one cannot compel men to fight against their will; and if they will fight bravely on land at least, that is as much as it is fair to ask of landsmen. Next: I do not agree that we need forfeit the element of surprise by disembarking our army here. If we send a few fast galleys well ahead, disguised as Egyptian pirates, to seize any vessels that they encounter, we can protect our main fleet from observation. Similarly on land, our cavalry scouts can ride well ahead and prevent any information of our approach from reaching Carthage by road. The argument that a storm might scatter or wreck the ships has to be considered; but surely if a storm came it would be safer to have the troops and horses safely ashore? Worse than a storm, from a military point of view, would be a calm, which would give the Vandals time to prepare. The map shows me, moreover, that to reach the Lake of Tunis we would have to round Cape Bon, at the end of a long promontory with precipitous cliffs, and suddenly alter our course from north-east to south-west. If we had Odysseus's famous bag of winds with us, so that we could release first one and then the other, or if all our vessels were galleys, it might be a different matter; but I think that we cannot risk being delayed by a calm or a contrary wind at the turning point.
'My advice therefore is that we disembark; that the fleet accompanies us slowly as far as the neck of the promontory, from which it is only fifty miles to Carthage by land, but 150 by sea; that we then make straight for Carthage across the hills and around the Lake, and capture it; and that the fleet round the promontory as quickly as possible and join us there as soon as we signal that we need it. As for walled cities: the infantry has been trained by me in the art of digging entrenched camps, which are better than walled towns in a way, because they contain no troublesome civilian problems. Lastly, our men and horses must regain their shore-legs before they fight: a nine days' march is just what they need. Every plan has its drawbacks and dangers, but the great numerical superiority of the Vandals suggests the advantage of a plan as unsuspected as the one I have proposed. Remember, too, that the Roman Africans are Orthodox and that Geilimer's Vandals are regarded as Arian oppressors. If we behave boldly and sensibly we shall have the entire civilian population on our side and not want either for water or for provisions.'
These arguments were unanswerable. We all disembarked, but for a guard of five archers left behind in each ship, and the crews. My mistress Antonina could not be persuaded to remain in the flag-ship, being a woman of outstanding courage.
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