Justinian by Ross Laidlaw

Author:Ross Laidlaw
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 2011-02-06T23:00:00+00:00

PART IV

HUBRIS

AD 540–552

TWENTY

As far as may be advantageous to the public service

Rider to Justinian’s commission to Narses enjoining

obedience to Belisarius, 538

From the citadel of Ancona – Italy’s chief seaport on the Adriatic and recently captured from the Goths* – Belisarius looked down on the vast semi-circular harbour into which were sailing the transports conveying a fresh army under the command of General Narses. Belisarius supposed he ought to feel delighted by the prospect of yet more reinforcements, but admitted to himself that he had mixed feelings. The arrival of John the Sanguinary with his Isaurians and Thracians in November of the previous year had completely altered the tactical situation, tilting the scales decisively in favour of the Romans. Witigis’ lines of communication had been threatened when, on Belisarius’ orders, John had seized Ariminum,** south of Ravenna, the Goths’ capital, and a chain of fortified positions had been established across the Apennines, protecting Roman gains in the south of the peninsula, also the vital route from Rome to the Adriatic. As a result, Witigis had been forced to abandon the siege of Rome and withdraw his army (a shadow of the mighty host that had invested the place a year before, thanks to disease and endless sorties by Belisarius’ crack cavalry) to the Gothic heartland of the Padus valley. The coming of thousands more Roman troops (they were actually Heruls, from the same Germanic tribe that had supplied Mundus with his force at the crushing of the Nika revolt) meant putting an additional strain on the local Italian population, regarding billeting and feeding. And the presence of another senior commander in the shape of Narses, a man much older than Belisarius and standing high in the favour of Justinian, was not entirely welcome, raising as it did the possibility of a challenge to his authority, with the concomitant risk of dividing the command.

What did he know of Narses? Belisarius asked himself. Not much, beyond the fact that he was an Armenian and a eunuch (castration was illegal in the Roman Empire; Narses hailed from the Persian zone of Armenia), and had a reputation for steadiness and reliability. Belisarius recalled that he had met the man briefly when, in the aftermath of Nika, Narses had done a quietly efficient job patrolling the streets to ensure that the insurgency did not flare up again. As for the Heruls he now commanded, they were notoriously troublesome and insubordinate, refusing to obey any officers bar the ones they were accustomed to. Still, there was no point in anticipating trouble where none might actually exist. Determined to put a positive face on things, Belisarius set off down the hill towards the waterfront to welcome the new general, whose fleet was even now dropping anchor beside Trajan’s Mole, the immensely long breakwater constructed in the reign of that emperor more than four centuries before . . .

In the auditorium of the citadel’s Praetorium, where Belisarius had summoned a council of war, the staff of the two generals were assembling.

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