Justinian's Men by David Alan Parnell

Author:David Alan Parnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

Populating the Social Networks in Italy, 538–539

These are the basic facts of the strife within the command structure of the Byzantine army in Italy in 538–539 as presented by Procopius.40 The historian obviously described this situation in considerable detail. The focus of his narrative is reasonably enough on Belisarius, his patron and the hero at this point of his story, and on Belisarius’ main antagonists, John, the nephew of Vitalian, and Narses. While these men are the main characters of this story and their personal rivalry is important, they also did not act alone. Each of these three generals acted as they did with the support and encouragement of fellow officers. It is possible to put together rough sketches of the social network of each officer in this rivalry.

From the narrative presented here, we may identify at least three important officers of the social network of Belisarius. Belisarius dispatched Martin and Uliaris to relieve Milan, indicating he trusted them with a difficult assignment. The fact that Martin and Uliaris accepted the assignment is indicative of their obedience to Belisarius. Of course, the two men ultimately failed to carry out this assignment and Belisarius’ dismissal of Uliaris afterwards further places their conduct in doubt, but for the purposes of establishing their relationship at the time what matters is the reciprocal trust and respect that existed at the time of the assignment.41 We are not limited to this brief episode in 538 for the only connection between Belisarius and these two men. Martin and Uliaris had in fact long worked with Belisarius. Of the two, Martin had the more successful career. He served on the Eastern front at the same time as Belisarius in 531.42 He was a subordinate commander of Belisarius in the invasion of Africa in 533.43 From 537 to 540 he fought with Belisarius in Italy, as we have seen. In 540, he was one of only four senior officers who returned to Constantinople with Belisarius and he then subsequently fought with him in the East.44 In 543 he parlayed his connections into the position of General of the East (magister militum per Orientem), the same position Belisarius once held, and went on to have a successful career up to 556.45 So in all, Martin served with Belisarius in four campaigns scattered through a decade. Although Belisarius ultimately dismissed Uliaris, he did serve as an officer of the general’s guardsmen for at least five years in both Africa and Italy before their relationship went sour.46 The third officer that Belisarius could count on in this episode was Ildiger, the son-in-law of his wife. Although no source definitively gives Ildiger’s rank, the assignments he received are commensurate with a fairly high rank, probably general (magister militum).47 In 536, Belisarius entrusted Ildiger with the care of Carthage after he repressed a mutiny there.48 Ildiger saved Belisarius from the attack of Constantine in 538.49 Also in 538, as we have seen, Ildiger was placed in command of the fleet sent to relieve John, the nephew of Vitalian, at Ariminum.

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