Justinian.—Part I.
Rebellions Of Africa.—Restoration Of The Gothic Kingdom By Totila.—Loss
And Recovery Of Rome.—Final Conquest Of Italy By Narses.—Extinction Of
The Ostrogoths.—Defeat Of The Franks And Alemanni.—Last Victory,
Disgrace, And Death Of Belisarius.—Death And Character Of
Justinian.—Comet, Earthquakes, And Plague.
The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has
exposed, on every side, the weakness of the Romans; and our
wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge
an empire whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending.
But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian, are
the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the
remains of strength, and accelerate the decay of the powers of
life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and
Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the
departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror,
and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.
From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice,
as well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious
minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of
Belisarius; and as the old registers of tribute had been burnt by
the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and
arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa. 1 The increase of
taxes, which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a
general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands, soon
dispelled the intoxication of the public joy: but the emperor was
insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was
awakened and alarmed by the clamors of military discontent. Many
of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the
Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and
inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned
to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and
selfish representations of their officers, that the liberality of
Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition;
that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the
treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished
Barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the
emperors would be applied only to the support of that government
on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend. The
mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most
part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines, and were instigated
by the clergy, of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and
rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism.
The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a
century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of
the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children,
and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen
by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honors of the Eastern
service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band
of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of
the Isle of Lesbos, to alter their course: they touched on
Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly
erected, on Mount Aurasius, the standard of independence and
revolt. While the troops of the provinces disclaimed the commands
of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against
the life of Solomon, who filled with honor the place of
Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the
tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of
the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of
the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their
discontent; and, at the end of ten days, a furious sedition was
kindled in the Circus, which desolated Africa above ten years.
The pillage of the city, and the indiscriminate slaughter of its
inhabitants, were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and
intoxication: the governor, with seven companions, among whom was
the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily: two thirds of the
army were involved in the guilt of treason; and eight thousand
insurgents, assembling in the field of Bulla, elected Stoza for
their chief, a private soldier, who possessed in a superior
degree the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom, his
eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his
equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius, and the
nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field;
and the victorious generals were compelled to acknowledge that
Stoza deserved a purer cause, and a more legitimate command.
Vanquished in battle, he dexterously employed the arts of
negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and
the chiefs who had trusted to his faithless promise were murdered
by his order in a church of Numidia. When every resource, either
of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stoza, with some desperate
Vandals, retired to the wilds of Mauritania, obtained the
daughter of a Barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his
enemies, by the report of his death. The personal weight of
Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the temper, of Germanus,
the emperor’s nephew, and the vigor and success of the second
administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the
camp, and maintained for a while the tranquillity of Africa. But
the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant
province; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor
relieved, and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently
mature, Stoza was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of
Carthage. He fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the
agonies of death, when he was informed that his own javelin had
reached the heart of his antagonist. 1001 The example of Stoza,
and the assurance that a fortunate soldier had been the first
king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and he promised, by a
private treaty, to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their
dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The
feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was
raised, by his marriage with the niece of Justinian, to the
office of exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the
guards, and his abject supplications, which provoked the
contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant.
After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a
banquet by the hand of Artaban; 1002 and it is singular enough,
that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should
reestablish at Carthage the authority of the Roman empire. In the
conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life
of Caesar, every circumstance is curious and important to the
eyes of posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or
rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of
Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or
resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.
2
1 (return) [ For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor
desire another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the
image, and whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable
events of his own times. In the second book of the Vandalic war
he relates the revolt of Stoza, (c. 14—24,) the return of
Belisarius, (c. 15,) the victory of Germanus, (c. 16, 17, 18,)
the second administration of Solomon, (c. 19, 20, 21,) the
government of Sergius, (c. 22, 23,) of Areobindus, (c. 24,) the
tyranny and death of Gontharis, (c. 25, 26, 27, 28;) nor can I
discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various
portraits.]
1001 (return) [ Corippus gives a different account of the death
of Stoza; he was transfixed by an arrow from the hand of John,
(not the hero of his poem) who broke desperately through the
victorious troops of the enemy. Stoza repented, says the poet, of
his treasonous rebellion, and anticipated—another
Cataline—eternal torments as his punishment.
Reddam, improba, pœnas Quas merui. Furiis socius Catilina cruentis
Exagitatus adest. Video jam Tartara, fundo Flammarumque globos, et
clara incendia volvi.
—Johannidos, book iv. line 211.
All the other authorities confirm Gibbon’s account of the death
of John by the hand of Stoza. This poem of Corippus, unknown to
Gibbon, was first published by Mazzuchelli during the present
century, and is reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine
writers.—M]
1002 (return) [ This murder was prompted to the Armenian
(according to Corippus) by Athanasius, (then præfect of Africa.)
Hunc placidus canâ gravitate coegit
Inumitera mactare virum.—Corripus, vol. iv. p. 237—M.]
2 (return) [ Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in
lively colors, the murder of Gontharis. One of the assassins
uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot: “If I fail,”
said Artasires, “in the first stroke, kill me on the spot, lest
the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices.”]
That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from
whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman
laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some
deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. The
Moors, 3 though ignorant of justice, were impatient of
oppression: their vagrant life and boundless wilderness
disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and
experience had shown, that neither oaths nor obligations could
secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount
Auras had awed them into momentary submission; but if they
respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the
pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom
their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments
of Tripoli and Pentapolis. A Moorish tribe encamped under the
walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance, and receive from the
governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were
introduced as friends into the city; but on the dark suspicion of
a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius, and
the clamor of arms and revenge was reechoed through the valleys
of Mount Atlas from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean. A
personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother,
rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the
Vandals had formerly signalized his valor; the rudiments of
justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and
while he laid Adrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the
emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall
of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his
troops from Carthage: but, at the distance of six days’ journey,
in the neighborhood of Tebeste, 4 he was astonished by the
superior numbers and fierce aspect of the Barbarians. He proposed
a treaty; solicited a reconciliation; and offered to bind himself
by the most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?”
interrupted the indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels,
the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that
the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our
innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second
time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury
and the vindication of their own honor.” Their honor was
vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon, and
the total loss of his army. 411 The arrival of fresh troops and
more skilful commanders soon checked the insolence of the Moors:
seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the
doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated
with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive
inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the
measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above
a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the
Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were
alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of
Africa, that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days
without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The
nation of the Vandals had disappeared: they once amounted to a
hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the
children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely
surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a
relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated on the
Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their
mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius
first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and
country, strenuously exercised in the labors of commerce and
agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was
converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to
Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has
confidently affirmed, that five millions of Africans were
consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian. 5
3 (return) [ The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into
the narrative of Procopius, (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19—23, 25, 27, 28.
Gothic. l. iv. c. 17;) and Theophanes adds some prosperous and
adverse events in the last years of Justinian.]
4 (return) [ Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. It is watered
by a river, the Sujerass, which falls into the Mejerda,
(Bagradas.) Tibesh is still remarkable for its walls of large
stones, (like the Coliseum of Rome,) a fountain, and a grove of
walnut-trees: the country is fruitful, and the neighboring
Bereberes are warlike. It appears from an inscription, that,
under the reign of Adrian, the road from Carthage to Tebeste was
constructed by the third legion, (Marmol, Description de
l’Afrique, tom. ii. p. 442, 443. Shaw’s Travels, p. 64, 65, 66.)]
411 (return) [ Corripus (Johannidos lib. iii. 417—441) describes
the defeat and death of Solomon.—M.]
5 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 18. The series of the African
history attests this melancholy truth.]
The jealousy of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius
to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure
revived the courage of the Goths, 6 who respected his genius, his
virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant
of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their king
(an inconsiderable loss,) their capital, their treasures, the
provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two
hundred thousand Barbarians, magnificently equipped with horses
and arms. Yet all was not lost, as long as Pavia was defended by
one thousand Goths, inspired by a sense of honor, the love of
freedom, and the memory of their past greatness. The supreme
command was unanimously offered to the brave Uraias; and it was
in his eyes alone that the disgrace of his uncle Vitiges could
appear as a reason of exclusion. His voice inclined the election
in favor of Hildibald, whose personal merit was recommended by
the vain hope that his kinsman Theudes, the Spanish monarch,
would support the common interest of the Gothic nation. The
success of his arms in Liguria and Venetia seemed to justify
their choice; but he soon declared to the world that he was
incapable of forgiving or commanding his benefactor. The consort
of Hildibald was deeply wounded by the beauty, the riches, and
the pride, of the wife of Uraias; and the death of that virtuous
patriot excited the indignation of a free people. A bold assassin
executed their sentence by striking off the head of Hildibald in
the midst of a banquet; the Rugians, a foreign tribe, assumed the
privilege of election: and Totila, 611 the nephew of the late
king, was tempted, by revenge, to deliver himself and the
garrison of Trevigo into the hands of the Romans.
But the gallant and accomplished youth was easily persuaded to
prefer the Gothic throne before the service of Justinian; and as
soon as the palace of Pavia had been purified from the Rugian
usurper, he reviewed the national force of five thousand
soldiers, and generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom
of Italy.
6 (return) [ In the second (c. 30) and third books, (c. 1—40,)
Procopius continues the history of the Gothic war from the fifth
to the fifteenth year of Justinian. As the events are less
interesting than in the former period, he allots only half the
space to double the time. Jornandes, and the Chronicle of
Marcellinus, afford some collateral hints Sigonius, Pagi,
Muratori, Mascou, and De Buat, are useful, and have been used.]
611 (return) [ His real name, as appears by medals, was Baduilla,
or Badiula. Totila signifies immortal: tod (in German) is death.
Todilas, deathless. Compare St Martin, vol. ix. p. 37.—M.]
The successors of Belisarius, eleven generals of equal rank,
neglected to crush the feeble and disunited Goths, till they were
roused to action by the progress of Totila and the reproaches of
Justinian. The gates of Verona were secretly opened to Artabazus,
at the head of one hundred Persians in the service of the empire.
The Goths fled from the city. At the distance of sixty furlongs
the Roman generals halted to regulate the division of the spoil.
While they disputed, the enemy discovered the real number of the
victors: the Persians were instantly overpowered, and it was by
leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he
lost in a few days by the lance of a Barbarian, who had defied
him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the
forces of Totila, near Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello, of
the Florentine territory. The ardor of freedmen, who fought to
regain their country, was opposed to the languid temper of
mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong
and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack, they
abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on
all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it
aggravated the shame, of their defeat. The king of the Goths, who
blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps
the path of honor and victory. Totila passed the Po, 6112
traversed the Apennine, suspended the important conquest of
Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of
Italy, to form the siege or rather the blockade, of Naples. The
Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities, and accusing
each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his
enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger
of his Italian conquests, despatched to the relief of Naples a
fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers.
They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of
provisions; but the delays of the new commander, an unwarlike
magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged; and the
succors, which he dropped with a timid and tardy hand, were
successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila
in the Bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was
dragged, with a rope round his neck, to the foot of the wall,
from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to
implore, like himself, the mercy of the conqueror. They requested
a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city, if no effectual
relief should appear at the end of thirty days. Instead of one
month, the audacious Barbarian granted them three, in the just
confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their
capitulation. After the reduction of Naples and Cumae, the
provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria, submitted to the king
of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Rome, pitched
his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital,
and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny
of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.
6112 (return) [ This is not quite correct: he had crossed the Po
before the battle of Faenza.—M.]
The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the
revolution which three years’ experience had produced in the
sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the
name, of a Catholic emperor, the pope, 7 their spiritual father,
had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or
murdered on a desolate island. 8 The virtues of Belisarius were
replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at
Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their
authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The improvement
of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long
practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools,
and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, 9 was drawn from the
dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size without
defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the
restoration of peace and industry, he imposed a heavy assessment
on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future
demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigor
against the persons and property of all those who, under the
Gothic kings, had been concerned in the receipt and expenditure
of the public money. The subjects of Justinian, who escaped these
partial vexations, were oppressed by the irregular maintenance of
the soldiers, whom Alexander defrauded and despised; and their
hasty sallies in quest of wealth, or subsistence, provoked the
inhabitants of the country to await or implore their deliverance
from the virtues of a Barbarian. Totila 10 was chaste and
temperate; and none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who
depended on his faith or his clemency. To the husbandmen of Italy
the Gothic king issued a welcome proclamation, enjoining them to
pursue their important labors, and to rest assured, that, on the
payment of the ordinary taxes, they should be defended by his
valor and discipline from the injuries of war. The strong towns
he successively attacked; and as soon as they had yielded to his
arms, he demolished the fortifications, to save the people from
the calamities of a future siege, to deprive the Romans of the
arts of defence, and to decide the tedious quarrel of the two
nations, by an equal and honorable conflict in the field of
battle. The Roman captives and deserters were tempted to enlist
in the service of a liberal and courteous adversary; the slaves
were attracted by the firm and faithful promise, that they should
never be delivered to their masters; and from the thousand
warriors of Pavia, a new people, under the same appellation of
Goths, was insensibly formed in the camp of Totila. He sincerely
accomplished the articles of capitulation, without seeking or
accepting any sinister advantage from ambiguous expressions or
unforeseen events: the garrison of Naples had stipulated that
they should be transported by sea; the obstinacy of the winds
prevented their voyage, but they were generously supplied with
horses, provisions, and a safe-conduct to the gates of Rome. The
wives of the senators, who had been surprised in the villas of
Campania, were restored, without a ransom, to their husbands; the
violation of female chastity was inexorably chastised with death;
and in the salutary regulation of the edict of the famished
Neapolitans, the conqueror assumed the office of a humane and
attentive physician. The virtues of Totila are equally laudable,
whether they proceeded from true policy, religious principle, or
the instinct of humanity: he often harangued his troops; and it
was his constant theme, that national vice and ruin are
inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well
as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are
responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
7 (return) [Sylverius, bishop of Rome, was first transported to
Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodia
inedia confectus) in the Isle of Palmaria, A.D. 538, June 20,
(Liberat. in Breviar. c. 22. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius,
A.D. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont. tom. i. p. 285, 286.)
Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina.]
8 (return) [ Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Terracina and
the coast of the Volsci, (Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. iii. c. 7, p.
1014.)]
9 (return) [ As the Logothete Alexander, and most of his civil
and military colleagues, were either disgraced or despised, the
ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that
of the Gothic History (l. iii. c. 1, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c.)]
10 (return) [ Procopius (l. iii. c. 2, 8, &c.,) does ample and
willing justice to the merit of Totila. The Roman historians,
from Sallust and Tacitus were happy to forget the vices of their
countrymen in the contemplation of Barbaric virtue.]
The return of Belisarius to save the country which he had
subdued, was pressed with equal vehemence by his friends and
enemies; and the Gothic war was imposed as a trust or an exile on
the veteran commander. A hero on the banks of the Euphrates, a
slave in the palace of Constantinople, he accepted with
reluctance the painful task of supporting his own reputation, and
retrieving the faults of his successors. The sea was open to the
Romans: the ships and soldiers were assembled at Salona, near the
palace of Diocletian: he refreshed and reviewed his troops at
Pola in Istria, coasted round the head of the Adriatic, entered
the port of Ravenna, and despatched orders rather than supplies
to the subordinate cities. His first public oration was addressed
to the Goths and Romans, in the name of the emperor, who had
suspended for a while the conquest of Persia, and listened to the
prayers of his Italian subjects. He gently touched on the causes
and the authors of the recent disasters; striving to remove the
fear of punishment for the past, and the hope of impunity for the
future, and laboring, with more zeal than success, to unite all
the members of his government in a firm league of affection and
obedience. Justinian, his gracious master, was inclined to pardon
and reward; and it was their interest, as well as duty, to
reclaim their deluded brethren, who had been seduced by the arts
of the usurper. Not a man was tempted to desert the standard of
the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered, that he was sent to
remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of a young
Barbarian; and his own epistle exhibits a genuine and lively
picture of the distress of a noble mind. “Most excellent prince,
we are arrived in Italy, destitute of all the necessary
implements of war, men, horses, arms, and money. In our late
circuit through the villages of Thrace and Illyricum, we have
collected, with extreme difficulty, about four thousand recruits,
naked, and unskilled in the use of weapons and the exercises of
the camp. The soldiers already stationed in the province are
discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy,
they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground. No
taxes can be raised, since Italy is in the hands of the
Barbarians; the failure of payment has deprived us of the right
of command, or even of admonition. Be assured, dread Sir, that
the greater part of your troops have already deserted to the
Goths. If the war could be achieved by the presence of Belisarius
alone, your wishes are satisfied; Belisarius is in the midst of
Italy. But if you desire to conquer, far other preparations are
requisite: without a military force, the title of general is an
empty name. It would be expedient to restore to my service my own
veteran and domestic guards. Before I can take the field, I must
receive an adequate supply of light and heavy armed troops; and
it is only with ready money that you can procure the
indispensable aid of a powerful body of the cavalry of the Huns.”
11 An officer in whom Belisarius confided was sent from Ravenna
to hasten and conduct the succors; but the message was neglected,
and the messenger was detained at Constantinople by an
advantageous marriage. After his patience had been exhausted by
delay and disappointment, the Roman general repassed the
Adriatic, and expected at Dyrrachium the arrival of the troops,
which were slowly assembled among the subjects and allies of the
empire. His powers were still inadequate to the deliverance of
Rome, which was closely besieged by the Gothic king. The Appian
way, a march of forty days, was covered by the Barbarians; and as
the prudence of Belisarius declined a battle, he preferred the
safe and speedy navigation of five days from the coast of Epirus
to the mouth of the Tyber.
11 (return) [ Procopius, l. iii. c. 12. The soul of a hero is
deeply impressed on the letter; nor can we confound such genuine
and original acts with the elaborate and often empty speeches of
the Byzantine historians]
After reducing, by force, or treaty, the towns of inferior note
in the midland provinces of Italy, Totila proceeded, not to
assault, but to encompass and starve, the ancient capital. Rome
was afflicted by the avarice, and guarded by the valor, of
Bessas, a veteran chief of Gothic extraction, who filled, with a
garrison of three thousand soldiers, the spacious circle of her
venerable walls. From the distress of the people he extracted a
profitable trade, and secretly rejoiced in the continuance of the
siege. It was for his use that the granaries had been
replenished: the charity of Pope Vigilius had purchased and
embarked an ample supply of Sicilian corn; but the vessels which
escaped the Barbarians were seized by a rapacious governor, who
imparted a scanty sustenance to the soldiers, and sold the
remainder to the wealthy Romans. The medimnus, or fifth part of
the quarter of wheat, was exchanged for seven pieces of gold;
fifty pieces were given for an ox, a rare and accidental prize;
the progress of famine enhanced this exorbitant value, and the
mercenaries were tempted to deprive themselves of the allowance
which was scarcely sufficient for the support of life. A
tasteless and unwholesome mixture, in which the bran thrice
exceeded the quantity of flour, appeased the hunger of the poor;
they were gradually reduced to feed on dead horses, dogs, cats,
and mice, and eagerly to snatch the grass, and even the nettles,
which grew among the ruins of the city. A crowd of spectres, pale
and emaciated, their bodies oppressed with disease, and their
minds with despair, surrounded the palace of the governor, urged,
with unavailing truth, that it was the duty of a master to
maintain his slaves, and humbly requested that he would provide
for their subsistence, to permit their flight, or command their
immediate execution. Bessas replied, with unfeeling tranquillity,
that it was impossible to feed, unsafe to dismiss, and unlawful
to kill, the subjects of the emperor. Yet the example of a
private citizen might have shown his countrymen that a tyrant
cannot withhold the privilege of death. Pierced by the cries of
five children, who vainly called on their father for bread, he
ordered them to follow his steps, advanced with calm and silent
despair to one of the bridges of the Tyber, and, covering his
face, threw himself headlong into the stream, in the presence of
his family and the Roman people. To the rich and pusillammous,
Bessas 12 sold the permission of departure; but the greatest part
of the fugitives expired on the public highways, or were
intercepted by the flying parties of Barbarians. In the mean
while, the artful governor soothed the discontent, and revived
the hopes of the Romans, by the vague reports of the fleets and
armies which were hastening to their relief from the extremities
of the East. They derived more rational comfort from the
assurance that Belisarius had landed at the port; and, without
numbering his forces, they firmly relied on the humanity, the
courage, and the skill of their great deliverer.
12 (return) [ The avarice of Bessas is not dissembled by
Procopius, (l. iii. c. 17, 20.) He expiated the loss of Rome by
the glorious conquest of Petraea, (Goth. l. iv. c. 12;) but the
same vices followed him from the Tyber to the Phasis, (c. 13;)
and the historian is equally true to the merits and defects of
his character. The chastisement which the author of the romance
of Belisaire has inflicted on the oppressor of Rome is more
agreeable to justice than to history.]