TO CETHEGUS, A FRIEND.
The Vandal war has been given up, and for what pitiable reasons! You
know that I have thought it far wiser for our rulers to attend to the
matters immediately around us than to meddle with the Barbarians. For
so long as this unbearable burden of taxation and abuse of official
power continues in the Roman Empire, so long every conquest, every
increase in the number of our subjects, will merely swell the list of
unfortunates. Yet if Africa could be restored to the Empire, we ought
not to relinquish the proud thought from sheer cowardice!
There stands the ugly word,--unhappily a true one. From cowardice? Not
Theodora's. Indeed, that is not one of the faults of this delicate,
otherwise womanly woman. Two years ago, when the terrible insurrection
of the Greens and Blues in the Circus swept victoriously over the whole
city, when Justinian despaired and wished to fly, Theodora's courage
kept him in the palace, and Belisarius's fidelity saved him. But this
time the blame does not rest upon the Emperor; it is the cowardice of
the Roman army, or especially, the fleet. True, Justinian's zeal
has cooled considerably since the failure of the crafty plan to
destroy Genseric's kingdom; almost without a battle, principally by
"arts,"--treachery, ordinary people term them. Hilderic, at an
appointed time, was to send his whole army into the interior for a
great campaign against the Moors; our fleet was to run into the
unprotected harbors of Carthage, land the army, occupy the city, and
make Hilderic, Hoamer, and a Senator the Emperor's three governors of
the recovered province of Africa.
But this time we crafty ones were outwitted by a brain still more
subtle. Our friend from Tripolis writes that he was deceived in the
Arian priest whom he believed he had won for our cause. This man,
at first well disposed, afterwards became wavering, warned,
dissuaded--nay, perhaps even betrayed the plan to the Vandals. So an
open attack must be made. This pleased Belisarius, but not the Emperor.
He hesitated.
Meanwhile--Heaven knows through whom--the rumor of the coming Vandal
war spread through the court, into the city, among the soldiers and
sailors; and--disgrace and shame on us--nearly all the greatest
dignitaries, the generals, and also the army and the fleet were seized
with terror. All remembered the last great campaign against this
dreaded foe, when, two generations ago--it was under the Emperor
Leo--the full strength of the whole empire was employed. The ruler of
the Western Empire attacked the Vandals simultaneously in Sardinia and
Tripolis. Constantinople accomplished magnificent deeds. One hundred
and thirty thousand pounds of gold were used; Basiliscus, the Emperor's
brother-in-law, led a hundred thousand warriors to the Carthaginian
coast. All were destroyed in a single night. Genseric attacked with
firebrands the triremes packed too closely together at the Promontory
of Mercury, while his swift horsemen at the same time assailed the camp
on the shore; fleet and army were routed in blood and flame. Even to
the present day do the Prefect and the Treasurer lament the loss. "It
will be just the same now as it was then. The last money in the almost
empty coffers will be flung into the sea!" But the generals (except
Belisarius and Narses), what heroes they are! Each fears that the
Emperor will choose him. And how, even if they overcome the terrors of
the ocean, is a landing to be made upon a hostile coast defended by the
dreaded Germans? The soldiers, who have just returned from the Persian
War, have barely tasted the joys of home. They are talking mutinously
in every street; no sooner returned from the extreme East, they must be
sent to the farthest West, to the Pillars of Hercules, to fight with
Moors and Vandals. They were not used to sea-battles, were not trained
for them, were not enlisted for the purpose, and therefore were under
no obligations. The Prefect, especially, represented to the Emperor
that Carthage was a hundred and fifty days' march by land from Egypt,
while the sea was barred by the invincible fleet of the Vandals. "Don't
meddle with this African wasp's nest," he warned him. "Or the corsair
ships will ravage all our coasts and islands as they did in the days of
Genseric." And this argument prevailed. The Emperor has changed his
mind. How the hero Belisarius fumes and rages!
Theodora resents--in silence. But she vehemently desired this war! I am
really no favorite of hers. I am far too independent, too much the
master of my own thoughts, and my conscience pricks me often enough
for my insincerity. She certainly has the best--that is, the best
trained--conscience: it no longer disturbs her. Doubtless she smoothed
down its pricks long ago. But I have repeatedly received the dainty
little papyrus rolls whose seal bears a scorpion surrounded by
flames,--little notes in which she earnestly urged me to the "war
spirit," if I desired to retain her friendship.