Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

of Italy were anxiously fixed on the event of this final contest. Perhaps the talents of the Roman general were most conspicuous in the calm operations which precede the tumult of a battle. His skilful movements intercepted the subsistence of the Barbarian, deprived him of the advantage of the bridge and river, and in the choice of the ground and moment of action reduced him to comply with the inclination of his enemy. On the morning of the important day, when the ranks were already formed, a servant, for some trivial fault, was killed by his master, one of the leaders of the Heruli. The justice or passion of Narses was awakened: he summoned the offender to his presence, and without listening to his excuses, gave the signal to the minister of death. If the cruel master had not infringed the laws of his nation, this arbitrary execution was not less unjust than it appears to have been imprudent. The Heruli felt the indignity; they halted; but the Roman general, without soothing their rage, or expecting their resolution, called aloud, as the trumpets sounded, that unless they hastened to occupy their place, they would lose the honor of the victory. His troops were disposed 1 in a long front, the cavalry on the wings; in the centre, the heavy-armed foot; the archers and slingers in the rear. The Germans advanced in a sharppointed column, of the form of a triangle or solid wedge. They pierced the feeble centre of Narses, who received them with a smile into the fatal snare, and directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to wheel on their flanks and encompass their rear. The host of the Franks and Alemanni consisted of infantry: a sword and buckler hung by their side; and they used, as their weapons of offence, a weighty hatchet and a hooked javelin, which were only formidable in close combat, or at a short distance. The flower of the Roman archers, on horseback, and in complete armor, skirmished without peril round this immovable phalanx; supplied by active speed the deficiency of number; and aimed their arrows against a crowd of Barbarians, who, instead of a cuirass and helmet, were covered by a loose garment of fur or linen. They paused, they trembled, their ranks were confounded, and in the decisive moment the Heruli, preferring glory to revenge, charged with rapid violence the head of the column. Their leader, Sindbal, and Aligern, the Gothic

51 Père Daniel (Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. i. pp. 17-21) has exhibited a fanciful representation of this battle, somewhat in the manner of the Chevalier Folard, the once famous editor of Polybius, who fashioned to his own habits and opinions all the military operations of antiquity.

52

prince, deserved the prize of superior valor; and their ex. ample incited the victorious troops to achieve with swords and spears the destruction of the enemy. Buccelin, and the greatest part of his army, perished on the field of battle, in the waters of the Vulturnus, or by the hands of the enraged peasants: but it may seem incredible, that a victory, which no more than five of the Alemanni survived, could be purchased with a loss of fourscore Romans. Seven thousand Goths, the relics of the war, defended the fortress of Campsa till the ensuing spring; and every messenger of Narses announced the reduction of the Italian cities, whose names were corrupted by the ignorance or vanity of the Greeks.53 After the battle of Casilinum, Narses entered the capital; the arms and treasures of the Goths, the Franks, and the Alamanni, were displayed; his soldiers, with garlands in their hands, chanted the praises of the conqueror; and Rome, for the last time, beheld the semblance of a triumph.

After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was filled by the exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace and war of the emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits of a narrow province; but Narses himself, the first and most powerful of the exarchs, administered above fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy. Like Belisarius, he had deserved the honors of envy, calumny, and disgrace: but the favorite eunuch still enjoyed the confidence of Justinian; or the leader of a victorious army awed and repressed the ingratitude of a timid court. Yet it was not by weak and mischievous indulgence that Narses secured the attachment of his troops. Forgetful of the past, and regardless of the future, they abused the present hour of prosperity and peace. The cities of Italy resounded with the noise of drinking and dancing: the spoils of victory were wasted in sensual pleasures; and nothing (says Agathias) remained unless to exchange their shields and helmets for the soft lute and the capacious hogshead. In a manly oration, not unworthy of

52 Agathias (1. ii. p. 47) has produced a Greek epigram of six lines on this victory of Narses, which is favorably compared to the battles of Marathon and Platea. The chief difference is indeed in their consequences-so trivial in the former instance-so permanent and glorious in the latter.

53 The Beroia and Brincas of Theophanes or his transcriber (p. 201) must be read or understood Verona and Brixia.

54 Ελείπετο γάρ, οἶμαι, αὐτοῖς ὑπὸ ἀβελτερίας τὰς ἀσπίδας τυχόν και τὰ κράνη αμφρέως οίνου καὶ βαρβίτου ἀποδόσθαι (Agathias, l. ii. p. 48). In the first scene of Richard III. our English poet has beautifully enlarged on this idea, for which, however, he was not indebted to the Byzantine historian.

Not in the epigram, but in the previous observations.-M.

a Roman censor, the eunuch reproved these disorderly vices, which sullied their fame, and endangered their safety. The soldiers blushed and obeyed; discipline was confirmed; the fortifications were restored; a duke was stationed for the defence and military command of each of the principal cities; 55 and the eye of Narses pervaded the ample pros. pect from Calabria to the Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the country, or mingled with the people; the Franks, instead of revenging the death of Buccelin, abandoned, without a struggle, their Italian conquests; and the rebellious Sindbal, chief of the Heruli, was subdued, taken and hung on a lofty gallows by the inflexible justice of the exarch. The civil state of Italy, after the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools. and tribunals of the West: he ratified the acts of Theodoric and his immediate successors, but every deed was rescinded and abolished which force had extorted, or fear had subscribed, under the usurpation of Totila. A moderate theory was framed to reconcile the rights of property with the safety of prescription, the claims of the state with the poverty of the people, and the pardon of offences with the interest of virtue and order of society. Under the exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank. Yet the senators were gratified by the permission of visiting their estates in Italy, and of approaching, without obstacle, the throne of Constantinople: the regulation of weights and measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and gramma rians, were destined to preserve, or rekindle, the light of science in the ancient capital. Justinian might dictate benevolent edicts,67 and Narses might second his wishes by the restoration of cities, and more especially of churches. But the power of kings is most effectual to destroy; and

55 Maffei has proved (Verona Illustrata, P. i. 1. x. pp. 257, 289), against the common opinion, that the dukes of Italy were instituted before the conquest of the Lombards, by Narses himself. In the Pragmatic Sanction (No. 23), Justinian restrains the judices militares.

5 See Paulus Diaconus, liii. c. 2, p. 776. Menander (in Excerp. Legat. p. 133) mentions some risings in Italy by the Franks, and Theophanes (p. 201) hints at some Gothic rebellions.

57 The Pragmatic Sanction of Justinian, which restores and regulates the eivil state of Italy, consists of xxvii. articles; it is dated August 15, A. D. 554; is addressed to Narses, V. J. Præpositus Sacri Cubiculi, and to Antiochus Præfectus Prætorio Italiæ; and has been preserved by Julian Antecessor, and in the Corpus Juris Civilis, after the novels and edicts of Justinian, Justin, and Tiberius.

[ocr errors]

the twenty years of the Gothic war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy. As early as the fourth campaign, under the discipline of Belisarius himself, fifty thousand laborers died of hunger 55 in the narrow region of Picenum; 59 and a strict interpretation of the evidence of Procopius would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of her present inhabitants.

I desire to believe, but I dare not affirm, that Belisarius sincerely rejoiced in the triumph of Narses. Yet the consciousness of his own exploits might teach him to esteem without jealousy the merit of a rival; and the repose of the aged warrior was crowned by a last victory, which saved the emperor and the capital. The Barbarians, who annually visited the provinces of Europe, were less discouraged by some accidental defeats than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and of subsidy. In the thirty-second winter of Justinian's reign, the Danube was deeply frozen : Zabergan led the cavalry of the Bulgarians, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous multitude of Sclavonians. The savage chief passed, without opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven thousand horse to the long wall which should have defended the territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature: a recent earth. quake had shaken the foundations of the wall; and the forces of the empire were employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia. The seven schools, or companies of the guards or domestic troops, had been augmented to the number of five thousand five hundred men,

61

68 A still greater number was consumed by famine in the southern provinces, without (KTOS) the Ionian Gulf. Acorns were used in the place of bread. Procopius had seen a deserted orphan suckled by a she-goat. Seventeen pas sengers were lodged, murdered, and eaten, by two women, who were detected and slain by the eighteenth, &c.*

59 Quinta regio Piceni est; quondam uberrimæ multitudinis, ccclx. millia Picentium in fidem P R. venere (Plin. Hist Natur. iii. 18). In the time of Vespasian, this ancient population was already diminished.

CO Perhaps fifteen or sixteen millions. Procopius (Anecdot. c. 18) computes that Africa lost five millions, that Italy was thrice as extensive, and that the depopulation was in a larger proportion. But his reckoning is inflamed by passion, and clouded with uncertainty.

61 In the decay of these military schools, the satire of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 24. Aleman, pp. 102, 103) is confirmed and illustrated by Agathias (1. v. p. 159), who cannot be rejected as a hostile witness.

* Denina considers that greater evil was inflicted upon Italy by the Grecian reconquest than by any other invasion. Revoluz. d'Italia, t. i. I. v. p. 247.-M.

†Zabergan was king of the Cutrigours, a tribe of Huns, who were neither Bulgarians nor Sclavonians. St. Martin, vol. ix. pp. 408-420.-M.

whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remam in the field, unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the Bulgarians. The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers and fierceness of an enemy, who had polluted holy virgins, and abandoned new born infants to the dogs and vultures; a crowd of rustics, imploring food and protection, increased the consternation of the city, and the tents of Zabergan were pitched at the distance of twenty miles, on the banks of a small river, which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the Propontis.3 Justinian trembled: and those who had only seen the emperor in his old age, were pleased to suppose, that he had lost the alacrity and vigor of his youth. By his command the vessels of gold and silver were removed from the churches in the neighborhood, and even the suburbs, of Constantinople; the ramparts were lined with trembling spectators; the golden gate was crowded with useless gen. erals and tribunes, and the senate shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.

62

But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble veteran, who was compelled by the public danger to resume the armor in which he had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The horses of the royal stables, of private citizens, and even of the circus, were hastily collected; the cmulation of the old and young was roused by the name of Belisarius, and his first encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His prudence, and the labor of the friendly peasants, secured, with a ditch and rampart, the repose of the night; innumerable fires, and clouds of dust, were artfully contrived to magnify the opinion of his strength; his soldiers suddenly passed from despondency to presumption; and, while ten thousand voices demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge, that in the

62 The distance from Constantinople to Melanthias, Villa Cæsariana (Ammian. Marcellin. xxx. 11), is variously fixed at 102 or 140 stadia (Suidas, tom. ii. pp. 522, 523. Aga hias, 1. v. p. 158), or xviii. or xix. miles (Itineraria, pp. 138, 230, 323, 332, and Wesseling's Observations). The first xii. miles, as far as Khegium, were paved by Justinian, who built a bridge ever a morass or gullet between a lake and the sea (Procop. de Edif. 1. iv. c. 8).

63 The Atyras (Pompon. Mela, 1. ii. c. 2, p. 169, edit. Voss). At the river's mouth, a town or castle of the same name was fortified by Justinian (Procop. de Edif. 1. iv. c. 2. Itinerar. p. 570, and Wesseling).

« ForrigeFortsett »