OF BELISARIUS. CHAPTER XLL CONQUESTS OF JUSTINIAN IN THE WEST.-CHARACTER ANd first CAMPAIGNS HE INVADES AND SUBDUES THE VANDAL KINGDOM OF AFRICA. HIS TRIUMPH. THE GOTHIC WAR. - HE RECOVERS SICILY, Naples, and ROME. — SIEGE OF ROME BY THE Goths. — Their Retreat and LOSSES.-SURrender of RavENNA.-GLORY OF BELISARIUS. HIS DOMESTIC SHAME AND MISFORTUNES. Justinian resolves to invade Africa, A.D. 533. WHEN Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the fall of the Western Empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals had obtained a solid, and, as it might seem, a legal establishment both in Europe and Africa. The titles which Roman victory had inscribed were erased with equal justice by the sword of the barbarians; and their successful rapine derived a more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had refuted the superstitious hope that Rome was founded by the gods to reign for ever over the nations of the earth. But the proud claim of perpetual and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers could no longer maintain, was firmly asserted by her statesmen and lawyers, whose opinions have been sometimes revived and propagated in the modern schools of jurisprudence. After Rome herself had been stripped of the Imperial purple, the princes of Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces which had been subdued by the consuls or possessed by the Cæsars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of the West from the usurpation of heretics and barbarians. The execution of this splendid design was in some degree reserved for Justinian. During the five first years of his reign he reluctantly waged a costly and unprofitable war against the Persians, till his pride submitted to his ambition, and he purchased, at the price of four hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling, the benefit of a precarious truce, which, in the language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of the endless peace. The safety of the East enabled the emperor to employ his forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of Africa afforded an honourable motive, and promised a powerfu. support, to the Roman arms. · 'The complete series of the Vandal war is related by Procopius in a regular and State of the A.D. 523-530. According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom had lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vanda. princes. A mild disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, Vandals. the grandson of a conqueror, to prefer the counsels of Hilderic, clemency and peace, and his accession was marked by the salutary edict which restored two hundred bishops to their churches, and allowed the free profession of the Athanasian creed. But the catholics accepted with cold and transient gratitude a favour so inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy presumed to insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the soldiers more loudly complained that he had degenerated from the courage, of his ancestors. His ambassadors were suspected of a secret and disgraceful negociation in the Byzantine court; and his general, the Achilles,3 as he was named, of the Vandals, lost a battle against the naked and disorderly Moors. The public discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose age, descent, and military fame gave him an appa- Gelimer, rent title to the succession: he assumed, with the consent A.D. 530-534. of the nation, the reins of government, and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from the throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a faithful counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the Vandals. But the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his catholic subjects had powerfully recommended him to the favour of Justinian, who, for the benefit of his own sect, could acknowledge the use and justice of religious toleration: their alliance, while the nephew of Justin remained in a private station, was cemented by the mutual exchange of gifts and letters, and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of royalty and friendship. In two successive embassies he admonished the usurper to repent of his treason, or to elegant narrative (1. i. c. 9-25, 1. ii. c. 1-13); and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in the footsteps of such a guide. From the entire and diligent perusal of the Greek text I have a right to pronounce that the Latin and French versions of Grotius and Cousin may not be implicitly trusted; yet the President Cousin has been often praised, and Hugo Grotius was the first scholar of a learned age.a 2 See Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. c. xii. p. 589 [ed. Par. 1694]. His best evidence is drawn from the Life of St. Fulgentius, composed by one of his disciples, transcribed in a great measure in the Annals of Baronius, and printed in several great collections (Catalog. Bibliot. Bunavianæ, tom. i. vol. ii. p. 1258). 3 For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or beauty, or valour?-In what language did the Vandals read Homer?-Did he speak German?-The Latins had four versions (Fabric. tom. i. l. ii. c. 3, p. 297): yet, in spite of the praises of Seneca (Consol. [ad Polyb.] c. 26), they appear to have been more successful in imitating than in translating the Greek poets. But the name of Achilles might be famous and popular, even among the illiterato barbarians. It will be seen, however, from some of Cousin, to the neglect of the original of the subsequent notes, that Gibbon has Greek.-S. occasionally followed the French version VOL. V H Debates on the African war. abstain, at least, from any further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God and of the Romans, to reverence the laws of kindred and succession, and to suffer an infirm old man peaceably to end his days either on the throne of Carthage or in the palace of Constantinople. The passions or even the prudence of Gelimer compelled him to reject these requests, which were urged in the haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his ambition in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief magistrate who had failed in the execution of the kingly office. After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the East. Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to maintain his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to the practice of civilised nations, by the most solemn protestations that each party was sincerely desirous of peace. The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and idle populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from tribute, and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military service. But the wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the past, revolved in their memory the immense loss, both of men and money, which the empire had sustained in the expedition of Basiliscus. The troops, which, after five laborious campaigns, had been recalled from the Persian frontier, dreaded the sea, the climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The ministers of the finances computed, as far as they might compute, the demands of an African war, the taxes which must be found and levied to supply those insatiate demands, and the danger lest their own lives, or at least their lucrative employments, should be made responsible for the deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such selfish motives (for we may not suspect him of any zeal for the public good), John of Cappadocia ventured to oppose in full council the inclinations of his master. He confessed that a victory of such importance could not be too dearly purchased; but he represented in a grave discourse the certain difficulties and the uncertain event. "You undertake," said the præfect, "to besiege Carthage: by land the distance is not less than one "hundred and forty days' journey; on the sea, a whole year1 must clapse before you can receive any intelligence from your fleet. If 66 A year-absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa may be dated A.D. 533, September 14. It is celebrated by Justinian in the preface to his Institutes, which were published November 21 of the same year. Including the voyage and return, such a computation might be truly applied to our Indian empire. "Africa should be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the addi"tional conquest of Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the obliga"tion of new labours; a single misfortune will attract the barbarians "into the heart of your exhausted empire." Justinian felt the weight of this salutary advice; he was confounded by the unwonted freedom of an obsequious servant; and the design of the war would perhaps have been relinquished, if his courage had not been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts of profane reason. "I have 66 66 seen a vision," cried an artful or fanatic bishop of the East. "It is "the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of the African church. The "God of battles will march before your standard, and disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his Son." The emperor might be tempted, and his counsellors were constrained, to give credit to this seasonable revelation; but they derived more rational hope from the revolt which the adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already excited on the borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African subject, had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to Godas, a valiant barbarian: he suspended the payment of tribute, disclaimed his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to the emissaries of Justinian, who found him master of that fruitful island, at the head of his guards, and proudly invested with the ensigns of royalty. The forces of the Vandals were diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman armies were animated by the spirit of Belisarius, one of those heroic names which are familiar to every age and to every nation." 5 Character The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among the Thracian peasants, without any of those advantages which had formed the virtues of the elder and and choice of younger Scipio-a noble origin, liberal studies, and the Belisarius. 5" Ωρμητο δὲ ὁ Βελισάριος ἐκ Γερμανίας, ἣ Θρᾳκῶντε καὶ Ἰλλυριῶν μεταξὺ κεῖται (Procop. Vandal. 1. i. c. 11 [tom. i. p. 361, ed. Bonn]). Aleman (Not. ad Anecdot. p. 5), an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity of Giphanius and Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. "The most important work on the campaigns of Belisarius since the time of Gibbon is Lord Mahon's Life of this genera (London, 1848, 2nd ed.), founded on a careful examination of the original authorities. This work has supplied Dean Milman and the present Editor with many of the notes to the present and the 43rd chapters.-S. b Lord Mahon expresses his surprise that Gibbon cannot find the town of Germania in any civil or ecclesiastical lists, and says that it is mentioned by Procopius (de Edific. lib. iv. c. 1) as near Sardica. In that passage, however, it is called Tiguan. It is also mentioned by Constant. Porphyrog. de Themat. 1. ii. under Δυρράχιον (θέμα 9, Banduri Imp. His services in the Persian war, A.D. emulation of a free state. The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted to prove that the youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of praise: he served, most assuredly with valour and reputation, among the private guards of Justinian; and when his patron became emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command. After a bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which his glory was shared by a colleague, and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius repaired to the important station of Dara, where he first accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion, and diligent historian, of his exploits. The Mirranes of Persia advanced with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the D. 529-532. fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on which the citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment after the toils of victory. He encountered an adversary equal to himself, by the new title of General of the East; his superior in the science of war, but much inferior in the number and quality of his troops, which amounted only to twenty-five thousand Romans and strangers, relaxed in their discipline, and humbled by recent disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all shelter to stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with a deep trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular, and afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover the wings of cavalry advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the enemy. When the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and rapid charge decided the conflict: the standard of Persia fell; the immortals fled; the infantry threw away their bucklers, and eight thousand of the vanquished were left on the field of battle. In the next campaign Syria was invaded on the side of the desert; and Belisarius, with twenty thousand men, hastened from Dara to the relief of the province. During the whole summer1 the designs of the enemy were baffled by his skilful dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied each night their camp of the preceding day, and would have secured a bloodless victory, if he could have The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are fairly and copiously related by his secretary (Persic. 1. i. c. 12-18). Orient. i. p. 26, where it is placed in the eparchia of Dacia); and by the grammarian Hierocles in the same work (p. 36), where it is called riguán. Von Hammer, in a review of Lord Mahon's work in the Jahrbücher der Literatur of Vienna, in 1832, observes that Germania may be identified with the present Tschirmien or Tschermen, a town near the line of road between Constantinople and Adrianople, and about one day's journey from the latter. Von Hammer also observes that the name of Belisarius is Sclavonic, and denotes the White Prince (Beli-Tzar); but this etymology is hardly consistent with the reputed low origin of Belisarius.-S. This is incorrect, since the decisive battle was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19th. The site of the battle was near Callinicum.-Lord Mahon, p. 46, 47.-S. |