"

XLI.

preffed their retreat, occupied each night their CHAP.
camp of the preceding day, and would have fe
cured a bloodless victory, if he could have refifted
the impatience of his own troops. Their valiant
promise was faintly fupported in the hour of battle;
the right wing was expofed by the treacherous of
cowardly desertion of the Chriftian Arabs; the
Huns, a veteran band of eight hundred warriors,
were oppreffed by superior numbers; the flight of
the Ifaurians was intercepted; but the Roman in-
fantry stood firm on the left, for Belifarius him-
felf, difmounting from his horfe, fhewed them that
intrepid despair was their only fafety. They turned
their backs to the Euphrates, and their faces to the
enemy; innumerable arrows glanced without effect
from the compact and shelving order of their
bucklers, an impenetrable line of pikes was op-
posed to the repeated affaults of the Perfian caval-
ry; and after a refiftance of many hours, the re-
maining troops were skilfully embarked under the
fhadow of the night. The Perfian commander
retired with disorder and difgrace, to answer a
strict account of the lives of fo many foldiers which
he had confumed in a barren victory. But the
fame of Belifarius was not fullied by a defeat, in
which alone he had faved his army from the con-
fequences of their own rafhnefs: the approach of
peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern
frontier, and his conduct in the fedition of Con-
stantinople amply discharged his obligations to the
emperor. When the African war became the topic
of popular difcourfe and fecret deliberation, each of
the Roman generals was apprehensive, rather than
ambitious,

M 2

XLI.

CHAP. ambitious, of the dangerous honour; but as foon as Juftinian had declared his preference of fuperrior merit, their envy was rekindled by the unanimous applaufe which was given to the choice of Belifarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a fufpicion, that the hero was darkly affifted by the intrigues of his wife, the fair and fubtile Antonina, who alternately enjoyed the confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora. The birth of Antonina was ignoble, she defcended from a family of charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the fouleft reproach. Yet fhe reigned with long and abfolute power over the mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina difdained the merit of conjugal fidelity, fhe expreffed a manly friendship to Belifarius, whom the accompanied with undaunted refolution in all the hardships and dangers of a military life'.

Prepara

the AG can war.

Afri

A. D. 533.

The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the laft contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of the army confifted of the guards of Belifarius, who, according to the pernicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves by a particular oath of fidelity to the fervice of their patron. Their ftrength and stature, for which they had been curiously selected, the goodness of their horfes and armour, and the affiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to act whatever their courage might prompt;

7 See the birth and character of Antonina, in the Anecdotes, c.1. and the notes of Alemannus, p. 3.

XLI.

and their courage was exalted by the focial honour CHAP. of their rank, and the personal ambition of favour and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active Pharas; their untractable valour was more highly prized than the tame fubmiffion of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance was it deemed to procure a reinforcement of fix hundred Maffagetæ, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horfe and ten thousand foot were embarked at Conftantinople for the conquest of Africa, but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace and Ifauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal dependence. From a laudable defire to affert the dignity of his theme, Procopius defends the foldiers of his own time against the morofe critics, who confined that refpectable name to the heavyarmed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously.obferved, that the word archer is introduced by Homer as a term of contempt. "Such contempt

8

might perhaps be due to the naked youths who "appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and, "lurking behind a tomb-ftone, or the shield of a

8 See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of archery might quote the reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. a. 385, &c.) and the permittere vulnera ventis of Lucan (viii. 384.): yet the Romans could not despise the arrows of the Parthians; and in the fiege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and Teucer, pierced those haughty warriors who infulted them as women or children.

XLI.

''

CHAP. friend, drew the bow-ftring to their breast, "and difmiffed a feeble and lifelefs arrow. But our archers (purfues the hiftorian) are mounted on horfes, which they manage with admirable fkill; their head and fhoulders are protected by a cafk or buckler; they wear greaves of iron on their legs, and their bodies are guarded by a coat "of mail. On their right fide hangs a quiver, a

fword on their left, and their hand is accuftom"ed to wield a lance or javelin in closer combat. "Their bows are ftrong and weighty; they fhoot "in every poffible direction, advancing, retreating, to the front, to the rear, or to either flank "and as they are taught to draw the bow-ftring not to the breast, but to the right ear, firm indeed must be the armour that can refift the rapid violence of their fhaft." Five hundred tranfports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbour of Conftantinople. The smallest of these veffels may be computed at thirty, the largest at five hundred tons; and the fair average will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one hundred thousand tons ", for the reception of thirty

Ο Νεύρην μεν μαζω πελασεν, τοξύ δε σίδηρον (Iliad. Δ. Ι23.). How concife-how juft-how beautiful is the whole picture! I fee the attitudes of the archer-I hear the twanging of the bow:

Αιγξε βίος, νευρη δε μεγ' ιαχεν, αλτο δ' εἴςος.

f

10 The text appears to allow for the largest veffels 50,000 medimini, or 3000 tons (fince the medimnus weighed 160 Roman, or 120 averdupois, pounds). I have given a more rational interpretation, by fuppofing that the Attic ftyle of Procopius conceals the legal and popular modius, a fixth part of the medimnus (Hooper's Ancient Mea

fures,

XLI.

thirty-five thoufand foldiers and failors, of five CHAP. thousand horses, of arms, engines, and military stores, and of a fufficient stock of water and provifions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud gallies, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with fo many hundred oars, oars, had long fince disappeared; and the fleet of Juftinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines, covered from the miffile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two thousand of the brave and robust youth of Conftantinople. Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards diftinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the fupreme command, both by land and fea, was delegated to Belifarius alone, with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion as if the emperor himself were present. The feparation of the naval and military profeffions is at once the effect and the caufe of the modern improvements in the fcience of navigation and maritime war.

Departure

AD. 533

June.

In the feventh year of the reign of Juftinian, ofthefleet, and about the time of the fummer folftice, the whole fleet of fix hundred fhips was ranged in martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The patriarch pronounced his benediction, the emperor fignified his last commands, the general's trumpet gave the fignal of departure, and every heart, according to its fears or wishes, explored

fures, p. 152, &c.). A contrary, and indeed a stranger mistake, has crept into an oration of Dinarchus (contra Demofthenem, in Keiske Orator. Græc. tom. iv. P. ii. p. 34.). By reducing the number of fhips from 500 to 50, and tranflating media by mines, or pounds, Coufin has generously allowed soo tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet!-Did he never think?