Thanks to Procopius, who wrote a History of the Wars, we have a lengthy description of the campaigns fought on Emperor Justinian’s orders in North Africa and Italy. This records the close relationship between Procopius and Belisarius, a leading military commander, that dated back to 527 when Procopius was sent to the Persian frontier as the general’s legal adviser. There he observed Belisarius’ heroic character, his magnanimity and restraint in dealing with enemy prisoners and conquered populations during a campaign that culminated in a peace treaty with the Persians in 532. In Justinian’s determination to end what had been a prolonged conflict, stretching from Lazica (in modern Georgia) and Armenia south to Syria and Palestine, his ambassadors negotiated an ‘Eternal Peace’ for the vast sum of 11,000 lbs of gold.
Even before this was achieved, an internal revolt of the Greens and Blues, the two dominant circus factions that organized Hippodrome entertainments in Constantinople, caused a more dramatic threat to the emperor in person, right under the imperial palace. Chanting ‘Nika!’ (conquer), the two groups, normally rivals, united to demand the dismissal of some high officials and then set fire to the centre of Constantinople. When Justinian’s attempts to satisfy their demands failed to end the rioting, the crowds elevated an alternative ruler. Procopius reports that Theodora, the emperor’s wife, refused to flee from the city, with the famous statement that it is better to die in the imperial purple than to lose your status as empress: ‘royalty is a good burial shroud’.1 Other accounts emphasize the skill with which the emperor disposed his military contingents who attacked the populace in the Hippodrome. On Sunday, 18 January 532, Belisarius was one of the leaders of the massacre in which up to 35,000 people were killed. For several days afterwards ‘Constantinople was quiet, and no one dared to go out, but only the shops which provided food and drink for needy people were open.’2
Belisarius had won the emperor’s gratitude and was chosen to lead a most ambitious campaign against the threats to the empire in the West in 533. For several years refugees from Vandal persecution had urged Justinian to overthrow the Arian kingdom in North Africa and restore the Catholic bishops to their sees. Even more pressing appeals for military assistance came from the governor of Sardinia and the leader of a revolt in Libya, both intent on removing the Vandal King Gelimer. With this encouragement, Justinian sent Belisarius with an expeditionary force of 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, plus his own militia (bucellarii). Compared to the 52,000 troops sent against Persia in 503, or the 6,000 to reinstall the Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria in 535, 16,000 overall was not a large force – certainly small in relation to the massive armada constructed by Leo I for the attempted conquest of 468 that had failed so miserably.3 The 533 expedition nonetheless reflected Constantinople’s capacity to transport probably more than 5,000 horses with sufficient water and fodder, as well as 10,000 infantry, who dreaded the possibility of having to fight at sea, in 500 ships protected by 92 warships that set sail from Constantinople around the spring equinox.
The armada sailed slowly from Abydos on the Dardanelles across the Aegean to Greece and on to Sicily, where Belisarius learned that the Vandal fleet had gone to Sardinia, so he decided to land his troops in Libya immediately. With surprising speed his troops advanced to capture Carthage and King Gelimer himself.4 His brilliant success was celebrated by a triumph in his honour in Constantinople, the procession of prisoners led by the Vandal king and his foremost warriors. The immense booty displayed included golden treasures from the Jerusalem Temple captured by Emperor Titus in ad 70. After the Vandal sack of Rome in 455 these had been carried off to Carthage, and they were now added to the imperial treasury in Constantinople. In 534 Justinian issued a law designed to restore imperial government in the North African provinces, under the supreme military commander, a praetorian prefect based at Carthage, with a staff of nearly four hundred civil servants, plus governors appointed to the seven provinces, each with fifty administrative staff, and five dukes to maintain order and defend the region.5 If the loss of the North African provinces in 439 had marked a turning point in the decline of the Roman empire in the West, Belisarius had now reversed it, bringing these rich areas back under direct rule from Constantinople. This also symbolized the replacement of Old Rome by New Rome: the Queen City was clearly now the sole source of imperial power. The African provinces reinvigorated Roman rule from Constantinople over the West for another century. North African exports of grain, wine and oil to Italy increased, and the famous burnished red slip ware pottery from the region turns up on sites throughout the Mediterranean world and further afield.6
After this victory over the Arian Vandal kingdom, Justinian was deeply angered by the news of Theodahad’s treatment of Amalasuintha. Her detention – and rumours of her murder – gave him an opportunity to extend the western military campaign against the Gothic government both in Italy and Dalmatia. In 535 Justinian planned a twopronged campaign led by Mundus, who was to march overland to Dalmatia to consolidate control on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, while Belisarius would sail to occupy Sicily, the crucial link to Italy.7 The two forces were then to combine in an assault on Ravenna to defeat the Ostrogoths and capture Theoderic’s treasure – booty was always an essential element of military campaigning.
The emperor may have been misled by the quick victory in Africa into thinking that a similar campaign would succeed in Italy, and indeed Belisarius captured Sicily without difficulty and advanced up the west coast of Italy. But in November 536 at Naples his forces encountered stiff resistance, in which the Jewish community sided with the Gothic commander in charge of the city’s defence. After a twenty-day siege the city capitulated and was sacked. The imperial troops moved north towards Rome and in December the pope and notables petitioned Belisarius to enter the city peacefully, while the Gothic garrison, greatly outnumbered, decided to leave.8
Ancient Rome was once again under direct imperial rule from Constantinople, a major triumph for Justinian. Belisarius appointed a duke to rule the city in conjunction with the remaining senatorial families and consolidated his control over central Italy. After their defeat at Naples, the Goths deposed King Theodahad, suspecting his military weakness, and selected an experienced soldier, Witigis, as king. He immediately marched to Ravenna where he married Matasuntha, the daughter of Amalasuintha, against her will.9 By allying himself with the ruling dynasty in this way, he counted on imperial forces being reluctant to attack the Gothic capital while a descendant of Theoderic was queen.
In the court at Ravenna Cassiodorus celebrated the union in his own typical style, thus continuing his long service to the Gothic kingdom. He had begun this career under Theoderic, had been trained and generously rewarded by three generations of Gothic rulers and remained loyal to the family that held power in Ravenna.10 Late in 536 (or early in the new year) he composed an epithalamium or marriage poem for the wedding, which has only survived in parts. After praising her genealogy at length, he addresses the queen, domina:
You have also built, O Lady, a palace which would make you famous clearly also to those who do not know you, because from such a huge dwelling can be deduced the magnitude of the resident. The coating of the marbles shines with the same color as the gems, the gold scattered about shines on the columns . . . mosaic works decorate with stone the rounded vaults; and all is adorned with metallic colors wherever waxen paintings are discerned. One remembers that the Queen Semiramis had the circular walls of Babylon built with bitumen mixed with sulphur . . . It is said that the house of Cyrus was built with stones bound together with gold, in Susa . . .11
This reference to lost mosaic and marble decoration confirms its ubiquitous use not only in the imperial palace, probably where the epithalamium was delivered, but also in other palaces, such as the one where Matasuntha had previously lived, enjoying radiant mosaic, gold and bejewelled wall coverings.
Perhaps Witigis believed that he could avoid a war with Constantinople by negotiating a return to Theoderic’s arrangements, ‘so that either commonwealth may endure in harmony restored’, as Cassiodorus puts it – with Ravenna representing the western and Constantinople the eastern government. But this is in stark contrast with the king’s militant declaration to the Goths that he had been raised on a shield ‘among the swords of battle in the ancestral way . . . as the trumpets blared so that the Gothic race of Mars roused by the din and longing for their native courage might find themselves a martial king.’12 Invoking the Roman god of war, Witigis claimed:
All that I do will look to the benefit of our race . . . I promise to pursue what will honour the royal name . . . I promise that my rule will be such as the Goths should possess following the glorious Theoderic. He was a man peculiarly and nobly formed for the cares of kingship . . . hence he who can imitate his deeds should be thought of as his kinsman.13
The Gothic population of Ravenna may have cheered, but the Catholics must have found the situation dangerous.
Even under these unsettled circumstances, some aspects of regular life continued in Ravenna and those areas of eastern Italy that remained under Gothic control. Two papyrus records from nearby Faventia (Faenza) tell us something of what it was like to live in the Gothic kingdom nearly fifty years after its foundation. In these sales, dated 539 and 540, poorer landowners negotiate with wealthier buyers. The first by Thugilo, honesta femina, the widow of Parianis, her daughter Domnica and son Deutherius, is of 20 jugera of land in the territory of Faventino to Pelegrinus, vir strenuus, for 110 solidi.14 The land seems to have been near the coast close to property owned by two dromonarii (who owned or managed swift ships) and Witterit, a Gothic scutarius (shield bearer). One of the witnesses was Julianus, the moneychanger (argentarius), who is also identified as the son-in-law, gener, of Johannis pimentarius, who supplies herbal pigments for painters as well as herbs used in medicinal remedies.15 Other witnesses included officials from the office of the postal service, de scrinio cursorum, the tax office, the guild of landowners and a caterer – provisioner – of the lord (obsonator domini nostri, that is, King Witigis).16
In the second sale (the size of the estate is lost but the price was 40 solidi) a clause stipulates that Dominicus, the seller, had inherited the two estates from his mother, free from all possible taxes, debts and other obligations (a long list is given) or legal controversy (a sorte barbari et aratione tutelaria).17 The seller is of modest rank (vir honestus), and the buyer, Montanus, and all his witnesses, colleagues or friends, are clarissimi. Montanus is a notary of the king’s wardrobe (notarius vestearium) and two of his witnesses are also involved in the civil administration: Reparatus, praepositus cursorum dominicorum (head of the couriers who handled the regal postal system and its network of roads and staging posts), and Romanus, silentiarius (a palace official, apud Ravennati Urbe), while Paulus is a banker or moneychanger, and Vitalis works in the mint (monitarius).18 The presiding magistrate at the court is Plautus Pompulius and the high-ranking principes in attendance come from some familiar families: Flavius Florianus, Firmianus Ursus, Fl. Severus Junior, and Fl. Quiriacus Junior.
In these records both the women, Thugilo and Domnica, make the sign of the cross because they cannot write their names, and Deutherius signs; they are among the honesti. The moneychanger Julianus uses Greek letters, quite a common phenomenon (though whether it implies high status or is just a snobbish affectation is unclear) and gives his father-in-law’s name and occupation. The property near Faenza is identified by boundaries with three landowners who have some fighting capacity. In contrast, the group of officials who worked at the Gothic court of Ravenna all sign their own names. Like Cassiodorus, they are Catholics who serve the Gothic king, in the palace administration established by Theoderic.19
Late in 536 the new Gothic leader, King Witigis, hoped to avert an outright war by proposing peace terms to Justinian. When these efforts failed, he turned the tables on Belisarius by leading his Gothic troops to besiege Rome. For over a year the Goths attempted to reduce the city to such great hunger that Belisarius would be obliged to surrender, staging sixty-seven attacks, some of which Procopius witnessed at first hand. In detailed descriptions of the medical extraction of arrows and javelins and the story of two soldiers (one of each side) who both fell into a deep hole and pledged to support each other to get out, which they did and then went back to fighting, he documents the violent, handtohand conflict. At one dangerous moment Belisarius had to smuggle his wife, Antonina, out of the city; at Naples she experienced the rumbles of Vesuvius that threatened a volcanic eruption.20 But the Goths were unable to gain entry to Rome and, in 537 during a truce in the fighting, they sent another embassy to Constantinople in an effort to secure peace, while the besieged Romans brought in supplies and reinforcements. Belisarius now sent one of his commanders to threaten other Gothic cities further north. With the assistance of the fleet based in Dalmatia, these imperial troops captured Rimini, very close to Ravenna, and Witigis was obliged to abandon the siege of Rome in March 538 in order to defend his capital.21
Although Belisarius had conquered Sicily with only 7,500 men, to which he added reinforcements during the siege of Rome, he remained greatly outnumbered by Gothic forces and had to divide his troops among the captured cities in order to maintain control in southern Italy. In response to his request for further military assistance, in 538 Justinian sent Narses, an elderly eunuch, courtier and keeper of the royal treasuries, with additional forces. After some disagreements, the two imperial commanders focused on securing the surrender of key garrisons in order to capture Ravenna, the allegedly impregnable Gothic capital city. When Belisarius finally arrived at the walls late in 539 or early 540, he aimed to force the city to surrender by cutting off all supplies. Under this pressure, Witigis renewed his appeals to Justinian and obtained a peace offer that would have allowed the Goths to remain in control of the area north of the Po. According to Procopius, Belisarius opposed this because he was confident of winning a decisive victory and taking the Gothic king to Constantinople in chains. Many embassies were exchanged, not only between Belisarius and Justinian, but also between Belisarius and some of the Goths in Ravenna, who had decided that he would make a better overlord than Justinian. They offered him the title ‘emperor of the west’, basilea tes hesperias, and Belisarius initially considered this proposal favourably – or gave the appearance of doing so to win over Gothic support. Later he refused it, but not in a sufficiently clear fashion to prevent rumours of his ambition from circulating among his own soldiers and, of course, the rumours reached the East.22
After several months and lengthy negotiations, Belisarius entered Ravenna in May 540. Procopius commented:
Although the Goths were greatly superior to their opponents in number and in power, and had neither fought a decisive battle since they had entered Ravenna nor been humbled in spirit by any other disaster, still they were being made captives by the weaker army and were regarding the name of slavery as no insult. But when the women, as they sat at the gate, had seen the whole army . . . they all spat upon the faces of their husbands, and pointing with their hands to the victors, reviled them for their cowardice.23
This description seems to reflect the view of some Goths that Witigis had been tricked into surrendering Ravenna without even fighting a major battle for control of the city. While several Gothic garrison commanders joined in the plan to make Belisarius their ruler, Justinian got wind of it and summoned his general back to Constantinople. Belisarius therefore prepared to take the Witigis, his wife and supporters, together with the treasure of Theoderic seized from the palace, to the East, abandoning those Goths who had been deceived by him to regroup. They elected Ildebadus, commander of the Gothic garrison at Verona, as their king and fought on for twelve years, though they never regained their capital, Ravenna.24
Despite his success in bringing another ‘barbarian’ king to Constantinople, the emperor refused to grant Belisarius another triumph and did not even display the booty from Ravenna in public. Procopius contrasts this coolness towards the general with the enthusiasm of local people, who welcomed the hero home and brought gifts and tributes to his house. Later he was represented in a mosaic put up on the Chalke Gate of the Palace commemorating his two major conquests:
the general Belisarius [who] returns to the Emperor, his whole army intact, and offers him booty, namely kings and kingdoms and all other things that are prized by men. In the center stand the Emperor and the Empress Theodora both seeming to rejoice as they celebrate their victory over the kings of the Vandals and the Goths, who approach them as captives of war being led into bondage.25
Although it does not survive, this mosaic was a public acknowledgment of Belisarius’ military victories, erected in a most prominent place. And many years later, in 559, when Justinian was worried by a Slavic attack near the Long Walls of the Queen City, he called on Belisarius, who successfully drove them off, despite having a much smaller force.26 So although fortune may not have favoured him throughout his long career, the aged general finally retired after a long life full of victories. The myths of his povertystricken old age recounted in Robert Graves’s compelling novel Count Belisarius are quite untrue.27
The most important result of Belisarius’ Italian campaign was therefore the capture of Ravenna, and the removal of the Gothic king, queen and courtiers to Constantinople. For the Goths to relinquish their capital city without a fight implies serious divisions among them: the surrender of Witigis was followed immediately by the election of Ildebadus as the remaining Goths set out to reverse Belisarius’ conquest. Although they captured Rome and many other cities, they failed to win back control of Ravenna, further proof of its very wellprotected position. The city thus passed under the direct rule of Constantinople and became the centre of imperial administration in Italy for the next two hundred years.