An Oblique Approach

He looked back to the battle raging right before him. The Army of Lebanon's Huns were sweeping around the extreme right, trying to flank the Persian horse archers. But the Persians archers were veterans also, and were extending their own line to match the Huns. That part of the battle almost instantly became a chaotic swirl of horsemen exchanging bow-fire, often at point-blank range.

Dust everywhere, now. Beautiful, wonderful, obscuring dust. Blowing from the west over the Persians, blinding them to all Roman maneuvers.

The only part of the battle Belisarius could still see—other than the hilltop—was the collision between the Army of Lebanon's lancers and the lancers of the Persian left. Eutychian and his two thousand armored horsemen were smashing head to head with an equal number of Persian heavy cavalry. The noise of the battlefield—already immense—seemed to fill the entire universe. The clash of metal, the screams of men and horses filled the air.

It was a battle the Persians would win, eventually. Except for the very best cataphract units, no Roman heavy cavalry could defeat an equal number of Persian lancers. But, as he watched the vigor and courage of Eutychian's charge, Belisarius was more than satisfied. Eutychian would lose his part of the battle, but by the time he did, the Romans would have triumphed in the field as a whole.

More than that, Belisarius did not ask.

Hold the right, Eutychian. Just hold it.

He began to canter away.

And try to survive. I can use an officer like you. So can Rome.

As he rode, he passed orders through Valentinian and Anastasius. The four remaining commanders of the Army of Lebanon were quick to obey. Very quick. The two thousand lancers of that Army which Belisarius had kept in reserve—the same ones Pharas would have thrown away in a suicide charge—were now cantering across the battlefield in good order. South to north, behind the Roman lines, from the right wing to the left wing. They were completely invisible to the Persians, due to the wind-blown dust.

As they drew behind the fortified camp, Belisarius ordered a halt. He thought there was still time, and he wanted to make sure that the battle had become locked in the center.

While the Army of Lebanon's lancers allowed their horses to rest, therefore, Belisarius trotted up to the camp and passed into it through the west gate. He could begin to see now, even with the dust.

Just as he had planned (and hoped—not that he'd ever admit it to that morose old grouch Maurice) the main body of Persian lancers in the center had smashed into his trap. True, they had done so in a charge ordered by an idiot, but—that's the beauty of the first law of battles, after all. It cuts both ways.

Sitting on his horse not thirty yards from the fortified wall, Belisarius found it hard not to grin. He hadn't seen it, but he knew what had happened.

Imagine three thousand Persian lancers, thundering up to a wretched little earthen wall, guarded by not more than a thousand terrified, pathetic, wretched infantrymen. They sweep the enemy aside, right? Like an avalanche!

Well, not exactly. There are problems.

First, each cavalry mount has been hauling a man (a large man, more often than not) carrying fifty pounds of armor and twenty pounds of weapons—not to mention another hundred pounds of the horse's own armor. At a full gallop for half a mile, in the blistering heat of a Syrian summer.

So, the horses are winded, disgruntled, and thinking dark thoughts.

Two—all hearsay to the contrary—horses are not stupid. Quite a bit brighter than men, actually, when it comes to that kind of intelligence known popularly as "horse sense." So, when a horse sees looming before it:

a) a ditch

b) a wall

c) lots of men on the wall holding long objects with sharp points

The horse stops. Fuck the charge. If some stupid man wants to hurl himself against all that dangerous crap, let him. (Which, often enough, they do—sailing headlong over their horse's stubborn head.)

It was the great romantic fallacy of the cavalry charge, and Belisarius had been astonished—all his life—at how fervently men still held to it, despite all practical experience and evidence to the contrary. Yes, horses will charge—against infantry in the open, and against other cavalry. Against anything, as long as the horse can see that it stands a chance of getting through the obstacles ahead, reasonably intact.

But no horse this side of an equine insane asylum will charge a wall too high to leap over. Especially a wall covered with nasty sharp objects.

And there's no point trying to convince the horse that the infantry manning the wall are feeble and demoralized.

Is that so? Tell you what, asshole. Climb off my back and show me. Use your own legs. Mine hurt.