Count Belisarius

Accordingly, he sent three envoys to Rome. Belisarius admitted them as before, blindfolded, and had them speak their messages in the Senate House before him. Their spokesman, a Roman friendly to the Goths, stated King Wittich's case ably and at some length. The whole question at issue, he said, was whether the Goths had a right in Italy or not. If they had a right, as he could prove, then Justinian was acting unjustly in sending an army against them, not having himself been injured by them in any way. The facts were as follows. Theoderich, their former king, who had patrician rank at Constantinople, had been commissioned by the then Emperor of the East to invade Italy and seize the government from the hands of certain barbarian generals who had deposed his colleague, the Emperor of the West. This commission Theoderich had successfully undertaken; and in all the long years of his reign had preserved the Italian Constitution in its entirety. He had made no new laws nor repealed any old ones, leaving the civil government entirely in the hands of Italians, and acting merely as commander-in-chief of the forces which protected the country against Franks, Gepids, Burgundians, and similar barbarians. Moreover, though Arians; Theoderich and his successors had behaved with noble tolerance towards the Orthodox Christians and shown veneration for their shrines; and it would therefore be ridiculous to pretend that the present inexcusable invasion was a war of religious liberation.

Belisarius replied: 'Theoderich was sent to Italy to win back the country for the Emperor of the East, surely, not to seize it for himself? It would have been no advantage to the then Emperor that Italy should be governed by this barbarian usurper as opposed to that.'

The envoy said: 'Let that pass. Sensible men do not argue about dim historical incidents. But I have come to tell you this: that if you consent to withdraw your army from Italy, my royal master will freely cede to your Emperor the whole fruitful island of three-cornered Sicily.'

Belisarius laughed and replied scornfully: 'Fair is fair. And we will freely cede to you the whole fruitful island of three-cornered Britain, which is much larger than Sicily and used to be a source of great riches to us – before we lost it’

'Suppose that my Master agrees to let you keep Naples and the whole of Campania?'

'My orders are to reconquer Italy for its rightful owner, and I propose to carry them out. I am not empowered to make any arrangements that would prejudice the Emperor's claim to the entire peninsula and all its dependencies.'

'Will you agree to a three months' armistice while King Wittich sends proposals for peace to Constantinople?'

'I shall never stand in the way of an enemy who genuinely desires to make peace with his Serene Highness, my Master.'

An armistice was agreed upon, therefore, and an exchange of hostages. But before it was ratified Belisarius heard of our arrival at Ostia by land and sea. He could not restrain himself, but rode out one night at dusk with a hundred men to welcome his Antonina. He passed safely through the Gothic lines and dined with us that night in our entrenched and barricaded camp. He promised that as we came up the road the next day with our wagons, he would, if necessary, sally out to our assistance. At midnight he rode back again, eluding the enemy outposts as before.

In our pleasure at seeing him and hearing his account of the fight outside the Flaminian Gate, we had omitted to tell him of our transport difficulties. I was present with my mistress at a council of war the next morning when these difficulties were discussed. The Ostia road was a neglected, muddy track, and the wagon oxen were so worn out by their long forced march from Calabria that they were still lying half-dead where they had halted the night before, unable even to eat the cut grass that their drivers had spread before them. Neither whip nor goad would persuade them to haul wagons that day.

It was my mistress Antonina who made the suggestion that we should load the corn on our smaller rowing-galleys, board them in against enemy arrow or javelin attack, and fit them with very wide sails. The wind was steady from the West and, with the help of oars at the bends of the river, it should not be impossible to make progress against the current as far as the city. The cavalry could follow along the bank and occasionally haul on ropes where sail and oars both failed to carry a boat upstream.