Count Belisarius

'By no means. But I intend to sec that your man Maxentiolus returns to this Italian gentleman the daggers that he stole from him – if those are they.'

Constantine seized one of the daggers and with a great roar rushed at Belisarius, who was wearing no armour. He would have slit his belly open, but Belisarius side-stepped like a boxer and dodged behind Bessas, who was wearing a coat of mail. Constantine pushed Bessas aside furiously and made a second rush at Belisarius. Then Hildiger and Valerian, another general, caught Constantine from behind and disarmed him. He was led off to confinement.

Later, this same Maxentiolus, examined by my mistress Antonina, told her that on the previous day he had seen Constantine hand a letter to the master of the packet, and heard him say that it came from Belisarius. Since the weather was unfavourable for sailing, the packet was still at its moorings; and the letter was soon in her hands. She read it, and made up her mind that Constantine was too dangerous an enemy to be allowed to live. Without a word to Belisarius, she sent one of my fellow-domestics to kill Constantine in his prison-chamber, of which she had the key. She was then for giving out that it had been a suicide; but Belisarius, who was both vexed and relieved at Constantine's death, would not tell lies of that sort. He preferred to take full responsibility for Constantine's execution and to justify it, in his report to Justinian, as a military necessity. Bessas, Hildiger, and Valerian countersigned this report, testifying to Constantine's mutinous words and murderous attack. Then Hildiger, at my mistress's suggestion, added (truly enough) that Constantine had lately been airing views on the nature of the Son which were not only highly heretical but attributable to the teachings of no reputable sect – too illogical, indeed, to be anything but the product of his own wild brain, notoriously unhinged since his sunstroke in Africa. So Justinian approved the sentence. But it was a great shame to Belisarius to leant, from the secret commission that was found on Constantine's dead body, that Justinian doubted his faith and employed agents to spy on him. He agreed with Antonina that, brave fighter though he had proved, Constantine's death was a public benefit.

On the twenty-first of March the armistice came to an end. At dawn of the same day King Wittich- having received by way of reply from Justinian no more than a curt: 'I have received your letter and am considering what action to adopt' – raised the siege and marched back across the Mulvian Bridge with the remains of his army. He had given Belisarius warning of his intention by setting fire to all the huts, siege-engines, palisades, and other wooden material in his camps. It was Belisarius's principle not to press a retreating enemy with too great rigour, but these bonfires were lighted in defiance, and the Gothic divisions still preserved good military discipline. It would not be right to let them escape without one last blow. But Belisarius's forces had lately become so reduced by the detachment of garrisons and raiding parties to various parts of Italy that he dared not risk a battle on equal terms. What he did was to call all his best remaining troops and hold them in readiness at the Pincian Gate until the lookouts on the walls reported that nearly half the Gothic army had now crossed the bridge. Then he led them out quickly and made a strong attack on the Goths drawn up near the bridge, waiting their turn to cross. Many men fell on both sides, for the fighting was hand to hand, until a charge of the Household Regiment broke the Gothic line. At this the whole disheartened mass streamed towards the bridge, with no thought in any man's mind but to get across it somehow. The confusion and slaughter in their ranks cannot easily be described, so fearful it was. Their cavalry rode down their infantry, and any man who slipped and fell was likely to be trampled to death. Moreover, our archers' fire was now concentrated upon the bridge, which was soon heaped high with corpses, and a great number of mail-clad men fell or were pushed over the arches into the water, where they were drowned by the weight of their armour. Ten thousand Goths died that morning at the Mulvian Bridge.

So ended the defence of Rome which Belisarius had first begun, contrary to all advice, in the December of the year before the last. I do not think that all history can show so large a city held for so long a time by a garrison so grossly outnumbered.