Count Belisarius

The Dulgars, then, overran the whole of the Balkans as far southward as the Isthmus of Corinth, capturing no less than thirty-two fortresses as they went; and the whole diocese of Thrace as far as Constantinople itself, where they broke through the long walls of Anastasius and were only restrained by the inner wall that the Emperor Theodosius had built, stoutly defended by Narses. Some of them crossed the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos and raided in Asia Minor, being with difficulty driven off from the gates of Justinian's new Paradise. Two hundred thousand prisoners, 500,000 dead, vast quantities of treasure, the destruction of fifty prosperous towns: such was the price that the Bulgars exacted of Justinian for his false economy in the matter of troops and fortifications. They returned home unmolested.

Belisarius was gathering all his forces to press the siege of Ravenna; and another small Imperial army sailed over to assist him from Dalmatia. But Ravenna is the most difficult city in the world to capture, because of its geographical position. The great Theoderich besieged it unsuccessfully for three years; on the landward side the marshes kept him out, and on the seaward side the shallows and fortifications – that he won it at last was a diplomatic not a military victory. It seemed likely that Belisarius, too, must be content to wait for three years. King Wittich had huge stocks of com and oil and wine in the city, and at his request an additional supply was being sent by Uriah down the River Po from Mantua.

But a few weeks later, in spite of all this, Wittich was in a most difficult position with regard to food supplies. First, the drought had so shrunken the stream that Uriah's com barges grounded in the shallows at the mouth of the river and were unable to proceed southward through the connected series of lagoons which form the waterway to Ravenna; the entire convoy was captured by Hildiger, whose patrols were very active and alert in this quarter. Then a second blow was struck against Wittich in Ravenna itself by his own wife, Matasontha. She contrived, during a thunderstorm, to set fire secretly to the two largest granaries in the city. The damage was ascribed to lightning. Wittich conceived the idea that God hated him and was grinding his face in the dust.

King Theudebert of the Franks now sent envoys to Wittich at Ravenna. Because the Franks were still supposedly his allies, Belisarius permitted them to pass through his lines, but only on condition that his own envoys should be permitted to accompany them and hear what they had to say to Wittich, and plead the cause of the Empire. Theodosius was chosen as Belisarius's representative and acquitted himself well enough.

The Frankish envoys proposed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Goths, boasting that they could send half a million men across the Alps and bury 'the Greeks' under a mound of axes. They said that they would be content to take no more than one-half of Italy in payment for their aid.

Theodosius then pointed out that the Franks were wholly untrustworthy as allies, having accepted subsidies from both sides and made war on both; that mobs of infantry would stand no chance of victory against disciplined bodies of cavalry; and that to offer a Frank half a loaf of bread was to give away the whole loaf, together with bread-knife and platter. If King Wittich made his peace with the Emperor he would at least save something from the wreck of Ids hopes. The Gothic ambassadors sent to Constantinople during the armistice at the close of the siege of Rome had asked for terms which neither justice nor the military situation warranted; Wittich would be well advised now to throw himself upon the clemency of the Emperor, whose generosity to a fallen foe had been proved in the case of King Geilimer and of many a lesser chief.

King Wittich listened attentively to Theodosius, dismissed the Franks, and sent fresh ambassadors to Constantinople. While he waited for their return, the Gothic Alpine garrisons made their submission to Belisarius; and Uriah's army, moving down from Mantua, was so reduced by desertions that he could do nothing more to assist his uncle, but must turn back again as far as Como.