Count Belisarius

A few days later the Goths returned to attack for the third time, but with such evident reluctance that Belisarius – who knew better than any general who ever lived, I suppose, exactly when to turn from the defensive to the offensive – went out himself against them with all the cavalry. They say that from a quarter of a mile's distance, with his strongest bow, Belisarius aimed at the Gothic standard-bearer riding ahead of the line. There was a following wind, or the shot would have been impossible: the arrow, falling from a great height, struck the standard-bearer in the groin, and pinned him to the saddle, so that the horse, pricked by the arrow, reared up and threw him. Others, jealous perhaps of Belisarius's feats, claim that the arrow was not fired by Belisarius, but by Sisifried, the guardsman who had survived Isaac's defeat; but if so, Sisifried did something extraordinary and far beyond his usual powers. The more natural account is that the arrow was Belisarius's, though perhaps Sisifried also aimed one at the standard-bearer.

King Teudel's standard tumbled to the ground; which was the worst of omens. At once our leading squadron charged to seize it, shooting from the saddle as they went, and there was bitter fighting for its possession. Two Gothic lancers were tugging at one end and two Household cuirassiers at the other. A Gothic officer hacked the staff through with a blow of his sword, and our men had to be content with the butt. This same officer chopped off the left forearm of the standard-bearer, because around the wrist was buckled a golden bracelet set with rubies and emeralds which he wished to deny to us. Then the Goths retreated, and in the pursuit lost 3,000 men more. When Belisarius returned that night he had horses to mount the remainder of his Thracians, and every man of them could at last be dressed in a mail shirt. He had lost nine men only.

Teudel broke the siege on the next day, and retired to Tivoli, first destroying all the bridges over the Tiber, upstream from Rome, with the single exception of the Mulvian, which Belisarius had already seized. Teudel was forced to bear the angry reproaches of his surviving noblemen that he had been hoodwinked by Belisarius's letter into sparing Rome from complete destruction. If he had kept to his original threat and levelled the whole city to a sheep-walk, they said, the war would not have taken this evil turn for the Goths. But when he came to Tivoli, he asked them: 'And suppose all Tivoli had been levelled with the ground? Come now, my lords, the fault at Rome – if fault it was – lies with you; for I entrusted each of you with the pulling down of a part of the Roman ramparts, but you were lazy and left too much standing. Fortunately, you have done the same thing here: so that the credit of quickly rebuilding the walls of Tivoli will be yours, as well as the fault at Rome. To work, to work, and let posterity praise you!'

Belisarius now found the necessary artisans for making new city gates. Soon the task was done and the gates in position. Before the end of February he could send a set of keys to Justinian at Constantinople; asking, in return, for reinforcements to enable him to complete the reconqucst of Italy, and money to pay the troops under his command. 'He gives twice, who gives quickly,' Belisarius wrote, 'and I trust to make speedy repayment with the person and treasures of another captive king.'

He wrote not once but three times, and my mistress wrote also to Theodora. No reply and no reinforcements came. When he had put the necessary garrisons into Ostia and Civita Vecchia, he stood in greater need of a field army than ever before, and he was now paying the regular troops as well as those of his Household with treasure from his own purse. Nor was it possible, though he tried this, to lay even the smallest taxes upon the impoverished Italians. They possessed neither money nor anything that could be exchanged for money.

Justinian at length replied that he had already sent a large army to Italy under Valerian. He commanded Belisarius and Bloody John (who had not met for three years now) to be reconciled to each other. They were to join forces at Taranto, where this army should by now have arrived.