Count Belisarius

When Belisarius returned to Constantinople Justinian first reproached him in a blackguardly style and then – an insult scarcely to be borne – bestowed his forgiveness upon him. Belisarius, conscious that he had done far more than could be expected of a subject by the greediest and most capricious monarch, made no reply but that he remained always at the Emperor's service. His loyalty and pride forbade him to answer otherwise.

Nor had his return been altogether without danger. There was a Palace conspiracy on foot, led by a bold and revengeful Armenian general named Artaban, to assassinate the Emperor and place on the throne his nephew Germanus, whom he had treated very badly. The attempt was delayed for a few days until Belisarius should arrive in the city. It was not that Artaban and his fellow-conspirators (who included Marcellus, the Commander of the Guards) believed that Belisarius might assist them; but that, knowing of his inflexible loyalty to the Throne, they considered it safer to murder him too. He was to be struck down as he passed through the suburbs to pay his respects at the Palace. Germanus, however, when the plot was disclosed to him, pretended compliance, but hastened to inform Justinian, being in reality horrified by the infamous proposal. The conspirators were arrested on the very day that Belisarius landed, and he reached the Palace unharmed.

In the end Justinian pardoned the conspirators.

Count Belisarius was a poor man now, and could not afford to engage any more soldiers for his bodyguard. He was dependent on my mistress Antonina for everything, including his daily expenses. Yet no false shame prevented him from being her pensioner in this way. He said: 'We are not merely husband and wife, but old comrades of war whose purses are at each other's disposal, freely.' She drew upon her hidden reserves of money, and redeemed his mortgaged property. They lived quietly in a house close to the arch of Honorius on the western side of the Bull Square. (It is on this Arch that certain brass replicas of noxious insects are fixed: Apollonius of Tyana, the celebrated magician, is said to have put them there as a charm against various diseases.)

Justinian did not send Belisarius to the war in Colchis, preferring to keep him unemployed in the city. He bestowed on him his old title, 'Commander of the Armies in the East', and presently also that of 'Commander of the Imperial Guards', but allowed him to play no part whatsoever in military affairs; nor did he once call on him for advice.

Justinian's theological pamphlets had brought him little glory; and the Council that he now summoned of all the bishops in Christendom (180 or more) brought little glory on the Church. Though he forced the Council with threats to anathematize certain works repugnant to the Monophysites, whose favour he was now courting, these heretics did not in gratitude return to the Orthodox communion, but stayed obstinately outside. Moreover, the Pope Vigilius had disagreed totally with his fellow-prelates and with the Emperor as to the propriety of the anathema, and done all that he could to avoid committing himself. At last, in fear of his life, he had taken sanctuary in the Church of the Apostle Peter at Constantinople; and only after much temporizing and tergiversation consented – not being of the stuff of martyrs – to approve the findings of the Council. On his return to Italy he found himself faced with a schism; for the clergy of nearly the whole Western Church regarded the anathematized works as sound doctrine. All those bishops, however, whose sees could be controlled by the military forces of Constantinople – chiefly those in Africa and Illyria -were disciplined into conformity or else deposed and imprisoned. Those whose sees were in Italy, Sicily, France, or Spain continued obdurate.

The bishops of the West, though they had hated Theodora as a Monophysite, greatly regretted her death. They said: 'Had she been alive, she would have laughed the Emperor out of his theological pretensions, and the Council would never have been called.'

CHAPTER 23

THREE HUNDRED VETERANS

1 intend now to close a number of lesser histories; and then to tell of Count Belisarius's last battle, which is a tale of tales, 'the crowning jewel in his diadem of victories', as the panegyric writers said. But after that there will still remain one more chapter, which disquiets mc and makes mc tremble when I consider that I must write it.