Count Belisarius

Now, in the Square of Augustus, opposite the Senate House, Justinian had placed a colossal equestrian statue of himself; it stands upon a very lofty pedestal plated with the finest pale brass. He is shown there in armour of antique pattern and wearing a helmet with an immensely long plume. In his left hand is an orb surmounted by a cross. His right hand is raised in a gesture which is intended to mean: 'Begone, enemies!' But he carries no arms, not even a dagger, as it' the gesture and the frown on his face were sufficient discouragement. And indeed in the latter part of his reign he treated his armies as if lie had no further use for them. The fact was that Justinian, ambitious of greatness, had acted like the nameless rich man, mentioned in an anecdote by Jesus Christ, who began building a house for himself without first counting the cost, and so fell into debt and ridicule. Justinian's eye, it was said in the city, was the bully of his stomach: he wasted his substance on vain religious luxuries, neglecting his practical military needs.

All agreed that he should never, in the first place, have attempted the conquest and occupation of Africa and Italy with the meagre forces at his disposal. Despite the almost miraculous successes of Belisarius, the double task had proved too heavy for the Imperial armies to perform. True, they still held Carthage and Ravenna, but protracted campaigns had brought these prosperous and well-governed lands to almost complete ruin. Meanwhile, the Northern and Eastern frontiers were weakened by the absence of their garrisons and reserves, and many times breached by invasion, so that a general catastrophe had been only narrowly avoided. The price for the reconqucst of the Western Empire was, in a word, its devastation, and the devastation also of Syria, Colchis, Roman Mesopotamia, Illyria, and Thrace: the revenues of which diminished pitiably. Justinian was now obliged to institute a policy of retrenchment; and characteristically began to apply it in the department of Imperial Defence, rather than in that of Ecclesiastical Endowment; hoping, by the foundation or embellishment of still more monasteries, nunneries, churches, to bribe the angelic hosts to assist him, as at other times he had bribed Franks, Slavs, and Huns with gifts of gold or military equipment. He publicly justified his superstitious confidence by the words spoken by Jesus to the Apostle Peter when he resisted the guards of the Jewish High Priest and cut off the car of one of them: 'Put up again thy sword into its place. For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' He was the more wedded to his pacifism in that he had no fears for his own safety: the soothsayers whom he secretly consulted had all assured him that he would meet a natural death at last in his own bed in the Sacred Apartments of the Palace.

On Christmas Day the Huns crossed the frozen Danube. When the news reached the Court the Emperor ordered masses to be said in all the principal sanctuaries, and spent his whole night in vigil at St Irene's Church; but took no other action. The Huns divided into two bodies, the one to ravage Greece, the other under their Cham Zabergan liimsclf to capture the city. They swept across Thrace unopposed. Being heathen, they felt no respect for churches or convents: they robbed and raped indiscriminately, sending back wagon-loads of treasure and droves of captives along the winter roads and across the Danube. The escorts of these convoys, savage horsemen, forced the pace with whips or the prick of swords; and any captive who fell and did not instantly rise was killed without mercy – even women overtaken with labour pains. The Huns, though in general well-behaved among themselves, count the whole world of Christians as their natural prey, and would think no more of spitting a baptized infant on a lance than they would of transfixing a fawn in the chase.

Zabergan pressed on. The long walls of Anastasius, built across the peninsula at thirty-two miles' distance from the city, were no obstacle to his horsemen: being ruinous in very many places, with no soldiers available to man the breaches, no catapults or other engines ready for use in the towers. On the Feast of the Three Kings, Zabcrgan camped by the banks of the river Athyras, twenty miles from the city, and panic suddenly overcame the Constantinopolitans. For the public squares were full of unhappy refugees from the villages, with grey faces and small bundles, shouting: 'They come, the Huns come – like a furious herd of wild bulls destroying as they go! O God have mercy upon us!'

This cry spread through the streets: 'God have mercy upon us!' Then every citizen asked his neighbour: 'Where are the men of the Imperial Guard? Where are the city militia? Will no one restrain these Bulgarian devils from storming the inner walls and burning the city down, and destroying every one of us?'