Attila:The Scourge of God

no small concern.

‘The Roman Empire and the Earthly City are not the same,’ protested Augustine, unhappily aware that he was being forced on to the defensive, even being made to appear unpatriotic. He felt a stab of something very like panic as his grip on the situation seemed to slip. Desperately, he glanced around. Where were the defensores, the Church’s guards, who had the power to arrest religious agitators? Nowhere to be seen, of course, he thought bitterly; on this day of public rejoicing, any attempted arrest might easily stir up mob violence.

‘The Earthly City is the realm of the unrighteous — fallen angels, the souls of the wicked, sinners alive in the world,’ he heard himself shout, knowing as he did so that his words were falling on deaf ears. With a shock, he realized that, for the first time in his life, he had lost his audience.

The forum darkened as sudden storm-clouds raced across the sky: a typical north-west winter squall. Hailstones bounced on paving-stones and tiled roofs, scattering the crowd. Macrobius waved an ironic farewell to Augustine and called out cheerily, ‘A timely intervention, Bishop — by the Grace of God?’

Shaken and humiliated, Augustine returned to the bishop’s palace, thankful that the streets had emptied. He had failed. But that, he vowed, would not stop him continuing the fight. God’s enemies were powerful and ever- present. They must always be engaged and, God willing, defeated.

SIX

Acts are judged by their ends

St Augustine, Letters, c. 400

To the growing file labelled ‘Boniface’, Aetius added the latest report from Africa, just brought in by one of his agentes in rebus, couriers-cum-spies who kept him apprised of the rapidly developing political situation in that diocese. In his private journal, the general wrote: ‘The net begins to close round Boniface. By acting on the advice contained in my letter, he was guilty only of disobeying an imperial summons — a serious enough offence, but not, in his case, a capital one. Though I have caused him to believe otherwise, Placidia would never have had her erstwhile hero put to death for that alone. Now, however, by repelling with arms the force sent to arrest him, he has crossed the Rubicon and declared himself an enemy of the state.’

A pity that a fine man must be destroyed to serve the greater good, Aetius thought with genuine regret, as he retied the thongs securing the codex, a set of thin waxed boards between exquisitely carved ivory covers: a gift from Placidia ‘to a faithful friend’. His choice of medium for recording these private thoughts was deliberate. ‘Always write on wax’ had been the advice of his father — like himself a Master of Horse, and an adroit political survivor; ‘ink is the executioner’s ally.’ Aetius had been assiduous in following that advice. True, there were his contradictory letters to Boniface and Placidia, but they fell almost into the category of state secrets, and as such were virtually proof against investigation. His file on Boniface consisted of dry and factual reports, hardly evidence of malicious intent. As for anything recorded on those waxed tablets, it could instantly be erased by the blunt end of the stylus. As long as he continued to be careful, his hands would remain clean — at least in the eyes of the world. And that was all that mattered; wasn’t it? After all, had not Augustine himself adopted a teleological position regarding the morality of how one acted? ‘Acts are judged by their ends,’ the bishop had reassured his friend Consentius, when the latter confessed to lying in order to save an otherwise blameless official guilty of a single act of peculation.

His plans were maturing well, rather like Falernian wine laid down for a year in a cool cellar, Aetius reflected wryly, thanks largely to the fact that Boniface, being a good and uncomplicated man, had put his trust in Aetius, thereby becoming the agent of his own destruction. By his most recent action, Boniface had made himself guilty of treason. As any forces he could muster were quite inadequate to repel a full-scale imperial invasion, it was only a matter of time before he was brought back to Ravenna in chains. There would follow a brief trial, then the Count of Africa would be marched outside the city walls, to bend his neck to the executioner’s sword. Time now to clinch matters by sending another message to the beleaguered general, applauding his defiance and urging him to stand firm. Even as he felt exhilaration at the thought of his rival rising to the bait, Aetius experienced a prick of shame at engineering his downfall.

In a state of mind approaching desperation, Boniface paced the garden of his headquarters back in Carthage. It had increasingly become a refuge, a sanctuary where he could marshal his distracted thoughts and try to form a plan to cope with the burgeoning crisis that threatened to overwhelm him.

A gerbil scampered from its burrow and, darting in front of the general, sat up expectantly. Smiling, Boniface tossed the creature its usual dole, a handful of wheat grains. ‘You at least, my little friend, are on my side,’ he murmured.

He was grateful to Aetius for the approval and moral support shown in his last letter. But Aetius was a thousand miles away, and unable to offer material help. The grim truth was, that, unless Boniface could secure the backing of a powerful ally, he was doomed. But there were no potential allies.

Or were there? The Count stopped pacing as, unbidden, a siren thought slid into his mind. Immediately, all his instincts and training rose up against the idea, urging him to reject it. It was crazy; it was disloyal. . It was his only hope. In a mood of sombre fatalism, he returned to his tent and called for his secretary.

SEVEN

Of medium height, lame from a fall off his horse, he had a deep mind and was sparing of speech; luxury he despised, but his anger was uncontrollable and he was covetous

Description of Gaiseric: Jordanes, Gothic History, 551

The encirclement of the village was almost complete. Ringed about with steep rocky eminences, along whose crest the Vandal cordon was moving into position, its only remaining exit was the harbour mouth — and that would shortly be stopped up by Roman galleys captured at Carthago Nova,¹ and now waiting in the next cove.

A greyness shimmered briefly in the east, then vanished; the false dawn. But already the sun was rising above the Baleares; soon the ridges surrounding the village flamed in its early rays. Light swept down the slopes, disclosing the raiders’ objective: a scatter of stone houses surrounding a square, one side of which was bounded by a church. As the cocks began to crow, the prow of the first galley emerged round the nearest headland. Gaiseric raised a rams-horn trumpet to his lips.

Gaiseric, half-brother of Gunderic, King of the Vandals, was angry, bitter, and frustrated. Not that there was anything extraordinary in that; he was angry, bitter, and frustrated almost all the time. But this morning, he felt those emotions even more keenly than usual. The immediate reasons for his ill-humour were that the village, which his scouts had hinted was wealthy and populous, looked as if it could scarcely keep a cat; that he had been seasick on the short voyage along the southern coast of Hispania; and that his fine Roman vessel had been damaged on rocks just before dropping anchor. (The steersman had paid for his clumsiness by having his right hand stricken off, which had alleviated Gaiseric’s anger a little.)

The underlying causes of his choleric temperament were more deep-seated and complex. He was short and lame, whereas his brother was tall and sound of limb. He was illegitimate, while his brother had been born in wedlock, his royal blood fully recognized. Above all, despite his superior intelligence and gift of leadership he was nothing, whereas his nonentity of a brother was king. All this rankled deeply with Gaiseric, permanently souring