his comrades in batches across to the islands, where they spent the night. On the next day more boats appeared, and what remained of the Roman Army was transported to Callinicum, the horses swimming. The Easter Feast was celebrated there, but with little jubilation: the more ignorant and foolish Christians accounting for their defeat by saying that God died each Crucifixion Day and remained dead on the next day, until His Resurrection at Easter; and that therefore the battle should have been postponed for a day — for God, being dead, could not help them. This Belisarius wrote to my mistress in a letter, mocking at the would-be theologians.
The Persians stripped the Roman dead and their own, who were no less numerous. The detachment that had suffered most on our side was the Massagetic Huns: only 400 of their 1,200 survived, and most of these were wounded. Belisarius had lost one-half of his Household Regiment, which had consisted of 3,000 men. He waited for the rest of his infantry to arrive and then returned with them to Daras; his total losses were some 6,000 men.
Azareth returned to Persia and claimed a victory, but Kobad, before praising him, instructed him to' resume the arrows'. It is a Persian custom that, when any military expedition sets out, each soldier deposits an arrow in a heap. These arrows are then bound together in bundles and kept under seal in the Treasury. When the campaign is over the survivors 'resume arrows'; and by seeing how many of these remain may calculate their losses. Seven thousand arrows remained unclaimed, so Kobad dismissed Azareth from his command with disgrace. The King of the Saracens also was blamed for his foolish advice, and the annual subsidy that he had long been drawing was discontinued.
Belisarius wrote a dispatch to Justinian, excusing himself for his losses, and the Master of Offices sent a confirmatory dispatch, explaining exactly what had happened and praising Belisarius's courage; so Justinian continued to place confidence in him. But my mistress wished that this senseless war were over, which could easily have been settled by the payment of a few thousand gold pieces and a few courteous phrases from the rulers of the opposing Empires. She must have shown her anxiety on Belisarius's behalf more plainly than she intended; for Theodora now persuaded Justinian to recall Belisarius, on the ground that a capable soldier was needed in the City as a protection against the increasing mob-violence of the Blue and Green factions. Sittas was appointed to deputize for him on the frontier.
So Belisarius returned, bringing his Household Cavalry with him; and married my mistress on the feast of St John the Baptist at St John's Church. It was an occasion of great pomp and joy, Justinian himself acting at the altar the part of my mistress's parent; for she had no male relatives surviving. Theodora settled upon her an extensive city property, with a huge annual rent-roll: she held that a woman who is beholden to her husband for every copper she spends is little better than a slave. My mistress warned Belisarius that in future she would accompany him on his campaigns, as Antonia the Elder had once accompanied the famous Germanicus in his campaigns across the Rhine, to their mutual comfort and the great advantage of Rome. To remain tamely at Constantinople in ignorance of what might be happening to him on some distant frontier and to be exposed to wild rumours of his defeat and death — this was a torture that she refused to bear again.
They occupied a great suite at the Palace, where there is room for everyone.
CHAPTER 9
It was ten years before Belisarius returned to the Persian frontier. Of what happened in the East during his absence, especially the further misfortunes that overtook our dear Antioch, I promise you a round account when my story reaches that point. Meanwliilc a few words will suffice. King Kobad died, shortly after Belisarius s recall, at the age of eighty-three, but not before ordering a further invasion of our territories. His forces were so strong that in Roman Armenia our soldiers were obliged to retire into their walled cities while the Persians laid the country waste. The succession to Kobad's throne was then disputed by three claimants. These were Khaous, the legitimate heir; one-eyed Jamaspes, the second in age, as regent on behalf of his infant son (himself debarred because of his deformity); and Khosrou, the youngest, whom Kobad had nominated in his will. Khosrou was acclaimed by a vote of the Grand Council and duly crowned. He soon destroyed his brothers, who revolted against him, and all their male heirs. But he did not feel himself secure upon the throne, even after this massacre, and decided to come to terms with Justinian.
These twin eyes of the world therefore synoptically signed a peace, named 'The Eternal', under which all territory whatsoever conquered by cither side during the late wars should be restored, and Justinian should pay Khosrou a large sum for the perpetual maintenance of the Persian garrison at the Caspian Gates — some 800,000 gold pieces — and, without dismantling the fortifications of Daras, agree to with-draw his advanced headquarters to Constantina, which was less dangerously close to the frontier. There was also a curious condition: that the pagan philosophers who had fled to the Persian Court from Athens when Justinian closed the University there, four years previously — poor Symmachus was among their number — should be allowed to return temporarily to the Roman Empire, without fear of persecution, for the purpose of setting their affairs in order and of collecting a library of the pagan Classics for Khosrou's own edification. Justinian agreed to this, content that he had dealt the Old Gods their death-blow not only at Athens but throughout his dominions: he had everywhere converted their venerable temples into Christian churches and sequestrated their treasures.
So much for Persia. But Theodora was right in anticipating trouble from the factions, and Justinian in consenting to the recall of Belisarius — but for whom, as I shall show, he would certainly have lost his throne and almost certainly his life.
Must I repeat what I have already said about the virulence of the hatred between the Blues and Greens? Preoccupied now by increasingly bitter disputes as to the nature of the Son, they were engaged in justifying a Gospel prophecy. For, according to the Evangelist Matthew, Jesus told His twelve Apostles, when He first sent them out preaching Christianity: 'Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's foes shall be the members of his own household.' So it was in many a Christian household in the City. Son and daughter perhaps wore the Blue favour, and were Orthodox two- nature people, while father and mother and daughter-in-law wore the Green and maintained the single nature. They threw kettles of boiling water at one another as they sat at meals, or poisoned the wine; and blasphemed most learnedly. If the Greens set up a statue of a victorious charioteer and inscribed it: 'To the glory of Such-and-Such, winner of the Foundation Stakes, and the greater glory of Christ single-natured', the Blues would gather together at night and deface the inscription, then behead the statue and paint it blue; however, the Greens would perhaps retaliate by attempting to set fire to some wine-shop or other which the Blues used as their headquarters. It was not safe to be out in the streets after dark, not for physicians hurrying to attend the sick, nor for priests going at a more leisurely pace to administer the last Sacrament to the dying, nor for midnight adulterers, nor even for the poorest sort of outcasts. Gangs of young coxcombs ranged the streets at night, murdering and robbing indiscriminately; and the police were either bribed or terrorized into inertness. The war was even waged against the dead. Holes were bored at night in the tombs of departed factionists, and through them were dropped lead tablets of execration: 'Sleep unsoundly, vile Blue [or Green] until Judgement Day, dreaming of Green [or Blue) victories, and awake only to be damned to everlasting perdition!'
The Greens had been easily the stronger faction in the days of Anastasius, and had enjoyed his royal favour, and been awarded the best seats in the Hippodrome. But Theodora insisted on Justinian's reversing these conditions. The Blues were given the best seats now, and favoured in every possible way — by political and Court appointments and grants of money, and especially by legal protection, the Greens' monopoly of justice in the lower courts having at last been broken. It may be imagined that the Greens did not yield to the Blues without a struggle, and a very fierce one. While they had been the bullies they had made the Blues sing very small; and the Blues were now having their revenge, behaving, I admit, in a rather more violent and arbitrary way than the Greens had ever done. Robberies with violence became frequent in broad daylight, and if a Green happened to be killed and the murderer arrested by the police it was enough for a Blue official to swear in court that the Green had been the aggressor: the accused was at once dismissed with a caution. The carrying of arms by any private citizen was unlawful, but the enactment had become obsolete. The contemporary fasliion was to wear short cutlasses by day concealed under the tunic, strapped along the thigh; while at night everyone carried arms openly. One result of
