The Cappadocians roared like bulls with pain and helpless anger. They were fuddled with wine, entangled with the cord at their feet, blinded with pepper, and paralysed by sneezes. Simeon at the first onset struck two of them terrible blows on the head with the red-hot spit; so that even though Palaeologus took no part whatsoever in the fight, the Cappadocians were now outnumbered, four by five. Their stools were pulled from under them, and they fell sprawling to the ground. The boys and the slaves stood over them with drawn swords and daggers raised.
Simeon hurriedly fetched some piece! of harness from the stable and bound them one by one — he was a saddler by trade, and handy with knots. He, as it were, knotted each bond with a Monophysite argument, saying: 'Escape this logical predicament, Sir, if you can' or 'That text draws tight on your conscience, does it not?'
They answered piteously: 'For Christ's sake, best of men, bring sponge and water, or we shall go blind with this fire-dust.'
But he began in a powerful voice to sing the Hymn of the Seraphim with those interpolations in the Monophysite style which had caused scandals, riots, and bloodshed in many Christian churches. When they were all secure, Simeon informed them that Christ had enjoined him to forgive his enemies; and sponged their inflamed eyes tenderly, saying, 'In the name of single-natured Christ.' So they thanked him.
When Simeon learned from Belisarius how he had planned the battle he turned to Palaeologus and said: 'I had thought it a simple miracle, and was not therefore greatly astonished, just as I think the prophet Balaam was not greatly astonished when his ass suddenly spoke in God's name. For all things are possible with God, and one should no more be surprised at such obvious irrationalities as speaking asses or food sufficient for twelve men being stretched to feed 1,000 (and even leaving a superfluity), than at the natural braying of asses or at citizens starving naturally because no food is left in their city. For in the one case you have God, whose function it is to transcend the impossible, and in the other you have nature, whose function it is to obey the ways that God has indicated for beasts and men. But where justifiable astonishment arises is in a case like the present, where nature excels herself by neither divine nor demonic aid. If this child is spared until manhood he will make a general of the first rank: for he has the six chief gifts of generalship — patience, courage, invention, the control of his forces, the combination of different arms in attack, and the timing of the decisive blow. I was with the remounts in the Persian wars and came across both good generals and bad; and I know.'
Palaeologus answered: 'Yet if he does not add to these the gift of modesty, he will be nothing.' Which was a wise remark in its way, and a fitting seventh virtue to cap the rest.
The hare had been eaten, and most of the fresh bread, but there was biscuit left in their saddle-bags and some sausages, so they did not go hungry. They thought it unsafe to stay at the inn for the night, fearing lest someone should give the alarm at John's castle: so they tied the Cappadocians on their horses, and Simeon and the slaves were each to conduct two of them, tying the horses' heads together. The old woman load run out of the house when the fighting began; when she returned, to find these desperate fellows tamed, she was all gratitude, as if it had been done wholly on her behalf. Nevertheless, they paid her well.
Belisarius rode ahead with Palaeologus, and Armenian John acted as rear-guard. At dawn they rested in a wood, where one of the Cappadocians died of the injuries to his head. The others cursed and swore continually, but made no attempt to break free. Later in the day they reached Adrianople, without further adventures, where Simeon handed the Cappadocians over to the judge. Simeon's fellow-burgesses greeted him with joy and astonishment, because the constabulary had reported him captured.
The men were confined to the prison and held there until John should ransom them. They could not be charged with murder, nor indeed with anything worse than stealing a cooked hare, for it was not clear whether they had intended to obey John's murderous orders. John sent a message saying that he was justified in binding and removing Simeon, who had insolently trespassed on his estate.
The judge could not allow John to be charged with any crime, for fear of antagonizing other powerful land- owners. He also knew that, as a point of honour, John could not acquiesce in the punishment of his servants and fellow-countrymen. Nevertheless, there was a strong case against master and men. So an amicable arrangement was made, by which the men were openly released, but John secretly paid over one-half of his debt, amounting to 200 pounds of gold by weight — more than 14,000 gold pieces — by which means John's honour was saved and the burgesses also were saved from ruin. This Cappadocian John, whose avarice, unneighbourliness, and frequent devotions in church were all remarkable in so young a man, later became Commander of the Imperial Guards and Quartermaster-General, and as such did Belisarius many injuries in later life.
Belisarius and Armenian John and Palaeologus and the slaves now went to the villa of Belisarius's uncle, Modestus, guided by Simeon, who knew him. It lay outside the City, near a trout-stream, in well-wooded grounds. There Belisarius greeted his uncle, who was a tall, thin, unwarlikc man of literary tastes, and gave him what was left of the pepper. The boy was made welcome, and Armenian John and Palaeologus with him. They talked together in Latin, and Modestus heard the story of the battle. His comment was: 'Well done, nephew, well done! It was contrived in the thorough Roman way — the way of Marius, Metellus, and Mummius. But your Latin contains many barbaric words and phrases, which sound as if uttered through the snorting snout of an African rhinoceros, and grate against my car. We must eradicate them, cultivating in their place the elegant language of Cicero and Caesar. My friend Malthus, to whose school you will go, is fortunately a man of considerable taste and learning. He will explain to you the difference between the good Latin of the noble pagans and the base Latin of the ignoble monks.'
Or this, rather, was what his comment amounted to when translated into plain terms. But Modestus could never permit himself to make the least remark without wrapping it in an approved literary allusion, a paradox, or a pun, or all three together; so that Belisarius had great difficulty in understanding him. I myself shrink from reproducing the affectations that crackled from his lips, because no nonsense would read absurdly enough to do them justice — if indeed justice is what they deserved. The fact is that whereas Greek is a pliable language, good for the turns and twists of metaphor and for the humours of comedy, Latin is stiff and does not readily lend itself to these uses. It has been said of Latin rhetoric: 'The falsetto of a female impersonator.'
Malthus's school was in the centre of the town of Adrianople, and was not one of those monkish schools where education is miserably limited to the bread and water of the Holy Scriptures. Dread is good and water is good, but the bodily malnutrition that may be observed in prisoners or poor peasants who are reduced to this diet has its counterpart in the spiritual malnutrition of certain clerics. These can recite the genealogy of King David of the Jews as far back as Deucalion's Flood, and behind the Flood to Adam, without a mistake, or can repeat whole chapters of the Epistles of Saint Paul as fluently as if they were poems written in metre; but in all other respects are as ignorant as fish or birds. Once, when I was with my mistress Antonina at Ravenna in Italy, I came upon a bishop who failed to grasp a conversational reference that she made to the pious Aeneas, the Trojan hero, and his betrayal of Queen Dido of Carthage. Now, Heaven forbid that I should claim to be learned, for I am a mere domestic, whose only education has been listening to the conversation of intelligent people. Nevertheless, I should be ashamed to confess to the ignorance of this bishop. He did not know in the least what my mistress was talking about. 'Aeneas?' he echoed, 'Aeneas? I know the text in the Acts of the Apostles well; but, I assure you, my sister in Christ, that you will find no statement there, nor even a gloss by any well-informed commentator, that the pious Aeneas of Lydda whom the Apostle Peter healed of a palsy (though he had kept his bed for eight years), afterwards visited any Queen Dido at Carthage, much less betrayed her.'
In Malthus's school, which was under Imperial control, some instruction in the Scriptures was given as a matter of course; as bread and water appear on the table even at banquets. But the main fare was Latin and Greek literature of good authorship. Such books encourage children to accurate expression, and thus to clear thought; and at the same time supply them with an extensive knowledge of history and geography and foreign customs. I have heard it argued that soldiers should not be educated, on the ground that among the most vigorous barbarian nations, such as the Goths and Franks, whose principal men are all soldiers by trade, book-learning is despised. But the proverb 'a scholar made is a soldier spoiled' applies, in my opinion, only to private soldiers, not to any sort of officer. At any rate, there has never, to my knowledge, been a general of repute in any nation of the world who was not cither to some degree educated or, if only poorly educated, did not regret this.
Belisarius in after life told his friends that the account of the long war between Athens and Sparta given by Thucydides, and Xenophon's account of fighting in Persia (both of which books were read and commented upon at Malthus's school at Adrianople) taught him more about the principles of war than he ever learnt in the military academy at Constantinople. At a military academy the instruction is in drill and simple tactics, and the use of siege-engines, and the duties of staff-officers, and military punctilio — the lesser rather than the greater arts of
