won the whole western part of Liguria at a single stroke.
It had been a year of drought; and, because of the dangers of the time, farming activities had been interrupted throughout the north of Italy. The little corn that had been planted withered before it came to an ear, and the stocks in the granaries and barns had long ago been commandeered by King Wittich for his armies, or by the Milanese who had revolted against him, or by the Herulians in their raids. Consequently, when the Franks had consumed the provisions which they found in the two captured camps, they were forced to subsist on the flesh of oxen cooked in the waters of the Po, which was running very low that year and was tainted with corpses. An army composed entirely of infantry has a narrower range of foraging than a cavalry army, and the Franks are heavy caters. Thus they suffered great distress. When August came they were attacked by dysentery, and no less than 35,000 of them died.
Belisarius wrote King Theudebert a letter reproaching him for the breach of faith with his ally the Emperor Justinian; he suggested that the pestilence was a divine retribution for this and for the cruel murder of the Gothic women and children. Theudebert did not contradict him, and presently marched home. But Western Liguria was left a desert, and it is computed that 50,000 Italian peasants died of starvation that summer.
The Moors in Africa were also defeated in this year by Solomon; and the Lombards therefore thought it convenient to remain where they were, unless perhaps the Persians should strike their promised blow and Justinian be forced to draw away all his western armies to save Syria and Asia Minor from invasion. Then, unsolicited, a powerful nation drove at the Empire from another quarter — the Bulgarian Huns, united under a powerful Cham for the first time for thirty years. They were easily able to force the passage of the Lower Danube. Justinian had, for years past, been gradually denuding his northern frontier fortresses of men to supply his armies in the West, and this without raising a single new battalion or squadron; and had allowed the fortresses themselves to fall into disrepair, considering the building of new churches to be a more glorious practice than the patching of old ramparts. I must here interrupt my account of the great Hunnish raid with a description of a Paradise which Justinian, at enormous expense, had constructed for Theodora and himself on the Asiatic coast of the Sea of Marmora, not far from the city, and on the site of a temple of Hera. The Summer Palace of this Paradise, surrounded by trees and vines and flowers, was at once acknowledged the most beautiful private building in the world, just as St Sophia was the most beautiful sacred one. Marble and the precious metals were lavished upon it, and the baths and colonnades outshone in luxury any that Corinth itself had boasted before the earthquake. Because of the difficulties of the currents in the Straits, Justinian built out two long jetties here — sinking countless chests full of cement in the deep water, to form a private harbour. This great undertaking is worthy of mention here not only because it represented an additional drain on the Treasury, but also because it was the southern tide-mark of the Hunnish raid.
The Dulgars, then, overran the whole of the Balkans as far southward as the Isthmus of Corinth, capturing no less than thirty-two fortresses as they went; and the whole diocese of Thrace as far as Constantinople itself, where they broke through the long walls of Anastasius and were only restrained by the inner wall that the Emperor Theodosius had built, stoutly defended by Narses. Some of them crossed the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos and raided in Asia Minor, being with difficulty driven off from the gates of Justinian's new Paradise. Two hundred thousand prisoners, 500,000 dead, vast quantities of treasure, the destruction of fifty prosperous towns: such was the price that the Bulgars exacted of Justinian for his false economy in the matter of troops and fortifications. They returned home unmolested.
Belisarius was gathering all his forces to press the siege of Ravenna; and another small Imperial army sailed over to assist him from Dalmatia. But Ravenna is the most difficult city in the world to capture, because of its geographical position. The great Theoderich besieged it unsuccessfully for three years; on the landward side the marshes kept him out, and on the seaward side the shallows and fortifications — that he won it at last was a diplomatic not a military victory. It seemed likely that Belisarius, too, must be content to wait for three years. King Wittich had huge stocks of com and oil and wine in the city, and at his request an additional supply was being sent by Uriah down the River Po from Mantua.
But a few weeks later, in spite of all this, Wittich was in a most difficult position with regard to food supplies. First, the drought had so shrunken the stream that Uriah's com barges grounded in the shallows at the mouth of the river and were unable to proceed southward through the connected series of lagoons which form the waterway to Ravenna; the entire convoy was captured by Hildiger, whose patrols were very active and alert in this quarter. Then a second blow was struck against Wittich in Ravenna itself by his own wife, Matasontha. She contrived, during a thunderstorm, to set fire secretly to the two largest granaries in the city. The damage was ascribed to lightning. Wittich conceived the idea that God hated him and was grinding his face in the dust.
King Theudebert of the Franks now sent envoys to Wittich at Ravenna. Because the Franks were still supposedly his allies, Belisarius permitted them to pass through his lines, but only on condition that his own envoys should be permitted to accompany them and hear what they had to say to Wittich, and plead the cause of the Empire. Theodosius was chosen as Belisarius's representative and acquitted himself well enough.
The Frankish envoys proposed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Goths, boasting that they could send half a million men across the Alps and bury 'the Greeks' under a mound of axes. They said that they would be content to take no more than one-half of Italy in payment for their aid.
Theodosius then pointed out that the Franks were wholly untrustworthy as allies, having accepted subsidies from both sides and made war on both; that mobs of infantry would stand no chance of victory against disciplined bodies of cavalry; and that to offer a Frank half a loaf of bread was to give away the whole loaf, together with bread-knife and platter. If King Wittich made his peace with the Emperor he would at least save something from the wreck of Ids hopes. The Gothic ambassadors sent to Constantinople during the armistice at the close of the siege of Rome had asked for terms which neither justice nor the military situation warranted; Wittich would be well advised now to throw himself upon the clemency of the Emperor, whose generosity to a fallen foe had been proved in the case of King Geilimer and of many a lesser chief.
King Wittich listened attentively to Theodosius, dismissed the Franks, and sent fresh ambassadors to Constantinople. While he waited for their return, the Gothic Alpine garrisons made their submission to Belisarius; and Uriah's army, moving down from Mantua, was so reduced by desertions that he could do nothing more to assist his uncle, but must turn back again as far as Como.
We camped outside Ravenna, and the winter drew on. There was no fighting, but the vigilance of our guards and patrols was not relaxed. Not a single sack of corn was allowed to enter Ravenna, nor a single ship to run the blockade. It was during this period that my mistress renewed her former intimacy with Theodosius, to relieve the tedium of her life. He had a good singing voice and revealed a talent for musical composition; they would sing ducts together, very prettily, and accompany themselves on a lyre and a fiddle. One of Theodosius's songs was an outline of why the Italians should love the Greeks: this war of liberation had given them a merry time indeed-massacre, rape, arson, enslavement, famine, plague, cannibalism. The verses were so graceful that nobody could think the sentiments they expressed disloyal. Throughout this period Theodosius and my mistress behaved towards each other with exemplary discretion.
It was in this summer that Theodora's brother-in-law Sittas, who was commanding in the East as Belisarius's successor, was killed in a casual border skirmish in Armenia. He was the only general of reputation in these parts, and his death caused the Persians great joy. King Khosrou decided to break the Eternal Peace in the following spring. Wittich's priestly ambassadors had assured him, through their Syrian interpreter, that the Franks and Moors would assist the Goths by campaigns in the West. Khosrou's first answer had been: 'If we strike from the East, our royal cousin Justinian will abandon his conquests in the West and bring Belisarius against us with all his forces. For Rome is far away from his capital, but Antioch is near. This will benefit your Goths, but not us.'
The priests could not find a convincing answer. But the interpreter was equal to the occasion. I must now disclose a circumstance of which I became aware only after this Syrian plot had matured, but which I shall not withhold from you here — since it will perhaps add to your interest in what I am about to relate: the interpreter was none other than my former master Barak! In a private audience with the Great King, Barak protested that there was nothing to fear from Belisarius. It was an open secret, he said, that Belisarius intended to remain in Italy. In the new year he would throw off his allegiance to Justinian, proclaim himself Emperor of the Western World, and make common cause with the Goths and the Franks; North Africa would be included in his dominions.
'When we have news that Belisarius has so proclaimed himself, we shall invade Syria at once,' said Khosrou, well pleased.
But Barak said: 'King of Kings, it surely would be more consonant with your dignity if you struck without waiting for Belisarius to act? Then his assumption of the Diadem might seem to be encouraged by your invasion of
