block-houses on the remote frontiers? Why? Let me tell you, my gallant and learned friends. There were three reasons. The first: these Romans trusted to their own visible tutelary gods, the golden Eagles of their legions, who guarded them and whom they themselves guarded, and to no hypothetic divinity in Heaven above the clouds. The second: they trusted to their own powerful right arms for hurling missiles — sharp javelins — not to the adventitious bowstring; and in these right arms wielded the short, stabbing sword, the weapon of the courageous, civilized man, not the cowardly lance or the hurtling, barbaric battle-axe. The third: they trusted to their own steadfast legs, not to the timorous legs of horses.'
'Ho, ho, ho,' laughs Bessas. 'My worthy host, Distinguished Lord Modestus, will you forgive my frankness if I tell you that you are talking a great deal of nonsense? I shall leave the more religious-minded of the company to dispute your account of the power of the Eagles as gods, which I certainly think, though I am not an expert in such matters, is not only blasphemous but an exaggeration of fact; but I will take you up most strongly on the other points. In the first place, I understand you to despise the bow as a weapon of no account…
'Have I not the authority of Homer for doing so, who presents his noblest heroes as fighting at Troy (dismounted from their chariots) hand to hand, with javelin and sword? The bow at Troy was the weapon of the effeminate and treacherous Paris, and of Salaminian Teucer, who skulked behind his brother Ajax's shield, and who later was refused permission to return honourably home to his violet-scented island city, because he had not avenged his brother Ajax's death as any decent shield-and-sword fighter would have done. In the only passage indeed where the word 'archer' occurs in all the divine works of blind Homer, it is used as a term of ridicule. Diomcdc named Paris, in the Eleventh Book, 'An archer, a jokester, a dandy with a lovelock, who gapes after girls'; and 'archer' was the hardest name of all. The archer in Homer's poems skulks behind a comrade's shield, I repeat, or behind a mound, or a pillar, or a gravestone, and the shield-and-sword man resents his existence, as stealing from the battle (which he never enters) something which is not his. Is this not the truth, you scholars? Malthus, Symmachus, Palaeologus, I appeal to you.'
They acknowledge that Modestus has neither misquoted nor misinterpreted Homer.
But Bessas snorts and asks to hear more. 'Tell us about the Roman warriors of your golden age. They trusted to their legs, did they? Was it perhaps because they were such unskilful horsemen?'
Modestus's eye kindles. 'The infantryman is the acknowledged king of the battle-field. Horses are useful for mounting scouts upon, and for conveying generals and their staff quickly from one point of the battle to another, and for pulling wagons and siege-engines, and — yes, I grant you this — we may allow a small proportion of cavalry to every large body of infantry, in order to disperse the skirmishers of the enemy who, from a flank, may annoy the steadily advancing ranks of our foot-sure legions. But the Romans of old so disdained cavalry-service that, as soon as their conquests permitted them, they compelled subject nations to undertake that menial task for them — as they also ceased to drive the plough themselves or to plant cabbages, entrusting such employment to slaves and men of inferior race. Is that not so, Malthus, Symmachus, Palaeologus?'
They agree that the Romans early came to depend on allied cavalry. But Malthus, in historical honesty and fairness to Bessas, adds: 'Yet I think that no nation disdains what it excels in. The Roman cavalry were never very skilful. In Spain, on the last occasion that they were employed as a field-force they made a sorry exhibition of themselves; or so we read. Similarly, neither the Greeks nor the Trojans of Homer's day seem to have been capable archers, according to modern standards. They drew the bowstring back only to their breasts (not to the ear, as the Huns do, or the Persians), and the penetrative effect of their arrows seems only to have been slight. Ulysses was more successful, I grant you; but his archery against the suitors was at close range, and against unarmoured, unsuspecting men.'
Then Bessas has his say. He speaks slowly and judiciously, being the sort of man whom wine makes cautious, not rash. 'Modestus, my generous host, you live in a world long dead, shut in that book-cupboard yonder. You have no conception of the nature of modern fighting. In every age there are improvements. In this age we Goths have hit upon a perfected mode of fighting. Now I do not wish to denigrate the successes of the Romans, your ancestors, in olden times-they are undeniable. It is clear that they made a virtue of their deficiency as horsemen by perfecting the discipline of their foot. But clearly their battles were won in spite of their mistrust of hones, not because of it. Had they been natural horsemen and applied their courage and good sense to the evolution of the cavalry arm, they might well have conquered not merely the whole Western world, but India, I believe, and Bactria, and even China, which lies, by land, a year's travel away. But instead they relied on their infantry, and at last their armies were matched against a brave nation that was also a nation of horsemen — a nation, moreover, that obeyed its chiefs — the Gothic nation — my nation. That was the end of the Roman legions. These Thracian plains, Distinguished Modestus, have seen sterner sights than drunken women and dancing rocks. Simeon, Milo, Theudas' (this was the other Thracian, a land-owner) 'and you boys too, as soldiers to be, am I telling the truth, or am I not?'
They acknowledge that he is telling the truth, and Thcudas adds: 'Indeed, Bessas, you are right, it must have been a terrible slaughter. Forty thousand Roman infantry butchered, with all their officers, and the Emperor Valens himself at their head. It was on fields now owned by me about eight miles to the northward of this city that the battle was fought. The thirty-acre plough-land is still full of bones, skulls, and fragments of armour, and arrow and javelin heads, and shield bosses, and gold and silver coins: every spring we turn them up.'
At this Modestus's assurance suddenly deserts him. The great battle of Adrianople is an historical calamity that he has from time to time succeeded in forgetting, but never for long; and here it starts up again at his very table. He quavers, with an appealing glance at his supporters, and speaking for once in straight language: 'We were betrayed. It was our Thracian light cavalry, on the left flank, that first gave way. We had almost won the battle. Our legionaries were cutting their way through the barricade of enemy wagons and in another half-hour we would have driven their main body off the field — but unexpectedly the Gothic heavy-cavalry squadrons returned from a foraging expedition and thundered upon these Thracians, who were driven off in all directions. So the Goths easily rode down our allied infantry, and pressed the survivors of these against our brave legionaries, who were busy enough already with the fight at the wagons. Next, the cavalry that was supposed to cover our right wing (Low Country horse, I believe) galloped off in disgraceful flight; and finally, out swarmed the whole barbarian mass from behind the wagons. Assailed in front, rear, and flank, we were hugged tight, as in the sudden embrace of an angry mountain she-bear…'
Bessas agrees: 'Most of the legionaries could not raise their arms to strike a blow, being pressed shoulder to shoulder, like a Hippodrome crowd, and some were lifted entirely off their feet. Spears snapped right and left, because the spearmen could not extricate them from the packed, swaying crowd, and many a man was accidentally impaled upon the sword-point of his rear-rank comrade. All day long until nightfall my ancestors, horsemen born, brave men, handy with the lance and the sword, killed and killed and killed. Our infantry poured in arrows. The dusty field was slippery with blood.'
Modestus mutters again, a great tear splashing down his cheek into his cup: 'Our allied cavalry betrayed us. That was all. The legions fought to the death.'
Malthus asks:' But my dear Modestus, had not the same thing happened once before, in the war with Carthage? Did not Hannibal's heavy cavalry at Cannae break the Roman light cavalry to pieces, so that our allied cavalry on the other wing fled too? Were not the legions then also pressed together into a mass and slaughtered? The Romans should have profited by that lesson. For though they were not born horsemen, as it seems agreed, neither were they born seamen, as the Carthaginians were; yet finding a stranded Carthaginian war-vessel they built others like it, and practised sea-fighting in the safety of their own harbours, and finally sought out the enemy fleet off Sicily, and destroyed it. They should have bred big-boned draught-horses to replace their smart Gallic ponies, and climbed on their broad backs and disciplined themselves into heavy cavalry — within the safety of the walls of Rome if necessary.'
Bessas takes pity on Modestus, who is weeping again: 'Courage, Distinguished Lord Modestus! It was you Romans who first instructed us barbarians in the warfare by which we defeated you here at Adrianople. It was you who taught us to co-ordinate our military movements, and showed us the importance of defensive armour, and of fighting in regular formation. We merely applied your teaching to cavalry fighting. And though we were lucky enough to defeat your main army we did not destroy your Empire; far from it. We admired too much your civilized ways, your firm roads and lofty buildings, your good food, your useful manufactures and extensive trade; thus it was you who conquered us in the end. Our nobles became the sworn henchmen of your Emperor, the successor to the Emperor we had slain, and a few years later marched with him to rescue Italy from the rebellious Gauls; whom we defeated in pitched battles, cavalry against infantry again. That was in the time of my great-grandfather. We have
