return for his life being spared and a substantial reward. Whereupon Margus, the city that six years earlier had witnessed an important treaty with the Huns, was given over to fire and sword.
As anything that offered hope of averting a visitation by the Huns was what all the councillors wanted to hear, the president’s suggestion was eagerly seized upon, and a deputation quickly appointed, headed, with general consent, by the council’s president. Soon afterwards it was reported that the Huns had been sighted approaching the city; the delegation prepared to head for the main gate. But as they left the basilica, they were surrounded by an angry, frightened crowd. Word of the plan — which had perhaps been overheard by an eavesdropping janitor on duty in the basilica — had leaked out. The ordinary citizens of Sirmium, who had long ago lost the right to elect the council, suspected that the delegates were preparing to effect a sell-out in order to save their own skins. These suspicions were reinforced when, as a result of the deputation being jostled and rough-handled, some of the intended gifts came to light.
What had started as a heated demonstration soon flared up into a full-scale riot — something deeply feared by all Roman councils, whose authority was backed up by an often inadequate police force. Sirmium had only the night watch and a skeleton garrison of superannuated
At the first sign of trouble, the president, streetwise and cunning, had darted for cover behind a row of stalls. Now, under cover of the fighting and confusion, he slipped into a side alley and made his way to the city walls. Removing a massive key from under his dalmatic, he unlocked a postern gate and stepped outside the ramparts — to find himself confronted by six mounted warriors: from an advance party sent to reconnoitre the environs of the city, ahead of the main Hun force. Switching on his most ingratiating smile, he moved towards the riders, holding aloft in one hand the postern key, and in the other a heavy bag which chinked.
The first arrow transfixed his stomach, the second his throat, cutting off his screams of agony. Within seconds, he resembled an oversized pincushion which twitched briefly on the ground, then lay still. Picking up the key and the bag of
Despite its massive fortifications, Sirmium held out against the Huns for an even shorter time than Singidunum. Within an hour of their first being sighted, the city, like a rock in an angry sea, was surrounded by a swirling horde of Huns. With a courage born of terror, the citizens, using improvised weapons — kitchen knives, gardening-tools, even prised-up cobblestones — strove to stem the flood of Huns that threatened to engulf the ramparts, as ladders and grapnels thumped against the battlements, and siege-towers, constructed under the direction of captured Roman engineers, were wheeled against the walls. For a time, they succeeded in keeping the enemy at bay. Infected by a mood of febrile triumph, they redoubled their efforts, hurling ladder after ladder crashing to the ground, each scattering its load of Huns, or fighting with such desperate fury that even the ferocious savages who had gained a footing on the walkway were daunted.
But their optimism was premature. Suddenly, the defenders found themselves embattled on two fronts, as Huns who had infiltrated the city through the unlocked postern poured on to the ramparts from the staircases on the inside face of the walls. The Sirmians’ new-found confidence evaporated as suddenly as it had arisen, and they began to throw down their weapons in droves; in a few minutes all had surrendered.
The inhabitants were assembled on a plain near the city and divided into three parts. The first class consisted of the garrison and men capable of bearing arms. They were massacred on the spot by Huns who, with bended bows, had formed a circle round them. The second class, consisting of the young and attractive women, and skilled tradesmen such as smiths and carpenters, were distributed in lots. The remainder, being neither useful nor a threat to the nomads, were turned loose — many to perish of starvation in the fire-scorched wasteland to which the Huns had reduced northern Illyria. Emptied, the city was looted of anything of value, then systematically demolished, with a thoroughness which almost justified a saying that was already gaining currency: ‘The grass never grows where the horse of Attila has trod.’
In furious impatience, Aspar, son of the great Ardaburius, veteran of the campaigns against Ioannes (successful) and Gaiseric (unsuccessful), and now commander of the joint East-West army assembled in Sicilia for the reconquest of Africa, paced the colonnade of his headquarters in the Neapolis district of Syracusa. For perhaps the tenth time that morning, he looked down at the Great Harbour, crammed with the expedition’s warships, hoping to spot the arrival of a fast galley — one must surely soon bring word from Constantinople. News of Attila’s onslaught on Illyria had arrived weeks before. The expedition had immediately been suspended, but the expected imperial missive ordering it to return to the capital, to counter the Hun threat, had so far failed to arrive.
The Romans were letting Gaiseric run circles round them, Aspar thought, in frustration mingled with contempt. The combined naval and military armament of both empires had been ready to move against the Vandal tyrant. And Theoderic, King of the Visigoths, in a bizarre reversal of his recent anti-Roman operations, had been burning to lend his support to the expedition! (His daughter, married to Gaiseric’s son, was suspected of involvement in a plot to poison the Vandal king, and had been sent back to her father by Gaiseric — minus her nose and ears.) But Gaiseric, as cunning as he was cruel, had stolen a march on the Romans and their new Goth friends by forming an alliance with Attila, who had promptly obliged by invading the Eastern Empire.
If only he could be given a free hand, Aspar fumed. There was that business over the usurper Iohannes sixteen years ago, for instance. He’d just about had Aetius stalemated, and could have gone on to beat him if he hadn’t been summoned back to the East over a trifling border dispute with Persia. Then there was that chaotic shambles in Africa, when the Vandals had been allowed to destroy the joint forces of both empires, because the commander-in-chief, Boniface, had lost his nerve. Had the command been his, Aspar told himself, the result would have been very different. (Of course, the fact that he was an Arian had all along probably blocked any chance of his being appointed Master of Soldiers.) And now, when the safety of the Eastern Empire’s northern dioceses depended on getting an army there as quickly as possible, here he was stuck in Sicilia, while Attila ravaged Illyria at will.
It was all the fault of Arnegliscus, the new Eastern Master of Soldiers, thought Aspar bitterly. Ambitious, brutal, and slow-witted, Arnegliscus had murdered the previous
Being a fair-minded man, however, after a little reflection Aspar reluctantly admitted that he was being less than just to Arnegliscus. He was allowing frustration and impatience to colour his assessment of the man. Coarse- grained and limited the German might be, but the very fact that he had become Master of Soldiers showed that he at least possessed two sterling qualities, leadership and courage. Otherwise, the legions would never have accepted him. For the same reason, he could hardly be considered stupid: fools did not become top generals. Nor, as Aspar could testify from personal experience, did paragons of gentle forbearance. In the dog-eat-dog world of Roman power politics, Arnegliscus might have been compelled to eliminate his predecessor in order to forestall his own assassination by one who feared a rival. As for his embroidering the truth in order to influence Theodosius, well, hadn’t every successful general and politician been compelled to play that game, from Pericles to Constantine and beyond?
Suddenly, Aspar’s pulse began racing. Oars flashing in the sunlight, a fast galley shot from behind the islet of Ortygia and raced towards the entrance of the Great Harbour. Backing water with a stylish flourish as it neared the mole, it shipped oars and glided gently to its moorings. Surely this, at last, must be the ship bringing the orders for the expedition to return to the Golden Horn. The Alan general waited expectantly for a messenger to arrive, and, sure enough, a little later a
