Justinian

residence found for you to pass your days in peace.’**

A sense of triumphant gladness welled up in the emperor’s breast. The horror and humiliation of the Nika episode could now finally be put behind him. By his great victory over the Vandals, God had indeed confirmed that Justinian was His Appointed. But Africa was only the beginning. As Resti-tutor Orbis Romani — Restorer of the Roman World — he must now embark on the next stage of the Great Plan: the conquest of Italy.

* The Mediterranean.

** Foreign troops serving under their own leaders.

* 13 September 533.

* Belisarius’ consulship, inaugurated on 1 January 535, was one of the very last; ‘. . the succession of consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian [i.e. in 539].’ (Gibbon)

** Justinian was as good as his word. Displaying a magnanimity not exactly typical of Roman emperors, he settled the Vandal monarch on a rich estate in Galatia, where he was permitted to practise his Arian faith. In addition, he enrolled surviving able-bodied Vandal males into five regiments of Vandali Justiniani.

SIXTEEN

The child who had trembled at a schoolmaster’s rod would never dare to look

upon a sword

Aphorism of Theoderic, c. 500

On an October evening of the same year that Belisarius celebrated his triumph, Cassiodorus — silver-haired elder statesman, Praetorian Prefect of Italy, and Secretary of the Ostrogothic Council — greeted his fellow Roman Cethegus,* the Caput Senatus as, from different directions, they entered Ravenna’s Platea Maior: the main thoroughfare of the city’s civitas barbara, or Gothic quarter.

‘Ave, Rufius. You too have had a royal summons. . sorry — invitation — to this feast?’ enquired the prefect.

‘I fear so, Magnus,’ replied Cethegus, whose homely features bore a striking resemblance to those of the Flavian emperor Vespasian. ‘The royal bratling must have something important he wants us to hear, to have dragged me all the way from Rome. And insisted on senatorial dress.’ With a wry grin, he indicated the archaic toga in which he was enshrouded. ‘I see you too are required to wear your robes of office. I guess Athalaric likes to have the odd tame Roman to show off to his Gothic friends.’ And chatting amicably, the pair made their way towards the guards’ compound, which the young king (in a gesture of defiance against his mother, the regent Amalasuntha**) had chosen as a venue for his feast, in preference to the royal palace.

The two old friends had risen to high office under Theoderic, the great Ostrogothic leader who (officially as vicegerent of Italy for the Eastern emperor) had proved a model ruler for most of his long reign. His designated heir, Eutharic, husband of Amalasuntha, had predeceased him, leaving Athalaric — son of Eutharic and Amalasuntha — to become king at the tender age of ten, his mother ruling for him until he should come of age.

‘Remind me what’s happening at court,’ requested Cethegus, as the two strolled through the neat little city, studded with fine new Arian churches built under Theoderic. Protected by its ring of lagoons and marshes, Ravenna had replaced Milan as capital of the Western Empire at the start of the barbarian invasions over a century before. Now, situated in the Ostrogothic heartland of the Padus* valley, it was the administrative centre of Amalasuntha’s government. ‘As head of the Senate,’ went on Cethegus, ‘I have to be in Rome for most of the year, so I tend to lose touch with what’s going on in the corridors of power up here.’

‘Things are pretty tense at present, Rufius,’ sighed the prefect, his fine patrician features pursed in cogitation. ‘There’s a ding-dong power struggle going on between Amalasuntha and the leading Ostrogoths for control of Italy, with young Athalaric a pawn in the game. Basically, the problem boils down to this: Amalasuntha’s a woman; she’s a Romanophile; she wants — or rather did, until the matter was taken out of her hands — Athalaric to be given a Roman education.** All of which is total abomination to the Gothic nobility. To fierce, patriarchal- minded German warriors, rule by a female is anathema. To them, Romans are an effete and cowardly race, so a Roman education is the last thing they want for their king. Accordingly, they removed young Athalaric from his Roman tutors and switched him to a German education. In other words: no more books, no more cane, just learning how to fight, and, unfortunately — drink. Thanks to their enlightened tutelage, the boy, who’s now seventeen, has become a drunken wastrel. Round One to them.’

‘Somehow, Magnus, I can’t imagine Theoderic’s daughter taking all this lying down. She’s inherited her father’s strength of will, I believe.’

‘That, my friend, would be an understatement. She got her three chief opponents appointed to frontier commands to get them away from court, then had them murdered. Also, as an insurance policy, she sent her personal fortune across the Adriatic to Dyrrachium in the Eastern Empire, just in case she had to cut and run. It never came to that of course; now, with her three main enemies out of the way, and some leading Goths deciding to back her, she’s managing to cling to power — just. So, Round Two to her. However, should Athalaric die — and with his health wrecked by drink, that could happen sooner rather than later — her position, without a man to legitimize her rule, would become parlous. As you can imagine, law and order’s rather gone to pot, with the duces and saiones* openly flouting the authority of a female regent they resent, and a boy-king they despise.’

‘Altogether, a situation you could describe as interesting,’ mused Cethegus. ‘With Justinian waiting in the wings to take advantage of any crisis that develops. Now that Africa’s been brought back into the Empire, Italy has to be his next target.’

‘A racing certainty, I’d say.’ Cassiodorus shook his head and chuckled. ‘As you so rightly observe, the situation’s — “interesting”. Well, here we are — the old imperial barracks.’ And he pointed to a grim Roman building looming ahead, an uncompromising stone box with a massive tower at each corner. Here were housed the protectores domestici, the household guards. These were now all Goths, their Roman predecessors having been phased out ten years previously in accordance with Theoderic’s principle that only Goths should man the army, leaving Romans to run the administration.

Down the centre of the great drill-hall flanking the quadratum extended a long line of trestle tables (none of this effeminate Roman nonsense of lounging on couches) at which were seated the king and his guests — all Gothic nobles, apart from the two Romans, Cassiodorus and Cethegus. This latter pair alone wore Roman dress; the others were clad in Germanic trousers and belted tunics, Roman dalmatics being streng verboten. No females were present, for this was to be a warriors’ feast, where men could brag, guzzle, and swill to their hearts’ content, free from the restraining influence of womenfolk. Seated in the middle, the young king, his face blotched and puffy from long acquaintance with the wine-stoup, cut a faintly ridiculous figure. In imitation of what he imagined to have been the garb of his heroic German ancestors, he sported a cloak of wolf-fur, fastened at the shoulder by an enormous enamel-and-gold fibula in the form of an eagle, his head being surmounted by a silvered Spangenhelm. Gone was his original short Roman haircut; in its place, flaxen locks now depended to his shoulders. Less successful had been his attempt to grow a Gothic-style moustache, his upper lip adorned by a mere downy fuzz.

Swaying slightly, Athalaric rose and raised aloft his wine-cup. (In contrast to his favouring all things Teutonic over Roman, he had acquired, in preference to German beer, a liking for the strong Roman vintages, which he drank undiluted.) All followed suit.

‘My friendsh. . friends, fellow Goths and Romans,’ the king announced, in tones already slurred, ‘in three weeks time I shall be eighteen. An age at which my illushtrious. . illustrious grandfather, Theoderic, had already made his name, by capturing the great city of Shingi. . Singidunum. But my mother says I’m not yet fit to rule. The