Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Monday, November 23, 1998

Anastasius

Parties of the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome was the amphitheatre where the chariot races were held. The teams were the Greens and the Blues and the crowd sided with one or other of these factions. Since the time of Tiberius, for whom Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, the Romans had followed factions sporting some colour or other. The original colours were White for winter, Green for spring, Red for summer and Blue for autumn but four chariot races were no longer run and the Green and Blue factions had emerged as the dominant ones when the races settled down to only two chariots at a time. Membership was quite exclusive so it often took some time and money to join the faction preferred.

Anastasius had been the Emperor at the beginning of the sixth century because he had married Ariadne, the widow of the Emperor Zeno and daughter of the Emperor Leo I. He was a thrifty and capable ruler, though old. Those years were difficult but not through the incompetence of the ruler but through misfortune. Natural disasters occurred on a peculiar scale. Major cities were destroyed by earthquakes; the bubonic plague appeared, spreading from Asia; widespread failure of crops occurred. Besides these natural problems the factionalism of the Blues and Greens led to rioting and treachery. Finally a large sea monster appeared in the Bosphorus which would attack ships entering and leaving the Golden Horn.

On top of all this the Bulgarian Huns continued to raid across the Danube, even entering the suburbs of Constantinople and forcing Anastasius to build across the isthmus a 32 mile long defensive wall, and the Saracens raided in Palestine and Mesopotamia. To cap it all Anastasius fought against the king of the Persians, Kovadh, in Mesopotamia and lost an important battle yielding the land up to the Euphrates river to the Persians. Peace cost Anastasius 800,000 gold pieces at a time of economic difficulty and the exhaustion of the known gold mine workings.

Anastasius had supported his own candidate for Pope and had crowned him in Constantinople at the same time as the Roman church crowned their own choice. Constantinople had many names. It was also known as Byzantium by the Greeks, as Micklegarth by the Goths, as Kesarorda by the Bulgars and as Tsarigrad by the Slavs. The Eastern Pope supported compromise between the Christian Sects but the Roman Pope remained implacably orthodox. Christians considered all the troubles to be the punishment of God for crowning two rival Popes. Naturally the Blues supported the orthodox and the Greens the compromise or outright Monophytism.

Eventually hostilities were opened in the Hippodrome between the factions. It was so serious that Anastasius had to offer to abidacate his throne but support from the Greens saved him. He therefore openly supported the Monophysite sect. He failed however to give physical assistance when it was needed and the Blues, going unpunished after massacring some Monophysite monks, were able to get the upper hand again. Retaliating, an army of 40,000 Thracian Greens marched on the city and were only disbanded when Anastasius offered a Church Council to settle the differences. Once the Monophysites had gone however, Anastasius did not bother to convene the council.

Justin

Justin was an uneducated barbarian, a commander of the Imperial guard under Anastasius. He became Emperor as an old man. Justin as an impoverished young man in the reign of the Emperor Leon had travelled from Vederiana in Illyria to Byzantium on foot provisioned only with dry biscuits to seek his fortune. He joined the army and, as a man of exceptional physique, was appointed by Leon as a Palace Guard.

Anastasius succeeded Leon and engaged in war with the Isaurians. His commander was John the Hunchback and John had imprisoned Justin for a serious breach of discipline punishable by death. But John dreamt that an immense non-human being commanded him to release the soldier. On waking John ignored the dream but dreamt the same thing on two more succesive nights, each one more menacing than the last. In the final dream he was warned that the prisoner would be of great value to him one day. The general decided to heed the dream and released Justin who gradually rose in rank, wealth and power until Anasatasius made him commander of the Imperial Guard.

Justin became Emperor through a trick, taking a vast amount of money from the Court Chamberlain with which to bribe the guards to support the official then taking the diadem himself. Justin was uncouth, inarticulate and boorish, an orthodox Christian and a supporter of the Blues. His wife, Lupicina, was a slave who became a concubine and then, as Justin’s wife, the joint ruler of the Roman Empire.

Justinian as regent. Because Justin was totally illiterate he depended first on a Quaestor called Proclus then upon his nephew to carry aout the affairs of state—effectively Justinian was regent for much of the time his uncle wore the purple. The robes of the Emperor’s office were purple with golden panels. He wore a white tunic, purple silk stockings and scarlet jewelled slippers, but the office was crowned with a pearl diadem.

Justin adopted his nephew, Justinian, as his son, made him a consul, a most senior honour, and the Commander of the Armies in the East. But Justinian was not of the steel of a soldier and remained in Constantinople with his wife while Justin remained de facto commander of the armies. Justinian however took care of the civil administration and effectively became co-ruler with Justin. Because Justin could not write he signed official document in the special ink reserved for emperors using a stencil which read LEGI meaning ”I have read”.

Justinian’s Appearance. A man of medium height, not fat but rounded and with quite an attractive round face which always looked healthy in colour even when the emperor was fasting. Some said he was a reincarnation of Domitian, Vespasians’s son, whose behaviour was so monstrous that when he was murdered he was cut into pieces by the people and still they did not feel justice had been done.

The Senate decreed that all mentions of Domitian should be erased and all statues of him pulled down. Only one survived because of Domitian’s highly regarded wife according to legend. She had never once agreed with her husband’s wrongdoing and the Senate were willing to allow her a widow’s rights after Domitian’s murder. She asked to be able to take her husband’s body for burial and to put up a statue of him. The wishes were granted and she is said to have pieced together the body and had a statue made to his appearance in death.

Erected on the street that leads up to the Capitol, on the right hand side as you head there from the Forum, it was a perennial memorial to Domitian’s horrid death. In reality of course it was the statue that had been pieced together after it had been smashed as the Senate decreed and Domitian’s wife had been a party to the plot to rid the state of a tyrant. Nevertheless the statue remained and showed a remarkable similarity to Justinian.

The Greens reacted against the murder of Vitalian but Justinian was kept aware of their intentions by a Green traitor called John of Cappadocia. John was a very common name. Those newly baptised into Christianity often took the name John, after the gospel writer or John the Baptist. So further appellations had to be given to those called John to distinguish them.

Though a Green, Cappadocian John was of orthodox Christian inclinations and so was able to justify his betrayal of his colleagues. Justinian showed his gratitude by placing John in an important position in the administration. Justinian boasted that he was more orthodox than the Pope himself and began the suppression of the Monophysites. All Monophysite bishops and priests were turned out of their positions.

Justinian the Great

Justinian was the nephew of the ignorant barbarian commander of the Imperial Guard, Justin, who briefly became Emperor. Justin had sent to Illyria for his nephew as a boy and had had him educated but he always spoke Greek with a foreign accent. His native language was Latin. Justinian had a strange air about him though he was polite enough. He was reputed to have been a shepherd boy and he had a certain animal quality about him. The girls in the whore house were reluctant to entertain him privately, and stories abounded of animals and ghostly apparitions appearing where Justinian was supposed to be. However, Justinian was an orthodox Christian who had taken as his baptismal name ”Upright” and who enjoyed theological discussion and fasted often. He had an enormous appetite and never lost the colour in his cheeks even as an old man.

At one time Justinian had been held in Rome by the Gothic king, Theodorich, as a hostage. Justinian got to know Theodora at the club house whenre she entertained him by engaging him in theological discussion among other things. In the reign of Anastasius Justinian represented the Blue faction in discussions with the Greens when an army of Thracian Greens led by one Vitalian threatened to overthrow the city. Justinian sealed an acceptable agreement by taking the Eucharist with Vitalian, making it the most solemn pledge imaginable but later under the new emperor, Justin, he arranged Vitalian’s murder. As to the pledge on the Eucharist, Justinian declared that a promise made even on oath to an heretic was not valid. Anastasius wanted to show his gratitude to Justinian achieving a satisfactory settlement by making him up to the rank of Patrician but Justinian loved the whore Theodora.

Theodora

Theodora was one of three daughters, Comito, Theodora and Anastasia, of Acasius the Bearward, a Hippodrome bear master from Cyprus of the Green faction who died of sickness in the reign of Anastasius when his eldest daughter, Comito, was only seven. Her mother promptly married again to secure the future of her daughters and the family interest in keeping the circus animals.

The Green Dancing master, who had authority over appointments to the Hippodrome staff accepted a bribe from a man who wanted the post of Bearward and Theodora, her children and her new husband were cast aside destitute. The mother dressed the three small girls in simple shifts with wreathes on their heads and in their hands and sent them into the Hippodrome to appeal for their livelihood to be restored. The Greens remained hard-haearted but the Blues adopted them as their own, making their step-father master of the bears of the Blue faction. Thereafter the family were Blues and they never forgave the Greens for rejecting them.

Antonina was to become the wife of Belisarius, Justinian's famous general. She was a public entertainer but entertainment then went all the way. She who had led a life of promiscuity from the age of twelve. She was the daughter of a distinguished Hippodrome charioteer of the Green faction who was disgraced and committed suicide when accused by the Greens of fixing a race. The family switched to the Blues over this incident, a rare conversion. Her mother was an actress. Many of the acts of the Theatre and the circus were magic acts and often they were presented by adepts of old skills which were losing ground to the religion of Christianity.

Antonina from an early age mixed with such men and learnt many of their magic tricks including many skills not used in circus acts. She was considered to be a sorceress. Antonina, with Theodora and some other girls, set themselves up in a successful whore house in the centre of Constantinople and eventually met and married a rich old Syrian man who later died and left her comfortably off. The old man’s home was in Antioch, a city on a par with Alexandria, and there Antonina was baptised a Christian though she naturally still leaned to the greater liberality of the pagan tradition.

While in Antioch the old Emperor, Anastasius, died and Justin took the diadem. Then Antioch was destroyed in a huge earthquake which killed here husband and Antonina was left with two surving children—two died—and plenty of money. She sold her estates in the Lebanon and returned to Constantinople. She soon made herself known to Theodora her old friend from the club house Theatre and Theodora, who knew Antonina had skills which might be useful, made her a Lady-in-Waiting with the status of a patrician.

Theodora was friendly with Antonina, the daughter of the charioteer, but was two years older. As the girls reached the margin of womanhood, their mother put them on the stage, all the girls being good-looking young women. The stage was just a means of attracting customers for their real profession which was prostitution. Comito soo became one of the most popular whores in the city and the next girl, Theodora, learnt the business as helper to her elder sister. Though Theodora was too young to have intercourse like an adult without distress she did accept gifts for anal intercourse with the slaves and servants of the rich men who they attended on visits to the theatre. From that, still not mature, she entered a brothel, serving the poorest clients in the same way.

Theodora the actress. Once she had developed the characteristics of a woman she became a full actress. Like all actresses she was a prostitute and became a highly successful one. She was pretty, petite but with a shapely figure and with large brown eyes set in a pale face with just a hint of colour. But she had no talent as a stage entertainer. She could not sing or dance adequately and did not play the flute or the lute. Instead she developed an act as a clown becoming the butt of ribald humour in circus performances, making a joke when someone knocked her over and laughing uproariously when she got slapped.

She could not be hired for polite dinner parties as a dancer or singer could and so her prime aptitude was always sex—putting her whole body at the disposal of her clients, unhesitatingly agreeing to the most outrageous demands in return for their favours. She even grumbled because the three natural orifices which nature provided were insufficient, and though she was happy to bring them all into service at the same time she wished for even more. She was one of the ”dregs of the army” as it was described in former times.

No one ever saw her embarrassed in any way. She was brazen, lacking any degree of modesty, and would tease officials, throwing off her clothes to reveal her nakedness before them in the theatre. She always wore a tiny girdle which saved to protect her ultimate modesty but that was not because shy was shy of not wearing it but simply because there was a rule that total nakedness was not allowed. One of her pranks was to appear thus in the theatre then to flop to the floor where she would stretch out in such a way that the girdle pulled itself on to her thighs. A slave would then sprinkle barley grains on to her sexual areas and release a ttrained goose which would peck up the grain with its beak, probing as necessary into the most private places. Theodora always seemed proud of this little act of hers.

She would go into the house of an eminent customer during a drinking party and on a couch at their feet with her dress pulled up to her chin. With her clients she would often be coy or would keep them waiting until they were distraught with expectation. Nor did she wait to be invited by someone she fancied but would wiggle before them in a suggestive way while making jokes and using innuendos to interest them, especially if they were still young men. She was considered insatiable.

There was a fashion for dinner parties where young men and young women saved the host’s pocket by taking their own food but the objective really was for couples to pair off and entertain each other sexually. Theodora used to attend such parties with ten or more young men all healthy and rampant and would sleep with each one succesively until they were exhausted. Then she would start on their attendants, perhaps thirty of them, sevicing each one but finishing the night wanting yet more.

Sometimes if she was clowning among a group of actors she would drop her tunic and thrust out her bottom inviting someone to take her from the rear, or she would lean over backwards showing some degree of gymnastic ability, inviting someone to take her from the front. One result of her reputation was that she became the talking point among all the women of the city and a good many men. Another was that the declining group of respectable people would turn around and run away rather than meet her in the Forum for fear of being tainted by her whether metaphorically—it was considered unlucky to meet her or even see her especially early in the day—or by being seen by a neighbour in her presence. It was considered unlucky to meet her or even see her especially early in the day.

Theodora the whore. She was clever and quick witted, but had a hard glare that betrayed her short temper—she often rowed loudly with the other actresses—and later would be able to shut someone up with a glance. She also had a strong business head and was ruthless. Naturally she frequently became pregnant but knew every trick in the book to induce abortion so she never gave birth while she was in the city. She was ready to use her physical appeal to achieve such success as was possible for a low caste girl. Theodora also was renowned for her ability to remember slights for any length of time and he inability to forgive them.

Theodora eventually got a rich sponsor, Ecebolus, a Tyrian Byzantine official who had secured the governorship of Pentapolis, a province in Cyrenaica. She left Constantinople with him only to return a year later chastened by the experience of being treated as a captive until she broke loose in a huff and took ship to Alexandria and thence to Antioch, Asia Minor and back home supporting herself in the varied manner to which she had become accustomed. In Alexandria her amorous dealings led to her uncharacteristically having a son whom she promptly deserted.

Justinian and Theodora

Justinian and Theodora. Back in Constantinople Theodora met Justinian who grew insatiably passionate about her and, at first taking her as a mistress, later married her just before his elevation to the rank of Patrician. Justinian’s uncle’s wife Euphemia, the Empress, though a simple uncultured country woman of barbarian origins deplored Justinian’s intention to marry a prostitute and forbade it on the grounds of its unlawfulness. By an old law, noblemen men of Senatorial rank were not allowed to marry prostitutes so Justinian hastened to arrange his marriage first. But the old Empress died and Justin, who was by then senile, was more amenable to the pretty young Theodora. So Justinian got him to repeal the law and he married Theodora when the law was repealed.

Theodora, elevated herself to the Patrician rank, left her usual haunts and went to live in a palace inundated in expensive gifts, jewels, wealth and riches by the captivated Justinian. She was about twenty years younger than her husband. Both being Blues they lavished favours upon this faction and gave them immense powers in the state.

Justinian was already regarded with fear and suspicion and everyone wanted to get on the right side of him. Not a single Senator attempted to stop the marriage or protested against the Emperor’s choice though they knew they would soon be kissing the Empresses feet as if she were a Goddess. Not a single priest expressed concern that the Empress had the worst reputation of all the whores of Constantinople, though they knew they would have to address her by the title ”Mistress”. Many people from Patricians to slaves had known her intimately and many more had seen her naked frolics in the Theatre but all were unprotestingly willing to be treated by her as slaves. The attitude, besides fear of Justinian, was a resignation to God’s will among Christians and an acceptance of fate among those who still hankered after the old religions.

Even before Justin died in 527 AD after a reign of nine years Justinian intimidated the Roman aristocracy into proclaiming him Emperor jointly with his uncle. Justin died only a few days later, of natural causes, and so they might have been since Justin had been in his dotage for some time and had become a laughing stock in the city. Thus it was that the lowest class of woman became empress of Rome. Justinian could have picked any woman in the Empire, high class, cultured, modest, chaste, even virginal but it never seemed to occur to him that his choice of consort was shocking even in shocking times.

Theodora the Empress. Throughout their marriage Justinian and Theodora never did anything apart from each other, though they deliberately fostered the illusion that they disagreed about almost everything. The advantage of this was that no one quite knew where they stood with respect to the one or the other. If an eminent man disagreed with the Emperor he might think he had an ally in the Empress but all the time the two were confiding in each other.

Though a Blue, Theodora inclined to the Monophysite sect of Christianity. She felt that if Jesus had really had a dual nature then He or the apostles would have mentioned it. Since none had He wasn’t! God was of one nature though he might manifest himself however he wished. If the Son was a manifestation of God then He also was one.

Once Empress, Theodora was able to avenge herself judiciously of all the wrongs she felt anyone had done to her over the years. Her son turned up at court, doubtless expecting favours or at least a bribe to disappear again. And that is what he did—disappeared. Theodora was able to behave in such a way because she was joint ruler and had her own palace spy system and teams of assasins. If anyone spoke against her or her husband whether in the capital or the provinces she found out, her spies were so omnipresent, and a gang of assasins would be despatched. Someone might be found with their throat cut or found in the Bosphorus sewn in a basket.

Theodora disagreed with her husband on many matters notably religion and his desire to reconquer the Western Empire from the barbarians. But he respected her immense common sense always. She preferred the opulence of the east, delighting in regaling herself in the most sumptuous clothes, jewelry and fine wigs. She was an oriental woman and a brave one. When Justinian’s nerve almost gave out in 532 when, during the Nika rebellion, the palace was under seige, Theodora it was who stiffened his resolve and organised the palace guards to resist the mob. 30,000 people died in this riot which started with the rivalries of Hippodrome politics.

Class structure in the final years of Imperial Rome was 5% mega rich; 45% free Roman citizens who were mainly poor and 50% slaves who had nothing. Landowners were very powerful. Under Justinian the people were grossly taxed to pay for the Emperor’s excesses. Some monasteries began to providing free meals of thin soup and stale bread for the growing numbers of the poor. Many poor people and lesser landowners were ruined but many became extremely rich acting on the Emperor’s behalf. Many of those however were subsequently robbed by the Emperor. The wealthy landowners had armed retainers who they used to bully the locals into paying the exhorbitant taxes. They were the beginnings of the feudal barons.

The local magistrates were too scared of the power of these men to bring them to justice when it was required, and even when their mercenaries got too boisterous and were arrested by the constabulary, the landowners would pay a fine to free them. Even when the authorities charged the rich landowners with serious crime they would simply pay a suitable ransom not to be tried.

Justinian made a way of life out of vacillation. No one knew from one day to the next what was legal and what was not. There was no established order and no contract maintained any viability so that there was no redress for injustice. Justice scarcely existed for the ordinary Roman. Those with wealth could bribe magistrates and escape from justice or false accusations. Those without wealth could be robbed officially by a richer man laying claim to his property and hiring lawyers to argue the case through the courts, placing bribes as were necessary. Corrupt witnesses could be purchased to offer perjured evidence of a contract you had never made or a debt you had never incurred and deprive you of your home and family and even land you in jail or even on the gallows. Justice in Heaven was better the Christian ministers maintined.

Magistrates themselves lived in fear as did juries who settled disputes not on the basis of the justice of the claims but on the relations the protagonists had with the factions. Any magistrate or jurer who stood on principle paid with his life. Not only did Justinian stand aloof from all this he participated in it and rewarded those who were criminals. Those who were wronged could only despair. The disease of the capital soon spread elsewhere in the empire. While Justinian was a clever man he was absolutely insensitive and saw or seemed to see nothing of what went on.

Poor petitioners were sometimes kept in dingy antirooms of the Palace for months before they were admitted to the royal presence to present their petition. Then they would be overawed by the magnificence of the audience chamber with its cleverly constructed throne which made the Emperor or Empress seem to tower above. On each side stood ministers, advisers and counsellors, spiritual and temporal, dressed in splendid suits of purple brocade embroidered richly and studded with jewels and pearls. Men-at-arms sttod rigidly to attention and held their pose for hours on end as they had been trained to. The supplicants knelt before the Majesty to plead for their petition and, if successful would be escorted out by palace gurds to be given some reward, consolation or token by the Majesty. If unsuccessful they would be manhandled out into a courtyard to be flogged or thrown into a dungeon.

Justinian’s character was contradictory because he was hugely ambitious and blessed with great energy and craftiness but was quarrelsome, especially over religious matters, mean, jealous, cowardly and two-faced, vacillating, greedy and callous. He was described as being both knave and fool. Habitually he tried to deceive others, always having a dishonest purpose in what he did, and yet he was easily gulled by sycophants and tricksters.

He was an accomplished actor being able to cry real tears if he wanted to appear upset at the murder or disappearance of some eminent man. All the time he was lying, having arranged the murder himself. His signature on an agreement or contract was equally dissembling because it was worthless like his tongue. Whatever oath or solemn pledge he undertook, he would just as likely break it. A treacherous friend and unremitting enemy, he brought upon the Romans unsurpassed horrors. He murdered fellow Romans and plundered their property without provocation or hesitation.

He came to think it unnecessary even to have a pretext to take someone’s wealth. It was said that Justinian kept no money himself and allowed no one else to keep any. In this way he impoverished the entire empire. He was bent on replacing all he saw and as a consequence became a destroyer. People were able to escape the plague but no one was left unaffected by the reign of Justinian. Those who were not murdered often begged to be put out of their mysery by any form of death however painful having been deprived of their possessions and reduced to penury.

Furthermore sons and daughters were forced into disgraceful sexual acts with members of the gangs for fear of reprisals. One woman caught by a gang while crossing the Bosphorus with her husband whispered to her distraught husband that she would never submit to any sexual violation whereupon she jumped overboard and was never seen again.

Not content with impoverishing the Empire he set out to conquer Libya and Italy and reduced those countries also. When he had been in office for les than ten days he murdered Amantius, head of the Palace eunuchs, and several others on the pretext that he had slandered John the archpriest of the city. He was always ready to listen to false accusations and equally ready to come up with some judgement arrived at with no effort to determine the facts of the case.

Justinian’s state expenditure. Justinian never had the least idea about money. He squandered it profligately and felt it was to the greater good that he took and spent other people’s. He made diplomatic bribery a main aspect of his foreign policy, bribing the Huns with large sums of money not to attack the Empire or to protect the Empire against some other indistinct enemy. Needless to say the Huns used this as a pretext to continue to raid and receive more money in bribes. Justinian called the bribes rewards ”for services to the state”. Similarly, he tried to bribe the Persians and he tried to forstall the inroads of the sea by spending fortunes on sea walls around the capital.

To finance his projects he took money from wealthy people whereever they were in the Empire. Some he would accuse of being a Blue or some real crime and would then confiscate their property. Others He thanked for a massive gift that they never knew they had made until they received his joy, Of course they knew there was no way of refusing the gift once they had been thanked for it.

Others who had been found guilty of real crimes were able to avoid the ultimate penalty by making over to justinian all of their property whereupon a pardon would be received. Yet others witha grudge against a neighbour and ambitions to be known at court made a gift of their neighbour’s estate to the Emperor thereby hitting two targets with one arrow. Justinian would never question the legality of the gift unless the injured party had some way of making an even bigger one.

Clever but vacillating and cowardly, Justinian was deeply religious as many Catholics are today with a feeling of guilt. He was orthodox and determined to steer clear of heresy. He seemed to disagree with his wife on most matters, religion, foreign and domestic policies, but they apparently agreed to differ and it never came between them. Some say it was all an act to keep people guessing. Some say he was not as murderous as his wife but perhaps he had no need to be since they worked together as a remarkably effective team.

Theodora would quite openly favour the Blues while Justinian gave the impression that he wanted to discipline them but was unable to because of his forceful wife. But then Justinian would seem to assert himself and sentence a prominent Blue while the Empress fumed that her husband had forced her to agree. Theodora seemed to support the Monophysites while Justinian remained loyally Orthodox. They would apparently take different sides in legal disputes so that the disputants felt they had royal support but all the time they were encouraging the participants to ruin themselves so that the treasury could claim their estates. If there were to be an outcome it would be in favour of the unjust cause, the dishonest party then being obliged to the Emperor for his ill-gotten gains and obliged to give gifts to the Emperor on demand. If he refused, he in turn would be ruined.

The Emperor would put his friends into positions of power in the state hierarchy where they could milk revenues thus becoming very rich. When they reached that stage the Empress would become displeased with them on some pretence and she would apparently get embroiled in disputes with her husband. Justinian would seem to remain loyal to his friend who would feel secure that he enjoyed the support of the stronger party to the throne. But, by degrees, the Emperor’s loyalty evaporated until some accusation that he had slandered the Empress or whatever would lead to the poor man being disgraced and his property sesquestrated by the state.

Africa, in the days of Augustus and Tiberius, had been densely populated. Many people from Europe had moved to the fertile colony which provided the grain of the Empire. But the towns and villas now were deserted except for wild dogs that roamed the porticoes and pillars and eccentric or mentally ill old men who sat atop pillars begging crusts from passing strangers in the name of the Son.

Justinian was certainly devoted to Theodora and, though he outlived her by many years, he never married again. Justinian codified Roman law setting a team of learned officials, judges and lawyers to gather them all together and present them in a logical way. Nevertheless his own concern for legal matters was perfunctory. He would change any law temporarily if the bribe were high enough.

Fashion. Romans wore long tunics with short sleeves made of bleached wool. The factional bucks of the Nika period adopted expensive styles because generally they got their income by robbery so could afford high class gear. Since money was no object they were willing to use large amounts of fabric. Sleeves, for example, were billowing with fine transparent fabric but drawn in tightly at the wrist. At the Hippodrome or the theatre when they wanted to show favour they waved their arms in the air in unison like flags allowing their billows to flow to and fro. Again the bulk of the fabric gave their weedy physiques more apparent substance but most of them would have made a poor opponent for any professional soldier.

Though the raids of the Huns were feared by Romans and Persians the fashion among the youth was to look Hunnish so that they looked fierce and intimidating. They used Hunnish names for their items of apparel and wore cloaks, breeches and shoes in Hunnish styles. Thracians wore darker woollen blouses and baggy trousers. Goths wore linen tunics with bold vertical stripes of different colours and trousers of animal skins sewn together. Cloaks were worn fastened at the shoulder with a brooch or clasp.

Meals were eaten while reclining on a couch in the traditional fashion though military men on campaign would use benches. Boys sat on chairs. The couches were arranged in a half moon shape around the table. The host granted to someone the role of wine master, a position of honour whose duty was to keep the cups full and ensure that the evening lasted a long time. The actual serving was done by slaves or servants but at the command of the wine master. He also governed the proportion of wine to water, watering the wine if spirits were getting too high and increasing the proportion of wine if the conversation began to flag. Starters were olives, chopped leeks and onions, lettuce, pickled tuna fish, prawns, shellfish and sliced sausage. Main course was fish, roast lamb and roast goose, ham. A wealthy man would hire entertainers such as musicians, singers and dancing girls.

Paganism

Pagan traditions were not yet at an end. Many learned people still preferred the scholarship associated with the pagan tradition whereas Christian teachers and monks were content to spout biblical quotations in answer to anything. The ”ignoble monks” generally refused to study any of the ”noble pagan” knowledge. Scholarship was already in decline.

Christians were already puritanical about nudity which they associated with illicit sex and the impurity of their own bodies unlike the ancients who regarded a healthy attitude to it as a sign of civilisation. The barbarian Goths also hated nudity which they considered ridiculous. Christians frowned on scenes depicted on murals of events from the lives of the pagan gods, especially Dionysus, but some old Romans still preferred them to Christian art.

Pagan Schools. Justinian closed the remaining non-Christian schools including the famous one at Athens which had been a source of learning for a thousand years and converted all the pagan temples into Christian churches. The wealth of the old religions were confiscated to Justinian’s treasury. When Justinian sealed the eternal peace with Khosrou he allowed the pagan philosophers to return to collect such books as they could find and take them back to Persia whence they had fled.

Schools. Many schools by this time were church schools for boys who intended to become monks. Others were state schools run for the wealthy sons of officials, civil servants, generals and nobility. But they provided some free places. These boys were allowed to hear the lessons from the back of the class in return for carrying out menial duties like distributing ink, stoking the fires, cleaning the lavatories and scrubbing the floors. Their conditions were, of course, poor and they were treated with snobbery by the paying pupils.

The pagan schools of Constantinople and Athens, centres of learning for a thousand years were closed and people were forbidden to read books by the old philosophers. When they said that life was the beginning and end of personal existence they were wrong. Our life on earth was worthless, a moment’s pain and punishment to prepare us for the life to come. The Christians held that it was better to have hope in this vale of woe than to be snuffed out forever at it end. If you had spent a lifetime chained to an oar in a quinquereme you could look forward to a reward in heaven. The Son would sit in judgement over you just as His Clemency and Her Resplendency did here on earth. But justice would be God’s justice and would make up for all the wrongs suffered on earth.

Sibylline prophetic books had been used by the Senate whenever a national crisis had arisen until 404 AD. From the time of Augustus they had been kept in the Palatine Library at Rome. One of the many acts of wanton destruction committed by Christians determined to stamp out paganism was to destroy these priceless books. An illiterate German general in the army of Honorius, Emperor of the West burned them on religious grounds.

Games suppressed. In 404 AD Arcadius, Emperor of the East, banned gladiatorial contests when a Christian monk leaped between two gladiators and stopped the contest. The incensed crowd battered him to death with lumps of stone, annoying the Emperor who was as always the President of the games. Though this might have seemed a blessing to humanity it resulted in the population taking to unofficial battles in the streets instead and added to the general chaos that was overcoming civilisation. It also led to the rise in status of sports like bear baiting and fights between lions and tigers or lions and bulls, remnants of the animal hunts in the games of old. These sports were controlled by wealthy patrons of the Blue or the Green factions who encouraged ringside gambling, 3 percent going to the funds of the factions.

The trainers of the animals and the chariot drivers were forbidden to pertake of the Christian Eucharist because the Christians considered them wicked. Consequently they and also the entertainers in the theatre became hostile to Christianity which seemed to be denying them their traditional living in times which were already hard for the masses. Hypocritical Christians would profess to be appalled in the company of an actress yet would not be above hiring a dancing girl for entertainment in secret. Indeed dancing masters were the only ones allowed to take the holy wafer and wine.

Part of the Christian distrust of entertainment people was that they provided sanctuary for the few priests of the Old Religions who were still trying to practice underground. Christians classified these hierophants as witches and sorcerers, they told fortunes and interpreted dreams and ever since these skills have been considered as entertainment.

Barbarians

Heathens, by the end of the fifth century, had overrun the Empire. Anglo-Saxons occupied Britain, the Vandals Africa, the Visigoths Spain, the Franks Gaul and the Ostrogoths Italy.

Huns came from central Asia, occupying all the wild steppes north and East of the Caucusus range from the Carpathian mountains to China, and for several hundred years had threatened the Persian and Roman Empires as well as the many Germanic and Slavic tribes in northern Europe and empires further East like those of China and India.

There were many nations of them, White Huns, Massagetic Huns, Bulgarian Huns, Herulian Huns, Tartars and others. Each clan had its own hereditary pastures. Most were an ochre colour with small red set back eyes, plump cheeks and tiny noses. They had bow legs and pincer toes, small feet and strong thighs with spindly lower legs. They wore their lank, black hair shorn at the front and the temples, plaited over the ears and long at the back, a style which became a fashion in the Empire in the time of Justinian.

Their strong horses could gallop twenty miles without a halt and cover 100 miles in a day. Their caravans were of back covered wagons in long rows. In some wagons in large wicker baskets covered in back felt were all their household possessions. Others carry bell shaped tents also of black felt covering wicker which are their homes. They were adept at navigating the boundless wastes of the Northern steppes following the good pasture as the seasons changed so that in a year they might cover 2000 miles.

In the summer they migrate north and in the winter return south. Because they were nomads and did not cultivate the soil they had to obtain grain by barter with settled people. Otherwise they lived on mare’s milk drunk as buttermilk, whey or fermented to give an intoxicating liquor called kavasse and horse meat, geese and game birds which they would dry in the sun. The birds they obtained by falconry. Romans found it disgusting that they could eat horseflesh. Other meat they would eat if they could obtain it by pillage or barter but they would not touch water.

The Massagetic Huns had lost their grazing lands to the Persians and had travelled hundreds of miles to join the Roman army as mercenaries with the aim of revenging themselves on the Persians. For warmth they wore two fur coats in winter, one with the hair turned inwards and the other with the hair turned outwards, and a fox fur cap. Rank was shown by the type of fur worn. Noblemen wore sable but common men wore wolves skins and they exercised by wrestling each other from their horses.

They had a strict code. Though they were quarrelsome, murder, fornication, adultery, theft and many lesser crimes were punishable by death unless done outside the tribe. But a man was not considered a murderer if intoxicated. They did not wash, instead smearing themselves with tallow. The blue sky was their god and thunder and lightning they feared most. They feared also evil spirits and had shamans to ward them off and to give advice. A son inherited all of his father’s property including taking his wives, except his own mother, as his own. Marriage was by kidnapping or a ceremonious form of it.

Weaponry was short lances, sabres and particularly their light bows which they shot off while on horseback galloping at speed. Armour was simply leather jerkins except for noblemen who wore metal plates at his breast but none at the back. Genrally their tribes lived in disharmony quarrelling over pastures but from time to time a gret leader called a Cham would unify a lot of the tribes and they would raid the Empires to the south with great success.

Gepids were a Germanic race who had been settled just north of the Danube in the region of Transylvania for a hundred years. The Gepids lived in clans of about 5000 under a nobleman who contributed about 1000 soldiers to the national army. Lesser noblemen controlled smaller groups within the larger unit. They had a shortage of metal, substituting leather and wicker and their jewels were trinkets. They fought, like Goths, on horseback using battle axes, yelling to each other and wearing rank butter in their hair. They wore no armour save leather tunics and hats and leather covered wicker shields. Their horsemen were not armed with bows like the Huns though they had bowmen on foot.

Belisarius

Belisarius was an orthodox Christian Roman general of the time of Justinian in the sixth century, the start of the Dark Ages. He was of Slavic stock, his ancestors having settled in Tcherman, South of the Danube, a hundred years before. He was thoroughly Romanised. His mother was the daughter of a Roman Senator who fled from the plunders of the Vandal King, Geiserich, some fifty years before to the security of the East. So Belisarius was trilingual speaking Latin, Thracian and Greek. He was a member of the second rank of nobility. He was well educated and was equal in the skills of reckoning, argument and law to many of the civilian officials of the capital, Constantinople. He was tall and broad shouldered with high cheek bones typical of his Slavic origins, black, curly hair, a good sense of humour and a ready smile.

Belisarius the soldier was an honours graduate of the military academy and became an officer of the Guards. Belisarius noted the tactics of the Gothic heavy cavalry and the hunnish mounted archers and dreamt of combining the two. Old Justin who had been their commander noted Belisarius as a talented officer and allowed him rapid promotion.

Belisarius had the chance now to put into effect his ideas on cavalry training. He wanted his knights to be heavily armed and carrying a lance, like the Goths, but also armed with a bow like the Huns. The bow unlike those of the Huns was a stiff one which took some pulling but which had the power to pierce a breastplate. It was slung across the back when not in use. Each knight also had a broadsword and a small shield strapped to his arm carrying within it several feathered darts with weighted tips that were thrown rather like knives and were valuable weapons at close range.

To fire a bow rquires both hands so the knight had to control the horse by his knees while he galloped along shooting his bow. To do this stirrups were an advantage yet at the time were considered cissy. Nonetheless Belisarius introduced them. The horses were large draught horses of immense strength. Saddles were also large and well padded. Each knight carried a thick woollen cloak for warmth in adverse weather and wore sleeveless mail tunics for protection. Long leather boots protected the legs.

Training such soldiers was a lengthy business. Rookie troops practised every action methodically until it became second nature. They pracised first on foot, then on horseback, then at a trot then at a gallop. Skills were learnt from the Huns and from the Goths and tourneys were held for pracise with the lance. In the final stages of training, the knights had to gallop toward a stuffed figure hanging from a frame on a wheel trolley. The trolley was set in motion down a gentle slope and the knight had to gallop towards it loosing arrows and following up with lance or darts.

The incentive to do well was provided by basing pay, promotion and even rations on the level of efficiency reached by the knights. The officers had to be similarly skilled and also know about strategy, tactics, manoeuvring, communicating with the high command and controlling the men in battle situations. Belisarius wanted men who could put up with the roughest conditions, not any factionalists, troops from other corps or pressed men (submitted by landowners in stead of taxes) only volunteers, but otherwise men from any country or calling. He deliberately wanted a diversity of men to allow them to bond with each other in the corps rather than having any other loyalties, like the factions or to previous commanders.

Justin, though uneducated was not a stupid soldier and encouraged Belisarius to practice his new ideas by skirmishing across the Danube into the territory of the barbarians. This Belisarius did in 520 AD, raiding the Gepids with a band of about 200 knights.

Military tactics were based on cavalry not the infantry of earlier times. The calvalry men of Belisarius’s army were the models of the tales of the knights of King Arthur, another Roman commander of just a few years earlier in Britain. The Household Knights of Belisarius were clad in mail and trained to a high level by their commander. Most were barbarian soldiers of fortune. Arthur, like Belisarius, was a commander of knights and a minor British king who had to try to hold out against the heathen invasions from Northern Europe when the legions were withdrawn from the garrison towns of Britain at the beginning of the fifth century, never to return.

In decline were the arts of warfare. Military schools taught routine matters like administration, drill, the use of mechanical contraptions and the rudiments of tactics. Even the proper use of surveying and mapmaking were neglected. The skills of moulding an army, maintaining morale, strategy and the arts of political and civil support for the war effort were no longer taught because they were all recorded in pagan books. The commanders of the Roman amy had long been foreign mercenaries: Goths, Vandals, Huns, Gepids and Arabs. The Roman military system had totally degenerated.

Critics blamed it on the use of the horse rather than footsoldiers and the use of archers rather than javelin throwers. Even in the days of the conquering Legions the Romans had depended upon foreign allies to provide cavalry to protect the flanks of the infantry. By the sixth century when the main force were cavalry, there were few genuine Romans in the forces. But others blamed it on the loss of trust in the standards of the old Legions; the soldiers put their faith in their indiividual eagles which guarded them. Faith in gentle Jesus, the Son of an unseen divinity above the clouds, did not uphold morale so well.

Yet it was the well honed skills of the Persian and Hunnish mounted archers that had forced the change upon Roman military tactics. The inadequacy of infantry against horsemen was finally proven conclusively by the Visigoths’ victory over the soldiers of the Emperor Valens at the battle of Adrianople in 378 AD. The legionaries were fighting on empty stomachs because it was a fast day of the newly adopted religion, Christianity. Gothic heavy cavalry turned up in mid-battle and scattered the Thracian light cavalry on the left wing of the infantry who were attacking the Gothic encampment. The infantry began to get rolled up and then the cavalry on the right decided to flee leaving the infantry open to attack from both directions. Seeing this the Goths left their stockades and assaulted the Romans from the front and they were completely pincered.

Allegedly they were so crushed together they could not move their arms to ward off their attackers. Soldiers were impaled on their comrades’ spears.. On to this mass the Goths rained in arrows until 40,000 legionaires had been massacred. Yet six hundred years before a similar defeat had been experienced at the hands of Hannibal. Now these Roman soldiers who were beaten at Adrianople were not citizens of the city of Rome but were citizens of the Empire. Many would have never even been to Rome. They were Spaniards, British, Gauls, Greeks.

Cavalry tactics. The Gothic cavalry were heavily armoured lancers, wearing greaves, cuirass, helmet and carrying a shield while riding on draught horses. The cavalry of the Huns rode faster lighter horses and released a hail of arrows while riding at speed but could obviously not be so heavily armoured. The Hunnish warriors were the most successful ones. The Goths had to yield to them and flee into the relative safety of the Empire where they became ”Foederati”, allies of the Romans whose duty was to protect the frontiers.

Tactics against the Gepids. Belisarius’s knights drew the Gepid cavalry away from their unmounted bowmen then kept them within bowshot while keepng well away from hand to hand battle when the axes and lances of the Gepids could be dangerous. Thus they were able to demoralise the Gepid cavalry, shooting down their horses and killing many soldiers with arrows while losing no one. When the enemy were thoroughly bewildered the heavy cavalry took up their lances and charged scattering the Gepids who were still mounted and capturing those who had lost their mounts.

In this way, in raids of about ten days duration for which they carried enough barleycorn and dried meat, Belisarius ransacked over a distance of 400 miles. After each raid he returned to a supply boat on the Danube where artisans prepared new weapons and repaired damaged ones and quartermasters kept stocks of provisions. In the whole summer only one man had been lost and a few injured. Even the dead man had drowned in a marsh and had not been killed in combat.

Forty Gepid soldiers had been captured and were offered the choice of training as knights or sold as slaves. They chose to be knights. Justin was so pleased by the corps that he allowed the knights to swear a personal allegiance to Belisarius. They became the Household Regiment of Belisarius and many of the officers of later campaigns were blooded in this skirmishing and that of the following season against the Bulgarian Huns.

Tactics against the Bulgarian Huns across the lower Danube when he had 600 men in the summer of 521 had to be different for the Huns were mounted archers. The problem was how to engage the fleet and sharply stinging enemy. A small body of knights, lightly armoured and on fast horses were sent to lure the Huns onto militarily poor ground where they would be targets for the arrows of the knights. But this was really a decoy because in the meantime another band would have ridden up to the Bulgarians’s barricade of wagons (used to protect their camp) and set it alight with fire arrows. The decoyed cavalry would see the smoke and have to return to try to save their camp but it was too late and many Huns were killed and captured in this way. Booty however was trivial.

Ravenna was a city surrounded by marshes and therefore safer to the later Roman Emperors concerned about invaders because it was more easily defendable than Rome and could be provisioned by sea, standing as it did then, like Venice, on a lagoon. It had been set up as a naval base by Augustus and fortified. In 404 AD the Emperor Honorarius had moved the court to Ravenna.

When Theodoric the Christianised Ostrogoth educated in Constantinople deposed and murdered Odoacer (also a Goth but one who had been commander of the bodyguard of Romulus Augustulus, the incompetent last of the Roman Emperors when he forcibly pensioned him off into a Napolitan villa) he set up the capital of his Ostrogothic kingdom in Ravenna. Theodoric set the economy going by commissioning building works beginning with his own tomb which was roofed with a single slab of stone 35 feet across.

When Belisarius conquered Theodoric in 539 Ravenna became the capital of the Western Empire and Justinian took his turn in commissioning buildings. The Church of San Vitale, begun by Theodoric, was finished by Justinian. It was a building of great splendour and novelty, displaying the characteristic rejection of the classical style which was to become the Byzantine style. Inside are superb mosaics of the Emperor on one side of the alter and his Empress on the left of the choir. With Justinian, who is shown with the halo of the sun god, the right of Emperors since the days of Sol Invictus, and his orb, is the Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian who consecrated the church. The Empress is apparently withdrawing into her private chambers carrying a chalice and accompanied by a company of ladies in waiting. She wears a jewelled diadem and expensive clothing, and is shown as taller than her attendants though she was in fact tiny—a convention.

Rome and Persia

Rome and Persia. Considered themselves the twin light houses of civilisation and the Emperor and the Great King regarded each other as comrades with onerous duties which they each have to carry out with forebearance. Each held sway over large regions of the earth but were unable to command them totally. The Roman Empire had splintered and Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa and italy were under the sway of Barabarians though, in many cases, barbarians who had become partly Romanised and still looked to the Emperor in Constantinople as indeed the light of the world.

Persia was in some ways similar. Its sphere of influence extended into India but such distant satrapies could not be kept under any direct control. Nevertheless in the region of upper Mesopotamia the two Empires came into contact and frequently fought out wars there. The region between the Tigris and the Euphrates upper waters naturally favoured the Persians from the viewpoint of logistics.

Silk. A source of tension between Rome and Persia was the trade in silk. It came from China via a long land route via Samarkand and Bokhara or via sea via Ceylon where the Persians had a trading base and the Red sea where the Ethiopians imposed another duty. The route by caravan took a total of 250 days, 150 to the Persain frontier, 80 days to Nisibis, the trade centre in Mesopotamia, and a final twenty days from there to Constantinople.

There was an alternative land route north of the Caspian Sea ending at the Back Sea prinipality of Colchis. The Romans were keen to open this route which had the disadvantage of passing through the territory of the White Huns, so called because they were more European looking than the Huns of Asia. However the Romans hoped that the Huns would require less toll tax than the Persians. The White Huns lived between the two great Seas and north of the Caucasus mountains. They made a habit of raiding the Persians just as the Bulgarian Huns raided the Empire. The Diplomats of Rome had often bribed these Huns to attack Persia to avoid or relieve a Persian attack on the Eastern front. However, in the reign of Anastasius it was the diplomats of the Persians who were the more wily, persuading the White Huns that they could get more out of the Romans for a toll.

The Great King Kovadh wrote to Anastasius telling him of this and on his refusal to pay up had invaded Armenia. Anastasius sent 50,000 troops to resolve the dispute but their generals were inept, quarrelled among each other and in several battles the army was destroyed. The situation was saved only when Anastasius paid the White Huns to invade Persia again. About this time though the secret of silk was brought to the Empire. A Basket of mulberry leaves was brought to the attention of the Emperor by two Persian monks who had travelled in China and had brought back the cocoons in a hollow bamboo. The leaves harboured pupae of a moth which provided the silk. Justinian made the silk industry and trade a state monopoly.

Caspian Gates were the only useful pass through the Caucusus mountains which were a natural barrier to the invasion of the Huns intoPersia and the Eastern Empire.The pass is long and narrow and therefore easily defended. Alexander the Great built a castle there and it has remained important since. The baron of the castle, a Hunnish convert to Christianity offered to sell the castle to the Anastasius but his advisors recommended him to refuse though it offered the Romans the chance to unleash Huns on to the Persian Empire at will. As a result the Persians seized the castle and the opportunity was lost.

Persian law. No Persian could take the throne if he had a defect. Thus Jamaspes, son of Kovadh, and the best soldier in Persia was not eligible because he had lost an eye fighting the Huns. Persian law was fixed. The Persians, because of their religion of Zoroastrianism, were truthful. Kovadh wanted his son Kosrou to be king and to ensure his safety wanted him to be adopted by the Roman Emperor. This was in the reign of Justin when Justinian held civil power. The advisors recommended against it thinking it disguised a plot and so instead war broke out again. It was in these hostilities that Belisarius had his first proper taste of warfare.

Antioch was the second city in the Empire with a population of 750,000. At this time there was a severe eartquake which destroyed Antioch, all the more so because it moved the course of the river Orantes and many people were drowned and many more were killed or rendered homeless by fierce fires which burnt up the ruins of the wooden houses of the lower classes. Not a single public building, including the churches, was left undamged. Great cracks appeared in the streets and engulfed rows of houses and the public baths, full at the time, collapsed with great loss of life. Since a plague of Cholera was already affecting thousands of people each day, there was general chaos. Justin went into mourning for a month wearing a grey shawl, closed the Hippodrome and the theatres and contributed two million gold pieces to the disaster fund.

Belisarius in the East

Belisarius in the East. Belisarius could not abide incompetence or ineffiency. For the next four years Belisarius was required to survey the garrison towns bordering the Persian Empire inspecting the troops and making recommendations for improvement, promotions, and so on. He became popular among the efficient soldiers in the army but was hated by many for whom it was a sinecure.

At the age of 29 he was appointed by Justinian as Commander of the Armies of the East and he made his headquarters the fortress of Daras. Belisarius raised an army of 25,000 men but only 3000 of which were reliable including his own Household Regiment. Because most were new recruits he had not the time to train them fully so he decided to make them archers. He paid the recruits according to their skill with their bows but he only asked for modest skills, namely that they be able to loose off a full quiver of forty arrows at the enemy at a distance of a hundred yards. Belisarius judged that this would be damaging enough against a massed attack. Meanwhile he kept his artificers busy making arrows. Partly trained infantry he drilled in phalanx defence, giving them chain mail and pikes of lengths such that when presented to the enemy they saw a mass of spear tips. Finally some of the men he trained as javelin throwers.

The Household regiment was split into six squadrons each of which joined the six divisions of heavy cavalry to improve their morale and skills. These men were to show by example how to manoeuvre and use their bows and lances properly. Belisarius also had two squadrons of light cavalry, Massagetic Huns from the region of lake Aral who hated the Persians, and half a squadron of Herulian Huns from the Crimea who wore coats with light plate sewn into them and no more armour, but could shoot very quickly and were useful with sabres and lances.

The Great King Kovadh was now 75 and the Romans were hoping he was too old for warefare but they were mistaken. He sent his top General Firouz to engage the Roman forces with 40,000 troops. Belisarius had settled upon a defensive stategy with such unproven soldiers and built a trench six feet deep and twelve feet wide—too wide for horses to leap it—across the front of the castle with narrow bridges across every hundred yards. In the bottom of the trenches were sharp stakes. The trench was guarded by archers and the bridges by the specially trained phalanxes.

On the wings of the trench system, where the bridges were wider to allow the rapid egress of the horses, he placed his cavalry. The fore part of the trench directly in front of the fort stood twenty or so yards ahead of the wings and at the inner angle he placed the Massagetic Huns ready to sweep to the help of either wing should they be in trouble or to the help of any part of the trench that looked like yielding. The Household Cavalry and the Herulian Huns were stationed in front of the castle ready also to defend any weaknesses or to charge forward when the enemy looked likely to withdraw.

Though it was a hot July Belisarius was meticulous about the army’s hygienic arrangements and particularly the need to keep down flies and as a precaution insisted that the men drink water purified with sour wine. All exercises were carried out before the sun was high to prevent enervation, then they were allowed to sleep until noon. In the evenings they were kept fit with marching or digging. They were never allowed to be idle.

One morning great clouds of dust were seen alongthe road to the Persian stronghold, formerly Roman, of Nisibus. Then the Persian army appeared, infantry in the centre protected by large oval shields with cavalry on the wings. They pulled up out of bowshot and tried to entice the Romans to leave the fort and attack them. They jeered and shouted insults but the Romans would not be moved. Persian cavalry feinted on the right and the Roman left pretended to pull back but the Persians were not fooled and withdrew losing just a few men from arrows. The Persian cavalrymen wore no helmets but otherwise their armour and weapons were highly ornamented. They also used whips on their horses which the Roman knights thought ridiculous.

Firouz was astonished that the Romans had not decided to withdraw in the face of his large army and decided to continue the psychological warefare by ordering up another 10,000 soldiers from the garrison at Nisibis. Meanwhile however a Persian nobleman road up to the Roman lines challenging any Roman to single combat. The Romans had strict orders from Belisarius not to break ranks but suddenly there was a commotion as horseman galloped wildly through the lines of the Huns and across the nearest bridge to the Persian. The Persian wheeled his horse to meet the oncomer but was too late to steady himself and was cought by the Roman’s lance and was unseated. Before he could recover the Roman dropped on to him with a dagger and slit his throat.

The Roman soldiers and the crowds watching from the walls of the town cheered for it was Andreas, the servant. He had learnt some horsemanship in the early morning training and his skills as a wrestler gave him the speed of response once the Persian was unseated. Later, another challenger came forward and the same Andreas road out to challenge him but this time wearing the uniform of Belisarius’s Household Cavalry, for this was Belisarius’s present to him for his first triumph. Remarkably he again won the engagement when both riders were unseated in the first tilt but when Andreas, through his wrestling skills recovered the quicker and again despatched the Persian with a dagger. The Persians withdrew believing the day to be unlucky for them while Andreas the servant was feted as a great knight.

The Persian reinforcements arrived the next day and Belisarius sent a diplomatic letter to Firouz, his opposite number, suggesting it was a grave responsibility to start a battle unnecessarily and the Roman Emperor was sending an envoy to seek a peace. The Persian rejected the letter on the grounds that the Romans were deceitful. Belisarius then addressed his army telling them that they would not fail if they remained disciplined and obeyed their officers. The failure to do this in the past had led to Roman defeats when the Roman soldier was truly superior to the Persian in every way. Then the men returned to their posts just as the Persians began to advance.

The leader of the Herulians, Pharas, judged the outcome of the battle not certain and in his pidgin Greek told Belisarius that he would cover a hill to the side of the battle site. Belisarius knew the purpose of the suggestion was that he could flip sides when he saw the outcome of the battle and charge the losers. But Belisarius saw he had a cut on his finger, grabbed it and declared he was his Anda, which is blood brother and under the magical power of Belisarius. Belisarius was duty bound to equalize the commitment and the magic by offering his own blood to Pharas but this he refused until after the battle thus keeping the superstitious Hun tied to the Roman side.

The Persians planned a midday attack because they knew it was the time for Romans to eat whereas Persians do not eat until the evening. Belisarius had considered this possible however and had given the soldiers extra rations at breakfast so they were still well satisfied when the Persians advanced. The Persian archers advanced in two columns a pace apart and when the leading man had unleased his arrow he withdrew down the gap to the rear to prepare another shot. Thus a steady stream of arrows was maintained but the columns were easy targets for the Roman archers who had the stiffer bows with greater range.

After a while the arrows had all been used on both sides and the spearmen engaged at the bridges and across the trenches which the Persians tried to cross with planks. Belisarius kept his cavalry busy at the rear using them on foot, leaving their horses with their grooms in the rear, to support wherever the front looked likely to yield. This always improved the morale of the infantry because though they were hard pressed they knew the mounted soldiers were not on their mounts ready to turn tail.

Eventually Saracen mercenaries in the Persians’ pay broke through against Thracians on the left. However, the Massagetic Huns played their part shooting off arrows from horseback and routing the Saracens. At that point the Herulian Huns charged the retreating Saracens and, using their broadswords, the Persian flank was destroyed with a loss of 3000 men.

Belisarius called back the two sets of Huns and completed the Anda ceremony by allowing Pharas to lick an arrow wound he had received. They were now all needed on the other wing. The Armenian cavalry there were being beaten back by the crack Persian heavy cavalry called the Immortals, 10,000 in number, who had crossed two bridges. The Armenians had been told to retreat, if necessary, away to the edge of the battlefield, leaving a clear run in for the Roman reserves in the centre, the Household Cavalry joined by the Massagetic and Herulian Huns, to counter attack.

The Massagetic Huns armed with short thick lances and broadswords ripped into the Persians, spotted their standard with its flag of a Lion and a sun and killed the standardbearer. Behind him was the Persian General Baresmanas and he two was killed. The Persians were now in some dissarray having been split into two groups, the rear of which decided that it was time to withdraw. The remaining group had little chance cut off and surrounded and half of the Immortals were lost to the Persians in the battle.

At this the Persian foot soldiers dropped their shields and spears and ran pusued by the fresh Roman troops who picked up the discarded spears and hurled them into the retreating Persians, though they had been trained as archers. Belisarius, like Julius Caesar made it a principle not to harry a beaten army to the point of dispair. The standard of Beresmanas he sent to Justinian as a spoil of war. This was the first time for a hundred years that a Persian army had been beaten by the Romans and against the odds too.

Gifts given by Justinian to Belisarius for his victory at Daras over the Persians were a robe brocaded in gold and pearls and a simple begging bowl of ancient olive wood said to be that of blind Bartimaeus, the Saint cured by Jesus. Justinian had obtained it along with many other treasures from a monastery which he had dissolved on the grounds of immorality. The Empress gave a tall bay charger with a white blaze and white socks, the ”badge” of the Household Cavalry, five hundred suits of chain mail for the cavalry with white plumed helmets, the third was her friend and Lady in Waiting, Antonina. Belisarius made the excuse that he could not marry because he along with all his soldiers had pledged on the gospel not to shave, get drunk, take a mistress or get married while on active service.

Narses who had delivered the Emperor’s gifts to Belisarius said to Antonina after the audience at which the gifts were exchanged: ”May Belisarius be as fortunate in your love as you in his” possibly being ironic but Antonina took it to be said with sincerity. Certainly the pair seemed to be cool toward each other on this occasion. Nevertheless when she had returned to Constantinople she wrote many long love letter to belisarius thereby breaking her normal caution about such matters (because they could always be used by enemies).

Narses, the Court Chamberlain, was a short ugly eunuch from Persian Armenia. He was already sixty years old when Belisarius was beginning his career and was considered one of the cleverest men in the capital. He was careful never to appear effeminate as most eunuch’s were, always trying to sound masterly when giving orders in his thin voice. Narses had come from a military family and had already killed a man at the age of eleven when he was captured, castrated and made to work at the loom in the Palace. He had always wanted to be a commander and had asiduously studied tactics and strategy in the hopes of getting a commision from the Emperor. Eventually of course he did and was highly successful too.

Eunuchs held a special place in the running of the Eastern Empire. They were imported usually from the far end of the Black Sea at Colchis and were trained as civil servants. The point about Eunuchs was that they had no families and posed no threat of wanting to overthrow the throne to create a new dynasty. They could therefore be trusted by rulers, and were industrious not being distracted by sexual matters. They tended to be petty but loyal. Wealthy middle class families often had one of their sons castrated and placed in the civil service and bastard sons of Emperors were similarly treated to prevent them from being a threat while making useful citizens of them. Even priests were allowed to be eunuch’s whereas in pagan times only the priests of Cybele, the Galli, were castrated. Of course whole men were apt to treat eunuchs as figures of fun and the eunuchs themselves would wonder what they were missing, but generally were grateful to have security in difficult times. Stoned slaves were so well regarded relative to those who were not eunuchs that they dfetched three times the price in the slave markets.

Christian Schisms

The Pope was the Bishop of Rome and was asserting the dominance of the Roman church over the whole of Christendom because, according to tradition, he was the successor of St Peter who the Son had said was the rock upon which the Church would be built. The old Church of St Peter, a primitive wooden structure, in Rome was consecrated to his memory, because St Peter had journeyed to Rome, become the first bishop and had been executed there. As the first of the Apostles, greater even than Paul who had never travelled with the Son as Peter had, the Roman Church had an aura of holiness not possessed by others and the Bishop of Rome considered himself to be superior to other bishops. He was therefore the natural choice as the sole leader of the Christian world, even though political power now lay in Constantinople.

Easter was called ”The Feast” and according to tradition no one could say ”Good morning” or greet a friend.

Religious dogma was described by Robert Graves as ”the disease of the age”. Whenever small groups of people gathered they began to discuss some point of Christian doctrine, very often the nature of the Son or the Trinity. This all went back to the Council of Nicaea in 325 when Constantine tried to settle the differences of interpretation that had already begun to divide the church by then. Arius, an African theologian, became a priest of Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth century. The Emperor Constantine was keen to unify the Emoire by his policy of syncretism and had already decided to join all the major existing religions under the mantle of Christianity. He was not likely to be happy that Christendom itself was divided about the nature of the Son. After meeting for two months the Nicene Council declared Arius and his views anathema to the Church.

Arian believed in Homoiousianism which declared that the Son was not of the same essence or substance of the Father but was ”essentially” like the Father or ”like the father in all respects”, the subtlety being that the Church at large considered the Son as of the same essence as the Father—Homoousianism. After Nicaea the Arians (Homoiousians) were all called heretics and were proscribed forcing them to travel to foreign parts where their heresy was still accepted.

Religious factions were: the orthodox Christians; the Monophysites of Antioch and Alexandria declared heretical by the Pope at Rome but favoured by the Egyptians who controlled the grain supplies to the Eastern Empire. The religious dispute between these factions weakened the Empire seriously. Some Emperors favoured one faction, others the other. Anastasius seemed to favour the Monophysites for example but some Emperors tried to create compromises. The Acuanites considered the Son as purely God, while the Plotinians considered him purely human.

The Apollinarians considered that the Son lacked some of the elements of God so was nearer to human than otherwise. The orthodox view was that the Son had two united natures, human and divine but that the human part of him made him no less divine than the Father who the Son admitted was greater than he. Older Romans could accept the father as identified with Jupiter but felt the worship of the Son, the meek, unwarlike Galiaean, a weakness which had led to the ruin of the Empire, forcing Rome to engage barbarians to do their fighting for them

Relics of the Christian saints and the Son himself were already a cynical trade in the sixthe century. Old bones were the bones of saints, bits of rotton wood were from the true cross, bits of rotton cloth were garments of the apostles or the loincloth of John the Baptist. Bizarre objects were decorated with gold or silk, put in a fine casket and claimed to have belonged to some saint or other. The gullibel, including the priests lapped it all up.

Tomb of Christ. In Jerusalem over the tomb was built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and was a favourite destination of Christian Pilgrims. The lamp which had illuminated the tomb when Jesus was placed in it was there burnt constinuously. The large stone which had been rolled away on the morning of the resurrection was also there covered in gold and jewels. The walls of the church were of plate silver and from rods in the walls hung all manner of costly offerings made by passing pilgrims: gold and silver chains and bracelets, crowns and rich head dresses and tiaras, exotic jewels, rich cloths and so on, left by lords, kings and potentates who had visited. Golden lamps lit up the alter which stood infront of the entrance to the tomb.

The Manichees. A Christian Heresy originating in Persia which believes in the dual nature of Christ and that the two natures were opposites. The historical Jesus was purely human and therefore a sinner but Christ was a divine and sinless redeemer. The sect was disliked by the officails of both Persia and the Empire but the Persians were liable to encourage it in some places to divide the Christians—Armenia for example.

Nestorianism was a Christian heresy concerning the nature of the Son which held that he had two natures, human and divine, and that each was complete within Christ but not united merely conjoined. The Son’s divine nature stemmed from the Father dwelling within him just as saints had the father within them but to a lesser degree. The orthodox regarded this as demeaning the Son and rejected it as different only in degree from the Plotinists who did not accept that the Son was divine at all. Nestorians went out from the Middle East to China and founded Christianity there.

Saint Sophia was the Cathedral Church built by Justinian and which was the finest edifice of it time, perhaps of any time until then. But it was built on the site of a previous splendid church of the same name. To summon the faithful to prayer churches used to beat a heavy drum with a mallet, each church having its own rhythm. At fashionable churches the service was less important than the grandness of the occasion. The congregation spoke constantly and waved or signalled to each other about clothes, friends, enemies and occasionally about the latest state of the religious disputes but the sermon was rarely heard. But the chanting of the eunuch choirmen and the general singing was usually well regarded and joined in. Those who coul;d hear the sermon would clap enthusiatically or even cheer, or hiss vigorously. The conclusion was the Eucharist itself and the blessing then everyone departed into the daylight to continue chatting.

Marriage to Antonina. Belisarius had suffered severe losses of 6000 men in the unnecessary battle and, although explanatory letters were sent to Justinian, the Emperor recalled Belisarius to the capital, not in disgrace however. Justinian and Theodora were getting concerned at the growing violence of the Hippodrome parties and felt an experienced and loyal soldier was needed at home.

Belisarius returned with his Household Regiment and was married to Antonina on the feast of St John the Baptist at St John’s Church. Justinian himself acted as step father for Antonina in the ceremony. Theodora gave Antonina a large city centre estate yielding a good income in rents so that Antonina was not dependent on her husband. Finally Antonina announced that she would accompany her husband everywhere though Belisarius did not return to the East for another ten years. Meanwhile the pair were housed in a large apartment in the palace.

Antonina and Theodosius

Theodosius. Just before departing on his African campaign Belisarius adopted a young Thracian man who had been brought up in the heresy of Eunomius of Cyzicus and had already been treated for some time as a member of his household. The Christian adoption ceremony required Belisarius to cleanse the young man in a bath of holy water and then to lift him out in his arms thereby completing the adoption.

Antonina had formerly loved the young man as a son but from the time of the adoption she began to notice he had reached maturity and she began to have more lustful feelings towards him. On the journey by ship to Africa she yielded to her passion and, contrary to the laws of God and men, she seduced her adopted son, having intercourse with him at first discreetly and then making no attempt to stop the domestic servants and slaves from knowing what was going on. Antonina’s passion was to last.

In Africa in the city of Carthage, Belisarius found them together in a cellar, according to Antonina concealing the best of the plunder, but Belisarius could see that Theodosius had his belt undone and his trousers hitched up by hand. After Belisarius had captured Sicily, a female slave called Macedonia came to him in Syracuse begging him not to reveal what she had to say to him to her mistress, Antonina. She then distraughtly told him all about the affair and explained that two boys who were Antonina’s bedroom attendants would corroborate her word.

Belisarius accepted the account and sent reliable men to get rid of Theodosius but he got wind of it afrom the servants and fled to Ephesus. Belisarius semed upset by the whole affir and one of his generals, Constantine, said to him, ”If I had been you I would have finished off the woman rather than the boy”. This statement got to Antonina and she determined to avenge herself on Constantine.

Anyway Belisarius betrayed his good faith and broke his promise to Macedonia. Antonina persuaded him that she was innocent and he turned over the three slaves to her to punish. Antonina and her eunuch, Eugenius, first cut out their tongues then feeling that this was insufficient punishment she murdered all three, curt them into pieces and threw them in sacks into the sea. She also persuaded Belisarius to bring Constantine to trial and he paid the penalty for his indiscretion with his life. However the Emperor and many senior Romans were apalled at this treatment of a good soldier.

Belisarius’s secretary, Procopius, had written his detailed accounts of the wars, not sparing Justinian of criticism for his failure to support his general adequately and his vacillation. When the account came to Justinian’s attention he was furious and Procopius had to blame Belisarius to escape the Emperor’s wrath. Expecting the account to be rewritten to give Justinian the glory the Emperor gave Procopius a pension but when the reply arrived it was not what he expected and cancelled the pension.

Factions

Factions. Around 530 AD the Hippodrome factions, the Blues and the Greens, began to get seriously out of hand. Though nominally clubs supporting one or other of the Hippodrome teams they became involved in religion and politics. Under the emperor Anastasius the Greens had been preferred and had the best seats in the Hippodrome but Justinian preferred the Blues as did his wife. Imperial preference was no mean privilege. Besides the best seats in the Hippodrome the Blues enjoyed grants from the Treasury, the best political, legal and religious jobs and favoured treatment in the courts.

The factions took differing views on the nature of the Son. Even families were divided and confidence in kinfolk was a thing of the past. The Greens maintained the single nature of the Son while the Blues stuck to the orthodox position of a dual nature. Gangs of partisans for one colour or the other roamed the streets at first only at night but later in broad daylight attacking people indiscriminately, robbing them, terrorising them and publicly raping and murdering them. They adopted the fashion of wearing their hair in the style of the Massagetic Huns short at the temples but full length at the back and their beards and moustaches they wore long like the Persians.

Carrying weapons was illegal unless you were a soldier or official but louts carried short two-edged swords under their tunics by day strapped to their thighs and wore them openly by night. They took pride in being able to dispatch an unarmed passer by with one thrust of the sword and organised competitions among the rival gangs of Blues to prove it. Young women, though women were never allowed admission to the Hippodrome except as performers or their kin, joined the gangsters in their butchery and banditry. Priests and doctors in the fulfilment of their duties were unsafe suggesting that the rivalry was less about who was right than about the pleasure to be had in banditry.

If a Blue were arrested for the murder of a Green he would soon be released when a senior Blue vouchsafed his integrity. Criminals soon realised this and made a point of joining the Blue faction, youths previously not interested in sport or politics became attracted to the unrestrained license permitted and many Greens changed sides.

Others, more set in their ways or determined in their principles were forced to leave for distant parts of the empire or even for Persia or the lands of the barbarians to escape persecution. Any Blue could denounce a Green or even someone of no declared allegiance, have him jailed and take his property. Even sons denounced or blackmailed their fathers to get hold of their wealth. Justinian encouraged all this joining in himself by denouncing certain rich monasteries as supporting the Green faction then plundering its riches for his own projects.

Not all the Blues tolerated the outrages since the wealthy ones were as likely as anyone to suffer from the loutish gangs. All the wealthy took to wearing poor quality garments and adornments before they went out lest they cost them their lives as well as their jewels. Precious stones were replaced by glass beads and gold by bronze. Everyone hurried to complete their business and be home by dusk when the maurauders rampaged unchecked.

When nothing is done to prevent wrongdoing and criminals go unpunished then crime grows unlimited. The authorities did nothing and the factions ruled the streets of the city. Unsrupulous people would bribe a gang of Blue louts to assasinate a named Green and they would do so, whether the named man was a green or not, the bribe being sufficient incentive. The fear of the mobs filled everyone, except for the most wealthy who could afford guards, with dread. Nowhere was safe, even at the most revered churches and at public festivals murders took place.

One such murder was that of Hypatius, a man of distinction, who was murdered by the factionists in the Church of St Sophia in the full light of day. Prolonged disturbances ensued. Justinian was laid low at the time by an illness which he suffered for long periods in his life. Some of the Palace official, concerned by the deteriorating situation, drew up a list of the disturbances for presentation to the emperor, hoping that while he was ill he would be ready to do as they recommended. Sure enough the emperor was in no fit state to dispute with his officials and agreed that they should order the Prefect of the City to bring the offenders to book.

The Prefect, nicknamed Melon, investigated the cases with efficiency, arrested and sentenced many of the perpetrators though many more slipped away to escape justice but later returned to participate in the Emperor’s corruption. Unfortunately, Justinian made an unexpectedly rapid recovery and immediately decided that Melon had overstepped his authority. At this stage, however, Justinian still felt the need to maintain some pretence of legality and could find no plausible reason for ruining Melon. Instead he set about his friends, bullying them into making false accusations against the Prefect.

The Court officials who had commanded Melon to investigate the criminals were too cowardly to defend the poor official when Justinian arraigned him on capital charges and it was only Proclus who, as Quaestor, had been the Emperor Justin’s senior minister, who declared that the Prefect had only done what was required of him and a death sentence was unjustified. The Emperor agreed to banishment and Melon was prepared to be sent away to Jerusalem but he heard that the Emperor had arranged for him to be assassinated there and so he took sanctuary in a church and remained there for the rest of his life.

Kovadh. Great king of the Persians died aged 83 in about 530 AD. Just before he died he had invaded Roman Armenia and laid waste to the country. Roman soldiers had to shelter in their castles and walled cities. Kovadh had chosen his youngest son Khosrou as his heir in his will but first born son, Khaous, and the second born son, Jamaspes, who was, in any case debarred from the kingship because he was not physically perfect having lost an eye in battle. Khosrou was approved as heir by the Persian Grand Council and soon rid himself of his rivals and their heirs. Khosrou decided to ease his insecurity by settling with Justinian and they agreed an ”eternal” peace whereby the Romans would pay the Persians 800,000 gold pieces to secure the Caspian Gate through the Caucusus against the Huns.

The final year of Belisar and Justinian was 564 AD. Justinian had been Emperor for 37 years and was an old man of 81. Belisarius was 59. The Empire was exhausted. Like an old man it lay feverish, too tired to call for aid, worn out by years of strife and extortion. At least the strife was at an end for the moment. But would the patient live? Still arguing about the nature of the Son Justinian decided, contrary to his long professed orthodox view, that his deceased wife, Theodora had been correct in that the flesh of the Son was incorruptible. He proclaimed he had received a new insight and issued an edict stigmatising those who held the orthodox view as ”worshippers of the corruptible”.

All churchmen were required to uphold the new doctrine. But the Patriarch of Constantinople was outraged, declaring it a heresy worse than Manichaism which maintains that the natures of the Son are contradictory. If the Son was incorruptible then he would not have betrayed human passions and weaknesses. The Patriarch was deposed.

To be completed: CB 132 Invasion of Roman Armenia by the Persians. CB 133-136 Alliance of Saracens and Persians and their march on Antioch broken by Belisarius’s quick reaction. CB 136-138 Belisarius’s courage challenged. CB 138-140 A bloody and unnecessary battle.

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