The Scarlet Banner
Page 26
CHAPTER I
PROCOPIUS OF CAESAREA TO CORNELIUS CETHEGUS CAESARIUS:
There is no longer either sense or reason in concealing my name; thebird would still be recognized by its song. And now I am almost certainthat these sheets will not be seized in Constantinople; for we shallsoon be swimming on the blue waves.
So it is war with the Vandals! The Empress has accomplished her design.She treated her husband, after he hesitated, very coldly, eveninsolently. That is always effectual. What motive urged and stillimpels her to this war, Hell knows certainly, Heaven vaguely, and I notat all.
Perhaps the blood of the heretics must again wash away a few spores ofher sins. Or she expects to gain the treasures brought to the capitolin Carthage from every land by Genseric's corsair ships,--the riches ofthe temple of Jerusalem are among them. In short, she wanted war, andwe have it.
A devout bishop from an Asiatic frontier city--his name isAgathos--came to Constantinople. The Empress summoned him to a privateaudience. I heard it from Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, who was theonly person present. Theodora showed him a letter which he had writtento the Persian King. The Bishop fell prostrate on the floor withfright. She pushed him with the tip of her golden slipper. "Rise, OAgathos, man of God," she said, "and dream to-night of what I now sayto you. If you do not tell this dream to the Emperor, before tomorrownoon I will give him this letter to-morrow afternoon, and beforeto-morrow evening, O most holy man, you will be beheaded."
The Bishop went out and dreamed as he had been commanded--probablywithout sleeping. Before the early bath on the following day he soughtJustinian, and, in the utmost excitement,--which was not feigned,--toldhim that Christ had appeared to him the night before in a dream andsaid: "Go to the Emperor, O Agathos, and rebuke him for havingfaint-heartedly given up the plan of avenging me upon these heretics.Tell him: Thus saith Christ the Lord: 'March forth, Justinian, and fearnot. For I, the Lord, will aid thee in battle, and will force Africaand its treasures beneath thy rule.'"
Then Justinian was no longer to be restrained. War was determined.The opposing Prefect was thrown into prison. Belisarius was madecommander-in-chief. The priests proclaimed the pious Bishop's dreamfrom the pulpits of all the basilicas. The soldiers were ordered byhundreds to the churches, where courage was preached to them. Courtofficials told the dream in the streets, in the harbor, and on theships. By the command of the Empress, Megas, her handsomest court poet,put it into Greek and Latin verses. They are astonishingly bad, worsethan even our Megas usually writes; but they are easy to learn, so byday and night soldiers and sailors sing them in the streets and thewine-shops, as children sing in the dark to keep their courage up; forour heroes really do not yet feel very anxious to make the holy voyageto Carthage. So we shout incessantly,--
"Christus came to the holy Bishop; Christus warned Justinian: 'Avenge Christus, Justinianus, on the wicked Arian. Christus himself will slay the Vandals, Africa give to thy hand!'"
The poem has two merits: first, it can be repeated as often as youplease; secondly, it makes no difference with which verse you begin.The Empress says--and of course she must know--that the Holy Ghostinspired Megas.
We are working night and day. The shaggy little nags of the Huns areneighing in the streets of Constantinople. Among these troops are sixhundred excellent mounted archers, commanded by the Hunnish chiefs,Aigan and Bleda, Ellak and Bala. There are also six hundred Herulians,led by Fara, a Prince of that people. They are Germans in Justinian'spay; for "Only diamond cuts diamond," Narses says: "always Germansagainst Germans is our favorite old game."
Strong bands of other Barbarians march also through our streets:Isaurians, Armenians, and others, under their own leaders. We call themour allies; that is, we "give" them money or grain, for which they paywith the blood of their sons. Among the nations of our own empire, theThracians and Illyrians are the best soldiers. In the harbor the shipsare rocking, impatiently tugging at their anchors in the east wind,their eager prows turned toward the west.
The army is gradually being placed on board of the fleet: eleventhousand foot, five thousand horse, upon five hundred keels, withtwenty thousand sailors. Among them, as the best war-ships, are onehundred and two swift-sailing galleys manned by two thousand rowersfrom Constantinople; the other sailors are Egyptians, Ionians, andCilicians. The whole array presents a beautiful warlike spectacle whichI would rather gaze at than describe; but the most glorious part of itis the hero Belisarius, surrounded by his bodyguard, the shield andlance bearers, battle-tried men, selected from all the nations of theearth.
* * * * *
Already half the voyage lies behind us. I am writing these lines to youin the harbor of Syracuse.
Hitherto everything has been wonderfully successful; the goddess Tyche,whom you Latins call Fortuna, is certainly blowing our sails. Theembarkation was completed by the end of June. Then the General's ship,which was to convey Belisarius, was summoned to the shore in front ofthe imperial palace. Archbishop Epiphanius of Constantinople appearedon board; an Arian whom he had just baptized into the Catholic faithwas brought on deck as the last man; then he blessed the ship,Belisarius, and all the rest of us, including the Pagan Huns, went downinto his boat again, and, amid the exulting shouts of thousands, ledthe way, in advance of the General's vessel, for the whole fleet. Weare very pious people, all of us whom the Empress and the dutifullydreaming Bishop and Justinian send forth to extirpate the heretics. Itis a holy war--we are fighting for the Christus. We have said it sooften that we now believe it ourselves.
Our course led past Perinthus--it is now called Heraclea--to Abydos.There some drunken Huns began to fight among themselves, and two ofthem killed a third. Belisarius instantly ordered both to be hung on ahill above the city. The Huns, especially the kinsmen of the two whowere executed, made a great outcry: according to their law murder isnot punished with death. I suppose the justice of the Huns permits theheirs of the murdered man to carouse with the murderers at theirexpense till they all lie senseless on the ground together. And whenthey wake, they kiss each other, and all is forgotten; for the Huns areworse drinkers than the Germans--and that is saying a great deal. Theirpay contract only requires them to fight for the Emperor; he is notpermitted to deal with them according to the Roman law. Belisariusassembled the Huns under the gallows from which the two were dangling,surrounded them with his most loyal men, and roared at them like alion. I don't believe they understood his Latin, or rather mine, for Itaught him the speech; but he pointed often enough to the men on thegallows: they understood that. And now they obey like lambs.
The voyage continued past Sigeum, Taenarum, Metone, where many of ourmen died, for the commissary at Constantinople, instead of baking thesoldiers' bread twice, had lowered it, as raw dough, into the publicbaths (how appetizing! but, to be sure, it cost nothing); and when itwas completely saturated with water, had it browned quickly on theoutside upon red-hot plates. So it weighed much heavier (the Emperorpays for it by weight), and he gained several ounces in every pound.But it gently melted into most evil-smelling mush, and five hundred ofour men died from it. The Emperor was informed; but Theodora intercededfor the poor commissary (he is said to have paid one-tenth of hisprofits for her Christian mediation), and the man received only areprimand, so we heard later. From Metone we went past Zacynthos toSicily, where, at the end of sixteen days, we dropped anchor in an oldroadstead, now unused,--the place is called Caucana,--opposite MountAEtna.
Now heavy thoughts assailed the hero Belisiarius. He so thirsts forbattle that he dashes blindly wherever a foe is pointed out. Yetanxiety is increasing. Not one of the numerous spies who were sentfrom Constantinople to Carthage long before our departure hasreturned--neither to Constantinople, nor to any of the stopping-placeson our route that were assigned to them. So the General knows as muchabout the Vandals as he does of the people in the moon.
What kind of people they are, their method of warfare, how h
e is toreach them--he has no idea. Besides the soldiers have fallen back intotheir old fear of Genseric's fleet, and there is no Empress on boardwho might order some one to dream again. The limping trochees of thecourt poet are rarely sung; the men have grown disgusted with theverses; if any one strikes up the air half unwillingly, two othersinstantly drown his voice. Only the Huns and the Herulians--to thedisgrace of the Romans, be it said--refrain from open lamentations;they remain sullenly silent. But our warriors, the Romans, do notshrink from loudly exclaiming that they would fight bravely enough onland, they are used to it; but if the enemy should assail them on theopen sea, they would force the sailors to make off with sails and oarsas fast as possible. They could not fight Germans, waves, and wind, allat the same time, upon rocking ships, and it was not in their contractfor military service. Belisarius, however, feels most disturbed by hisuncertainty concerning the plans of the enemy. Where is thisuniversally dreaded fleet hiding? It is becoming mysterious now that wesee and hear nothing of it. Is it lying concealed behind one of theneighboring islands? Or is it lurking, on the watch for us, upon thecoast of Africa? Where and when shall we land?
I said yesterday that he ought to have considered this somewhatearlier. But he muttered something in his beard, and begged me to atonefor his errors to the best of my ability. I must go to Syracuse and, onthe pretext of buying provisions from your Ostrogoth Counts, inquireeverything about these Vandals, of whom he is ignorant and yet ought toknow. So I have been here in Syracuse since yesterday, asking everybodyabout the Vandals, and they all laugh at me, saying: "Why, ifBelisarius does not know, how should we? We are not at war with them."It seems to me that the insolent fellows are right.