Masters of the Battlefield

by Davis, Paul K.

  Wherever the truth lay, the battle was a Roman defeat. However, it had little major consequence in the overall scheme of things, for Cavadh soon died and his heir, Chosroes, took the throne and initiated peace talks. Zachariah of Mitylene reports that “Belisarius, being held culpable by the king on account of the rout which had been inflicted on the Roman army by the Persians at Thannuris and on the Euphrates, had been dismissed from his command and went up to the king.”49 He was recalled to Constantinople, either as punishment for his defeat or in preparation for the invasion of Vandal-held North Africa (depending on which author one believes). The battle did, however, prove to be Belisarius’s last defeat.

  In Constantinople, Belisarius ingratiated (or reingratiated) himself with Justinian by suppressing a major domestic revolt, the Nika riots, in 532. The following year he led an expedition to Carthage to challenge Vandal dominance and begin Justinian’s master plan to establish his rule in as much of the old Roman Empire as possible. Two major battles, Ad Decimum and Tricameron, were both Roman victories with cavalry; infantry were nearby for the battles but not directly involved in them. Neither will be discussed here, for they were as much Vandal defeats owing to their King Gelimer’s poor leadership as they were Belisarius’s victories won through persistence and hard fighting. They certainly aided in reinvigorating his reputation, although this wasn’t necessarily a blessing. While Belisarius gained the confidence of his men by winning a campaign far from home with a smaller army than the one he faced, he also came to the attention of Justinian, who knew the fate of emperors with too-successful generals: they often found themselves overthrown. From this point forward, Justinian gave Belisarius more and more difficult tasks but with smaller and smaller forces. It is to Belisarius’s credit that he not only succeeded in making bricks with very little straw but he also never let his emperor’s paranoia become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  The Gothic War

  THE BYZANTINES HAD FOR SOME TIME been on good terms with the Ostrogoths, branch of the Eastern Germanic Goths located in Italy. The eastern empire had supported the Gothic king Theodoric when he invaded Italy to defeat Odovacer in 493. Once established in Ravenna, Theodoric ruled not only as king of the Ostrogoths but as the eastern emperor’s viceroy. A minority population in Italy, the Goths worked successfully with the existing Roman bureaucracy. Theodoric maintained a clear distinction between his own people and his Roman subjects, but he hoped that the Ostrogoths could elevate themselves to a level with the people they ruled.50 The “viceroyalty” extended throughout Italy and into Pannonia.

  All was well as long as Theodoric lived. Unfortunately, the successors of a great king rarely match his talents. Theodoric left behind but one child, a daughter named Amalasuntha. Her first husband died, leaving behind a son, Athalaric. Amalasuntha seems to have been quite capable in her own right and served as regent to her young son, but Gothic tradition would not allow a queen to be supreme ruler. Early in Justinian’s reign, he had sought to strengthen relations with Theodoric, but soon he began to persecute Christian heresies, which included the Arianism practiced by the Goths. When Theodoric died in 526, the combination of religious persecution and the question of royal succession disturbed the Gothic population. Amalasuntha sought cordial relations with Justinian and aided him in his war against the North African Vandals by allowing free use of Sicilian bases. Her regency ended, however, when Athalaric died. Amalasuntha offered to marry Vandal chieftain Theodahad on the presumption that she would remain the power behind the throne. He agreed to the marriage, but afterward subverted her authority and within a few months had her killed (April 535). Justinian used the murder as his justification for committing troops to Italy. Theodahad could step down as king and swear fealty to Justinian, but anything less than that meant war.

  The Gothic Military

  THE OSTROGOTHS AND VISIGOTHS THAT FOUGHT together and defeated the eastern Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 376 apparently were so satisfied with their weapons and tactics that very little had changed by the time Belisarius invaded Italy. The cavalry made up the bulk of the army and could be classified as heavy. A Gothic horseman wore a helmet with protection for his neck and cheeks and a flexible suit of armor, of metal or leather, which reached down at least to his knees. He wielded the extralong thrusting lance, the contus, to which a pennant was affixed, and he carried a sword and small shield as secondary weapons for close combat on horseback or when dismounted. The warriors rode armored horses and charged at the gallop with long lances held in close formation.51

  Theodoric had begun expanding the role of infantry, but it still remained very minor. What archers the Ostrogoths used were infantry. They had greater range with their bows than did mounted archers, but were not as strong on the defensive as heavy infantry. Although the cavalry did depend on them as a line behind which to retreat, it was for the shield of arrows rather than the physically solid defense heavy infantry could provide.

  Little had changed in the nature of Gothic tactics, attitudes, or armament since the days of their first appearance in Europe, nor had the basic technological aspects of warfare changed.52 The Ostrogoths used swords produced in Roman shops or with very similar techniques.53 Exposure to the Romans had altered their order of battle structure, however, primarily during Theodoric’s reign. The Ostrogoths achieved a reputation of strength against other barbarians by building on their own traditions, but they also adapted some Roman organizational and support systems.54 Their tactics relied primarily on mass, with only basic maneuvers included. The principal elements of Gothic tactics were lightning-quick attacks launched from ambush and accompanied by loud war cries, outflanking maneuvers to attack the enemy’s infantry, the hard and fast cavalry charge in the hope of dealing a decisive blow before the horses were exhausted, quick retreat behind the lines of their infantry in case the attack failed, and gathering new forces for follow-up attack, reinforced by reserves.55 Unfortunately for the Goths, ambushes were difficult to set up during a siege. Therefore, they had to depend on infantry (their secondary arm) for scaling walls, for which they had little skill or experience, or await a Byzantine sally in order to bring their cavalry into play.

  The Siege of Rome

  JUSTINIAN SENT BELISARIUS TO SICILY in 536 with some 4,000 Byzantine soldiers and foederati, 3,000 Isaurians, 200 Huns, and 300 Moors, as well as Belisarius’s bucellarii in unknown numbers. While this is a small force with which to capture all of Italy, Justinian did send a force to threaten the Goths’ northern border: Mundas, commanding Byzantine forces in Illyricum (along the eastern Adriatic coast), was ordered to invade Dalmatia.

  Those two forces in conjunction with an alliance with the Franks in Gaul gave the Goths three threats to face. While those were sufficient to strike fear in the Gothic king’s heart, Belisarius’s quick capture of Sicily sent him into a panic. Gibbon writes that although Theodahad “descended from a race of heroes, he was ignorant of the art, and averse to the dangers, of war.”56 He quickly entered into negotiations with Justinian’s envoy, signing a treaty that would make Italy subservient to the empire in return for his retention of the throne. A second treaty, to be offered if the first was rejected, was to retire from the throne in return for a sizable pension. Justinian rejected the first, demanding abdication; he gladly agreed to the second. Theodahad, however, refused to abdicate upon learning that the Byzantine force approaching through Dalmatia had been defeated. He should have taken the money and run. Instead, he bribed the Franks sufficiently to keep them at bay and now had only one army to face.

  By the spring of 536 Belisarius had not only conquered Sicily but had made a quick punitive expedition to Carthage as well. Leaving a small garrison in Palermo, he crossed the strait of Messina into the toe of Italy and began his march northward. His first challenge came at Naples. The citizens negotiated with Belisarius; unfortunately, they could not decide with which power their security lay, the Goths or Romans. The Goths had ruled fairly for decades and done little to restrict the h
abits of the Italians. The Byzantines, on the other hand, were painted by the Goths to be more Greek than Roman and with no real interest in taking care of the citizenry. The Neapolitans suggested Belisarius just move on toward Rome, but he could not leave a major city and Gothic garrison behind him. A twenty-day siege ensued that cost Belisarius men as well as time, but finally a secret entrance into the city was discovered and Naples fell. Only after significant pillage, looting, and rapine did Belisarius restrain his troops. Leaving another garrison behind depleted his forces even further, and he marched for Rome with perhaps 5,000 soldiers.

  With Naples lost and a renewed Byzantine offensive in Dalmatia, Theodahad ran. The Goths had had too much of his self-serving dithering. In November 536 a gathering of Gothic warriors declared Theodahad dethroned and, as there were no more male members of the royal family, elected a man of obscure birth but of some military experience named Vittigis. In retrospect, the choice could have been better, but he was an improvement over Theodahad, who was captured and executed.57 In Rome, Vittigis made a smart political move rather than a smart military one. He left a 4,000-man garrison in Rome and marched the rest of his army to the capital at Ravenna, where he forced Theodoric’s granddaughter Matasuntha into marriage, thus giving his kingship some measure of legitimacy. Meanwhile, Rome was changing hands. Fearing a repeat of the Neapolitan experience, the citizens of the Eternal City opened their gates to Belisarius on 9 December 536. Without local support, the Gothic garrison fled.

  However, the Roman citizens were not too enthused about facing a siege by their erstwhile overseers. As Lord Mahon describes, “With all the eloquence of cowardice, they attempted to dissuade Belisarius from his project of fortifying Rome, and represented, in glowing colors, the inadequate store of provisions for its maintenance, and the vast and untenable extent of its walls. They urged that its inland position cut off all maritime supplies, and that its level site presented no natural advantage for defense.”58 Belisarius politely took note, but restored the walls, emptied ships from Sicily of their grain, obliged the locals to bring him the harvest, and sent out troops. Some spread around the southern and eastern countryside, gathering in more supplies from cities the Goths had left either lightly garrisoned or undefended. He also sent forces northward to seize key fortresses, hoping to delay Vittigis’s advance.

  Vittigis was soon on his way. With his forces making little headway against the Byzantines in Dalmatia, he decided to attack Rome. News of the size of Belisarius’s army encouraged him and he sped for the city. The troops Belisarius had sent north either fled back to Rome or closed themselves up in the fortresses they had captured, there to be isolated by small Gothic forces. Procopius numbers the Gothic army at 150,000, but modern historians disagree.59 Fifteen thousand seems the more likely number, though Ernest Dupuy and Trevor Dupuy propose 50,000.60 Suffice it to say, Belisarius was outnumbered. The Gothic numbers must have been relatively low, however, for they only besieged the northern half of the city.

  By seizing the towns of Spolento, Narni, and Perugia, Belisairus did oblige Vittigis to slow his rush for Rome. Belisarius put the time to good use, not only strengthening the walls but digging a wide trench outside them. He also built a tower to guard a bridge the Goths would be crossing. Generally described as the Milivian Bridge, it may have been another bridge across the Anio River, today known as the Teverone, and Procopius describes both that river and the Tiber by the same name. The fort was certainly stout enough to defend the bridge, but the fortitude of the defenders was not. They fled rather than fight, and a few more days of preparation were lost.

  Combat occurred quickly. Apparently in ignorance of the fall of his bridge fort, Belisarius led 1,000 cavalry out on a reconnaissance mission. They were surprised by a large Gothic force and obliged to stage a fighting withdrawal. One of the fort’s deserters identified Belisarius to the Goths as riding a distinctively white-faced horse. That meant the bulk of the Gothic army aimed toward the Roman commander in order to reap immense glory. Belisarius and his bodyguard had an intense melee on their hands, and they retreated back to the gate—only to find it closed against them. Rumor had spread inside the walls that Belisarius was dead, and the citizens were not about to let an angry horde of Goths into the city, no matter how many Romans may have been left outside. Faced with an unenviable situation, Belisarius did the unexpected: he ordered a charge. The turnabout was so sudden and violent the Goths assumed a fresh force must have sallied from the gates, so they retreated to their camps in fear. The remaining Romans and their commander (not only alive but completely unharmed) then beat their own retreat into the city.

  Vittigis sent a representative to vocally harass the citizens of Rome for their betrayal and then ordered the siege to begin. The Goths established six camps, positioned to cover at least one gate each, stretching from the east bank of the Tiber at the Porta Flaminia around to the easternmost gates of Tiburtina and Praenastina. Later, one was set up west of the Tiber on the Plains of Nero (Campus Neronis) near Vatican Hill. Procopius writes that “the Goths dug deep trenches about all their camps, and heaped up the earth, which they took out from them, on the inner side of the trenches, making this bank exceedingly high, and they planted great numbers of sharp stakes on the top, thus making all their camps in no way inferior to fortified strongholds.”61

  Vittigis also ordered that the aqueducts supplying the city be destroyed. The besieged were still able to to draw water from the Tiber and from wells, so water was never in short supply, but the flow from the aqueducts had powered the mills. The Tiber therefore became the site for new mills and the grinding continued as long as there was grain. Belisarius had already stationed men at each gate and now drafted townsmen into the ranks to spread his forces a bit farther and give the Romans a stake in their own defense. He also ordered the commanders at each gate to disregard any report of breakthroughs in other parts of the city; they should continue to man their posts and not fly to aid others, since such alerts may have been nothing but rumors.

  Learning from deserters of discontent within the city, Vittigis sent envoys to offer the Byzantines safe passage out of Rome. Belisarius was brusque (and prescient) in his reply: “I say to you that there will come a time when you will want to hide your heads under the thistles but will find no shelter anywhere.… And whoever of you has hopes of setting foot in Rome without a fight is mistaken in his judgment. For as long as Belisarius lives, it is impossible for him to relinquish this city.”62 Vittigis, however, was determined to make short work of the siege and began building assault engines. Three weeks into the siege, the assault weapons, wheeled towers protecting battering rams, were built and ready for use. Vittigis also had large numbers of scaling ladders built and fascines bundled to fill in the ditch outside the walls.

  Belisarius had also been using his time placing his own engines for defense. Along the walls were placed a number of ballistae, catapults firing bolts shorter but thicker than arrows to a range roughly twice that of a bow. Inside and protected by the walls were onagers, consisting of an arm affixed at the bottom by braided rope that built torsion as the arm was pulled backward and downward; the opposite end of the arm comprised a sling holding a rock. When the arm was released the rock soared high and far. (The trebuchet of later centuries used a pivot and counterweight to accomplish the same action.) The accuracy of the onager was minimal, but the ballista could and did wreak great havoc.

  Vittigis brought his engines forward on 21 March. Many of the defenders (mainly the civilians) were fearful, but Belisarius laughed. Many thought it was bravado, but he soon showed them the cause of his humor. Ordering the archers to hold their fire until he gave the signal, Belisarius allowed the rams to be hauled by their ox teams into arrow range. He then nocked an arrow and shot it through the throat of one of the Goth officers. Another followed with identical results. At that, masses of arrows flew into the advancing army. Belisarius had the archers closest to him concentrate their fire on the oxen, which soon left the ram
s immobile far from the city walls.

  Vittigis left a force of archers behind with orders to keep up a steady fire on the defenders while he led an attack on the city gate called the Porta Praenestina to the east. Meanwhile, a third force attacked across the Plain of Nero to Hadrian’s Tomb. The walls there seemed so formidable that Belisarius had stationed only a small force guarding the tomb and the Porta Cornelia. The Goths rushed the walls with large shields protecting them from arrows and were soon at the walls with scaling ladders. The defenders could not shoot down on the advancing Goths without exposing themselves, so found themselves in dire straits. One soldier, looking about, noticed the large number of marble statues around the tomb. He began breaking them into pieces and hurling the marble blocks onto the attackers. Soon all the defenders were pelting the Goths, who were forced away from the walls and then became exposed to arrow fire. Thus, the handful of defenders repelled the assault. Belisarius ordered sallies from various gates to attack the Goths while they were spread out; they abandoned their assaults and fled back to their camps. “Then Belisarius gave the order to burn the enemy’s engines, and the flames, rising to a great height, naturally increased the consternation of the fugitives,” Procopius writes.63

  “Such was the loss and consternation of the Goths that, from this day, the siege of Rome degenerated into a tedious and indolent blockade,” writes Gibbon.64 At this point Belisarius wrote to Justinian, begging for reinforcement. While detailing his successes, he subtly applied some pressure on the emperor to act if he wished their victory to continue. He reminded Justinian that “it has never been possible even for many times ten thousand men to guard Rome for any considerable length of time…. And although at the present time the Romans are well disposed toward us, yet when their troubles are prolonged, they will probably not hesitate to choose the course which is better for their own interests.… [N]o man will ever be able to remove me from this city while I live; but I beg thee to consider what kind of a fame such an end of Belisarius would bring thee.”65 Upon receiving this letter, Justinian responded, but the reinforcements he sent were obliged by bad weather to stop and winter in Greece.