Justinian

by Ross Laidlaw

  ‘Not so. There is a path, steep and narrow certainly, but not an impossible approach for an attacking force, provided it is well-armed and determined. That said, getting in is bound to be a costly business. Something we just have to accept, I’m afraid.’

  ‘The loss of life will be appalling, if we go ahead with this crazy plan of storming Magdala!’ Justinian protested to Valerian over dinner in their tent that night. ‘Anyway, it’s almost bound to fail. We ought to call the whole thing off, and besiege the place instead.’

  Something seemed to snap inside Valerian. ‘For God’s sake, Petrus, stop being so negative!’ he heard himself shout, unconsciously reverting to his friend’s old name. ‘If you’d been listening to what the Negus said, you’d know a siege was off. You’re supposed to be in charge, not me,’ he went on, weeks of pent-up resentment at the other’s inaction spilling out like a lanced boil. ‘I’m tired of taking responsibility for everything, of carrying you, in fact. Call yourself a Roman! Since Gondar, you’ve been worse than useless. It’s high time you started pulling your weight.’

  Justinian stared at Valerian, taken aback by his outburst. Then, as the significance of the latter’s words registered, loosing the cords of inhibition that had been holding him in thrall, he shook his head as if to clear it. As with Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, enabling him suddenly to see his recent behaviour objectively. ‘You’re right, old friend,’ he acknowledged quietly. ‘Thanks for that — I needed putting straight.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Tomorrow, what say we recce Islamgee and decide where to site those catapults. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ replied Valerian with a smile, gripping the other’s proferred hand. ‘And — welcome back.’

  The great machines — till this moment mere strangely shaped and innocent-looking pieces of timber and metal transported in sections by muleback or on carts — were duly being assembled on the plain of Islamagee, facing that titanic pillar, the rock of Magdala. Carrying out the task under Valerian’s supervision was a team of engineers, who had, despite frequent squalls of driving rain, been working steadily since dawn. Behind the engineers and to one side stood a small force of Roman cavalry and native spearmen, commanded by Justinian with an Aethiopian officer as his second. This was more of a routine precaution than anything else; vastly outnumbered by the expedition’s strength, Magdala’s garrison was hardly in a position to sally forth and offer battle.

  Justinian was almost happy. On coming to himself following the exchange with Valerian, he had experienced a hot flush of salutary shame which had left him feeling purged, his outlook once more positive. An image of himself, long-cherished, as a real soldier in charge of men in a combat situation, was now being realized, he told himself with quiet satisfaction. Even the weather, gusty with icy showers, was something to be relished; indifference to physical discomfort was the mark of a true soldier.

  The task of creating a breach fell to the aptly named onagri — ‘kicking asses’. Each onager consisted of a long beam powered by the torsion of twisted sinews in a frame, and faced by a padded retaining bar to absorb the shock when the arm was released by a trigger mechanism. Attached to the end of the arm was a sling to carry the missile — a large ball of stone or iron. Delivered with terrific force, these projectiles were capable, by a series of repeated hits, of smashing through stout wooden gates, or, given time, reducing stone walls to rubble. The other type of artillery was the ballista — for killing men. A cord connecting two torsion-powered arms mounted in a frame was cranked back by a ratchet device. When released by a catch, it would hurl a bolt (resting in a wooden trough) whose impact could skewer several bodies at the same time, or punch through shields or armour like a nail through putty.

  Though no doubt warned by their Jewish allies (to those below, distinguishable from the tribesmen by their helmets and pale faces) of the destructive potential of the Roman catapults, the Galla — jeering and catcalling from the ramparts, seemed more amused than intimidated by the operations of the engineers, as they slowly pieced the great machines together.

  ‘When you’re ready, ducenarius.’ Valerian nodded to the sergeant in charge of Onager Primus.

  With six artillerymen bending to the winding levers, the ratchet clanked, bringing Onager Number One’s throwing arm back to its loading cradle, when a heavy iron ball was placed in the sling.

  ‘Jacite!’* ordered the ducenarius. The release catch was thrown and the arm flew forward, slamming against the retaining bar and sending the missile whirring through the air in an arcing trajectory. The ball struck the breastwork above the gatehouse tower, sending up a spray of stone chips. A cheer arose from the catapult crew.

  ‘Good shooting,’ called Valerian. ‘Fire at will.’

  ‘Down one,’ ordered the ducenarius; this time the crew counted one less click of the ratchet before loading. The missile smashed against the woodwork of the gate itself. As if suddenly realizing the very real threat posed by the catapults, the Galla on the battlements fell silent. Soon, all four onagri were in action, inflicting visible damage on the gate and its flanking towers, while volleys of bolts from the ballistae forced the enemy to keep their heads below the ramparts. Watching from his station, Justinian wondered just how long the entry to the fortress could sustain such unrelenting punishment.

  Without warning, a sudden burst of heavy rain swept across Islamgee, instantly blotting out all vision beyond a few yards. Having found the range, however, the engineers continued their bombardment uninterrupted.

  Then, as quickly as it had commenced, the rain cleared — revealing to Justinian an appalling sight. A large party of Galla (who must have descended the path from the fortress to the base of Magdala, under cover of the squall) was charging towards the catapults! Justinian stared in horror at the rapidly advancing mass of warriors — immensely tall men with pitch-black skins, and beardless faces surmounted by monstrous globes of fuzzy hair, their delicate, almost effeminate features contorted with battle frenzy, vicious-looking spears poised to strike. He opened his mouth to give the order to charge — but no sound came. He was aware that instant action was imperative, but seemed frozen in the saddle.

  ‘Ras!’* exclaimed his second-in-command, turning to him with a desperate expression. The urgency in the man’s cry jolted Justinian out of his immobility; turning to his men, he shouted, ‘Charge!’

  The Roman cavalry, the Aethiopians racing at their side, swept down on the Galla; but too late — just — to save the engineers, who perished to a man, skewered by those terrible spears. Justinian saw Valerian go down, a reddened blade projecting a hand’s-breadth from his back. Then the horsemen were among the Galla, cutting them down with lethal swipes of their long spathae. The encounter was brief and bloody. Despite displaying ferocious courage, the Galla — incapable through temperament and tradition of presenting a defensive ring of spears against the cavalry, the only tactic that might have proved effective — fell by scores, before suddenly turning and retreating pell-mell back to the citadel.

  In an agony of grief and self-recrimination, Justinian, in conjunction with the Negus and both their senior officers, now threw himself into organizing the assault. The Galla in their sortie had not had time to damage or destroy the catapults; fresh teams of engineers resumed the bombardment, and by noon the main gate had been battered down. After bitter hand-to-hand fighting, a storming-party then managed to clear the entrance long enough for a large contingent from the expedition to gain access to the fortress. As was usual in such circumstances, no quarter was shown to the defenders, who were hunted down and killed like rats.

  After the fall of Magdala, the remainder of the campaign came almost as an anti-climax. Without further incident, the expedition proceeded to the coast, where waiting Roman transports conveyed it across the straits to Arabia Felix. Dhu-Nuwas and his army were duly brought to battle and decisively routed, the Himyarite leader being killed in the fighting. With Aethiopian rule and Christianity restored
to the Sabaeans, the Negus and his warriors returned to Africa, and Justinian — victorious but sick in soul — sailed back with the Romans to Constantinople.

  * The Blue Nile.

  * Could these Gelada baboons be the origin of the legend of the ‘dog-faced men’ — a belief that stubbornly persisted throughout the Middle Ages?

  * Shoot. Orders in the East Roman army were still being given in Latin.

  * Lord.

  PART III

  RESTITUTOR ORBIS ROMANI

  AD 527-540

  NINE

  They [Theodora and Justimian] set free from a licentiousness fit only for slaves

  the women who were struggling with extreme poverty, providing them with

  independent maintenance and setting virtue free*

  Procopius, On Buildings, c. 550

  ‘Benedico vos in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,’ intoned Epiphanius, Patriarch of Constantinople, at the conclusion of the marriage service in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, adorned by splendid mosaics and myriad statues of emperors and saints, with windows glazed by plates of translucent marble. Justinian and Theodora were then given the sacrament of Christ’s body, followed by that of His blood in a silver spoon. The veil held over the pair was now exchanged for nuptial crowns, and hand in hand, they walked slowly down the thronged nave, past courtiers, senators, patricians, officers of the Excubitors and Scholae, ministers and civil servants — all splendidly arrayed in parade uniforms or long silk robes. Peering down excitedly from the gallery, among the assembled ladies-in-waiting, maids of honour, and wives and daughters of the dignitaries in the nave below, were Theodora’s mother, and her sisters Comito and Anastasia.

  Emerging from the church into the Augusteum, Justinian and Theodora showed themselves to the vast and enthusiastic crowd waiting in the great square. Only among the upper classes, following the wedded pair in procession, were murmurings of disapproval heard: ‘. . He’s not one of us, that’s for sure. . a pair of upstarts. . He’s got barbarian ancestors, I’ve heard, and she used to be an actress — an actress! Justin had to change the law forbidding stage performers from marrying people of higher rank. . the wedding had to be postponed, you know, until the old Empress Euphemia died; she wasn’t going to countenance that common little tart succeeding to the throne. . and did you see her mother and sisters in the gallery, dressed up to the nines in those ghastly outfits, fancying themselves as good as senators’ wives? I hear that Comito, the eldest daughter is to marry a general; whatever next — patricians’ daughters marrying charioteers. .?’

  Theodora’s heart swelled with pride as the crowd began to cheer. Eat your heart out, Hecebolus, she thought, and you Greens who taunted my family and me when we appealed to you for help in the Hippodrome all those years ago, and you narrow-minded snobs among the aristocracy and, worst of all, among the nouveaux riches, who’d looked down on me because I trod the boards. From being regarded as the lowest of the low I’m now above the lot of you, married to one destined to become the ruler of New Rome, the most powerful man in the world. Fondly, she glanced at the tall, handsome figure to her right: this kind, brilliant, sensitive, ambitious, vulnerable man — whom she’d mended and made whole, and who would never come to harm as long as she was by his side. She remembered their first meeting, a year ago. .

  Following her return to the capital from Antioch, Theodora invested some of the money Timothy had given her into renting a property in Region VIII near the Julian Harbour — an area populated by small craftsmen, where in consequence the rents were not too high. Above the living quarters of the house was a large, well-lit garret, which (consulting Macedonia’s business plan) she set about converting into a workshop for spinning wool. Bypassing middlemen, she contacted (from a list again supplied by Macedonia) various suppliers from whom she obtained stocks of fine quality wool grown by sheep-farmers in the high central plateaux of Anatolia. Next, following a cause close to her heart, she recruited out-of-work actresses as workers in her business. As she knew from bitter personal experience, they might otherwise be tempted into prostitution to make ends meet. With experienced spinners hired to train her workers, Theodora’s business flourished, as clothiers, soon recognizing the quality of her product, competed to buy her yarns.

  She longed to offer employment to girls forced to work in brothels, but accepted, sadly, that this was something beyond her present power to achieve. The plight of such females was wretched, amounting to virtual slavery. With the hope of enlisting a powerful ally in tackling this evil, she decided to approach Petrus Sabbatius (renamed Justinian on his becoming consul, she discovered), to whom she had a letter of introduction provided by Macedonia. His impressive list of titles suggested a man of standing and importance who might, she thought, be able to help provided she could win him round. Her hopes were further raised when she learned that this Justinian was none other than the nephew of the emperor.

  Presenting herself at the Chalke or ‘Brazen House’ from its great bronze doors — the grand entrance vestibule of the imperial palace — she produced her letter of introduction. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ grunted the porter after briefly scanning the document. ‘His Nobilissimus ain’t receiving visitors these days — not since he got back from Arabia. Suppose there’s no harm in trying, though. Ask at the Magnaura — that’s the main audience hall.’

  Entering the sprawling collection of buildings and gardens connected by porticoed walkways, Theodora, with some difficulty, eventually tracked down the Magnaura. The silentiarius on duty in the corridor outside, studied the letter then shook his head. ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a journey for nothing,’ he declared in tones of polite regret. ‘The Count of the Domestics — His Most Noble, the Patrician — is unable to see anyone at present.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Theodora entreated, assuming her most winning smile, ‘it’s about something that’s very important to me. He may be the only person who can help, I think.’ Feeling in her purse for an obol piece with which to tip the man, she remembered, just in time, that these were gentlemen ushers, who would be greatly offended if offered a gratuity. Something of the charm and force of personality that had so affected Timothy seemed to penetrate the armour of the usher — member of a tribe of past masters in the art of administering courteous rebuffs.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said with a wry grin, shaking his head. ‘God knows why I’m doing this.’ And he set off down the corridor. Returning after a few minutes he declared, ‘The Patrician will see you now,’ and conducted her along a maze of passages to a porchway opening onto a small colonnaded garden. Chin resting on his hands, a solitary figure sat beside a fountain.

  ‘Theodora — the protegee of Macedonia of Antioch, Patricius,’ announced the usher, and withdrew.

  The seated figure rose and smiled at Theodora, who was immediately struck by several things about him: tall and good-looking, the man had a quiet presence; his affable expression suggested a kind and gracious personality; but dark shadows beneath the eyes, and lines around the mouth, hinted at some secret and deeply troubling worry.

  ‘Macedonia — a charming lady, as I recall,’ the man said, his voice low and pleasant, yet with a note of underlying sadness. ‘One of our chief suppliers of olive oil and wines. I would gladly be of service to one who is her friend.’

  Theodora explained how, with help from Macedonia’s business plan, she had started her wool-spinning project and staffed it with unemployed actresses, thus saving them from having to sell their bodies to make ends meet. ‘But what I have really set my heart on, Patricius,’ she went on (copying the form of address the silentiarius had used), ‘is to do something to help those whose only livelihood is prostitution.’

  ‘I don’t wish to appear hard-hearted,’ said the other gently, ‘but if that is what they choose to do, why should they be helped? Though Augustine might disagree, God, as Pelagius points out, has given us all free will to make our own decisions.’

  ‘But Patricius,’ declared Theodora passion
ately, ‘the girls who work in brothels are not there from choice! Let me explain. Prostitution is big business, providing for a certain loathsome type of parasite a chance to make a quick and easy living. These pimps travel round the provinces, persuading poor families to part with their daughters for a few gold coins — a fortune to penurious coloni,* often saddled with crippling debt. The inducement offered never varies: a promise of a better life for the girl in Constantinople or some other big city, working as a governess or maid or such like, to some wealthy aristocrat. Once they arrive at their destination however, a cruel surprise awaits the poor, duped girls. Sold on by the pimps to brothel-owners, they are asked to sign a contract; of course they’ve no idea what they’re letting themselves in for, thus legally binding themselves over to a life of prostitution. No fine clothes or rich food, no light domestic work plus a good salary with which to augment their parents’ income. Only a wretched and degrading form of slavery, from which the only escape is to become too old or worn-out to be of further use to their master — when they’re thrown out onto the street to fend for themselves’

  ‘That’s appalling!’ the Patricius exclaimed, appearing genuinely shocked. ‘I confess I’d no idea such a thing went on. Thank you, Theodora, for bringing it to my attention. Be assured, I’ll speak about this to my uncle. Between us, with the help of one Procopius — a brilliant young lawyer who has done good work for us — we will make a beginning: draft measures which, hopefully, will eventually become legislation.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ declared Theodora, hardly able to believe that her appeal had produced such an immediate and positive response. ‘Dare I ask, Patricius — how long?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Theodora, such things take time. From what you say, the practice would seem deep-rooted and widespread, involving ruthless men with vested interests. But imperial decrees have cracked tougher nuts before. Have no fear that something will be done — just as soon as we can get the wheels of law to turn. Come to me next week — same day, same time — and I’ll tell you what we’ve managed to do.’