The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01

by John Julius Norwich

  At the root of the trouble there lay the same old enigma that had caused all the previous disputes - the identity of Christ. The orthodox view was that laid down nearly a century before by the Council of Chalcedon: that the Saviour possessed, in his one person, two natures inseparably united, the human and the divine. But this view had never been accepted by the monophysites, according to whom the divine nature alone existed and who consequently saw Christ as God rather than man; and these, heretics as they might be, were far too numerous and too widespread to be eliminated. Egypt, for example, was monophysite through and through; in Syria and Palestine, too, the doctrine had taken a firm and potentially dangerous hold. In the West, on the other hand, such heresy as existed at all was Arian rather than monophysite and was to be found almost exclusively among the barbarians. The Roman Church was staunchly orthodox and quick to protest at any deviation from the Chalcedonian path. Justinian therefore had a difficult and delicate course to steer. If he dealt too harshly with the monophysites, he risked rebellion and the possible loss to the Empire of valuable provinces -Egypt was one of its chief sources of corn. If he treated them with too much consideration, he incurred the wrath of the orthodox and split his subjects more than ever. Fortunately Theodora had strong monophysite sympathies, even going so far as to maintain a discreet monastery in the Great Palace; her husband could thus on occasion afford to take an outwardly rigid line in the knowledge that she would secretly be able to temper its severity.

  Thanks to this somewhat disingenuous policy, the Emperor had managed to curb most of the monophysite communities - outside Egypt, where he left them firmly alone — with considerable success; but then, suddenly, there emerged a charismatic new leader. Jacob Baradaeus ('the Ragged') was a Syriac-speaking monk from Mesopotamia. He had already spent fifteen years in Constantinople - where he may well have been one of the Empress's proteges - during which time he had caused the authorities little trouble; but in 543 the exiled monophysite Patriarch of Alexandria chose to consecrate him Bishop of Edessa. The fact that he had no hope of ever setting foot in his see, which was already safely held by a perfectly sound Chalcedonian, worried him not a bit: for him the important thing was the consecration itself, and its effect on him was electric. Disguised as a poor beggar - hence his name - he embarked on a mission to revive monophysite sentiment throughout the East, travelling constantly and at prodigious speed the length and breadth of Syria and Palestine, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, consecrating some thirty bishops as he went and ordaining several thousand priests.

  Unable to stamp out the flames of fanaticism that sprang up everywhere in the wake of Baradaeus, Justinian found himself in a quandary. The monophysites in their present mood needed still more careful treatment than before; at the same time he was already being criticized in the West for weakness and inertia in the face of the new threat. Some kind of positive action was clearly required; and so, for want of any better solution, he decided on a public condemnation - not of the monophysites but of those who occupied the other end of the theological spectrum, professing the humanity rather than the divinity of Christ: the Nestorians. This by now half-forgotten sect had been anathematized as early as 431 at the Council of Ephesus; afterwards the majority had fled eastward, to Persia and beyond, and few if any of them now remained within the imperial frontiers. It thus mattered little whether they were attacked again or not; but they had the advantage of being detested by monophysites and orthodox alike, and an ex cathedra pronouncement of the kind the Emperor intended would, he hoped, do something to defuse the increasing hostility between the two. Early in 544 he published an edict, condemning not the heresy itself but three particular manifestations of it, soon to become notorious as the 'Three Chapters': the person and writings of Nestorius's teacher, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and certain specific works of two other, still more obscure theologians, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa.

  It was a foolish idea, and it fully deserved the response it received. Only the orthodox clergy in the East agreed - in some cases a trifle unwillingly - to toe the imperial line. The monophysites, who had hoped for genuine concessions, were unappeased; in the West, the Roman bishops made no attempt to conceal their fury. Any attack on the Nestorians, they thundered, could only be a blow in favour of the monophysites; besides, had not the Council of Chalcedon examined the writings of Theodoret and Ibas and found them blameless? They refused absolutely to condemn the Three Chapters; and Stephen, the papal legate in Constantinople, made known his master's displeasure by pronouncing the ban of the Church on Patriarch Mennas himself.

  Justinian was first surprised by these reactions, and then seriously alarmed. In Italy, during the four years that had passed since the first recall of Belisarius, the Byzantine position had grown steadily worse; now, at a moment when he needed their support more than ever before, he had managed to antagonize Pope Vigilius and the entire Church of Rome. The sooner the whole thing were forgotten, the better. He made no protest when the Pope failed to condemn the Three Chapters, but settled down quietly to mend relations.

  For a year and a half he pursued this policy, and would presumably have continued to do so had circumstances allowed; but by the autumn of 545 Totila's army was at the gates of Rome. Were he to capture the city, there was nothing to prevent his holding the Pope hostage, with consequences that could only add further fuel to the flames. Justinian acted quickly. On 22 November an officer of the imperial guard with a company of excubitors arrived in Rome, seized Vigilius just as he was leaving the Church of St Cecilia after mass, loaded him on to a boat waiting in the Tiber and carried him off down the river.

  The Pope, who had no particular wish to remain in the city during what promised to be an unpleasant and protracted siege, made no complaint when told that he was being taken to Constantinople - though he may not altogether have relished the prospect of renewing his acquaintance with Theodora. Some years before, while serving as papal legate at the imperial court, he had made a secret agreement with her, by the terms of which Belisarius would depose Pope Silverius and instal him, Vigilius, in his place; in return, he would denounce the principles laid down at Chalcedon and proclaim his acceptance of the monophysite creed. The Empress had fulfilled her side of the bargain, but the Pope had reneged on his; back in Constantinople, he might have a certain amount of explaining to do.1 As things turned out, however, his meeting with the imperial couple did not occur as soon as he had expected; he remained for a whole year as their guest at Catania in Sicily - during which he dispatched several ships, laden with grain, for the relief of Rome - and only in January 547 reached the capital.

  At this stage Vigilius was still firm in his refusal to condemn the Three Chapters. Though the Emperor had greeted him warmly on his arrival and even put at his disposal the old Palace of Placidia as a residence, the Pope lost no time in making his authority felt, immediately placing Patriarch Mennas and all the bishops who had subscribed to the imperial edict

  1 A writer known as Anastasius Bibliothccarius - the Librarian - maintains that it was not Justinian but Theodora, bent on vengeance for this and other pretended offences (including murder) on the part of the Pope, who engineered the arrest of Vigilius. But the story as he tells it is too improbable to be taken very seriously.

  under four months' further sentence of excommunication.1 Before long, however, the constant pressure exerted by the Emperor and Empress -who seemed to have forgotten her previous grievances but who on this issue was every bit as zealous and determined as her husband - began to wear him down. On 29 June he was officially reconciled with the Patriarch, and on the same day he handed Justinian his signed condemnation of the Chapters, stipulating only that it should be kept secret until the end of a formal inquiry by certain Western bishops - whose findings, he hinted, were a foregone conclusion; and on 11 April 548 he published his Judica-tum, in which he solemnly anathematized the Three Chapters, while emphasizing that his support for the doctrines of Chalcedon remained unshaken.

  Thus, when
the Empress died eleven weeks later, it might have been thought that she and her husband had triumphed, and had succeeded at last in restoring unity to the Church. In fact, the split was soon revealed to be deeper than ever. Theodora had always been more feared than her husband; while she lived, many distinguished churchmen - including several of her former proteges - had preferred to keep a low profile rather than incur her displeasure. After her death, they came out publicly in opposition to the imperial edict, and gradually others followed suit across Europe. Whatever Vigilius might have said to the contrary, there could be no doubt that his anathemas had dangerously undermined the authority of Chalcedon; and the Pope was now generally reviled throughout Western Christendom as a turncoat and an apostate. In Africa, indeed, the local bishops went further still and excommunicated him.

  Only in Italy was there no real opposition to Vigilius; poor, beleaguered Italy - sacked, plundered, ravaged and now half starving -had little time to spare for abstruse theological niceties. The long struggle between Roman and Goth for mastery over the peninsula was now entering its final phase.

  Justinian's anxieties over the Three Chapters, though largely of his own making, had turned his mind away from his Italian problems. He always tended to underestimate the Goths; it may well be, too, that the recovery of Rome by the Byzantines in April 547, only four months after its capture by Totila, had confirmed him in his belief that, given only a little more time, the Gothic opposition would crumble of its own accord.

  1 No less an authority than Pope Gregory the Great claims that he also excommunicated Theodora herself. But Gregory was then still a child in Rome, and his story sounds highly unlikely. If Vigilius had taken so bold a step, we should surely have heard about it at the time - though he himself would not, one suspects, have lasted very long.

  Unfortunately, it did no such thing. On 16 January 550, history repeated itself and another group of disaffected Isaurians in the Roman garrison opened the gates - this time those of the Porta Ostiensis, near S. Paolo fuori le Mura - to Totila's men. But whereas in 546 the Goths had entered the city as invaders, they now showed every sign of staying. Many of them appropriated empty houses and settled in with their families; the Senate was reopened; refugees were encouraged to return to their old homes; damaged buildings were repaired and restored. The following summer, Totila gave still more conclusive evidence of his intentions where Rome was concerned: he staged a full-scale revival of the Games in the Circus Maximus, and personally presided over them from the imperial box. Meanwhile his fleet was ravaging both Italy and Sicily, to return in 551 loaded to the gunwales with plunder. These two insults finally stung Justinian to action. The first he could see only as a deliberate challenge to his authority; the second was the more galling in that Sicily had, since its reconquest by Belisarius, been part of the Emperor's personal patrimony, its revenues passing directly to him rather than through the imperial exchequer. He immediately looked for a new commander-in-chief to send to Italy; and his choice fell on his own first cousin, Germanus.

  In Theodora's day the appointment would have been unthinkable; she had detested Germanus even more than Belisarius, and had done him down wherever she could. But Theodora was gone; Germanus was an able soldier of long experience, without any of his predecessor's brilliance but reliable, efficient and absolutely loyal. He possessed, moreover, another advantage that promised to strengthen his position considerably once he reached Italy, for he had recently married Matasuntha, widow of that luckless King Vitiges who had died a captive in Constantinople eight years before. As granddaughter of the great Theodoric, she could be expected to attract the allegiance of most of the Gothic nobility, just as Germanus might, with any luck, win the support of the Italian land-owners.

  Was Justinian consciously working towards a restored Empire of the West, with Italians and Goths finally united and Germanus reigning in Ravenna as his Caesar and ultimate successor? Something of the sort may well have been in his mind as he bade farewell to his cousin, now at the head of an army considerably larger than any ever allowed to Belisarius, his beautiful young wife - still only about thirty and pregnant for the first time - at his side. Whether this objective would ever have been achieved, we cannot tell. In the autumn of 550 Germanus was stricken with fever and died at his camp in Sardica (now Sofia). He never set foot in Italy, and never saw his son.

  The news of his cousin's death came as another severe blow to Justinian. He was now sixty-eight, and childless. Thoughts of possible successors were beginning to occupy his mind, and Germanus, whatever the outcome of the Italian campaign, had been the obvious candidate. But the Italian situation was more pressing still, with a huge army now leaderless in the field. Its withdrawal at this stage would be worse than its defeat - tantamount to an open acknowledgement of Totila's sovereignty over the peninsula. A new commander must be found, and quickly. Did the Emperor turn, as he had turned twice before, to Belisarius? If so, Belisarius must have refused point-blank; for the man chosen for this last attempt to bring Italy back into the imperial fold was none other than the eunuch Narses, now well into his seventies.

  The choice was, to say the least, unexpected; on examination, however, it was seen to be less perverse than might have been thought. Narses was admittedly old, but he had lost none of his energy or his decisiveness. He was relatively inexperienced in the field; but there were several excellent tacticians - notably his old friend John - already in Italy. What was needed above all was a superb organizer, strong-willed and determined, able to dominate a team of ever-squabbling rivals and inspire them with new purpose and spirit. And for such a task Narses was ideally qualified.

  He had no delusions as to the magnitude of his task; by now only four cities in all Italy - Ravenna, Ancona, Otranto and Crotone -remained in Byzantine control. But Narses had not spent a lifetime in the imperial palace for nothing. He knew Justinian better than any man alive, and easily persuaded him to make available an even greater army than that he had given to Germanus - at least 35,000 men, most of them barbarians: Lombards, Gepids, Herulians and Huns, together with a number of Persians captured in the recent war. He left Constantinople in the spring of 551, but spent the rest of the year in Thrace and Illyria, touring military establishments, recruiting still more troops and generally working himself in. The coming campaign was to be the culminating achievement of his career. He could not afford to fail.

  Only in the early summer of 552 did he and his men begin their march into Italy. They came by land, advancing around the head of the Adriatic to Ravenna, where Narses was able to provide what was left of the local troops with their long overdue arrears of pay; thence, after nine days' consolidation, they continued across the Apennines and down the Via Flaminia towards the south, Totila meanwhile advancing northward up the same road to block their path. So it was that, one day towards the end of June, at Taginae (somewhere between the little towns of Scheggia and Gualdo Tadino) the Roman and Gothic armies met for what was to prove the decisive encounter of the entire war.

  Though no longer an eye-witness - he had returned to Constantinople with his master Belisarius - Procopius is still able to give us a remarkably detailed account of the battle. He tells us, for example, how Totila tried to deceive Narses by first saying he wished to delay the fighting for a week and then attacking on the following day, but how Narses suspected a trick and was ready for him; how later the Gothic King, learning that a further 2,000 of his men were on their way, genuinely played for time, going so far as to treat the two armies to a display of horsemanship and Gothic haute ecole in his efforts to win a few additional hours - incidentally providing, one would imagine, a memorable contrast with the shrivelled old eunuch who watched impassively from the opposing ranks; and how, when battle had at last been joined, the Gothic army was progressively outflanked and outfought until, as the sun was sinking, it fled in panic and disorder, the Byzantines in hot pursuit. Totila himself, mortally wounded, took flight with the rest and died in the little village of Caprae - now Capr
ara - a few hours later.

  For the Goths, all hope was now lost; but they did not surrender. Unanimously they acclaimed Teia, one of the bravest of Totila's generals, as his successor and continued the struggle. An attempt to forge an alliance with the Franks, who controlled much of Italy north of the Po, came to nothing. The Frankish King Theudibald preferred to let the two protagonists fight it out together while he remained on the sidelines; he accepted Teia's presents, but lifted not a finger to help him. Narses meanwhile continued his advance to the south, while city after city opened its gates to the conquerors. Rome itself fell after a brief siege -changing hands for the fifth time since the beginning of Justinian's reign

  - but the old eunuch marched on. Totila, he had learnt, had deposited vast reserves of treasure and bullion at Cumae, at the far northern end of the Bay of Naples; he was determined to lay his hands on it before it was spirited away. Teia, similarly resolved that he should do no such thing, sped to relieve the garrison; for some reason, however, he and his army emerged from the mountains at the southern end of the bay, near Nocera; and it was there in the valley of the river Sarno (then known as the Draco) to the south-east of Vesuvius - a mile or two from the already long-forgotten Pompeii - that, at the end of October 552, Romans and Goths met for the coup de grace. Teia himself fought heroically, until felled by a well-aimed javelin; but even after his head had been impaled on a lance and raised aloft for all his men to see, they still battled on. It was only on the evening of the following day that the few still surviving agreed to negotiate. By the terms of the consequent treaty, the Goths undertook to leave Italy and to engage in no further warfare against the Empire, receiving in return the guarantee that they would be permitted to take all their movable property with them and that they would never be forcibly conscripted into the imperial army.