Siege of Rome (18 page)

   His tactics were unsubtle: straight at the Goths, hit them between
the eyes – between the legs, as Bessas later described it with one of his feral grins – and scatter them to the four winds.

   Our left wing surged fo
rward, with me and my ten Heruls in the front rank on the extreme left. To my right, our Hunnish lancers whooped and shrieked like the savages they were, urging their heavy horses into a gallop. Constantine galloped ahead of them, bent low over his beast’s neck.

  
We spread out as we charged, to match the loose formation of the Gothic horse-archers. Half their number had peeled away to avoid contact and shoot into our flanks, while the rest spurred forward to engage us head-on.

   The most difficult
skill a horse-soldier can learn is the art of shooting a bow from the saddle while controlling the horse with his knees. I had spent hundreds of hours in the camp of the Heruli trying to master it, with limited success.

  
This was real combat, not a drill-yard, so instead I plucked one of the two light javelins hanging from my saddle and drew it to my shoulder, aiming at the contorted face of the Goth streaking towards me.

   He had put aside his bow
and drawn a thin, curved sword. I let fly with my javelin. He wrenched his pony aside in time to avoid it, and the missile plunged harmlessly to his left. I had time to draw Caledfwlch before we closed, and then it was blade to blade as both sides surged together.

   All was chaos and noise and terror, horses shrieking, men shouting, steel clashing. I parried the Goth’s wild lunge, stabbed at his face, missed, punched him with the grip of Caledfwlch, yelled in pain as I bruised my knuckles on his bony jaw. It was enough to unseat him, and he fell away, vanishing among the conflicting waves of riders.

   A red-bearded face flashed before me. I drove the point of my sword at it and felt my wrist shudder with the impact. Blood spattered up my arm. I felt a surge of exultation – got one! – and looked around for my men. They were close behind me, spearing Goths with controlled fury and lethal efficiency.

   
“On them!” I shouted, though they hardly needed telling, “cut them to pieces!”

  
The rest of the fight is a blur. I killed another Goth, I think, and suffered a minor wound on the shoulder, but events are often compressed in my memory. Now it seems to me that only seconds passed before the Goths broke and fled. Constantine’s headlong charge had taken them by surprise, and our lancers were more numerous and superior to theirs.

   My men were eager to pursue the beaten enemy, but I held them back, not wishing to lose them among that great mass of men and horses retreating towards the hills.
Constantine also kept a tight rein on his troops. His trumpeters sounded the recall, summoning back those of our men who hared after the Goths, while his silver-armoured figure rode back and forth, triumphant, over-excited, the light of victory shining in his eyes.

   He spotted me, biting back curses as one of my soldiers wrapped a bandage round the cut on my should
er, and galloped over.

   “Coel!” he shouted, holding aloft his bloody sword, “
my friend and saviour, it is good to see you! What a fight, eh? Look at them run! Have you taken a nick, then?”

   
“It is nothing,” I said with forced modesty, and truly it was not, a shallow gash from a Gothic spear, but I have never been very good at enduring pain.

   He glanced at it with fleeting concern, and then his mind flitted back to higher matters. “Look at that!” he exclaimed, indicating the battlefield, “how many Goths did we kill,
do you think? A hundred, at least!

   I did a quick head-count. Certainly there were more Goths stretched out on the field than Romans, but unlike them we co
uld ill-afford the casualties. I was tempted to say so, but it seemed a shame to spoil Constantine’s little victory.

   My fears that the Gothic war-band we
had driven off was merely part of Vitiges’ advance guard proved groundless. The King of the Goths was still at Ravenna, but news of the defeat outside Perugua seems to have spurred him into action.

   He divided his enormous host, sending part of it in
to Dalmatia. In an attempt to distract the Goths, Justinian had ordered the remains of Mundus’s troops in Illyria to cross the border and do as much damage as they could before withdrawing again.

   Vitiges then led the rest of his army, which still numbered some one hundred and fifty thousand men, south towards
Rome. Belisarius hurriedly recalled Bessas and Constantine, instructing them to leave small garrisons in the towns we had captured.

   Bessas, who unwisely despised the Goths and rated them poor soldiers, was slow in retreating, and almost caught by the vanguard of the Gothic host. He managed to extricate himself, not without heavy loss, and led the survivors of his command in an undignified scramble back to
Rome.

   I was ordered to accompany the main part of
Constantine’s force back to the city. The Goths pressed hard on our heels as we rode at a hard gallop along the Via Flaminia, the ancient road leading to the Flaminian Gate. Constantine called a halt when we reached the Milvian Bridge, two miles north of Rome.

   This great stone causeway over the
Tiber had been the scene of an epic battle between the Emperor Constantine and his rival Maxentius, some two hundred years previously. Constantine won, and went on to move the capital of the empire from Rome to a decrepit fishing port on the Bosphorus, which he modestly named after himself.

   The bridge was the main route to
Rome, and the Goths would have to cross it. Knowing this, Belisarius built an enormous wooden tower on the southern side of the river, six levels high and with fighting platforms for archers to rain missiles down on anyone advancing over the bridge. The tower commanded the passage over the river, and was manned with a strong garrison of Isaurians.

  
Constantine hailed the soldiers in the tower as we rested our horses on the northern side before crossing.  

  
“There is a fine difference between an orderly withdrawal and headlong flight,” he said, “I don’t want the barbarians to think we are running away.”

   Running away was precisely what we were doing, but again I didn’t want to shatter his delusions.

   I shaded my eyes to look north. As expected, I glimpsed a great storm of dust rolling across the plains, and felt the earth tremble slightly underfoot, like a distant earthquake.

  
“They are coming,” one of my soldiers said bleakly.

   I swallowed. They were coming. A hundred and fifty thousand Goths,
hot for revenge against the pathetic handful of Romans that had dared to invade their land.

   The siege of
Rome had begun.

14.

The Goths came on fast, ignoring our garrisons at Narni and Spoleto and Perugua. Vitiges was not to be distracted from the main prize, and all of the obstacles Belisarius had strewn in his path failed to impede his advance for a second. All, save the tower guarding the
Milvian Bridge.

   Our soldiers, including myself, crowded the walls beside the Flaminian Gate to watch the in
numerable squadrons of the Gothic vanguard march into view.

   Like locusts, Procopius had described the Gothic host, and it seemed an apt description.
A horrified silence fell over our men as the enemy spread across the land north of the bridge.

   One hundred and fifty thousand men. It sounds meaningless, a mere statistic, until you see them in the flesh. It was as though Hell had vomited up its legions of the damned, rank after rank, squadron after squadron of barbarians.

   I still call them barbarians, an arrogant conceit I picked up from the Romans, but they were no undisciplined horde of savages. They had learned the art of war from Rome, and deployed with a smooth, calm efficiency that would have brought a happy tear to the eye of Agricola or Scipio Africanus. 

   “Vitiges is in no hurry,” remarked Procopius, who stood to my left, “
he likes to sup his vengeance cold, this one. Pity. I had hoped he would charge at Rome like a bull, and dash his brains out against our defences.”

  
“We are dead men,” a soldier muttered to my right, “how can we resist such a multitude? Belisarius has brought us to our deaths.”

   “Stop whimpering,” I said angrily, “
the Goths have not won a single victory against us. Every time we fight them, they surrender or run away screaming, like frightened children.”

   He smiled bitterly. “
I would think twice before facing a hundred and fifty thousand children, sir.”

   “A hundred and fifty thousand, or half a million, it makes no odds,” I said
dismissively, “they cannot cross the bridge. Let them sit on the northern banks of the Tiber and shout insults at us. They will soon grow hoarse with shouting, and turn for home.”

   Brave words, uttered with conviction, but it was all an act.
I knew the Goths were not children, and that the tower over the Milvian Bridge could not hold them forever, but I was trying to play the role of an officer and raise morale. Judging from the cynical expressions of the soldiers who heard me, I had overplayed it.

  
Belisarius intended the tower to delay the Gothic advance, obliging them to waste valuable time building boats or marching around to find some other bridge. Such an enormous host could only be kept in the field with difficulty, and would eventually start to break up. Once that happened, Belisarius could ride out and destroy the scattered Gothic armies in turn.

  
Such was my understanding of his strategy. The morning after our return to Rome, he led out a thousand of his men to camp on the shores of the Tiber and observe the movements of the enemy. He took Bessas with him, which meant my little command was part of the expedition.

  
Had I know what would follow, I might have feigned illness or injury, anything to keep me safe inside the walls of Rome.

  
It was a sharp morning in the dying days of winter, cold and with a smattering of frost on the ground, but with the scent of spring and renewal in the air. Some of the pessimism among our men had died away, for the Goths had not moved overnight, and the dark mass of their army was still encamped beyond the northern side of the bridge.

   Belisarius
wore his golden armour, as though on parade, and rode his famous white-faced bay. I remember being cheered by the sight of him riding at the head of the column, our peerless general, with the purple and gold imperial standard fluttering above his head.

  
We spread out in a double line and approached the bridge at an easy canter. The Goths had no catapults or ballistae set up on the northern side of the bridge, and we were well out of bow-shot. I imagined Belisarius standing on the southern banks of the Tiber and thumbing his nose at the enemy, and smiled.

  
Half a mile from the bridge, our trumpeters sounded the halt. We reined in with practiced discipline, and Belisarius trotted forward a few steps, leaning forward in the saddle to study the tower. 

   Suddenly he wheeled his bay in a circle and galloped back to our line. “Back!” I heard him shout, his voice hoarse and urgent, “back to the city, at once!”

   More trumpets sounded, not ours, but from the north. Hundreds of Gothic cavalry were pouring over the bridge. For a terrible moment I thought the tower had been abandoned, but then I saw helmets gleaming on the upper levels. I waited, expecting our Isaurians to unleash a deadly hail of arrows.

   Nothing happened.
Even as our trumpets squealed the retreat, and I barked at my men to turn about, the full horror of the situation dashed over me like freezing water.

   The men in the tower were Goths. Somehow they had seized it during the night, slaughtering or driving away the garrison.
That was impossible. Our sentries on the Flaminian Gate kept a constant vigil on the tower. If the Goths had attempted an assault, the Isaurians would have sounded the alarm. Belisarius kept a strong body of Hunnish lancers on permanent alert, ready to ride out and aid the garrison.

   
The Goths moved fast, determined to catch Belisarius in the open before he reached the safety of the city. We fled back across the plain with the taste of fear in our mouths. I lashed my horse’s flanks with my spurs until the poor animal bled, growling at her to find an extra burst of speed.

   Belisarius reached the Flaminian Gate and shouted at the soldiers on the ramparts to admit us.
They hesitated.

   “What ails you?” he screamed, snatching off his helmet, “why do you delay? See, it is me, your general! Open the gates!”

   They refused to obey. Terrified by the sudden onset of the Goths, the men on the rampart abandoned all notions of duty and courage, and thought only of their own safety.

   Belisarius cursed and railed at them, threatening all kinds of dire punishments, to no avail. They vanished, and we were left stranded outside the city with thousands of baying Goths closing in behind us.