Count Belisarius

Robert Graves

• Publisher: RosettaBooks
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780795336713
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Ficción histórica

This "vigorous tale" by the acclaimed author of I, Claudius captures the sixth century fall of the Byzantine Empire as seen through the eyes of a servant ( Kirkus Reviews ). Threatened by invaders on all sides, the Eastern Roman Empire of the sixth century fought to maintain its borders. Leading its defense was the Byzantine general Belisarius, a man who earned the grudging respect of his enemies, and who rose to become Emperor Justinian's greatest military leader. Loosely based on Procopius's History of the Justinian Wars and Secret History, this novel tells the Belisarius's story through the eyes of Eugenius, a eunuch and servant to the general's wife. It presents a compelling portrait of a man bound by a strict code of honor and unrelenting loyalty to an emperor who is intelligent but flawed, and whose decisions bring him to a tragic end. Eminent historical novelist and classicist Robert Graves presents a vivid account of a time in history both dissolute and violent, and demonstrates one again his mastery of this historical period. "A brilliant piece of scholarship." — Kirkus Reviews "The scope of the book is massive—encompassing religious controversy and cultural developments as well as military history—yet, throughout, Graves succeeds in blending historical details with the development of his main characters." —Historical Novel Society

CHAPTER 1

THE BOYHOOD OF BELISARIUS

When he was seven years old, Belisarius was told by his widowed mother that it was now time for him to leave her for a while, and her retainers of the household and estate at Thracian Tchermen, and go to school at Adrianople, a city some miles away, where he would be under the guardianship of her brother, the Distinguished Modestus. She bound him by an oath on the Holy Scriptures—she was a Christian of the Orthodox faith—that he would fulfil the baptismal oath sworn on his behalf by his god-parents, both of whom were recently dead. Belisarius took this oath, renouncing the world, the flesh, and the devil.

I, the author of this Greek work, am a person of little importance, a mere domestic; but I spent nearly my whole life in the service of Antonina, wife to this same Belisarius, and what I write you must credit. Let me then first quote an opinion of my mistress Antonina on the subject of this oath sworn at Tchermen: she held that it was most injudicious to bind little children by spiritual oaths of such a sort, particularly before they have even attended school or had the least experience of the world of men and women and clerics. It was no less against Nature, she said, than if one subjected a child to some bodily handicap: for example, that he should always carry about with him, wherever he went, a small log of wood; or that he should never turn his head in the socket of his shoulders, but either bend the whole body around or move his eyes, perhaps, independently of the head. These would be great inconveniences, admittedly, but not nearly so great as those attendant on a solemn oath, to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, taken by a young nobleman destined for the service of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor of the Eastern Romans, who rules at Constantinople. For either, on the boy’s reaching adolescence, temptations come on him and the oath is broken, and his heart is filled with remorse—in which case he loses confidence in his own moral fortitude; or else the oath is broken in the same way but no remorse is felt, because world, flesh, and devil appear delightful things—in which case he loses all sense of the solemn nature of an oath.

Yet Belisarius was so exceptional a child and grew to be so exceptional a man that no difficulties whatsoever put in his way could have greatly troubled him. To take the absurd instance that my mistress used: he would easily have accommodated his body to the rule of never turning his head on his shoulders and would have made this habit seem nobility, not stiffness. Or he would have carried about his perpetual log of wood and made this seem the most convenient and necessary object in the world—a weapon, a stool, a pillow—so that he even might have set a City fashion in handsomely carved and inlaid logs of wood. And certainly this fashion would be no sillier or more superstitious than many current today among the young dandies of the rival factions at the Hippodrome, and many more that have come in and gone out again in this wearisome century: fashions in beards, cloaks, oaths, toys, scents, games of chance, carnal postures, terms of endearment, aphrodisiacs, religious argument and opinion, reliquaries, daggers, comfits.

Belisarius, at all events, took this dangerous oath with the same innocence of purpose as when once young Theseus of Athens swore before his widowed mother to avenge his father’s death on the monstrous Minotaur of the Cretan Labyrinth, who ate human flesh.

Whether or not he was true to the oath you shall judge after reading this story. But let me assure you, if you are perhaps Christians of the monkish sort who read this, that Belisarius was not at all of your habit of mind, and cared little for dogma; and that when he became master of a large household he forbade all ecclesiastical disputation within the walls of his house, as being unprofitable to the soul and destroying the family peace. This was my mistress Antonina’s decision first of all, but he agreed with her after a time and made it his, and subjected even bishops and abbots, if they happened to be his guests, to the same discipline.

So this was the first of the three oaths he swore; and the second was to his Emperor—to the old Emperor Anastasius, in whose reign he was born, and subsequently to the two successors of Anastasius; and the third oath was to my mistress Antonina as his wife. These remarks will serve as preface to the work which follows, which I am writing in extreme old age at Constantinople in the year of our Lord 571; which is the thirteen hundred and sixth year from the foundation of the City of Rome.

Belisarius was born in the year of our Lord 500, and his mother regarded this as ominous. For the Devil was, she believed, allowed dominion on this earth for a thousand years, and at the close of this time mankind would finally be redeemed: therefore the year of her only son’s birth came, as she said, in the very centre of the long black night dividing the first day of glory from the second. But I, Eugenius the Eunuch, confess that I regard such opinions as superstitious and altogether unworthy of sensible persons; nor did my dear mistress Antonina think otherwise in these matters.

This young Belisarius dutifully said good-bye to his mother and the household retainers, who (taking the slaves with the free and counting in children and old people) numbered some two hundred souls; and mounting his fine white pony rode towards Adrianople. There accompanied him John, the bailiff’s son, an Armenian boy of his own age who had played the part of Belisarius’s lieutenant in the small private army he enrolled from children living on the estate; and Palaeologus, a Greek tutor who had already taught him the rudiments of reading and writing and ciphering; and two Thracian slaves. Palaeologus was unarmed, but the slaves carried swords, and Belisarius and Armenian John had light bows suitable to their strength with a few good arrows. These boys were already very handy with their bows, both on foot and when mounted; as might be expected. For the Armenians are a sturdy race and Belisarius was of Slavonic stock—as his name Beli Tsar, meaning the White Prince, indicates; the heathen Slavs, who live beyond the River Danube, are notable archers and horsemen. His father’s family had been settled at Tchermen for a hundred years, and was wholly Romanized and had been raised to the second of the three ranks of nobility.

This journey from Tchermen was by the fields, not by the main road from Constantinople to Adrianople, which passes near this village. Several times Belisarius and John, with their tutor’s permission, rode off the track in pursuit of game; and Belisarius was fortunate enough to shoot a hare, which provided a meal for them that night at the inn where they proposed to lodge. It was only a small inn, not much frequented, and the old landlady was in deep distress: her husband had recently been killed by the fall of an elm-branch while tending his vines, and their man-slave had thereupon run off, stealing the only horse in the stables, and might be anywhere by now. She had only a young girl slave left, who inexpertly tended the animals and vines while she herself worked in the house. The travellers perceived that at this inn they must provide their own food and do their own cooking. Of their two slaves, one was a porter, a strong, brave man without knowledge or adaptability, and the other was a youngster, Andreas, who had been trained as a bath-attendant; neither of them could dress a hare. Palaeologus sent the porter off to gather fire-wood and draw water, and set Andreas at scouring the greasy inn-table with sand. He himself skinned and jointed the hare, which presently was simmering in a pot with bay-leaves and cabbage and barley and a little salt. Armenian John stirred the pot with a horn spoon.

Belisarius said: ‘I have a packet of black peppercorns from Ceylon, which my mother is sending by me as a present for my Uncle Modestus. I like this Indian pepper. It stings the mouth. It will not detract much from the gift if I grind a few peppercorns in the little hand-mill that goes with it, to flavour our hare-soup.’

He opened his saddle-bag and took out the packet of peppercorns and the hand-mill and began grinding. Being only a child, he ground too much for a meal for five persons; until Palaeologus, observing him, exclaimed: ‘Child, that is enough pepper for a Cyclops!’ Then, while the hare was stewing, Palaeologus told them the tale, which they had not heard previously, of Ulysses in the Cyclops’ cave and how he charred a stake in the fire and, making the Cyclops drunk, thrust out his one eye with the flaming point. The boys and the slaves listened laughing; for Palaeologus, quoting the play of Euripides, was very droll in his imitation of the stricken Cyclops. Then they set the table for three—the slaves would eat apart afterwards—and poured wine into the cups from a smoky earthenware wine-jar that they found in a cupboard. The slave Andreas cut slices of bread for them with his hunting-knife.

At last the meal was practically ready, the hare only wanting a few more minutes to be cooked. Palaeologus had added to the pot two or three spoonfuls of wine and a pinch or two of pepper and a small sprig of rosemary and a little sour sorrel which the old woman fetched from the back-garden. Every now and then they tasted the soup with the horn spoon. Four tallow candles had just been lighted, which it was Andreas’s duty to snuff when the wick grew cauliflowered. But at this happy moment a great noise was heard at the door and in burst six truculent armed men, Asiatic Greeks by their speech, and disturbed everything.

With them they had a decently dressed, mild-featured young man, bound hand and foot so that he could not walk. He seemed a well-to-do artisan or tradesman. The leader, a very burly fellow, carried this prisoner on one shoulder like a sack of grain and flung him into the corner by the fire—I suppose because this was the place farthest from the door, if he should try to escape. The man was plainly desperate and in full expectation of being murdered. His name, it proved later, was Simeon, a burgess of that district. It had fallen to him by lot to go on behalf of his fellow-burgesses to a great land-owner named John of Cappadocia, begging him to pay the land tax due from him, or at least a part of it—an obligation which this rich young man had long evaded. Now, the district was called upon to pay so many pounds of gold annually to the Imperial Treasury, and the lands of John of Cappadocia were assessed at a rate which was less than their value indeed, but which amounted to one-third of the total tax of the whole district. The burgesses, because of bad harvests and a recent plundering raid by the Bulgarian Huns and being assessed greatly above the value of their holdings—they had been presented by the Government with worthless strips of country, all marsh and stone, yet valued as good farm-land—were so deeply in debt as to be nearly ruined unless John of Cappadocia consented to pay his share. But he always refused. He had a retinue of armed men, mostly his own Cappadocians, as these six fellows all were, who insulted and beat the representatives of the burgesses when they came to his castle to sue for payment.

In my story there are likely to be many Johns besides these Armenian and Cappadocian Johns, John being the name that foreigners commonly take when baptized into the Christian faith (calling themselves either after John the Baptist or John the Evangelist), or that Christian masters give their slaves. It is also frequent among the Jews, with whom it originated. So we shall distinguish these Johns either by their country of origin or, if that happens to be insufficient, by their customary nick-names: John the Bastard, John the Epicure, and Bloody John among the rest. But there is only one Belisarius in my story, and he as unusual as his name.

It appeared, then, from the boasts of the Cappadocians and the complaints of this wretched Simeon, that he had gone boldly with an armed body of constabulary to the castle of Cappadocian John, intending to overawe him into paying at least a reasonable part of his debt, but had been set upon with swords and clubs by the armed guard at the gate-house. The constabulary had deserted Simeon at once, so that he was captured. Then Cappadocian John himself, who was spending the autumn on his estate for the hunting and fowling, had come swaggering out and asked the sergeant of the guard who this fellow might be. They made a low obeisance to John, who exacted from them the sort of respect a patriarch or the governor of a Diocese is usually given, and answered: ‘A sort of strange tax-gatherer, if it please your worship.’ Cappadocian John cried: ‘Give him a sort of strange end, so that no tax-gatherer may trouble me again on my Thracian estates.’ Then six of them, led by the Sergeant, bound Simeon hand and foot and put him across a horse and rode off with him at once, hoping to please their master by their alacrity.

As they rode, they discussed the fate which their captive should suffer. The Sergeant invited his men to make suggestions. One said: ‘Let us tie a stone to his neck and throw him into a pond.’ But Simeon objected loudly: ‘It is a crime before God to poison water. My corpse would spread a pestilence. Besides, what you propose is not a strange death: it is the common death that slave girls give to puppies. Think again!’ The Sergeant agreed that Simeon was right, and they rode on farther.

Then another of the Cappadocians proposed that they should lash him to a tree and shoot him full of arrows. Simeon again interrupted: ‘Would you blaspheme by inflicting on a mere tax-gatherer the very death suffered by the holy martyr Sebastian of Milan?’ This also seemed an objection to be respected, so they rode on farther yet. A third man suggested impaling, and a fourth flaying, and the fifth was for burying Simeon alive. But each time Simeon poured scorn on these suggestions, and told them that they would certainly be punished by their master if they were to return and report that they had put him to death by so commonplace or trifling a means. The Sergeant took his part and said at last: ‘If you can tell us a sort of death that is strange enough, I shall be grateful to you and carry it out just as you wish.’

Simeon replied: ‘Let your master pay his debt voluntarily. Then, be sure, I will die of astonishment, and no stranger death will ever have been recorded in the Diocese of Thrace.’

The Sergeant struck him on the mouth for his impudence, but was still undecided as to the manner of his death. It came on to rain, and the Cappadocians saw a light burning in the inn, so they tied up their horses in the stable and came inside for a drink of wine and further consultation.

Palaeologus now heard them mention their master’s name, and knew him by reputation for a rancorous and quarrelsome man, so was anxious to do nothing to affront these servants. He asked them whether they would do him the honour of drinking wine at his expense.

The unmannerly Sergeant made no reply, but, finding himself near the cooking-pot, which was giving off a very savoury smell, turned to his companions and cried: ‘We are in luck, bullies! This old bearded fellow has foreseen our coming and cooked a hare for us.’

Palaeologus pretended to take this in joke. He said to the Sergeant: ‘Best of Greeks, this hare is not sufficient for ten grown men and two boys, one of whom, moreover, is a nobleman. But if you yourself, and perhaps one other, care to join us…’

The Sergeant replied: ‘Impudent old beard, you are well aware that this is not your hare. It is a stolen one, doubtless the property of my master John, and you shall have no share in it at all. What is more, when our meal is over you shall pay me, on my master’s account, a fine for your theft. You shall hand over ten gold pieces or as much more as I find in your pockets. As for your nobleman, he shall wait on us. Bullies, guard the door! Now disarm the two slaves!’

Palaeologus saw that it was useless to resist. He told Andreas and the porter to give up their arms peaceably, and they did so. But Armenian John and especially Belisarius who had shot the hare and was eager for a taste of it, were greatly enraged. But they said nothing. Then Belisarius remembered the cave of the Cyclops and decided to make these ruffians as drunk as possible, so as to have the advantage of them if it came to a struggle.

Very politely he began acting as cup-bearer, pouring out the wine without any admixture of water, and saying: ‘Drink, gentlemen, it is good wine, and you have nothing to pay.’ Because the pepper made the soup very hot for the Cappadocians, they drank more wine perhaps than they otherwise would have done. They toasted him as their Ganymede, and would have kissed him, but he eluded them. Then one of them went into the kitchen to catch the slave girl and began pulling off her smock, but she ran out of the house and hid among the bushes, where he could not find her; so he returned.

The Cappadocians began in their cups to discuss religious dogma. This is the disease of the age. One would expect farmers, for instance, when they come together, to talk about animals and crops, and soldiers about battles and military duties, and prostitutes perhaps about clothes and beauty and their success with men. But no, wherever two or three are gathered together, in tavern, barracks, brothel, or anywhere else, they immediately begin discussing with every assumption of learning some difficult point of Christian doctrine. Then, as the main disputes of the various Christian churches have always been concerned with the nature of the Deity, that most tempting point of philosophical debate, so naturally these drunken Cappadocians began, not without blasphemy, to lay down the law on the nature of the Holy Trinity and especially of the Second Person, the Son. They were all Orthodox Christians, and seemed to hope that Palaeologus would raise his voice in dispute. But he did not, for he held the same opinions as they.

However, Simeon soon revealed himself as one of the Monophysites. The Monophysites were a sect powerful in Egypt and Antioch, and during the last generation or two had brought the Empire into much danger. For the Emperors at Constantinople were obliged to choose between offending the Pope of Rome, who was the recognized successor of the Apostle Peter and had condemned the sect as heretical, and offending the people of Egypt on whose goodwill Constantinople depended for its corn. Some Emperors had inclined to the one view and some to the other; some had tried to find grounds for a compromise. There had been destructive riots, and wars, and scandals in the Churches because of this dispute; and at the time of which I write there was a clear schism between the Church of the East and the Church of the West. The reigning Emperor, old Anastasius, tended to favour the Monophysites; therefore the burgess Simeon, to annoy these Cappadocians, made his loyalty to the Emperor equivalent to his Monophysitism.

Simeon proved too eloquent for them, though all shouted at once; so they called on Palaeologus as a scholar to defend the Orthodox point of view on their behalf, which he gladly did. Armenian John, nudged by Belisarius, plied them with more drink as they listened to the disputation.

Palaeologus quoted the words of Pope Leo, which I forget myself, if I ever heard them, but which I gather were to this effect: that the Son is not God only, which is the view of the insane Acuanites; or man only, which is the view of the impious Plotinians; nor man in the sense of lacking something or other of the divine, as the foolish Apollinarians hold; but that He has two united natures, human and divine, according to the texts ‘I and My Father are one’ and also ‘My Father is greater than I’; and that the human nature, by which the Son is inferior to the Father, does not diminish from the divine nature, by which the Son is the equal of the Father.

The Cappadocians cheered Palaeologus when he recited this decision, rattling their cups on the table or banging with their beech-wood bowls. They did not notice that Belisarius, under the table, was tying their feet together with a length of tough twine—not so tightly that none of them could stir his feet for comfort, but tightly enough to incommode them greatly if they all tried to rise together; for he had tied them in a narrow circle.

Then Simeon ridiculed Palaeologus, and said that to brush aside false doctrine of Acuanite or Apollinarian or Plotinian was not by any means the same as stating true doctrine; and that for a priest to be elected Pope of Rome did not give him a right to lay down the Christian law...