Count Belisarius Read online

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  Malthus’s school was in the centre of the town of Adrianople, and was not one of those monkish schools where education is miserably limited to the bread and water of the Holy Scriptures. Bread is good and water is good, but the bodily malnutrition that may be observed in prisoners or poor peasants who are reduced to this diet has its counter-part in the spiritual malnutrition of certain clerics. These can recite the genealogy of King David of the Jews as far back as Deucalion’s Flood, and behind the Flood to Adam, without a mistake, or can repeat whole chapters of the Epistles of Saint Paul as fluently as if they were poems written in metre; but in all other respects are as ignorant as fish or birds. Once, when I was with my mistress Antonina at Ravenna in Italy, I came upon a bishop who failed to grasp a conversational reference that she made to the pious Aeneas, the Trojan hero, and his betrayal of Queen Dido of Carthage. Now, Heaven forbid that I should claim to be learned, for I am a mere domestic, whose only education has been listening to the conversation of intelligent people. Nevertheless, I should be ashamed to confess to the ignorance of this bishop. He did not know in the least what my mistress was talking about. ‘Aeneas?’ he echoed, ‘Aeneas? I know the text in the Acts of the Apostles well; but, I assure you, my sister in Christ, that you will find no statement there, nor even a gloss by any well-informed commentator, that the pious Aeneas of Lydda whom the Apostle Peter healed of a palsy (though he had kept his bed for eight years), afterwards visited any Queen Dido at Carthage, much less betrayed her.’

  In Malthus’s school, which was under Imperial control, some instruction in the Scriptures was given as a matter of course; as bread and water appear on the table even at banquets. But the main fare was Latin and Greek literature of good authorship. Such books encourage children to accurate expression, and thus to clear thought; and at the same time supply them with an extensive knowledge of history and geography and foreign customs. I have heard it argued that soldiers should not be educated, on the ground that among the most vigorous barbarian nations, such as the Goths and Franks, whose principal men are all soldiers by trade, book-learning is despised. But the proverb ‘a scholar made is a soldier spoiled’ applies, in my opinion, only to private soldiers, not to any sort of officer. At any rate, there has never, to my knowledge, been a general of repute in any nation of the world who was not either to some degree educated or, if only poorly educated, did not regret this.

  Belisarius in after life told his friends that the account of the long war between Athens and Sparta given by Thucydides, and Xenophon’s account of fighting in Persia (both of which books were read and commented upon at Malthus’s school at Adrianople) taught him more about the principles of war than he ever learnt in the military academy at Constantinople. At a military academy the instruction is in drill and simple tactics, and the use of siege-engines, and the duties of staff-officers, and military punctilio – the lesser rather than the greater arts of war. The greater arts are strategy, and the use of civil power and politics to assist military aims, and especially the art in which Belisarius learned to excel – the art of inspiring the love and confidence and obedience of his troops and so making good soldiers out of rabble. Belisarius held strategy to be a sort of applied geography, and in later years spent a deal of money on supplying himself with accurate maps: he had a professional map-maker, an Egyptian, always attached to his staff.

  Belisarius used to say also that the training that he had been given at Malthus’s school in accountancy and rhetoric and law had been of the utmost use to him: for Government officials, who excel in these civilian arts and are always very clannish, enjoy making fools of barbarian military commanders, whose chief qualities are courage, horsemanship, and skill with the lance or bow. He let them see that he was no barbarian, in spite of his name and in spite of his feats in hand-to-hand fighting, to which the smallness or cowardice of the forces at his disposal sometimes unwillingly reduced him. He would often call for the account-books of men under his command and, if there was a discrepancy anywhere, would point it out gravely, like a schoolmaster. In ordinary matters of law, too, such as the rules of procedure in a civil court and the rights of various classes of citizens and allies, he was not easily deceived by professional lawyers. Again, he knew enough rhetoric to be able to present a case simply and cogently, and not to be misled by ingenious arguments. For this he acknowledged a heavy debt to Malthus, who cared little for far-fetched allusions and fanciful tropes and Athenian traps and predicaments of logic. And it was a saying of Malthus’s that a few well-armed words in disciplined formation would always prevail against words crowding along in enthusiastic disorganized mass.

  On the first day of his attendance at school, Belisarius did not arrive in the early morning at seven o’clock, which was the usual hour, but shortly after noon, during the hour of intermission, when the boys were eating their luncheons in the schoolyard – such of them at least as did not live near by, so that they could go home quickly and eat and return. Now, it happened that in Adrianople it was not the custom, as at Constantinople and Rome and Athens and the great cities of Asia Minor, for a boy to come to school accompanied by a tutor as well as by a slave carrying his satchel of books for him. Even satchel-slaves were rare at this school. Thus the boys mistakenly thought that Belisarius must be the coddled sort of rich boy, since he came into the schoolyard with Palaeologus at his side, and Armenian John half a pace behind, and Andreas in attendance with the satchel.

  One biggish lad, whose name was Uliaris, pointing at the venerable Palaeologus, called out: ‘Tell me, bullies, is this grandfather bringing his grandchildren to our school to learn his hic, haec, hoc – or is it contrariwise?’

  As they crowded round, munching their bread and fruit and hard-boiled eggs, a boy who had remained behind happened to throw a fig at Uliaris, to tease him. The fig was soft and sour with the heat, and seemed fatally destined for use as a missile. It narrowly missed Uliaris, but burst on the shoulder of Palaeologus’s gown, which was fresh from the fuller’s and of particularly fine woollen cloth. Then a louder laughter still arose; but immediately Belisarius ran angrily throught the crowd of boys, and stooped to pick up a large, round stone which some of them had been trundling backwards and forwards on the smooth flags of the yard; and, before the boy who had thrown the fig realized what was happening, Belisarius had rushed towards the bench and struck him on the head with this stone, so that he fell forward stunned. Belisarius, without saying a word and still carrying the stone, returned to his tutor’s side.

  Palaeologus trembled, expecting the other boys to avenge their playmate, and indeed some of them now advanced with threatening cries and gestures.

  Belisarius did not retreat or apologize. He said: ‘If any others of you dare to insult this old man, my tutor, I will do again what I did.’

  Because he showed courage, a party of boys led by Uliaris rallied to him. Uliaris asked: ‘What is your Colour, boy? We are Blues. The boy you struck, Rufinus, is leader of the Greens.’ They expected him to proclaim himself a Blue too, in self-protection, and to be of service to their faction at some later time.

  But, strange as it may seem, Belisarius had been brought up at Tchermen in so unworldly a way that he had never even heard of the rivalry of the Blue and Green chariot-racing factions; which was almost as strange as if he had never heard tell of the Apostles Peter and Paul. For in both halves of the Roman Empire the factions are every-where constantly spoken of, and they are no new invention either; but date from at least the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, who was a contemporary of Jesus Christ.

  Belisarius answered Uliaris: ‘I belong to the Whites, and this is my lieutenant.’ He pointed to Armenian John. Belisarius in his troop of boys on the estate had employed a white standard, to match his name, so the troop was called ‘The White Troop’.

  They explained, surprised at his words, that every boy must be either Blue or Green, or a turn-coat, or a trimmer. It was true that there were originally Red and White factions at the Hippod
rome, representing the colours of summer and winter, just as the Green represented spring, and the Blue autumn. But chariot-races are now run two charious against two, and not all four chariots each against the others; so White and Red no longer exist as independent factions, having long ago become affiliated, respectively, to Blue and Green, and disappeared.

  Belisarius realized that he had said what sounded foolish, but none the less decided to abide by his words. He answered: ‘If there are not yet any Whites at this school, Armenian John and I must make a beginning.’

  They grew angry then, Blues as well as Greens, and told him that it was a strict rule of the schoolyard that knives or stones or other dangerous weapons should not be used in their tussles, but hands and feet only, and soft missiles like mud or snow.

  Belisarius mocked at them for this and said: ‘And it was you who called me a girl-boy!’

  This provoked a noisy rush against him and Armenian John. But Andress dropped the satchel and ran to their rescue. Meanwhile Palaeologus had gone to fetch aid; the undermaster soon appeared and prevented further mischief, for he induced Rufinus to make his peace with Belisarius.

  Rufinus had recovered from the blow and, being a noble-minded boy, said that he admired Belisarius for avenging what seemed to be an insult to his tutor. He told Belisarius: ‘If you and your comrade care to join the Green faction as members, you will be welcome.’

  Uliaris shouted: ‘No, let them come to us. We were the first to ask.’

  It was unheard of that two faction leaders, such as Uliaris and Rufinus, should be competing for the support of a new boy. Usually it was only with difficulty and bribes that such a one obtained full membership in a faction: he had to wait for many months as a mere hanger-on to the faction that he favoured.

  Belisarius thanked Rufinus for his invitation, but excused himself, as being a White; and Armenian John did the same. So Rufinus laughed. He did not appear insulted, but said: ‘If your huge White army needs help against the Blues, you know what allies to summon to your aid.’ The affair ended more quietly than it had begun, and when the boys heard that it was Belisarius and Armenian John who had fought the pepper-battle against the Cappadocians, grown men, they treated them with respect. With both Uliaris and Rufinus separately Belisarius became friendly; and even succeeded in making them work together when he was leader in some adventure. They played an important part in a famous snowball battle fought under Belisarius’s generalship against the boys of a monastic school near by.

  The story, though a boyish one, may be of interest. The monastery pupils were oblates – that is to say children dedicated by their parents to the monastic life. There was a breach in the monastery wall from which the oblates, armed with clubs like the Egyptian monks of the Sinai desert, used to descend and waylay boys of the Imperial school returning to their midday dinners, and beat them viciously. One snowy day belisarius, with Armenian John and Uliaris as decoys, drew a large number of these oblates into an ambush – a timber-yard belonging to the father of Rufinus. There the Blue and Green factions, at peace for the occasion, nearly smothered them with snow and made prisoners of twenty boys, locking them in the wrestling-shed in the Imperial schoolyard. But unfortunately Uliaris had been captured, close to the breach in the wall.

  Among those who fought along with Belisarius on this day was a small body of ‘allies’, namely four or five satchel-bearers, Andreas among them, and half a dozen poor boys known as ‘servitors’. These were not regular scholars, but were allowed to sit apart at the back of the schoolroom and receive free instruction. In return they performed certain menial services: such as cleaning the school privies, and scrubbing out the classroom when the lessons were over, and distributing ink when it was needed, and smoothing out the wax on the used wax-tablets of the other scholars, and minding the furnace which in winter heated the rooms with pipes under the floor. These servitors were looked down upon by the ordinary scholars and treated as interlopers. But Belisarius had promised them privately that if they fought well and obeyed orders he would see that their condition was improved.

  He now put himself at the head of these allies and led them at a run towards the monastery, to the postern-gate behind the kitchen. It was here that at this time of day a few poor persons of all ages were admitted to gratuitous meals of soup and stale bread and broken meats. Belisarius and his band entered quietly, pretending to be beggar-boys, but then skirted round the kitchens and passed through the monks’ cabbage-garden, meeting nobody, and reached the schoolhouse beyond. There they came upon Uliaris in a shed, bound hand and foot, and with a bloody head. He was not guarded; for the enemy were now all anxiously gathered at the breach of the wall, wondering about their friends. Uliaris urged an immediate attack on the oblates from the rear. But Belisarius considered the suggestion dangerous, because of the difficulty of escape should the oblates call for help to the monks and lay-brothers. He was for retiring quickly again by the way that they had come.

  So they escaped, taking with them, as legitimate plunder, apples and nuts and honey-cakes and spiced buns from a line of satchels hanging in a row in the shed. (This was Shrove-tide, when the oblates were given a dole of dainties to reconcile them to the coming rigours of Lent.) Singing the paean of victory, they returned to their own school and there made a fair division of their plunder among the scholars. But Belisarius allowed nothing to be given to those few boys who had held back from the fighting; and one of these, by name little Apion, Malthus’s most industrious pupil, treasured a lasting grudge against Belisarius. As for the twenty captured oblates, they were released by Malthus’s orders, but excommunicated by their Abbot for a full month.

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  Belisarius (whose mother died about this time) grew to be a tall, strong lad, with great breadth of shoulder. His features were noble and regular, his hair black, thick, and curly, and he had a frank smile and a clear laugh. Only from his cheek-bones, which were somewhat high, would his barbarian descent have been guessed. At school he satisfied his masters with the lively attention he gave his studies, and his schoolfellows with his courage and skill in wrestling and football. He was also a strong swimmer. He formed a small troop of young cavalrymen from the elder boys of the school, supplying them with cobs from his estate if they could not afford to mount themselves, and trained them in his uncle’s park. They exercised chiefly in archery and lance-work upon stuffed sacks hung from the boughs of an oak. But they did not omit to engage in tourneys and skirmishes with one another, using blunt weapons; and even in miniature sea-battles from boats on the River Hebrus that runs past the city of Adrianople. Thus they became proficient soldiers before they went to train at the cadet-school at Constantinople, as they all did in a body – disdaining to enter the Civil Service. Some of them, the sons of tradesmen and debarred by decree from leaving their hereditary occupations, had first to buy exemption with bribes at the Palace.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE BANQUET OF MODESTUS

  I HAVE already written something about Belisarius’s uncle, Modestus, with his Roman ways and his strained rhetorical talk full of puns and recondite allusions. I met him once only, nearly sixty years ago, but my memory of that occasion was often afterwards refreshed by Belisarius, one of whose favourite diversions in private was to mimic Modestus and make my mistress Antonina laugh. I have also inherited a volume of Modestus’s poems and another of his painfully composed letters, in the style of Pliny, both of which are inscribed with a dedication to Belisarius. Moreover, when I was in Rome during the siege I met many noble Romans who spoke and behaved in very much the same manner as he, so I know the type well.

  The scene is the dining-room of Modestus’s villa. There are present: Modestus himself, the burgess Simeon, Malthus the schoolmaster, three other local dignitaries, Bessas (a big, tough Gothic cavalry officer quartered in the town), Symmachus (an Athenian professor of philosophy), Belisarius, now fourteen years of age, with Rufinus and Armenian John and Uliaris and Palaeologus the tutor. Everything is arranged exac
tly in the old Roman style, for Modestus is an antiquarian and makes no mistakes: he can justify everything by quotation from some Latin author or other of the Golden Age. His guests feel a trifle self-conscious, especially Simeon, who is a convinced Christian and somewhat scandalized by the lasciviousness of the painted frieze that runs between windows and ceiling – the subject being Bacchus, God of Wine, on his drunken return from India. In deference to the wishes that Modestus has expressed in his letter of invitation, most of his guests are dressed, Roman-fashion, in long, white, short-sleeved woollen tunics. But the burgess Simeon is true to the smoky woollen blouse and loose pantaloons that every ordinary inhabitant of Thrace wears, who is not a cleric; and Bessas wears a linen tunic with broad vertical stripes of yellow, green, and red, and breeches of sewn skins, because he is a Goth. Bessas also wears a brownish-yellow military cloak fastened with a large amethyst brooch that sparkles magnificently when it catches the light.

  They recline on couches at a round table of ancient sumach-wood; which Bessas finds awkward, being accustomed to sit up to the military board on a hard bench. He envies the boys, who, since they are not yet of age, are provided with chairs, not couches; they sit at a side-table. It is four o’clock now, by Modestus’s water-clock, of which he is so proud and which keeps such poor time, and Greek servants bring in the appetizers – dishes of olives, chopped leeks, young onions, tunny-fish in vinegar, prawns, sliced sausage, lettuce, shell-fish. Mal-thus has been appointed wine-master, but Bessas’s high military rank entitles him to the consular seat at the tip of the crescent in which they recline. Symmachus the philosopher resents that the principal honours should go to the brownish-yellow cloak of Bessas, a barbarian, rather than to his own grey professorial cloak; but does not dare to show his feelings openly.