David Pilling - Flame of the West

First he tried negotiation, sending envoys under a flag of truce to drip lying offers of peace into Narses’ ear. The eunuch scornfully rejected them all, but made his own offer in return, claiming he would spare the lives of Totila’s warriors if the King surrendered and delivered himself up as a captive. Totila, unsurprisingly, failed to respond.

He switched tactics, sending the pick of his warriors into the space between the armies to make challenges of single combat. Some of these were accepted, and the Masterless Men amused themselves by laying bets on the winners.

I vividly recall one such duel. Totila sent out a truly gigantic warrior, one of the biggest men I ever saw, and this giant rode back forth before the Roman lines, bellowing out his challenge.

For a long while none cared to step forward and accept. He spat in contempt of Roman cowardice, and was about to turn his horse, when an officer broke away from Narses’ bodyguard and galloped into the open.

I could not see the officer clearly – they were tiny, doll-like figures at this distance – but he was dwarfed by his opponent.

“Four siliqua on the giant,” offered the man next to me, producing a handful of silver coin and weighing it in his hand.

“Done,” I said, and we shook hands. It may seem a foolish wager, but size is not all. I didn’t have the money anyway.

The two warriors rode to midway between the armies, and there faced each other. Cheers and shouts burst from Roman and Gothic throats as they clapped in their spurs and charged together.

At the last moment, the Roman officer swerved sideways, avoiding the other’s lance, and rammed his spear under the giant’s ribs.

It ran clean through that enormous body and burst out of his spine. The Goth stiffened in the saddle, and for a few seconds kept his seat as his horse slowed to a canter. Then, to catcalls from the Romans and groans from the Goths, he slowly toppled over and collapsed to earth like a falling tree.

“Four siliqua,” I said, grinning as my beaten opponent threw his money at my face.

Still the Gothic reinforcements had not arrived. Narses might have advanced against the inferior numbers of the enemy, but he lacked the dash and fire of Belisarius.

“In chess,” I could hear his piping voice in my head, “one does not simply throw all one’s pieces forward in an all-out assault.”

Totila resorted to an extraordinary piece of theatre. He rode out alone from his army, clad from head to toe in golden armour that outshone the sun, and mounted on a huge white stallion. Bound to his shoulders was a cloak made of some rich purple stuff. It streamed behind him as he cantered towards our infantry.

A kind of awed silence fell across the Masterless Men. I had no reason to love Totila, but was struck dumb by his valour. It was like something from Greek legend – a king in golden armour, riding forth to attack an enemy host single-handed.

The King of the Goths had no intention of throwing away his life. When he came to the midway point, near where his giant was struck down, he suddenly reined in his stallion.

He uttered a piercing cry of defiance and tossed his lance high into the air. Then he caught it, whirled it above his head, and started to make his horse prance in circles, as I had seen performers do in the Hippodrome.

“Is he a king, or a circus act?” growled Asbad.

It didn’t end there. Mocking applause broke from the Roman ranks as Totila continued to toss and catch his spear, throw himself backwards in the saddle before suddenly regaining his seat, and make his horse spin and dance.

He performed for the best part of an hour, an impressive feat for a man covered in armour. When he was done, he gave a last shrill cry and spurred his sweating horse back to the Gothic lines, to a storm of cheers from his adoring troops.

I heard later, from one of Narses’ bodyguards, that the eunuch made the following remark:

“Very impressive. Is it my turn now?”

His officers laughed, but Totila had succeeded in delaying the battle. His long-awaited two thousand auxiliaries had finally emerged from the mountains, somewhat disordered from their forced march, and joined his infantry in the centre.

The Goths were still in a grim position. To me, it seemed obvious Totila had to withdraw. He could have holed up behind the walls of Rome, as Belisarius did when confronted with overwhelming numbers, and dared Narses to prise him out.

The Goths, however, only respected a monarch who displayed strength and daring on the battlefield. A tactical retreat was not in their belligerent nature. Like the Vandals, they remained to the last a warlike people.

Totila willingly embraced his doom. He ordered his cavalry forward, eight thousand or so lancers with horse-archers on the flanks, and formed them into five big squadrons. It was an awesome sight, hundreds of steel riders forming into lines across the plain, banners flapping overhead.

In a vain bid to intimidate the Romans, Totila had his infantry yell war-songs and beat incessantly on their drums.

“Noise won’t break the Roman wall,” I said confidently, “and nor will those horsemen. Run away, you foolish barbarians! You don’t stand a chance.”

The cavalry started to move, rolling forward at a slow trot. Totila had put himself in the central squadron. His royal standard, displaying two crossed golden axes against a red field, was clearly visible. He had put off his golden ceremonial armour for a standard helmet and cuirasse, but wore royal robes of purple and gold, and a scarf embroidered with precious stones wound about his neck.

Faster, faster, the tide of steel and horseflesh moved, shifting into a trot, a canter, and then a full-blown gallop. This was warfare as the poets understood it, a glorious last-ditch charge against the odds, brothers in arms, sweeping forward across a fair plain to conquer or die.

Sadly for the Goths, they were up against Narses, who possessed not an ounce of poetry or romance in his corrupt little soul. Safe behind a triple line of bodyguards, he sat on a chair mounted on a cart (he was unable to see over their heads otherwise) and calmly watched his enemies ride into the trap.

“Now,” I murmured when I judged the Goths were within range of our archers.

The summer sky was briefly darkened by a storm of arrows. I saw the front ranks of the Gothic cavalry founder, horses and men tumbling to earth, but the rest came on, galloping straight over the bodies of their comrades.

It was impossible not to admire their courage. The horse-archers were destroyed in moments, melting away under the relentless hail of arrows. The few survivors wheeled their ponies and fled, leaving hundreds dead and dying behind them and spreading a tremor of panic through the watching Gothic infantry.

The lancers thundered into the Roman infantry. I chewed my lip as our shield-wall buckled and retreated a few steps under the impact of that wild charge, but the Goths lacked the weight of numbers to break it.

A peal of trumpets rang across the field. Reserves of footmen were sent in to bolster our sagging line, while the archers poured forward to shoot into the flanks of the struggling Goths.

Narses was conducting the battle with calm skill. He had carefully planned his strategy and predicted the moves of his opponent, who was a brave man and an inspirational leader, but no great tactician.

The Goths fought with the unyielding courage of men who expected to die. Their flanks were swiftly shot to pieces, and they could make no headway against the wall of shields, but still they fought on. Time and again they rallied around their standards, swinging swords and axes until every man was shot or speared from the saddle. Their blood-slathered corpses lay in heaps, the flower of a nation’s fighting men, slaughtered by their own brave folly.