Lars Brownworth - Lost to the West - The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The new men tipped the balance in favor of Belisarius, and the general soon felt secure enough to go on the offensive. In the medieval world, siege warfare was often worse on the invading army than on the besieged. Exposed to the elements, running short of food, and trying to avoid sickness in unsanitary conditions, Vitiges was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. Even the land he was encamped on seemed exhausted. It had long ago turned to a sea of mud, and his men were forced to wander farther and farther away in search of food. This left them dangerously vulnerable to counterattack, and each successful raid dented their spirits.

The mood in the Gothic camp wasn’t improved when Vitiges got word that a Byzantine advance force had managed to slip out of Rome and capture the town of Rimini, only thirty-three miles from Ravenna. This entire struggle had been a vast exercise in futility for the Gothic king, and having his new capital in danger was the last straw Cursing the winds that brought such an enemy to Italy, the disgusted king gave the order to retreat. Not even then, however, were the Goths allowed to leave in peace. Somehow guessing the timing of the withdrawal, Belisarius came roaring out from behind his walls and inflicted a thoroughly humiliating rout on Vitiges’ panicked forces.

As the last Goth fled, he could perhaps have consoled himself with the fact that Italy hadn’t seen a man of Belisarius’s character since Hannibal had crossed the Alps more than seven hundred years before. With only a few thousand men, the Byzantine general had taken on a kingdom that numbered in the hundreds of thousands and managed to cripple its fighting ability within two years. In five years, with scarcely more men, he had subdued Africa and Italy and bent them to the imperial will.

Given a proper army and a little trust, there was no telling what Belisarius would have been able to do. The conquests of Spain and Gaul were tantalizingly within his reach; perhaps the Western Empire itself could be revived. With the imperium thus restored, Europe would have been spared the ravages of the Dark Ages, or at least the intensity of their destruction.

Unfortunately for the empire, it was never to find out. The brilliance of the general’s success had planted seeds of jealousy and distrust in the mind of Theodora, and there they were about to bear a bitter harvest. Belisarius was too young, too talented, and far too popular to be trusted.

When Justinian received yet another letter asking for reinforcements, he sent seven thousand troops and a man named Narses to keep an eye on his brilliant general. Already in his mid-sixties, Narses was the perfect candidate for the job. Indisputably the most powerful figure at court, he was the same eunuch who had helped Belisarius put down the Nika revolt, and he could be implicitly trusted because his condition prevented him from gaining the throne himself.

The reinforcements were welcome enough, but as Justinian should have been able to foresee, the aging eunuch’s presence completely undercut Belisarius’s authority and nearly ruined the war effort. Generals who wanted to fast-track their careers quickly saw that Narses had the imperial favor; before long, the officers were hopelessly split between those loyal to Belisarius and those loyal to the eunuch. The only solution was to divide the already small force in half. While Narses kept the main Gothic army tied down, Belisarius left to mop up northern Italy.

Moving with his customary speed, Belisarius swept through the north, liberating Italian cities from the Gothic yoke. Most towns threw open their gates, eager to rid themselves of their heretical oppressors and rejoin the empire. The general was happy to accommodate them, but this led to the familiar problem of siphoning off his manpower with garrisons as the victories piled up. By the time the archbishop of Milan begged for Byzantine aid in liberating his city. Belisarius could spare only three hundred men. Sending the soldiers under the command of a subordinate, Belisarius continued on while the archbishop of Milan opened the city gates and massacred the Gothic garrison.

The ease of Milan’s fall was gratifying to the Byzantines, but it provoked a furious response from the Gothic king. Milan was the crown jewel of Vitiges’ kingdom, easily the largest city in Italy, and the moment he heard the news of its capture, he sent an army thirty thousand strong to retake it.

Somehow the beleaguered defenders got word to Belisarius, and he ordered the two closest generals to relieve the city. Now, however, the dangers of dividing the command were disastrously illustrated. The generals charged with coming to the city’s rescue, perhaps fearing for their political careers, refused to move another inch without a countersignature from Narses; and while they dithered, Milan died. The desperate defenders had been reduced to eating dogs and mice; now, on the brink of starvation, they at last gave up and agreed to surrender to the Goths. The terms were horrendous. Milan was to be made an example of, a cautionary warning to the rest of Italy of what it meant to defy the Gothic sword. The women and children were rounded up and sold into slavery, the men were butchered on the spot, and the city was burned to the ground.

The shocking fate of one of the most beautiful cities in Italy was made far worse because it could have been easily prevented, but it at least convinced Justinian of the folly of undermining Belisarius’s authority, and Narses was hurriedly recalled. At last, Belisarius had an undisputed command, and he was determined to strike a quick blow to end the war. Vitiges’ forces still easily outnumbered his own, but by now the king was terrified of the general and refused to venture beyond the walls of Ravenna. If Belisarius could take the city with all of his enemies pinned inside, the war would be ended at a single stroke.

The news that the terrible Byzantine army was on the way threw Vitiges into a panic, and he did the only thing he could think of to preserve his throne. A few weeks earlier, word had reached him that the Persian king Chosroes was threatening war on the Byzantine flank, and Vitiges now desperately wrote to the Persian monarch, hoping to enlist the aid of the empire’s traditional enemy. If only the Persians could be persuaded to invade the East, the threat would force Justinian to recall his fearsome general and save the cornered Gothic king. Although Vitiges’ messengers were caught and killed long before they came near Persia, luck was with the Goths. After eight years of struggle, Chosroes had finally established himself on the Persian throne and had no need for a Gothic invitation to invade. The Byzantine forces in the East had been noticeably thinned by the Italian campaign, and in any case he was quite sure that without Belisarius they would prove an easy match. Of course, there was the small matter of the “everlasting peace” with the empire that he had personally signed, but Chosroes wasn’t one to let an inconvenient piece of paper get in the way of glory and tribute. Sending raiders knifing into Syria, the Persian king mobilized his army, determined to take full advantage of the empire’s preoccupation with the West.

As Vitiges had hoped, the Persian threat hanging in the air was enough to scare Justinian into prematurely ending the Italian campaign. There was no telling how long the siege of Ravenna would take, and the emperor couldn’t afford to have his best general pinned down besieging an already beaten enemy while the Persians ran free in the East. The only solution was to come to terms with Vitiges. In exchange for half of their treasury, the emperor was willing to let the Goths keep all their land north of the Po River.

When the two ambassadors carrying Justinian’s terms reached Belisarius’s camp, the general was horrified. Vitiges was a beaten man, and Ravenna was on the verge of collapse. Furiously, the general tried to reason with the imperial ambassadors, but they could hardly disobey Justinian’s instructions. Seeing that it was hopeless, Belisarius bowed his head to the inevitable, but he refused to sign the treaty. He had no wish to put his name to such a shameful thing, and since Justinian hadn’t ordered him to, he left it off as an act of defiance.