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

Traveling by boat from ports in Lower Egypt, rats carrying infected fleas slipped into the city and the dreaded Tersinia pestis made its terrible entrance on the world stage. Its most famous appearance would be in the fourteenth century, when it would be shudderingly remembered as the “black death,” but the sixth-century outbreak—though more dimly remembered—was perhaps worse. The disease spread like wildfire to Alexandria, chief source of imperial grain, and from there to the rest of the empire.

Those struck by the contagion had little warning, and it spread with horrifying speed. Victims would awake with a headache and vague sense of weakness. If it spread to the lungs, painful swelling would occur along the lymph nodes, and death would come within a week; if it entered the blood, black patches would appear throughout the skin, and the victim wouldn’t live out the day. There was no understanding of the contagion or how it spread, and therefore no protection. Moving with men and ships, it struck the most densely populated areas, occasionally carrying off as many as three-fourths of the population.

In Constantinople, the disease raged unchecked for four months with the horrifying casualty rate of ten thousand per day. The dead fell in such numbers that they overwhelmed the graveyards and had to be flung into an unused castle until the rotting corpses were spilling over the walls. The depopulated city ground to a halt, unable to maintain the rhythms of daily life under the strain. Trade sank to almost nothing, farmers abandoned their fields, and the few workers who remained did their best to flee the stricken city. When the plague at last abated, famine and poverty followed in its wake.

At first, the disaster didn’t affect Belisarius, far away on the Persian frontier. Stories of tragic sickness were filtering through, but there was little he could do about it, other than resolve the trouble with Persia as quickly as possible. Racing east, however, came news that dramatically changed everything: Justinian himself was stricken.

The Byzantine army was thrown into chaos. Justinian had named no heir, and Theodora had been whispering her poisonous thoughts against the military in the emperor’s ear for years. If he were to die now, the generals had little doubt she would appoint a successor without consulting them. They unanimously picked Belisarius as their choice for emperor and pledged to accept no decision made by Theodora without their input or consent.

As a childless queen, Theodora was acutely aware of her tenuous grip on power, and after a few months of governing the empire by herself, there were few more relieved than she when Justinian unexpectedly showed signs of recovery. It was then, newly secured in her position, that she received word of what the generals had decided in the East. Furious that they would dare dispute her authority, she immediately recalled Belisarius to the capital. Others may have been taken in by his claims of loyalty, but she had always known that he was a viper lusting for the throne. This newest outrage merely confirmed her darkest suspicions.

Enraged as she might have been, however, Theodora knew her limitations. Emperors and empresses had fallen from power by outraging public opinion, and she herself had come within an inch of exile during the Nika revolt. Belisarius was not as other men—his prestige was so great that to throw him into prison would most likely topple her from the throne. So, as much as she would have liked to execute him, she contented herself with stripping his command, seizing his property, and banishing him in disgrace.

Justinian recovered his health to find the empire crumbling around him. Perhaps a fourth of all those living around the Mediterranean had died, and the loss of so many potential soldiers and taxpayers had severely crippled imperial resources. The only consolation was that Persia was suffering as well. Trying to take advantage of his weakened enemy, Chosroes had raided Byzantine territory, but he had only succeeded in infecting his own men—and, on his return, the rest of Persia as well.

The West was in an even worse condition. Without Belisarius, the Byzantine reconquest had collapsed with frightening speed. Ironically enough, Justinian had only himself to blame for most of it. Scared by the power of a general who had never wavered in his loyalty, he had decided that no one officer would wield supreme command and split the leadership of the Italian campaign between no fewer than five of them. This foolish decision divided the diminished Byzantine resources among squabbling, incompetent generals who almost immediately fell to arguing instead of completing the conquest.

Imperial weakness could hardly have come at a worse time. The Goths at last had found a worthy king in the brilliant Totila, and he was determined to save his kingdom from the desperate situation his predecessor had left it in. Easily outmaneuvering the unwieldy Byzantines, Totila surged through Italy, promising deliverance from the heavy imperial tax collectors and an end to the unceasing war. Belisarius had been welcomed into Rome as a liberator, but now it was the Goths who would set the Romans free.

Within a year, Totila had undone most of Belisarius’s work, and the hapless Byzantine generals wrote to Justinian, informing him that they were no longer capable of defending Italy. The reconquest, which had taken so much effort, seemed to be on the brink of slipping away, and the realization stung Justinian into action. Overriding the protests of his wife, he called once again for Belisarius.

The general had hardly deserved his disgrace, but with Theodora at his side, Justinian could never quite bring himself to trust his old friend, and the general was sent to Italy with only four thousand men. When he arrived, Belisarius found that the situation was virtually hopeless. His soldiers were deeply disillusioned, his commanders were uninspired, and the population was sympathetic to Totila and openly hostile to the Byzantines. Opening an offensive against the Goths was out of the question; it would be a miracle to hold those cities left in imperial control.

Somehow Belisarius managed to hold on to the center of Italy, but every day seemed to bring fresh disasters. Barbarian attacks on the frontiers grew more insistent, and the troops who didn’t drift off to protect their homes seemed more eager to defect to Totila than to fight him. They hadn’t seen regular pay since the onset of the plague, and the Gothic conquest had begun to seem inevitable. Hemorrhaging men and worried that he would soon be unable to protect Rome, Belisarius wryly wrote to the emperor, informing him of the deplorable situation and begging him to send more troops: “The soldiers already stationed … are discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground…. If the war could be won by the presence of Belisarius alone, your preparations are perfect…. But if you desire to conquer, you must do something more than this.” *Belisarius’s refreshingly candid letter went on to say that he could rescue the situation only if his old veterans were sent to him.

From the start, the request seemed doomed. The messenger charged with delivering it decided to enjoy his time in the capital instead of going directly to the palace. Only after he had courted a woman and gotten married did he seek an audience with the emperor and fulfill his mission. The second obstacle was more formidable. Theodora had no intention of allowing Belisarius and his veterans to be reunited, and there was simply no money to equip new troops. A few reinforcements were scraped up and sent, but as always it was too little and too late.

Without real aid from Constantinople, Belisarius couldn’t hope to raise enough men to defeat the Goths, and the war settled into a depressing stalemate. Rome seesawed back and forth between each army and was left a shattered ruin, desolate and nearly deserted.† By 548, Belisarius was desperate enough to send his wife, Antonina, to Constantinople to beg for aid. The plague had run its course and things seemed to be generally improving elsewhere for the empire, so the general hoped that now money and men could be found to turn the tide against the Goths. There was also a good reason to hope that his wife would prove a more able ambassador than the last man he had sent. A close friend of Theodora, she would be able to bypass whatever red tape was thrown in her way and quickly receive a direct audience with the empress. Antonina arrived in the city eager to see her friend, but she found instead everything draped black in mourning and Justinian overwhelmed with grief. Theodora was dead.