A Struggle for Rome, v. 1

by Felix Dahn

CHAPTER VII.

A few days after these occurrences, there were assembled in the apartments of the Byzantine ambassador at Ravenna a number of distinguished Romans of worldly and ecclesiastical rank. The Bishops Hypatius and Demetrius from the Eastern Empire were also present.

Great excitement, mixed with alarm and anger, was visible on all faces, as Petros, the rhetorician, concluded his address in these words:

"It is for this reason, reverend bishops of the East and West, and you, noble Romans, that I have assembled you here. I protest loudly and solemnly, in the name of the Emperor, against all secret acts of cunning or force which may have been practised against the noble lady. Nine days ago she disappeared from Ravenna; most likely taken by force from your midst; she, who has ever been the friend and protector of the Italians! On the same day, the Queen, her bitter enemy, also disappeared. I have sent out expresses in all directions, but, until now, am without news. But alas! if----"

He could not complete the sentence.

A confused tumult arose from the Forum of Hercules, and very soon hasty footsteps were heard in the vestibule; the curtain was parted, and one of the Byzantine slaves of the ambassador hurried into the room, covered with dust.

"Sir," he cried, "she is dead! she is murdered!"

"Murdered!" repeated many voices.

"By whom?" asked Petros.

"By Gothelindis; at the villa in the Lake of Bolsena!"

"Where is the corpse? Where the murderess?"

"Gothelindis pretends that the Princess was drowned in the bath while playing with the water-works, with which she was unacquainted. But it is known that the Queen had followed her victim, step by step, ever since she left the city. Romans and Goths have crowded by hundreds to the villa to bring the corpse here in solemn procession. The Queen escaped the fury of the people and fled to the fortress of Feretri."

"Enough," cried Petros indignantly. "I go to the King, and call upon you all to follow me. I shall refer to your testimony of what passes in my report to Emperor Justinian." And he at once hurried out at the head of the assembly to the palace.

In the streets they found a throng of people rushing hither and thither, full of rage and indignation. The news had arrived in the city, and spread from house to house. On recognising the imperial ambassador and the dignitaries of the city, the crowd gave way before them, but immediately closed again behind them pressed after them to the palace, and was with difficulty kept from entering the gates.

Every moment increased the number and excitement of the people. The Roman citizens crowded together in the Forum of Honorius, and to their grief for the fate of their protectress was added the hope that this occurrence might cause the downfall of the barbarians. The appearance of the ambassador encouraged this hope, and the feelings of the mass took a direction which was by no means inimical alone to Theodahad and Gothelindis.

Meanwhile Petros, with his companions, hastened to the apartments of the helpless King, who, in the absence of his wife, had lost all strength of resistance. He trembled at the excitement of the crowd before the palace, and had already sent for Petros, to ask from him help and counsel; for it was Petros himself who had decided upon the murder of the Princess, and arranged with Gothelindis the manner of its accomplishment. The King, therefore, now expected him to help to bear the consequences.

When, then, the Byzantine appeared upon the threshold, Theodahad hurried to him with open arms; but he suddenly stood still in amazement, astonished to see what companions Petros had brought with him, and still more astonished at his threatening aspect.

"I call you to account, King of the Goths!" cried Petros, even before he had crossed the threshold. "In the name of Byzantium, I call you to account for the disappearance of the daughter of Theodoric. You know that Emperor Justinian had assured her of his particular protection; every hair of her head is therefore sacred, and sacred every drop of her blood. Where is Amalaswintha?"

The King stared at him in speechless astonishment. He admired this power of dissimulation; but he did not understand its cause. He made no answer.

"Where is Amalaswintha?" repeated Petros, advancing threateningly: and his companions also came a step forward.

"She is dead," said Theodahad, who began to feel extremely anxious.

"She is murdered!" cried Petros. "So says all Italy. Murdered by you and your wife. Justinian, my illustrious Emperor, was the protector of this woman, and he will be her avenger. In his name I declare war against you--war against you and all your race!"

"War against you and all your race!" repeated the Italians, carried away by the excitement of the moment, and giving vent to their long-cherished hatred; and they pressed upon the trembling King.

"Petros," he stammered in terror, "you will remember our treaty, and you will----"

But the ambassador took a roll of papyrus out of his mantle, and tore it in two.

"Thus I tear all bonds between my Emperor and this bloodthirsty house! You yourselves by this cruel deed have forfeited all our former forbearance, No treaties--war!"

"For God's sake!" cried Theodahad; "no fighting! What do you demand, Petros?"

"Complete subjection. The evacuation of Italy. Yourself and Gothelindis I summon to Byzantium, before the throne of Justinian. There----"

But his speech was interrupted by the sounding clang of the Gothic alarum, and into the room hurried a strong troop of Gothic warriors, led by Earl Witichis.

On hearing of Amalaswintha's death, the Gothic leaders had at once summoned the most valiant men of the nation in Ravenna to meet before the Porta Romana, and there they had agreed upon the best means of security. They had appeared in the Forum of Honorius just at the right moment--when the excitement was becoming dangerous. Here and there a dagger flashed, and the cry arose, "Woe to the barbarians!"

These signs and voices ceased at once, as the hated Goths advanced in close ranks from the Forum of Hercules through the Via Palatina. Without resistance, they marched through the murmuring groups; and while Earl Teja and Hildebad guarded the gates and terraces of the palace, Witichis and Hildebrand arrived in the King's rooms just in time to hear the last words of the ambassador.

Wheeling to the right, they placed their followers near the throne, to which the King had just retreated; and Witichis, leaning on his long sword, went close up to Petros, and looked keenly into his eyes.

A pause of expectation ensued.

"Who dares," asked Witichis quietly, "to play the master here in the royal palace of the Goths?"

Recovering from his surprise, Petros answered,

"It does not become you, Earl Witichis, to interfere for the protection of a murderer. I have summoned the King before the court at Byzantium."

"And for this insult thou hast no reply, Amelung?" cried old Hildebrand angrily.

But his bad conscience tied the King's tongue.

"Then we must speak for him," said Witichis "Know, Greek, and understand it well, you false and ungrateful Ravennites, the nation of the Goths is free and acknowledges no foreign master or judge or earth."

"Not even for murder?"

"If evil deeds occur amongst us, we ourselves will judge and punish them. It does not concern strangers; least of all our enemy, the Emperor of Byzantium."

"My Emperor will revenge this woman, whom he could not save. Deliver up the murderers to Byzantium."

"We would not deliver up a Gothic hind, much less our King!"

"Then you share his guilt and his punishment, and I declare war against you in the name of my master. Tremble before Justinian and Belisarius!"

A movement of joy amongst the Gothic warriors was the only answer.

Old Hildebrand went to the window, and cried to the Goths, who crowded below:

"News! joyful news! War with Byzantium!"

At this a tumult broke loose below, as if the sea had burst its dams; weapons clashed, and a thousand voices shouted:

"War! war with Byzantium!"

This repetition of his words was not without effect upon Petros or the Italians. The fierceness of this enthusiasm alarmed them; they were silent, and cast down their eyes.

While the Goths, shaking hands, congratulated each other, Witichis went up to Petros with an earnest mien, and said solemnly:

"Then it is war! We do not shun it; that you have heard. Better open war than this lurking, undermining enmity. War is good; but woe to him who kindles it without reason and without a just cause! I see beforehand years of blood and murder and conflagration; I see trampled corn-fields, smoking towns, and numberless corpses swimming down the rivers! Listen to our words. Upon your heads be this blood, this misery! You have irritated and excited us for years; we bore it quietly. And now you have declared war against us, judging where you had no right to judge, and mixing yourselves in the affairs of a nation which is as free as your own. On your heads be the responsibility! This is our answer to Byzantium."

Silently Petros listened to these words; silently he turned and went out, followed by his companions.

Some of them accompanied him to his residence, amongst them the Bishop of Florentia.

"Reverend friend," Petros said to the latter at parting, "the letters of Theodahad about the matter you know of, which you entrusted to me for perusal, you must leave entirely at my disposal. I need them, and they are no longer necessary to you."

"The process is long since decided," answered the Bishop, "and the property irrevocably acquired. The documents are yours."

The ambassador then dismissed his friends, who hoped soon to see him again in Ravenna with the imperial army, and went to his chamber, where he at once despatched a messenger to Belisarius, ordering him to invade the country. Then he wrote a detailed report to the Emperor, which concluded in the following words:

"And so, my Emperor, you seem to have just reason to be contented with the services of your most faithful messenger, and the situation of affairs. The barbarian nation split into parties; a hated Prince, incapable and faithless, upon the throne; the enemy surprised, unprepared and unarmed; the Italian population everywhere in your favour. We cannot fail! If no miracle occur, the barbarians must succumb almost without resistance; and, as often before, my great Emperor appears as the protector of the weak and the avenger of wrongs. It is a witty coincidence that the trireme which brought me here bears the name of Nemesis. Only one thing afflicts me much, that, with all my efforts, I have not succeeded in saving the unhappy daughter of Theodoric. I beg you, at least, to assure my mistress, the Empress, who was never very graciously disposed to me, that I tried most faithfully to obey all her injunctions concerning the Princess, whose fate she entrusted to me as her principal anxiety during our last interview. As to the question about Theodahad and Gothelindis, by whose assistance the Gothic Kingdom has been delivered into our hands, I will venture to recall to the Empress's memory the first rule of prudence: it is too dangerous to have the sharers of our profoundest secrets at court."

This letter Petros sent on in advance with the two bishops, Hypatius and Demetrius, who were to go immediately to Brundusium, and thence through Epidamnos by land to Byzantium.

He himself intended to follow in a few days, sailing slowly along the Gothic coasts of the Ionian Gulf, in order to prove the temper and excite the rebellion of the inhabitants of the harbour towns.

He would afterwards sail round the Peloponnesus and Eubœa to Byzantium, for the Empress had ordered him to travel by sea, and had given him commissions for Athens and Lampsacus.

Before his departure from Ravenna, he already calculated the rewards he expected to receive at Byzantium for his successful operations in Italy.

He would return twice as rich as he had come, for he had never confessed to the Queen, Gothelindis, that he had come into the country with the order to overthrow Amalaswintha.

He had rather, for some time, met her with representations of the anger of the Empress and Emperor, and had, with great show of repugnance, allowed himself to be bribed with large sums to connive at her plans, when, actually, he but used her as his tool.

He looked forward with certainty to the proud rank of patrician in Byzantium, and already rejoiced that he would be able to meet his haughty cousin, Narses--who had never used his influence to advance him--on equal terms.

"So everything has succeeded better than I could wish," he said to himself with great complacency, as he set his papers in order before leaving Ravenna, "and this time, my proud friend Cethegus, cunning has proved truly excellent. The little rhetorician from Thessalonica, with his small and stealthy steps, has advanced farther than you with your proud strides. Of one thing I must be careful: that Theodahad and Gothelindis do not escape to Byzantium; it would be too dangerous. Perhaps the question of the astute Empress was intended as a warning. This royal couple must be put out of our way."

Having completed his arrangements, Petros sent for the friend with whom he lodged, and took leave of him. At the same time he delivered to him a dark-coloured narrow vase, such as those which were used for the preservation of documents; he sealed the cover with his ring, which was finely engraved with a scorpion, and wrote a name upon the wax-tablet appended to it.

"Seek this man," he said to his host, "at the next assembly of the Goths at Regeta, and give him the vase; the contents are his. Farewell. You shall soon see me again in Ravenna."

He left the house with his slaves, and was soon on board the ambassador's ship; filled with proud expectations, he was borne away by the Nemesis.

As his ship, many weeks after, neared the harbour of Byzantium--he had, at the Empress's wish, announced his speedy arrival at Lampsacus, by means of an imperial swift-sailer which was just leaving--Petros looked at the handsome country houses on the shore, which shone whitely from out of the evergreen shade of the surrounding gardens.

"Here you will live in future, amongst the senators of the Empire," he thought with great contentment.

Before they ran into the harbour, the Thetis, the splendid pleasure-boat of the Empress, flew towards them, and, as soon as she recognised the galley of the ambassador, hoisted the purple standard, as a sign to lay to.

Very soon a messenger from the Empress came on board the galley. It was Alexandros, the former ambassador to the court of Ravenna. He showed to the captain of the galley a writing from the Emperor, at which the captain appeared to be much startled; then he turned to Petros.

"In the name of the Emperor Justinian! You are condemned for life, convicted of long-practised forgery and embezzlement of the taxes, to the metal-works in the mines of Cherson, with the Ultra-Ziagirian Huns. You have delivered the daughter of Theodoric into the hands of her enemies. The Emperor thought you excused when he read your letter; but the Empress, inconsolable for the death of her royal sister, revealed your former guilt to the Emperor, and a letter from the Prefect of Rome proved that you had secretly planned the murder of the Princess with Gothelindis. Your fortune is confiscated, and the Empress wishes you to recollect--" here he whispered into the ear of Petros, who was completely stunned and broken by this terrible blow--"that you yourself, in your letter, advised her to get rid of all the sharers of her secrets."

With this, Alexandros returned to the Thetis, but the Nemesis turned her stern to Byzantium, and bore the criminal away for ever from all civilised community with mankind.