The Scarlet Banner

by Felix Dahn

CHAPTER I

Procopius of Cæsarea to Cornelius Cethegus Cæsarius:

There is no longer either sense or reason in concealing my name; the bird would still be recognized by its song. And now I am almost certain that these sheets will not be seized in Constantinople; for we shall soon be swimming on the blue waves.

So it is war with the Vandals! The Empress has accomplished her design. She treated her husband, after he hesitated, very coldly, even insolently. That is always effectual. What motive urged and still impels her to this war, Hell knows certainly, Heaven vaguely, and I not at all.

Perhaps the blood of the heretics must again wash away a few spores of her sins. Or she expects to gain the treasures brought to the capitol in Carthage from every land by Genseric's corsair ships,--the riches of the temple of Jerusalem are among them. In short, she wanted war, and we have it.

A devout bishop from an Asiatic frontier city--his name is Agathos--came to Constantinople. The Empress summoned him to a private audience. I heard it from Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, who was the only person present. Theodora showed him a letter which he had written to the Persian King. The Bishop fell prostrate on the floor with fright. She pushed him with the tip of her golden slipper. "Rise, O Agathos, man of God," she said, "and dream to-night of what I now say to you. If you do not tell this dream to the Emperor, before tomorrow noon I will give him this letter to-morrow afternoon, and before to-morrow evening, O most holy man, you will be beheaded."

The Bishop went out and dreamed as he had been commanded--probably without sleeping. Before the early bath on the following day he sought Justinian, and, in the utmost excitement,--which was not feigned,--told him that Christ had appeared to him the night before in a dream and said: "Go to the Emperor, O Agathos, and rebuke him for having faint-heartedly given up the plan of avenging me upon these heretics. Tell him: Thus saith Christ the Lord: 'March forth, Justinian, and fear not. For I, the Lord, will aid thee in battle, and will force Africa and its treasures beneath thy rule.'"

Then Justinian was no longer to be restrained. War was determined. The opposing Prefect was thrown into prison. Belisarius was made commander-in-chief. The priests proclaimed the pious Bishop's dream from the pulpits of all the basilicas. The soldiers were ordered by hundreds to the churches, where courage was preached to them. Court officials told the dream in the streets, in the harbor, and on the ships. By the command of the Empress, Megas, her handsomest court poet, put it into Greek and Latin verses. They are astonishingly bad, worse than even our Megas usually writes; but they are easy to learn, so by day and night soldiers and sailors sing them in the streets and the wine-shops, as children sing in the dark to keep their courage up; for our heroes really do not yet feel very anxious to make the holy voyage to Carthage. So we shout incessantly,--

"Christus came to the holy Bishop; Christus warned Justinian:
'Avenge Christus, Justinianus, on the wicked Arian.
Christus himself will slay the Vandals, Africa give to thy hand!'"

The poem has two merits: first, it can be repeated as often as you please; secondly, it makes no difference with which verse you begin. The Empress says--and of course she must know--that the Holy Ghost inspired Megas.

We are working night and day. The shaggy little nags of the Huns are neighing in the streets of Constantinople. Among these troops are six hundred excellent mounted archers, commanded by the Hunnish chiefs, Aigan and Bleda, Ellak and Bala. There are also six hundred Herulians, led by Fara, a Prince of that people. They are Germans in Justinian's pay; for "Only diamond cuts diamond," Narses says: "always Germans against Germans is our favorite old game."

Strong bands of other Barbarians march also through our streets: Isaurians, Armenians, and others, under their own leaders. We call them our allies; that is, we "give" them money or grain, for which they pay with the blood of their sons. Among the nations of our own empire, the Thracians and Illyrians are the best soldiers. In the harbor the ships are rocking, impatiently tugging at their anchors in the east wind, their eager prows turned toward the west.

The army is gradually being placed on board of the fleet: eleven thousand foot, five thousand horse, upon five hundred keels, with twenty thousand sailors. Among them, as the best war-ships, are one hundred and two swift-sailing galleys manned by two thousand rowers from Constantinople; the other sailors are Egyptians, Ionians, and Cilicians. The whole array presents a beautiful warlike spectacle which I would rather gaze at than describe; but the most glorious part of it is the hero Belisarius, surrounded by his bodyguard, the shield and lance bearers, battle-tried men, selected from all the nations of the earth.

* * * * *

Already half the voyage lies behind us. I am writing these lines to you in the harbor of Syracuse.

Hitherto everything has been wonderfully successful; the goddess Tyche, whom you Latins call Fortuna, is certainly blowing our sails. The embarkation was completed by the end of June. Then the General's ship, which was to convey Belisarius, was summoned to the shore in front of the imperial palace. Archbishop Epiphanius of Constantinople appeared on board; an Arian whom he had just baptized into the Catholic faith was brought on deck as the last man; then he blessed the ship, Belisarius, and all the rest of us, including the Pagan Huns, went down into his boat again, and, amid the exulting shouts of thousands, led the way, in advance of the General's vessel, for the whole fleet. We are very pious people, all of us whom the Empress and the dutifully dreaming Bishop and Justinian send forth to extirpate the heretics. It is a holy war--we are fighting for the Christus. We have said it so often that we now believe it ourselves.

Our course led past Perinthus--it is now called Heraclea--to Abydos. There some drunken Huns began to fight among themselves, and two of them killed a third. Belisarius instantly ordered both to be hung on a hill above the city. The Huns, especially the kinsmen of the two who were executed, made a great outcry: according to their law murder is not punished with death. I suppose the justice of the Huns permits the heirs of the murdered man to carouse with the murderers at their expense till they all lie senseless on the ground together. And when they wake, they kiss each other, and all is forgotten; for the Huns are worse drinkers than the Germans--and that is saying a great deal. Their pay contract only requires them to fight for the Emperor; he is not permitted to deal with them according to the Roman law. Belisarius assembled the Huns under the gallows from which the two were dangling, surrounded them with his most loyal men, and roared at them like a lion. I don't believe they understood his Latin, or rather mine, for I taught him the speech; but he pointed often enough to the men on the gallows: they understood that. And now they obey like lambs.

The voyage continued past Sigeum, Tænarum, Metone, where many of our men died, for the commissary at Constantinople, instead of baking the soldiers' bread twice, had lowered it, as raw dough, into the public baths (how appetizing! but, to be sure, it cost nothing); and when it was completely saturated with water, had it browned quickly on the outside upon red-hot plates. So it weighed much heavier (the Emperor pays for it by weight), and he gained several ounces in every pound. But it gently melted into most evil-smelling mush, and five hundred of our men died from it. The Emperor was informed; but Theodora interceded for the poor commissary (he is said to have paid one-tenth of his profits for her Christian mediation), and the man received only a reprimand, so we heard later. From Metone we went past Zacynthos to Sicily, where, at the end of sixteen days, we dropped anchor in an old roadstead, now unused,--the place is called Caucana,--opposite Mount Ætna.

Now heavy thoughts assailed the hero Belisiarius. He so thirsts for battle that he dashes blindly wherever a foe is pointed out. Yet anxiety is increasing. Not one of the numerous spies who were sent from Constantinople to Carthage long before our departure has returned--neither to Constantinople, nor to any of the stopping-places on our route that were assigned to them. So the General knows as much about the Vandals as he does of the people in the moon.

What kind of people they are, their method of warfare, how he is to reach them--he has no idea. Besides the soldiers have fallen back into their old fear of Genseric's fleet, and there is no Empress on board who might order some one to dream again. The limping trochees of the court poet are rarely sung; the men have grown disgusted with the verses; if any one strikes up the air half unwillingly, two others instantly drown his voice. Only the Huns and the Herulians--to the disgrace of the Romans, be it said--refrain from open lamentations; they remain sullenly silent. But our warriors, the Romans, do not shrink from loudly exclaiming that they would fight bravely enough on land, they are used to it; but if the enemy should assail them on the open sea, they would force the sailors to make off with sails and oars as fast as possible. They could not fight Germans, waves, and wind, all at the same time, upon rocking ships, and it was not in their contract for military service. Belisarius, however, feels most disturbed by his uncertainty concerning the plans of the enemy. Where is this universally dreaded fleet hiding? It is becoming mysterious now that we see and hear nothing of it. Is it lying concealed behind one of the neighboring islands? Or is it lurking, on the watch for us, upon the coast of Africa? Where and when shall we land?

I said yesterday that he ought to have considered this somewhat earlier. But he muttered something in his beard, and begged me to atone for his errors to the best of my ability. I must go to Syracuse and, on the pretext of buying provisions from your Ostrogoth Counts, inquire everything about these Vandals, of whom he is ignorant and yet ought to know. So I have been here in Syracuse since yesterday, asking everybody about the Vandals, and they all laugh at me, saying: "Why, if Belisarius does not know, how should we? We are not at war with them." It seems to me that the insolent fellows are right.