Belisarius was born in the city of Germania, a metropolitan see on the frontiers of the Thracian and Illyrian nations.[9] Thus, though strictly speaking he was neither a Roman nor a Greek, he considered himself, and was considered by his contemporaries, a Roman. The dialect of the inhabitants of Thrace and Illyria is supposed still to possess a representative in the modern Albanian; but in the time of Justinian, the language of the higher classes in the cities was Latin, and there can be no doubt that Belisarius spoke both Latin and Greek with equal fluency. As far as race was concerned, it seems, however, tolerably certain, that he was more closely allied in blood to Scanderberg and Miaoulis than to Scipio or Epaminondas. As he was a man of rank and family, he became an officer of the imperial guard at an early age.[10] His tall and vigorous frame, smooth and handsome face, joined to a smoother tongue, a calm and equable disposition, and a stout heart, made him the very man to rise rapidly in the Roman service. Accordingly, as early as the year 526, he appears in a high military command.[11] Like Marlborough, to whom he bears some resemblance in personal character, he strengthened his position at court by marrying the Lady Antonina, the beautiful favourite of the Empress Theodora, though she was as fierce a shrew as the Duchess Sarah, and wherewithal not so modest, if we give credit to her husband's secretary.
It was the fashion at the Horse-guards of Constantinople during the reign of Justinian, to encourage barbarian usages in military affairs. Hussars from the country of the Gepids, cuirassiers from Armenia and the ancient seats of the Goths, and light cavalry from the regions occupied by the Huns, were the favourite bodies of troops. The young nobles of the Roman empire adopted the uniforms of these regiments; wore long hair, inlaid armour, and tight nether garments, and never condescended to invest their persons in the modest equipments of the old Roman dragoons, or of the modern legionaries whose ranks were officered by mere provincials.
The reasons which compelled the imperial government to prefer foreign mercenaries to native troops were based at first on principles of internal policy, and at last on absolute necessity. Augustus feared the Roman senators and knights; Constantine had not the means of paying for good Roman soldiers; and Justinian could not have found a sufficient number of suitable recruits among the citizens of his wide-extended empire. The pivot of the administration of Imperial Rome, as of Imperial Britain, was the treasury, not the Horse-guards. The taxes paid by the citizens filled that treasury: but a soldier was exempt from taxation; consequently, it became a measure of unavoidable necessity on the part of the Roman government to prevent citizens escaping their financial burdens by becoming soldiers. Had the citizens got possession of arms, Rome could not have remained a despotism.
On the other hand, the system of Roman tactics rendered it necessary to procure military recruits of a degree of physical strength far above the average standard of mankind. When the population of the empire had been divided into two widely separated social classes of wealthy citizens and poor cultivators, serfs, or slaves, the supply of recruits furnished by the richest portions of the empire became very small. The danger of employing foreign barbarians, who remained isolated amidst an innumerable population, and surrounded by hundreds of walled towns, manned by their own municipal guards, was evidently less than that of entrusting legions of slaves with arms, and teaching them habits of combination and discipline. The servile wars, which inflicted a mortal wound on the Republic, would have been renewed, and would probably have soon destroyed the Empire.[12]
It is customary with historians to discourse on the impolicy of the Roman emperors in employing barbarian mercenaries; but the fact is, that their finances did not admit of their purchasing the thews and sinews required for the service any where but among the barbarians. The system certainly answered admirably for the imperial government. It upheld the tyranny of the Cæsars and the terror of the Roman arms for more than a thousand years; and it might have rendered Rome immortal had she not committed suicide.
If the system really be so bad as it is often represented, it seems strange that it should have been adopted with all its imperfections in British India. But the truth is this; the mercenaries of the Roman armies were more faithful to their contract than the emperors. It is by sovereigns and ministers of state, not by generals of mercenaries, that empires are prepared for destruction. Our Indian empire is always in greater danger from a conceited Foreign secretary or a foolish Governor-general than from a rebellion of the native troops. If our administration be only as wise as that of Imperial Rome, somewhat more just, and a great deal less avaricious, there seems no reason why a British government should rule at Calcutta for a shorter period than a Roman one at Constantinople. The laws of Rome still survive in the courts of justice of the greater part of Europe; the spirit of the Roman Republic breathes, at the present hour, in full energy in the Papal councils; and are we to suppose that the institutions of a more Catholic philanthropy, in the progress of development under the British constitution, are less capable of acquiring an inherent vitality?
The age of Belisarius was deeply imbued with the military spirit of the middle ages; and Belisarius was himself as proud of his accomplishments as a daring horseman, a good lance, and a stout bowman, as of his military science. Cavalry was the favourite portion of the army in his day, and he shared in the general contempt felt for infantry. The horsemen were sheathed in complete steel; and their helmets, breast-plates and shields, were impenetrable even to the shafts of the Persians, who drew their bow-strings to the right ear, and threw discredit on the prowess of the Homeric archers.[13] The Roman officers, as must always be the case where cavalry is the principal arm, were remarkable for personal courage and impetuous daring; and perhaps in the whole annals of Rome there cannot be found another period in which headlong rashness was so universally the characteristic of the generals of the Roman armies.
"How concise—how just—how beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the archer—I hear the twanging of the bow." The figures of the archers in the Æginetan marbles at Munich, admirably illustrate the genius of Homer and the taste of Gibbon.]
The favourite position of Belisarius on the field of battle was to figure like Richard Cœur-de-Lion as a colonel of cuirassiers, not like Marlborough, to perform the duties of a commander-in-chief. Procopius prefaces an account of one of his rashest combats by declaring that he was not in the habit of exposing himself unnecessarily, but on the occasion in question, he owns that Belisarius fought too much like a mere soldier in the front rank.
The whole Gothic army advancing to besiege Rome had passed the Tiber before Belisarius was aware that his troops, stationed to defend the Milvian bridge, had abandoned their post. On going out to reconnoitre, he fell in with the enemy. Instead of retreating, he led on the cavalry that attended him to the charge. He was mounted on his favourite charger; the Greeks called it Phalion, the barbarians Balan, from its colour: it was a bay with a white face. Balan was perfectly broken to his hand, and his armour, wrought by the skill of Byzantine artists, was too light to incommode his powerful frame, yet tempered to resist the best-directed arrow or javelin. The person of Belisarius was soon recognised in the Gothic army, and the shout spread far and wide to the javelin-men and the archers, "At the bay horse! At the bay horse!" The bravest of the Gothic chiefs placed their lances in rest, and rushed forward to bear down the Roman general. The guards of Belisarius, in that trying hour, showed themselves worthy of their own and, their general's fame. They closed up by his side, so well as to leave him only a single enemy. It is ridiculous to attempt describing a personal encounter thirteen centuries after the event. The duties of Procopius did not place him at the elbow of Belisarius at such an hour, and even if he had been there he could have seen but little of what others were about.