Every student of ancient history is familiar with the methods of warfare among the Greeks and Romans; with the impenetrable, but inactive, phalanx which subdued the eastern world; and with the less solid, but mobile, legion which ultimately succeeded in mastering it.[725] Such armies consisted mainly of infantry; and the small bodies of cavalry attached to them, amounting to one tenth, or, perhaps, to as little as one twentieth part of the whole, were intended merely to protect the flanks of each division, or to render more effective the pursuit of a flying enemy. In those times, therefore, the horsemen were only an auxiliary force, which never engaged in battle as an independent army. But in the multiple operations against elusive barbarians in the wide circuit of the Roman Empire, experience made it evident that the mobility of cavalry was indispensable in order to deal effectively with such wary and reckless foes.[726] Early in the fourth century the number and importance of the cavalry had increased to such an extent that they were relegated to a separate command: and the Master of the Horse was regarded as of superior rank to his colleague of the infantry.[727] In the East, however, both branches of the service were soon combined under a single commander-in-chief; and henceforward the first military officers are entitled Masters of the Horse and Foot, or, collectively, of the Forces.[728]

At the period I am writing about, the usual routine of a pitched battle is to range the infantry in the centre with large squadrons of cavalry on either flank.[729] Both armies first exhaust their supply of missiles, after which a general engagement at close quarters ensues. By the aid of various evolutions, concealed reserves, and unexpected manœuvres, the opposing generals strive to take each other at a disadvantage, and victory rests with the most skilful or fortunate tactician. Single combats in the interspace between the two armies are not unfrequently initiatory to a battle;[730] and sometimes a campaign is decided by conflicts of cavalry alone.[731]

The various classes of Imperial guards still exist as a fourth division of the army, but, owing to the introduction of a system of purchase, these corps have degenerated into the condition of being mere figures to be mechanically paraded in the course of state pageantry; soldiers apparently, and in resplendent uniforms, but unversed in war, who would sooner buy their release for a large sum than enter on a campaign.[732]

The wars of Anastasius may be reviewed briefly in this section. They were four in number. 1. At the outset of his reign he found himself opposed within the capital by a strong faction of turbulent Isaurians, the relations and adherents of the late Emperor Zeno. Some of these held high office, and had even aspired to the throne.[733] On their dismissal and banishment from Constantinople the leaders fled to Isauria, where they levied large forces, and raised a rebellion by the aid of arms and treasure which Zeno had seen fit to amass in his native province.[734] The insurgents kept up hostilities for a long period with declining success against the Imperial generals, and the revolt was not fully suppressed till the seventh year (498).[735] In the fourth year of the war, however, the ringleaders were captured and decapitated, and their heads were sent to Constantinople, where they were exhibited to the populace fixed on poles in the suburb of Sycae.[736] The pacification of the province was achieved by this war more effectually than on any previous occasion, and the Isaurians do not again appear in history as refractory subjects of the Empire.[737]

2. In 502 the Persian king, Cavades,[738] applied to Anastasius for the loan of a large sum of money which he required in order to cement an alliance with the barbarian nation of the Nephthalites or White Huns.[739] For politic reasons this loan was refused, and the exasperated potentate immediately turned his arms against the Empire. He invaded the western portion of Armenia, which was under Roman suzerainty,[740] and took one or two towns of minor importance before an army could be sent against him. The principal feature of this war, which lasted about four years, was the capture and recovery of Amida, a strongly fortified city of considerable size, situated in northern Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Tigris. Although ill-garrisoned, and neither armed nor provisioned to stand a siege, the inhabitants received the Persians with the most insulting defiance and made a very determined resistance for some months. The massive walls withstood the attacking engines, and all the devices of the besiegers were baffled by the ingenuity of those within the city. In despair Cavades had already given orders to raise the siege when the downfall of Amida was brought about by a very singular circumstance, as related by the chief historian of the period.[741] In the excess of popular frenzy at the news of the proposed retreat, the harlots of the town hastened to the battlements in order to jeer at the Persian monarch as he passed on his rounds, by making an indecent exposure of their persons. This obscene conduct so impressed the Magi in attendance that they gave it a mystical signification, and imparted their opinion to the King that “everything hidden and secret in Amida would shortly be laid bare.” The departure was countermanded, and ultimately, through the supineness or treachery of some monks, to whom the guard of one of the main towers had been confided, an entry was made. A vengeful massacre of the vanquished then took place,[742] which was only stayed by the wit of a suppliant priest, who, in answer to the irate question of Cavades, “How did you dare to resist me so violently?” replied, “That the city might be won by your valour and not by our cowardice.” Two years later, as a result of a protracted but ineffective siege, the Persians agreed to evacuate the town for a payment of one thousand pounds of gold (£40,000). On entering, the Romans discovered to their chagrin that such a state of destitution prevailed as would have compelled the surrender of the stronghold within a few days. The conclusion of this war was brought about by an invasion of the Huns,[743] who threatened Persia from the north; and hence Cavades was glad to make peace for seven years, on terms which left both parties in the same position as before the commencement of hostilities. The issue of this conflict was, on the whole, favourable to Anastasius, who, in the sense of being the superior power, soon proceeded to infringe the articles of the treaty by erecting commanding fortresses against his late foes along his eastern border. Especially as a counterpoise to the impregnable Nisibis, which had been ceded to the Persians a century and a half previously by the inept Jovian,[744] he raised the insignificant village of Daras to the rank of an important town, and surrounded it with bastions of imposing strength.[745] The impotent protests of the Persians were disregarded, and the two empires did not again come into martial collision for more than twenty years.

3. In 505 Anastasius and Theodoric, the Gothic king in Italy, by mutual inadvertence, as it may be judged, became involved in a conflict. Simultaneously the Master of the Forces in Illyricum and the Gothic general Petza were engaged in suppressing their several enemies in that region.[746] The antagonist of the Byzantine general was Mundo, a bandit chief of the blood of Attila, who, with a body of Hunnish marauders, was preying on the country. He, on the point of being worsted, craved the assistance of Petza, who, seeing in him a natural ally of kindred race, joined him with his forces. The Goth had, in fact, just achieved the object of his expedition and probably made this move in the heat of success. Together they routed the Imperial army, which was shattered beyond all chance of reparation.[747] To avenge this defeat, Anastasius in 508 fitted out a naval expedition, which conveyed a landing force of 8,000 soldiers to the Italian coast. Making an unforeseen descent on Tarentum, they ravaged the vicinity with piratical ferocity, and returned as hastily as they came.[748] Theodoric, however, did not feel equal to pitting himself against the forces and resources of the East, and decided not to resent these reprisals. He deprecated the wrath of the Emperor in deferential language, and these encounters were soon forgotten as merely fortuitous disturbances of the peace.[749]

4. In 514 the studied economy of Anastasius provoked an upheaval of the incongruous elements of the state, which threatened the immediate collapse of his administration. From the hordes of barbarians massed on the banks of the Danube, troops were continually detached to take service under the Empire as Foederati; and their numbers had increased to such an extent that the annones due to them became an intolerable drain on the revenue. A sweeping reduction of these supplies was, therefore, decreed;[750] a measure judicious in itself, which would probably have been supported in sullen silence by the barbarians had not Count Vitalian, a Goth, and their principal leader, perceived that a specious means of retaliation was to hand. Taking advantage of the religious intractability of Anastasius, which was the bane of his rule and had alienated from him most of his pious subjects, he announced himself as the champion of orthodoxy, and proclaimed a holy war against the heretical Emperor.[751] The cry was taken up universally, and, especially within the capital, all the factious fanatics clamoured for Vitalian as the legitimate occupant of the throne. An immense host of Foederati followed the standard of the rebel; a great battle was fought in Thrace, with the result that the Imperial army was cut to pieces, suffering a loss, it is said, of more than sixty thousand.[752] A fleet was placed at the disposal of the pretender, whereupon Vitalian moved on the capital and blockaded Constantinople by land and sea. Against this attack the Emperor concerted measures within the city with some Athenian philosophers, their chemical knowledge was utilized effectively, galleys which ejected bituminous combustibles were launched against the hostile ships, and the investing fleet retreated precipitately amid volumes of fire and smoke.[753] The diplomacy of the almost nonagenarian monarch during this revolt was marked by much temporizing and duplicity; he disarmed the Foederati by a liberal donative,[754] and by raising their captain to the rank of Master of the Forces in Thrace;[755] he mollified the orthodox ecclesiastics by promises and prepared instruments for the recall of exiled bishops; and he appealed to Pope Hormisdas praying that a synod should meet at Heraclea in order to appease the dissensions of the Church.[756] The synod met after protracted negotiations, but the combination was already dissolved, and the head of rebellion was broken; the concessions offered by the Emperor were presented and found to be illusory, and the futile assembly separated without any tangible result.[757] Anastasius had carried his point; active, yet impotent discontent reigned everywhere, but he had yielded nothing; and soon afterwards, in extreme old age, he sank into the grave[758] amid the familiar waves of sedition which for twenty-seven years had raged ineffectually round his throne.[759]

III. The commercial activities of the ancient world, as far as they come within the vision of history, were almost confined to these countries which encircle the basin of the Mediterranean; and in the early centuries of our era the varied regions to be measured between the Ganges and Gades were conceived to represent approximately the whole extent of the habitable earth.[760] Although the theory of a globe was held by advanced geographers and astronomers, the fact had not been established by circumnavigation and survey; and the idea was so far from being realized by the masses, that the notion of antipodes seemed to them to be little less than preposterous.[761] In the obscurity of prehistoric times the arts and sciences appear to have originated in the East; and from thence, by the aid of Greece and Rome, civilization extended until it included almost all the known parts of Western Africa and Europe. Before the beginning of the sixth century, however, owing to the incursions and settlements of Goths and Vandals, those western countries had retrograded nearly to the same level of barbarism from which they had been rescued formerly by the civilizing arms of Rome.

In the earliest ages the trade of the Mediterranean was entirely in the hands of the Semitic race; and from their great ports of Tyre and Sidon the Phoenicians penetrated with their well-laden ships even as far as Spain and Britain,[762] disposing of their native manufactures and imported wares on every coast within their reach.[763] But with the rise and spread of Hellenic civilization, commerce became more cosmopolitan; and by the conquests of Alexander the Greeks were made practically cognizant of a Far East teeming with productions which could minister to the needs of increasing wealth and luxury. At the same period, about 330 B.C., the foundation of Alexandria by that monarch gave them the command of Egypt, and they began to explore the borders of the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea as far as the Gulf of Aden and the confines of equatorial Africa. Concomitantly the laborious voyage of Nearchus,[764] undertaken at the instigation of the Macedonian conqueror, along inhospitable shores from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, revealed to the Greeks the existence of a chain of navigable seas by which the treasures of the Indies might be brought by water to the wharves of the new capital. Through the establishment of this commerce Alexandria became the greatest trading centre of the Mediterranean, and distributed its exports to every civilized community who peopled the extended littoral of that sea.[765]

The first merchants who crossed the Indian ocean, embarking in small ships of light draught, timidly hugged the shore during their whole voyage, dipping into every bight for fear of losing sight of land. But in the reign of Claudius a navigator named Hippalus discovered the monsoons, and noted their stability as to force and direction at certain seasons of the year.[766] Thenceforward the merchants, furnishing themselves with larger vessels,[767] boldly spread their sails to the wind, ventured into mid-ocean, and made a swift and continuous passage from the southern coast of Arabia to some chosen port in the vicinity of Bombay.[768] Such was the southern, and, within the Christian era, most frequented trade route between the Roman Empire and the Indies. There were, however, two other avenues, more ancient, but less safe and less constant, by which merchandise from the far East, mainly by inland transit, could enter the Empire. By the first of these, which traversed many barbarous nations, the eastern shores of the Euxine were brought into communication with northern India through the Oxus, the Caspian Sea, and the Cyrus. From a bend in the latter river, the emporium of the trade, the town of Phasis, was easily attainable.[769] The second, intermediately situated, was the most direct and facile of the three, but, as it lay through the Persian dominions, the activity of commerce by this route depended on the maintenance of peace between the two empires.[770] The Byzantine government, jealous of the intercourse of its subjects with their hereditary enemies, fixed Artaxata, Nisibis, and Callinicus[771] as marts beyond which it was illegal for Roman merchants to advance for the purposes of trade on this frontier.[772]