Belisarius: The Last Roman General Read online

  Whatever the motive, the Byzantines were caught unawares. With extreme haste, the army prepared for battle and deployed across from the Vandals on the opposite bank of the stream.

  It is sometimes difficult when reading Procopius to understand the narrative since he usually makes Belisarius the centre of events. However, a close reading of the text reveals that Belisarius only joined the main force just before the battle. Therefore, the deployment of the Byzantine troops was made by John the Armenian. John had deployed the troops and so had greater knowledge of what was happening. It made sense for him to remain in charge throughout the battle, so Belisarius only gave him ‘advice’. Accordingly, John took his position in the centre of the battlefield with the comitatus and the standard.

  On the left wing, Martinus and Valerian, John, Cyprian, Althius and Marcellus commanded a section of the Byzantine missile-armed cavalry, being reinforced by the foederati who were armed solely for close combat. The left wing is likely to have numbered around 3,500–4,000 men.

  On the right wing were Pappas, Barbatus, Aigan and others with the balance of the regular cavalry. Again, this would suggest a maximum number of 4,000 men. The Huns were deployed apart from the Byzantine army. This would allow them to choose which side to join when they saw which was winning.

  The Vandals deployed with Tzazon leading his veterans from the Sardinian campaign in the centre. To the left and the right the Vandal chiliarchs led the remainder of the army. Since the Byzantines were to concentrate upon the Vandal centre, and not upon a weaker wing, it is possible that the two wings were roughly equal in numbers. Behind the Vandal centre was a force of Moorish allies, the strength of which is completely unknown. Like the Huns, they waited until the battle had been decided before taking any action; they did not want to alienate their possible future masters by an untimely attack. Gelimer himself travelled around the entire force, exhorting the men to fight bravely. He also ordered that they fight only with the sword, disdaining to use their spears or other weapons. This may have been a tactic to encourage close combat and so reduce the effects of large-scale Byzantine missile fire. Yet there is no record of him taking part in the actual fighting.

  The battle opened with John following Belisarius’ advice and sending a few troops to skirmish with the Vandal centre. The plan appears to have been to either shoot at the Vandals who would lose men and be unable to respond, or to provoke a counterattack that would lose momentum and cohesion as it crossed the stream. The enemy would then be easy for the outnumbered Byzantines to destroy. Tzazon was too wily to take the bait: a charge by the Vandals forced the Byzantine skirmishers to retire, but the Vandals did not attempt to cross the stream.

  Seeing that the tactic had nearly worked and that the Vandals had no response to mounted archers other than to charge them, John now personally led out the bucellarii, and again was forced to withdraw without the Vandals crossing the stream. John or Belisarius now recognised that the Vandals were not going to take the bait, and that their losses from arrow fire alone were not going to be sufficient to cause them to withdraw. However, they also noticed that the two wings of the Vandal army had not moved to support Tzazon. As a result, John now led out almost all of the comitatus, including the standard, and attacked the Vandal centre. An extremely fierce hand-to-hand battle ensued, in the course of which Tzazon was killed.

  Procopius does not give us the detail we need to assess what happened next. It is possible that Belisarius (not John, who was now involved in the fighting), recognising that the Vandal centre was giving way and that the Vandal flanks were unlikely to intervene, ordered an all-out attack. The timing was crucial. The Vandal centre quickly collapsed in rout, the panic then spreading outwards to the wings. In a short space of time, the Vandal army was fleeing in terror. At this point, the Huns joined in the pursuit, declaring their allegiance to Belisarius.

  However the pursuit was to be a short one; the Vandals returned to their camp, and, without the infantry, Belisarius did not have the necessary troops to assault the position. Instead, the Byzantine troops turned and began to strip the Vandal bodies of their belongings. According to Procopius, the Byzantines left fifty men dead on the battlefield, the Vandals 800. Although not in itself a large number, this was a significant proportion of the Vandal army. More than five per cent of the Vandal forces were dead, and there were many injured in the camp. Things were looking bleak for Gelimer.

  In the afternoon the Byzantine infantry arrived. Belisarius now formed the entire army ready to attack the Vandal camp. It was not to be necessary. Gelimer, along with a few relatives and servants fled unnoticed. When the Vandals realised that their leader had gone, they too escaped from the camp as best they could. The Byzantines stormed the empty camp and took possession of all of the treasures which had been left by the Vandals. Procopius says that this was a vast sum, not only including many valuables made by and for the Vandals while they had been in Africa, but also including many treasures taken during their extensive sea-borne raids of the previous century.

  In their frenzy for loot, Belisarius lost control of the troops: they spent the night pursuing the fugitives, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. Belisarius was deeply worried in case the Vandals should reform and attack the disorganised Byzantines, who would quickly fall under such an assault.

  At daybreak Belisarius took up a position on a hill and harangued the troops concerning their behaviour. Slowly discipline was restored and Belisarius gave his orders. John and 200 men were to pursue Gelimer, not halting until his capture or death. Belisarius then gave pledges to those Vandal fugitives who had sought sanctuary in local churches. They were disarmed and sent under guard to Carthage. After finally gathering his army together again, Belisarius began his own pursuit of Gelimer.

  The Generalship of Belisarius and Gelimer

  The most notable aspect of Gelimer’s generalship at Tricamerum is the lack of any mention of him by Procopius after the deployment of the troops. Unlike Tzazon, he does not appear to have fought in combat during the day, but to have joined his troops in retiring to the camp after their defeat. It would appear that Gelimer had deployed behind the stream hoping that the Byzantines would either deploy with an obvious weak point that he could quickly attack, or that the Byzantines themselves, being overconfident following their victory at Ad Decimum, would attack before they were reinforced by their infantry. In such a situation they would disorder their own troops as they crossed the stream, leaving them vulnerable to attack. When neither of these situations materialised, he appears to have done nothing, instead giving the advantage of the initiative to the Byzantines, an advantage they would exploit to the full.

  The situation was the result of one major factor in Gelimer’s experience in leading troops: he did not know how to deal with the Byzantine horse archers. Their range gave them the tactical advantage against troops who waited, so if he waited, they would slowly wear his army down. Furthermore, this would give time for the Byzantine infantry to arrive. Fast action was needed.

  Yet if he attacked, the formation of his troops would be disrupted by the stream, so giving the advantage to the Byzantines. It appeared that either decision would result in a defeat.

  Therefore, at the crucial point in the battle, Gelimer hesitated and was lost. His failure to adopt any meaningful strategy left him open to the aforementioned horse archers. They first weakened his centre with archery, before the bucellarii charged home and caused the centre to rout. The troops on the wings watched helplessly as the centre was put to flight and Tzazon killed. Gelimer’s inability to formulate a plan of attack or to make important judgments when needed had lost him the battle.

  Gelimer’s decision to flee from the Vandal camp also needs analysis. It is usually compared to his indecision at the Battle of Ad Decimum. There, Procopius has Gelimer grieving for his brother Ammatus, and so losing the battle when Belisarius attacks. In this instance, it is the loss of his brother Tzazon that causes Gelimer to lose heart. This is
very simplistic and further factors need to be taken into account.

  Gelimer had deposed Hilderic partly because of his inability to lead his men to victory in battle as a Germanic king should. Having lost two battles, Gelimer’s leadership would now be under question, and it is likely that upon their return to the camp many of the Vandal nobles were regretting their decision to support his seizure of the throne. At least some of the nobles and warriors would have remained loyal in theory to Hilderic and his policies towards Justinian. Although powerless to prevent Gelimer taking the throne by force, they were likely to surrender to Belisarius when the tides of war turned against them, or even decide to attack Gelimer themselves. Finally, it is probable that many of Gelimer’s most powerful and loyal supporters, such as his brothers, had been killed in the two battles. His position was now extremely weak. Those nobles and warriors left in the camp who had the least loyalty to Gelimer knew that their rule in Africa was at an end. They had neither the troops nor the will to continue the fight. However, they would have a good chance of escaping with their lives if they offered to surrender Gelimer to Belisarius in return for their safety. Gelimer would have been aware of this. Even before the Byzantine attack, the recriminations would have begun.

  Recognising that he could no longer trust the nobles or the army to remain loyal and fight for him, Gelimer decided to escape before he was either killed or handed over to the Byzantines. Although not the act of a Germanic hero, the decision to flee probably saved his life. By now Bonifatius and the Vandal treasures should have been safely on their way to Theudis in Spain. Gelimer decided to join them.

  Turning to the Byzantines, it is unclear what role Belisarius played in the battle. Although Procopius has him ‘advising’ John, it would seem clear that John was in control. By deploying the guard in the centre, opposite the Vandals’ veterans from Sardinia, John’s strategy appears to have been to weaken the Vandal centre by luring them into crossing the stream and being attacked at a disadvantage. He could then break through the centre, before rolling up the enemy’s line to right and left. The morale of the rest of the Vandal forces would be suspect after their capitulation at Ad Decimum and the lack of a defence at Carthage. They might easily fly if put under enough pressure. Whether the plan was John’s or Belisarius’, it worked.

  What is usually overlooked at this point is Belisarius’ order of march, and the fact that he again sent the cavalry ahead. This resulted in over half of his army being unavailable when the time came for battle. Although it can be argued that the victories are all the more noteworthy in that they were actually won by less than ten thousand men, such a situation is not the mark of a great commander. At both the Battle of Ad Decimum and the later Battle of Tricamerum, Belisarius failed to keep his forces united and so risked all with only a small portion of the available forces. It is fortunate for him that the Vandals had fewer men than is often claimed, and that at the vital moment the Vandal leaders gave the initiative to the Byzantines.

  The End of Vandal Africa

  In the meantime, John the Armenian had been giving chase to the Vandal king. Finally, after five days and nights, the Byzantines had finally closed the gap and were close enough to engage. It was not to be: in a bizarre accident, Uliaris, one of Belisarius’ aides, shot John with an arrow whilst aiming at a bird. John was struck in the neck and died shortly after.

  As he came up with the advance party, Belisarius found them mourning their leader. He joined the mourning, providing funds for the regular maintenance of John’s grave. After an investigation, it was concluded that the incident was purely an accident and Uliaris was given a full pardon for his part in John’s death.

  Gelimer continued his flight to Hippo Regius (Bona), from where he travelled to an ancient Moorish city called Medeus. Situated on the slopes of Mount Papua, the natives were allied to Gelimer and prepared to face a long siege. Having established Gelimer’s position, Belisarius set Pharas the Herul along with his 400 men to blockade the city. Pharas and his Heruls were praised by Procopius as exceptional – for Heruls – in the manner of their conduct both on and off the battlefield (Proc, Wars, IV.iv.29–31). Obviously Belisarius shared his high regard for Pharas. Belisarius himself now returned to the nearby city of Hippo Regius, maintaining his policy of pledging safety to all of the Vandals currently in sanctuary. They were returned to Carthage under guard.

  It may be recalled that Gelimer had given orders to his secretary Bonifatius to place the royal treasury on board ship in Hippo Regius and, if he saw that the Vandals were losing, to set sail for Spain and the court of King Theudis. Gelimer expected to join Bonifatius later, and calculated that Theudis would give him sanctuary.

  When Bonifatius became aware that all was lost, he set sail as instructed for Spain. Unfortunately, adverse winds drove him straight back to Hippo Regius, and he was trapped in the harbour by a storm. Realising that he could not escape, he sent men to a sanctuary in the city with instructions to tell Belisarius that Bonifatius had the treasure, but not to reveal the whereabouts until they had been given pledges for Bonifatius’ safety. Belisarius quickly agreed and so captured the last of the Vandals’ treasure. Bonifatius was allowed to go free, retaining his own wealth and, according to Procopius, stealing a large sum from the Vandal treasury as well (Proc, Wars, IV.iv.41).

  It is possible that it was only at this late stage that word reached Gelimer that his overtures to Theudis had been rejected. With few men and no money, his brothers lost and now no hope of a powerful alliance to help him, the end was near for Gelimer.

  After many weeks of besieging Gelimer, Pharas grew weary of his task and led his men in an assault upon the city. Due to the steep approach and the alertness of the defenders, he was beaten back, losing 110 of his men. The episode proved that Pharas could not take the city, but also finally established that Gelimer could not escape. Following an exchange of letters and with starvation looming, Gelimer agreed to surrender providing that Belisarius gave pledges for his safety. Elated, Belisarius sent Cyprian to give the guarantees to Gelimer. The last king of the Vandals accepted them and was escorted to Carthage. The Byzantines had landed in September 533; by March 534 the Vandalic War was at an end.

  Unwilling to wait for Gelimer to make a decision, Belisarius had not been idle. With the Vandal kingdom all but conquered, he had begun to take control of and reorganise the provinces that they had ruled. He sent the general Cyril with a large force to take control of Sardinia. As the natives were terrified of the Vandals and would be suspicious of claims that the Vandals had been defeated, Cyril was given Tzazon’s head to take as a token of proof that the Vandals were no longer a threat to the island. Once in control of the island, Cyril sent a portion of his army to Corsica and that, too, now returned to the control of the empire.

  Belisarius also sent other leaders to claim distant outposts of the Vandal kingdom. John, one of his officers, was sent to Caesarea (Cherchel) in Mauretania with a detachment of the cotmitatus.

  Another John, one of Belisarius’ guardsmen, was sent to Gadira and the fort of Septem, close to the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). Apollinarius was sent to reclaim the Balearic Islands for the empire. He was an Italian who had lived in Libya and served Hilderic. When Hilderic was overthrown by Gelimer, Apollinarius was one of the ambassadors who travelled to Constantinople to plead for help. He had joined the Byzantine expedition and proved himself to be a brave and loyal fighter, especially at Tricamerum. Furthermore, Belisarius now sent troops to aid Pudentius and Tattimuth. Following the rebellion, they had been attacked by the neighbouring Moors. With Byzantine help, the Moors were repulsed and order restored.

  All of the Vandals that had been captured or who had surrendered following Belisarius’ pledges for their safety were gathered together in Carthage. Belisarius now awaited the spring, when he could take them to Constantinople and the emperor.

  Belisarius also sent envoys to the Goths concerning the status of Lilybaeum in Sicily. He claimed that although
Sicily was under Gothic rule, as Lilybaeum had been owned by the Vandals it, too, was now a part of the empire. The Goths refused to allow this. Embassies now passed between Belisarius and Amalasuintha, before the Gothic regent suggested that the matter should be put before Justinian for arbitration. Before Justinian could decide the case, circumstances in Italy were to change drastically.

  Antonina

  Antonina had accompanied Belisarius on the campaign. There are many possible reasons for this. Amongst them are the often-aired theories that Belisarius did not trust Antonina and forced her to accompany him so that he could keep an eye on her, or that Antonina wanted to maintain her influence over Belisarius (see, for example, Norwich, 1988, p. 206 for the former; PLRE IIIA, 1992, Antonina, 1, p. 92 for the latter).

  There is something amiss here; Antonina was a close friend and agent of the Empress Theodora. If she did not want to go to Africa, an appeal to the empress couched in the correct way would have enabled her to stay in Constantinople. There is little reason to suppose that Belisarius could force her to go against her will. On the other hand, if she wanted to maintain her influence, surely it would have been better to remain with the empress than attempt to maintain her hold over a general, no matter how powerful he was.