The Dark Ages Podcast

Hello and welcome to the Dark Ages Podcast. Episode 43: Theodahad’s Thirty Pigs.

I hope you all enjoyed the last episode, it took much longer to put together than expected, and I have to apologize again for the interruption in service and thank you all for coming back to me.

Before getting to the meat of the episode today, I have a small point of interest from a previous episode. In episode forty-one I mentioned Belisarius’ speech to his troops on the day of the battle of Tricamerum, and quoted the line “For not by numbers of men, nor by measure of body, but by valor of soul is war to be decided.” I was at the time talking about the tendency of historians to reference earlier works to demonstrate their erudition, rather than accurate reporting of events. It turns out I actually gave an example without realizing it at the time, as that line comes straight out of Xenophon’s Anabasis. It’s still possible Belisarius said something like it, since he would probably have read Xenophon too, but it’s more likely another example of historians reaching back to the classics, to show just how smart they are. Good thing that kind of thing never happens nowadays.

Today’s episode is the first step into the Gothic Wars. Yep, plural. The wars were waged by the Romans in Italy over the next 19 years. They will fundamentally change Italy’s social, political, and material fabric, and to my mind are the real start of the so-called dark ages. 

The Gothic Wars are usually divided into two halves, either two separate wars or two broad phases, depending on who you’re reading. I’m probably going to cover the first of these phases, my guess is it’ll take about four episodes, and then take a break from Italy and go check on some of the other folk we’ve been trying to keep track of, like a kindergarten class in a mall, and then come back to finish the second half.

Our guide for this first half continues to be Procopius, with Belisarius his main focus. The ebullient, cheerleading Procopius of the Vandal War starts to slip a little bit though, as the Gothic war progresses and he sees the devastation wrought by the conflict and the suffering of the commoners of Italy. Criticism of the general begins to work its way into Procopius’ narrative, in a stream that would turn into a flood in his later Secret History. For today’s episode, we will still be in the sunny uplands of Procopius’ beneficence, as he describes the immediate aftermath of the Vandals’ defeat and the preliminary moves of the Gothic Wars.

Belisarius returned to Constantinople from Carthage, with Gelimer in tow, and celebrated a triumph. Procopius tells us that it was the first time in 600 years that a Roman from outside the imperial family had been granted the honor, and while his math isn’t quite right, he isn’t too far off. Justinian granted the honor to Belisarius with significant alterations to the old ceremony. Belisarius progressed through Constantinople on foot, rather than in a chariot, beginning at his house rather than the city gate, and proceeding to the hippodrome, where he made the circuit around the track before stopping before the kathysma, the imperial box. He was accompanied by his bucellarii, by wagon loads of gold and silver liberated from the Vandal treasuries, including the Menorah, by hundreds of captured Vandals, and by Gelimer, clad in a purple cloak. 

The former king of the Vandals was soon to be major landowner in Galatia, though he was never granted the patrician status he had asked for, since he refused to give up his Arian beliefs. When he reached the kathysma, and looked up at the enthroned Justinian, and around at the cheering multitude, he reportedly just shook his head and quietly invoked Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” His purple garments were stripped from him and he fell to his knees in submission to Justinian, as did Belisarius. Justinian and Theodora presented the remaining descendents of Hilderic to the crowd and loaded them with gifts, since they were also the descendants of Valentinian, and the celebration came to an end. 

Belisarius was made consul for the next year, 535, and so had an opportunity to scatter gold to the crowds on New Year’s Day. It had been a good year for the general. 

 At the end of April, Amalasuintha was murdered on the orders of her cousin Theodahad, who was proclaimed king of Italy and of the Ostrogoths. He immediately sent a delegation to Constantinople to disavow all knowledge of the murder, but one of the emissaries, the ever flexible and competent Liberius, told Justinian the truth, and smoothly switched sides into imperial service. Always had his finger in the wind, Liberius, and knew how to keep himself on the winning side.

Justinian was not at all thrilled by the news that Amalasuintha had been betrayed … or was he? The conquest of Vandal Africa had been quicker and easier than anyone had dared hope; maybe the other barbarian kingdoms that squatted on Roman lands could be dislodged just as easily. And here was an opportunity … spookily similar to the intrigues that had triggered Roman intervention in Africa. A friendly ruler, who nominally ruled on the sufferance of the emperor, had been illegally deposed by a hostile force. Justinian could make the claim that he was moving to restore the rightful order of things and avenge Amalasuintha, while at the same time moving to restore the empire to its original glory. Whether Justinian really believed it would be possible to take back all of what had been lost is an open question, indeed, whether restoration was his ultimate goal at all can be debated. To me, it seems in perfect keeping with Justinian’s rather megalomaniacal persona for him to believe he could do it. He was, after all, simultaneously reforming the entire government apparatus, systematizing and regularizing the law, building what would be the largest dome in the world for a thousand years in the form of the Hagia Sophia, why not reconquer the whole western Roman empire? How hard could it be? And the opportunity that was developing in Italy meant that the greatest prize of that undertaking – Rome itself – was within reach.

Plans were quickly drawn up. The question of command was no question at all. The men who had rescued Justinian from the Nika mobs would undertake this new task for him. Mundus, the barbarian from beyond the borders, whose loyalty had been proven a hundred times over, was ordered to invade Dalmatia by land and seize Salona, near modern Split, Croatia. But first, the newly minted golden child would sail to Sicily again. Belisarius’ previous visit had made it clear that the Goths were not well liked on the island, and it was weakly garrisoned. The breadbasket of Italy might be taken with little more effort than a sweep of the scythe. 

Belisarius left immediately, with a much smaller force than the one that had landed in Africa, around 7,500 men, roughly half of his previous expeditionary force. There was no time to gather a larger one, and the empire’s armies were stretched thin as it was; garrisoning Africa against the Moors took a significant segment, along with the usual defensive needs along the Danube and Persian frontiers. Belisarius’ army was also even more heterogeneous than the last one, with at least half being foreign mercenaries, including, again, a large contingent of the unpredictable Huns.

In the summer of 535, Belisarius landed at Syracuse, and quickly took control of the city. His earlier assessment of the island’s disposition had been correct, and as his army moved from town to town, gates were flung open and Gothic garrisons either fled or surrendered. The Ostrogoths had never really nailed down their control over Sicily or the southern third of the Italian peninsula. They’d never had the numbers, and there was plenty of rich land in the north to go around, and Theodoric had been reluctant to spread his army too far afield. He also may have calculated that a light touch in Sicily may be more effective in keeping the grain supply flowing, rather than clamping down hard and provoking rebellions. That had worked for Theodoric, and for Amalasuintha, but once a viable alternative to Gothic rule appeared, the Sicilians grasped it with both hands. By December the whole island was in Belisarius’ control, with hardly a drop of blood spilled.

There was one holdout. The garrison of well-fortified Palermo trusted their thick walls, and their gates remained firmly shut against the Romans.

The siege of Palermo as described by Procopius contains one of the most striking images in the history of the Gothic Wars, but it’s one I can’t quite get my head around. See what you think, here’s the passage in full.

“Belisarius, considering that it was impossible to capture the place from the landward side, ordered the fleet to sail into the harbor, which extended right up to the wall. For it was outside the circuit wall and entirely without defenders. Now when the ships had anchored there, it was seen that the masts were higher than the parapet. Straightaway, therefore, he filled all the small boats of the ships with bowmen and hoisted them to the tops of the masts. And when from these boats the enemy were shot at from above, they fell into such an irresistible fear that they immediately delivered [Palermo] to Belisarius by surrender.”

Can someone draw me a picture of that? How big were these boats? How does one hoist a boat up a mast and make it into a stable platform for archery? Initially I thought of suspending the boats between two masts, but most of these ships were single-masted. I just can’t picture it. 

However it was made to work, the boat trick meant that all of Sicily was back in imperial hands. On New Years Eve, 535, Belisarius returned to Syracuse, entered the city on horseback, and scattered gold coins to the populace, as was his right on the last day of his consulship. It had been another good year for Belisarius.

Meanwhile, Mundus had descended on Dalmatia, and progressed quickly toward Salona. Resistance was heavier than in Sicily – I mean, a bag of feathers would have been heavier than the resistance in Sicily, but you know what I mean – and Mundus’ victory was looking equally as assured, though he didn’t quite get to Salona.

Theodahad took the news of Sicily’s capture in stride. Wait, no, that’s not true at all. Theodahad was turned, as though by the gaze of a confectionary cockatrice … into a quivering crock of custard. 

Justinian’s man in the Ostrogothic court was named Peter, and he seems to have been a natural diplomat. It was he who brought news of Palermo to Theodahad, and was on-site to receive Theodahad’s response. The king offered to surrender all claims on Sicily, pay Justinian an annual tribute in the form of a gold crown weighing no less than 72 pounds, and provide 3000 armed men whenever and wherever the emperor required them. Additionally, he would give up hiring and firing privileges. No senator or cleric could be arrested without the emperor’s approval, and no honors above a certain level could be given without the emperor’s say so. Essentially Theodahad agreed to become a vassal of the emperor, king only in name, more like a provincial governor. Peter wrote it all down, made sure that Theodahad put his name on the thing (press down hard, you’re making three copies) and took his leave.  He started out immediately for Constantinople, probably feeling pretty pleased with himself.

Before he’d gotten far, Peter was summoned back to Theodahad. The king had had some time to think. Had he discovered his spine? Was he going to take it all back? 

No, he was worried that even this offer would not be enough to placate Justinian. Would the offer please the emperor? He asked. Peter thought it probably would. “But what if it doesn’t?” asked Theodahad.

It was obvious that Theodahad was a man on the edge, and Peter, being a diplomat, knew exactly how to push him off. “Well, if it doesn’t, you will have to wage war.”

I’m going with the exchange as it appears in Procopius, even though it’s probably mostly a fabrication – Procopius the novelist again. 

Theodahad hadn’t gotten into the kingship business to wage wars, which represents a fundamental failure to understand the kingship business. 

He whined to Peter, “Is it just?”

Peter was ready for that question, “How is it not just, sir, if the pursuits appropriate to each man’s nature should be preserved?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your great interest is philosophy, while Justinian’s is to be a worthy emperor … For one who has practiced philosophy it is unseemly to bring about the deaths of men, especially in great numbers … a view that accords with the teachings of Plato, to which you are devoted … but for [Justinian] it is not at all inappropriate to seek to acquire a land which has belonged of old to his own realm.”

Smooth. Theodahad prepared a second offer, to be presented only if Justinian rejected the first, to resign the kingship of Italy entirely. It read, in part, “It is utterly absurd that I should aspire to the honors which royalty confers and thus lead a life fraught with danger … if estates should be provided to me  which yield an annual income of no less than twelve centenaria, I shall hand over to the emperor forthwith the power of the Goths and the Italians.” Still looking for that quiet retirement life.

Justinian did indeed reject the first proposal, but was overjoyed at the second. I have to assume that Peter didn’t really put his back into selling the first one.

In the meantime, the Romans suffered a setback in Dalmatia. The Gothic lords had finally mustered a force to oppose Mundus’ army, led by two commanders, Asinarius and Gripas. The Romans were camped near Salona. Mundus’s son, Mauricius, was scouting nearby with a few men, and blundered into this army by chance. The resulting skirmish was sharp and bloody, with significant losses on both sides, including Mauricius. When news of his son’s death was brought to Mundus, the general lost his head a bit. He marched his whole army away from Salona, with very little in the way of a battle plan, and hunted down the Gothic army. The battle that followed was vicious, with little strategy or maneuver, just a bloody slog of hand to hand fighting. In the end the Goths routed and fled the field. But Mundus, still furious with grief, pursued them long after it was prudent to do so, and was killed in an ambush. In the absence of any senior commander, the remaining Roman army withdrew from Dalmatia, and Salona remained un-taken by either Goth or Roman.

Word of this dubious Gothic victory had an effect on Theodahad that was entirely out of proportion to its actual significance. He shed his craven shell to reveal the chocolate of stupidity that lay beneath. Something about the man just cries out for sugar-based metaphors.

Theodahad called Peter and the other ambassadors, who had returned from Constantinople, and taunted them. He repudiated the agreement he had made, and threatened the ambassadors with imprisonment. Peter was unmoved, and did his duty as a professional diplomat, delivering the letter from Justinian that accepted the second iteration of Theodahad’s offer. When he had finished reading it, the Goth followed through on his threat and placed the emissaries under guard. 

Meanwhile, Justinian moved quickly to rectify the Dalmatian situation, appointing a new commander “Constantinianus, I choose you!” and ordering him to get this thing done. Constantinianus was an experienced commander from Illyria, and mustered at Dyrrachium for the new assault. Simultaneously, as word on Theodahad’s outrageous treatment of the ambassadors filtered back, new orders were sent to Belisarius: he was to attempt to cross the Straits of Messina and begin the conquest of Southern Italy.

When Gripas, the Gothic commander in Dalmatia, received intelligence that Constantinianus’ army had set off by sea and was heading toward Salona, he panicked. He didn’t dare meet the Romans in open battle, his army wasn’t in good enough order. The walls of Salona were in terrible condition, and the local population was not at all friendly. Under the circumstances, Gripas thought it best to move away from the coast and camp on the plateau to the north west of Salona, possibly near the modern village of Mirlovic Zagora. Constantinianus had been encamped on one of the many coastal islands, deliberating about his next move. When he heard that the Goths had withdrawn he immediately set sail for Salona. He took a day to secure the roads leading into the city, then entered it with no resistance from either local or Goth. He immediately set about rebuilding the city walls. Gripas was disheartened by the humiliating ease of Constaninianus’ victory, and the speed with which the Romans repaired the walls. Just 7 days after the Romans had landed, he and his whole army crossed the sea to Ravenna, leaving Dalmatia and neighboring Liburnia firmly in Roman hands.

Life for Belisarius, for the moment, was equally rewarding. He crossed to Reggio without difficulty. Like Sicily, the extreme south of Italy had been lightly garrisoned, and many of the towns and cities were unwalled, so concerted resistance would have been difficult anyway. Both Italians and Goths joined Belisarius’ force as he moved. Procopius makes particular note of a Goth named Ebrimus who came over to Belisarius’ side, and happened to be Theodahad’s son in law. This little peach of positive PR was sent to Constaninople and loaded down with gifts and honors. 

Progress up the Italian coast continued apace, and Bruttium (the toe) and Lucania (the instep) were in Roman hands without much difficulty. That brought the army to Campagna, and the first real hard target that Belisarius had run into so far: Naples. 

Naples had walls, Naples was well garrisoned, and Naples had gates, which it shut in the face of Belisarius.

The Gothic garrison, though large, were obviously not the only inhabitants of the city, and after Belisarius had secured the suburbs and an outlying fortification, he received a delegation from the town’s more prominent citizens. These citizens pointed out that strategically, Naples was of relatively little importance, and that if Belisarius captured Rome, as was clearly his intention, then Naples would be his without a fight. Also, the Goths of the garrison were just as much captives of their king as anyone else, for Theodahad held all of their wives and children hostage, so they could not surrender or even negotiate without fear for their families’ safety. Any time spent on Naples would be time wasted.

But Belisarius hadn’t come all this way just to pass cities by. He rejected the Neapolitans’ claim of strategic irrelevance; he needed a reliable port for re-supply if he was to lay siege to Rome in the near future. As for the Goths, their decisions were their own, but he did promise that any who surrendered without a fight would either be accepted into Belisarius’ army or allowed to leave. Privately he also intimated that the Neapolitans would receive imperial favor and rewards if they turned the city over to imperial rule. 

Factions developed inside Naples. The Goths, of course, remained resolute against Roman rule – that alliteration wasn’t even intentional. Among the citizens, there was more controversy. There were elements within the city with good reasons to dread the return of imperial control. Unlike the agricultural economy of the countryside and smaller towns, the Neapolitan economy was much more mercantile. Under imperial administration, higher customs and excise taxes were a near certainty, not to mention much stricter enforcement. The city’s sizable Jewish population was also trepidatious. Justinian was well known for his strict adherence to Orthodoxy and persecution of the Jews of the Empire had intensified since he took the throne. Joining the empire would surely mean an end to the tolerance/benign neglect the Neapolitan Jews had enjoyed under the Goths. The debate went back and forth until in the end, Naples declared its resistance. Belisarius shrugged … and ordered the assault. 

His army made three or four attempts to take the city by storm, without success. Large sections of the walls were inaccessible, either because of the sea, or because of rough country running up to them, so the full force of the attack could only be brought on a few places. Eventually Belisarius gave up and dug in.  He ordered the aqueducts that fed the city cut, but even this had little effect beyond stopping the flow of fountains, as there were plenty of wells within the city walls to keep the citizens supplied.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Well not really, you’re probably thinking about lunch, I know I am. It’s just a literary device. 

What exactly has Theodahad been doing through all of this? An enemy army is laying siege to one of his important cities, after having wandered up 300 miles of his country without so much as tripping on a spear. Surely he’s been mustering his armies, writing away to the Visigoths for help, raising taxes to pay for a war effort? 

Well… No.

Theodahad had had another of his wild mood swings. (The phrase Theodahad had had is really something, isn’t it?)

He sat despondent, taking no action at all to move against Belisarius, instead seeking the advice of prophets and fortune tellers. One of these was particularly depressing to him. Now I have to preface this by noting that while Procopius relates this story, he says he doesn’t believe it to be true. But it’s the incident I’ve named this episode after, so obviously I’m going to tell it.

In Ravenna was a man (Procopius calls him a Hebrew) who was supposedly gifted in foretelling the future. Theodahad asked him what the outcome of the current war would be, and the man gave him the following instructions: Take three groups of pigs, of ten pigs each, and shut them up in three identical huts. On these huts mark the names Romans, Goths, and Soldiers of the Emperor, and leave the huts closed up for several days. When you open the huts and see the condition of the pigs, you will have your answer.

No prizes for guessing how that worked out.

I probably should have thrown a trigger warning before I started this part: if you would rather not hear about harm coming to animals, skip ahead about thirty seconds.

Out of the pigs in the Soldiers hut, only a few had died, the others came out alive and … well probably not happy, but alive. Half of the pigs in the Roman hut had survived, but all of their bristles had fallen out. In the Goths hut, only two pigs remained. I’ll let Procopius take it from here:

“When Theodahad beheld this … a great fear came upon him, since he knew well that it would certainly be the fate of the Romans to die to half their number and be deprived of their possessions, but that the Goths would be defeated and their race reduced to a few, and to the emperor would come, with the loss of but a few of his soldiers, the victory in the war. And for this reason, they say, Theodahad felt no impulse to enter into a struggle with Belisarius.”

As Procopius himself says, the story probably isn’t true, and is the product of backformation, as later commentators sought to explain Theodahad’s utter incompetence to themselves. I also feel honor-bound to point out the touch of anti-semitism in the story, as it’s noted not once but twice that the fortune teller was a Hebrew, thus tying the Jews to witchcraft and other practices frowned on by the Church. Also also, um, spoilers.

Belisarius meanwhile was beginning to regret his cavalier attitude toward Naples, as the siege began to drag. He was worried that if he spent too much time here, he would have to fight Theodahad, whenever he appeared, in winter, and he was ill equipped for such a campaign. On the other hand, he didn’t dare leave a strong enemy position in his rear. His troops were becoming frustrated as well, and given the problems Belisarius had had with Hun mercenaries in the past, that was further cause for concern. Negotiations with the city were ongoing, and at one point Belisarius pointed out how many barbarians there were in his army, and that he doubted his ability to control them if they broke into the city by force. The Neapolitans though, having watched the besiegers struggle, remained at least outwardly resolved.

The key moment came three weeks after the siege had begun. One of Belisarius’ soldiers, an Isaurian according to Procopius, had been on a bit of a wander around the city walls. He came to the place where the aqueduct had been cut, and having never seen such a structure before, climbed inside it, and proceeded down the conduit, amazed that men could have built such a thing. He eventually reached a place near the city wall where the conduit passed a rock outcropping that had been incorporated into the aqueduct’s stonework, and the conduit narrowed and prevented him from going any further … The Isaurian realized though that the opening could be easily enlarged by a few men with the proper tools, and ran to tell the general about his discovery. 

Men were duly placed on widening detail, and before long the opening could comfortably accommodate an armed man. Belisarius paused before he committed to this plan though. He really was concerned that he would not be able to maintain discipline among his men once they were inside the city, and that was both a moral and political problem. Leaving aside the ethics of knowingly causing unnecessary death and terror, he was supposed to be leading an army of liberation. That face would be hard to maintain if his men sacked the cities of Italy like any other mob of despoiling barbarians.

He summoned a representative from the city and made one last pleading appeal, going into some detail about what happened when a city fell to sack, and implored the Neapolitans to open the gates. They refused. 

That was that then.

After nightfall, four hundred men, lightly armored to reduce noise, entered the aqueduct. The guards on the nearby tower were distracted by some trash-talk from one of Belisarius’ Gothic-speaking subordinates. The aqueduct was carried some distance into the city on high arches. Once they were past the rock outcrop they had widened, the soldiers had no way of knowing how far they would have to go, or exactly how they would be getting out. It must have been stiflingly hot, and the potential for disaster was high, as hundreds of men crammed into the narrow space. Eventually the army reached a spot where decay and neglect had made a hole in the roof of the duct, and they were able to see up and out. The aqueduct lay against a dilapidated building with an olive tree arching over both. One man took off his armor and scrambled up the wall of the building. Inside lived a very poor woman, squatting in the ruin. Swearing to silence on pain of death, the soldier found a rope and fixed it to the olive tree. Passing it down through the hole to his companions, they managed to exit the aqueduct and make their way through the building down to the street. Once they were in order, they made their way to the outer wall and attacked and killed the garrisons of two towers before they were detected. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Belisarius waited. When the intruders were discovered and Gothic trumpets sounded, Belisarius launched his own attack. There was a moment of farce as it was discovered that the Romans’ ladders were too short for the job. They were quickly lashed together in pairs, and the Romans were up onto the parapets. The defenders were overwhelmed by the multi-directional assault, and the gates were thrown open, or in the case of the East Gate, burned. 

The Roman army poured into Naples, and Belisarius’ prediction was proved to be correct. 

I’ll hand it over to Procopius again.

“And then a great slaughter took place; for all of them were possessed with fury … They kept killing all they encountered, sparing neither old nor young, and dashing into the houses they made slaves of the women and children and secured the valuables as plunder; and in this the [Huns] outdid the rest, for they did not even withhold their hand from the sanctuaries, but slew many of those who had taken refuge in them, until Belisarius, visiting every part of the city, put a stop to it.”

Procopius doesn’t say how long the sack lasted, but when he had managed to regain control, Belisarius decreed that the human spoils, the woman and children, should be returned to their homes, husbands, and fathers. The movable goods would have to suffice in terms of plunder. A traumatic experience, undoubtedly, but it could have been much much worse. Many families had taken precautions and buried their most valuable possessions when the siege had begun, and so had mitigated their losses.

Naples had taken three weeks to fall, and still there was no sign of movement from Theodahad. Rome was clearly next on Belisarius’ hit list, and the Goths of the city were increasingly convinced that Theodahad had sold them out, which wasn’t necessarily untrue. The Gothic chieftains of Rome and their people abandoned the city and set up camp a day’s journey away, at a place called Regata, and there elected themselves a new king.

The new man was named Vitiges. He was of a minor noble clan, i.e. not an Amal, but had distinguished himself in Theodoric’s campaigns against the Gepids. 

If the Ostrogoths had demonstrated anything since they arrived in Italy, it was that two kings is one king too many. It’s not clear exactly where Theodahad was when he heard about all of this, but he booked it for Ravenna as soon as the news of his deposition reached him. He never made it. Vitiges picked out a likely lad and sent him to collect Theodahad and bring him back to answer to his people. Wasn’t too worried about his condition when he arrived either. The lad in question already had beef with Theodahad, and when he caught up with him, he tied him up, laid him on the ground, and slit his throat. 

Theodahad was in his late fifties or early sixties, and had been king of the Ostrogoths and Italians for just about two years. Few gave him much thought after he was gone. With Sicily and the southern third of Italy gone, Naples fallen, and Rome in danger, Vitiges had plenty of more important things on his mind.

We’ll talk about what he did and how that all shook out – though I suppose the pigs already gave you a general idea – next time.

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Okay I think that’s everything, except to wish all of you a Happy Festivus, or whatever Holiday you prefer. Thanks again everyone. Until next time, take care.