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CHA P. ambitious, of the dangerous honour; but as soon

as Justinian had declared his preference of superior merit, their envy was rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the choice of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a'suspicion, that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of his wife, the fair and subtile Antonina, who alternately enjoyed the confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora. The birth of Antonina was ignoble, she descended from a family of charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all the hardships and dangers of a mili

tary life *.

Prepara. The preparations for the African war were not tions for the African unworthy of the last contest between Rome and war, A.D. 133. Carthage. The pride and flower of the ariny con

sisted of the guards of Belisarius, who according to the pernicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves by a particular oath of fidelity to the service of their patron. Their strength and stature, for which they had been curiously selected, the goodness of their horses and armour, and the assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to act whatever their courage might prompt;

and

* See the birth and character of Antonina, in the Anecdotes, c. 1. and she notes of Alemanus, p. 3.

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and their courage was exalted by the social honour CHAP, of their rank, and the personal ambition of favour and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active Pharas; their untractable valour was more highly prized than the tame submission of the Greeks and Syrians ; and of such importance was

; it deemed to procure a reinforcement of six hundred Massagetæ, or Huns, that they were allured by fraud and deceit to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horse and ten thousand foot were embarked at Constantinople for the conquest of Africa, but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace and Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal dependence. From a laudable desire to assert the dignity of his theme, Procopius defends the soldiers of his own time against the morose critics, who confined that respectable name to the heavyarmed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously observed, that the word archer is introduced by Ho. mer * as a term of contempt.

" Such contempt might, perhaps, be due to the naked youths who appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and, lurking behind a tomb-stone, or the shield of a

friend,

СНАР. “ friend, drew the bow-string to their breast * "and dismissed a feeble and lifeless arrow. But

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our archers (pursues the historian) are mounted "on horses, which they manage with admirable "skill; their head and shoulders are protected by "a cask or buckler; they wear greaves of iron on "their legs, and their bodies are guarded by a coat "of mail. On their right side hangs a quiver, a "sword on their left, and their hand is accustomed "to wield a lance or javelin in closer combat, "Their bows are strong and weighty; they shoot "in every possible direction, advancing, retreating, "to the front, to the rear, or to either flank; "and as they are taught to draw the bow-string "not to the breast, but to the right ear, firm, in"deed, must be the armour that can resist the ra

pid violence of their shaft." Five hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbour of Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels may be computed at thirty, the largest at five hundred tons; and the fair average will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one hundred thousand tons †, for the reception of thirty

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thirty-five thousand soldiers and sailors, of five CHA P. thousand horses, of arms, engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water and provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud gallies, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so many hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of Justinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines covered from the missile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two thousand of the brave and robust youth of Constantinople. Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the supreme command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius alone, with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion as if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval and military professions is at once the effect and the cause of the modern improvements in the science of navigation and maritime war.

of the fleet,

In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, Departure and about the time of the summer solstice, the A. D. 533 whole fleet of six hundred ships was ranged in June. martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The patriarch pronounced his benediction, the emperor signified his last commands, the general's trumpet gave the signal of departure, and every heart, according to its fears or wishes, explored

with

contrary, and indeed a stranger mistake, has crept into an ora tion of Dinarchus (contra Demosthenem, in Reiske Orator. Græc. tom. iv. P. ii. p. 34.). By reducing the number of ships from 500 to 50, and translating de by mines, or pounds, Cousin has generously allowed 500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet!-Did he never think?

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CHAP. with anxious curiosity the omens of misfortune and

success. The first halt was made at Perinthus or Heraclea, where Belisarius waited five days to receive some Thracian horses, a military gift of his sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued their course through the midst of the Propontis ; but as they struggled to pass the streights of the Hellespont, an unfavourable wind detained them four days at Abydus, where the general exhibited a memorable lesson of firmness and severity. Two of the Huns, who in a druken quarrel had slain one of their fellow-soldiers, were instantly shewn to the army suspended on a lofty gibbet.

The na. tional indignity was resented by their countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and asserted the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was allowed to expiate the hasty sallies of intemperance and anger. Their complaints were specious, their clamours were loud, and the Romans were not averse to the example of disorder and impunity. But the rising sedition was appeased by the authority and eloquence of the general: and he represented to the assembled troops the obligation of justice, the importance of disipline, the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than excused by the vice of intoxication *. In the navigation from the Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks,

after

a

* I have read of a Greek legislator, who inflicted a double

а penalty on the crimes committed in a state of intoxication : but it seems agreed that this was rather a political than a moral law.

: