their prowess and against orders, they marched out of the Porta Pancratia and, making their way through the abandoned building of an exterior suburb, debouched onto the plain.
The sheer number of that body, five thousand men setting up a huge cloud of dust, had to be the cause of what followed. The horns before Valentinus blew and suddenly his enemy melted away, abandoning their camp to occupy the nearest set of hills to the rear where they could mount a defence.
Seeing the enemy retreat, the Roman levies, hitherto in untidy lines, ceased to march in any kind of order. They began to run and did not stop until they were within the wooden rampart that protected the Gothic encampment, where they immediately fell into an orgy of looting. Not to be outdone and in fear of losing out, the Moorish mercenaries likewise set to, seeking to ensure they got their just share, their behaviour immediately copied by the mounted archers.
Valentinus had been in command of a well-disciplined force; within a few grains of sand he was seeking to impose some kind of order on a rabble, while the condition of that which had caused him to flee was not lost on his opposite number. Seeing the chaos before them the Goth cavalry began to advance, which immediately alarmed the Romans.
Attempts by Valentinus to get them to form up fell on deaf ears; men who had been looting now had only one aim, to get back within the walls of the city with everything they could carry. The Moors were now so muddled as to be useless, while the archers, who knewthey could not stand alone, took the only course open to them and began to flee as well.
If the well mounted got to safety that was not an opportunity afforded to many of the others. Men on foot running from warriors on horseback had little chance and the slaughter was great. Nowhere was that more than at the gate itself, open but so crowded with panic-stricken Roman levies that it became a charnel house.
The last command Valentinus could issue, once he and his personal bodyguards had forced their way through the rabble, was to get that gate shut and let everyone still outside it pay for their greed. That was where Photius found him, tears streaming down his cheeks.
C HAPTER E IGHT
M orale naturally plummeted following such a reverse and the only method by which Flavius could counter that was by a return to his previous stratagem, that of a controlled sortie and then retire. This enjoyed only limited success, due to the higher spirits of the Goths and the way they had learnt to counter his tactics. The fact that preyed on his mind was not the nature of his own failure – in war such things had to be accepted – but the way it had nearly turned into disaster.
If the Goths had put in a final charge it was possible, with the gates of the city shut against him, he would have lost his entire army and the image of those Roman citizens lining the walls in silent contemplation of such an outcome caused a near apoplexy, just as much as the indiscipline of their levies on the Plains of Nero had multiplied his own difficulties on the east bank of the Tiber.
The need to know how such a set of circumstances had come about was a task for Procopius. He agreed with his master that the Roman mob were not capable of such behaviour on some collective natural instinct. Yes, the common people could riot as could any mass of citizens; Flavius had seen that very thing in Constantinople in the so-called Nika riots against Justinian and Theodora, an uprising that had ended in themassacre of thirty thousand citizens in the Hippodrome.
There had been furtive leadership then seeking power for themselves and many had paid the price for mere suspicion of involvement; something of the same must exist in Rome and future security demanded that whoever was responsible be unmasked, a demand easier made than satisfied, as Procopius sadly reported. He lacked the sources among the Romans that he enjoyed within the army.
‘It’s like walking
The sheer number of that body, five thousand men setting up a huge cloud of dust, had to be the cause of what followed. The horns before Valentinus blew and suddenly his enemy melted away, abandoning their camp to occupy the nearest set of hills to the rear where they could mount a defence.
Seeing the enemy retreat, the Roman levies, hitherto in untidy lines, ceased to march in any kind of order. They began to run and did not stop until they were within the wooden rampart that protected the Gothic encampment, where they immediately fell into an orgy of looting. Not to be outdone and in fear of losing out, the Moorish mercenaries likewise set to, seeking to ensure they got their just share, their behaviour immediately copied by the mounted archers.
Valentinus had been in command of a well-disciplined force; within a few grains of sand he was seeking to impose some kind of order on a rabble, while the condition of that which had caused him to flee was not lost on his opposite number. Seeing the chaos before them the Goth cavalry began to advance, which immediately alarmed the Romans.
Attempts by Valentinus to get them to form up fell on deaf ears; men who had been looting now had only one aim, to get back within the walls of the city with everything they could carry. The Moors were now so muddled as to be useless, while the archers, who knewthey could not stand alone, took the only course open to them and began to flee as well.
If the well mounted got to safety that was not an opportunity afforded to many of the others. Men on foot running from warriors on horseback had little chance and the slaughter was great. Nowhere was that more than at the gate itself, open but so crowded with panic-stricken Roman levies that it became a charnel house.
The last command Valentinus could issue, once he and his personal bodyguards had forced their way through the rabble, was to get that gate shut and let everyone still outside it pay for their greed. That was where Photius found him, tears streaming down his cheeks.
C HAPTER E IGHT
M orale naturally plummeted following such a reverse and the only method by which Flavius could counter that was by a return to his previous stratagem, that of a controlled sortie and then retire. This enjoyed only limited success, due to the higher spirits of the Goths and the way they had learnt to counter his tactics. The fact that preyed on his mind was not the nature of his own failure – in war such things had to be accepted – but the way it had nearly turned into disaster.
If the Goths had put in a final charge it was possible, with the gates of the city shut against him, he would have lost his entire army and the image of those Roman citizens lining the walls in silent contemplation of such an outcome caused a near apoplexy, just as much as the indiscipline of their levies on the Plains of Nero had multiplied his own difficulties on the east bank of the Tiber.
The need to know how such a set of circumstances had come about was a task for Procopius. He agreed with his master that the Roman mob were not capable of such behaviour on some collective natural instinct. Yes, the common people could riot as could any mass of citizens; Flavius had seen that very thing in Constantinople in the so-called Nika riots against Justinian and Theodora, an uprising that had ended in themassacre of thirty thousand citizens in the Hippodrome.
There had been furtive leadership then seeking power for themselves and many had paid the price for mere suspicion of involvement; something of the same must exist in Rome and future security demanded that whoever was responsible be unmasked, a demand easier made than satisfied, as Procopius sadly reported. He lacked the sources among the Romans that he enjoyed within the army.
‘It’s like walking
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