tives, and united their whole forces to fall upon the remnant of his army, who turned their backs to the river, to prevent being surrounded. The combat was most obstinate, but the forces were very unequal. A mere handful of foot-soldiers opposed to the innumerable cavalry of the enemy. But this small detachment was neither broken, nor reduced to flight. They closed their ranks, and linked their large bucklers together so effectually, that they inflicted a much heavier loss than they endured. The enemy tried to break their compact order by repeated charges of heavy horse, but without effect. The remainder of the day passed in this obstinate contest, which was only interrupted by the approach of darkness. During the night, the Persians withdrew to their camp, and Belisarius having found some boats, embarked the few survivors of this sanguinary battle, and gained some islands of the Euphrates, where the rest of his army had already taken refuge."

The next morning, the Persians having plundered the dead bodies, and lamented their own slain, continued their retreat, while Belisarius crossed over to Callinicum on the opposite bank of the river. The foregoing plan, No. 2, shows the concluding manœuvre of the battle.

Nothing can be more dangerous, or more opposed to skilful tactics, than taking up a position for battle with a river in the rear. A wood is quite a different matter. Wallenstein covered his retreat from Lutzen by means of the woods, which assisted and concealed his own movements, while they impeded the advance of the Swedes. The Duke of Wellington, if by any overwhelming attack he had been driven from the position of Waterloo, would have found certain shelter in the wood of Soignies, and effectual means of checking the enemy.* But a river

neither offers cover nor outlet. The Roman consul Caius Flaminius, in his campaign against the Insubrian Gauls, passed the Adda, broke up his temporary bridge, cut off his own communications, and engaged a formidable enemy with the river at his back, and

no line of retreat open to him, in case of disaster. His operations proceeded from his own free choice, and demonstrated a lamentable want of generalship. But he won the battle he ought to have lost, by the superior arms, discipline, and courage of his troops. The senate justly censured his conduct, notwithstanding his victory, and eminent historians, commencing with Polybius, have ratified the decree. This same Flaminius repeated his error at Thrasymene, and paid dearly for the second experiment.

This time he had to deal with Hannibal, and not with a barbarian who knew no principle of war, beyond the simple one of close and desperate combat. Overtaken and surprised on his march, in loose order, and unprepared, the enemy poured down from the high ground on his left flank, while the lake shut in his right, which soon became his rear, as he faced round to encounter his opponents. Into this lake his army were pushed by thousands, when broken and scattered by the skilful stratagem of the Carthaginian commander. Maxentius, in his great battle with Constantine, at the Saxa Rubra, near Rome, fought with the Tiber in his rear, and sustained a defeat, in which he lost his empire and his life. Cæsar was too consummate a master of his trade to fall into these errors. In the war against the Belgæ, he passed the Axona, now the Aisne, and encamped with the river close behind him; but, dreading an attack from the enemy in this disadvantageous position, which his inferior forces prevented him from quitting immediately, he entrenched his front with a fosse and rampart, extending four hundred paces, communicating at each end with a tower provided with engines, at right angles with, and extending to, the river. He thus covered both his flanks, so that he could not be turned, or driven back into the stream; and the enemy, struck with terror by these formidable preparations, abandoned

their preconcerted plans, and dared not to attack him.*

Belisarius at Callinicum, as we have seen, in a critical moment formed his foot in a dense mass, within a bend of the Euphrates. Until then, we may suppose they were drawn up in the usual open order of the Romans, and in three lines, as handed down in their habitual practice, which, together with the legionary form, had not yet been abolished. The result showed the immeasurable superiority of infantry, when cool, determined, and well commanded, in resisting the clamorous and outwardly imposing attacks of cavalry. Tallard, at Blenheim, was less fortunate, although his troops were brave and well-disciplined -in his own opinion, the best in the world.

But Tallard was neither Beli

sarius nor Marlborough. On that great day, the English general having, after a desperate conflict, attended by some vicissitudes, broken the centre of the French, and completely separated their wings, abandoned the right, under Marsin and the Elector of Bavaria, to the disposal of Eugene, and turned his whole force against the left. He saw in a moment the errors of Tallard's dispositions, and how completely his battalions posted in Blenheim, and the sustaining squadrons in their rear, were insulated. With a furious charge of seven thousand horse, in one compact body, he overpowered opposition, and drove many French squadrons before him into an abrupt bend of the Danube, immediately in their rear, exactly similar to that of the Euphrates at Callinicum.

Had Tallard withdrawn his twentyseven battalions from Blenheim by a rapid movement, while time was yet left him, and formed them across the

bend, supported on either flank by the cavalry, he might have held his ground as Belisarius did, and, if unable to obtain a victory, might at least,

have qualified or checked a ruinous defeat. As it was, the French, unable to form in a solid mass, either of cavalry or infantry, by protecting their flank, were driven headlong into the river, rapid and impassable, where many perished miserably, and the remain. ing survivors were made prisoners on the brink. The battalions in Blenheim, entirely deserted by the rest of their own army, attacked in front by the English infantry, and in the rear by the cavalry, flushed with success, laid down their arms, and by their surrender, completed the triumph of the conquerors. Blenheim was in truth a great but fruitless stroke in war. The peace of Utrecht neutralised the important consequences of that signal victory, with the advantages of all the subsequent campaigns, and suggested, long after, the question of pertinacious little Peterkin, in Southey's poem, which it would be difficult to answer, except as the boy's grandfather did :—

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene.
But what good came of it at last ?'
Quoth little Peterkin.

Nay, that I cannot tell,' said he;
But 'twas a famous victory.''

When Justinian determined on the African war, and committed its direction to Belisarius, he relied more on the talents of his general than on the number of his troops. Five thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry, was the force allotted, and expected to reduce the warlike kingdom of the Vandals, which, even in its decline, could bring eighty thousand fighting men into the field. The expedition was nearly rendered abortive before the fleet and army had rounded the Peloponnesus. A disease broke out among the soldiers, owing to the badly baked bread or biscuit furnished by the minister of finance, the infamous John of Cappadocia. Acting in the spirit of paltry peculation, of which commissaries-general, before and since, have furnished examples, he put into his own pocket the money levied for the public service, regardless of complaint or consequences; and although Belisarius checked the evil by obtaining a fresh supply of wholesome food, when five hundred men had been sacrificed, the emperor wanted firmness to punish the fraud of his favourite, although he

praised the zeal of his general.

It is

to be regretted that we cannot record of John of Cappadocia the retributive justice which fell on old Booty, a navy contractor of the last century. He was seen by the crew of a vessel who had suffered under his mouldy biscuit, to be chased up Stromboli, one of the Lipari islands, by a battalion of pursuing demons, who pitchforked him into the crater. Booty is not the only public delinquent thus disposed of, and in the same penal locality. A few years before the ministry of the corrupt John, above-named, Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, was plunged, immediately after his death, A.D. 526, into the volcano of Lipari, the principal island of the group, of which Stromboli forms one, and always a popular mouth of the infernal world. An Italian hermit witnessed the operation in a vision. The legend is attested by Pope Gregory I. and Cardinal Baronius. Perhaps some of our readers may think the evidence is scarcely as good as the log of a ship or the verdict of an English jury.

The fleet of Belisarius proceeded slowly on its course. The summer calms of the Mediterranean are baffling and tedious, and impede an expedition as much as the squalls and storms of the winter. The soldiers were sick and desponding, conscious that half their powers were neutralised on an element to which they were unaccustomed. The earth retains permanent vestiges of man's footsteps, but the ocean rejects the impress of his march. The furrow of the deepest keel is ef faced by the next advancing wave. The shores of that inland sea, on which were situated the four great empires of the ancient world, for ages exhibited memorials of the wars and armaments by which they had been subverted, long, lurid, and portentous as the tail of a comet; but the sea itself closed over the track of the mighty hosts that had been borne on its surface, in a moment after they had passed along. Beautifully and truthfully does the poet sing when apostrophising the unchangeable ocean :—

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." The army disembarked on the coast

of Africa, three months after its departure from Constantinople; a voyage which now, by the aid of steam, might be easily accomplished in a few days. The point of landing, Caput Vada, was distant from the capital about one hundred and fifty miles. The Vandals

were totally unprepared, but Belisarius advancing slowly along the coast, to prevent surprise, directed the fleet to keep in sight, and accompany the movements of the army. In all his operations he displayed the most consummate generalship. Two victorious battles brought him to the gates of Carthage, which were opened without resistance. Gelimer, the Vandal king, fled to a mountain, where he was surrounded, and compelled to surrender; and in less than one year the ancient province of Africa, including Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic isles, was once more incorporated with the dominions of the Roman Emperor. But now the jealousy of Justinian began to break out against his successful general. Secret envy whispered that he aspired to an independent throne. An order for his recall was issued, which he instantly obeyed, although empire wooed him where he was, and court faction awaited his return.

The inducements which would have persuaded many, appear not to have tempted or shaken his loyalty for a moment. Justinian repented of his unfounded suspicions, ordered medals to be struck, bearing on one side his own effigy, on the other that of his victorious general, and decreed to Belisarius the honours of a triumph, the first on which the inhabitants of the Eastern capital had ever gazed. The captive monarch walked in the procession, the treasures of the Vandals were exhibited in vast profusion, and some of the most sacred memorials of religion were restored from a long captivity. The holy table inlaid with gold, and the golden candlestick, with six branches, from the temple of Solomon, originally brought to Rome by Titus, and transplanted to Carthage by Genseric, were recovered by the conquests of Belisarius, and the piety of Justinian placed them, after many vicissitudes and wanderings, in the Christian cathedral of Jerusalem. Here history loses sight of these interesting relics, which perished, un

doubtedly, in the subsequent inroads. of the Persian and Saracen invaders. Had they remained at Constantinople they might still be in existence. Belisarius was still further rewarded by a large portion of the captured spoil, and was named sole consul for the ensuing year. He was now, apparently, at the height of human glory; honoured, respected, and loved; an object of universal admiration wherever he appeared, and attended on all public occasions by a bodyguard of devoted followers, more numerous and more splendidly equipped than even the personal household of the emperor himself. His demeanour was mild, affable, and unassuming; his justice impartial, and his benevolence unbounded. From his generosity, says Procopius, you would have deemed him very rich; from his manners very poor. When we add to all these noble qualities, a fervent constitutional loyalty, which no wrongs could undermine, or no temptation shake, we look through history in vain for a perfect parallel or an adequate associate.

Neither civilisation nor religion were advanced by the overthrow of the kingdom of Genseric. The substituted government of the Greeks was weak and tyrannical, and opposed no barrier to the progress of the Saracens, or the spread of Islamism. Had the Vandals remained in possession of Africa, a more vigorous monarch than Gelimer might have concentrated their strength, and revived their ancient hardihood. A flourishing country would not have been depopulated, and in all probability, the tide of Mohammedan invasion would have been checked and broken on the shores of Carthage, instead of penetrating to the banks of the Loire and the plain of Tours. But as it was, Christianity gradually became extinct. in the entire province, and fanatic barbarism reigned in its stead.

The easy conquest of the Vandalic kingdom expanded the ambition of the Roman Emperor, who now dreamed of restoring Italy to the sway of the Cæsars. A pretext was easily found in the murder of his friend and ally, Queen Amalasontha, by Theodotus, and an army not exceeding twelve thousand men was destined for the enterprise a force totally inadequate,

-

which might have been swallowed up or dissipated in a single battle; but the name of Belisarius was considered a talisman which could fill his ranks and make up for all deficiencies. No general on record has achieved such great successes with such scanty means. Twice he conquered a powerful kingdom, and twice rescued his own country from innumerable invaders, and never had twenty thousand men at his disposal. A French writer (M. Le Beau) says, he preferred small armies to large ones. The position is absurd. He often complained bitterly that his plans were crippled by his defective numbers, and petitioned for reinforcements, which were sparingly granted, or withheld altogether. A general may select small bodies of chosen troops for particular enterprises, which require secrecy or despatch; but he knows little of war who imagines that any commander would choose to invade a kingdom with a detachment, if an army was to be obtained. Judging by what Belisarius did, we may calculate what his genius might have accomplished had he led into the field the numerous squadrons and battalions with which Marlborough and Eugene beat down the power of Louis XIV., and humbled the pride of the French marshals. The end obtained, the difficulties accomplished are only to be judged fairly by the allotted means.

He

Belisarius commenced the Gothic war by the conquest of the Island of Sicily, which remained subsequently under Greek dominion for three hundred years, until torn from them by the Saracens; but Sicily had then long ceased to be the granary of Rome, and had dwindled into a useless appendage. At the siege of Palermo, Belisarius had recourse to a stratagem of mechanical ingenuity, which carries us back to the days of Archimedes and Marcellus, and the second Punic war. moored his ships close to the walls, in the deepest recess of the harbour. The boats were laboriously hoisted by ropes and pulleys to the top-mast heads, and filled with archers, who, from that superior height, completely commanded the fortifications of the city, drove the defenders from the ramparts, and compelled a speedy surrender. In the following year (A.D. 536), the Roman general crossed over from Messina to Rhegium, and advanced on Naples ; the fleet, as in the preceding war

against the Vandals, accompanying the army in their coast march of three hundred miles. The conquest of Italy, by Belisarius, stands in the very first class of military achievements, and formed one of the six subjects for an epic poem, long contemplated by Tasso, before he decided on the deliverance of Jerusalem. After a close investment of twenty days, Belisarius, who had little time to lose, was disposed to abandon the siege of Naples, when an accident discovered a hidden passage through the channel of an aqueduct, by which his troops passed, in the silence of the night, and carried the city by storm. The severe discipline of Belisarius restrained the unbridled license which usually follows, and compelled his soldiers to spare the persons of the unfortunate inhabitants, and to restore much of their captured property. The surviving garrison of eight hundred Goths, were incorporated with his forces, and proved valuable recruits. From Naples he advanced to Rome, the surrounding country and cities submitting as he moved along. Beneventum opened its gates, and presented to the conqueror a tusk of the Calydonian boar, still preserved as their most valuable possession. Procopius describes this authentic curiosity as having been twenty-seven inches long, about three times the usual dimensions. Ovid says, in a loose computation, the tusks of this extraordinary animal were as large as those of an elephant. The pedigree of the one named by Procopius could scarcely be doubted. It came with Diomede, the founder of the city, and nephew of Meleager, the hero of the hunt, by whom the boar was killed. The thirty warriors who leagued in this feat of valour, were less polite than brave, seeing that they quarrelled with Atalanta, the only lady in company, for the possession of the head. Other vestiges of remote antiquity of greater interest, were still in existence, with good reputation, when Procopius accompanied Belisarius to Italy. Rome, the original galley of Æneas, at that time aged at least seventeen hundred years, was preserved entire among the Navalia, near Monte Testaceo, at the foot of the Aventine. The given proportions are one hundred and twenty feet in length, and twentyfive in breadth, with a single bank of oars; but the relic is not mentioned

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