Attila (43 page)

The aftershocks and ominous rumbling stopped as suddenly as they had begun, the succeeding stillness and silence almost shocking by contrast. Hugging the sea-wall, which seemed to have sustained comparatively little damage, Constantine hurried past the harbours of Kontoskalion and Eleutherius, to reach the Theodosian Walls at the Golden Gate as dawn was breaking. The sun's early rays disclosed an appalling sight: tower after tower, together with the intervening stretches of rampart, reduced to jumbled heaps of brick and stone. Walking along the course of the bulwark, Constantine counted fifty-eight towers destroyed out of ninety-six – an open invitation to an invading enemy. And beyond the Danubius, the hordes of Attila were gathering . . .

It was a moment of supreme crisis, but Constantine rose to the occasion. Somehow, he had to find a solution to a seemingly impossible problem: how could he get the Walls rebuilt before the Huns were upon them? There weren't enough builders and masons in all Thrace, let alone Constantinople, to complete the work in time. Suddenly an idea came into his mind, one of those happy inspirations that can change the course of history. His first reaction was to reject it out of hand; it was crazy, it couldn't possibly work. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that perhaps it just might. At any rate, there was nothing to lose by putting it to the test. Summoning the leaders of the opposing circus factions, the Blues and the Greens, he addressed them in the Hippodrome from the imperial box, the Kathisma: an unheard-of liberty, which carried the death penalty, but who was telling?

‘Gentlemen, there are three things you should know,' he began. ‘One, the Walls have collapsed for over half their length. Two, the Huns are about to attack. Three, the only people with sufficient organization and manpower to repair the Walls before the Huns get here, are yourselves. There's just one problem—'

‘We don't like each other very much,' interjected one of his hearers. ‘In fact, we hate each other's guts.' A roar of sardonic mirth greeted this sally.

‘An understatement,' laughed Constantine, beginning to enjoy
himself despite the dire circumstances. A tough, pragmatic individual, unflustered when it came to making rapid decisions which might have far-reaching consequences, he assessed the mood of his audience. These were hard, greedy, combative men, always spoiling for a fight, who lived for money and excitement. The most effective way to harness that raw energy, the prefect decided, was to pit the rival colours against each other as competing teams, each responsible for its own section of collapsed Wall. When he put the suggestion to them, it was greeted with delighted approval. Such a contest – on a mind-boggling scale, and with the added spice of a deadly race against time – provided just the sort of challenge they found irresistible.

‘If we're agreed, here's the plan,' said Constantine. ‘Many of you will have suffered damage or destruction of your homes, and loss or injury of family members, in the earthquake. Go home now and attend to your affairs. For those whose homes have been destroyed, temporary accommodation will be built. Injured relatives will have priority treatment at monasteries, and the field hospitals which will be set up without delay. Tomorrow, report outside the Walls with your faction's supporters. God bless you, and good luck.'

Work started the following day, on schedule. Sixteen thousand loyal supporters were divided up by the architects and master masons supervising the work, into gangs working in shifts, and field kitchens were set up to provide a constant flow of meals. To Constantine's relief and gratification, the Walls began to rise again with astonishing speed, the rival factions vying to outdo each other, while Anatolius bought time from the advancing Huns, by spinning out negotiations to repay arrears of tribute. In the incredible time of two months the ruined sections were rebuilt – not in any rough-and-ready improvised way, but as a massively solid, finished piece of work, with, in addition, a second lower line of walls and towers to its fore and, in front of that, a parapeted terrace, then a moat. As the last blocks were being mortared into place, the news arrived that the Huns, their numbers swollen by subject Ostrogoths and Gepids, were swarming forward, only days away. But Constantine was quietly confident that, behind his mighty barrier, the city was now safe. And so long as Constantinople stood, so would the Eastern Empire.

 

¹
447.

The enemy cavalry were not able to rout the Roman infantry; standing shoulder to shoulder they formed with their shields a rigid, unyielding barricade

Procopius,
History of the Wars
, c. 550

With mingled pride and sadness, Aspar watched his new army file out of Marcianopolis: pride because, starting from a base consisting of the demoralized survivors of the Thracian Chersonesus, he had built a formidable force, trained and equipped to the highest standards; sadness because, in engaging the hordes of Attila, many – perhaps most – would inevitably die. Ratiaria might be in Attila's hands, but the East's other workshops had worked night and day to provide his men with the finest weapons and armour that Roman industry and craftmanship could produce. No soldiers of his would face battle in cheap ridge helmets and stiff scale-armour cuirasses, as worn by Western troops. Instead, they would be protected by tough yet flexible coats of chain mail, and by helmets of the superior Attic type – unchanged since Alexander's day – complete with brow reinforcement and cheek-pieces, and with bowl and neck-guard forged from a single sheet of iron for maximum strength.

The army formed up in marching order on level ground outside the city: heavy cavalry such as the Arubian Catafractarii from the Black Sea province of Scythia; light cavalry like the Augustan Horse and First Theodosians; crack infantry units – the Fifth Macedonian Legion, the Second Thracian Cohort, the Third Diocletians, et cetera; specialist units – archers, slingers, catapult-men, doctors, armourers; the
ballistae
and
onagri
; the wagons loaded with arrows and javelins, armour, rations, and spares. Escorted by two famous palatine
vexillationes
, the Arcadians and Honorians, the three commanders, Arnegliscus, Aspar, and Areobindus, took their places at the head of the column. Arnegliscus raised his arm; all down the line the sonorous booming of the
bucinatores
' trumpets sounded, and the army began to move. Swinging along at the regulation
pace of three Roman miles per hour, it headed westwards on the Nicopolis road: towards Attila, towards destiny.

‘You've chosen well,' Arnegliscus told Aspar, as the two generals looked down on the imperial dispositions from the wooded slopes on the army's right.

‘Thank you, sir,' acknowledged Aspar. ‘Provided our men keep their nerve and hold the line, we should be able to block the Huns' advance – for a time, at least – and inflict heavy casualties. Realistically, that's about the most we can hope to achieve. We haven't the manpower for anything else.'

In the shadowy half-light of the first hour, the recently assembled units resembled black rectangular patches sewn on a grey cloak. The infantry were drawn up eight ranks deep, between high wooded ground guarding their right flank, and the River Utus
¹
on their left. Heavy cavalry, mailed
clibanarii
and
catafractarii
, forming the wings, were stationed a little in front of the line, behind which were the archers, both horse and foot. Forming a protective screen several hundred yards in front of the main force were the light cavalry, mounted spearmen and
scutarii
with small round shields and javelins. Their job was not to try to stop the enemy but to slow its advance and cause maximum disruption, before falling back to reinforce the heavy horse. Positioned on the steep terrain on the right, wherever the ground was sufficiently level, catapults had been set up and the trees clear-felled in front of them so as not to impede the shot. Using the energy stored up in twisted hanks of sinew or hair, these formidable machines could discharge heavy bolts or round projectiles with terrific force, lethal up to several hundred yards. As an aid to aiming, painted stones marking various ranges had been sited in what would become neutral ground between the armies.

Scouts had reported that the Huns, bypassing the refortified section of the frontier in Moesia Prima, were approaching eastwards along the corridor of level land between the Danubius to the north, and the Haemus range
²
to the south. Here, in the neck of the corridor, in the province of Dacia Ripensis, Aspar, with the agreement of the other two generals, had chosen to
confront the Huns. As Arnegliscus had implied, it was a strong position, allowing the imperial army to present a broad front to the enemy, thus utilising its manpower effectively, but with sufficient depth to provide stability. The river on the left flank, and the wooded bluffs on the right, ensured that the army could not be outflanked – always the greatest danger with the Huns. While favouring the Romans, the constricted nature of the site also prevented the Huns, who had overwhelming superiority in numbers, from deploying more than a fraction of their forces at one time.

Between the second and third hours, scouts galloped up from the west with the news that the Huns had broken camp and their van would soon be in sight. The
bucinatores
sounded their trumpets, and the army, which had been allowed to rest, was stood to arms. Two orderlies appeared before the army, carrying between them an improvised tribunal which they placed on the ground. Arnegliscus, the German master-commander, mounted the platform.

‘Soldiers, we shall shortly be in battle with the Huns,' he began, speaking awkwardly, in clipped, guttural tones. ‘For many of you, it will be your first battle, and you may well be afraid, because of what you have heard about the Huns as fighters. I tell you this: you need not fear the Huns. They are savages, barbarians. A Roman is worth two of them. The only reason they have been successful so far is that there are so many of them compared to us. Well, today their numbers will count for far less. As you can see from our position, they can only bring against us at one time the same numbers with which we will oppose them. Stand firm today, and we will show the world that Attila is not invincible.'

The little speech seemed to go down well, perhaps because, lacking the rhetorical flourishes which a Roman commander would have employed in addressing his troops, it came over as honest and sincere. The soldiers showed their appreciation by beating their shields loudly with their spears.

Soon after Arnegliscus had stepped down from the tribunal, dust-clouds on the western horizon signalled the approach of the Huns. The skirmishers, having done their work, came racing back ahead of the enemy to rejoin the Roman formations. Moments later, the Hun van swept down upon the Roman line. The front held firm; confronted by a hedge of blades, at the last second the
enemy riders peeled away to left and right, taking casualties from the volley of darts and javelins that arced up from the Roman ranks.

After the shock and confusion of the initial encounter, both sides settled down to a grim contest of attrition. Time after time, Hun charges against the Roman line stalled, the horses balking in face of the wicked spear-points. Meanwhile, the Roman catapults, from their high ground to the right of the line, wreaked fearful damage on the Huns. The
ballistae
resembled giant cross-bows, each arm being inserted into a column of sinews clamped in a frame. Cranked back with a lever-and-ratchet mechanism, when released by a trigger the bowstring discharged a heavy bolt along a groove. These projectiles, shooting downhill with tremendous force into the dense masses of Huns, sometimes skewered several bodies together, or turned horses into pain-maddened, uncontrollable liabilities. The other type of catapult, the aptly named
onager
or ‘kicking ass', had an arm ending in a sling to hold a heavy ball. Also powered by twisted sinews, when wound down then released it was even more destructive, if less accurate, than the
ballista
; anyone struck by a lump of iron weighing twenty pounds, and travelling at enormous speed, if he was not killed outright was going to be put out of action – permanently.

The Romans' choice of terrain denied the Huns their favourite, and winning, tactic: outflanking then encircling their opponents. Being forced to fight on the Romans' terms on a narrow front put them at a considerable disadvantage; their strengths of speed, mobility, and firepower, were comparatively ineffective against a shield-wall maintained by armoured men, who could be attacked only from the front. And successive charges by the Roman heavy horse, invulnerable in mail, cut bloody swathes through their van, leaving heaps of dead and dying men and horses to impede others trying to attack the Roman front. Roman archers, too, shooting in safety from behind the rear rank, took a steady toll, as did the volleys of darts and javelins which the
pedites
, constantly supplied by runners bringing replenishments from the wagons, were able to maintain.

But the constant sleet of Hun arrows slowly began to thin the Roman ranks. Perhaps only one arrow in twenty found a mark, but so heavy and unremitting was the barrage that the casualty rate crept up inexorably. As gaps appeared, the file-closers pushed men
up from behind to fill them, causing the Roman line to narrow dangerously from eight ranks, to six, to four . . . Sensing the situation was becoming critical, Arnegliscus removed his helmet, his long yellow hair allowing him to be instantly recognized, and rode along the Roman front exhorting the soldiers to stand firm. An obvious target, it was not long before his horse was killed beneath him; then he himself fell in the act of mounting a fresh steed, his brain transfixed by a Hun arrow.

Now in overall command, Aspar knew there could only be one conclusion to the battle. Had the sides been evenly matched, the day would have undoubtedly gone to the Romans. But with their huge preponderance in numbers the Huns could sustain enormous losses and still keep putting men into the field. Nevertheless, surveying the endless windrows of Hun dead that made the battlefield resemble a wheatfield after a hailstorm, Aspar felt a grim satisfaction. The Huns might win the battle, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory. It was clear that they had suffered losses on a scale which must leave them severely, perhaps permanently, weakened.