Honour

Начало книги

Fighting on the Persian frontier was about containment, which had frustrated Flavius Belisarius ever since he arrived. Just eighteen summers in age yet in command of a half numerus of light cavalry, he thirsted for the kind of fight in which reputations were made and deeds attained of which people would speak in decades and centuries to come: he wanted glory and with the impatience of youth he wanted it right away.

This attitude he maintained while serving alongside men who had experienced proper battle, soldiers far from happy at the prospect that conflict on a large scale might break out once more. Many had previously faced the might of the Sassanid Persian Empire and were wary of doing so again. The Romans had enjoyed little success against an enemy that generally outnumbered them and one that could rapidly gather its forces given the frontier was closer to their heartlands.

If Sassanid Persia sent forth a heterogeneous army, made up of many different tribal groups, then that too applied to the troops raised and paid for by Constantinople. Centuries had passed since Rome could field an army made up of its own citizens or indeed men recruited from within its own territories. The empire relied on mercenary barbarians to fight its battles, and given the Emperor Anastasius was a parsimonious ruler, such troops were numerically too low in the uneasy times of peace and late to arrive in proper quantities when real danger threatened.

Читать дальше →