Incidents of War - How to Capture Naples

The collapse of Roman power in Western Europe during the fifth century did not affect the eastern areas of the Empire, ruled from Constantinople.  In the mid-sixth century Emperor Justinian I (r. 525-565) decided to retake all the lost lands in the west, and dispatched a brilliant commander, Flavius Belisarius (c. 500-565).  Belisarius quickly recovered North Africa and Sicily from the Vandals.  In the Spring of 536 he led his army into Italy, held by the Ostrogoths.  By autumn Belisarius had overrun Calabria, occupied Campania, and invested Naples, which was stoutly fortified and held by a determined garrison.  What happened next comes down to us from Belisarius’ own secretary, Procopius of Caesarea (c. 500-565), who wrote a multi-volume account of the wars of Justinian including The Gothic War not to mention the wonderfully scandalous Anekdota or The Secret History

The siege of Naples proved difficult.  Despite severing the city’s water supply by cutting the aqueducts and maintaining a close blockade, so that no food could enter the place either by land or sea, Naples held.  The siege dragged on for more than a month.  Aware that the Goths were concentrating a large army at Rome, Belisarius began to consider abandoning the siege.  Then fate intervened, in the person of a curious Isaurian soldier in the Roman ranks.  The man was so impressed by the colossal aqueducts that he took a walk inside one, following it as far as he could go, to a point where the channel narrowed as it passed under the city walls.  Beyond that point, he noticed that the channel widened again, and he reasoned that a few hours work might enlarge it sufficiently for armed men to pass unnoticed into the city.  The man immediately reported this to his superiors, who passed the word up to Belisarius.

The Isaurian’s discovery greatly heartened Belisarius, who rewarded the man with a good deal of money and put him in charge of widening the passage.  The work proceeded quickly, despite the necessity of having to make as little noise as possible, and soon the passage had been widened suitably to permit a fully armed soldier to pass.  A reconnaissance was made.  Now the defenders had posted guards on the inner ends of the broken aqueducts.  But they had also concluded that this particular one was too narrow to worry about, thus leaving an exploitable vulnerability unguarded.  The reconnoitering party discovered the absence of guards, and also determined that there was an exit from the aqueduct into a garden that was quite near one of the city gates.

Belisarius shortly sent 400 picked men through the aqueduct.  They entered the city, debouched from the garden to capture the gate, and then held it while the rest of Belisarius’ forces poured in.  Naples fell with much slaughter in a morning’s fighting in mid-November – Procopius does not tell us the date.  Belisarius was soon the march for Rome, which he captured on December 9^th.

Now to “fast forward” several centuries.  In the mid-12^th century, the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily had been formed by the Neapolitan Normans as a fief of the papacy.  The kingdoms passed to the House of Hohenstaufen by the end of the century.  In the mid-13^th century the papacy had had a falling out with the Hohenstaufen and invited the French House of Anjou to assume the property.  This initiated a very long war -- arguably lasting, off and on, from 1266 to 1815, between the heirs of the Hohenstaufen and the heirs of the Angevines for control of the two kingdoms.  In the mid-15^th century, the childless Angevine Queen Giovanna II (r. 1414-1435) held Naples, while King Alfonso V of Aragon (r. 1416-1458), heir to the Hohenstaufen, held Sicily.  Upon Giovanna's death left the property to Duke Rene d’Anjou, who became king as Rene I (r. 1435-1442).  This greatly irked, Alfonso, for back in 1421 Giovanna had named him heir, in return for help in suppressing one of her cousins, who had set himself up as claimant to the throne.  Although Giovanna had disinherited Alfonso years earlier, he asserted his claim, arguably doubly valid since he could claim to be heir to the Hohenstaufen, who had been ousted from Naples in 1266 by Giovanna's ancestors.  War broke out in 1438, as Alfonso invaded Naples.  Many disaffected nobles flocked to his banner -- Neapolitan nobles were always disaffected -- and a long war ensued. 

Finally, by the Spring of 1442 only the actual city of Naples still held out against Alfonso.  A long, difficult siege began.  The fighting was severe, and Alfonso himself was badly wounded.  While recuperating, he decided to read the account of Belisarius’ campaign against Naples nine centuries earlier in Procopius’ History.  Alfonso immediately realized that the ancient aqueducts were the key to the city, for all of them had long since ceased to function and were by his time largely forgotten.  As a result, his troops entered Naples on the night of June 1^st-2^nd, as Rene d’Anjou fled into exile, while Alfonso settled down to enjoy his newly-won realm.  

Aside from rather dramatically demonstrating the value of a classical education, Alfonso's capture of Naples also suggests that old tricks con sometime work more than once.  Indeed, the trick was old long before Belisarius captured Naples by sending troops through the aqueduct.  As recounted in 2 Samuel, 5.6-8, the trick had been used around 1003 B.C. when King David of the Hebrews captured Jerusalem from the Jesubites in this fashion, and nearly 175 years after Belisarius' feat, the deposed Romano-Byzantine Emperor Justinian II “No-Nose” regained his throne by recapturing Constantinople in the same way in A.D. 705.