that’s one tough eunuch

On the verge of a battle to retake Rome, Narses the Commander Eunuch does not hesitate to dish out tough justice to one of his allied barbarian chieftains:

“On the morning of the important day, when the ranks were already formed, a servant, for some trivial fault, was killed by his master, one of the leaders of the Heruli. The justice or passion of Narses was awakened: he summoned the offender to his presence, and without listening to his excuses, gave the signal to the minister of death.”

Gibbon often refers to “signals” being given to the minister of death, and I’d like to know the nature of the signal.

But then comes the battle itself, and here’s what I really don’t understand. How many times, in Roman history, did Rome or its enemies fall for the old “let them advance in the center and then surround their flanks and rear” trick? Hannibal slaughtered the Romans at Cannae that way, and in the ancient world everyone knew all about Hannibal’s campaigns. So were the barbarians just this stupid, even after a few centuries of Romanization? Better yet, Narses did it “insensibly” this time:

“The Germans advanced in a sharp-pointed column, of the form of a triangle or solid wedge. They pierced the feeble centre of Narses, who received them with a smile into the fatal snare and directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to wheel on their flanks and encompass their rear.”

The Romans lost only 80 dead in that battle, while only 5 of the barbarians survived it, out of thousands.