nd had been
occupied with them and this subject had been driven out. He summoned
them, accordingly, intending to say what he wished, but upon considering
the matter, he saw that it would not be propitious for them to interrupt
their journey. He therefore sent men to forbid them either to return to
him or to disembark from their ships. And these men, upon coming near
the ships, commanded them with much shouting and loud cries by no means
to turn back, and it seemed to those present that the thing which had
happened was no good omen and that never would one of the men in those
ships return from Libya to Byzantium. For besides the omen they
suspected that a curse also had come to the men from the emperor, not at
all by his own will, so that they would not return. Now if anyone should
so interpret the incident with regard to these two commanders, Valerian
and Martinus, he will find the original opinion untrue. But there was a
certain man among the body-guards of Martinus, Stotzas by name, who was
destined to be an enemy of the emperor, to make an attempt to set up a
tyranny, and by no means to return to Byzantium, and one might suppose
that curse to have been turned upon him by Heaven. But whether this
matter stands thus or otherwise, I leave to each one to reason out as he
wishes. But I shall proceed to tell how the general Belisarius and the
army departed.

XII

[533 A.D.] In the seventh year of Justinian's reign, at about the spring
equinox, the emperor commanded the general's ship to anchor off the
point which is before the royal palace. Thither came also Epiphanius,
the chief priest of the city, and after uttering an appropriate prayer,
he put on the ships one of the soldiers who had lately been baptized and
had taken the Christian name. And after this the general Belisarius and
Antonina, his wife, set sail. And there was with them also Procopius,
who wrote this history; now previously he had been exceedingly terrified
at the danger, but later he had seen a vision in his sleep which caused
him to take courage and made him eager to go on the expedition. For it
seemed in the dream that he was in the house of Belisarius, and one of
the servants entering announced that some men had come bearing gifts;
and Belisarius bade him investigate what sort of gifts they were, and he
went out into the court and saw men who carried on their shoulders earth
with the flowers and all. And he bade him bring these men into the house
an