hom the news was brought by spies, exclaimed with a
sigh:

"Better Belisarius in Rome than Totila!"

And the King of the Goths was filled with anxiety. He determined first
of all to discover the strength of the Byzantine army, in order to
decide upon what course he would take. Perhaps it would be necessary to
raise the siege of Rome, and advance to attack the army of relief.

Belisarius sailed from Salona to Pola, where he mustered his ships and
men. While there, two men came to him, who announced themselves to be
Herulian mercenaries, therefore Goths, but speaking Latin well. They
said that they had been sent by Bonus, one of the commanders of
Spoletium.

They had succeeded in passing the Gothic lines, and they pressed the
commander-in-chief to come to the relief of that place. They begged for
exact particulars as to the strength of his army and the number of his
ships, in order to be able to revive the sinking courage of the
besieged by trustworthy reports.

"Well, my friends," said Belisarius, "you must perforce embellish your
report; for the truth is, that the Emperor has left me entirely to my
own resources."

All the day long he showed these messengers his army and fleet.

The night following the messengers had disappeared.

They were Thorismuth and Aligern, who had been sent by King Totila, and
now furnished him with the much-desired particulars.

So, from the very beginning, fate was against Belisarius, and the whole
course of this campaign was unworthy of the fame of that great general.

It is true that he succeeded in running into the harbour of Ravenna,
and providing that city with provisions.

But, the very day that he arrived. Prince Germanus was attacked by a
fatal malady while visiting the tomb of Mataswintha.

She had been buried in the vault of the palace, near the graves of her
brother and the young King Athalaric.

Germanus died, and, according to his last wish, was buried beside the
woman he had loved so truly.

In a little niche in the same vault there reposed a heart which had
ever beat warmly for Queen "Beautiful-hair."

Aspa, the Numidian slave, would not outlive her beloved mistress.

"In my home," she had said, "the virgins of the Goddess of the Sun
often voluntarily leap into the flames which receive the Godhead.
Aspa's goddess, the lovely, bright, and kind, has left her. Aspa will
not live forlorn in the cold and darkness. She will follow her Sun."

She had heaped up flow