hat he owed his
life and safety, and that hereafter he would be her faithful slave,
and no longer her husband.

The Empress divided Belisarius's fortune into two parts; she gave
thirty centenars of gold to the Emperor, and allowed Belisarius to
keep the rest. Such was the fortune of the General Belisarius, into
whose hands Fate had not long before given Gelimer and Vitiges as
prisoners of war. The man's wealth had for a long time excited the
jealousy of Justinian and Theodora, who considered it too great, and
fit only for a king. They declared that he had secretly embezzled most
of the property of Gelimer and Vitiges, which belonged to the State,
and that he had restored a small part alone, and one hardly worthy of
an Emperor's acceptance. But, when they thought of what great things
the man had done, and how they would raise unpopular clamour against
themselves, especially as they had no ground whatever for accusing him
of peculation, they desisted; but, on this occasion, the Empress,
having surprised him at a time when he was quite unmanned by fear,
managed at one stroke to become mistress of his entire fortune; for
she straightway established a relationship between them, betrothing
Joannina, Belisarius's only daughter, to her grandson Anastasius.

Belisarius now asked to be restored to his command, and to be
nominated general of the army of the East, in order to conduct the war
against Chosroes and the Medes, but Antonina would not permit this;
she declared that she had been insulted by her husband in those
countries, and never wished to see them again.

For this reason Belisarius was appointed Constable,[10] and was sent
for a second time into Italy, with the understanding, they say, with
the Emperor, that he should not ask for any money to defray the cost
of this war, but should pay all its expenses out of his own private
purse. Everyone imagined that Belisarius made these arrangements with
his wife and with the Emperor in order that he might get away from
Byzantium, and, as soon as he was outside the city walls, straightway
take up arms and do some brave and manly deed against his wife and
his oppressors. But he made light of all that had passed, forgot the
oaths which he had sworn to Photius and his other intimates, and
followed his wife in a strange ecstasy of passion for her, though she
was already sixty years of age.

When he arrived in Italy, things went wrong with him daily, for he had
clearly incurred t