d
hostile to her interests. For these reasons the great general had been
for some years in disgrace. A large part of his property was taken away
from him, and some of it was handed over to Antonina, with whom he had
been ordered to reconcile himself on the most humbling terms: his great
military household, containing many men of servile origin, whom he had
trained to such deeds of valour that it was a common saying, "One
household alone has destroyed the kingdom of Theodoric", was broken up,
and those brave men who would willingly have died for their chief, were
portioned out by lot among the other generals and the eunuchs of the
palace.

Still, in deference to the unanimous opinion of his counsellors,
Justinian decided once more to avail himself of the services of
Belisarius for the reconquest of Italy. But his unquenched jealousy of
his great general's fame, and the almost bankrupt condition of the
Imperial exchequer converged to the same point, and caused Justinian,
while entrusting Belisarius with the command, to couple with it the
monstrous stipulation that he was not to ask for any money for the war.
And this, though it was clear to all men that the want of money and the
consequent desertion of the Imperial standard by whole companies of
grumbling barbarians, had been one main cause of the amazing success of
Totila. Thus crippled by his master, and having his own spirit broken by
Imperial ingratitude and domestic unhappiness, Belisarius, in the whole
course of his second command in Italy, which lasted for five
years--(544-549) did nothing, or I should rather say only one thing,
worthy of his former reputation. This is the judgment which his former
friend and admirer, Procopius, passes on this period of his life. "Thus
then", (in 549) "Belisarius departed to Byzantium without glory, having
been for five years in Italy, but having never been strong enough to
make a regular march by land in all that time, but having flitted about
from one fortress on the coast to another, and so left the enemy free to
capture Rome and almost every other place which they attacked".

Notwithstanding this harsh sentence, it was in connection with the siege
of Rome that the old Belisarius, the man of infinite resource and
courageous dexterity, once more revealed himself, and while we gladly
let all the other events of these five tedious years glide into
oblivion, it is worth while devoting a few pages to the Second and Third
Gothic sie