nt of a pension
of forty-eight thousand pounds sterling, he would resign the kingdom
of the Goths and Italians, and spend the remainder of his days in the
innocent pleasures of philosophy and agriculture. Both treaties were
intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on the frail security of
an oath not to produce the second till the first had been positively
rejected. The event may be easily foreseen: Justinian required and
accepted the abdication of the Gothic king. His indefatigable agent
returned from Constantinople to Ravenna, with ample instructions; and
a fair epistle, which praised the wisdom and generosity of the royal
philosopher, granted his pension, with the assurance of such honors as
a subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and wisely referred the final
execution of the treaty to the presence and authority of Belisarius.
But in the interval of suspense, two Roman generals, who had entered the
province of Dalmatia, were defeated and slain by the Gothic troops. From
blind and abject despair, Theodatus capriciously rose to groundless and
fatal presumption, and dared to receive, with menace and contempt,
the ambassador of Justinian; who claimed his promise, solicited the
allegiance of his subjects, and boldly asserted the inviolable privilege
of his own character. The march of Belisarius dispelled this visionary
pride; and as the first campaign was employed in the reduction of
Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the second year
of the Gothic war.

After Belisarius had left sufficient garrisons in Palermo and Syracuse,
he embarked his troops at Messina, and landed them, without resistance,
on the opposite shores of Rhegium. A Gothic prince, who had married the
daughter of Theodatus, was stationed with an army to guard the entrance
of Italy; but he imitated, without scruple, the example of a sovereign
faithless to his public and private duties. The perfidious Ebermor
deserted with his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to
enjoy the servile honors of the Byzantine court. From Rhegium to Naples,
the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each other,
advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The people of
Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name and religion of
the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that their ruined walls
were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a just equivalent for
a plentiful market; and curiosity alone interrupted the