ee, not a path could be traced in the fields of corn. Belisarius was
chaste and sober. In the license of a military life, none could boast
that they had seen him intoxicated with wine: the most beautiful
captives of Gothic or Vandal race were offered to his embraces; but he
turned aside from their charms, and the husband of Antonina was never
suspected of violating the laws of conjugal fidelity. The spectator and
historian of his exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war,
he was daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid
according to the exigencies of the moment; that in the deepest distress
he was animated by real or apparent hope, but that he was modest and
humble in the most prosperous fortune. By these virtues, he equalled or
excelled the ancient masters of the military art. Victory, by sea and
land, attended his arms. He subdued Africa, Italy, and the adjacent
islands; led away captives the successors of Genseric and Theodoric;
filled Constantinople with the spoils of their palaces; and in the space
of six years recovered half the provinces of the Western empire. In his
fame and merit, in wealth and power, he remained without a rival, the
first of the Roman subjects; the voice of envy could only magnify his
dangerous importance; and the emperor might applaud his own discerning
spirit, which had discovered and raised the genius of Belisarius.

It was the custom of the Roman triumphs, that a slave should be placed
behind the chariot to remind the conqueror of the instability of
fortune, and the infirmities of human nature. Procopius, in his
Anecdotes, has assumed that servile and ungrateful office. The generous
reader may cast away the libel, but the evidence of facts will adhere to
his memory; and he will reluctantly confess, that the fame, and even
the virtue, of Belisarius, were polluted by the lust and cruelty of his
wife; and that hero deserved an appellation which may not drop from the
pen of the decent historian. The mother of Antonina was a theatrical
prostitute, and both her father and grandfather exercised, at
Thessalonica and Constantinople, the vile, though lucrative, profession
of charioteers. In the various situations of their fortune she became
the companion, the enemy, the servant, and the favorite of the empress
Theodora: these loose and ambitious females had been connected by
similar pleasures; they were separated by the jealousy of vice, and at
length reconciled by the p