artnership of guilt. Before her marriage with
Belisarius, Antonina had one husband and many lovers: Photius, the son
of her former nuptials, was of an age to distinguish himself at the
siege of Naples; and it was not till the autumn of her age and
beauty that she indulged a scandalous attachment to a Thracian youth.
Theodosius had been educated in the Eunomian heresy; the African voyage
was consecrated by the baptism and auspicious name of the first soldier
who embarked; and the proselyte was adopted into the family of his
spiritual parents, Belisarius and Antonina. Before they touched the
shores of Africa, this holy kindred degenerated into sensual love: and
as Antonina soon overleaped the bounds of modesty and caution, the Roman
general was alone ignorant of his own dishonor. During their residence
at Carthage, he surprised the two lovers in a subterraneous chamber,
solitary, warm, and almost naked. Anger flashed from his eyes. "With the
help of this young man," said the unblushing Antonina, "I was secreting
our most precious effects from the knowledge of Justinian." The youth
resumed his garments, and the pious husband consented to disbelieve the
evidence of his own senses. From this pleasing and perhaps voluntary
delusion, Belisarius was awakened at Syracuse, by the officious
information of Macedonia; and that female attendant, after requiring an
oath for her security, produced two chamberlains, who, like herself, had
often beheld the adulteries of Antonina. A hasty flight into Asia saved
Theodosius from the justice of an injured husband, who had signified to
one of his guards the order of his death; but the tears of Antonina, and
her artful seductions, assured the credulous hero of her innocence: and
he stooped, against his faith and judgment, to abandon those imprudent
friends, who had presumed to accuse or doubt the chastity of his wife.
The revenge of a guilty woman is implacable and bloody: the unfortunate
Macedonia, with the two witnesses, were secretly arrested by the
minister of her cruelty; their tongues were cut out, their bodies were
hacked into small pieces, and their remains were cast into the Sea of
Syracuse. A rash though judicious saying of Constantine, "I would sooner
have punished the adulteress than the boy," was deeply remembered by
Antonina; and two years afterwards, when despair had armed that officer
against his general, her sanguinary advice decided and hastened his
execution. Even the indignat