for which was offered him by
the murder of Amalasuntha, and the result of which was to be the
re-establishment of the empire in Italy. Rightly understood the true
service of Theodoric--and it was a real and a precious service--was
that the thirty years of settled government and peace which he had
given Italy had prepared the way for the reconquest.

That reconquest occupied five years. It was begun with an attack upon
Sicily and proceeded northward by way of Naples and Rome to Ravenna,
with the fall of which it was achieved. From a purely strategical
point of view Belisarius was wrong to attack Sicily first and to carry
the campaign from south to north; he should have attacked Ravenna
first, and from the sea, and thus possessed himself of the key of
Italy, and this especially as his base was Constantinople. But
politically he was absolutely right. Sicily was almost empty of Gothic
troops and the provincials were eagerly Catholic and only too willing
to make a real part of the Roman empire. Thus the campaign opened with
surrender after surrender, was indeed almost a procession; only
Palermo offered resistance, and this because it was held by a garrison
of Goths; but before the end of 535 the whole island was once more
subject to the empire.

Early in 536 a rebellion in Africa, which proved to be little more
than a mutiny in Carthage, took Belisarius away; but he was back in
Sicily before the end of the spring, and in the early summer was
marching through southern Italy almost unresisted, welcomed everywhere
with joy and thanksgiving till he came to the fortress of Naples,
which was held by a Gothic garrison. Here the people wished to welcome
him and surrender the city, but were prevented by the garrison, which,
however, was soon cleverly outwitted and taken prisoner, and by the
end of November all southern Italy was in Belisarius' hands.

The fall of Naples brought Theodahad to the ground. The Goths deposed
him and raised upon their shields Vitiges the soldier. As for
Theodahad he was overtaken on the road to Ravenna, whither he was
flying, and his throat was cut as he lay on the pavement of the way,
"as a priest cuts the throat of his victim."

If Theodahad was a villain as well as a fool, perhaps Vitiges was only
the latter. At any rate, he is generally considered to have acted with
criminal folly, when, as the first act of his reign, he abandoned Rome
and fell back upon Ravenna, determined to make his great defen