reduced, after a short siege, by a singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his ships into the deepest recess of the harbour; their boats were laboriously hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he filled them with archers, who from that superior station commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy though successful campaign, the conqueror entered Syracuse in triumph, at the head of his victorious bands, distributing gold medals to the people, on the day which so gloriously terminated the year of the consulship. He passed the winter season in the palace of ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which once extended to a circumference of two and twenty miles;[1] but in [End of March, A.D. 536] the spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his designs was interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African forces, Carthage was saved by the presence of Belisarius, who suddenly landed with a thousand guards.[2] Two thousand soldiers of doubtful faith returned to the standard of their old commander; and he marched, without hesitation, above fifty miles, to seek an enemy whom he affected to pity and despise. Eight thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were routed at the first onset by the dexterity of their master; and this ignoble victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the conqueror had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition which was kindled during his absence in his own camp.[3] Disorder and disobedience were the common malady of the times; the genius to command and the virtue to obey resided only in the mind of Belisarius.
Reign and weakness of Theodatos, the Gothic king of Italy. A.D. 534, October-A.D. 536, August Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was ignorant of the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although he had studied the writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was incapable of purifying his mind from the basest passions, avarice and fear. He had purchased a sceptre by ingratitude and murder; at the first menace of an enemy he degraded his own majesty, and that of a nation which already disdained their unworthy sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer, he saw himself dragged in chains through the streets- ↑ The ancient magnitude and splendour of the five quarters of Syracuse are delineated by Cicero (in Verrem, actio ii. l. iv. c. 52, 53), Strabo (l. vi. p. 415 [2, § 4]), and d'Orville (Sicula, tom. ii. p. 174-202). The new city, restored by Augustus, shrunk towards the island.
- ↑ [This is an error. The number was a hundred.]
- ↑ Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 14, 15) so clearly relates the return of Belisarius into Sicily (p. 146, edit. Hoeschelii) that I am astonished at the strange misapprehension and reproaches of a learned critic (Oeuvres de la Mothe le Vaycr, tom. viii. p. 162, 163).
