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 honours 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,[1] 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[2] was employed in the reduction of Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the second year of the Gothic War.[3]
Belisarius invades Italy, and reduces Naples. A.D. 356 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 [Evermud] Ebermor deserted with his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to enjoy the servile honours of the Byzantine court.[4] From Rhegium to Naples, the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view- ↑ A Sibylline oracle was ready to pronounce — Africâ captâ mundus cum nato peribit; a sentence of portentous ambiguity (Gothic. 1. i. c. 7), which has been published in unknown characters by Opsopæus, an editor of the oracles. The Père Maltret has promised a commentary; but all his promises have been vain and fruitless. [Cp. Appendix 14.]
- ↑ In his chronology, imitated in some degree from Thucydides, Procopius begins each spring the years of Justinian and of the Gothic war; and his first æra coincides with the first of April 535, and not 536, according to the Annals of Baronius (Pagi, Crit. tom. ii. p. 555, who is followed by Muratori and the editors of Sigonius). Yet in some passages we are at a loss to reconcile the dates of Procopius with himself and with the Chronicle of Marcellinus.
- ↑ The series of the first Gothic war is represented by Procopius (l. i. c. 5-29; l. ii. c. 1-30; l. iii. c. 1) till the captivity of Vitiges. With the aid of Sigonius (Opp. tom. i. de Imp. Occident. l. xvii. xviii.) and Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. v.), I have gleaned some few additional facts.
- ↑ Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 60, p. 702, edit. Grot. and tom. i. p. 221. Muratori, de Success. Regn. p. 241.
