creet favourite, who had so lately departed from the sacred and familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise of this doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to the siege of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and marched away to the conquest of the Æmilian province. The fierce and formidable bands of the Heruli were attached to the person of Narses;[1] ten thousand Romans and confederates were persuaded to march under his banners; every malecontent embraced the fair opportunity of revenging his private or imaginary wrongs; and the remaining troops of Belisarius were divided and dispersed from the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the Hadriatic. Firmness and authority of Belisarius His skill and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Urbino was taken,[2] the sieges of Fæsulæ, Orvieto, and Auximum, were undertaken and vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was at length recalled to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions were healed, and all opposition was subdued, by the temperate authority of the Roman general, to whom his enemies could not refuse their esteem; and Belisarius inculcated the salutary lesson that the forces of the state should compose one body and be animated by one soul. But in the interval of discord the Goths were permitted to breathe; an important season was lost, Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of Italy were afflicted by an inundation of the Franks.
Invasion of Italy by the Franks. A.D. 538, 539 When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by the common ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy enterprise against the Arians. The Goths, as their wants were more urgent, employed a more effectual mode of persuasion, and vainly strove, by the gift of lands and money, to purchase the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of a light and perfidious nation.[3] But the arms of Belisarius and the revolt of the Italians had no sooner shaken the Gothic monarchy than Theodebert of Austrasia, the most powerful and warlike of the- ↑ They refused to serve after his departure; sold their captives and cattle to the Goths; and swore never to fight against them. Procopius introduces a curious digression on the manners and adventures of this wandering nation, a part of whom finally emigrated to Thule or Scandinavia (Goth. l. ii. c. 14, 15).
- ↑ [c. Dec. 21, A.D. 538. Urbs Vetus was taken early in 539; Fæsulæ and Auximum, about October or November in the same year. See Clinton, F. R. ad ann.]
- ↑ This national reproach of perfidy (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 25) offends the ear of la Mothe la Vayer (tom. viii. p. 163-165), who criticises, as if he had not read, the Greek historian.
