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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
337
tempted to return to Constantinople; and the short interval before the departure of Antonina herself was boldly devoted to love and pleasure.
Resentment of Belisarius and her son Photius A philosopher may pity and forgive the infirmities of female nature, from which he receives no real injury; but contemptible and her son is the husband who feels, and yet endures, his own infamy in, that of his wife. Antonina pursued her son with implacable hatred; and the gallant Photius[1] was exposed to her secret persecutions in the camp beyond the Tigris. Enraged by his own wrongs and by the dishonour of his blood, he cast away in his turn the sentiments of nature, and revealed to Belisarius the turpitude of a woman who had violated all the duties of a mother and a wife. From the surprise and indignation of the Roman general, his former credulity appears to have been sincere: he embraced the knees of the son of Antonina, adjured him to remember his obligations rather than his birth, and confirmed at the altar their holy vows of revenge and mutual defence. The dominion of Antonina was impaired by absence; and, when she met her husband, on his return from the Persian confines, Belisarius, in his first and transient emotions, confined her person and threatened her life. Photius was more resolved to punish, and less prompt to pardon: he flew to Ephesus; extorted from a trusty eunuch of his mother the full confession of her guilt; arrested Theodosius and his treasures in the church of St. John the Apostle; and concealed his captives, whose execution was only delayed, in a secure and sequestered fortress of Cilicia. Such a daring outrage against public justice could not pass with impunity; and the cause of Antonina was espoused by the empress, whose favour she had deserved by the recent services of the disgrace of a præfect and the exile and murder of a pope. At the end of the campaign, Belisarius was recalled; he complied, as usual, with the Imperial mandate. His mind was not prepared for rebellion; his obedience, however adverse to the dictates of honour, was consonant to the wishes of his heart; and, when he embraced his wife, at the command, and perhaps in the presence, of the empress, the tender husband was disposed to forgive or to be forgiven. The bounty of Theodora reserved for her companion a more precious favour. "I have found," she said, "my dearest patrician, a pearl of inestimable value: it has not yet been viewed by any mortal eye; but the sight and the posses-- ↑ Theophanes (Chronograph, p. 204) styles him Photinus, the son-in-law [son, i.e., stepson, τὸν προγονόν] of Belisarius; and he is copied by the Historia Miscella and Anastasius [cp. Cramer, Anecd. Par. 2, 111].
