,;s SOLDIERS AND SAILORS city of Pavia was still left to the Goths, and here they chose as king, a kinsman
- >f Vittich, called Totila, young, gallant, and generous. The utter incapacity
and greed of Justinian's governors left the country open to him, and he traversed the whole peninsula collecting Goths again to his standard, till their kingdom was restored. Indeed the whole of the land was so desolate that hardly any opposition was offered. In 544 Justinian was obliged to send Belisarius back to Italy, but most insufficiently supplied with men and money. He had in the meantime been fighting on the Persian frontier, with the great King Chosroes, and with more success than could have been hoped for with such means as were at his disposal. He came to Ravenna, but his forces were too scanty to enable him to undertake any enterprise, and where he did not command in person, the so-called Roman captains were uniformly beaten. Totila occu- pied Rome in 546, and tried to destroy it, overthrowing the walls and beginning to ruin the ancient buildings. Belisarius wrote to him a remonstrance, telling him how after-ages would regard such destruction, and he actually thanked the great general for his advice and spared the churches and monuments, but carried off all the inhabitants, so that when, forty days later, Belisarius re-entered the city not a man was found there. He tried to rebuild the defences, but Jus- tinian would not send him money or men, and when Totila again advanced, he was forced to abandon the beloved and honored city. Justinian, then recalled him, preferring to leave Italy to its fate rather than trust to his unswerving loy- alty. An unwarlike despot, who knew that the will of an army might at any time raise a popular captain in his stead, could hardly fail to dread the one man who was beloved by his soldiers and always successful. The Empress Theodora was dead, and no honors awaited Belisarius, only undeserved suspicion. Once again, however, the great man was called for. The Bulgarians were desolating Thrace. There was an outcry that none but Belisarius could save the Empire. He was placed at the head of only 300 old soldiers, and found the peasants helpless and incapable, yet he succeeded in repulsing the enemy and driving them beyond the Danube. The outcries of admiration alarmed the emperor, now in his eightieth year, and the notion that Belisarius, almost as old, must be a traitor, haunted him. There was a real conspiracy, and the enemies of the general accused him of sharing in it. The acts of accusation were read to the old man, but he stood, listening and not answering a single word, no doubt in his disdain. The emperor caused the brave old man's eyes to be put out, and he was stripped of all his possessions. It is said that he stood in front of his former palace with a wooden dish for alms. " Date obolum Belisario" give a penny to Belisarius, has become a proverb. However, Justinian seems to have- repented, and he restored to Belisarius his wealth and his palace, in which, shortly after, the old man died on the i3th of March, 565, only eight months before his ungrateful sovereign.
