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Had Belisarius, with his dying boy in his arms, himself appeared at my gate, as seen in the French print, crying, "Date obolum Belsario," I should have pronounced him at once an impostor, and given him nothing, and, indeed, not pronounced wrongly, for the whole story is a fiction. But at this peculiar moment of hunger and of avarice, I confess I was too ready, and gave a check for the amount.
The talents of Narses were tried and improved in frequent embassies: he led an army into Italy acquired a practical knowledge of the war and the country, and presumed to strive with the genius of Belisarius. Twelve years after his return, the eunuch was chosen to achieve the conquest which had been left imperfect by the first of the Roman generals.
For they were thoroughly inexperienced in this business, since they had recently left off farming and entered into the perils of warfare, which before that time were unknown to them. And yet just before these very men had been most furious of all for battle because of their ignorance of warfare, and were then reproaching Belisarius with cowardice.
But as my tale is with the present rather than with the past, I will not stop to describe how, when it was called Mileta, Saint Paul landed on the island, how the Vandals and Goths took possession of it, and were driven out by Belisarius, how in 1530, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, driven away from Rhodes, here settled, how they built a fortress which withstood the mighty army of the Turks, and how those gallant gentlemen hurled back the infidels defeated and disgraced, how they at length degenerated, and its inhabitants, deceived by treachery from within and without their gates, yielded their liberty to the great enemy of Europe, Buonaparte, and were unmercifully ill-treated, and pillaged, and how, in the year 1800, with the the aid of an English fleet and a small English army, they drove out their conquerors, and put themselves under the protection of Great Britain.
Now Euphemia was overjoyed by these words, for she too was hostile to the present administration by reason of her fear of the empress, and she said: "And yet, dearest friend, it is you and Belisarius who are to blame for this, seeing that, though you have opportunity, you are not willing to use your power."
Procopius saw the temple still standing in the sixth century; and he tells us that, during the siege of the city by the Goths, when it was defended by Belisarius, some of the adherents of the old pagan superstition made a secret attempt to open the shrine and set the god at liberty.
Justinian, bent upon asserting his rights as the successor of the Cæsars, wrested Italy from the hands of the Goths; but scarcely was this revolution effected when Narses, the successor of Belisarius, called a new nation of barbarians to support his policy in Italy.
Belisarius, however, with 4500 horse and 3000 foot soldiers, landed in Sicily and soon conquered the whole island, all the people rejoicing in his coming. He then crossed to Rhegium, and laid siege to Naples. As usual, the inhabitants were his friends, and one of them showed him the way to enter the city through an old aqueduct which opened into an old woman's garden.
While these events took place in Mesopotamia, the Persian arms were also unsuccessful in the Armenian highlands, whither Kobad had sent a second army to act offensively against Rome, under the conduct of a certain Mermeroes. The Roman commanders in this region were Sittas, the former colleague of Belisarius, and Dorotheas, a general of experience.
He landed in September at Caput Vadas, five days' distance from Carthage, without opposition and with an eager welcome from the natives, who rejoiced to be delivered from the Vandal oppression, and Belisarius preserved their goodwill by hindering his soldiers from committing any act of plunder or violence.
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