Italy. Success will impose the obligations of new
labors; a single misfortune will attract the Barbarians into the heart
of your exhausted empire." Justinian felt the weight of this salutary
advice; he was confounded by the unwonted freedom of an obsequious
servant; and the design of the war would perhaps have been relinquished,
if his courage had not been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts
of profane reason. "I have seen a vision," cried an artful or fanatic
bishop of the East. "It is the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you
should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of the
African church. The God of battles will march before your standard, and
disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his Son." The emperor,
might be tempted, and his counsellors were constrained, to give credit
to this seasonable revelation: but they derived more rational hope from
the revolt, which the adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already
excited on the borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African
subject, had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small
military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of
the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to Godas, a
valiant Barbarian he suspended the payment of tribute, disclaimed
his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to the emissaries of
Justinian, who found him master of that fruitful island, at the head of
his guards, and proudly invested with the ensigns of royalty. The forces
of the Vandals were diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman
armies were animated by the spirit of Belisarius; one of those heroic
names which are familiar to every age and to every nation.

[Footnote 4: A year--absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa may
be dated A. D 533, September 14. It is celebrated by Justinian in the
preface to his Institutes, which were published November 21 of the same
year. Including the voyage and return, such a computation might be truly
applied to our Indian empire.]

The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among the
Thracian peasants, [5] without any of those advantages which had formed
the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio; a noble origin, liberal
studies, and the emulation of a free state.

The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted, to prove that the
youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of praise: he served,
most assuredly with valor and reput