nds; led away captives the successors of Genseric
and Theodoric; filled Constantinople with the spoils of their palaces;
and in the space of six years recovered half the provinces of the
Western empire. In his fame and merit, in wealth and power, he remained
without a rival, the first of the Roman subjects; the voice of envy
could only magnify his dangerous importance; and the emperor might
applaud his own discerning spirit, which had discovered and raised
the genius of Belisarius. [Footnote 110: Vitiges lived two years at
Constantinople, and imperatoris in affectu convictus (or conjunctus)
rebus excessit humanis. His widow Mathasuenta, the wife and mother of
the patricians, the elder and younger Germanus, united the streams of
Anician and Amali blood, (Jornandes, c. 60, p. 221, in Muratori, tom.
i.)]

[Footnote 111: Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 1. Aimoin, a French monk of
the xith century, who had obtained, and has disfigured, some authentic
information of Belisarius, mentions, in his name, 12,000, pueri or
slaves--quos propriis alimus stipendiis--besides 18,000 soldiers,
(Historians of France, tom. iii. De Gestis Franc. l. ii. c. 6, p. 48.)]

It was the custom of the Roman triumphs, that a slave should be placed
behind the chariot to remind the conqueror of the instability of
fortune, and the infirmities of human nature. Procopius, in his
Anecdotes, has assumed that servile and ungrateful office. The generous
reader may cast away the libel, but the evidence of facts will adhere to
his memory; and he will reluctantly confess, that the fame, and even
the virtue, of Belisarius, were polluted by the lust and cruelty of his
wife; and that hero deserved an appellation which may not drop from
the pen of the decent historian. The mother of Antonina [112] was a
theatrical prostitute, and both her father and grandfather exercised, at
Thessalonica and Constantinople, the vile, though lucrative, profession
of charioteers. In the various situations of their fortune she became
the companion, the enemy, the servant, and the favorite of the empress
Theodora: these loose and ambitious females had been connected by
similar pleasures; they were separated by the jealousy of vice, and at
length reconciled by the partnership of guilt. Before her marriage with
Belisarius, Antonina had one husband and many lovers: Photius, the son
of her former nuptials, was of an age to distinguish himself at the
siege of Naples; and it was not till the aut