lisarius, who promises to confer many
benefits upon you and to swear the most solemn oaths in confirmation of
his promises. Now if he is able to promise you this also, that to him
will come the victory in the war, no one could deny that the course you
are taking is to your advantage. For it is great folly not to gratify
every whim of him who is to become master. But if this outcome lies in
uncertainty, and no man in the world is competent to guarantee the
decision of fortune, consider what sort of misfortunes your haste is
seeking to attain. For if the Goths overcome their adversaries in the
war, they will punish you as enemies and as having done them the foulest
wrong. For you are resorting to this act of treason, not under
constraint of necessity, but out of deliberate cowardice. So that even
to Belisarius, if he wins the victory over his enemies, we shall perhaps
appear faithless and betrayers of our rulers, and having proved
ourselves deserters, we shall in all probability have a guard set over
us permanently by the emperor. For though he who has found a traitor is
pleased at the moment of victory by the service rendered, yet
afterwards, moved by suspicion based upon the traitor's past, he hates
and fears his benefactor, since he himself has in his own possession the
evidences of the other's faithlessness. If, however, we shew ourselves
faithful to the Goths at the present time, manfully submitting to the
danger, they will give us great rewards in case they win the mastery
over the enemy, and Belisarius, if it should so happen that he is the
victor, will be prone to forgive. For loyalty which fails is punished by
no man unless he be lacking in understanding. But what has happened to
you that you are in terror of being besieged by the enemy, you who have
no lack of provisions, have not been deprived by blockade of any of the
necessities of life, and hence may sit at home, confident in the
fortifications and in your garrison here?[35] And in our opinion even
Belisarius would not have consented to this agreement with us if he had
any hope of capturing the city by force. And yet if what he desired were
that which is just and that which will be to our advantage, he ought not
to be trying to frighten the Neapolitans or to establish his own power
by means of an act of injustice on our part toward the Goths; but he
should do battle with Theodatus and the Goths, so that without danger to
us or treason on our part the city migh