who
was deeply grieved by the misfortune of the city, hurled against
Asclepiodotus. And Asclepiodotus replied to him as follows: "Quite
unwittingly, noble Sir, you have been heaping praise upon us, when you
reproach us for our loyalty to the Goths. For no one could ever be loyal
to his masters when they are in danger, except it be by firm conviction.
As for me, then, the victors will have in me as true a guardian of the
state as they lately found in me an enemy, since he whom nature has
endowed with the quality of fidelity does not change his conviction when
he changes his fortune. But you, should their fortunes not continue to
prosper as before, would readily listen to the overtures of their
assailants. For he who has the disease of inconstancy of mind no sooner
takes fright than he denies his pledge to those most dear." Such were
the words of Asclepiodotus. But the populace of the Neapolitans, when
they saw him returning from Belisarius, gathered in a body and began to
charge him with responsibility for all that had befallen them. And they
did not leave him until they had killed him and torn his body into small
pieces. After that they came to the house of Pastor, seeking for the
man. And when the servants insisted that Pastor was dead, they were
quite unwilling to believe them until they were shown the man's body.
And the Neapolitans impaled him in the outskirts of the town. Then they
begged Belisarius to pardon them for what they had done while moved with
just anger, and receiving his forgiveness, they dispersed. Such was the
fate of the Neapolitans.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Cf. chap. v. 3.

[38] Cf. chap. v. 5.

[39] Chap. viii. 22.

XI

But the Goths who were at Rome and in the country round about had even
before this regarded with great amazement the inactivity of Theodatus,
because, though the enemy was in his neighbourhood, he was unwilling to
engage them in battle, and they felt among themselves much suspicion
toward him, believing that he was betraying the cause of the Goths to
the Emperor Justinian of his own free will, and cared for nothing else
than that he himself might live in quiet, possessed of as much money as
possible. Accordingly, when they heard that Naples had been captured,
they began immediately to make all these charges against him openly and
gathered at a place two hundred and eighty stades distant from Rome,
which the Romans call Regata.[40] And it seemed best to them to make
camp in