rses, who immediately
set out for Italy. When they arrived there they marched straight
to Rome, and after some fighting took possession of the city. But
in a few months, Vit'i-ges, king of the Goths, appeared with an
army before the gates and challenged Belisarius and Narses to come
out and fight.

The Roman generals, however, were not then ready to fight, and so
the Ostrogoth king laid siege to the city, thinking that he would
compel the Romans to surrender.

But instead of having any thought of surrender, Belisarius was
preparing his men for fight, and when they were ready he attacked
Vitiges and defeated him. Vitiges retired to Ravenna, and Belisarius
quickly followed, and made such an assault on the city that it
was compelled to surrender. The Ostrogoth army was captured, and
Vitiges was taken to Constantinople a prisoner.

Belisarius and Narses then went to Northern Italy, and, after a long
war, conquered all the tribes there. Thus the power of Justinian
was established throughout the whole country, and the city of Rome
was again under the dominion of a Roman emperor.

[Illustration: BELISARIUS BESIEGES RAVENNA]

While his brave generals were winning these victories for the Empire,
Justinian himself was busy in making improvements of various kinds
at the capital. He erected great public buildings, which were not
only useful but ornamental to the city. The most remarkable of
them was the very magnificent cathedral of St. So-phi'a, for a
long time the grandest church structure in the world. The great
temple still exists in all its beauty and grandeur, but is now
used as a Mohammedan mosque.

But the most important thing that Justinian did--the work for which
he is most celebrated--was the improving and collecting of the
laws. He made many excellent new laws and reformed many of the old
laws, so that he became famous as one of the greatest of the world's
legislators. For a long time the Roman laws had been difficult to
understand. There was a vast number of them, and different writers
differed widely as to what the laws really were and what they meant.
Justinian employed a great lawyer, named Trib-o'ni-an, to collect
and simplify the principal laws. The collection which he made was
called the CODE OF JUSTINIAN. It still exists, and is the model
according to which most of the countries of Europe have made their
laws.

Justinian also did a great deal of good by establishing a number
of manufactures in Constan