ng, a kinsman of Wittich, called Totila, young, gallant,
and generous. The utter incapacity and greed of Justinian's governors
left the country open to him, and he traversed the whole peninsula
collecting Goths again to his standard, till their kingdom was
restored. Indeed the whole of the land was so desolate that hardly any
opposition was offered. In 544 Justinian was obliged to send
Belisarius back to Italy, but most insufficiently supplied with men
and money. He had in the meantime been fighting on the Persian
frontier, with the great King Chosroes, and with more success than
could have been hoped for with such means as were at his disposal. He
came to Ravenna, but his forces were too scanty to enable him to
undertake any enterprise, and where he did not command in person, the
so-called Roman captains were uniformly beaten. Totila occupied Rome
in 546, and tried to destroy it, overthrowing the walls and beginning
to ruin the ancient buildings. Belisarius wrote to him a remonstrance,
telling him how after-ages would regard such destruction, and he
actually thanked the great general for his advice and spared the
churches and monuments, but carried off all the inhabitants, so that
when, forty days later, Belisarius re-entered the city not a man was
found there. He tried to rebuild the defences, but Justinian would not
send him money or men, and when Totila again advanced, he was forced
to abandon the beloved and honored city. Justinian then recalled him,
preferring to leave Italy to its fate rather than trust to his
unswerving loyalty. An unwarlike despot, who knew that the will of an
army might at any time raise a popular captain in his stead, could
hardly fail to dread the one man who was beloved by his soldiers and
always successful. The Empress Theodora was dead, and no honors
awaited Belisarius, only undeserved suspicion.

Once again, however, the great man was called for. The Bulgarians were
desolating Thrace. There was an outcry that none but Belisarius could
save the Empire. He was placed at the head of only 300 old soldiers,
and found the peasants helpless and incapable, yet he succeeded in
repulsing the enemy and driving them beyond the Danube. The outcries
of admiration alarmed the emperor, now in his eightieth year, and the
notion that Belisarius, almost as old, must be a traitor, haunted him.
There was a real conspiracy, and the enemies of the general accused
him of sharing in it. The acts of accusation we