tired of the slow Vitigis, send out to the
great Belisarius, Will he be their king? King over them there in Italy?
He promised, meaning to break his promise; and to the astonishment and
delight of the Romans, the simple and honest barbarians opened the gates
of Ravenna, and let in him and his Romans, to find themselves betrayed
and enslaved. 'When I saw our troops march in,' says Procopius, 'I felt
it was God's doing, so to turn their minds. The Goths,' he says, 'were
far superior in numbers and in strength; and their women, who had fancied
these Romans to be mighty men of valour, spit in the faces of their huge
husbands, and pointing to the little Romans, reproached them with having
surrendered to such things as that.' But the folly was committed.
Belisarius carried them away captive to Constantinople, and so ended the
first act of the Gothic war.

In the moment of victory the envy of the Byzantine court undid all that
it had done. Belisarius returned with his captives to Rome, not for a
triumph, but for a disgrace; and Italy was left open to the Goths, if
they had men and heart to rise once more.

And they did rise. Among the remnant of the race was left a hero, Totila
by name;--a Teuton of the ancient stamp. Totilas, 'free from death'--'the
deathless one,' they say his name means. Under him the nation rose once
more as out of the ground.

A Teuton of the ancient stamp he was, just and merciful exceedingly. Take
but two instances of him, and know the man by them. He retook Naples.
The Romans within were starving. He fed them; but lest they should die
of the sudden repletion, he kept them in by guards at each gate, and fed
them up more and more each day, till it was safe to let them out, to find
food for themselves in the country. A Roman came to complain that a Goth
had violated his daughter. He shall die, said Totila. He shall not die,
said the Goths. He is a valiant hero. They came clamouring to the king.
He answered them quietly and firmly. They may choose to-day, whether to
let this man go unpunished, or to save the Gothic nation and win the
victory. Do they not recollect how at the beginning of the war, they had
brave soldiers, famous generals, countless treasures, horses, weapons,
and all the forts of Italy? And yet under Theodatus, a man who loved
gold better than justice, they had so angered God by their unrighteous
lives, that--what had happened they knew but too well. Now God had
seemed