but was envious of his
sovereign position--Belisarius could no longer be restrained by
Antonina and Procopius. As, however, the Emperor feared the expense of
a second enterprise in Italy (besides that of the Persian wars, which
Narses conducted successfully but expensively in Asia), avarice and
ambition produced a struggle within him, which would, perhaps, have
lasted longer than the resistance of Rome and Ravenna, had not Prince
Germanus and Belisarius proposed an expedient. The noble Prince was
impelled by the wish to revisit Ravenna and the tomb of Mataswintha,
and to revenge her memory on the rude barbarians, for Cethegus had
declared that the cause of the tragic end of this incomparable woman
was that her mind had been disordered in consequence of her forced
marriage with Witichis.

Belisarius, on his side, could not endure that all his fame should be
imperilled by Totila's success. "For," asked his enemies at court,
"could he really have conquered a people who, within the year, had
again almost made themselves masters of Italy?"

He had given his word to annihilate the Goths, and he would keep it.

So, influenced by these motives, Germanus and Belisarius proposed to
conquer Italy for the Emperor at their own expense. The Prince offered
his whole fortune for the equipment of a fleet; Belisarius all his
lately reinforced body-guard and lance-bearers.

"That is a proposition after Justinian's own heart!" cried Procopius,
when informed of it by Belisarius. "Not a solidus out of his own
pocket! And perhaps the laurels of fame and a province for this world,
and the wholesale destruction of heretics to rejoice Heaven and
Theodora! You may be sure that he will accept, and give you his
fatherly benediction into the bargain. But nothing else. You,
Belisarius, I know, can be as little kept back as Balan, your piebald,
when he hears the call of the trumpet; but I will not see your
lamentable fall."

"Fall? Wherefore, Raven of Misfortune?"

"This time you have both Goths and Italians against you. And you could
not conquer the first when Italy was _for_ you."

But Belisarius only reproached him with cowardice, and presently went
to sea with Germanus.

The Emperor, in fact, gave them nothing but his blessings and the great
toe of the holy Mazaspes.

The Byzantines in Italy breathed again when they heard that an imperial
fleet had anchored off Salona, in Dalmatia, and that the army had
landed.

Even Cethegus, to w