XLI.

was abandoned to wine, to women, and to rustic cHA P. sports; and the indiscreet contempt of the ungrateful youth, betrayed the mischievous designs of his favourites and her enemies. Encompassed with domestic foes, she entered into a secret negotiation with the emperor Justinian; obtained the assurance of a friendly reception, and had actually deposited at Dyrachium in Epirus, a treasure of forty thousand pounds of gold. Happy would it have been for her fame and safety, if she had calmly retired from barbarous faction, to the peace and splendour of Constantinople. But the mind of Amalasontha was inflamed by ambition and revenge; and while her ships lay at anchor in the port, she waited for the success of a crime which her passions excused or applauded as an act of justice. Three of the most dangerous malecontents had been separately removed, under the pretence of trust and command, to the frontiers of Italy; they were assassinated by her private emissaries; and the blood of these noble Goths rendered the queen-mother absolute in the court of Ravenna, and justly odious to a free people. But if she had lamented the disorders of her son, she soon wept his irreparable loss; and the death of Athalaric, who at the age of sixteen, was consumed by premature intemperance, left her destitute of any firm support or legal authority. Instead of submitting to the laws of her country, which held as a fundamental maxim, that the succession could never pass from the lance to the distaff, the daugh- X ter of Theodoric conceived the impracticable design of sharing, with one of her cousins, the regal VOL. VII.

P

XLI,

CHA P. title, and of reserving in her own hands the sub.

stance of supreme power. He received the proposal with profound respect and affected gratitude; and the eloquent Cassiodorius announced to the senate and the emperor, that Amalasontha and Theodatus had ascended the throne of Italy. His birth (for his mother was the sister of Theodoric) might be considered as an imperfect title; and the choice of Amalasontha was more strongly directed by her contempt of his avarice and pusillanimity, which had deprived him of the love of the Italians, and the esteem of the Barbarians. But Theodatus was exasperated by the contempt which he deserved : her justice had repressed and reproached the oppression which he exercised against his Tuscan neighbours; and the principal Goths, united

by common guilt and resentment, conspired to Her exile instigate his slow and timid disposition. The and death; letters of congratulation were scarcely dispatched April 30. before the queen of Italy was imprisoned in a small

island of the lake of Bolsena *, where, after a short confinement, she was strangled in the bath, by the order, or with the connivance, of the new king, who instructed his turbulent subjects to shed the

blood of their sovereigns. Belisarios Justinian beheld with joy the dissentions of the invadesand

Goths; and the mediation of an ally concealed Sicily,

and

subdues

A. D. 635)

and promoted the ambitious views of the con. CHAP, queror. His ambassadors, in their public audience, XLI. demanded the fortress of Lilybæum, ten barbarian fugitives, and a just compensation for the pillage Dec. 31. of a small town on the Illyrian borders; but they secretly negotiated with Theodatus to betray the province of Tuscany, and tempted Amalasontha to extricate herself from danger and perplixity, by a free surrender of the kingdom of Italy. A false and servile epistle was subscribed by the re. luctant hand of the captive queen : but the confession of the Roman senators, who were sent to Constantinople, revealed the truth of her deplorable situation; and Justinian, by the voice of a ñew ambassador, most powerfully interceded for her life and liberty. Yet the secret instructions of the same minister were adapted to serve the cruel jealousy of Theodora, who dreaded the presence and superior charms of a rival: he prompted with artful and ambiguous hints, the execution of a crime so useful to the Romans*; received the intelligence of her death with grief and indignation, and denounced, in his master's name, immortal war against the perfidious assassin. In Italy, as well as in Africa, the guilt of an usurper appeared to justify the arms of Justinian; but the forces which he prepared, were insufficient for the subversion of a mighty kingdom, if their feeble

P2

numbers

* Yet Procopius discredits his own evidence (Anecdot. c. 16.), by confessing that in his public history he had not spoken the truth. See the Epistles from queen Gundelina to the em. press Theodora (Var. X. 20, 21. 23.) and observe a suspicious word, de illa persona, &c.) with the elaborate commentary of Buat (tom. x. p. 177-185.).

XLI.

CH A P. numbers had not been multiplied by the nanio,

the spirit, and the conduct of an hero. A chosen troop of guards, who served on horseback, and were armed with lances and bucklers, attended the person of Belisarius; his cavalry was composed of two hundred Huns, three hundred Moors, and four thousand confederates, and the infantry consisted only of three thousand Isaurians. Steering the same course as in his former expedition, the Roman consul cast anchor before Catana in Sicily, to survey the strength of the island, and to decide whether he should attempt the conquest, or peaceably pursue his voyage for the African coast. He found a fruitful land and a friendly people. Notwithstanding the decay of agriculture, Sicily still supplied the granaries of Rome; the farmers were graciously exempted from the oppression of military quarters, and the Goths, who trusted the defence of the island to the inhabitants, had some reason to complain, that their confidence was ungratefully betrayed. Instead of soliciting and expecting the aid of the king of Italy, they yielded to the first summons a cheerful obedience: and this province, the first fruits of the Punic wars, was again, after a long separation, united to the Roman empire *. The Gothic garrison of Palermo, which alone attempted to resist, was reduced, after a short siege, by a singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his

ships

XLI.

ships into the deepest recess of the harbour ; their Ć HA P. boats were laboriously hoisted with ropes and pullies to the topmast head, and he filled them with archers, who from that superior station, commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy, though successful campaign, the conqueror entered Syracuse in triumph, at the head of his victorious bands, distributing gold medals to the people, on the day which so gloriously terminated the year of the consulship. He passed the winter season in the palace of ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which once extended to a circumference of two and twenty miles*: but in the spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his designs was interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African forces. Carthage was saved by the presence of Belisarius, who suddenly landed with a thousand guards. Two thousand soldiers of doubtful faith returned to the standard of their old commander: and he marched, without hesitation, above fifty miles to seek an enemy, whom he affected to pity and dispise. Eight thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were routed at the first onset, by the dexterity of their master; and this ignoble victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the conqueror had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition which was kindled P3

during

• The ancient magnitude and splendour of the five quarters of Syracuse, are delineated by Cicero (in Verrem, actio ii. l. iv. c. 52, 53.), Strabo (1. vi. p. 415.), and d'Orville Sicula (tom. ii. p. 174-202.). The new city, restored by Augustus, shrunk towards the island.