They everywhere ordered a revision of the tax-lists, discovered arrears owing since the times of the Gothic Kings, even from the days of Odoacer, and left the citizens the option of paying immense sums for indemnity or of carrying on a ruinous lawsuit with Justinian's fiscus, who scarcely ever lost one. But if the tax-lists were incomplete or destroyed--which happened often enough in those times of war--the accountants arbitrarily reconstructed them. In short, all the arts of finance which had ruined the provinces of the Eastern Empire were practised in Italy, after the landing of Belisarius, as far as imperial arms could reach. Without consideration for the misery of war-time, the tax executors unyoked the oxen of the peasant from the plough, took his tools from the workshop of the artisan, and his wares from the house of the merchant. In many towns the people rebelled against their oppressors and drove them away; but they only returned in larger numbers with severer measures. The Mauretanian horsemen of Justinian, with African bloodhounds, hunted the desperate peasants from their hiding-places in the woods, whither they had fled to escape the tax-gatherer. And Cethegus, who alone was in a position to check such deeds, looked on with calculating coolness. He desired that, before the end of the war, all Italy should have become acquainted with the tyranny of Byzantium, for then it would be a lighter task for him to persuade the people to rise and, when they had got rid of the Goths, to throw off the burden of the Byzantines. He listened to the complaints of the deputations from various towns, who appealed to him for assistance, with a shrug and the laconic answer: "That is only Byzantine government--you must get used to it." "No," had answered the deputation from Rome, "one does not get accustomed to what is unbearable. The Emperor may live to see that of which he has never even dreamed!" To Cethegus this could only mean the independence of Italy; he knew of nothing else. But he was mistaken. Although he thought meanly enough of his countrymen and the times in which he lived, he yet believed that he could elevate them by example. But the thought so natural to his spirit; as necessary to him as the air he breathed--the freedom and independence of Italy--was far too grand for the comprehension of that generation. They could only vacillate between two masters. And when the yoke of Byzantium proved unbearable they began to recall to their memory the milder rule of the Goths; a possibility which had never entered the Prefect's head. And yet such was the case. Before Tarvisium, Ticinum, and Verona, there now happened on a small scale, that which was preparing on a large one in such cities as Neapolis and Rome. The Italian country-people revolted against the Byzantine officials and soldiers, and the inhabitants of the above-named three cities supported the Goths in every possible manner.