The King of the Ostrogoths frankly offered an alliance against Byzantium and the hand of his daughter. The Avarian and Slavonian marauders on the eastern frontier were punished. With the exception of the few fortresses which were still in a state of siege--Ravenna, Perusium, and a few small castles--the whole country enjoyed as perfect peace as in Theodoric's most glorious days. At the same time, the King was wise enough to be moderate. He acknowledged, in spite of his victories, the danger-fraught superiority of the East, and earnestly sought to make peace with the Emperor. He resolved to send an embassy to Byzantium, to offer peace on the basis of a full acknowledgment of the Gothic rule in Italy. He would renounce all claim to Sicily--where not a Goth was now dwelling (the Gothic settlements on that island had never been very numerous); he would also resign those parts of Dalmatia now occupied by the Byzantines. On his side the Emperor should immediately evacuate Ravenna, which no perseverance or stratagem on the part of the Gothic besiegers had been able to reduce. As the person most qualified to undertake this mission of peace and reconciliation, the King thought of a man who was distinguished by worth and dignity, by his love for Italy and the Goths, and who was renowned, even in the East, for his wisdom--the venerable Cassiodorus. Although the pious old man had withdrawn from all affairs of state for many years, the young King succeeded in persuading him to leave the peaceful quiet of his lonely cloister, and brave the troubles and dangers of a journey to Byzantium in order to perform this noble and pious work. But it was impossible to lay upon the old man the whole burden of such an embassy, and the King now sought for a younger and stronger man to accompany him. A man of similar benevolent and Christian feeling--a second apostle of peace. A few weeks after the conquest of Rome, a royal messenger carried the following letter over the Cottian Alps into Provence: "To Julius Manilius Montanus, Totila, who is called the King of the Goths.