"He is never to be found when wanted, and is always present when not wanted. I am not content with Belisarius.--Hear now what has lately been communicated to me by letter; afterwards you shall hear the report of the envoys themselves. You know that we have allowed the war in Italy to die away--for we had other occupation for our generals. You know that the barbarian King sued for peace and the quiet possession of Italy. We rejected it at that time; awaiting more convenient circumstances. The Goth has answered, not in words, but by very insolent deeds. No one in Byzantium knows of it--we kept the news to ourselves, thinking it impossible, or at least exaggerated. But we find that it is true; and now you shall hear it and advise upon it. The barbarian King has sent a fleet and an army to Dalmatia with great haste and secrecy. The fleet entered the harbour of Muicurum near Salona; the army landed and carried the fortress by storm. In a similar way the fleet surprised the coast-town of Laureata. Claudianus, our governor at Salona, sent numerous and strongly-manned vessels to retake the town from the Goths. But a naval combat took place, and the Goth, Duke Guntharis, beat our Squadron so thoroughly that he made prizes of all the vessels without exception, and carried them victoriously into the harbour of Laureata. Further, the Gothic King equipped a second fleet of four hundred large ships at Centumcellæ. It was formed for the most part of Byzantine vessels, which, sent from the East to Sicily to reinforce Belisarius, in ignorance that the Italian harbours were again in possession of the Goths, had been taken by a Gothic earl, Grippa, with all their crews and freights. The goal of this second fleet was unknown. But suddenly the barbarian King himself appeared with the fleet before Regium, the fortress in the extreme southern part of Bruttia, which place we had won on our first landing in Italy, and had not since lost. After a brave resistance, the garrison of Herulians and Massagetæ were forced to capitulate. But the tyrant Totila sailed immediately to Sicily, to wrest from us that earliest of Belisarius's conquests. He beat the Roman governor Domnentiolus, who met him in the open field, and in a short time took possession of the whole island, with the exception of Messana, Panormus and Syracusæ, which were enabled to hold out by reason of their formidable fortifications. A fleet which I sent to attempt the reconquest of Sicily was dispersed by a storm. A second was driven by the north-west wind to the Peloponnesus. At the same time a third fleet of triremes, equipped by this indefatigable King and commanded by Earl Haduswinth, sailed for Corsica and Sardinia. The first of these islands presently fell to the Goths, after the imperial garrison of the capital city of Alexia had been beaten before the walls. The rich Corsican Furius Ahalla, to whom the greater part of the island belongs, was absent in India. But his