The civil administration of Belisarius was never very successful. His bad financial management involved his African army in revolt; and in Italy he overlooked disorders, which at last produced indiscipline in his own ranks, and famine among the Italians. The expense of supporting his cohorts of personal guards, and the necessity of securing the services of the most experienced and boldest troopers in this chosen corps, induced him to wink at irregularities in Africa and Italy, that he would have been obliged to punish severely near Constantinople or in Greece. At Abydos, he had ordered two Huns of the mercenary cavalry to be hanged for committing a murder; at Rome, he ran the risk of being murdered himself in the midst of a council of war, by one of his generals, from having neglected too long to cheek the rapacity and injustice every where perpetrated under the sanction of his authority. His own personal conduct, and the manner in which he governed Italy, cannot be better illustrated than by two examples recorded, not in the secret libel, but in the public history of his secretary Procopius. Belisarius deposed the Pope of Rome, as well as the Kings of the Vandals and the Goths. The account Procopius gives us of this extraordinary act, is conveyed in so few and in such cautious words, that it is necessary to notice their brevity. "The Pope Silverius was suspected of holding treasonable communication with the Goths, who at that time besieged Rome. Belisarius seized him, and banished him to Greece."[25] But even if the fact that Pope Silverius had really held treasonable communication with the Goths, be admitted, still the manner in which he was condemned by Belisarius affords irrefragable evidence of the injustice of his civil administration. As the representative of the emperor, Belisarius held a court with all the pomp of a sovereign prince. Yet when the Pope, accompanied by his clergy, presented himself at the palace to answer the summons of the imperial lieutenant, he was compelled to enter alone into the cabinet, where the affairs of Italy were decided by the governor-general. In this hall of audience, the Pope found Belisarius seated, while Antonina was reclining on a sofa, in the midst of the assembly, and taking an active part in the business transacted. It was she, and not Belisarius, who interrogated the pontiff. The general's wife insulted the representative of Saint Peter with reproaches, while the general remained a silent spectator of the lady's arrogance, and did not even investigate the evidence of the Pope's guilt. Prejudged by the suspicions of Belisarius, and condemned by the anger of Antonina, Silverius was allowed no opportunity of repelling the accusations brought against him. In the very presence of the commander-in-chief, his pontifical robes were torn off; and as he was hurried away, he was hastily covered with the garb of a monk, and immediately embarked for Greece, to die an exile.