Though the baths of the city were stopped, the Tiber supplied the people with water for all needful purposes. The resources and activity of Belisarius knew no bounds: yet he had abundant occasion for all the advantages these could supply. The relative smallness of his force, the feebleness of the defences the fickleness and final disaffection of the people, the intrigues of Vittiges, and his vastly superior army constituted a web of difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other than a man whose genius could extort good from evil, and convert weakness into strength. For a whole year, the encircling walls of Rome were the scenes of almost incessant attack and defence. The fertile genius of Vittiges suggested a thousand expedients, and the number as well as courage of his troops enabled him to plan and execute a variety of daring schemes. Yet he was always baffled by his vigilant rival, and his most elaborate devices were rendered fruitless by the superior genius of the Roman general. At last, on the 21st of March, A. D. 538, foreseeing that Belisarius was about to receive reinforcements, and despairing of success in the siege, Vittiges withdrew his army, suffering in his retreat a fearful massacre, from a sally of the Roman troops. Vittiges retired to Ravenna, and Belisarius soon invested it. While he was pressing the siege, Justinian, probably alarmed by the threats of the Persian king, entered into a treaty with the ambassadors of Vittiges, by which he agreed to a partition of Italy, taking one half himself, and allowing the Gothic king to retain the other portion. Belisarius refused to ratify this treaty, and soon after, was pressed by the Goths to become their king. Vittiges even joined in this request, and Belisarius had now the easy opportunity of making himself the emperor of the West, without the remotest fear of failure. But he was too deeply impressed with his oath of allegiance, to allow him to entertain a treacherous design toward his sovereign, and he rejected the tempting offer. The merit of his fidelity under these circumstances, is heightened by the consideration that he had refused the ratification of the treaty, and was well aware that reproach, or even hostility, might await him at Constantinople. Soon after these events, Ravenna capitulated, and Belisarius became its master. His fame was now at its height; but this only served to inflame the envy of his rivals at Constantinople. These, insidiously working upon the suspicious temper of Justinian, induced him to command the return of Belisarius to Constantinople. With prompt obedience, he embarked at Ravenna, carrying with him his Gothic captives and treasure. After five years of warfare, from the foot of Etna to the banks of the Po, during which he had subdued nearly the same extent of country which had been acquired by the Romans in the first five centuries from the building of that city, he arrived at Constantinople.