attempted to resist, was reduced, after a short siege, by a singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his ships into the deepest recess of the harbor; their boats were laboriously hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he filled them with archers, who, from that superior station, commanded the ramparts of the city. After this easy, though successful campaign, the conqueror entered Syracuse in triumph, at the head of his victorious bands, distributing gold medals to the people, on the day which so gloriously terminated the year of the consulship. He passed the winter season in the palace of ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which once extended to a circumference of two-and-twenty miles:58 but in the spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his designs was interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African forces. Carthage was saved by the presence of Belisarius, who suddenly landed with a thousand guards.58a Two thousand soldiers of doubtful faith returned to the standard of their old commander: and he marched, without hesitation, above fifty miles, to seek an enemy whom he affected to pity and despise. Eight thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were routed at the first onset, by the dexterity of their master: and this ignoble victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the conqueror had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition which was kindled during his absence in his own camp.59 Disorder and disobedience were the common malady of the times; the genius to command, and the virtue to obey, resided only in the mind of Belisarius. 55a (return) [ Amalasontha was not alive when this new ambassador, Peter of Thessalonica, arrived in Italy: he could not then secretly contribute to her death. “But (says M. de Sainte Croix) it is not beyond probability that Theodora had entered into some criminal intrigue with Gundelina: for that wife of Theodatus wrote to implore her protection, reminding her of the confidence which she and her husband had always placed in her former promises.” See on Amalasontha and the authors of her death an excellent dissertation of M. de Sainte Croix in the Archives Littéraires published by M. Vaudenbourg, No. 50, t. xvii. p. 216.—G.] 56 (return) [ Yet Procopius discredits his own evidence (Anecdot. c. 16) by confessing that in his public history he had not spoken the truth. See the epistles from Queen Gundelina to the Empress Theodora (Var. x. 20, 21, 23, and observe a suspicious word, de illâ personà, &c.), with the elaborate Commentary of Buat (tom. x. pp. 177–185).]