For two years more Belisarius and Baduila fought up and down the peninsula, but the Goth kept the superiority; though sometimes foiled, he had, on the whole, the advantage. Belisarius, like Hannibal during the later years of his sojourn in Italy, flitted from point to point with his small army, looking for opportunities to strike a blow, but seldom finding them. Justinian, though now freed from the Persian War, sent no adequate supplies or reinforcements, and seemed content that his general should hold no more than Rome and Ravenna. In 548 Belisarius was recalled on his own or his wife’s request. He felt that he could do no more with his inadequate resources, he had outlived the desire of glory, and his old age was at hand. Justinian received him with kindness, made him _magister militum_ and chief of the Imperial Guard, and bade him live in peace in Constantinople. The sole check on Baduila was now removed, and, in the four years that followed, the gallant Goth cleared the whole country, save Ravenna, of the presence of the imperialist soldiery. He retook Rome in 549, and captured or slew the whole garrison. This time, instead of dismantling the city, he determined to make it his capital. [Sidenote: Successes of Baduila.] He reorganised the Senate, bade the palace be repaired, and celebrated games in the circus as his great predecessor, Theodoric, had done. It would seem that he now felt himself so strong that he feared no return of the imperialist armies, and lost his old dread of walled towns. He sent embassies to Justinian, bidding the emperor recognise accomplished facts, and return to the old relations that had subsisted between the Goths and the emperor in the happy days of Anastasius and Theodoric. But the stern ruler of the East was immovable. He quietly persisted in the war, and merely began to collect once more an army for the invasion of Italy. The first expedition he placed under count Germanus, his own nephew, who was looked upon as the destined heir to the empire. But a sudden invasion of Macedonia by the Slavs drew aside Germanus to Thessalonica. He achieved a success over the invaders, but died soon after, and his army never crossed the Adriatic. Baduila meanwhile was in full possession of Italy. When he found that the armament of Germanus had dispersed, he built a fleet, conquered Sardinia, and then crossed into Sicily, and ravaged that island, against whose people the Goths bore an especial grudge for their rebellion and eager reception of Belisarius fifteen years before.