From this time forth the power of Rome, which had long been unstable, utterly fell to the ground for want of capable support.  Such were the fortunes of Belisarius in the Gothic war.  After this, despairing of success, he begged the Emperor to allow him to leave Italy with all speed.  When he heard that his prayer had been granted, he joyfully retired, bidding a long farewell to the Roman army and the Italians.  He left the greater part of Italy in the enemy’s power and Perusia in the last agonies of a terrible siege:  while he was on his road home, it was taken, and endured all the miseries of a city taken by assault, as I have already related.  In addition to his ill-success abroad, he also had to submit to a domestic misfortune, which came about as follows:—­The Empress Theodora was eager to bring about the marriage of her grandson, Anastasius, with Belisarius’s daughter, and wearied her parents with frequent letters on the subject; but they, not being desirous of contracting this alliance, put off the marriage until they could appear in person at Byzantium, and when the Empress sent for them, made the excuse that they could not leave Italy.  But she persisted in her determination to make her grandson master of Belisarius’s fortune, for she knew that the girl would be his heiress, as he had no other children.  She did not, however, trust Antonina’s character, and feared lest, after her own death, Antonina might prove unfaithful to her house, although she had found her so helpful in emergencies, and might break the compact.  These considerations prompted her to a most abominable act.  She made the boy and girl live together without any marriage ceremony, in violation of the laws.  It is said that the girl was unwilling to cohabit with him, and that the Empress had her secretly forced to do so, that the marriage might be consummated by the dishonour of the bride, and so the Emperor might not be able to oppose it.  After this had taken place, Anastasius and the girl fell passionately in love with each other, and lived together in this manner for eight months.

Immediately after the Empress’s death, Antonina came to Byzantium.  She found it easy to ignore the outrage which Theodora had committed upon her, and, without considering that, if she united the girl to another, she would be no better than a harlot, she drove away Theodora’s grandson with insults, and forcibly separated her daughter from the man whom she loved.

This action caused her to be regarded as one of the most heartless women upon earth, but nevertheless the mother obtained, without any difficulty, Belisarius’s approval of her conduct, on his return home.  Thus did this man’s true character reveal itself.  Although he had sworn a solemn oath to Photius and to several of his intimates and broken it, yet all men readily forgave him, because they suspected that the reason of his faithlessness was not the dominion of his wife over him, but his fear of Theodora; but now that Theodora was dead, as I have told you, he thought nothing about Photius or any of his intimates, but entirely submitted to the sway of his wife, and her pander Calligonus.  Then at last all men ceased to believe in him, scorned and flouted him, and railed at him for an idiot.  Such were the offences of Belisarius, about which I have been obliged to speak freely in this place.