Chap.xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 345 was soon followed by Antonina herself, 106 who boldly traversed the posts of the enemy, and returned with the Oriental succours to the relief of her husband and the besieged city. A fleet of three thousand Isaurians cast anchor in the bay of Naples, and afterwards at Ostia. Above two thousand horse, of whom a part were Thracians, landed at Tarentum ; and, after the junction of five hundred soldiers of Campania, and a train of waggons laden with wine and flour, they directed their march on the Appian way, from Capua to the neighbourhood of Borne. The forces that arrived by land and sea were united at the mouth of the Tiber. Antonina convened a council of war : it was resolved to surmount, with sails and oars, the adverse stream of the river ; and the Goths were apprehensive of disturbing, by any rash hostilities, the nego- tiation to which Belisarius had craftily listened. They credulously believed that they saw no more than the vanguard of a fleet and army, which already covered the Ionian sea and the plains of Campania ; and the illusion was supported by the haughty language of the Boman general, when he gave audience to the ambassadors of Vitiges. After a specious discourse to vindicate the justice of his cause, they declared that, for the sake of peace, they were disposed to renounce the possession of Sicily. « The emperor is not less generous," replied his lieutenant, with a dis- dainful smile, "in return for a gift which you no longer possess; he presents you with an ancient province of the empire ; he re- signs to the Goths the sovereignty of the British island." Belisarius rejected with equal firmness and contempt the offer of a tribute ; but he allowed the Gothic ambassadors to seek their fate from the mouth of Justinian himself; and consented, with seeming re- luctance, to a truce of three months, from the winter solstice [Dec 21, to the equinox of spring. Prudence might not safely trust 5 either the oaths or hostages of the Barbarians, but the con- scious superiority of the Boman chief was expressed in the dis- tribution of his troops. As soon as fear or hunger compelled the Goths to evacuate Alba, Porto, and Centumcellae, their Belisarius place was instantly supplied ; the garrisons of Narni, Spoleto, many 61 ' and Perusia, were reinforced, and the seven camps of the be-itaiy 80 siegers were gradually encompassed with the calamities of a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius, bishop of Milan, 1C6 The expression of Procopius has an invidious cast — tvx<v e/c rov aatpaAovs t)}v o<pl<ri ffvn$r)crofjLeuriv KapaSoKf?!/ (Goth. ii. c. 4). Yet he is speaking of a woman.
