evidence which cannot be ignored, probably almost an octo-*genarian.[1] We are also told that he was short of stature and slightly built, but mentally strenuous and decisive in character to a remarkable degree.[2] As soon as the question was broached of ordaining him to the conduct of the Gothic war, he declared frankly that he would not accept the commission unless he were granted resources adequate to the magnitude of the enterprise. Justinian yielded, with the result that an invasion of Italy was planned by the eunuch on a scale which was a revelation to those habituated to the fitful and partial efforts of the last dozen years. Not only did he levy an army commensurate with the undertaking, but he insisted on being provided with funds to liquidate the arrears due to the half-hearted troops who had languished in the country for so long without receiving their pay.
Narses set out for Italy in 551, but he was delayed on his route by an eruption of the Huns, which it was no part of his duty to arrest. He established a camp, therefore, at Philippopolis, and waited calmly until the barbarians had divided into two streams, one of which bore destruction to Thessalonica, and the other in the direction of the metropolis. The Illyrian frontier, was, indeed, the training school of Byzantine generals, and the eunuch himself was one of those who had often been engaged in the task of resisting barbarian raids by which the Danubian provinces were continually pillaged and depopulated. His progress was also impeded somewhat by a deficiency in the commissariat, which arose from a convoy of provision ships having been
