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 288 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xli CHAPTEE XLI Conquests of Justinian in the West — Character and first Cam- paigns of Belisarius — He invades and subdues the Vandal' Kingdom of Africa — His Triumplt — The Gothic War — He recovers Sicily, Naples, and Rome — Siege of Rome by the Goths — Their Retreat and Losses — Surrender of Ravenna — Glory of Belisarius — His domestic Shame and Misfor- tunes Justinian X T7 THEN Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years invade 8 10 / after the fal1 of the Western empire, the kingdom aSb83 W of the Goths and Vandals had obtained a solid and, as it might seem, a legal establishment both in Europe and Africa. The titles which Roman victory had inscribed were erazed with equal justice by the sword of the Barbarians; and their successful rapine derived a more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had refuted the superstitious hope that Eome was founded by the gods to reign for ever over the nations of the earth. But the proud claim of perpetual and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers could no longer main- tain, was firmly asserted by her statesmen and lawyers, whose opinions have been sometimes revived and propagated in the modern schools of jurisprudence. After Rome herself had been stripped of the Imperial purple, the princes of Constantinople as- sumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces which had been sub- dued by the consuls or possessed by the Caesars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of the West from the usurpation of heretics and Barbarians. The execution of this splendid design was in some degree reserved for Justinian. During the five first years of his reign, he reluctantly waged