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 424 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliii the conqueror. They requested a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city if no effectual relief should appear at the [a.d. 543] end of thirty days. Instead of one month, the audacious Bar- barian granted them three, in the just confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their capitulation. After the re- duction of Naples and Cumae, the provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria submitted to the king of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Eome, pitched his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital, and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign, contrast of The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the virtue revolution which three years' experience had produced in the sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the name, of a catholic emperor, the pope, 18 their spiritual father, had been torn from the Eoman church, and either starved or murdered on a desolate island. 19 The virtues of Belisarius were replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at Eome, Eavenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c, who abused their authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The im- provement of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzan- tine schools ; and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors,' 20 was drawn from the dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size, without defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the restoration of peace and industry, he imposed an heavy assessment on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigour against the persons and property of all those 18 Sylverius, bishop of Borne, was first transported to Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodia inedia confeotus) in the isle of Palrnaria, a.d. 538, June 20 [probably May 21 ; cp. Clinton, F. R., ad ami.] (Liberat. in Breviar. c. 22. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius, a.d. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont, torn. i. p. 285, 286). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina. [Liberatus and the Liber Pont. (" = Anastasius ") attribute to Vigilius the removal of Silverius to Palmaria. Procopius (Anecd.) states that this wickedness was wrought by a servant of Antonina.] 19 Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Tarracina and the coast of the Volsci (Cluver. Ital. Autiq. 1. iii. c. 7, p. 1014). 20 As the Logothete Alexander and most of his civil and military colleagues were either disgraced or despised, the ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that of the Gothic History (1. iii. c. 1, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c). [Alexander received for himself a commission of one-twelfth on his extortions. The office of logothete is fully discussed by Panchenko, Vizantiiski Vremennik, 3, p. 468 sqq.]