Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/234

 to the Gothic nation in general, they immediately elected a new King, choosing Ildibad, a man of the first rank, for promotion to that dignity. At the same time the Master of Soldiers was being criminated at the Byzantine Court, the worst motives being attributed to him by his adversaries; and his recall was shortly issued, but ostensibly merely that he might be at hand in view of the threatening activity of the Persian monarch. When this news was brought to the Goths, they assumed his imminent disgrace, and made another determined effort to induce him to accept the king-*ship. In him they saw the potential saviour of their race, and even Ildibad was moved to declare that he was ready to deposit the crown and purple at his feet. But Belisarius remained firm in his resolution: they reminded him of his late breach of faith, even taunted him with preferring servitude to independence, all to no purpose. Nothing could shake his conviction that while Justinian lived, he was in honour bound to shun any semblance of rivalry with his authority.

For the second time Belisarius returned to Constantinople with a captive king and all the precious externals of majesty in his train. On this occasion, however, no public spectacle was decreed to celebrate the extension of the Empire, and the success of its arms. Perhaps that event was now considered as merely normal by the Court; perhaps the Emperor had felt insignificant in the popular eye when compared with the victorious general who piled the spoils of victory before his throne. The Senators were gratified with a sight of the treasures of Theodoric heaped up within the palace, but the multitude were excluded from contemplation of the exhilarating display. Yet the name of Belisarius was on every tongue; and in his daily progresses through the capital he was gazed on with admiration by the