Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/292

 price the privilege of overthrowing the statues of Theodoric in revenge for his having executed her father and husband. The Goths would now have retaliated, but Totila saved her from their hands, and also restrained them from violating any of the females found in the city.

The day after the capture the Gothic King convened his forces, and preached them a sermon on the advantages of ethical conduct in warfare. He pointed out to them that in the first campaign, although numerous and rich, they had succumbed to seven thousand Greeks, because they shrunk from no excesses and committed every crime that seemed expedient at the moment. Now, however, through adhering to the principles of rectitude, although diminished to a mere handful with slight resources, they had triumphed over twenty thousand of the enemy. He also addressed the Romans in the same sense as his former despatch and proclamations, reproaching them for their ingratitude to the Goths, and again expressing his amazement at their indiscretion and prejudice in preferring the oppressive rule of the Byzantines.

Totila's next procedure was to send a legation, of whom Pelagius was the chief, to solicit an equitable peace from Justinian. They were the bearers of a letter in which he prayed for a restoration of the amicable relations which had prevailed between Anastasius and Theodoric; but they also had verbal instructions to threaten the total destruction of Rome, the massacre of the Senate, and a Gothic invasion of Illyricum. In response the Emperor did not enter into any negotiations, but merely indicated that Belisarius was his plenipotentiary, through whom only he was willing to treat.

When this answer was conveyed to Totila, he resolved to raze Rome to the ground, and transform the area into a