For Belisarius and Justinian both died in 565, and Narses, who was
recalled in that year by the foolish and insolent Sophia, the wife of
the new emperor Justin II., seems to have died about 572.
It is difficult to determine to which of these three great and heroic
figures Italy, and through Italy, Europe, owes most, but since it was
Justinian who chose and employed them we must, I think, accord him,
here too, the first place in our remembrance.
Belisarius, who had fought the first great war so gloriously against
Vitiges, and for so long and with so little encouragement had opposed
Totila in the second, is of course one of the great soldiers of the
world and perhaps the greatest the empire ever employed. His capture
of Ravenna, by stratagem it is true, but against time and, as it were,
in spite of the emperor, brought the first Gothic war to an end, and
would, had he been left in Italy a few months longer, have prevented
all the long drawn out agony of the second. As it was his achievement,
and his achievement alone, made that second war something better than
the hopeless affair it seemed for so long, and though he himself to
all appearances made little headway against Totila, it was his series
of heroic campaigns, in which he refused despair, that made the ever
glorious march of Narses possible, and the final crushing of the
barbarian in the Apennines after all but the crown of his endeavour.
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