adulteress, and did not blush to be called so.

For this reason he returned to Ephesus, and after having submitted
to the tonsure, joined the monastic order. At this Antonina entirely
lost her reason, showed her distress by putting on mourning and by her
general behaviour, and roamed about the house, wailing and lamenting
(even in the presence of her husband) the good friend she had lost--so
faithful, so pleasant, so tender a companion, so prompt in action. At
last she even won over her husband, who began to utter the same
lamentations. The poor fool kept calling for the return of his
well-beloved Theodosius, and afterwards went to the Emperor and
besought him and the Empress, till he prevailed upon them to send for
Theodosius, as a man whose services always had been and always would
be indispensable in the household. Theodosius, however, refused to
obey, declaring that it was his fixed determination to remain in the
cloister and embrace the monastic life. But this language was by no
means sincere, for it was his intention, as soon as Belisarius left
the country, to rejoin Antonina by stealth at Byzantium, as, in fact,
he did.




CHAPTER II


Shortly afterwards Belisarius was sent by the Emperor to conduct the
war against Chosroes, and Photius accompanied him. Antonina remained
behind, contrary to her usual custom; for, before this, she had always
desired to accompany her husband on all his travels wherever he went,