difficulty, Belisarius's approval of her conduct, on his return home.
Thus did this man's true character reveal itself. Although he had
sworn a solemn oath to Photius and to several of his intimates and
broken it, yet all men readily forgave him, because they suspected
that the reason of his faithlessness was not the dominion of his wife
over him, but his fear of Theodora; but now that Theodora was dead, as
I have told you, he thought nothing about Photius or any of his
intimates, but entirely submitted to the sway of his wife, and her
pander Calligonus. Then at last all men ceased to believe in him,
scorned and flouted him, and railed at him for an idiot. Such were the
offences of Belisarius, about which I have been obliged to speak
freely in this place.

In its proper place, I have said enough about the shortcomings of
Sergius, the son of Bacchus, in Libya. I have told how he was the
chief cause of the ruin of the Roman power in that country, how he
broke the oath which he swore to the Levathae on the Gospels, and how
he, without excuse, put to death the eighty ambassadors. I need only
add in this place, that these men did not come to Sergius with any
treacherous intent, and that Sergius had not the slightest reason for
suspecting them, but having invited them to a banquet and taken an
oath not to harm them, he cruelly butchered them.

Solomon, the Roman army, and all the Libyans were lost owing to this
crime; for, in consequence of what he had done, especially after
Solomon's death, no officer or soldier would expose himself to the
dangers of war. John, the son of Sisinniolus, was especially averse to
taking the field, out of the hatred which he bore to Sergius, until
Areobindus arrived in Libya.