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Chap.xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 355 oath or a promise for the performance of a treaty which he secretly abhorred. The day of the surrender of Ravenna was stipulated by the Gothic ambassadors; a fleet, laden with provisions, sailed as a welcome guest into the deepest recess of the harbour; the gates were opened to the fancied king of Subdues Italy ; and Belisarius, without meeting an enemy, triumphantly kingdom 10 marched through the streets of an impregnable city. 124 The ^"539.' Romans were astonished by their success ; the multitude of tall December and robust Barbarians were confounded by the image of their own patience ; and the masculine females, spitting in the faces of their sons and husbands, most bitterly reproached them for betraying their dominion and freedom to these pygmies of the south, contemptible in their numbers, diminutive in their stature. Before the Goths could recover from the first surprise and claim the accomplishment of their doubtful hopes, the victor established his power in Ravenna, beyond the danger of repentance and revolt. Vitiges, who perhaps had attempted to captivity escape, was honourably guarded in his palace ; 125 the flower of ot Vltlges the Gothic youth was selected for the service of the emperor; the remainder of the people was dismissed to their peaceful habitations in the southern provinces; and a colony of Italians was invited to replenish the depopulated city. The submission of the capital was imitated in the towns and villages of Italy, which had not been subdued, or even visited, by the Romans ; and the independent Goths who remained in arms at Pavia and Verona were ambitious only to become the subjects of Belisarius. But his inflexible loyalty rejected, except as the substitute of Justinian, their oaths of allegiance ; and he was not offended by the reproach of their deputies, that he rather chose to be a slave than a king. 124 Ravenna was taken, not in the year 540, but in the latter end of 539 ; and Pagi (torn. ii. p. 569) is rectified by Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, torn. v. p. 62 [leg. torn. iii. p. 343]), who proves, from an original act on papyrus (Antiquit. Italiaa Medii jEvi, torn. ii. dissert, xxxii. p. 999-1007. Maffei, Ietoria Diplomat, p. 155-160), that before the 3rd of January 540 peace and free correspondence were restored between Ravenna and Faenza. [The original act is a dated venditio or deed of sale : see Marini, Papiri diplomatici, cxvi. p. 178.] 135 He was seized by John the Sanguinary, but an oath or sacrament was pledged for his safety in the Basilica Julii (Hist. Miscell. 1. xvii. in Muratori, torn. i. p. 107). Anastasius (in Vit. Pont. p. 40) gives a dark but probable account. Mont- faucon is quoted by Mascou (Hist, of the Germans, xii. 21) for a votive shield representing the captivity of Vitiges, and now in the collection of Signor Landi at Rome.