We must now turn to examine the personal conduct of Belisarius. He was unfortunately too much under the influence of his beautiful wife, though she was a few years older than her husband. Her close friendship with the Empress Theodora, her talents, her bold character, and the devoted attachment she displayed to Belisarius, excuses his too servile affection. She embarked with him in the African expedition, though Procopius says that the boldest Roman generals feared the enterprise; and she accompanied him in Italy. In the historical works of Procopius, she is represented as an excellent wife; in his secret libel, as a shameless and profligate woman.
The presence of the Lady Antonina at Carthage and Rome, compelled Belisarius to keep up a splendid and expensive court. The commander-in-chief was fond of wealth, Antonina of splendour. The fortunes of private individuals were still enormous, and rivalled the wealth of Crassus and the debts of Cæsar.[23] Belisarius, like a noble Roman, availed himself of his commands in Africa, and Italy, to become master of sums equalling in amount the mighty accumulations of extortion collected by the consuls and proconsuls of old Rome, when they plundered Syria, Egypt, Pontus and Armenia. Of this wealth Belisarius made no inconsiderable display when at Constantinople. He passed along the streets, and appeared in the Hippodrome, attended by a numerous and brilliant suite of Gothic, Vandal, and Mauritanian chiefs, mounted on the finest horses, and clad in the richest armour, that wealth could command. In the days of his greatest prosperity, his own guards amounted to 7000 horsemen; and they were more formidable from their discipline and military experience than from their numbers. To this band of well-trained veterans, he owed many of his victories over the Goths in Italy.[24]
The civil administration of Belisarius was never very successful. His bad financial management involved his African army in revolt; and in Italy he overlooked disorders, which at last produced indiscipline in his own ranks, and famine among the Italians. The expense of supporting his cohorts of personal guards, and the necessity of securing the services of the most experienced and boldest troopers in this chosen corps, induced him to wink at irregularities in Africa and Italy, that he would have been obliged to punish severely near Constantinople or in Greece. At Abydos, he had ordered two Huns of the mercenary cavalry to be hanged for committing a murder; at Rome, he ran the risk of being murdered himself in the midst of a council of war, by one of his generals, from having neglected too long to cheek the rapacity and injustice every where perpetrated under the sanction of his authority.