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now extend to you.’
    Flavius looked past Stephanus to the other members of the Council of Notables, or at least those who had survived. ‘And be grateful for your lives.’
    There was a temptation to make an exception for Stephanus, who had been honest in his dealings, to restore to him the value of that which he had forfeited, his house having been stripped of its possessions before being set alight. There was a suspicion the man might refuse, which would be embarrassing, but there was another reason to demur.
    Stephanus would now surely be the leading citizen of the city and it would fall to him, especially since his advice regarding submission had proved sound, to take a prominent part in the running of Naples and the rebuilding of its prosperity. To favour him with restitution would be to diminish him in the eyes of those he must lead.
    The next task was harder: to persuade his own soldiers that it was a sound idea to surrender their prospective slaves and allow the women and children to go back to their destroyed homes. The march on Rome was paramount; there was simply no time to deal with the disposal of such captures, and anyway the army had its plunder, which they were free to keep.
    Two days had to be set aside for both persuasion as well as for sore heads to recover, time for Procopius to appoint those of his clerks who would be left behind to help run Naples, both to tax it and to no doubt enrich themselves in the process, as well as for those women and children now released to filter back to the city.
    The time came for the surveyors to go ahead and establish the next place they would camp for the night and soon after the army resumedtheir progress, followed by the heavily laden carts that carried the supplies Solomon had taken from the Neapolitan storerooms, as well as the now more numerous herd of mounts his domesticus had gathered in from the surrounding countryside.
    There was an obvious and palpable increase in the number of camp followers too; not every captured woman had elected to return to Naples. With their menfolk murdered and their homes stripped and destroyed, something they would have witnessed, the means for them and their children to survive lay with the men who had done the despoiling.

C HAPTER F OUR
    C umae was the only other fortified city south of Rome but the news of what had happened to their southern neighbour ensured that Flavius Belisarius and his army were welcomed with open arms, the small Goth garrison having fled well before their arrival. Flying columns were sent east to secure the cities in the provinces of Apulia, especially the ports on the Adriatic coast, thus shortening communications with both the Army of Illyria and Justinian.
    Meeting no resistance the invaders soon had the whole of Southern Italy under their control, though the need to hold such a vast tract of territory and the towns therein seriously diminished the forces set to continue their march. News from the north seemed to confirm that success had brought serious repercussions: the Goth nobles had met and deposed Theodahad for his failure to act against Belisarius, then elected a new leader called Witigis. Theodahad fled to Ravenna where an envoy sent to bring him back avoided any complications by lopping off his head.
    Flavius had to surmise he faced a new and more active opponent, now, he was informed, marching on Rome to reinforce possession of the old imperial capital. Yet Witigis was not free to do as he wished; he had to contend with the same difficulties faced by his now deadpredecessor. On his northern borders he had the powerful Franks of Southern Gaul, allied to Justinian and in receipt of imperial gold.
    Clovis, the Frankish king, was pressing a claim on what Goth possessions remained within what he saw as their territory, while there was still a strong Roman army on the border with Illyricum; if Witigis denuded the north of men, then that made it vulnerable to either one of those threats.
    In response,