But the power of kings is most effectual to destroy; and the twenty years of the Gothic war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy.

As early as the fourth campaign, under the discipline of Belisarius himself, fifty thousand laborers died of hunger [58] in the narrow region of Picenum; [59] and a strict interpretation of the evidence of Procopius would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of her present inhabitants.

[60] [Footnote 54: (Agathias, l.ii.p.

48.) In the first scene of Richard III.

our English poet has beautifully enlarged on this idea, for which, however, he was not indebted to the Byzantine historian.] [Footnote 55: Maffei has proved, (Verona Illustrata.