The despair of the new Ariadne could scarcely have been excused by the death of her husband.

She wept, she tore her hair, she filled the palace with her cries; "she had lost the dearest of friends, a tender, a faithful, a laborious friend!" But her warm entreaties, fortified by the prayers of Belisarius, were insufficient to draw the holy monk from the solitude of Ephesus.

It was not till the general moved forward for the Persian war, that Theodosius could be tempted to return to Constantinople; and the short interval before the departure of Antonina herself was boldly devoted to love and pleasure.

[Footnote 112: The diligence of Alemannus could add but little to the four first and most curious chapters of the Anecdotes.

Of these strange Anecdotes, a part may be true, because probable--and a part true, because improbable.
Procopius must have known the former, and the latter he could scarcely invent.