The General, on pretext of accepting, entered Ravenna; he seized Witigis and Matasuntha, the Gothic nobles, and Theodoric's treasure and bore them off to Constantinople.
It hung back from violent protests against military rule, not wanting to give the generals a pretext for a new crackdown.
In the long run, he must also make political space in Rwanda for the Hutu rebel forces who maraud through eastern Congo and give General Nkunda a pretext for his depredations.
In the final days of martial law, the generals used the pretext of a court decision to dissolve the parliament and then issued a decree granting to themselves all budgetary and lawmaking power.
There is always the opinion of the outside world for the junta to worry about – and if the generals find a pretext for extending Ms Suu Kyi's house arrest, or put such stringent conditions on her release that she refuses to accept them, the world will howl.
Most probably, however, the generals will find a pretext to disqualify them.The NLD convincingly won the last elections, held in May 1990, taking more than 80% of the seats.
In 1922, however, the government unilaterally decided to confiscate all church valuables, under the official pretext that there was general starvation in large sections of the country.
Republican leaders have kept their distance from calls to remove Rosenstein from office, and Democrats have argued that the GOP's clashes with the deputy attorney general are little more than a pretext to weaken Mueller's efforts.
The resulting Law of 20 May never applied to colonies like Guadeloupe or Guyane, even though rogue generals and other officials used the pretext of peace as an opportunity to reinstate slavery in some of these places.
In a lawsuit filed last month against the Corrections Department, Middle Ground said the fee was simply a pretext for raising money "for general public purposes" and as such was unconstitutional because it amounted to a special tax on a single group.
The French commanding general, Latrille de Lorencez, concocted a flimsy pretext for breaking a bilateral treaty requiring the French to return to Veracruz in the event of hostilities, and instead led his troops west toward the capital.
