off the supply of water to the besieged; and Belisarius walled up their mouths, to prevent the enemy from making them a means of entering the city. The immediate consequence was, that the Roman baths were rendered useless, while, what was a still more serious misfortune in the present state of the city, the stoppage of the water-mills deprived the besieged of their accustomed supply of flour. The place of the mills was, however, supplied by barges moored in the river, and fitted up with mill-stones which were turned by the current. But, though the care and foresight of Belisarius had provided the city with a large supply of corn, and though he had dismissed all the useless mouths, dearth and famine, and pestilence, their constant attendant, began at length to be felt. By the capture of Portus, the Goths had cut off the supply of corn by sea; while, by establishing 7,000 men in a fortified camp in the angles formed by two aqueducts between the Appian and Latin Ways, and six or seven miles from the city, Vitiges was enabled to intercept any convoys arriving by land from the south.

All sentiments of patriotism had long been extinct in the minds of the Romans. The long and gentle rule of Theodoric had deprived the idea of a barbarian sovereign of much of its terrors; and as they could no longer hope to be their own masters, it seemed almost a matter of indifference whether they should obey a Gothic king who resided at Ravenna, or a sovereign at Constantinople who still called himself a Roman emperor. In the long agony of their distress and fear, they pressed Belisarius either to capitulate or to lead them to immediate battle; and as he declined to listen to their prayers, they began to agitate the design of treacherously delivering the city to the Goths. Some of the leading men of Rome, including Pope Sylverius himself, seem to have been implicated in the conspiracy. A letter to Vitiges was intercepted, offering to open the Porta Asinaria to his troops. Sylverius

was convicted both by his own signature and by the testimony of witnesses; and after undergoing a bitter reproof from Antonina, the imperious wife of Belisarius, he was stripped of his pontifical robes, and sent into banishment. He was succeeded by the deacon Vigilius, who is said to have purchased the throne of St. Peter by bribing Belisarius with 200 pounds of gold.1

The Goths, however, on their side were suffering from want, from the effects of the climate, and from their losses in numerous combats, in which a third of their whole force is said to have been consumed. Some seasonable reinforcements received by Belisarius, the artful negotiations of that commander, and the news that his own capital was threatened, and the fidelity of his wife corrupted, by John the Sanguinary, a lieutenant of Belisarius, induced Vitiges to contemplate a retreat. Some final attempts to take Rome by treachery or assault having failed, the Goths suddenly abandoned the siege, in March, 538, a year and a few days after they had sat down before the city. Their retreat was so disorderly, that in the passage of the Milvian Bridge numbers precipitated themselves, or were driven by the pursuing Romans, into the Tiber. Belisarius followed up this success by the capture of Ravenna and subjugation of the Gothic kingdom in Italy.

Totila, who was elected 541, undertook to restore He first employed himself

But the great storehouse of nations was not easily exhausted. After a few years Rome was to see another Gothic army before her gates. by the Goths for their king in the Gothic kingdom of Italy. in reducing Naples and the southern provinces, which he effected with wonderful celerity. It was on this occasion that he had an interview with St. Benedict, at Monte Casino, in 542. In the year 529, Benedict had destroyed there the last temple of Apollo and the grove which

1 Procop. B. Goth. i. 25; Anastas. Vit. Pont. p. 39; Muratori, t. iii.

p. 130; Baronius, Ann. ad ann. 536, no. cxxiii.; 538, no. iv. sqq.

environed it, in which the neighbouring countrypeople still offered the ancient sacrifice; and he founded in their place chapels to St. John and St. Martin, and the celebrated monastery which is the mother-convent of his order.1

Totila marched upon Rome at the end of the winter 543-4.2 Justinian had recalled Belisarius from the Persian wars, to undertake again the defence of Italy against the Goths; but while that general was employed in recruiting on the coasts of the Adriatic, Totila seized Tibur, through the treachery of the Isaurian garrison, and massacred the inhabitants. He deferred, however, the siege of Rome till he had reduced the more important towns of Tuscany, Picenum, and the Æmilia, in which he employed the remainder of the year 544 and part of the following one; and it was not till the summer of 545 that he appeared before the capital of the West.3 Rome was defended by Bessas, with a small garrison of 3,000 men. Totila, like Vitiges, blockaded rather than besieged Rome. He commanded the course of the Tiber above it, and his fleet infested the mouth of that river. The passage up to Rome from the sea was secured by a strong bridge of timber built across the river at a narrow point about eleven miles. below the city. The bridge was defended by two towers, manned by some chosen Gothic troops, and by a strong iron chain stretched across the Tiber in front of it. Nevertheless, Belisarius, proceeding up the river with his whole fleet, succeeded in forcing these formidable barriers, and burning one of the towers by means of a fire-ship; and had Bessas supported the attack by a sally from the city, according to his instructions, the Goths would have been compelled to raise the siege. But Belisarius, finding himself unsupported, was compelled to retreat. The

1 Gregorius M. Dial. ii. 8 (Oper. t. ii. p. 230); Mabillon, Ann. Bened. ad ann. 541 (t. i. p. 97).

2 Procop. B. G. iii. 9 sq.

Ꮓ

3 Gibbon (vol. ii. p. 220) places the siege in 546; Muratori and Pagi in 545. See Gregorovius, B. i. S. 400.

chagrin of this repulse threw the Roman general into a violent fever, which disabled him from again attempting the relief of the city. Before the close of the year (Dec. 17, 546) the Goths were introduced into Rome by the treachery of four Isaurian sentinels, who opened to them the Porta Asinaria. When Totila had entered, he ordered the trumpets to sound all night, to give notice to the Romans, so that they might save themselves by flight. Bessas with his garrison immediately evacuated the city, and he was accompanied in his flight by most of the principal Romans. Totila, for the most part, spared the lives of those that remained, and accepted their prayers for forgiveness; but he abandoned the town to be plundered by his soldiers. With this exception, the inhabitants were treated with almost paternal mildness,' till the news of a defeat of the Goths in Lucania excited his anger. He now threatened to turn Rome into a pasture for cattle; and it cannot be doubted that he threw down about a third of the walls, especially between the Porta Pinciana and Porta Prænestina. He also prepared to destroy the temples and other monuments of the city; but a letter from Belisarius, warning him not to sully his fame by so barbarous an action, though it excited the momentary anger of the Gothic chief, had the effect of diverting him from his purpose. But though the monuments were preserved, several private houses appear to have been burnt, especially in the Trastevere. Hence several writers of the middle ages, and even some modern ones, have ascribed the destruction of Rome to Totila.

Soon afterwards Totila suddenly evacuated Rome, and marched into Lucania, leaving only a small camp at Mount Algidus, about fifteen miles from the city, to watch the motions of Belisarius. He took with him all the senators as hostages, and left Rome, it is said, in so desolate a state, 2 lbid. iv. 22, 23.

1 Anast. in Vigilio; Procop. iii. 20.

that scarce a living human being was to be met in its streets.1 On learning the departure of the Goths, Belisarius entered the deserted city, in the spring of 547, at the head of only 1,000 horse, after cutting in pieces the Goths who opposed his passage. He now summoned the greater part of his troops to join him, and hastily repaired the walls; in which work it cannot be doubted that he used the materials of adjacent monuments. In less than a month the walls had at least the aspect of completeness, and many of the fugitive inhabitants returned to the city. At this news, Totila hastened back from Apulia. But though the restoration of the gates was not yet completed, the Goths were repulsed in three desperate assaults. These defeats proved very detrimental to the military reputation of Totila, who now retreated to Tibur, which he fortified; while Belisarius continued to fortify Rome at his leisure, and forwarded the keys a second time to the Emperor Justinian.3

In the winter of 547, Belisarius left Rome for the last time. Justinian had commanded him to proceed to Lucania, to support a revolt of the inhabitants against the Goths. During his stay at Rome he does not appear to have done much for the city besides repairing the walls, though it is possible that he may also have restored the Aqua Trajana. The Roman aqueducts seem to have remained useless from the time of their destruction by Vitiges till the year 775.

It falls not within our province to record the warlike operations in the south of Italy. It will suffice to state that the progress of the campaign compelled Belisarius to pass over into Sicily in the spring of 548. The fortune of war during that year was adverse to Belisarius, and he obtained his recall to Constantinople. Totila, after reducing a great part of Calabria, and capturing Perugia, appeared

1 Marcellin. Chron. p. 75.

2 Procop. B. G. iii. 24.

3 Ibid. 37.