deserters pointed to the conspicuous horse, a bay,* with a white face, which he rode on that memorable day. Aim at the bay horse, was the universal cry. Every bow was bent, every javelin was directed, against that fatal object, and the command was repeated and obeyed by thousands who were ignorant of its real motive. The bolder barbarians advanced to the more honourable combat of swords and spears; and the praise of an enemy has graced the fall of Visandus, the standard-bearer,† who maintained his foremost station, till he was pierced with thirteen wounds, perhaps by the hand of Belisarius himself. The Roman general was strong, active, and dexterous: on every side he discharged his weighty and mortal strokes: his faithful guards imitated his valour, and defended his person; and the Goths, after the loss of a thousand men, fled before the arms of a hero. They were rashly pursued to their camp; and the Romans, oppressed by multitudes, made a gradual, and at length a precipitate, retreat to the gates of the city; the gates were shut against the fugitives; and the public terror was increased, by the report that Belisarius was slain. His countenance was indeed disfigured by sweat, dust, and blood; his voice was hoarse, his strength was almost exhausted; but his unconquerable spirit still remained; he imparted that spirit to his desponding companions; and their last

-ED.] * A horse of a bay or red colour was styled páλios by the Greeks, balan by the barbarians, and spadix by the Romans. Honesti spadices, says Virgil (Georgic. 1. 3, 72, with the observations of Martin and Heyne). Σπαδιξ or βαίον, signifies a branch of the palm-tree, whose name, povik, is synonymous to red. (Aulus Gellius, 2. 26.) [The Greek Batov or Bais, a palm-branch, was converted by the Romans into Bagus or baius, the term by which a horse of that colour was most commonly denoted in later times. See Ducange, 1.930. This the Goths, or Procopius for them, must have corrupted into balan, if they used the word in his days.-ED.]

I interpret Bavdaλápios, not as a proper name, but an office, standard-bearer, from bandum (vexillum), a barbaric word adopted by the Greeks and Romans. (Paul. Diacon. 1. 1, c. 20, p. 760. Grot. Nomina Gothica, p. 575. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i, p. 539, 540.) [The word adopted by the Romans, according to Ducange (Gloss. 1. 974) was bandus, from the Gothic band, signifying "hominum turba, sub certo duce vel vexillo collecta." Hence the vexillum was called banderia or banera, which we have in the form of banner, and the standard-bearer was called banderarius. It is very likely that Procopius changed this into bandalarius. In another of his histories

(De Bell. Vand. 2. 10), he says that the Romans gave the designation of bandophorus to Rufinus, who was a vexillifer, or standard-bearer in

desperate charge was felt by the flying barbarians, as if a new army, vigorous and entire, had been poured from the city. The Flaminian gate was thrown open to a real triumph ; but it was not before Belisarius had visited every post, and provided for the public safety, that he could be persuaded by his wife and friends, to taste the needful refreshments of food and sleep. In the more improved state of the art of war, a general is seldom required, or even permitted, to display the personal prowess of a soldier; and the example of Belisarius may be added to the rare examples of Henry IV. of Pyrrhus, and of Alexander.

*

After this first and unsuccessful trial of their enemies, the whole army of the Goths passed the Tiber, and formed the siege of the city, which continued above a year, till their final departure. Whatever fancy may conceive, the severe compass of the geographer defines the circumference of Rome within a line of twelve miles and three hundred and forty-five paces; and that circumference, except in the Vatican, has invariably been the same from the triumph of Aurelian to the peaceful but obscure reign of the modern popes. But in the day of her greatness, the space within her walls was crowded with habitations and inhabitants; and the populous suburbs, that stretched along the public roads, were darted like so many rays from one common centre. Adversity swept away these extraneous ornaments, and left naked and desolate a considerable part even of the. seven hills. Yet Rome, in its present state, could send into the field above thirty thousand males, of a military age; and, notwithstanding the want of discipline and exercise, the far greater part, inured to the hardships of poverty, might be capable of bearing arms for the defence of their country and religion. The prudence of Belisarius did not neglect this important resource. His soldiers the army sent against Gelimer.-ED.]

* M. d'Anville has

given in the Memoirs of the Academy for the year 1756, (tom. xxx, p. 198-236,) a plan of Rome on a smaller scale, but far more accurate than that which he had delineated in 1738 for Rollin's history. Experience had improved his knowledge; and instead of Rossi's topography, he used the new and excellent map of Nolli. Pliny's old measure of thirteen must be reduced to eight miles. It is easier to alter a text, than to remove hills or buildings.

In the year 1709, Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. iii, p. 218, reckoned one hundred and thirty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight Christian souls, besides eight or ten thousand Jews-without souls? In the year 1763, the numbers exceeded one hundred and

were relieved by the zeal and diligence of the people, who watched while they slept, and laboured while they reposed; he accepted the voluntary service of the bravest and most indigent of the Roman youth; and the companies of townsmen sometimes represented, in a vacant post, the presence of the troops which had been drawn away to more essential duties. But his just confidence was placed in the veterans who had fought under his banner in the Persian and African wars; and although that gallant band was reduced to five thousand men, he undertook, with such contemptible numbers, to defend a circle of twelve miles, against an army of one hundred and fifty thousand barbarians. In the walls of Rome, which Belisarius constructed or restored, the materials of ancient architecture may be discerned; and the whole fortification was completed, except in a chasm still extant between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the prejudices of the Goths and Romans left under the effectual guard of St. Peter the apostle.† The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles; a ditch, broad and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the archers on the rampart were assisted by military engines the balista, a powerful cross-bow, which darted short but massy arrows; the onagri, or wild asses, which, on the principle of a sling, threw stones and bullets of an enormous size. A chain was drawn across the Tiber; the arches of the aqueducts were made impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian § was converted, for the

sixty thousand. *The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, 1. 1, c. 8, p. 31) could distinguish the tumultuarie opere di Belisario. The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the wall, which Procopius observed (Goth. 1. 1, c. 13), is visible to the present hour. (Donat. Roma Vetus, 1. 1, c. 17, p. 53, 54). Lipsius (Opp.

tom. iii. Poliorcet. 1. 3,) was ignorant of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius. (Goth. 1. 1, c. 21.) The engine was named ovayooç, the wild ass, a calcitrando. (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Linguæ. Græc. tom. ii, p. 1340, 1341; tom. iii, p. 877.) I have seen an inge nious model, contrived and executed by General Melville, which imitates or surpasses the art of antiquity. § The description

of this mausoleum, or mole, in Procopius, (1. 1, c. 25,) is the first and best. The height above the walls σχεδοντι ἐς λίθου βολὴν. On Nolli's great plan, the sides measure two hundred and sixty English feet. ["There is no pile of building in earlier Rome," Niebuhr says, (Lectures 3. 235) "more colossal, than the Moles Hadriani, of which we know that the tower, with all its inscriptions, was certainly still in

first time, to the uses of a citadel. That venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines, was a circular turret rising from a quadrangular basis: it was covered with the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the statues of gods and heroes; and the lover of the arts must read with a sigh, that the works of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the heads of the besiegers.* To each of his lieutenants, Belisarius assigned the defence of a gate, with the wise and peremptory instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their general for the safety of Rome. The formidable host of the Goths was insufficient to embrace the ample measure of the city; of the fourteen gates, seven only were invested, from the Prænestine to the Flaminian way; and Vitiges divided his troops into six camps, each of which was fortified with a ditch and rampart. On the Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment was formed in the field or circus of the Vatican, for the important purpose of commanding the Milvian bridge and the course of the Tiber; but they approached with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter; and the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the siege by a Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as the senate decreed some distant conquest, the consul denounced hostilities, by unbarring, in solemn pomp, the gates of the temple of Janus.† Domestic war now ren

existence in the middle ages. Procopius tells us that the statue of the emperor was thrown down at the siege of Rome by the Goths. The destroyer did his worst; but the huge masses are still standing, so that it is now the largest building which has been left, and even in its shattered state is still noble." The destroyer, it must be observed here, was the Roman defender, not the Gothic besieger.-ED.]

* Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens was his own masterpiece. Rome now contains above thirty of the same character. When the ditch of St. Angelo was cleansed under Urban VIII., the workmen found the Sleeping Faun of the Barberini palace: but a leg, a thigh, and the right arm, had been broken from that beautiful statue. (Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art, tom. ii, p. 52, 53; tom. iii, p. 265).

Procopius has given the best description of the temple of Janus, a national deity of Latium. (Heyne, Excurs. 5. ad 1. 7, Æneid.) It was once a gate in the primitive city of Romulus and Numa. (Nardini, p. 13. 256. 329.) Virgil has described the ancient rite, like a poet and an antiquarian. [In Niebuhr's Lectures (1. 187) the following ex

dered the admonition superfluous, and the ceremony was superseded by the establishment of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was left standing in the Forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but with two faces, directed to the east and west. The double gates were likewise of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on their rusty hinges revealed the scandalous secret, that some Romans were still attached to the superstition of their ancestors.

Eighteen days were employed by the besiegers, to provide all the instruments of attack which antiquity had invented. Fascines were prepared to fill the ditches, scalingladders to ascend the walls. The largest trees of the forest supplied the timbers of four battering-rams; their heads were armed with iron; they were suspended by ropes, and each of them was worked by the labour of fifty men. The lofty wooden turrets moved on wheels or rollers, and formed a spacious platform of the level of the rampart. On the morning of the nineteenth day, a general attack was made from the Prænestine gate to the Vatican: seven Gothic columns, with their military engines, advanced to the assault; and the Romans, who lined the ramparts, listened with doubt and anxiety to the cheerful assurances of their commander. As soon as the enemy approached the ditch, Belisarius himself drew the first arrow; and such was his strength and dexterity, that he transfixed the foremost of the barbarian leaders. A shout of applause and victory was re-echoed along the wall. He drew a second arrow, and the stroke was followed with the same success and the same acclamation. The Roman general then gave the word,

planation of the ancient temple of Janus is given as the result of his researches. "Old Rome was situated on the Palatine-The Pomorium of Romulus was surrounded, not by walls, but by a rampart and ditch. At that time there was, on the Quirinal and the Tarpeian rocks, the Sabine town which likewise had its Pomorium. Between the two ramparts and ditches there was a road, the Via Sacra. On this stood the Janus Quirini, a gateway, which was bifrons, turned on one side toward the Roman, and on the other toward the Sabine, town, closed in time of peace, because it was not then wished that there should be any intercourse between the two cities; open in war, because they were bound by their league to give support to each other."-ED.]