XLIII. CHAP. Italians, and encompassed the walls of Rome with the remainder of his formidable host. Round the wide circumference, Narses assigned to himself, and to each of his lieutenants, a real or a feigned attack, while he silently marked the place of easy and unguarded entrance. Neither the fortifications of Hadrian's mole, nor of the port, could long delay the progress of the conqueror; and Justinian once more received the keys of Rome, which, under his reign, had been five times taken and recovered. But the deliverance of Rome was the last calamity of the Roman people. The barbarian allies of Narses too frequently confounded the privileges of peace and war: the despair of the flying Goths found some consolation in sanguinary revenge: and three hundred youths of the noblest families, who had been sent as hostages beyond the Po, were inhumanly slain by the successor of Totila. The fate of the senate suggests an awful lesson of the vicissitude of human affairs. Of the senators whom Totila had banished from their country, some were rescued by an officer of Belisarius, and transported from Campania to Sicily; while others were too guilty to confide in the clemency of Justinian, or too poor to provide horses for their escape to the sea-shore. Their brethren languished five years in a state of indigence and exile: the victory of Narses revived their hopes; but their premature return to the metropolis was prevented by the furious Goths; and all the fortresses of Campania were stained with patrician" blood. After a period of thirteen centuries, the institution * Επι τουτου βασιλευοντος το πεμπτον ἱαλω. In the year 536 by Belisarius, in 546 by Totila, in 547 by Belisarius, in 549 by Totila, and in 552 by Narses. Maltretus had inadvertently translated sextum; a mistake which he afterwards retracts: but the mischief was done; and Cousin, with a train of French and Latin readers, have fallen into the snare. " Compare two passages of Procopius (1. iii. c. 26. 1. iv. c. 24), which, with some collateral hints from Marcellinus and Jornandes, illustrate the state of the expiring senate. XLIII. death of last king of their the Goths, sent A. D. 553, March. of Romulus expired; and if the nobles of Rome still CHAP. assumed the title of senators, few subsequent traces can be discovered of a public council, or constitutional order. Ascend six hundred years, and contemplate the kings of the earth soliciting an audience, as the slaves or freedmen of the Roman senate!° The Gothic war was yet alive. The bravest of Defeat and the nation retired beyond the Po; and Teias was Teias, the unanimously chosen to succeed and revenge departed hero. The new king immediately ambassadors to implore, or rather to purchase, the aid of the Franks, and nobly lavished, for the public safety, the riches which had been deposited in the palace of Pavia. The residue of the royal treasure was guarded by his brother Aligern at Cuma in Campania; but the strong castle which Totila had fortified was closely besieged by the arms of Narses. From the Alps to the foot of Mount Vesuvius, the Gothic king, by rapid and secret marches, advanced to the relief of his brother, eluded the vigilance of the Roman chiefs, and pitched his camp on the banks of the Sarnus or Draco," which flows from Nuceria into the bay of Naples. The river separated the two armies; sixty days were consumed in distant and fruitless combats, and Teias maintained this important post, till he was deserted by his fleet and the hope of subsistence. With reluctant steps he ascended the Lactarian mount, where the physicians of Rome, since the time of Galen, had sent their patients for the benefit of the air and the milk. But • See, in the example of Prusias, as it is delivered in the fragments of Polybius (Excerpt. Legat. xcvii. p. 927, 928), a curious picture of a royal slave. P The Agaxay of Procopius (Goth. 1. iv. c. 35), is evidently the Sarnus. The text is accused or altered by the rash violence of Cluverius (1. iv. c. 3. p. 1156): but Camillo Pellegrini of Naples (Discorsi sopra la Campania Felice, p. 330, 331), has proved from old records, that as early as the year 822 that river was called the Dracontio, or Draconcello. a Galen (de Method. Medendi, 1. v. apud Cluver. L. iv. c. 3. p. 1159, 1160), describes the lofty site, pure air, and rich milk, of mount Lactarius, whose me XLIII. CHAP. the Goths soon embraced a more generous resolution to descend the hill, to dismiss their horses, and to die in arms, and in the possession of freedom. The king marched at their head, bearing in his righthand a lance, and an ample buckler in his left: with the one he struck dead the foremost of the assailants; with the other he received the weapons which every hand was ambitious to aim against his life. After a combat of many hours, his left arm was fatigued by the weight of twelve javelins which hung from his shield. Without moving from his ground, or suspending his blows, the hero called aloud on his attendants for a fresh buckler, but in the moment, while his side was uncovered, it was pierced by a mortal dart. He fell and his head, exalted on a spear, proclaimed to the nations, that the Gothic kingdom was no more. But the example of his death served only to animate the companions who had sworn to perish with their leader. They fought till darkness descended on the earth. They reposed on their arms. The combat was renewed with the return of light, and maintained with unabated vigour till the evening of the second day. The repose of a second night, the want of water, and the loss of their bravest champions, determined the surviving Goths to accept the fair capitulation which the prudence of Narses was inclined to propose. They embraced the alternative of residing in Italy, as the subjects and soldiers of Justinian, or departing with a portion of their private wealth, in search of some independent country. Yet the oath of fidelity or exile was alike rejected by one thousand Goths, who broke away dicinal benefits were equally known and sought in the time of Symmachus (1. vi. epist. 18), and Cassiodorius (Var. xi. 10). Nothing is now left except the name of the town of Lettere. Buat (tom. xi. p. 2, &c.) conveys to his favourite Bavaria this remnant of Goths, who by others are buried in the mountains of Uri, or restored to their native isle of Gothland (Mascou, Annot. xxi). XLIII. before the treaty was signed, and boldly effected CHAP. their retreat to the walls of Pavia. The spirit, as well as the situation of Aligern, prompted him to imitate rather than to bewail his brother: a strong and dexterous archer, he transpierced with a single arrow the armour and breast of his antagonist; and his military conduct defended Cuma' above a year against the forces of the Romans. Their industry had scooped the Sibyll's cave into a prodigious mine; combustible materials were introduced to consume the temporary props: the wall and the gate of. Cumæ sunk into the cavern, but the ruins formed a deep and inaccessible precipice. On the fragment of a rock, Aligern stood alone and unshaken, till he calmly surveyed the hopeless condition of his country, and judged it more honourable to be the friend of Narses than the slave of the Franks. After the death of Teias, the Roman general separated his troops to reduce the cities of Italy; Lucca sustained a long and vigorous siege; and such was the humanity or the prudence of Narses, that the repeated perfidy of the inhabitants could not provoke him to exact the forfeit lives of their hostages. These hostages were dismissed in safety; and their grateful zeal at length subdued the obstinacy of their country men." Before Lucca had surrendered, Italy was over * I leave Scaliger (Animadvers. in Euseb. p. 59), and Salmasius (Exercitat. Plinian. p. 51, 52), to quarrel about the origin of Cumæ, the oldest of the Greek colonies in Italy (Strab. 1. v. p. 372. Velleius Paterculus, 1. i. c. 4), already vacant in Juvenal's time (Satir. iii.) and now in ruins. Agathias (1. i. c. 21), settles the Sibyll's cave under the wall of Cuma: he agrees with Servius (ad 1. vi. Æneid); nor can I perceive why their opinion should be rejected by Heyne, the excellent editor of Virgil (tom. ii. p. 650, 651). In urbe mediâ secreta religio! But Cuma was not yet built; and the lines (1. vi. 96, 97) would become ridiculous, if Æneas were actually in a Greek city. " There is some difficulty in connecting the 35th chapter of the fourth book of the Gothic war of Procopius with the first book of the history of Agathias. We must now relinquish a statesman and soldier, to attend the footsteps of a poet and rhetorician (1. i. p. 11. 1. ii. p. 51. edit. Louvre). VOL. V. Y XLIII. Invasion CHAP. whelmed by a new deluge of barbarians. A feeble youth, the grandson of Clovis, reigned over the Austrasians or oriental Franks. The guardians of of Italy by the Franks Theodebald entertained with coldness and reluctance the magnificent promises of the Gothic ambassadors. A. D. 553, But the spirit of a martial people outstripped the timid counsels of the court: two brothers, Lothaire and Ala manni, August. V and Buccelin, the dukes of the Alamanni, stood forth as the leaders of the Italian war; and seventyfive thousand Germans descended in the autumn from the Rhætian Alps into the plain of Milan. The vanguard of the Roman army was stationed near the Po, under the conduct of Fulcaris, a bold Herulian, who rashly conceived that personal bravery was the sole duty and merit of a commander. As he marched without order or precaution along the Æmilian way, an ambuscade of Franks suddenly rose from the amphitheatre of Parma: his troops were surprised and routed; but their leader refused to fly; declaring, to the last moment, that death was less terrible than the angry countenance of Narses. The death of Fulcaris, and the retreat of the surviving chiefs, decided the fluctuating and rebellious temper of the Goths; they flew to the standard of their deliverers, and admitted them into the cities which still resisted the arms of the Roman general. The conqueror of Italy opened a free passage to the irresistible torrent of barbarians. They passed under the walls of Cesena, and answered by threats and reproaches the advice of Aligern, that the Gothic treasures could no longer repay the labour of an invasion. Two thousand Franks were destroyed by the skill and valour of Narses himself, who sallied Among the fabulous exploits of Buccelin, he discomfited and slew Belisarius, subdued Italy and Sicily, &c. See in the historians of France, Gregory of Tours (tom. ii. 1. iii. c. 32. p. 203), and Aimoin (tom. iii. 1. ii. de Gestis Francorum, c. 23. p. 59.) |