# The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Bury)/XLIII

​CHAPTER XLIII
Rebellions of Africa — Restoration of the Gothic Kingdom by Totila — Loss and Recovenry of Rome — Final Conquest of Italy by Narses — Extinction of the Ostrogoths — Defeat of the Franks and Alemanni — Last Vicfory, Disgrace, and Death of Belisarius — Death and Character of Justinian — Comet, Earthquakes, and Plague
The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has exposed on every side the weakness of the Romans; and our wonder is reasonably excited that they should presume to enlarge an empire whose ancient limits they were incapable of defending. But the wars, the conquests, and the triumphs of Justinian are the feeble and pernicious efforts of old age, which exhaust the remains of strength, and accelerate the decay of the powers of life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring Africa and Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror and accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.
The troubles of Africa. A.D. 535-545 From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice as well as pride should be richly gratified. A rapacious minister of the finances closely pursued the footsteps of Belisarius; and, as the old registers of tribute had been burnt by the Vandals, he indulged his fancy in a liberal calculation and arbitrary assessment of the wealth of Africa, The increase of taxes which were drawn away by a distant sovereign, and a general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands, soon ​dispelled the intoxication of the public joy; but the emperor was insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was awakened and alarmed by the clamours of military discontent. Many of the Roman soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the Vandals. As their own, by the double right of conquest and inheritance, they claimed the estates which Genseric had assigned to his victorious troops. They heard with disdain the cold and selfish representation of their officers, that the liberality of Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile condition; that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the treasure, the slaves, and the moveables, of the vanquished Barbarians; and that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the emperors would be applied only to the support of that government on which their own safety and reward must ultimately depend. The mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines, and were instigated by the clergy, of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and rebellion was sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism. The Arians deplored the ruin of their church, triumphant above a century in Africa; and they were justly provoked by the laws of the conqueror, which interdicted the baptism of their children and the exercise of all religious worship. Of the Vandals chosen by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honours of the Eastern service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous band of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of the isle of Lesbos, to alter their course: they touched on Peloponnesus, ran ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly erected on mount Aurasius the standard of independence and revolt. While the troops of the province disclaimed the command of their superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against the life of Solomon, who filled with honour the place of Belisarius; and the Arians had piously resolved to sacrifice the tyrant at the foot of the altar, during the awful mysteries of the festival of Easter. [March 21, A.D. 536] Fear or remorse restrained the daggers of the assassins, but the patience of Solomon emboldened their discontent; and at the end of ten days a furious sedition was kindled in the Circus, which desolated Africa about ten years. The pillage of the city and the indiscriminate slaughter of its inhabitants were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and intoxication; the governor, with seven companions, among whom was the historian Procopius, escaped to Sicily; two thirds of the army were involved in the guilt of treason; and ​390 THE DECLINE AND EALL eight thousand insurgents, assembling in the field of Bulla, elected Stoza - for their chief, a private soldier, who possessed in a superior degree the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of fi"eedom, his eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his equals. He raised himself to a level with Belisarius and the nephew of the emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field ; and the victorious generals were compelled to acknow- ledge that Stoza deserved a purer cause and a more legitimate command. Vanquished in battle -^ he dexterously employed the arts of negotiation ; a Roman army was seduced from their allegiance, and the chiefs who had trusted to his faithless promise were murdered by his order in a church of Numidia. When every resource either of force or perfidy was exhausted, Stoza, with some desperate Vandals, retired to the wilds of Mauritania, obtained the daughter of a Barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his enemies by the report of his death. The personal weight of Belisarius, the rank, the spirit, and the [AD. 537-539] tcmpcr, of Gcrmanus, the emperor's nephew, and the vigour [A. D. 539-543] .^j^jj succcss of the sccond administration of the eunuch Solomon, restored the modesty of the camp, and maintained for a while the tranquillity of Africa. But the vices of the Byzantine court were felt in that distant province ; the troops complained that they were neither paid nor relieved, and, as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently mature, Stoza was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of Carthage. He fell in a single [Battle of combat, but he smiled in the agonies of death, when he was 545] informed that his own javelin had reached the heart of his antagonist.' The example of Stoza, and the assurance that a - [The name appears as Stutias in Corippus, Stuza in Victor Tonn.] ■' [Stutias was defeated first by Belisarius, A.D. 536, at Membressa (Medjez el Bab), on the Bagradas, 50 miles from Carthage, cp. Procop. Vand. 2, 14, with (.'orippus, Joh. 3, 311 : — hunc Membressa suis vidit concurrere campis, &c. Then by Germanus, .V.D. 537, at Cellas Vatari (KaAAac^^aTapo? Procop. ; cp. the village Vatari in Tab. Peuting. iii. F. The idea that this name represents a Latin form Sea/at- I'cft'res must be wrong). There was a third battle in which Germanus was again victor at Autenti in Byzacium. See Corippus, ib. 316 : — similique viros virtute necabas Germane spargente ferum victumque tyrannum. te Cfllas Vatari miro spectabat amore, te Autenti saevos mactantem viderat hostes.] ■* [The battle in which Stutias fell took place in A.D. 545, towards the end of the year, while Areobindus was Mag. Mil. The Romans were led by John son of Sisin- niolus. The battle consisted of two engagements, in the fiist of which the Romans had the worst of it, and in the second were distinctly defeated. Stutias was killed by an arrow from the hand of the Roman general, but John himself ​OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 391 fortunate soldier had been the first king, encouraged the am- bition of Gontharis, and he promised, by a private treaty, to divide Africa with the Moors, if, with their dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage. The feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was raised, by his marriage with the niece of Justinian, to the office of Exarch.'" He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the guards, and [a d. 546] his abject supplications, which provoked the contempt, could not move the pity, of the inexorable tyrant. After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis himself was stabbed at a banquet by the [a.d. 546] hand of Artaban ; and it is singular enough that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces, should re-establish at Carthage the authority of the Roman empire." In the con- spiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life of Ca?sar, every circumstance is curious and important to the eyes of posterity ; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or rebellious assassins could interest only the contemporaries of Procopius, who, by their hopes and fears, their friendship or resentment, were personally engaged in the revolutions of Africa.' was also slain. See C'orippus, Joh. 4, 103, sqq. and Partseh, Procemium, p. xxii. The scene of the battles was Thacea (near the modern village of Bordjmassudi), about 26 Roman miles from Sicca Veneria (el Kef). See Victor Tonn. ap. Momm- sen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 201.] ^ [Magister militum. The title exarch is not used yet (cp. App. 19). The order in which Gibbon relates the events in Africa renders the succession of governors a little confusing. Solomon (A.D. 534-6) was succeeded by Germanus (A. I). 537-9), whom he again succeeded (a.d. 539-544; for date of his death see belov,-, n. 9). Solomon's nephew Sergius (who had previously been governor of the Tripolitane province) took his place (A.D. 544), but Areobindus was sent out (utinam non ille Penates Poenorum vidisset iners !— cries Corippus, 4, 85) and divided the command with him (A.O. 545) ; .Sergius defending Numidia, and Areobindus Byzaeena. On the defeat of Thacea, for which he was blamed, Sergius was recalled, and Areobindus remained sole governor (a. D. 546, January?). Artaban succeeded him, but was superseded by John, the hero of the poem of Corippus, before the end of the same year. See Partseh, Prooemium to Corippus, p. xxiv.] [Procopius gives the whole praise to Artaban, and probably with justice. But Corippus, Joh. 4, 232, sqq., represents him as merely the tool of Athanasius, an old man who had been appointed to the Prset. Prefecture of Africa : — Nam pater ille bonus summis Athanasius Afros consiliis media rapuit de caede maligni. hie potuit Libyam Romanis reddere fastis solus et infestum leto damnare tyrannum. .A.rmenius tanti fuerat tunc ille minister consilii. Tlie success of Artaban in crushing Guntarith further depended on the temporary goodwill of the great chief of the Moors of Byzacium— Antala. See Corippus, //; 368.] ' Yet I must not refuse him the merit of painting, in lively colours, the murder of Gontharis. One of the assassins uttered a sentiment not unworthy of a Roman patriot : " If I fail," said .Artasires, " in the first stroke, kill me on the spot lest the rack should extort a discovery of my accomplices".
​Rebellion of the Moors. A.D. 543 [544]-558 That Country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism, from whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society. The Moors, though ignorant of justice, were impatient of oppression; their vagrant life and boundless wilderness disappointed the arms, and eluded the chains, of a conqueror; and experience had shewn that neither oaths nor obligations could secure the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of mount Auras had awed them into momentary submission; but, if they respected the character of Solomon, they hated and despised the pride and luxury of his two nephews, Cyrus and Sergius, on whom their uncle had imprudently bestowed the provincial governments of Tripoli and Pentapolis. A Moorish tribe encamped under the walls of Leptis, to renew their alliance and receive from the governor the customary gifts. Fourscore of their deputies were introduced as friends into the city: but, on the dark suspicion of a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table of Sergius; and the clamour of arms and revenge was reechoed through the valleys of mount Atlas, from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic ocean. A personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother, rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the Vandals had formerly signalized his valour; the rudiments of justice and prudence were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and, while he laid Adrumetum in ashes, he calmly admonished the emperor that the peace of Africa might be secured by the recall of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch led forth his troops from Carthage; but, at the distance of six days' journey, in the neighbourhood of Tebeste, he was astonished by the superior ​numbers and fierce aspect of the barbarians. He proposed a treaty, solicited a reconciliation, and offered to bind himself by the most solemn oaths. "By what oaths can he bind himself?" interrupted the indignant Moors. "Will he swear by the gospels, the divine books of the Christians t It was on those books that the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury and the vindication of their own honour." Their honour was vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon and the total loss of his army. [A.D. 544] The arrival of fresh troops and more skilful commanders, soon checked the insolence of the Moors; seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was celebrated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople. Successive inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one third of the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the desolation of Africa that in many parts a stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of a friend or an enemy. The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once amounted to an hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was ​retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished, by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian.
Revolt of the Goths. A.D. 540
The jealousy of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure revived the courage of the Goths, who respected his genius, his virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their king (an inconsiderable loss), their capital, their treasures, the provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two hundred thousand Barbarians, magnificently equipped with horses and arms. Yet all was not lost, as long as Pavia was defended by one thousand Goths, inspired by a sense of honour, the love of freedom, and the memory of their past greatness. The supreme command was unanimously offered to the brave Uraias; and it was in his eyes alone that the disgrace of his uncle Vitiges could appear as a reason of exclusion. His voice inclined the election in favour of [Ildibad] Hildibald, whose personal merit was recommended by the vain hope that his kinsman Theudes, the Spanish monarch, would support the common interest of the Gothic nation. The success of his arms in Liguria and Venetia seemed to justify their choice; but he soon declared to the world that he was incapable of forgiving or commanding his benefactor. The consort of Hildibald was deeply wounded by the beauty, the riches, and the pride of the wife of Uraias; and the death of that virtuous patriot excited the indignation of a free people. A bold assassin executed their sentence, by striking off the head of ​Hildibald in the midst of a banquet; [A.D. 541, c. May] the Rugians, a foreign tribe, assumed the privilege of election; and Totila, the nephew of the late king, was tempted, by revenge, to deliver himself and the garrison of Treviso into the hands of the Romans. But the gallant and accomplished youth was easily persuaded to prefer the Gothic throne before the service of Justinian; and, as soon as the palace of Pavia had been purified from the Rugian usurper, he reviewed the national force of five thousand soldiers, and generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom of Italy.
Victories of Totila, king of Italy, A.D. 541-544 The successors of Belisarius, eleven generals of equal rank, neglected to crush the feeble and disunited Goths, till they were roused to action by the progress of Totila and the[A.D. 542] reproaches of Justinian. The gates of Verona were secretly opened to [Artabazes] Artabazus, at the head of one hundred Persians in the service of the empire. The Goths fled from the city. At the distance of sixty furlongs the Roman generals halted to regulate the division of the spoil. While they disputed, the enemy discovered the real number of the victors; the Persians were instantly overpowered, and it was by leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he lost in a few days by the lance of a barbarian, who had defied him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the forces of Totila, near [Faventia] Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello of the Florentine territory. The ardour of freedmen who fought to regain their country was opposed to the languid temper of mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack they abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it aggravated the shame, of their defeat. The king of the Goths, who ​blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps the path of honour and victory. Totila passed the Po, traversed the Apennine, suspended the important conquest of Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of Italy to form the siege, [A.D. 542] or rather blockade, of Naples. The Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities and accusing each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger of his Italian conquests, dispatched to the relief of Naples a fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers. They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of provisions; but the delays of the new commander, an unwarlike magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged; and the succours, which he dropt with a timid and tardy hand, were successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila in the bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was dragged with a rope round his neck to the foot of the wall, from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to implore, like himself, the mercy of the conqueror. They requested a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city if no effectual relief should appear at the end of thirty days. [A.D. 543] Instead of one month, the audacious Barbarian granted them three, in the just confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their capitulation. After the reduction of Naples and Cumæ, the provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria submitted to the king of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Rome, pitched his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital, and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.
Contrast of vice and virtue The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the revolution which three years' experience had produced in the sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the name, of a catholic emperor, the pope, their spiritual father, ​had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or murdered on a desolate island. The virtues of Belisarius were replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The improvement of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools; and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, was drawn from the dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size, without defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the restoration of peace and industry, he imposed an heavy assessment on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigour against the persons and property of all those who, under the Gothic kings, had been concerned in the receipt and expenditure of the public money. The subjects of Justinian who escaped these partial vexations were oppressed by the irregular maintenance of the soldiers, whom Alexander defrauded and despised; and their hasty sallies in quest of wealth, or subsistence, provoked the inhabitants of the country to await or implore their deliverance from the virtues of a Barbarian. Totila was chaste and temperate; and none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who depended on his faith or his clemency. To the husbandmen of Italy the Gothic king issued a welcome proclamation, enjoining them to pursue their important labours and to rest assured that, on the payment of the ordinary taxes, they should be defended by his valour and discipline from the injuries of war. The strong towns he successively attacked; and, as soon as they had yielded to his arms, he demolished the fortifications, to save the people from the calamities of a future siege, to deprive the Romans of the arts of defence, and to decide the tedious quarrel of the two <ref follow="p396-18">tom. i. p. 285, 286). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina. [Liberatus and the Liber Pont. ("=Anastasius") attribute to Vigilius the removal of Silverius to Palmaria. Procopius (Anecd.) states that this wickedness was wrought by a servant of Antonina.] ​nations by an equal and honourable conflict in the field of battle. The Roman captives and deserters were tempted to enlist in the service of a liberal and courteous adversary; the slaves were attracted by the firm and faithful promise that they should never be delivered to their masters; and, from the thousand warriors of Pavia, a new people, under the same appellation of Goths, was insensibly formed in the camp of Totila. He sincerely accomplished the articles of capitulation, without seeking or accepting any sinister advantage from ambiguous expressions or unforeseen events : the garrison of Naples had stipulated, that they should be transported by sea; the obstinacy of the winds prevented their voyage, but they were generously supplied with horses, provisions, and a safe-conduct to the gates of Rome. The wives of the senators, who had been surprised in the villas of Campania, were restored, without a ransom, to their husbands; the violation of female chastity was inexorably chastised with death; and, in the salutary regulation of the diet of the famished Neapolitans, the conqueror assumed the office of an humane and attentive physician. The virtues of Totila are equally laudable, whether they proceeded from true policy, religious principle, or the instinct of humanity: he often harangued his troops; and it was his constant theme that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
Second command of Belisarius in Italy. A.D. 544-548 The return of Belisarius, to save the country which he had subdued, was pressed with equal vehemence by his friends and enemies; and the Gothic war was imposed as a trust or an exile on the veteran commander. An hero on the banks of the Euphrates, a slave in the palace of Constantinople, he accepted, with reluctance, the painful task of supporting his own reputation and retrieving the faults of his successors. The sea was open to the Romans; the ships and soldiers were assembled at Salona, near the palace of Diocletian; he refreshed and reviewed his troops at Pola in Istria, coasted round the head of the Hadriatic, entered the port of Ravenna, and dispatched orders rather than supplies to the subordinate cities. His first public oration was addressed to the Goths and Romans, in the name of the emperor, who had suspended for a while the conquest of Persia and listened to the prayers of his Italian subjects. He gently touched on the causes and the authors of the recent disasters; striving to remove the fear of punishment for the ​past and the hope of impunity for the future, and labouring, with more zeal than success, to unite all the members of his government in a firm league of affection and obedience. Justinian, his gracious master, was inclined to pardon and reward; and it was their interest, as well as duty, to reclaim their deluded brethren, who had been seduced by the arts of the usurper. Not a man was tempted to desert the standard of the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered that he was sent to remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of a young barbarian; and his own epistle exhibits a genuine and lively picture of the distress of a noble mind. "Most excellent prince, we are arrived in Italy, destitute of all the necessary implements of war, — men, horses, arms, and money. In our late circuit through the villages of Thrace and Illyricum, we have collected, with extreme difficulty, about four thousand recruits, naked and unskilled in the use of weapons and the exercises of the camp. The soldiers already stationed in the province are discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy, they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground. No taxes can be raised, since Italy is in the hands of the barbarians: the failure of payment has deprived us of the right of command, or even of admonition. Be assured, dread sir, that the greater part of your troops have already deserted to the Goths. If the war could be achieved by the presence of Belisarius alone, your wishes are satisfied; Belisarius is in the midst of Italy. But, if you desire to conquer, far other preparations are requisite: without a military force, the title of general is an empty name. It would be expedient to restore to my service my own veterans and domestic guards. Before I can take the field, I must receive an adequate supply of light and heavy armed troops; and it is only with ready money that you can procure the indispensable aid of a powerful body of the cavalry of the Huns." [A.D. 545] An officer in whom Belisarius confided was sent from Ravenna to hasten and conduct the succours; but the message was neglected, and the messenger was detained at Constantinople by an advantageous marriage. After his ​patience had been exhausted hy delay and disappointment, the Roman general repassed the Hadriatic, and expected at Dyrrachium the arrival of the troops, which were slowly assembled among the subjects and allies of the empire. His powers were still inadequate to the deliverance of Rome, which was closely besieged by the Gothic king. The Appian way, a march of forty days, was covered by the barbarians; and, as the prudence of Belisarius declined a battle, he preferred the safe and speedy navigation of five days from the coast of Epirus to the mouth of the Tiber.
Rome besieged by the Goths. A.D. 546, May After reducing, by force or treaty, the towns of inferior note in the midland provinces of Italy, Totila proceeded, not to assault, but to encompass and starve, the ancient capital. Rome was afflicted by the avarice, and guarded by the valour, of Bessas, a veteran chief of Gothic extraction, who filled, with a garrison of three thousand soldiers, the spacious circle of her venerable walls. From the distress of the people he extracted a profitable trade, and secretly rejoiced in the continuance of the siege. It was for his use that the granaries had been replenished; the charity of Pope Vigilius had purchased and embarked an ample supply of Sicilian corn; but the vessels which escaped the barbarians were seized by a rapacious governor, who imparted a scanty sustenance to the soldiers and sold the remainder to the wealthy Romans. The medimnus, or fifth part of the quarter of wheat, was exchanged for [About £22 for a quarter] seven pieces of gold; fifty pieces were given[About £30] for an ox, a rare and accidental prize; the progress of famine enhanced this exorbitant value, and the mercenaries were tempted to deprive themselves of the allowance which was scarcely sufficient for the support of life. A tasteless and unwholesome mixture, in which the bran thrice exceeded the quantity of flour, appeased the hunger of the poor; they were gradually reduced to feed on dead horses, dogs, cats, and mice, and eagerly to snatch the grass and even the nettles which grew among the ruins of the city. A crowd of spectres, pale and emaciated, their bodies oppressed with disease and their minds with despair, surrounded the palace of the governor, urged, with unavailing truth, that it was the duty of a master to maintain his slaves, and humbly ​requested that he would provide for their subsistence, permit their flight, or command their immediate execution. Bessas replied, with unfeeling tranquillity, that it was impossible to feed, unsafe to dismiss, and unlawful to kill, the subjects of the emperor. Yet the example of a private citizen might have shewn his countrymen that a tyrant cannot withhold the privilege of death. Pierced by the cries of five children, who vainly called on their father for bread, he ordered them to follow his steps, advanced with calm and silent despair to one of the brides of the Tiber, and, covering his face, threw himself headlong into the stream, in the presence of his family and the Roman people. To the rich and pusillanimous, Bessas sold the permission of departure; but the greatest part of the fugitives expired on the public highways, or were intercepted by the flying parties of barbarians. In the meanwhile, the artful governor soothed the discontent, and revived the hopes, of the Romans, by the vague reports of the fleets and armies which were hastening to their relief from the extremities of the East. They derived more rational comfort from the assurance that Belisarius had landed at the port; and, without numbering his forces, they firmly relied on the humanity, the courage, and the skill of their great deliverer.
Attempt of Belisarius The foresight of Totila had raised obstacles worthy of such an antagonist. Ninety furlongs below the city, in the narrowest part of the river, he joined the two banks by strong and solid timbers in the form of a bridge; on which he erected two lofty towers, manned by the bravest of his Goths, and profusely stored with missile weapons and engines of offence. The approach of the bridge and towers was covered by a strong and massy chain of iron; and the chain, at either end, on the opposite sides of the Tiber, was defended by a numerous and chosen detachment of archers. But the enterprise of forcing these barriers and relieving the capital displays a shining example of the boldness and conduct of Belisarius. His cavalry advanced from the port along the public road, to awe the ​motions, and distract the attention, of the enemy. His infantry and provisions were distributed in two hundred large boats; and each boat was shielded by an high rampart of thick planks, pierced with many small holes for the discharge of missile weapons. In the front, two large vessels were linked together to sustain a floating castle, which commanded the towers of the bridge, and contained a magazine of fire, sulphur, and bitumen. The whole fleet, which the general led in person, was laboriously moved against the current of the river. The chain yielded to their weight, and the enemies who guarded the banks were either slain or scattered. As soon as they touched the principal barrier, the fire-ship was instantly grappled to the bridge; one of the towers, with two hundred Goths, was consumed by the flames; the assailants shouted victory; and Rome was saved, if the wisdom of Belisarius had not been defeated by the misconduct of his officers. He had previously sent orders to Bessas to second his operations by a timely sally from the town; and he had fixed his lieutenant, Isaac, by a peremptory command, to the station of the port. But avarice rendered Bessas immoveable; while the youthful ardour of Isaac delivered him into the hands of a superior enemy. The exaggerated rumour of his defeat was hastily carried to the ears of Belisarius: he paused; betrayed in that single moment of his life some emotions of surprise and perplexity; and reluctantly sounded a retreat to save his wife Antonina, his treasures, and the only harbour which he possessed on the Tuscan coast. The vexation of his mind produced an ardent and almost mortal fever; and Rome was left without protection to the mercy or indignation of Totila. The continuance of hostilities had embittered the national hatred; the Arian clergy was ignominiously driven from Rome; Pelagius, the archdeacon, returned without success from an embassy to the Gothic camp; and a Sicilian bishop, the envoy or nuncio of the pope, was deprived of both of his hands, for daring to utter falsehoods in the service of the church and state.
​Rome taken by the Goths. A.D. 546, Dec. 17 Famine had relaxed the strength and discipline of the garrison of Rome. They could derive no effectual service from a dying people; and the inhuman avarice of the merchant at length absorbed the vigilance of the governor. Four Isaurian sentinels, while their companions slept and their officers were absent, descended by a rope from the wall, and secretly proposed to the Gothic king to introduce his troops into the city. The offer was entertained with coldness and suspicion; they returned in safety; they twice repeated their visit; the place was twice examined; the conspiracy was known and disregarded; and no sooner had Totila consented to the attempt, than they unbarred the Asinarian gate and gave admittance to the Goths. Till the dawn of day they halted in order of battle, apprehensive of treachery or ambush; but the troops of Bessas, with their leader, had already escaped; and, when the king was pressed to disturb their retreat, he prudently replied that no sight could be more grateful than that of a flying enemy. The patricians who were still possessed of horses, Decius, Basilius, &c., accompanied the governor; their brethren, among whom Olybrius, Orestes, and Maximus are named by the historian, took refuge in the church of St. Peter; but the assertion that only five hundred persons remained in the capital inspires some doubt of the fidelity either of his narrative or of his text. As soon as daylight had displayed the entire victory of the Goths, their monarch devoutly visited the tomb of the prince of the apostles; but, while he prayed at the altar, twenty-five soldiers and sixty citizens were put to the sword in the vestibule of the temple. The archdeacon Pelagius stood before him with the gospels in his hand. "O Lord, be merciful to your servant." "Pelagius," said Totila with an insulting smile, "your pride now condescends to become a suppliant." "I am a suppliant," replied the prudent archdeacon; "God has now made us your subjects, and, as your subjects, we are entitled to your clemency." At his humble prayer, the lives of the Romans were spared; and the chastity of the maids and matrons was preserved inviolate from the passions of the hungry soldiers. But they were rewarded by the freedom of pillage, after the most ​precious spoils had been reserved for the royal treasury. The houses of the senators were plentifully stored with gold and silver; and the avarice of Bessas had laboured with so much guilt and shame for the benefit of the conqueror. In this revolution the sons and daughters of Roman consuls tasted the misery which they had spurned or relieved, wandered in tattered garments through the streets of the city, and begged their bread, perhaps without success, before the gates of their hereditary mansions. The riches of Rusticiana, the daughter of Symmachus and widow of Boethius, had been generously devoted to alleviate the calamities of famine. But the Barbarians were exasperated by the report that she had prompted the people to overthrow the statues of the great Theodoric; and the life of that venerable matron would have been sacrificed to his memory, if Totila had not respected her birth, her virtues, and even the pious motive of her revenge. The next day he pronounced two orations, to congratulate and admonish his victorious Goths, and to reproach the senate, as the vilest of slaves, with their perjury, folly, and ingratitude; sternly declaring that their estates and honours were justly forfeited to the companions of his arms. Yet he consented to forgive their revolt, and the senators repaid his clemency by dispatching circular letters to their tenants and vassals in the provinces of Italy, strictly to enjoin them to desert the standard of the Greeks, to cultivate their lands in peace, and to learn from their masters the duty of obedience to a Gothic sovereign. Against the city which had so long delayed the course of his victories he appeared inexorable : one-third of the walls, in different parts, were demolished by his command; fire and engines prepared to consume or subvert the most stately works of antiquity; and the world was astonished by the fatal decree, that Rome should be changed into a pasture for cattle. The firm and temperate remonstrance of Belisarius suspended the execution; he warned the Barbarian not to sully his fame by the destruction of those monuments which were the glory of the dead and the delight of the living; and Totila was persuaded by the advice of an enemy to preserve Rome as the ornament of his kingdom or the fairest pledge of peace and reconciliation. When he had signified to the ambassadors of Belisarius his intention of sparing the city, he stationed an army at the distance of one hundred and twenty furlongs, to observe the motions of the Roman general. With the remainder of his forces, he marched into Lucania and Apulia, and occupied on the summit of mount ​Garganus one of the camps of Hannibal The senators were dragged in his train, and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania; the citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile; and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary solitude.
Recovered by Belisarius. A.D. 547, February The loss of Rome was speedily retrieved by an action to which, according to the event, the public opinion would apply a the names of rashness or heroism. After the departure of Totila, the Roman general sallied from the port at the head of a thousand horse, cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city. Resolved to maintain a station so conspicuous in the eyes of mankind, he summoned the greatest part of his troops to the standard which he erected on the Capitol; the old inhabitants were recalled by the love of their country and the hopes of food; and the keys of Rome were sent a second time to the emperor Justinian. The walls, as far as they had been demolished by the Goths, were repaired with rude and dissimilar materials; the ditch was restored; iron spikes were profusely scattered on the highways to annoy the feet of the horses; and, as new gates could not suddenly be procured, the entrance was guarded by a Spartan rampart of his bravest soldiers. At the expiration of twenty-five days, Totila returned by hasty marches from Apulia, to avenge the injury and disgrace. Belisarius expected his approach. The Goths were thrice repulsed in three general assaults; they lost the flower of their troops; the royal standard had almost ​fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the fame of Totila sunk, as it had risen, with the fortune of his arms. Whatever skill and courage could achieve had been performed by the Roman general; it remained only that Justinian should terminate, by a strong and seasonable effort, the war which he had ambitiously undertaken. The indolence, perhaps the impotence, of a prince who despised his enemies and envied his servants protracted the calamities of Italy. After a long silence, Belisarius was commanded to leave a sufficient garrison at Rome, and to transport himself into the province of Lucania, whose inhabitants, inflamed by catholic zeal, had cast away the yoke of their Arian conquerors. In this ignoble warfare, the hero, invincible against the power of the Barbarians, was basely vanquished by the delay, the disobedience, and the cowardice of his own officers. He reposed in his winter-quarters cf Crotona, in the full assurance that the two passes of the Lucanian hills were guarded by his cavalry. They were betrayed by treachery or weakness; and the rapid march of the Goths [A.D. 548] scarcely allowed time for the escape of Belisarius to the coast of Sicily. At length a fleet and army were assembled for the relief of Ruscianum, or Rossano, a fortress, sixty furlongs from the ruins of Sybaris, where the nobles of Lucania had taken refuge. In the first attempt the Roman forces were dissipated by a storm. In the second they approached the shore; but they saw the hills covered with archers, the landing-place defended by a line of spears, and the king of the Goths impatient for battle. The conqueror of Italy retired with a sigh, and continued to languish, inglorious and inactive, till Antonina, who had been sent to Constantinople to solicit succours, obtained, after the death of the empress, the permission of his return.
Final recall of Belisarius. A.D. 548, September The five last Campaigns of Belisarius might abate the envy of competitors, whose eyes had been dazzled and wounded by the blaze of his former glory. Instead of delivering Italy from the Goths, he had wandered like a fugitive along the coast, without daring to march into the country or to accept the bold and repeated challenge of Totila. Yet, in the judgment of the few who could discriminate counsels from events and compare the instruments with the execution, he appeared a more ​consummate master of the art of war, than in the season of his prosperity, when he presented two captive kings before the throne of Justinian. The valour of Belisarius was not chilled by age; his prudence was matured by experience; but the moral virtues of humanity and justice seem to have yielded to the hard necessity of the times. The parsimony or poverty of the emperor compelled him to deviate from the rule of conduct which had deserved the love and confidence of the Italians. The war was maintained by the oppression of Ravenna, Sicily, and all the faithful subjects of the empire; and the rigorous prosecution of Herodian provoked that injured or guilty officer to deliver Spoleto into the hands of the enemy. The avarice of Antonina, which had been sometimes diverted by love, now reigned without a rival in her breast. Belisarius himself had always understood that riches, in a corrupt age, are the support and ornament of personal merit. And it cannot be presumed that he should stain his honour for the public service, without applying a part of the spoil to his private emolument. The hero had escaped the sword of the barbarians, but the dagger of conspiracy awaited his return. In the midst of wealth and honours, Artaban, who had chastised the African tyrant, complained of the ingratitude of courts. He aspired to Præjecta, the emperor's niece, who wished to reward her deliverer; but the impediment of his previous marriage was asserted by the piety of Theodora. The pride of royal descent was irritated by flattery; and the service in which he gloried had proved him capable of bold and sanguinary deeds. The death of Justinian was resolved, but the conspirators delayed the execution till they could surprise Belisarius, disarmed and naked, in the palace of Constantinople. Not a hope could be entertained of shaking his long-tried fidelity; and they justly dreaded the revenge, or rather justice, of the veteran general, who might speedily assemble an army in Thrace, to punish the assassins, and perhaps to enjoy the fruits of their crime. Delay afforded time for rash communications and honest confessions; Artaban and his accomplices were condemned by the senate; but the extreme clemency of Justinian detained them in the ​gentle confinement of the palace, till he pardoned their flagitious attempt against his throne and life. If the emperor forgave his enemies, he must cordially embrace a friend whose victories were alone remembered, and who was endeared to his prince by the recent circumstance of their common danger. Belisarius reposed from his toils, in the high station of general of the East and count of the domestics; and the older consuls and patricians respectfully yielded the precedency of rank to the peerless merit of the first of the Romans. The first of the Romans still submitted to be the slave of his wife; but the servitude of habit and affection became less disgraceful when the death of Theodora had removed the baser influence of fear. Joannina their daughter, and the sole heiress of their fortunes, was betrothed to Anastasius the grandson, or rather the nephew, of the empress, whose kind interposition forwarded the consummation of their youthful loves. But the power of Theodora expired, the parents of Joannina returned, and her honour, perhaps her happiness, were sacrificed to the revenge of an unfeeling mother, who dissolved the imperfect nuptials before they had been ratified by the ceremonies of the church.
Rome again taken by the Goths. A.D. 549 Before the departure of Belisarius, Perusia was besieged, and few cities were impregnable to the Gothic arms. Ravenna, Ancona, and Crotona still resisted the Barbarians; and, when Totila asked in marriage one of the daughters of France, he was stung by the just reproach that the king of Italy was unworthy of his title till it was acknowledged by the Roman people. Three thousand of the bravest soldiers had been left ​to defend the capital. On the suspicion of a monopoly, they massacred the governor, and announced to Justinian, by a deputation of the clergy, that, unless their offence was pardoned and their arrears were satisfied, they should instantly accept the tempting offers of Totila. But the officer who succeeded to the command (his name was Diogenes) deserved their esteem and confidence; and the Goths, instead of finding an easy conquest, encountered a vigorous resistance from the soldiers and people, who patiently endured the loss of the port and of all the maritime supplies. The siege of Rome would perhaps have been raised, if the liberality of Totila to the Isaurians had not encouraged some of their venal countrymen to copy the example of treason. In a dark night, while the Gothic trumpets sounded on another side, they silently opened the gate of St. Paul; the barbarians rushed into the city; and the flying garrison was intercepted before they could reach the harbour of [Cività Vecchia] Centumcellæ. A soldier trained in the school of Belisarius, Paul of Cilicia, retired with four hundred men to the mole of Hadrian, They repelled the Goths; but they felt the approach of famine; and their aversion to the taste of horse-flesh confirmed their resolution to risk the event of a desperate and decisive sally. But their spirit insensibly stooped to the offers of capitulation; they retrieved their arrears of pay, and preserved their arms and horses, by enlisting in the service of Totila; their chiefs, who pleaded a laudable attachment to their wives and children in the East, were dismissed with honour; and above four hundred enemies, who had taken refuge in the sanctuaries, were saved by the clemency of the victor. He no longer entertained a wish of destroying the edifices of Rome, which he now respected as the seat of the Gothic kingdom; the senate and people were restored to their country; the means of subsistence were liberally provided; and Totila, in the robe of peace, exhibited the equestrian games of the circus. Whilst he amused the eyes of the multitude, four hundred vessels were prepared for the embarkation of his troops. [A.D. 549-50] The cities of Rhegium and Tarentum were reduced; he passed into Sicily, the object of his implacable resentment; and the island was stripped of its gold and silver, ​of the fruits of the earth, and of an infinite number of horses, sheep, and oxen. Sardinia and Corsica obeyed the fortune of Italy; and the sea coast of Greece was visited by a fleet of three hundred galleys. [A.D. 551] The Goths were landed in Corcyra and the ancient continent of Epirus; they advanced as far as Nicopolis, the trophy of Augustus, and Dodona, once famous by the oracle of Jove. In every step of his victories, the wise Barbarian repeated to Justinian his desire of peace, applauded the concord of their predecessors, and offered to employ the Gothic arms in the service of the empire.
Preparations of Justinian for the Gothic war. A.D. 549-551 Justinian was deaf to the voice of peace; but he neglected the prosecution of war; and the indolence of his temper disappointed, in some degree, the obstinacy of his passions. From this salutary slumber the emperor was awakened by the pope Vigilius and the patrician Cethegus, who appeared before his throne, and adjured him in the name of God and the people to resume the conquest and deliverance of Italy. In the choice of the generals, caprice, as well as judgment, was shewn. A fleet and army sailed for the relief of Sicily, under the conduct of Liberius; but his want of youth and experience were afterwards discovered, and, before he touched the shores of the island, he was overtaken by his successor. In the place of Liberius the conspirator Artaban was raised from a prison to military honours; in the pious presumption that gratitude would animate his valour and fortify his allegiance. Belisarius reposed in the shade of his laurels, but the command of the principal army was reserved for Germanus, the emperor's nephew, whose rank and merit had been long depressed by the jealousy of the court. Theodora had injured him in the rights of a private citizen, the marriage of his children, and the testament of his brother; and, although his conduct was pure and blameless, Justinian was displeased that he should be ​thought worthy of the confidence of the malecontents. The life of Germanus was a lesson of implicit obedience; he nobly refused to prostitute his name and character in the factions of the circus; the gravity of his manners was tempered by innocent cheerfulness; and his riches were lent without interest to indigent or deserving friends. His valour had formerly [A.D. 527] triumphed over the Sclavonians of the Danube and the rebels of Africa; the first report of his promotion revived the hopes of the Italians; and he was privately assured that a crowd of Roman deserters would abandon, on his approach, the standard of Totila. His second marriage with [Matasuentha] Malasontha, the grand-daughter of Theodoric, endeared Germanus to the Goths themselves; and they marched with reluctance against the father of a royal infant, the last offspring of the line of Amali. A splendid allowance was assigned by the emperor; the general contributed his private fortune; his two sons were popular and active; and he surpassed, in the promptitude and success of his levies, the expectation of mankind. He was permitted to select some squadrons of Thracian cavalry; the veterans, as well as the youth of Constantinople and Europe, engaged their voluntary service; and as far as the heart of Germany his fame and liberality attracted the aid of the Barbarians. The Romans advanced to Sardica; an army of Sclavonians fled before their march; but within two days of their final departure, the designs of Germanus were terminated by his malady and death. Yet the impulse which he had given to the Italian war still continued to act with energy and effect. The maritime towns, Ancona, Crotona, Centumcellæ, resisted the assaults of Totila. Sicily was reduced by the zeal of Artaban, and the Gothic navy was defeated near the coast of the Hadriatic. The two fleets were almost equal, forty-seven to fifty galleys: the victory was decided by the knowledge and dexterity of the Greeks; but the ships were so closely grappled that only twelve of the Goths escaped from this unfortunate conflict. They affected to depreciate an element in which they were unskilled, but their own experience confirmed the truth of a maxim, that the master of the sea will always acquire the dominion of the land.
​Character and expedition of the eunuch Narses. A.D. 552 After the loss of Germanus, the nations were provoked to smile by the strange intelligence that the command of the Roman armies was given to an eunuch. But the eunuch Narses is ranked among the few who have rescued that unhappy name from the contempt and hatred of mankind. A feeble diminutive body concealed the soul of a statesman and a warrior. His youth had been employed in the management of the loom and distaff, in the cares of the household, and the service of female luxury; but, while his hands were busy, he secretly exercised the faculties of a vigorous and discerning mind. A stranger to the schools and the camp, he studied in the palace to dissemble, to flatter, and to persuade; and, as soon as he approached the person of the emperor, Justinian listened with surprise and pleasure to the manly counsels of his chamberlain and private treasurer. The talents of Narses were tried and improved in frequent embassies; he led an army into Italy, acquired a practical knowledge of the war and the country, and presumed to strive with the genius of Belisarius. Twelve years after his return, the eunuch was chosen to achieve the conquest which had been left imperfect by the first of the Roman generals. Instead of being dazzled by vanity or emulation, he seriously declared that, unless he were armed with an adequate force, he would never consent to risk his own glory and that of his sovereign. Justinian granted to the favourite what he might have denied to the hero: the Gothic war was rekindled from its ashes, and the preparations were not unworthy of the ancient majesty of the empire. The key of the public treasure was put into his hand, to collect magazines, to levy soldiers, to purchase arms and horses, to discharge the arrears of pay, and to tempt the fidelity of the fugitives and deserters. The troops of Germanus were still in arms; they halted at Salona in the expectation of a new leader; and legions of subjects and allies were created by the well-known liberality of the eunuch Narses. ​The king of the Lombards satisfied or surpassed the obligations of a treaty, by lending two thousand two hundred of his bravest warriors, who were followed by three thousand of their martial attendants. Three thousand Heruli fought on horseback under Philemuth, their native chief; and the noble Aratus, who adopted the manners and discipline of Rome, conducted a band of veterans of the same nation. Dagistheus was released from prison to command the Huns; and Kobad, the grandson and nephew of the Great King, was conspicuous by the regal tiara at the head of his faithful Persians, who had devoted themselves to the fortunes of their prince. Absolute in the exercise of his authority, more absolute in the affection of his troops, Narses led a numerous and gallant army from Philippopolis to Salona, from whence he coasted the eastern side of the Hadriatic as far as the confines of Italy. His progress was checked. The East could not supply vessels capable of transporting such multitudes of men and horses. The Franks, who in the general confusion had usurped the greater part of the Venetian province, refused a free passage to the friends of the Lombards. The station of Verona was occupied by Teias, with the flower of the Gothic forces; and that skilful commander had overspread the adjacent country with the fall of woods and the inundation of waters. In this perplexity, an officer of experience proposed a measure, secure by the appearance of rashness: that the Roman army should cautiously advance along the seashore, while the fleet preceded their march, and successively cast a bridge of boats over the mouths of the rivers, the Timavus, the Brenta, Adige, and the Po, that fall into the Hadriatic to the north of Ravenna. Nine days he reposed in the city, collected the fragments of the Italian army, and marched towards Rimini to meet the defiance of an insulting enemy.
​Defeat and death of Totila. A.D. 552, July The prudence of Narses impelled him to speedy and decisive action. His powers were the last effort of the state: the cost of each day accumulated the enormous account; and the nations, untrained to discipline or fatigue, might be rashly provoked to turn their arms against each other, or against their benefactor. The same considerations might have tempered the ardour of Totila. But he was conscious, that the clergy and people of Italy aspired to a second revolution: he felt or suspected the rapid progress of treason, and he resolved to risk the Gothic kingdom on the chance of a day, in which the valiant would be animated by instant danger and the disaffected might be awed by mutual ignorance. In his march from Ravenna, the Roman general chastised the garrison of Rimini, traversed in a direct line the hills of Urbino, and re-entered the Flaminian way, [Petra Pertusa] nine miles beyond the perforated rock, an obstacle of art and nature which might have stopped or retarded his progress. The Goths were assembled in the neighbourhood of Rome, they advanced without delay to seek a superior enemy, and the two armies approached each other at the distance of one hundred furlongs, between Tagina and the sepulchres of the Gauls. ​The haughty message of Narses was an offer, not of peace, but of pardon. The answer of the Gothic king declared his resolution to die or conquer. "What day," said the messenger, "will you fix for the combat?" "The eighth day," replied Totila: but early the next morning he attempted to surprise a foe, suspicious of deceit and prepared for battle. Ten thousand Heruli and Lombards, of approved valour and doubtful faith, were placed in the centre. Each of the wings was composed of eight thousand Romans; the right was guarded by the cavalry of the Huns, the left was covered by fifteen hundred chosen horse, destined, according to the emergencies of action, to sustain the retreat of their friends or to encompass the flank of the enemy. From his proper station at the head of the right wing, the eunuch rode along the line, expressing by his voice and countenance the assurance of victory; exciting the soldiers of the emperor to punish the guilt and madness of a band of robbers; and exposing to their view gold chains, collars, and bracelets, the rewards of military virtue. From the event of a single combat they drew an omen of success; and they beheld with pleasure the courage of fifty archers, who maintained a small eminence against three successive attacks of the Gothic cavalry. At the distance only of two bow-shots, the armies spent the morning in dreadful suspense, and the Romans tasted some necessary food, without unloosening the cuirass from their breast, or the bridle from their horses. Narses awaited the charge; and it was delayed by Totila till he had received his last succours of two thousand Goths. While he consumed the hours in fruitless treaty, the king exhibited in a narrow space the strength and agility of a warrior. His armour was enchased with gold; his purple banner floated with the wind: he cast his lance into the air; caught it with the right hand; shifted it to the left; threw himself backwards; recovered his seat; and ​managed a fiery steed in all the paces and evolutions of the equestrian school. As soon as the succours had arrived, he retired to his tent, assumed the dress and arms of a private soldier, and gave the signal of battle. The first line of cavalry advanced with more courage than discretion, and left behind them the infantry of the second line. They were soon engaged between the horns of a crescent, into which the adverse wings had been insensibly curved, and were saluted from either side by the volleys of four thousand archers. Their ardour, and even their distress, drove them forwards to a close and unequal conflict, in which they could only use their lances against an enemy equally skilled in all the instruments of war. A generous emulation inspired the Romans and their barbarian allies; and Narses, who calmly viewed and directed their efforts, doubted to whom he should adjudge the prize of superior bravery. The Gothic cavalry was astonished and disordered, pressed and broken; and the line of infantry, instead of presenting their spears or opening their intervals, were trampled under the feet of the flying horse. Six thousand of the Goths were slaughtered, without mercy, in the field of Tagina. Their prince, with five attendants, was overtaken by Asbad, of the race of the Gepidæ; "Spare the king of Italy," cried a loyal voice, and Asbad struck his lance through the body of Totila. The blow was instantly revenged by the faithful Goths; they transported [To Caprara] their dying monarch seven miles beyond the scene of his disgrace; and his last moments were not embittered by the presence of an enemy. Compassion afforded him the shelter of an obscure tomb; but the Romans were not satisfied of their victory, till they beheld the corpse of the Gothic king. His hat, enriched with gems, and his bloody robe, were presented to Justinian by the messengers of triumph.
Conquest of Rome by Narses As soon as Narses had paid his devotions to the Author of victory, and the blessed Virgin, his peculiar patroness, he praised, rewarded, and dismissed the Lombards. The villages had been reduced to ashes by these valiant savages; they ravished matrons and virgins on the altar; their retreat was ​diligently watched by a strong detachment of regular forces, who prevented a repetition of the like disorders. The victorious eunuch pursued his march through Tuscany, accepted the submission of the Goths, heard the acclamations and often the complaints of the 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 of Romulus expired; and, if the nobles of Rome still 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!
​Defeat and death of Teias, the last king of the Goths. A.D. 553, March The Gothic war was yet alive. The bravest of the nation retired beyond the Po; and Teias was unanimously chosen to succeed and revenge their departed hero. The new king immediately sent 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 Cumæ 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; [Jan. and Feb. 553 (?)] 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 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 right hand 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 before the treaty was signed, and boldly effected 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 Cumæ 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 countrymen.
Invasion of Italy by the Franks and Alemanni. A.D. 553, August Before Lucca had surrendered, Italy was overwhelmed by a new deluge of Barbarians. A feeble youth, the grandson of Clovis, reigned over the Austrasians or oriental Franks. The guardians of Theodebald entertained with coldness and reluctance the magnificent promises of the Gothic ambassadors. But the spirit of a martial people outstripped the timid counsels of the court: two brothers, [Leutharis] Lothaire and Buccelin, the dukes of the Alemanni, stood forth as the leaders of the Italian war; and seventy-five 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 from Rimini at the head of three hundred horse, to chastise the licentious rapine of their march. On the confines of Samnium the two brothers divided their forces. With the right wing, Buccelin assumed the spoil of Campania, Lucania, and Bruttium; with the left, Lothaire accepted the plunder of Apulia and Calabria. They followed the coast of the Mediterranean and the Hadriatic, as far as Rhegium and Otranto, and the extreme lands of Italy were the term of their destructive progress. The Franks, who were Christians and Catholics, contented themselves with simple pillage and occasional murder. But the churches, which their piety had spared, were stripped by the sacrilegious hands of the Alemanni, who sacrificed horses' heads to their native deities of the woods and rivers; they melted or profaned the consecrated vessels, and the ruins of shrines and altars were stained with the blood of the faithful. Buccelin was actuated by ambition, and Lothaire by avarice. The former aspired to restore the Gothic kingdom; the latter, after a promise to his brother of speedy succours, returned by the same road to deposit his treasure beyond the Alps. The strength of their armies was already wasted by the change of climate and contagion of disease; the Germans revelled in the vintage of Italy; and their own intemperance avenged in some degree the miseries of a defenceless people.
Defeat of the Franks and Alamanni by Narses. A. D. 554 At the entrance of the spring, the Imperial troops, who had guarded the cities, assembled to the number of eighteen thousand men, in the neighbourhood of Rome. Their winter hours had not been consumed in idleness. By the command, and after the example, of Narses they repeated each day their military exercise on foot and on horseback, accustomed their ear to obey the sound of the trumpet, and practised the steps and evolutions of the Pyrrhic dance. From the straits of Sicily, Buccelin, with thirty thousand Franks and Alemanni, slowly moved towards Capua, occupied with a wooden tower the bridge of Casilinum, covered his right by the stream of the Vulturnus, and secured the rest of his encampment by a rampart of sharp stakes and a circle of waggons, whose wheels ​were buried in the earth. He impatiently expected the return of Lothaire; ignorant, alas! that his brother could never return, and that the chief and his army had been swept away by a strange disease on the banks of the lake [Garda] Benacus, between Trent and Verona. The banners of Narses soon approached the Vulturnus, and the eyes of Italy were anxiously fixed on the event of this final contest. Perhaps the talents of the Roman general were most conspicuous in the calm operations which precede the tumult of a battle. His skilful movements intercepted the subsistence of the Barbarian, deprived him of the advantage of the bridge and river, and, in the choice of the ground and moment of action, reduced him to comply with the inclination of his enemy. On the morning of the important day, when the ranks were already formed, a servant, for some trivial fault, was killed by his master, one of the leaders of the Heruli. The justice or passion of Narses was awakened: he summoned the offender to his presence, and, without listening to his excuses, gave the signal to the minister of death. If the cruel master had not infringed the laws of his nation, this arbitrary execution was not less unjust than it appears to have been imprudent. The Heruli felt the indignity; they halted; but the Roman general, without soothing their rage or expecting their resolution, called aloud, as the trumpets sounded, that, unless they hastened to occupy their place, they would lose the honour of the victory. His troops were disposed in a long front, the cavalry on the wings; in the centre, the heavy-armed foot; the archers and slingers in the rear. The Germans advanced in a sharp-pointed column, of the form of a triangle or solid wedge. They pierced the feeble centre of Narses, who received them with a smile into the fatal snare and directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to wheel on their flanks and encompass their rear. The host of the Franks and Alamanni consisted of infantry: a sword and buckler hung by their side, and they used as their weapons of offence a weighty hatchet and a hooked javelin, which were only formidable in close combat or at a short distance. The flower of the Roman archers on horseback, ​and in complete armour, skirmished without peril round this immoveable phalanx; supplied by active speed the deficiency of number; and aimed their arrows against a crowd of Barbarians, who, instead of a cuirass and helmet, were covered by a loose garment of fur or linen. They paused, they trembled, their ranks were confounded, and in the decisive moment the Heruli, preferring glory to revenge, charged with rapid violence the head of the column. Their leader, Sindbal, and Aligern, the Gothic prince, deserved the prize of superior valour; and their example incited the victorious troops to achieve with swords and spears the destruction of the enemy. Buccelin and the greatest part of his army perished on the field of battle, in the waters of the Vulturnus, or by the hands of the enraged peasants; but it may seem incredible that a victory, which no more than five of the Alamanni survived, could be purchased with the loss of fourscore Romans. Seven thousand Goths, the relics of the war, defended the fortress of Campsa till the ensuing spring; and every messenger of Narses announced the reduction of the Italian cities, whose names were corrupted by the ignorance or vanity of the Greeks. After the battle of Casilinum, Narses entered the capital; the arms and treasures of the Goths, the Franks, and the Alamanni, were displayed; his soldiers, with garlands in their hands, chanted the praises of the conqueror; and Rome, for the last time, beheld the semblance of a triumph.
Settlement of Italy. A.D. 554-568 After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was filled by the Exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace and war of the emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits of a narrow province; but Narses himself, the first and most powerful of the Exarchs, administered above fifteen years the entire kingdom of Italy. Like Belisarius, he had deserved the honours of envy, calumny, and disgrace; but the favourite eunuch still enjoyed the confidence of Justinian, or the leader of a victorious army awed ​and repressed the ingratitude of a timid court. Yet it was not by weak and mischievous indulgence that Narses secured the attachment of his troops. Forgetful of the past and regardless of the future, they abused the present hour of prosperity and peace. The cities of Italy resounded with the noise of drinking and dancing; the spoils of victory were wasted in sensual pleasures; and nothing (says Agathias) remained, unless to exchange their shields and helmets for the soft lute and the capacious hogshead. In a manly oration not unworthy of a Roman censor, the eunuch reproved these disorderly vices, which sullied their fame and endangered their safety. The soldiers blushed and obeyed; discipline was confirmed, the fortifications were restored; a duke was stationed for the defence and military command of each of the principal cities; and the eye of Narses pervaded the ample prospect from Calabria to the Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the country or mingled with the people; the Franks, instead of revenging the death of Buccelin, abandoned, without a struggle, their Italian conquests; and the rebellious Sindbal, chief of the Heruli, was subdued, taken, and hung on a lofty gallows by the inflexible justice of the Exarch. The civil state of Italy, after the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools and tribunals of the West; he ratified the acts of Theodoric and his immediate successors; but every deed was rescinded and abolished, which force had extorted, or fear had subscribed, under the usurpation of Totila. A moderate theory was framed to reconcile the rights of property with the safety of prescription, the claims of the state with the poverty of the people, and the pardon of offences with the interest of virtue and order of society. Under the Exarchs of Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank. Yet the senators were ​gratified by the permission of visiting their estates in Italy, and of approaching without obstacle the throne of Constantinople; the regulation of weights and measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and grammarians, were destined to preserve or rekindle the light of science in the ancient capital. Justinian might dictate benevolent edicts, and Narses might second his wishes by the restoration of cities and more especially of churches. But the power of kings is most effectual to destroy; and the twenty years of the Gothic war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy. As early as the fourth campaign, under the discipline of Belisarius himself, fifty thousand labourers died of hunger in the narrow region of Picenum; and a strict interpretation of the evidence of Procopius would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of her present inhabitants.
Invasion of the Bulgarians [Cotrigurs]. A.D. 559 [558-9] I desire to believe, but I dare not affirm, that Belisarius sincerely rejoiced in the triumph of Narses. Yet the consciousness of his own exploits might teach him to esteem without jealousy the merit of a rival; and the repose of the aged warrior was crowned by a last victory which saved the emperor and the capital. The Barbarians who annually visited the provinces of Europe were less discouraged by some accidental defeats than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and of subsidy. In the thirty-second winter of Justinian's reign, the Danube was deeply frozen: Zabergan led the cavalry ​of the Bulgarians, and his standard was followed by a promiscuous multitude of Sclavonians. The savage chief passed, without opposition, the river and the mountains, spread his troops over Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than seven thousand horse to the long walls which should have defended the territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature: a recent earthquake had shaken the foundations of the wall; and the forces of the empire were employed on the distant frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia. The seven schools, or companies, of the guards or domestic troops had been augmented to the number of five thousand five hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities of Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly supplied by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the duties of civil life, without being exposed to the dangers of military service. Of such soldiers, few could be tempted to sally from the gates; and none could be persuaded to remain in the field, unless they wanted strength and speed to escape from the Bulgarians. The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers and fierceness of an enemy who had polluted holy virgins and abandoned new-born infants to the dogs and vultures; a crowd of rustics, imploring food and protection, increased the consternation of the city; and the tents of Zabergan were pitched at the distance of twenty miles, on the banks of a small river, which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the Propontis. Justinian trembled; and those who had only seen the emperor in his old age were pleased to suppose that he had lost the alacrity and vigour of his youth. By his command the vessels of gold and silver were removed from the churches in the neighbourhood, and even the suburbs, of Constantinople; the ​ramparts were lined with trembling spectators; the golden gate was crowded with useless generals and tribunes, and the senate shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.
Last victory of Belisarius But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble veteran, who was compelled by the public danger to resume the armour in which he had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The horses of the royal stables, of private citizens, and even of the circus, were hastily collected; the emulation of the old and young was roused by the name of Belisarius, and his first encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His prudence, and the labour of the friendly peasants, secured, with a ditch and rampart, the repose of the night; innumerable fires and clouds of dust were artfully contrived to magnify the opinion of his strength; his soldiers suddenly passed from despondency to presumption; and, while ten thousand voices demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge that in the hour of trial he must depend on the firmness of three hundred veterans. The next morning the Bulgarian cavalry advanced to the charge. But they heard the shouts of multitudes, they beheld the arms and discipline of the front; they were assaulted on the flanks by two ambuscades which rose from the woods; their foremost warriors fell by the hand of the aged hero and his guards; and the swiftness of their evolutions was rendered useless by the close attack and rapid pursuit of the Romans. In this action (so speedy was their flight) the Bulgarians lost only four hundred horse; but Constantinople was saved; and Zabergan, who felt the hand of a master, withdrew to a respectful distance. But his friends were numerous in the council of the emperor, and Belisarius obeyed with reluctance the commands of envy and Justinian, which forbade him to achieve the deliverance of his country. On his return to the city, the people, still conscious of their danger, accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But, when he entered the palace, the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was the impression of his glory on the minds of men that Justinian, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in person the restoration of the long wall. The Bulgarians wasted the summer in the plains of Thrace; but they ​were inclined to peace by the failure of their rash attempts on Greece and the Chersonesus. A menace of killing their prisoners quickened the payment of heavy ransoms; and the departure of Zabergan was hastened by the report that double-prowed vessels were built on the Danube to intercept his passage. The danger was soon forgotten; and a vain question, whether their sovereign had shewn more wisdom or weakness, amused the idleness of the city.
His disgrace and death. A.D. 561 About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or devotion. Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his private entry countenanced the rumour of his death. Before the third hour of the day, the bakers' shops were plundered of their bread, the houses were shut, and every citizen, with hope or terror, prepared for the impending tumult. The senators themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at the ninth hour; and the præfect received their commands to visit every quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the recovery of the emperor's health. The ferment subsided; but every accident betrayed the impotence of the government and the factious temper of the people; the guards were disposed to mutiny as often as their quarters were changed or their pay was withheld; the frequent calamities of fires and earthquakes afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of the blues and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into bloody battles; and in the presence of the Persian ambassador Justinian blushed for himself and for his subjects. Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment embittered the irksomeness and discontent of a long reign; a conspiracy was formed in the palace; and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves were stationed in the vestibule and porticos, to ​announce the death of the tyrant and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of .Justinian. The conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their garments: Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from the sanctuary. Pressed by remorse or tempted by the hopes of safety, he accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture forced them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions of their patron. Posterity will not hastily believe that an hero, who, in the vigour of life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and revenge, should stoop to the murder of his prince, whom he could not long expect to survive. His followers were impatient to fly; but Hight must have been supported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for glory. A.D. 563, Dec. 5 Belisarius appeared before the council with less fear than indignation; after forty years' service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch. The life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were sequestered, and from December to July he was guarded as a prisoner in his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged; A.D. 564, July 19 his freedom and honours were restored; and death, which might be hastened by resentment and grief, removed him from the world about eight months after his deliverance. A.D. 565, March 13 The name of Belisarius can never die; but, instead of the funeral, the monuments, the statues, so justly due to his memory, I only read that his treasures, the spoils of the Goths and Vandals, were immediately confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was reserved, however, for the use of his widow; and, as Antonina had much to repent, she devoted the last remains of her life and fortune to the foundation of a convent. Such is the simple and genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius and the ingratitude of Justinian. That he ​was deprived of his eyes, and reduced by envy to beg his bread, "Give a penny to Belisarius the general!" is a fiction of later times, which has obtained credit, or rather favour, as a strange example of the vicissitudes of fortune.
Death and character of Justinian. A.D. 565, Nov. 14 If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign of thirty-eight and a life of eight-three years. It would be difficult to trace the character of a prince who is not the most conspicuous object of his own times; but the confessions of an enemy may be received as the safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust of Domitian is maliciously urged; with the acknowledgment, however, of a well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, ​and a pleasing countenance. The emperor was easy of access, patient of hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and a master of the angry passions, which rage with such destructive violence in the breast of a despot. Procopius praises his temper, to reproach him with calm and deliberate cruelty; but, in the conspiracies which attacked his authority and person, a more candid judge will approve the justice or admire the clemency of Justinian. He excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance; but the impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous than his conjugal tenderness for Theodora; and his abstemious diet was regulated, not by the prudence of a philosopher, but the superstition of a monk. His repasts were short and frugal: on solemn fasts, he contented himself with water and vegetables; and such was his strength, as well as fervour, that he frequently passed two days and as many nights without tasting any food. The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous: after the repose of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the astonishment of his chamberlains, Justinian walked or studied till the morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time for the acquisition of knowledge and the dispatch of business; and he might seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by minute and preposterous diligence, the general order of his administration. The emperor professed himself a musician and architect, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and, if he failed in the enterprise of reconciling the Christian sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence is a noble monument of his spirit and industry. In the government of the empire, he was less wise or less successful; the age was unfortunate; the people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power; a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and Justinian was neither beloved in his life nor regretted at his death. The love of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but he condescended to the poor ambition of titles, honours, and contemporary praise; and, while he laboured to fix the admiration, he forfeited the esteem and affection, of the Romans. The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived and executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of Bebsarius in the camp, of ​Narses in the palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed by the names of his victorious generals; and Belisarius still lives, to upbraid the envy and ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favour of mankind applauds the genius of a conqueror, who leads and directs his subjects in the exercise of arms. The characters of Philip the Second and of Justinian are distinguished by the cold ambition which delights in war and declines the dangers of the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing to march against the Persians in the habit and armour of Achilles. In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, repaired and beautified his equestrian statue; since the fall of the empire, it has been melted into cannon by the victorious Turks.
I shall conclude this chapter with the comets, the earthquakes, and the plague, which astonished or afflicted the age of Justinian.
Comets. A.D. 531-539 I. In the fifth year of his reign, and in the month of September, a comet was seen during twenty days in the western [A.D. 530] quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north. Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary: the size was gradually increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the west, and it remained visible above forty days. The nations who gazed with astonishment, expected wars and calamities from the baleful influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of these blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating meteors of the air; and few among them ​embraced the simple notion of Seneca and the Chaldæans, that they are only planets of a longer period and more eccentric motion. Time and science have justified the conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage; the telescope has opened new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; and, in the narrow space of history and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have revisited the earth in seven equal revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years. The first which ascends beyond the Christian era one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges the father of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus changed her colour, size, figure, and course: a prodigy without example either in past or succeeding ages. The second visit, in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of Electra the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country; she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the tremendous comet of the Sibyll, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose in the west two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourth apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of all others the most splendid and important. After the death of Cæsar, a long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the nations, during the games which were exhibited by young Octavian in honour of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was cherished and consecrated ​by the piety of a statesman; while his secret superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times. The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first of the Christian aera. And it may deserve notice that in this, as in the preceding, instance the comet was followed, though at a longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China; and in the first fervour of the Crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phænomenon of one thousand six hundred and eighty was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had so recently adorned, that the comet "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and war". Its road in the heavens was observed with exquisite skill by Flamsteed Flamstead and Cassini; and the mathematical science of Bernoulli, Newton, and Halley, investigated the laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two thousand two hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in the Siberian or American wilderness.
Earthquakes II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes. The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions, since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the ​union and fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity, and the philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently filtrate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which increase by resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the cause, history will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous events have been rare or frequent, and will observe that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian. Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory motion was felt, enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn from Libanus, and cast into the waves, where it protected, as a mole, the new harbour of Botrys in Phœnicia. The stroke that agitates an ant-hill may crush the insect myriads in the dust; yet truth must extort a confession that man has industriously laboured for his own destruction. The institution of great cities, which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost realizes the wish of Caligula that the Roman people had but one neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have A.D. 526, May 20 perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes were swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. A.D. 551, July 9 The loss of Berytus was of smaller account, ​but of much greater value. That city, on the coast of Phœnicia, was illustrated by the study of the civil law, which opened the surest road to wealth and dignity; the schools of Berytus were filled with the rising spirits of the age; and many a youth was lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect becomes the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage or the tent of an Arab may be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and the Peruvians had reason to deride the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who with so much cost and labour erected their own sepulchres. The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his own head; a whole people is buried under the ruins of public and private edifices; and the conflagration is kindled and propagated by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the subsistence and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual sympathy which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully experience the vices and passions which are released from the fear of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid avarice; revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and the earth often swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the consummation of their crimes. Superstition involves the present danger with invisible terrors; and, if the image of death may sometimes be subservient to the virtue or repentance of individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved to expect the end of the world or to deprecate with servile homage the wrath of an avenging Deity.
Plague — its origin and nature. A.D. 542 III. Æthiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized in every age as the original source and seminary or the plague. In a damp, hot, stagnating air, this African fever is generated from the putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives. The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors first ​appeared in the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the second year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with the eyes of a physician, has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens. The infection was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the colour of the patient gave any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands, particularly those of the groin, of the arm-pits, and under the ear; and, when these buboes or tumours were opened, they were found to contain a coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humour. But, if they continued hard and dry, a ​mortification quickly ensued, and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death; and, in the constitutions too feeble to produce an eruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a mortification of the bowels. To pregnant women the plague was generally mortal; yet one infant was drawn alive from his dead mother, and three mothers survived the loss of their infected fœtus. Youth was the most perilous season, and the female sex was less susceptible than the male; but every rank and profession was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those who escaped were deprived of the use of their speech, without being secure from a return of the disorder. The physicians of Constantinople were zealous and skilful, but their art was baffled by the various symptoms and pertinacious vehemence of the disease; the same remedies were productive of contrary effects, and the event capriciously disappointed their prognostics of death or recovery. The order of funerals and the right of sepulchres were confounded; those who were left without friends or servants lay unburied in the streets or in their desolate houses; and a magistrate was authorised to collect the promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the city. Their own danger and the prospect of public distress awakened some remorse in the minds of the most vicious of mankind; the confidence of health again revived their passions and habits; but philosophy must disdain the observation of Procopius that the lives of such men were guarded by the peculiar favour of fortune or providence. He forgot, or perhaps he secretly recollected, that the plague had touched the person of Justinian himself; but the abstemious diet of the emperor may suggest, as in the case of Socrates, a more rational and honourable cause for his recovery. During his sickness, the public consternation was expressed in the habits of the ​citizens; and their idleness and despondence occasioned a general scarcity in the capital of the East.
Extent and duration. A.D. 542-594 Contagion is the inseparable symptom of the plague; which, by mutual respiration, is transfused from the infected persons to the lungs and stomach of those who approach them. While philosophers believe and tremble, it is singular that the existence of a real danger should have been denied by a people most prone to vain and imaginary terrors. Yet the fellow-citizens of Procopius were satisfied, by some short and partial experience, that the infection could not be gained by the closest conversation; and this persuasion might support the assiduity of friends or physicians in the care of the sick, whom inhuman prudence would have condemned to solitude and despair. But the fatal security, like the predestination of the Turks, must have aided the progress of the contagion, and those salutary precautions to which Europe is indebted for her safety were unknown to the government of Justinian. No restraints were imposed on the free and frequent intercourse of the Roman provinces; from Persia to France, the nations were mingled and infected by wars and emigrations; and the pestilential odour which lurks for years in a bale of cotton was imported, by the abuse of trade, into the most distant regions. The mode of its propagation is explained by the remark of Procopius himself, that it always spread from the sea-coast to the inland country; the most sequestered islands and mountains were successively visited; the places which had escaped the fury of its first passage were alone exposed to the contagion of the ensuing year. The winds might diffuse that subtle venom; but, unless the atmosphere be previously disposed for its reception, the plague would soon expire in the cold or temperate climates of the earth. Such was the universal corruption of the air that the pestilence which burst forth in the fifteenth year of Justinian was not checked or alleviated by any difference of the seasons. In time, its first malignity was abated and dispersed; the disease alternately languished ​and revived; but it was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two years that mankind recovered their health or the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality. No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary mortality. I only find that, during three months, five, and at length ten, thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; that many cities of the East were left vacant; and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian, and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human species, which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe.
* ↑ For the troubles of Africa, I neither have nor desire another guide than Procopius, whose eye contemplated the image, and whose ear collected the reports, of the memorable events of his own times. In the second book of the Vandalic war he relates the revolt of Stoza (c. 14-24), the return of Belisarius (c. 15), the victory of Germanus (c. 16, 17, 18), the second administration of Solomon (c. 19, 20, 21), the government of Sergius (c. 22, 23), of Areobindus (c. 24), the tyranny and death of Gontharis (c. 25, 26, 27, 28); nor can I discern any symptoms of flattery or malevolence in his various portraits. [But we have now the Johannis of Corippus; see Appendix 1 and 18.]
* ↑ The Moorish wars are occasionally introduced into the narrative of Procopius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 19-23, 25, 27, 28; Gothic. l. iv. c. 17); and Theophanes adds some prosperous and adverse events in the last years of Justinian.
* ↑ [After the defeat of A.D. 534, Antala remained quiet for ten years (plenosque decern perfecerat annos, Corippus, Joh., 2, 35). He took up arms again in A.D. 544 (not 543, as Victor Tonn. states). This has been proved by Partsch, Proœm. p. xvi. xvii. The plague was raging in the Roman provinces of Africa in 543, and the Moors were not likely to attack them then (see below, p. 437). The Moorish tribe whose deputies were murdered were the Laguantan (this is one of the numerous forms of the name used by Corippus) = Λευα̂θαι of Procopius.]
* ↑ Now Tibesh, in the kingdom of Algiers. It is watered by a river, the Sujerass, which falls into the Mejerda (Bagradas). Tibesh is still remarkable for its walls of large stones (like the Coliseum of Rome), a fountain, and a grove of walnut-trees: the country is fruitful, and the neighbouring Bereberes are warlike. It appears from an inscription that, under the reign of Hadrian, the road from Carthage to Tebeste was constructed by the third legion (Marmol, Description de l'Afrique, tom. ii. p. 442, 443. Shaw's Travels, p. 64, 65, 66). [The road was constructed in A.D. 123. See C. I. L., 8, p. 865 and inscr. No. 10,048, sqq. Theveste (the name suggested Thebes, and hence the town was known as Hecatompylos; cf. Diodorus 4, 18) was rebuilt by Justinian after the Moorish victories of Solomon, as the following inscription records (C. I. L., 8, 1863): — Nutu divmo feliciss. teniporib. piissimor. dominor. nostror. Iustiniani et Theodoræ Augg. post abscisos ex Africa Vandalos extinctamque per Solomonem gloriosiss. et excell. magistro militum ex consul, præfect. Libyæ ac patricio universam Maurusiam gentem provi (dentia ejus) dem æminentissimi viri Theveste (civitas) a (f)undament. ædificata est.]
* ↑ [The battle was fought near Cillium, or Colonia Cillitana (now Kasrin), s.e. of Theveste, and a little north of Thelepte. See Victor Tonn. in the improved text of Mommsen (Chron. Min. 2, p. 201): Stuzas tyrannus gentium multitudine adunata Solomoni magistro militiæ ac patricio Africa ceterisque Romanæ militiæ ducibus Cillio occurrit, ubi congressione facta peccantis Africæ Romanæ reipublicæ militia superatur. Solomon utriusque potestatis vir strenuus prœlio moritur. (For Cillium cp. C. I. L., 8. 210.) Solomon was assisted not only by his two nephews but by Cusina, chief of a Moorish tribe which, driven out of Byzacium by Solomon in 535 (Procop. B. V. 2, 10), was now established in the neighbourhood of Lambaesis. Cp. Corippus, Joh., 3405 sqq. For a full account see Partsch, Proœm. p. xviii.-.x.]
* ↑ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 18. The series of the African history attests this melancholy truth.
* ↑ In the second (c. 30) and third books (c. 1-40), Procopius continues the history of the Gothic war from the fifth to the fifteenth year of Justinian [leg. year of the war]. As the events are less interesting than in the former period, he allots only half the space to double the time. Jornandes, and the Chronicle of Marcellinus, afford some collateral hints. Sigonius, Pagi, Muratori, Mascou, and De Buat are useful, and have been used. [The space allotted by Procopius to the various events depends on his presence at, or absence from, the scene of war. Cp. Haury, Procopiana, i. p. 8.]
* ↑ [His proper name was Baduila, which appears invariably on coins and is mentioned by Jordanes. He was probably elected towards end of A.D. 541; Eraric the Rugian reigned, after Ildibad's death during the summer of that year.]
* ↑ [Hardly of equal rank; for Procopius says that Constantian and Alexander were "first among them" (B. G. iii. 3). Others were Vitalius, Bessas, and John son of Vitalian.]
* ↑ [Not 100 Persians, but 100 men selected from the whole army. Procop. ib. On ordinary occasions Artabazes commanded a Persian band.]
* ↑ [The events are so compressed in the text that they are hardly intelligible. The Roman army, numbering (not 20,000 as the author states, but) 12,000 (δισχιλίους τε καὶ μυρίους), advanced within five miles of Verona, and on the failure of the attempt of Artabazes retreated beyond the Po to Faventia, which is about twenty miles south-west of Ravenna. Totila then, taking the offensive, follows them from Venetia, crosses the Po, and the battle of Faenza is fought, in which the Imperialists are routed and Artabazes slain in single combat with Viliaris. The Romans, having suffered a severe loss, retreat to Ravenna, and Totila advances into Tuscany, besieges Florence (which is held by Justin), and defeats, in the valley of Mugello (a day's journey from Florence), the army of relief which has come from Ravenna under John and Bessas. The Battle of .Mugello gave central and southern Italy to the Goths. It was fought towards end of 542. Procopius, B. G. iii. 3-5.]
* ↑ Sylverius, bishop of Rome, was first transported to Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodiâ inediâ confectus) in the isle of Palmaria, A.D. 538, June 20 [probably May 21; cp. Clinton, F. R., ad ann.] (Liberat. in Breviar. c. 22. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius, A.D. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont.
* ↑ Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Tarracina and the coast of the Volsci (Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. iii. c. 7, p. 1014).
* ↑ As the Logothete Alexander and most of his civil and military colleagues were either disgraced or despised, the ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that of the Gothic History (1l. iii. c. i, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c.). [Alexander received for himself a commission of one-twelfth on his extortions. The office of logothete is fully discussed by Panchenko, Viz. Vrem., 3, p. 468 sqq.]
* ↑ Procopius (l. iii. c. 2, 8, &c.) does ample and willing justice to the merit of Totila. The Roman historians, from Sallust and Tacitus, were happy to forget the vices of their countrymen in the contemplation of Barbaric virtue.
* ↑ [δορυϕόρους τε καὶ ὑπασπίστας (B.G. 3, 12), who had been disbanded at the time of his disgrace, as is mentioned in the Anecdota (c. 4), where the same expression is used. (See above, c. 41, p. 339.)]
* ↑ Procopius, l. iii. c. 12. The soul of an hero is deeply impressed on the letter; nor can we confound such genuine and original acts with the elaborate and often empty speeches of the Byzantine historians.
* ↑ [John, son of Vitulian. He married the daughter of Germanus, nephew of Justinian.]
* ↑ [The siege probably began in last months of A.D. 545.]
* ↑ [Vigilius was then in Sicily.]
* ↑ [None of the ships sent by Vigilius escaped the Goths. See Proc. B. G. 3, 15, ad fin. The corn from Sicily which Bessas "seized" must be distinguished both from that sent by Vigilius and that mentioned in c 13.]
* ↑ The avarice of Bessas is not dissembled by Procopius (l. iii. c. 17, 20). He expiated the loss of Rome by the glorious conquest of Petræa (Goth. 1. iv. c. 12); but the same vices followed him from the Tiber to the Phasis (c. 13); and the historian is equally true to the merits and defects of his character. The chastisement which the author of the romance of Bélisaire has inflicted on the oppressor of Rome is more agreeable to justice than to history.
* ↑ [In the following episode it is to be remembered that the Romans now held Portus, on the right bank, while the Goths held Ostia, on the left. In the siege of 537, the Goths had held Portus, the Romans Ostia.]
* ↑ [A boat (λέμβος) containing these substances was suspended at the top of the tower; and probably worked by a crane; for it was cast into the bridge-tower of Totila which stood on the northern bank.]
* ↑ [The words of Procopius seem rather to imply that the enemies were first destroyed or scattered, and that then the chain was removed, presumably by being unfastened at the banks (τὴν ἄλυσιν ἀνελόμενοι). There seems no reason to suspect, with Mr. Hodgkin, that divers were at work.]
* ↑ [This sentence, referring to previous events, might mislead the reader. The expulsion of the Arian clergy took place in A.D. 544, the fruitless mission of Pelagius near the beginning of the siege; and the bishop who was mutilated had come with the corn-ships sent by Vigilius.]
* ↑ [Perhaps the same as the Basil who was the hist Roman consul.]
* ↑ During the long exile, and after the death, of Vigilius, the Roman church was governed, at first by the archdeacon, and at length (A.D. 555) by the pope, Pelagius, who was not thought guiltless of the sufferings of his predecessor. See the original lives of the popes under the name of Anastasius (Muratori, Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 130, 131), who relates several curious incidents of the sieges of Rome and the wars of Italy.
* ↑ Mount Garganus (now Monte St. Angelo), in the kingdom of Naples, runs three hundred stadia into the Hadriatic Sea (Strab. l. vi. p. 436 [3, § 9]), and in the darker ages was illustrated by the apparition, miracles, and church of St. Michael the archangel. Horace, a native of Apulia or Lucania, had seen the elms and oaks of Garganus labouring and bellowing with the north wind that blew on that lofty coast (Carm. ii. 9; Epist. ii. i. 201 [leg. 202]).
* ↑ I cannot ascertain this particular camp of Hannibal; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the neighbourhood of Arpi (T. Liv. xxii. 9, 12; xxiv. 3, &c.).
* ↑ Totila ... Romam ingreditur ... ac evertit muros domos aliquantas igni comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in prædam accepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Campaniam captivos abduxit. Post quam devastationem, xl. aut amplius dies, Roma fuit ita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, nisi (nullae?) bestiæ morarentur (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54).
* ↑ The tribuli are small engines with four spikes, one fixed in the ground, the three others erect or adverse (Procopius, Gothic. l. iii. c. 24; Just. Lipsius, Poliorcet, l. v. c. 3). [Rather the opposite; three fixed in the ground, one always erect, however thrown. The description of Procopius is quite clear.] The metaphor was borrowed from the tribuli (land-caltrops), an herb with a prickly fruit common in Italy (Martin, ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 153, vol. ii. p. 33).
* ↑ Ruscia, the navale Thuriorum, was transferred to the distance of sixty stadia to Ruscianum, Rossano, an archbishoprick without suffragans. The republic of Sybaris is now the estate of the duke of Corigliano (Riedesel, Travels into Magna Græcia and Sicily, p. 166-171).
* ↑ [A.D. 545. It was recovered A.D. 547; lost again; and recovered once more A.D. 552.]
* ↑ This conspiracy is related by Procopius (Gothic. l. iii. c. 31, 32) with such freedom and candour that the liberty of the Anecdotes gives him nothing to add.
* ↑ [Widow of Areobindus.]
* ↑ The honours of Belisarius are gladly commemorated by his secretary (Procop. Goth. l. iii. c. 35; l. iv. c. 21). The title of Στρατηγός is ill translated, at least in this instance, by præfectus prætorio; and to a military character magister militum is more proper and applicable (Ducange, Gloss. Græc. p. 1458, 1459).
* ↑ Alemannus (ad Hist. Arcanam, p. 68), Ducange (Familiæ Byzant. p. 98), and Heineccius (Hist. Juris Civilis, p. 434), all three represent Anastasius as the son of the daughter of Theodora; and their opinion firmly reposes on the unambiguous testimony of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 4, 5. — θυγατριδῷ, twice repeated). And yet I will remark, 1. That in the year 547, Theodora could scarcely have a grandson of the age of puberty; 2. That we are totally ignorant of this daughter and her husband; and, 3. That Theodora concealed her bastards, and that her grandson by Justinian would have been heir apparent of the empire.
* ↑ The ἁμαρτήματα, or sins, of the hero, in Italy and after his return, are manifested ἀπαρακαλύπτως, and most probably swelled, by the author of the Anecdotes (c. 4, s). The designs of Antonina were favoured by the fluctuating jurisprudence of Justinian. On the law of marriage and divorce the emperor was trocho versatilior (Heineccius, Element. Juris Civil. ad Ordinem Pandect. P. iv, No. 233).
* ↑ [Probably of Theudibert of Metz.]
* ↑ The Romans were still attached to the monuments of their ancestors, and, according to Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 22), the galley of Æneas, of a single rank of oars, 25 feet in breadth, 120 in length, was preserved entire in the navalia, near Monte Testaceo, at the foot of the Aventine (Nardini, Roma Antica, l. vii. c. 9, p. 466. Donatus, Roma Antiqua, l. iv. c. 13, p. 334). But all antiquity is ignorant of this relic.
* ↑ In these seas, Procopius searched without success for the isle of Calypso. He was shewn, at Phæacia or Corcyra, the petrified ship of Ulysses (Odyss. xiii. 163); but he found it a recent fabric of many stones, dedicated by a merchant to Jupiter Casius (l. iv. c. 22). Eustathius had supposed it to be the fanciful likeness of a rock.
* ↑ d'Anville (Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. xxxii. p. 513-528) illustrates the gulf of Ambracia; but he cannot ascertain the situation of Dodona. A country in sight of Italy is less known than the wilds of America.
* ↑ See the acts of Germanus in the public (Vandal. l. ii. c. 16, 17, 18; Goth. l. iii. c 31, 32) and private history (Anecdot. c. 5), and those of his son Justin, in Agathias (l. iv. p. 130, 131 [c. 21]). Notwithstanding an ambiguous expression of Jornandes, fratri suo, Aleniannus has proved that he was the son of the emperor's brother.
* ↑ Conjuncta Aniciorum gens cum Amalâ stirpe spem adhuc utriusque generis promittit, Jornandes, c. 60, p. 703. He wrote at Ravenna before the death of Totila.
* ↑ [Procopius says nothing of troops from the heart of Germany.]
* ↑ The third book of Procopius is terminated by the death of Germanus (Add. l. iv. c. 23, 24, 25, 26).
* ↑ Procopius relates the whole series of this second Gothic war and the victory of Narses (l. iv. c. 21, 26-35). A splendid scene! Among the six subjects of epic poetry which Tasso revolved in his mind, he hesitated between the conquests of Italy by Belisarius and by Narses (Hayley's Works, vol. iv. p. 70).
* ↑ The country of Narses is unknown, since he must not be confounded with the Persarmenian. Procopius styles him (Goth. l. ii. c. 13) βασιλικω̂ν χρημάτων ταμίας; Paul Warnefrid (l. ii. c. 3, p. 776), Chartularius: Marcellinus adds the name of Cubicularius. In an inscription on the Salarian bridge he is entitled Ex-consul, Ex-præpositus, Cubiculi Patricius (Mascou, Hist. of the Germans, l. xiii. c. 25). The law of Theodosius against eunuchs was obsolete or abolished (Annotation xx.); but the foolish prophecy of the Romans subsisted in full vigour (Procop. l. iv. c. 21). [Narses ὸ βασιλέως ταμίας was a Persarmenian; Proc. B. P. i. 15, p. 79, ed. Bonn.]
* ↑ Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard, records with complacency the succour, service, and honourable dismission of his countrymen — reipublicæ Romanæ [Rom. rei p.] adversus æmulos adjutores fuerant [fuerunt] (l. ii. c. 1, p. 774, edit. Grot.). I am surprised that Alboin, their martial king, did not lead his subjects in person. [Audoin, father of Alboin, was king at this time; Procop. B. G. iv. 26.]
* ↑ [Read, two thousand five hundred.]
* ↑ He was, if not an impostor, the son of the blind Zames, saved by compassion, and educated in the Byzantine court by the various motives of policy, pride, and generosity (Procop. Persic. l. i. c. 23).
* ↑ In the time of Augustus, and in the middle ages, the whole waste from Aquileia to Ravenna was covered with woods, lakes, and morasses. Man has subdued nature, and the land has been cultivated, since the waters are confined and embanked. See the learned researches of Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. i. dissert. xxi. p. 253, 254), from Vitruvius, Strabo, Herodian, old charters, and local knowledge.
* ↑ The Flaminian way, as it is corrected from the Itineraries, and the best modern maps, by d'Anville (Analyse de l'Italie, p. 147-162). may be thus stated: Rome to Narni, 51 Roman miles; Terni, 57; Spoleto, 75; Foligno, 88; Nocera, 103; Cagli, 142; Intercisa [Petra Pertusa], 157; Fossombrone, 160; Fano, 176; Pesaro, 184; Rimini, 208 — about 189 English miles. He takes no notice of the death of Totila; but Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 614) exchanges for the field of Taginas the unknown appellation of Ptanias, eight miles from Nocera.
* ↑ Taginæ, or rather Tadinæ, is mentioned by Pliny; but the bishopric of that obscure town, a mile from Gualdo, in the plain, was united, in the year 1007, with that of Nocera. The signs of antiquity are preserved in the local appellations, Fossato, the camp; Capraia, Caprea; Bastia, Busta Gallorum. See Cluverius (Italia Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 615, 616, 617), Lucas Holstenius (Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 85, 86), Guazzesi (Dissertat. p. 177-217, a professed inquiry), and the maps of the ecclesiastical state and the march of Ancona, by Le Maire and Magini. [See a memoir on the site of the battle by Mr. Hodgkin in the "Atti e memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le provincie di Romagna," 1884 (p. 35 sqq.), and Italy and her Invaders, iv. p. 710 sqq. The site has not been determined with certainty. (1) The mention of the Busta Gallorum (see next note) has been used as an argument for Sassoferrato near Sentinum. Procopius is mistaken in naming Camillus, who fought no battles in Umbria; but it is supposed that he may have been thinking of the Battle of Sentinum (B.C. 295). Sassoferrato is east of the Flaminian road, and is separated from Tadinum by a high pass. (2) Mr. Hodgkin argues for Ad Ensem, or Scheggia, where the Flaminian road reaches the top of the pass. His view is that Narses, having turned the fortress of Petra Pertusa by taking a southern route, reached the Flaminian Way at Callis and marched up to Ad Ensem. This site suits the words of Procopius, ἐν χωρίῳ ὁμαλῷ, "at a level place," but it has been objected that there is hardly room for a battle on such a scale. Procopius states that the distance between the camps of Narses and Totila was at first 100 stadia, and the distance between Scheggia and Tadino, 15 miles, nearly corresponds.]
* ↑ The battle [of Sentinum] was fought in the year of Rome 458 [B.C. 295]; and the consul Decius, by devoting his own life, assured the triumph of his country and his colleague Fabius (T. Liv. x. 28, 29). Procopius ascribes to Camillus the victory of the Busta Gallorum; and his error was branded by Cluverius with the national reproach of Graæorum nugamenta.
* ↑ [They were drawn up at an angle to the left wing and in front of the eminence which is mentioned below; 500 were to sustain the retreat, if necessary; 1000 to attack the enemy in the rear.]
* ↑ [Narses, with John, commanded not the right, but the left wing. Proc. B. G. 4, 31 ad init.]
* ↑ [The author does not bring out sufficiently the importance of this hill, which was in fact the key to the position. It commanded a path by which the Imperialists could have been taken in the rear, if Narses had not anticipated Totila in seizing it.]
* ↑ [Eleven or twelve miles: 84 stadia (Procop. ib. 32).]
* ↑ Theophanes, Chron. p. 193 [A.M. 6044, John Malalas, 18, p. 486, ed. Bonn, is the source of Theophanes; and the notice is important as giving the date of the arrival of the robe — August, and so rendering it probable that the battle was fought in July]. Hist. Miscell. l. xvi. p. 208.
* ↑ Evagrius, l. iv. c. 24. The inspiration of the Virgin revealed to Narses the day, and the word, of battle (Paul Diacon. l. ii. c. 3, p. 776).
* ↑ Ἐπι τούτου βασιλεύοντος τὸ πέμπτον ἐάλω. 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; 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 (l. iii. c. 26; l. iv. c. 24), which, with some collateral hints from Marcellinus and Jornandes, illustrate the state of the expiring senate.
* ↑ See, in the example of Prusias, as it is delivered in the fragments of Polybius (Excerpt. Legat. xcvii. p. 927, 928 [Bk. xxx., 16]), a curious picture of a royal slave.
* ↑ The Δράκων of Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 35) is evidently the Sarnus. The text is accused or altered by the rash violence of Cluverius (l. 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.
* ↑ Galen (de Method. Medendi, l. v. apud Cluver. l. iv. c. 3, p. 1159, 1160) describes the lofty site, pure air, and rich milk of mount Lactarius, whose medicinal benefits were equally known and sought in the time of Symmachus (l. vi. epist. 1817, ed. Seeck) and Cassiodorius (Var. xi. 10). Nothing is now left except the name of the town 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.).
* ↑ I leave Scaliger (Animadvers. in Euseb. p. 59) and Salmasius (Exercitat. Pliman. p. 51, 52) to quarrel about the origin of Cumae, the oldest of the Greek colonies in Italy (Strab. l. v. p. 372 [4, § 4]. Velleius Paterculus, l. i. c. 4), already vacant in Juvenal's time (Satir. iii.), and now in ruins.
* ↑ Agathias (l. i. c. [leg. p.] 21 [c. 10]) settles the Sibyll's cave under the wall of Cumæ; he agrees with Servius (ad l. 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 Cumæ was not yet built; and the lines (l. vi. 96, 97) would become ridiculous, if Æneas were actually in a Greek city. [Cp. Beloch, Campanien, p. 160. There is no reason to suppose that the cave which is now shown as the Sibyl's grotto, south of L. Avernus, had any ancient tradition associated with it.]
* ↑ [The surrender of Cumæ was subsequent to that of Lucca.]
* ↑ There is some difficulty in connecting the 35th chapter of the ivth 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 (l. i. p. 11; l. ii. p. 51, edit. Louvre). [Procopius ends in March, and Agathias begins in April with the 27th year of Justinian.]
* ↑ [Theudebald had succeeded Theudebert in A.D. 548.]
* ↑ 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. l. iii. c. 32, p. 203), and Aimoin (tom. iii. l. ii. de Gestis Francorum, c. 23, p. 59).
* ↑ [Agathias says, the speech of Narses.]
* ↑ [Who after the capitvilation of Cumæ was appointed governor of Cesena.]
* ↑ Agathias notices their superstition in a philosophic tone (l. i. p. i8 [c. F.]). At Zug, in Switzerland, idolatry still prevailed in the year 613: St. Columban and St. Gall were the Apostles of that rude country; and the latter founded an hermitage, which has swelled into an ecclesiastical principality and a populous city, the seat of freedom and commerce.
* ↑ [Casilinum, on the Vulturnus, is the modern Capua; the ancient Capua, about 3 miles distant, is now S. Maria di Capua Vetere.]
* ↑ See the death of Lothaire in Agathias (l. ii. p. 38 [c. 3]), and Paul Warnefrid, surnamed Diaconus (l. ii. c. 3 [leg. 2] , 775). The Greek makes him rave and tear his flesh. He had plundered churches. [Leuthar's troops had previously been surprised and defeated near Fano.]
* ↑ Père Daniel (Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. i. p. 17-21) has exhibited a fanciful representation of this battle, somewhat in the manner of the Chevalier Folard, the once famous editor of Polybius, who fashioned to his own habits and opinions all the military operations of antiquity.
* ↑ Agathias (l. ii. p. 47 [c. 10]) has produced a Greek epigram of six lines on this victory of Narses, which is favourably compared to the battles of Marathon and Platæa. The chief difference is indeed in their consequences — so trivial in the former instance — so permanent and glorious in the latter.
* ↑ The Beroia and Brincas of Theophanes or his transcriber (p. 201) must be read or understood Verona and Brixia. [This notice of Theophanes is taken from Malalas, p. 492, ed. Bonn. The news reached Constantinople in November, A.D. 562.]
* ↑ [The title of Narses was merely Patricius. Smaragdus was (so far as our evidence shows) the first governor who bore the name exarch. See below, Appendix 19.]
* ↑ Ἐλείπετο γὰρ οἶμαι, αὐτοῖς ὑπὸ ἀβελτερίας τὰς ὰσπίδας τυχὸν καὶ τὰ κράνη ἀμφορέως οἴνου ἤ καὶ βαρβίτου ἀμοδόσθαι (Agathias, l. ii. p. 48 [c. 11]). In the first scene of Richard III. our English poet has beautifully enlarged on this idea, for which, however, he was not indebted to the Byzantine historian.
* ↑ Maffei has proved (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l. x. p. 257, 289), against the common opinion, that the dukes of Italy were instituted before the conquest of the Lombards by Narses himself. In the Pragmatic Sanction (No. 23), Justinian restrains the judices militares. [For the duces or magistri militum in Italy, see below, vol. v., Appendix.]
* ↑ See Paulus Diaconus, l. iii. c. 2, p. 776. [See Marius Aventicensis, in Chron. Min. 2, p. 238, A.D. 566.] Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 133 [fr. 8, ed. Müller]) mentions some risings in Italy by the Franks, and Theophanes (p. 201) hints at some Gothic rebellions.
* ↑ The Pragmatic Sanction of Justinian, which restores and regulates the civil state of Italy, consists of xxvii. articles: it is dated August 15, A.D. 554; is addressed to Narses, V. J. Præpositus Sacri Cubiculi, and to Antiochus, Præfectus Prætorio Italiæ; and has been preserved by Julian Antecessor, and in the Corpus Juris Civilis, after the novels and edicts of Justinian, Justin, and Tiberius. [Novel 164, ed. Zacharia.]
* ↑ A still greater number was consumed by famine in the southern provinces ἐκτὸς the Ionian gulf. Acorns were used in the place of bread. Procopius had seen a deserted orphan suckled by a she-goat. Seventeen passengers were lodged, murdered, and eaten by two women, who were detected and slain by the eighteenth, &c.
* ↑ Quinta regio Piceni est; quondam uberrimæ multitudinis, ccclx. millia Picentium in fidem P. R. venere (Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 18). In the time of Vespasian, this ancient population was already diminished.
* ↑ Perhaps fifteen or sixteen millions. Procopius (Anecdot. c. 18) computes that Africa lost five millions, that Italy was thrice as extensive, and that the depopulation was in a larger proportion. But his reckoning is inflamed by passion, and clouded with uncertainty.
* ↑ [His age can hardly have exceeded 55 years, in A.D. 559; for he was ὑπηνήτης in A. D. 526.]
* ↑ [The Cotrigurs, see Appendix 15.]
* ↑ In the decay of these military schools, the satire of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 24. Aleman. p. 102, 103) is confirmed and illustrated by Agathias (l. v. p. 159 [c. 15]), who cannot be rejected as an hostile witness.
* ↑ The distance from Constantinople to Melanthias, Villa Cæsariana (Ammian. Marcellin. xxx. [leg. xxxi.] 11), is variously fixed at 102 or 140 stadia (Suidas, tom. ii. p. 522, 523; Agathias, l. v. p. 158 [c. 14]), or xviii. or xix. miles (Itineraria, p. 138, 230, 323, 332, and Wesseling's Observations). The first xii. miles, as far as Rhegium, were paved by Justinian, who built a bridge over a morass or gullet between a lake and the sea (Procop. de Ædif. l. iv. c. 8). [Melantias (Buyuk Tschekmadge, "Great Bridge") is 18 miles from Constantinople on the road to Hadrianople.]
* ↑ The Atyras (Pompon. Mela, l. ii. c. 2, p. 169, edit. Voss.). At the river's mouth, a town or castle of the same name was fortified by Justinian (Procop. de Ædif. l. iv. c. 2; Itinerar. p. 570, and Wesseling).
* ↑ The Bulgarian war and the last victory of Belisarius are imperfectly represented in the prolix declamation of Agathias (l. v. p. 154-174 [c. 11-25]) and the dry Chronicle of Theophanes (p. 197, 198 [A.M. 6051]).
* ↑ [This Sergius must be distinguished from the magister militum whom the Cotrigurs captured.]
* ↑ Ἰνδούς. They could scarcely be real Indians; and the Æthiopians, sometimes known by that name, were never used by the ancients as guards or followers: they were the trifling, though costly, objects of female and royal luxury (Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene ii. Sueton. in August. c. 83, with a good note of Casaubon, in Caligulâ, c. 57).
* ↑ The [? leg. this] Sergius (Vandal. l. ii. c. 21, 22; Anecdot. c. 5) and Marcellus (Goth. l. iii. c. 32) are mentioned by Procopius. See Theophanes, p. 197, 201 [A.M. 6051, 6055].
* ↑ Alemannus (p. 3) quotes an old Byzantine Ms. which has been printed in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri.
* ↑ [For the last days of Antonina, the source is the anonymous Antiq. Const., in Banduri, Imp. Or. i. p. 37.]
* ↑ Of the disgrace and restoration of Belisarius, the genuine original record is preserved in the fragment of John Malala (tom. ii. p. 234-[leg. 239]243 [493-5]) and the exact Chronicle of Theophanes (p. 194-204 [A.M. 6055]).' Cedrenus (Compend. p. 387, 388) and Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69 [c. 9]) seem to hesitate between the obsolete truth and the growing falsehood. [The statement of Zonaras shows no sign of the growing falsehood.]
* ↑ The source of this idle fable may be derived from a miscellaneous work of the xiith century, the Chiliads of John Tzetzes, a monk (Basil, 1546, ad calcem Lycophront, Colon. Allobrog. 1614 in Corp. Poet. Græc). [Tzetzes was not a monk.] He relates the blindness and beggary of Belisarius in ten vulgar or political verses (Chiliad iii. No. 88, 339-348, in Corp. Poet. Græc. tom. ii. p. 311). Ἕκπωμα ξύλινον κρατω̂ν ὲβόα τῷ μιλίῳ βελισαρίῳ ὀβολὸν δότε τῷ στρατηλάτῃ Ον τύχη μὲν ἐδόξασεν, άποτυϕλοɩ̂ δ ὸ ϕθόνος. This moral or romantic tale was imported into Italy with the language and manuscripts of Greece; repeated before the end of the xvth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, and Volaterranus; attacked by Alciat, for the honour of the law; and defended by Baronius (A.D. 561, No. 2, &c.) for the honour of the church. Yet Tzetzes himself had read in other chronicles that Belisarius did not lose his sight and that he recovered his fame and fortunes. [The myth appears earlier than Tzetzes in the Πάτρια τη̂ς πόλεως, which goes under the name of Codinus (ed. Bonn, p. 29) and was compiled in the time of Basil II. It was wrought into a political romance in the 14th or 15th century, and we possess it in three forms, of which the oldest is published by Wagner in his Mediæval Greek Texts (in unrhymed political verses); the second, by the Rhodian poet Georgillas (printed by A. Giles at Oxford, 1643), breaks into rhyme near the end (Georgillas represents the transition from rhymeless to rhymed verses); the third in rhyme (printed at Venice in 1548). See Krumbacher, Gesch. der byz. Litteratur, ed. 2, p. 825-7. It should be noted that John of Cappadocia ended his days in beggary (Procopius, B. P. i. 23). But more important for the origin of the Belisarius legend (as Finlay pointed out) is the story of Symbatios, in the ninth century. Blinded of one eye, he was placed in front of the palace of Lausus, with a plate on his knees, as a beggar, and in this plight displayed to the public for three days. See George Mon., p. 834 (ed. Bonn); Finlay, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. App. 2, and vol. ii. p. 194.]
* ↑ The statue in the villa Borghese at Rome, in a sitting posture, with an open hand, which is vulgarly given to Belisarius, may be ascribed with more dignity to Augustus in the act of propitiating Nemesis (Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art, tom. iii. p. 266). Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem, quotannis, die certo, emendicabat a populo, cavam manum asses porrigentibus præbens (Sueton. in August. c. 91, with an excellent note of Casaubon). [The statue is now in the Louvre.]
* ↑ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly enough, by the pen of Tacitus (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45); and has been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny (Panegyr. c. 48), and Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 8) foolishly believes that only one bust of Domitian had reached the vith century.
* ↑ The studies and science of Justinian are attested by the confession (Anecdot. c. 8, 13), still more than by the praises (Gothic. 1. iii. c. 31, de Ædific. l. i. Proem. c. 7) of Procopius. Consult the copious index of Alemannus, and read the Life of Justinian by Ludewig (p. 135-142).
* ↑ See in the C. P. Christiana of Ducange (l. i. c. 24, No. 1) a chain of original testimonies, from Procopius in the vith, to Gyllius in the xvith, century. [For a drawing of the statue, made in A.D. 1340, in a Ms. in the library of the Seraglio, see Mordtmann, Constantinople, p. 65; and for an inscription which may belong to it, ib., p. 55.]
* ↑ The first comet is mentioned by John Malala (tom. ii. p. 190, 219 [454, 477, ed. Bonn]) and Theophanes (p. 154 [A.M. 6023]); the second by Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 4). Yet I strongly suspect their identity. The paleness of the sun (Vandal. l. c. ii. 14) is applied by Theophanes (p. 158) to a different year [A.M. 6024 = A.D. 531-2].
* ↑ Seneca's viith book of Natural Questions displays, in the theory of comets, a philosophic mind. Yet should we not too candidly confound a vague prediction, a veniet tempus, &c. with the merit of real discoveries.
* ↑ Astronomers may study Newton and Halley. I draw my humble science from the article Comete, in the French Encyclopedia, by M. d'Alembert. [See App. 20.]
* ↑ Whiston, the honest, pious, visionary Whiston, had fancied, for the æra of Noah's flood (2242 years before Christ), a prior apparition of the same comet which drowned the earth with its tail.
* ↑ A Dissertation of Fréret (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. P- 357-377) affords an happy union of philosophy and erudition. The phænomenon in the time of Ogyges was preserved by Varro (apud Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xxi. 8), who quotes Castor, Dion of Naples, and Adrastus of Cyzicus — nobiles mathcmatici. The two subsequent periods are preserved by the Greek mythologists and the spurious books of Sibylline verses.
* ↑ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year 43, before the Christian æra; but I am not totally subdued by the criticism of the astronomer (Opuscules, p. 275-351).
* ↑ This last comet was visible in the month of December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensées sur le Comète in January 1681 (Oeuvres, tom, iii.), was forced to argue that a supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99) was forced to allow that the tail, though not the head, was a sign of the wrath of God.
* ↑ Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.), which startled the licenser, may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at Rome in the presence of queen Christina (Fontenelle in his Eloge, tom. v. p. 338). Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of curiosity or fear?
* ↑ For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon (tom. i. p. 502-536. Supplément à l'Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390, edition in 4to), Valmont de Bomare (Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, Tremblemens de Terre, Pyrites), Watson (Chemical Essays, tom. i. p. 181-209). [R. Mallet, The First Principles of Observational Seismology, 1862.]
* ↑ The earthquakes that shook the Roman world in the reign of Justinian are described or mentioned by Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 25, Anecdot. c. 18), Agathias (l. ii. p. 52, 53, 54 [c. 15, 16]; l. v. p. 145-152 [c. 3 sqq.]), John Malala (Chron. tom. ii. p. 140-146, 176, 177, 183, 193, 220, 229, 231, 233, 234 [417 sqq., 442-3, 448, 456, 478, 485, 487, 488-9]), and Theophanes (p. 151, 183, 189, 191-196 [A.M. 6021, 6028, 6036, 6040, 6043, 6046, 6047, 6050]).
* ↑ An abrupt height, a perpendicular cape between Aradus and Botrys, named by the Greeks θεω̂ν [θεον̂'] πρόσωπον and εὐπρόσωπον or λιθοπρόσωπον by the scrupulous Christians (Polyb. l. v. p. 411 [c. 68]; Pompon. Mela, l. i. c. 12, p. 87, cum Isaac. Voss. Observat.; Maundrell, Journey, p. 32, 33; Pocock's Description, vol. ii. p. 99).
* ↑ Botrys was founded (ann. ante Christ. 935-903) by Ithobal, king of Tyre (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 387, 388). Its poor representative, the village of Patrone, is now destitute of an harbour.
* ↑ The university, splendour, and ruin of Berytus are celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351-356) as an essential part of the history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of Justinian, A.D. 551, July 9 (Theophanes, p. 192 [A.M. 6043]); but Agathias (l. ii. p. 51, 52 [c. 15]) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved the Italian war.
* ↑ I have read with pleasure Mead's short but elegant treatise, concerning Pestilential Disorders, the viiith edition, London, 1722.
* ↑ The great plague which raged in 542 and the following years (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 518), must be traced in Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 22, 23), Agathias (l. v. p. 153, 154 [c. 10]), Evagrius (l. iv. c. 29), Paul Diaconus (l. ii. c. 4, p. 776, 777), Gregory of Tours (tom. ii. l. iv. c. 5, p. 205) who styles it Lues Inguinaria, and the Chronicles of Victor Tunnunensis (p. 9 in Thesaur. Temporum), of Marcellinus (p. 54), and of Theophanes (p. 153 [leg. 188; A.M. 6034]). [The plague seems to have appeared in Egypt in A.D. 541, for we must obviously read "the 15th year of Justinian" instead of "the 5th" (ιἑ for έ) in Agathias, v. 10. Before the end of the year, the infection was probably carried to Constantinople, for Theophanes says that it broke out in October, A. D. 541. But it did not begin to rage until the following year, A.D. 542 — the year of the 3rd invasion of Chosroes, Procop. B. P. 2, 20; Evagrius, 4, 29; Victor Tonn. ad ann. John Malal. (ed. Bonn, p. 482) seems to put it in the 5th Indict. = A.D. 541-2; his notice comes between a mention of the 5th Ind. and a mention of the 7th, he does not mention the 6th. See V. Seibel, Die grosse Pest zur Zeit Justinians, 1857. The statement in the text that it penetrated into the west "along the coast of Africa" can hardly be correct. It must have reached Africa from Constantinople. The desert west of the Cyrenaica was an effectual barrier against the affection, and Corippus expressly states that the Moors escaped (Joh., 2, 388, gentes non laesit amaras Martis amica lues). The malady spread in Africa in A.D. 543. See Partsch, Proœm. ad Corippum, p. xvi. xvii.]
* ↑ Dr. Freind (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416-420, Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic, from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words that are now scientific were common and popular in the Greek idiom.
* ↑ See Thucydides, l. ii. c. 47-54, p. 127-133, edit. Duker, and the poetical description of the same plague by Lucretius (l. vi. 1136-1284). I was indebted to Dr. Hunter for an elaborate commentary on this part of Thucydides, a quarto of 600 pages (Venet. 1603, apud Juntas), which was pronounced in St. Mark's library, by Fabius Paullinus Utinensis, a physician and philosopher. [Cp. the Appendix to Jowett's Notes on Thucydides, Bk. ii. (vol. ii. p. 141 sqq.), where this account of Gibbon and Boccaccio's narrative of the plague in 1348 are set beside the description of Thucydides.]
* ↑ Thucydides (c. 51) affirms that the infection could only be once taken; but Evagrius, who had family experience of the plague, observes that some persons who had escaped the first, sunk under the second, attack; and this repetition is confirmed by Fabius Paullinus (p. 588). I observe that on this head physicians are divided; and the nature and operation of the disease may not always be similar.
* ↑ It was thus that Socrates had been saved by his temperance, in the plague of Athens (Aul. Gellius, Noct. Attic, ii. 1). Dr. Mead accounts for the peculiar salubrity of religious houses, by the two advantages of seclusion and abstinence (p. 18, 19).
* ↑ Mead proves that the plague is contagious, from Thucydides, Lucretius, Aristotle, Galen, and common experience (p. 10-20); and he refutes (Preface, p. ii.-xiii.) the contrary opinion of the French physicians who visited Marseilles in the year 1720. Yet these were the recent and enlightened spectators of a plague which, in a few months, swept away 50,000 inhabitants (sur la Peste de Marseille, Paris, 1786) of a city that, in the present hour of prosperity and trade, contains no more than 90,000 souls (Necker, sur les Finances, tom. i. p. 231).
* ↑ The strong assertions of Procopius — οὔτε γὰρ ίατρῷ οὔτε ίδιώτῃ — are overthrown by the subsequent experience of Evagrins.
* ↑ After some figures of rhetoric, the sands of the sea, &c. Procopius (Anecdot. c. i8) attempts a more definite account: that μυριάδας μυριάδων μυρίας had been exterminated under the reign of the Imperial dæmon. The expression is obscure in grammar and arithmetic, and a literal interpretation would produce several millions of millions. Alemannus (p. 80) and Cousin (tom. iii. p. 178) translate this passage, "two hundred millions"; but I am ignorant of their motives. If we drop the μυριάδας the remaining μυριάδων μυριάς, a myriad of myriads, would furnish one hundred millions, a number not wholly inadmissible. [The number in Procopius is purely imaginary. Cp. Panchenko in Vizant. Vrem. iii. p. 311.]