As he finished speaking, and was bending to examine the snake, the girl suddenly placed the wreath which she had made upon his curly auburn hair.
"Hail, hero and helper! Look! the victor's wreath was ready for thee. Ah! how well the blue flowers become thee!" And she clapped her hands joyfully.
"Thy foot is bleeding!" said Adalgoth anxiously; "let me suck the wound. If the poisonous snake has bitten thee!"
"It was only a sharp stone. Thou wouldst better like to die thyself?"
"For thee, Gotho, how gladly! But the poison is harmless in the mouth. Now let me wash thy wound. I have still some vinegar and water left in my gourd. And then I will put sage-leaves upon it, and healing endive."
Thus saying, he gently made her sit down upon a stone, lifted her naked foot and dropped the mixture out of the gourd upon it. This done, he sprang up, looked about in the grass, and presently returned with some soothing herbs, which he tied carefully over the wound with the leather strap which he loosened from his own foot.
"How kind thou art, dear boy!" said the girl, stroking his hair.
"Now let me carry thee--only up the hill?" he begged; "I should so like to hold thee in my arms!"
"Indeed thou shalt not!" she laughed, as she sprang up; "I am no wounded lamb! See how I can run. But where are thy goats?"
"There they come out from the juniper-trees. I will call them."
And putting his shepherd's-pipe to his mouth, he blew a shrill note, swinging his stick round his head.
The sturdy goats came leaping towards him--fearing punishment.
And now, laying his arm tenderly about the girl's neck, and strewing a stripe of salt from his pocket upon the earth, which the goats, following, eagerly licked up, Adalgoth went up the slope.
"But tell me, dearest," said Gotho, when they had arrived at the top of the hill, and she was gathering her lambs together, "why thy cry was again 'Alaric! Alaric!' just as when thou madest the eagle leave my little White Elf, which it had already seized in its talons?"
"That is my battle-cry."
"Who taught it thee?"
"Grandfather; the first time he took me with him to hunt wolves. The time when I got this skin from Master Isegrim's ribs. As I sprang at the wolf, which could not escape and turned to attack me, crying 'Iffa,' just as I had always heard grandfather cry, he said, 'Thou must not cry "Iffa," Adalgoth. When thou attackest a hero or a monster, cry "Alaric!" it will bring thee luck.'"
"But none of our ancestors are so named, brother. We know all their names."
They had now reached the stalls, into which they drove the animals, and then seated themselves before an open window upon a wooden bench, which ran round the front of the house on each side of the door.
"There are," counted Gotho, "first Iffamer, our father; and Uncle Wargs, who was buried by the mountain; then Iffa, our grandfather; Iffamuth, our other uncle; Iffaswinth, his son; and Iffarich, our great-grandfather; and Iffa again--but no Alaric."
"And yet I feel as if I had often heard that name at the time when I used first to run about the mountain; when the great landslip killed Uncle Wargs. And I like the name. Grandfather has told me about a hero-king who was called so; who was first of all the heroes to conquer the fortress of Roma--thou knowest, it is the city from which father and Uncle Iffamuth and Cousin Iffaswinth never returned. And that hero died young, like Siegfried, the dragon-killer, and Balthar, the heathen god. And his grave is in a deep river. There he lies on his golden shield, under his treasures, and tall reeds bend and wave above him. And now another king has arisen, who is called Totila, as the warriors who relieved the garrison over there in the Castle of Teriolis told me. They say he is just like that Alaric, and like Siegfried and the Sun-god. And grandfather says that I also shall become a warrior and go down to King Totila and rush into the fray with the cry of 'Alaric! Alaric!' Long ago I got tired of climbing about and keeping goats here on the mountains, where there is nothing to fight but wolves, or at most a bear which eats up the grapes and honey-combs. You all praise my harp-playing and my songs, but I feel that they are not worth it, and that I cannot learn much more from the old man. I should like to sing better things. I am never tired of listening to the soldiers' stories about the victories of glorious King Totila. Lately I gave the best chamois I ever shot to old Hunibad--whom the King sent up here to nurse his wounds--so that he might tell me, for the third time, all about the battle at the bridge across the Padus, and how King Totila himself overthrew that black devil, the dreadful Cethegus. And I have made a song about it, which begins:
"Tremble, thou traitor,Cunning Cethegus;Tricks will not serve thee;Teja the terribleDaunts thy defiance.And brightly arises,Like morning and May-time,Like night from the darkness,The favourite of Heaven,The bright and the beautifulKing of the Goths.
"But it goes no further; and I can make no more poetry alone. I need a master for the words and the harp. I should like to finish a song that I have began about the spear-hurler Teja, whom they call the 'Black Earl,' and who is said to play the harp wonderfully. And long ago--but this I tell to thee alone--I should have run away without asking grandfather, who always says I am too young yet, ifonething did not keep me back."
He sprang hastily up.
"What is that, brother?" asked Gotho, who sat quite still and looked full at him with her large blue eyes.
"Nay, if thou dost not guess it," he answered almost angrily, "I cannot tell thee. But now I must go and forge some new arrow-points in the smithy. First give me one more kiss--there! And now let me kiss each of thine eyes, and thy fair hair. Good-bye, dear sister, until supper-time."
He left her and ran to a side building, before the door of which stood a grind-stone and various implements.
Gotho rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked thoughtful. Then she said aloud:
"I cannot guess it; for of course he would take me with him. We could not live apart."
She rose with a slight sigh, and went to a field near the house, to look after the linen which was lying there bleaching.
But now old Iffa rose from his seat behind the open window, where he had heard all that had passed.
"This will not do," he cried, rubbing his head hard. "I never yet had the heart to separate the children--for they were but children! I always waited and waited; and now I think I have put it off a little too long. Away with thee, young Adalgoth!"
He left the dwelling-house, and walked slowly to the smithy. He found the boy working busily. With puffed-out cheeks, he blew into the fire on the hearth, and held the already roughly-prepared arrow-points in it, in order to make them red-hot and fit for the hammer. Then he took them out with a pair of pincers, laid them on an anvil, and hammered out neat points and hooks. Without pausing in his work, he nodded silently to his grandfather, striking sturdily upon the anvil till the sparks flew.
"Well," thought the old man, "just now, at least, he thinks of nothing but arrows and iron."
But suddenly the young smith finished his work with a tremendous stroke, threw away the hammer, passed his hand across his hot forehead, and asked, turning sharply to the old man:
"Grandfather, where do men come from?"
"Jesus, Woden, and Maria!" exclaimed the old man, starting back. "Boy, how comest thou to such thoughts?"
"The thoughts come to me, not I to them. I mean the first men--the very first. That tall Hermegisel over there in Teriolis, who ran away from the Arian church at Verona, and can read and write, says that the Christian God made a man in a garden out of clay, and, while he slept, took one of his ribs and made a woman. That is ridiculous; for out of the longest rib that ever was, one could not make ever so small a girl."
"Well, I don't believe it either," the old man thoughtfully confessed. "It is difficult to imagine. And I remember that my father once said, as he was sitting by the hearth, that the first men grew upon trees. But old Hildebrand, who was his friend, although he was much older--and who stopped here on his way back from an expedition against the savage Bajuvars, and who was sitting near father, for it was early in the year, and very rough and cold--hesaid that it was all right about the trees; only that men did not grow on them, but that two heathen gods--Hermegisel called them demons--once found an ash and an alder lying on the sea-shore, and from them they framed a man and a woman. They still sing an old song about it. Hildebrand knew a few words of it, but my father could not remember it."
"I would rather believe that. But, at all events, there were very few people at the beginning?"
"To be sure."
"And at first there was onlyonefamily?"
"Certainly."
"And the old ones generally died before the young ones?"
"Of course."
"Then I tell thee what, grandfather. Either the race of men must have died out, or, as it still exists--and thou seest that is what I am coming to--brothers and sisters must often have married each other, until more families were formed."
"Adalgoth, the fairies are riding thee! Thou speakest nonsense!"
"Not at all. And, in short, if it could happen before, it can happen now; and I will have my sister Gotho for my wife."
The old man ran to stop the boy's mouth by force; but the lad evaded him and said:
"I know all that thou wouldst say. The priests from Tridentum would soon get to know of it here, and tell the King's Earl. But I can go with her to some distant land, where no one knows us. And she will go with me, I know."
"Indeed! Thou knowest that already?"
"Yes; I am sure."
"But this thou dost not know, Adalgoth," the old man now said, gravely and decidedly: "that to-night is the last which thou wilt spend upon the 'Iffinger.' Up, Adalgoth! I command thee--I, thy grandfather and guardian! Thou hast a sacred duty to perform--the duty of revenge! Thou wilt fulfil it at the court, and with the army of Totila. A duty bequeathed to thee by thine uncle Wargs--bequeathed to thee by thine ancestor. Thou art now old and strong enough to undertake it. To-morrow, at dawn of day, thou wilt start for the south--for Italia, where King Totila punishes evil-doers, helps the good cause, and fights against that wretch, Cethegus. Follow me to my chamber. I have to hand over to thee a jewel, which was left for thee by thine uncle Wargs, and to give thee many a word of counsel. But do not speak about it to Gotho; do not make her heart heavy. If thou obeyest thine uncle's orders and my counsel, thou wilt become a mighty and joyous hero in King Totila's court. And then, but only then, thou shalt again see Gotho!"
Very grave and pale, the youth followed his grandfather into the house. There, in the old man's chamber, they talked in low voices for a long time.
At supper, Adalgoth was missing.
He sent word to Gotho by their grandfather that he had gone to bed, being more tired than hungry.
But at night, when Gotho slept, he went into her room on tiptoe. The moon threw a soft light upon her angel face.
Adalgoth stopped upon the threshold, and only stretched out his right hand towards her.
"I shall see thee again, my Gotho," he cried, and signed a farewell.
Presently he crossed the threshold of the simple alpine cottage.
The stars had scarcely begun to pale; fresh and exhilarating the night-wind blew from the mountains around his temples.
He looked up at the silent sky.
All at once a falling star shot in a bright semicircle over his head. It fell towards the south.
The youth raised his shepherd's staff, and cried:
"The stars beckon thither! Now beware, Cethegus the traitor!"
On seeing the disastrous result of the battle at the bridge across the Padus, the Prefect had sent messengers back to his troops and the armed citizens of Ravenna, who were following him, to order them to return at once to the latter city. He left the defeated troops of Demetrius to their fate.
Totila had taken all the flags and field-badges of the twelve thousand, a thing which, as Procopius angrily writes, "never before happened to the Romans."
Cethegus himself, with his small band of trusty adherents, hastened across the Æmilia to the west coast of Italy, which he reached at Populonium. There he went on board a swift ship of war, and, favoured by a strong breeze from the north-east (sent, as he said, by the ancient gods of Latium), sailed to the harbour of Rome--Portus.
He could never have succeeded in reaching Rome by land, for, after Totila's victory, all Tuscany and Valeria fell to the Goths; the plains unconditionally, and also such cities as were held by weak Byzantine garrisons.
Near Mucella, a day's march from Florence, the King once again vanquished a powerful army of Byzantines, under the command of eleven disunited leaders, who had gathered together the imperial garrisons of the Tuscan fortresses to block his way. The commander-in-chief of this army, Justinus, escaped to Florence with difficulty.
The King treated his numerous prisoners with such lenity, that very many Italians and imperial mercenaries deserted their flag and joined the Gothic army.
And now all the roads of Central Italy were covered by Goths and natives who hastened to join Totila on his march to Rome.
Arrived at the latter city, Cethegus had at once taken the necessary measures for its defence.
For Totila, after this new victory at Mucella, approached rapidly, scarcely detained by anything but the ovations made to him by the cities and castles on his way, which rivalled each other in opening wide their gates to the conqueror.
The few forts which still resisted were invested by small divisions of Italians, kept in order by a few chosen Gothic troops. Totila was enabled to do this without weakening his army, as, during his march to Rome, his power was increased, like a river, by the inflowing of greater or smaller parties of Goths and Italians. Not only did the Italian peasants join him by thousands, but even the mercenaries of Belisarius, who for months had received no pay, now offered their weapons to the Goths, so that a few days after the arrival of the Prefect, Totila led a very considerable army before the walls of Rome.
With loud hurrahs the troops in the Gothic encampment greeted the arrival of the brave Duke Guntharis, Wisand the bandalarius. Earl Markja, and old Grippa, whose release Totila had procured by exchanging them for the prisoners taken at the battle of the Padus.
And now the almost impossible task was laid upon Cethegus of manning effectually his grandly-designed fortifications. The whole army of Belisarius was missing--besides the greater part of his own soldiers, who were slowly sailing to the harbour of Portcus from Ravenna.
In order, even insufficiently, to defend the entire circle of the ramparts, Cethegus was obliged, not only to demand unusual and unexpected exertions from the Roman legionaries, but also to increase their numbers by despotic measures.
From boys of sixteen years of age to old men of sixty, he called "all the sons of Romulus, Camillus, and Cæsar to arms; to protect the sanctuary of their forefathers against the barbarians."
But his appeal was scarcely read or propagated, and was responded to by very few volunteers; while he saw with mortification that the manifesto of the Gothic King, which was thrown every night over the walls in many places, was carried about and read by crowds; so that he angrily proclaimed that anyone found picking up, pasting on the walls, or reading this manifesto, or in any way facilitating its publication, would be punished by the confiscation of his property or the loss of his liberty.
In spite of this, the manifesto still spread among the citizens, and the list of volunteers remained empty.
He then sent his Isaurians into all the houses to drag boys and old men to the walls by force; and very soon he was more feared, and even hated, than beloved.
His stern will, and the gradual arrival of his troops from Ravenna, alone checked the growing discontent of the Roman population.
But in the Gothic camp messengers of good fortune overtook each other.
Teja and Hildebrand had pursued the Byzantines to the gates of Ravenna.
The defence of that city was conducted by Demetrius, one of the exchanged prisoners, and by Bloody Johannes; that of the harbour town of Classis by Constantianus against Hildebrand, who had won Ariminum in passing, for the citizens had disarmed the Armenian mercenaries of Artasires and opened the gates.
Teja had beaten the troops of the Byzantine general Verus, who had defended the crossing of the Santernus; had killed the general with his own hand, and had then hastened through the whole of North Italy with the manifesto in his left hand, his sword in his right, and in a few weeks had won by force or by persuasion all towns and castles as far as Mediolanum.
But Totila, taught by the experience of the first siege of Rome, would not expose his troops by attempting to storm the formidable defences of the Prefect, and also desired to spare his future capital.
"I will get into Rome with linen wings, and on wooden bridges," he one day said to Duke Guntharis; left to him the investment of the city; and taking all his horsemen with him, marched for Neapolis.
There in the harbour lay, very inefficiently manned, an imperial fleet.
Totila's march upon the Appian Way through South Italy resembled a triumphal procession.
Those districts which had suffered the longest under the yoke of the Byzantines were now most willing to greet the Goths as liberators.
The maidens of Terracina went to meet the King of the Goths with wreaths of flowers.
The people of Minturnæ brought out a golden chariot, made the King descend from his white horse, and dragged him into the town in triumph.
"Look! look!" was the cry in the streets of Casilinum--an ancient place once dedicated to the worship of the Campanian Diana--"Phœbus Apollo himself has descended from Olympus and comes as a saviour to the sanctuary of his sister!"
The citizens of Capua begged him to impress the first gold coins of his reign with the inscription, "Capua revindicata."
Thus it continued until he reached Neapolis; the very same road he had once passed as a wounded fugitive.
The commander of the Armenian mercenaries in Neapolis, who had a very brave but small troop, did not dare to trust the fidelity of the population in case of a siege.
He therefore led his lance-bearers and the armed citizens to meet the King outside the gates.
But before the battle commenced, a man on a white horse rode out of the lines of Goths, took his helmet from his head, and cried:
"Have you forgotten me, men of the Parthenopæian city? I am Totila. You loved me when I was commander of your harbour. You shall bless me as your King. Do you not recollect how I saved in my ships your wives and children from the Huns of Belisarius? Listen. These very wives and children are again in my power; not as fugitives, but as prisoners. To protect them from the Byzantines (perhaps from me also), you sent them into the strong fortress of Cumæ. But know that Cumæ has surrendered, and all the fugitives are in my power. I have been advised to keep them as hostages in order to compel you to capitulate. But that is repugnant to my feelings. I have set them at liberty; the wives of the Roman senators I have sent to Rome. But your wives and children, men of Neapolis, I have brought with me; not as my hostages, not as my prisoners, but as my guests. Look how they stream out of my tents! Open your arms to receive them--they are free! Will you now fight against me? I cannot believe it! Who will be the first to aim at this breast?" and he opened wide his arms.
"Hail to King Totila the Good!" was the universal acclamation.
And the warm-hearted men threw down their weapons, rushed forward, and greeted with tears of joy their liberated wives and children, kissing the hem of Totila's mantle.
The commander of the mercenaries rode up to him.
"My lancers are surrounded and too weak to fight alone. Here, O King, is my sword. I am your prisoner."
"Not so, brave Arsakide! Thou art unconquered--therefore no prisoner. Go with thy troop whither thou wilt."
"Iama prisoner, conquered by your magnanimity and the splendour of your eyes. Permit us henceforward to fight under your flag."
In this manner a chosen troop, who stood by him faithfully, was won for Totila.
Amid a shower of flowers he made his entry into Neapolis through Porta Nolana.
Before Aratius, the admiral of the Byzantine fleets could raise the anchors of his war-ships, their crews were overpowered by the sailors of the many merchant vessels which lay near in the harbour, the masters of which were old admirers and thankfulprotégésof Totila.
Without shedding a drop of blood, the King had gained a fleet and the third city of importance in the kingdom.
In the evenings during the banquet which the rejoicing inhabitants had prepared for him, Totila stole softly away.
With surprise the Gothic sentinels saw their King, all alone, disappear into an old half-fallen tower, close to an ancient olive-tree by the Porta Capuana.
The next day there appeared a decree of Totila which dispensed the women and girls of the Jews of Neapolis from a pole-tax which had, until now, been laid upon them; and which--they being forbidden to carry jewels in public--permitted them to wear a golden heart upon the bosom of their dress as a mark of distinction.
In the neglected garden, where a tall stone cross and a deep-sunk grave were completely overgrown with wild ivy and moss, there presently arose a monument of the most beautiful black marble, with the simple inscription: "Miriam from Valeria."
But there was no one living in Neapolis who understood its meaning.
There now streamed into Neapolis ambassadors from Campania and Samnium, Bruttia and Lucania, Apulia and Calabria, who came to invite the Gothic King to enter their cities as a liberator.
Even the important and strong fortress of Beneventum and the neighbouring forts of Asculum, Canusia, and Acheruntia surrendered at discretion.
In these districts thousands of cases occurred in which the peasants were settled upon the lands of their former masters, who had fallen in battle, or had fled to Byzantium or to Rome.
Besides Rome and Ravenna, there were now in the hands of the Byzantines, only Florentia, held by Justinus; Spoletium, whose joint governors were Bonus and Herodianus; and Perusia, under the Hun, Uldugant.
In a few days the King, reinforced by many Italians from the south of the Peninsula, had new manned his conquered fleet, and left the harbour in full sail, while his horsemen marched by land on the Via Appia to the north.
Rome was the goal of both ships and horse; while Teja, having conquered all the country between Ravenna and the Tiber--Petra and Cæsena fell without bloodshed--the Æmilia and both Tuscanies (the Annonarian and the Sub-urbicarian), marched with a third army on the Flaminian Way against the city of the Prefect.
On hearing of these movements, Cethegus was obliged to acknowledge that the struggle would now begin in good earnest, and, like a dragon in his den, he determined to defend himself to the death.
With a proud and contented look he viewed the ramparts and towers, and said to his brothers-in-arms, who were uneasy at the approach of the Goths:
"Be comforted! Against these invincible walls they shall be broken to pieces for the second time!"
But at heart he was not so easy as his words and looks would seem to indicate.
Not that he ever repented his past deeds or thought his plans unachievable. But that when, after repeated reverses, he appeared to have arrived at the point of success, he should be as far off the goal as ever because of Totila's victories--this feeling had a great effect upon evenhisiron nerves.
"Water wears away a rock!" he said, when his friend Licinius once asked him why he looked so gloomy. "And besides, I cannot sleep as I used to do."
"Since when?"
"Since--Totila! That fair youth has stolen my slumbers!"
Though the Prefect felt so secure and so superior to all his enemies and adversaries, Totila's bright and open nature, and his easily-won success, irritated him so much, that his coolness often melted in the heat of his passion; while Totila went to meet the universally feared foe with a sense of victory which nothing could disquiet.
"He has luck, the downy-beard!" cried Cethegus, when he heard of the easy conquest of Neapolis. "He is as fortunate as Achilles and Alexander. But luckily such god-like youths never grow old! The soft gold of such natures is quickly worn out. We lumps of native iron last longer. I have seen the laurels and roses of the enthusiast, and it seems to me that I shall soon see his cypresses. It cannot be that I shall yield to this maiden soul! Fortune has borne him rapidly to a dizzy height; she will hurl him down as rapidly and dizzily. Will she first carry him over the ramparts of Rome?--Fly then, without effort, young Icarus, in the brightest sunshine. I, through blood and strife, step by step, climb up in the shade. But I shall stand on high when the treacherous and burning kiss of Fortune has melted the wax on thy bold wings. Thou wilt vanish beneath me like a falling star!"
This, however, did not seem likely to happen soon.
Cethegus awaited with impatience the arrival of a numerous fleet from Ravenna, which was to bring him the remainder of his troops, and all who could be spared of the legionaries and the troops of Demetrius, as well as a quantity of provisions.
When these reinforcements had arrived, he would be able to relieve the grumbling Romans from their arduous duties.
For weeks he had comforted the embittered inhabitants with the promise of this fleet.
At last it was announced by a swift-sailer that the fleet had reached Ostia.
Cethegus caused the news to be published in all the streets with a flourish of trumpets, and announced that at the next Ides of October, eight thousand citizens would be relieved from duty on the walls. He also caused double rations of wine to be distributed among the soldiers on the ramparts.
When the Ides of October arrived, thick fog covered Ostia and the sea.
The day after, a little sailing-boat flew from Ostia to Portus. The trembling crew announced that King Totila had attacked the Ravennese triremes with the fleet from Neapolis, under the protection of a thick fog. Of the eighty ships, twenty were burnt or sunk; the remaining sixty, with all their men and provisions, taken.
Cethegus would not believe it.
He hurried on board his own swift boat, theSagitta, and flew down the Tiber.
But with difficulty he escaped the boats of the King, who had already blockaded the harbour of Portus and sent small cruisers up the river.
The Prefect now hastily caused a double river-bolt to be laid across the Tiber; the first consisting of masts; the second of iron chains placed an arrow's length farther up the river. The space between the two bolts was filled with a great number of small boats.
Cethegus felt deeply the blow which had fallen upon him. Not only had his long-wished-for reinforcements fallen into the enemy's hand; not only was he obliged to lay still heavier burdens upon the Romans, who began to curse him, for now the river, too, had to be defended against the constant attempts of the Gothic ships to break through; but with a slight shudder of horror he saw approaching nearer and nearer the most terrible of all enemies--famine.
The water-road, by which he, as formerly Belisarius, had received abundant provisions, was now blocked.
Italy had no third fleet. That of Neapolis and that of Ravenna blockaded Rome under the Gothic flag.
And now the horsemen which Marcus Licinius had sent on the Flaminian Way to reconnoitre and forage, came galloping back with the news that a strong army of Goths, under the dreaded Teja, was approaching at a quick step. The vanguard had already reached Reate.
The day following Rome was also invested on the last side which had remained open--the north--and had nothing left to depend upon but its own citizens.
And the latter were weak enough, however strong might be the Prefect's will and the walls of the city.
Yet for weeks and months Cethegus's stern resolution sustained the despairing defenders against their will.
At last the fall of the city, not by force, but by starvation, was expected daily.
At this juncture an unexpected event occurred, which revived the hopes of the besieged, and put the genius and good fortune of the young King to a hard proof: for there once more appeared upon the scene of battle--Belisarius!
When news arrived in the golden palace of the Cæsars at Byzantium of the lost battles on the Padus and at Mucella; of the renewed siege of Rome, and the loss of Neapolis and almost all Italy, the Emperor Justinian, who had already imagined the West again united to the East, was awakened from his dream of triumph in a terrible manner.
It was now easy for the friends of Belisarius to prove that the recall of that hero had been the origin of all these disasters.
It was clear that as long as Belisarius had been in Italy victory had followed victory; and no sooner had he turned his back, than misfortunes crowded one upon the other.
The Byzantine generals in Italy openly acknowledged that they could not replace Belisarius.
"I am not able," wrote Demetrius from Ravenna, "to meet Totila in the open field. Scarcely am I able to defend this fortress in the marshes. Neapolis has fallen. Rome may surrender any day. Send us again the lion-hearted man, whom, in our vanity, we dreamed we could replace--the conqueror of the Vandals and the Goths."
And Belisarius, although he had sworn never again to serve the ungrateful Emperor, forgot all his wrongs as soon as Justinian smiled upon him. And when, after the fall of Neapolis, he actually embraced him and called him "his faithful sword"--in truth, the Emperor had never believed in the general's rebellion, but was envious of his sovereign position--Belisarius could no longer be restrained by Antonina and Procopius. As, however, the Emperor feared the expense of a second enterprise in Italy (besides that of the Persian wars, which Narses conducted successfully but expensively in Asia), avarice and ambition produced a struggle within him, which would, perhaps, have lasted longer than the resistance of Rome and Ravenna, had not Prince Germanus and Belisarius proposed an expedient. The noble Prince was impelled by the wish to revisit Ravenna and the tomb of Mataswintha, and to revenge her memory on the rude barbarians, for Cethegus had declared that the cause of the tragic end of this incomparable woman was that her mind had been disordered in consequence of her forced marriage with Witichis.
Belisarius, on his side, could not endure that all his fame should be imperilled by Totila's success. "For," asked his enemies at court, "could he really have conquered a people who, within the year, had again almost made themselves masters of Italy?"
He had given his word to annihilate the Goths, and he would keep it.
So, influenced by these motives, Germanus and Belisarius proposed to conquer Italy for the Emperor at their own expense. The Prince offered his whole fortune for the equipment of a fleet; Belisarius all his lately reinforced body-guard and lance-bearers.
"That is a proposition after Justinian's own heart!" cried Procopius, when informed of it by Belisarius. "Not a solidus out of his own pocket! And perhaps the laurels of fame and a province for this world, and the wholesale destruction of heretics to rejoice Heaven and Theodora! You may be sure that he will accept, and give you his fatherly benediction into the bargain. But nothing else. You, Belisarius, I know, can be as little kept back as Balan, your piebald, when he hears the call of the trumpet; but I will not see your lamentable fall."
"Fall? Wherefore, Raven of Misfortune?"
"This time you have both Goths and Italians against you. And you could not conquer the first when Italy wasforyou."
But Belisarius only reproached him with cowardice, and presently went to sea with Germanus.
The Emperor, in fact, gave them nothing but his blessings and the great toe of the holy Mazaspes.
The Byzantines in Italy breathed again when they heard that an imperial fleet had anchored off Salona, in Dalmatia, and that the army had landed.
Even Cethegus, to whom the news was brought by spies, exclaimed with a sigh:
"Better Belisarius in Rome than Totila!"
And the King of the Goths was filled with anxiety. He determined first of all to discover the strength of the Byzantine army, in order to decide upon what course he would take. Perhaps it would be necessary to raise the siege of Rome, and advance to attack the army of relief.
Belisarius sailed from Salona to Pola, where he mustered his ships and men. While there, two men came to him, who announced themselves to be Herulian mercenaries, therefore Goths, but speaking Latin well. They said that they had been sent by Bonus, one of the commanders of Spoletium.
They had succeeded in passing the Gothic lines, and they pressed the commander-in-chief to come to the relief of that place. They begged for exact particulars as to the strength of his army and the number of his ships, in order to be able to revive the sinking courage of the besieged by trustworthy reports.
"Well, my friends," said Belisarius, "you must perforce embellish your report; for the truth is, that the Emperor has left me entirely to my own resources."
All the day long he showed these messengers his army and fleet.
The night following the messengers had disappeared.
They were Thorismuth and Aligern, who had been sent by King Totila, and now furnished him with the much-desired particulars.
So, from the very beginning, fate was against Belisarius, and the whole course of this campaign was unworthy of the fame of that great general.
It is true that he succeeded in running into the harbour of Ravenna, and providing that city with provisions.
But, the very day that he arrived. Prince Germanus was attacked by a fatal malady while visiting the tomb of Mataswintha.
She had been buried in the vault of the palace, near the graves of her brother and the young King Athalaric.
Germanus died, and, according to his last wish, was buried beside the woman he had loved so truly.
In a little niche in the same vault there reposed a heart which had ever beat warmly for Queen "Beautiful-hair."
Aspa, the Numidian slave, would not outlive her beloved mistress.
"In my home," she had said, "the virgins of the Goddess of the Sun often voluntarily leap into the flames which receive the Godhead. Aspa's goddess, the lovely, bright, and kind, has left her. Aspa will not live forlorn in the cold and darkness. She will follow her Sun."
She had heaped up flowers in the death-chamber of her mistress--heaped them still higher than on the day when she had prepared the same small room for a bridal chamber--and had kindled unknown combustibles and African resin, the stupefying odours of which drove away all the other slaves. But Aspa had spent the night in the room.
The next morning Syphax, attracted by the well-known but dangerous odour, which reminded him of his country's sacrificial customs, went softly into the room, which was as silent as the grave. At Mataswintha's feet, her head buried in flowers, he had found his Antelope--dead.
"She died," he told Cethegus, "for love of her mistress. And now I have none left on earth but you."
After the burial of Germanus, Belisarius left Ravenna with the whole fleet.
But his very next undertaking, an attempt to surprise Pisaurum, was repulsed with great loss.
And King Totila, now acquainted with the small number of Belisarius's troops, had sent skirmishers, under the command of Wisand, supported by a few ships of war, to take Firmum, which was situated on the same coast, almost under the generals very eyes.
The Byzantines, Herodian and Bonus, surrendered Spoletium to Earl Grippa, after the lapse of thirty days, during which they had hoped for reinforcements from Belisarius in vain.
In Assisium the commander of the garrison was a man of the name of Sisifrid, a Goth who had deserted in the days of the fall of Witichis.
This man well knew what was in store for him, should he fall into Hildebrand's hands, who besieged the fort in person. Hatred of such treason had enticed the old man from the siege of Ravenna to complete this task of retribution.
The Goth obstinately defended the town, but when, during a sally, the axe of the old master-at-arms sent him to the other world, the citizens obliged the Thracian garrison to yield. Many aristocratic Italians, members of the old Catacomb conspiracy, three hundred Illyrian horsemen, and some chosen body-guards of Belisarius, were taken prisoners.
Immediately afterwards, Placentia, the last town in the Æmilia which was held by a Saracen garrison for the Emperor, was forced to capitulate to Earl Markja, who commanded the small army of investment.
In Bruttia, the fortress of Ruscia, the most important harbour for Thurii, surrendered to the bold Aligern.
Belisarius now despaired of reaching Rome by land. On hearing of the terrible distress of that city, he determined at once to attempt to relieve it by running the blockade of the Gothic fleet.
But as he sailed round the south point of Calabria, off Hydrunt, a fearful storm dispersed his ships; he himself, with a few triremes, was driven southward as far as Sicily, and the greater part of his ships, which had taken refuge in a bay near Croton, were there surprised and taken by a Gothic squadron sent by the King from Rome, which had lain in ambush near Squillacium. These prizes proved to be an important addition to the Gothic fleet, for, as we shall see hereafter, the Goths, were thereby enabled to attack the Byzantines in their islands and coast-towns.
After this blow, the forces of Belisarius, which had been weak from the very first, became completely powerless.
Generalship and valour could not replace missing ships, warriors, and horses.
The hope that the Italians, as in the first campaign, would revolt to the Emperor's commander-in-chief, proved vain.
Thus the whole enterprise was a complete failure, as we are told by Procopius in unsparing words.
The Emperor left all petitions for reinforcements unanswered. And when Antonina repeatedly begged for permission to return, the Empress sent the mocking reply, "that the Emperor dare not venture, for the second time, to interrupt the hero in the course of his victories."
So, lying off Sicily, Belisarius spent a miserable time of doubt and helplessness.