A Struggle for Rome, v. 3

by Felix Dahn

CHAPTER VIII.

And meanwhile the suffering and exhaustion of the citizens in Rome reached its highest point.

Hunger thinned the ranks, never very full, of the defenders on the walls.

The Prefect in vain did his utmost. In vain he had recourse to all possible measures of persuasion or despotism. In vain he lavishly opened his coffers to provide the means of existence for the people.

For the stores of grain which he had procured from Sicily and garnered in the Capitol were exhausted.

He promised incredible rewards to any boat which should succeed in running the blockade of the King's ships and bring provisions to the city; to every mercenary who ventured to creep through the gates and the tents of the besiegers and bring back food.

But Totila's watchfulness was not to be deceived.

At first the promised reward had tempted a few avaricious and daring men to venture out at night. But when Earl Teja, next morning, caused their heads to be thrown over the walls at the Flaminian Gate, even the most venturesome lost all desire to follow their example.

The dung of animals was sold at a high price.

Hungry women fought for the weeds and nettles which they found on the heaps of rubbish.

Long since had hunger taught the populace to eat greedily unheard-of things.

And countless deserters fled from the city to the Goths.

Teja would have forced them to return, in order the sooner to oblige the city to surrender; but Totila gave orders that they should be received and fed, and that care should be taken that they did not injure themselves by the too sudden gratification of their ravenous appetites.

Cethegus now spent his nights upon the walls. At various hours he himself, spear and shield in hand, went the round of the patrols, and sometimes took the place of a sentinel who was overcome with hunger or the want of sleep. His example certainly had the greatest effect on the brave. The two Licinii, Piso, and Salvius Julianus stood by the Prefect and his blindly-devoted Isaurians with enthusiasm.

But not so all Romans; not Balbus, the gormandiser.

"No, Piso," said Balbus one day, "I cannot endure it any longer. It is not in a man's power, at least not in mine. Holy Lucullus! who would have thought that I should ever give my last and largest diamonds for half a rock-marten!"

"I remember the time," answered Piso, laughing, "when you would have put your cook in irons if he had let a lobster boil a minute too long."

"A lobster! Mercy on us! How can you recall such a picture to my mind! I would give my immortal soul for one claw of a lobster, or even for the tail. And never to sleep one's fill! To be awakened, if not by hunger, by the trumpets of the patrol!"

"Look at the Prefect! For the last fourteen days he has not slept fourteen hours. He lies upon his hard shield, and drinks rain-water out of his helmet."

"The Prefect! He need not eat. He lives upon his pride, like the bear on his fat, and sucks his own gall. He is made of nothing but sinews and muscles, pride and hatred! But I--who had accumulated such soft white flesh, that the mice nibbled at me when I slept, thinking that I was a Spanish ham!--Do you know the latest news? A whole herd of fat oxen was driven into the Gothic camp this morning--all from Apulia; darlings of gods and men!"

The next day early Piso, with Salvius Julianus, came to wake the Prefect, who had lain down on the wall by the Porta Portuensis, close to the most important point of defence, the bolt across the river.

"Forgive me for disturbing your rare slumbers."

"I was not asleep; I was awake. Tell me your news, tribune."

"Last night Balbus deserted his post with twenty citizens. They let themselves down from the Porta Latina by ropes. Outside there had been heard all night long the lowing of Apulian herds. It seems that their bellowing was irresistible."

But the smile of the satirist faded away when he looked at the Prefect's face.

"Let a cross thirty feet high be erected before the house of Balbus in the Via Sacra. Every deserter who falls into our hands shall be crucified thereon."

"General--Constantinus abolished the punishment of crucifixion in the name of our Saviour," said Salvius Julianus reprovingly.

"Then I re-introduce the practice in honour of Rome. That Emperor no doubt held it to be impossible that a Roman noble and tribune could desert his post for the sake of roast meat."

"I have other news. I can no longer set the watch on the tower of the Porta Pinciana. Of the sixteen mercenaries nine are either dead or sick."

"Almost the same thing is reported by Marcus Licinius, at the Porta Tiburtina," said Julianus. "Who can ward off the danger which threatens us on all sides?"

"I! and the courage of the Romans. Go! Let the heralds summon all the citizens, who may yet be in the houses, to the Forum Romanum."

"Sir, there are only women, children, and sick people----"

"Obey, tribune!"

And with a dark expression on his face the Prefect descended from the walls, mounted his noble Spanish charger, and, followed by a troop of mounted Isaurians, made a long round through the city, everywhere assuring himself that the sentinels were on the alert, and examining the troops; thus giving the herald time to summon the people, and the latter to obey. He advanced, very slowly, along the right bank of the Tiber. A few ragged people crept out of their huts to stare in dull despair at the passing horsemen. Only at the Bridge of Cestius did the throng become thicker.

Cethegus stopped his horse in order to muster the guard on the bridge.

Suddenly, from the door of a low hut, there rushed a woman with dishevelled hair, holding a child in her arms. Another pulled at her ragged skirt.

"Bread? bread?" she asked; "can stones be softened by tears until they become bread? Oh no! They remain as hard--as hard as that man. Look, children, that is the Prefect of Rome. He upon the black horse, with the crimson crest and the terrible eyes! But I fear him no longer. Look, children! that man forced your father to keep watch on the walls day and night, until he fell dead. Curses on the Prefect of Rome!"

And she shook her fist at the immovable horseman.

"Bread, mother! Give us something to eat," howled the children.

"I have nothing more for you to eat, but plenty to drink! Come!" screamed the woman, and, clasping the elder child round the waist with her right arm, and pressing the younger more firmly to her bosom, she cast herself over the wall into the river.

A cry of horror, followed by curses, ran through the crowd.

"She was mad!" said the Prefect in a loud voice, and rode on.

"No, she was the wisest of us all!" cried a voice from the crowd.

"Silence! Legionaries, sound the trumpets! Forwards! To the Forum!" commanded Cethegus, and the troop of horsemen galloped away.

Across the Fabrician Bridge and through the Carmentalian Gate, the Prefect arrived in the Forum Romanum at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.

The wide space appeared almost empty; the few thousand people who, clad in miserable garments, crouched upon the steps of the temple and halls, or supported themselves on their staffs or spears, made little impression.

"What does the Prefect want?"--"What can he want? we have nothing left but our lives."--"And those he will--" "Do you know that the day before yesterday the coast town Centumcellæ surrendered to the Goths?"--"Yes; the citizens overpowered the Prefect's Isaurians and opened the gates."--"Would that we could follow their example!"--"We must do it soon, or it will be too late."--"Yesterday my brother fell down dead, some boiled nettles still in his mouth. He was too weak to swallow the mess."---"Yesterday in the Forum Boarium a mouse was sold for its weight in gold!"--"For a week I got roasted meat from a butcher--he would not sell the flesh raw."--"You were lucky! They storm all houses where they smell roast meat!"--"But the day before yesterday he was torn to pieces by the mob, for he had enticed beggar-children into his house--and that was the flesh he had sold us!"--"But do you know what the Gothic King does with his prisoners? He treats them as a father treats his helpless children; and most of them enter his army at once."--"Yes, and those who will not he provides with money for the journey."--"Yes, and with clothes and shoes and provisions. The sick and wounded are nursed."--"And he gives them guides to the coast towns."--"And sometimes he even pays for their passage in merchant-ships to the East."--"Look, the Prefect dismounts!"

"He looks like Pluto!"

"He is no longer Princeps Senatus, but Princeps Inferorum."

"Look at his eyes! As cold as ice, and yet like red-hot arrows."

"Yes, my godmother is right; she says that only those who have no heart can look like that."

"That is an old tale. Spectres and Lemures have eaten his heart in the night."

"Ah, bah! There are no Lemures. But there is a devil, for it says so in the Bible. And the Prefect has sold himself to the devil. The Numidian who is holding his black horse by the bridle is an imp from hell, who always accompanies him. Nothing can hurt the Prefect. He feels neither hunger nor thirst nor the want of sleep. But he can never smile, for he has sold his soul!"

"How do you know?"

"The deacon of St. Paul's has explained it all. And it is a sin to serve such a man any longer. Did he not betray our Bishop, Silverius, to the Emperor, and send him over the sea in chains?"

"And lately he accused sixty priests, Orthodox and Arian, of treason, and banished them from the city."

"That is true!"

"And he must have promised the devil that he would torment the Romans."

"But we will endure it no longer. We are free! He himself has often told us so. I will ask him by what right----"

But the bold speaker stopped short, for the Prefect glanced at the murmuring group as he mounted the rostrum.

"Quirites," he began, "I call upon you all to become legionaries. Famine and treachery--a shameful thing to say of Romans!--have thinned the ranks of our defenders. Do you hear the sound of hammers? A crucifix is being erected to punish all deserters. Rome demands still greater sacrifices from her citizens, for they have no choice. The citizens of other towns choose between surrender or destruction. We, who have grown up in the shadow of the Capitol, have no choice; for more than a thousand years of heroism sanctify this place. Here no coward thought dare arise. You cannot again endure to see the barbarians tie their horses to the columns of Trajan. We must make a last effort. The marrow of heroism ripens early in the descendants of Romulus and Cæsar; and late is spent the strength of the men who drink of the waters of the Tiber. I call upon all boys from their twelfth, all men until their eightieth year, to help to man the walls. Silence! Do not murmur. I shall send my tribunes and the lance-bearers into every house--only to prevent boys of too tender years and too aged men from volunteering their services--then why do you murmur? Does any one know of something better? Let him speak out boldly; from this place, which I now vacate in his favour."

At this, the group at which the Prefect looked became perfectly silent.

But behind him, amid those whom his eye could not intimidate, there arose a threatening cry:

"Bread!" "Surrender!" "Bread!"

Cethegus turned.

"Are you not ashamed? You, worthy of your great name, have borne so much, and now, when it is only necessary to hold out a little longer, you would succumb? In a few days Belisarius will bring relief."

"You told us so seven times already!"

"And after the seventh time Belisarius lost almost all his ships.

"Which now aid in blocking our harbour!"

"You should name a term; a limit to this misery. My heart bleeds for this people!"

"Who are you?" the Prefect asked the invisible speaker of the last sentence; "you can be no Roman!"

"I am Pelagius the deacon, a Christian and a priest of the Lord. And I fear not man but God. The King of the Goths, although a heretic, has promised to restore to the orthodox the churches of which his fellow-heretics, the Arians, have deprived them, in every town which surrenders. Three times already has he sent a herald to the citizens of Rome with the most lenient proposals--they have never been permitted to speak to us."

"Be silent, priest! You have no fatherland but heaven; no people but the communion of saints; no army but that of the angels. Manage your heavenly kingdom, but leave to men the kingdom of the Romans."

"But the man of God is right!"

"Set us a term."

"A short one!"

"Till then we will still hold out."

"But if it elapse without relief----"

"Then we will surrender!"

"We will open the gates."

But Cethegus shunned this thought. Not having received news from the outer world for weeks, he had no idea when Belisarius could possibly arrive at the mouth of the Tiber.

"What!" he cried. "Shall I fix a term during which you will remain Romans, and after which you will become cowards and slaves! Honour knows no term!"

"You speak thus, because you do not believe in the reinforcements."

"I speak thus, because I believe in you!"

"But we will have a term. We are resolved. You speak of Roman freedom! Are we free, or are we bound to obey you like your slaves? We demand a term, and we will have it."

"We will have it!" repeated a chorus of voices.

Before Cethegus could reply, the sound of trumpets was heard from the south-eastern corner of the Forum.

From the Via Sacra advanced a crowd of people, citizens and soldiers; in their midst were two horsemen in foreign armour.