A cry from the Byzantines--Belisarius fell backwards from his horse.
All was over.
"Belisarius down! Woe, woe! All is lost!" cried the Byzantines, as the tall form disappeared, and fled madly towards the camp.
A few ran on without pause until they reached the gates of Rome.
It was in vain that the lance and spear-bearers threw themselves desperately against the Goths; they could only save their chief, but not the battle.
The first sword-stroke of Hildebad, who now rushed up to Belisarius, was received on the faithful breast of Maxentius. But also a Gothic horseman, who was the next to reach the place, and who had killed seven men before he could make his way to the magister militum, fell from his horse. His followers found him pierced by thirteen wounds. But he was still alive, and he was one of the few who fought through and outlived the whole war--Wisand, the bandelarius.
Belisarius, who, lifted on to his horse by Aigan and Valentinus, his groom, had quickly recovered his senses, raised his general's staff in vain, and cried to the fugitives to stand. They could not and would not hear. In vain he struck at them right and left; he was irresistibly carried away by the press to the very camp.
There, behind the solid gates, he at last succeeded in arresting the pursuit of the Goths.
"All honour is lost," he said indignantly; "let us at least save our lives."
With these words he closed the gates, without any regard to the large masses of people still outside.