The besieged were now obliged to deny themselves the luxury of their baths; the wells in the quarters of the city at a distance from the river scarcely sufficed for drinking water.
But by cutting off the supply of water, the barbarians had also deprived the Romans of bread.
At least it seemed so, for all the water-mills of Rome were stopped.
The garnered grain bought in Sicily by Cethegus, and that which Belisarius had, by force, caused to be brought into Rome from all the neighbouring country, in spite of the outcry of farmers and husbandmen, could no longer be ground.
"Let the mills be turned by asses and oxen!" cried Belisarius.
"Most of the asses and oxen were too wise to allow themselves to be shut up with us here, O Belisarius," said Procopius; "we have only as many as we shall want for the shambles, and it is impossible that they should first drive the mills and then be still fat enough to afford meat to eat with the bread thus gained."
"Then call Martinus. Yesterday, as I stood by the Tiber counting the Gothic tents, I had an idea----"
"Which Martinus must translate from the Belisarian into the possible! Poor man! But I will go and fetch him."
But when, on the evening of the same day, Belisarius and Martinus caused the first boat-mills that the world had ever known to be erected in the Tiber, by means of boats ranged one near the other, Procopius said admiringly:
"The bread of these boat-mills will rejoice men longer than your greatest deeds. Flour, ground in this wise, savours of immortality."