In spite of all efforts, the state of his people became more hopeless every month. With the single exception of the battle fought and won on the march to Rome, fortune had never smiled upon the Goths.
The siege of Rome, undertaken with such proud hopes, had ended in a woeful retreat and the loss of three-fourths of the army. New strokes of fortune, bad news that followed each other like rapid blows, increased the King's depression, until it degenerated into a state of dull despair.
Almost all Italy, except Ravenna, was lost. Belisarius, while yet in Rome, had sent a fleet to Genoa, under the command of Mundila the Herulian, and Ennes the Isaurian. The troops had landed without resistance, had conquered the sea-ruling harbour of Genoa, and, from that point, almost all Liguria.
Datius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, himself invited the Byzantines to that important city. Thence they easily won Bergomum, Comum, and Novaria.
On the other side, the discouraged Goths in Clusium and the half-ruined Dertona surrendered to the besiegers and were led prisoners out of Italy.
Urbinum, after a brave resistance, was taken by the Byzantines; also Forum Cornelii and the whole district of Æmilia by Johannes. The Goths failed to retake Ancona, Ariminum, and Mediolanum.
Still worse news presently arrived to increase the despondency of the King. For meanwhile famine was making ravages in the wide districts of Æmilia, Picenum and Tuscany.
There were neither men, cattle, nor horses to serve the plough. The people fled into the woods and mountains, made bread of acorns, and devoured grass and weeds.
Devastating maladies were the consequence of insufficient or unwholesome nourishment.
In Picenum alone perished fifty thousand souls; a still greater number succumbed to hunger and pestilence on the other side of the Ionian Gulf, in Dalmatia, Pale and thin, those still living tottered to the grave; their skins became black and like leather; their glassy eyes started from the sockets; their intestines burned as if with fire.