The vultures despised the corpses of the victims of pestilence; but human flesh was devoured by men. Mothers killed and ate their newly-born children.
In a farm near Ariminum only two Roman women had remained alive. These women murdered and devoured, one after another, seventeen men, who, singly, had sought a shelter in their house. The eighteenth awoke as they were about to strangle him in his sleep. He killed the fiendish women, and discovered the fate of their earlier victims.
Lastly, the hopes placed in the Franks and Longobardians were utterly destroyed.
The Franks, who had already received large sums for the promised army of alliance, were silent. The messengers of the King, who were sent to urge the fulfilment of their promise, were detained at Mettis, Aurelianum, and Paris; no answer came from these courts.
The King of the Longobardians sent word that he could decide nothing without the consent of his warlike son Alboin. That the latter was absent in search of adventures. Perhaps he would at some time reach Italy; he was an intimate friend of Narses. Then he could observe the country for himself, and advise his father and his countrymen as to the course to be taken.
It is true that the important fortress of Auximum withstood, for months, all the efforts of the powerful army which besieged it under Belisarius, accompanied by Procopius. But it wrung the King's heart when a messenger (who had, with much difficulty, stolen his way through the two investing armies to Ravenna) brought him the following message from the heroic Earl Wisand:
"When Auximum was entrusted to my care, thou saidst that therewith I should hold the keys of Ravenna; yea, of the kingdom. Thou badest me resist manfully until thou camest thyself with thy whole army to my assistance. We have manfully resisted not only Belisarius, but famine. Where is thy relief? Woe to us if thy words are true, and with this fortress the keys of our kingdom fall into the enemy's hands! Come therefore, and help us; more for the kingdom's sake than for our own!"
This messenger was soon followed by a second: Burcentius, a soldier belonging to the besieging army, who had been bribed with much gold. His message ran--the short letter was written in blood:
"We have now only the weeds that grow between the stones to eat. We cannot hold out longer than four days more."
As this last messenger was returning with the King's reply, he fell into the hands of the besiegers, who burnt him alive in sight of the Goths before the walls of Auximum.