PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Thenceforth King Totila held his court in Rome with much splendour and rejoicing.
The heaviest task of all the war seemed to be completed.
After the fall of Rome, most of the small forts on the coast and in the Apennines opened their gates; very few remained to be taken by siege.
For this purpose the King sent forth his generals, Teja, Guntharis, Grippa, Markja, and Aligern; while he himself undertook the difficult political task of reducing to order the kingdom so long disturbed by war or rebellion. He had, indeed, almost to refound it.
He sent his dukes and earls into the towns and districts to carry out his intentions in all departments of the state; particularly to protect the Italians from the vengeance of the victorious Goths. He had published from the Capitol a general amnesty; excluding only one person: the ex-Prefect, Cornelius Cethegus Cæsarius.
Everywhere he caused the destroyed churches, both Catholic and Arian, to be restored; everywhere the landed property was settled, the taxes newly-laid and diminished.
The beneficial results of all this care were not long in making themselves felt.
Even when Totila had first assumed the crown and issued his manifesto, had the Italians resumed the long-neglected cultivation of the land. The Gothic soldiers were directed to refrain from disturbing this important work, and to do all in their power to prevent any such disturbance on the part of the Byzantines.