"Yes, my Adalgoth, thou speakest prophecy;" and Teja swung his sword in a circle round his head. "Doomed to death!"
BOOK VI.
TEJA
"I have now to describe a most remarkable battle, and the high heroism of the man who was inferior to none of the heroes--of Teja."--Procopius: Gothic War, iv. 35.
CHAPTER I.
The destiny of the Goths was soon to be fulfilled. The rolling stone approached the abyss.
When Narses came to his senses and learned what had taken place, he gave orders at once to arrest Liberius and send him to Byzantium to answer for his conduct.
"I will not say," he said to his confidant, Basiliskos, "that he has come to a false decision. I myself could not have done otherwise. But I should have done it for different reasons. His only wish was to save his friend and the ten thousand prisoners. That was wrong. Situated as he was, he ought to have sacrificed them, for he could not overlook the actual condition of the war. He did not know, as I know, that after this battle the Gothic kingdom is lost--whether it be completely destroyed at Rome or Neapolis is indifferent--and that alone would have been, and is, the reason for which the ten thousand should be saved."
"At Neapolis? But why not at Rome? Do you not remember the formidable fortifications of the Prefect? Why should not the Goths throw themselves into Rome and resist for months?"
"Why? Because things are very different with regard to Rome. But the Goths know this as little as Liberius. And Cethegus--above all--must know nothing of it yet; therefore be silent. Where is the Prefect of Rome?"