A Struggle for Rome, v. 3

by Felix Dahn

This proceeding was considerably facilitated by the now general desertion of the Gothic cause on the part of the Italians. The benevolent King, who had once won their sympathies, had been succeeded by a gloomy hero of terrible reputation. And all who hesitated were speedily drawn over to the other side, not by inclination to the rule of Byzantium, but from fear of Narses and of the Emperor's severity, who threatened all who took the part of the barbarians with death.

The Italians who still served in Teja's army now deserted and hastened to Narses. It also happened much more frequently than before the battle of Taginæ, that Gothic settlers were betrayed to the Romani by their Italian neighbours, generally by the hospes, who had been obliged to relinquish a third of his property to the Goths; or, where the Italians were in the majority, the Goths were either killed, or taken prisoners and delivered up to the two Byzantine fleets, the "Tyrrhenian" and the "Ionian," which, sailing along the coasts of those seas, accompanied the march of the land forces and received all the captured Goths on board--men, women, and children.

The forts and towns, weakly garrisoned--for Teja had been obliged to strengthen his small army by lessening their numbers--generally fell by means of the Italian population, who now overpowered the Gothic garrison, as, after Totila's election, they had done the imperial. Thus fell, during the progress of the war, Namia, Spoletium and Perusia; the few towns which resisted were invested.

So Narses resembled a strong man who walks with outstretched arms through a narrow passage, pursuing all who try to hide themselves before him. Or a fisher, who wades up a stream with a sack-net; behind him all is empty. The few Goths who could yet save themselves fled before the "iron roller" to the army of the King, which soon consisted of a greater number of the defenceless than of warriors.

The Visigoths were again engaged in migration, just as they had been a hundred years before, but this time the iron net of Narses was behind them; and before them, as they advanced farther and farther into the constantly narrowing peninsula, the sea. And not a ship did they possess in which to fly.

CHAPTER II.

Added to this, an inevitable necessity reduced the number of Goths in the King's army capable of bearing arms in the most frightful manner.

From the very commencement of the pursuit, Cethegus, with his mercenaries, and Alboin with his Longobardians, had stuck to the heels of the fugitives, and consequently, if the retreat of the Gothic army--already delayed by the number of women, children, and aged people who had joined it--was not to be brought to a complete standstill, it was necessary to sacrifice each night a small number of heroes, who halted at some spot suitable for their design, and held the pursuers at bay by an obstinate, fearless, and hopeless resistance, until the main army had again gained a considerable advance.

This cruel, but only possible expedient, always entailed the loss of at least fifty men, and often, where the place to be defended had a wider front, a much greater number.

Before King Teja marched from Spes Bonorum, he had explained this plan to the assembled army; his faithful troops silently assented to it. And every morning the "death-doomed" volunteered so eagerly to join this forlorn hope, that King Teja--with humid eyes--made them draw lots, not wishing to offend any one by the preference of others. For the Goths, who saw nothing before them but the certain destruction of the nation, and many of whom knew that their wives and children had fallen into the enemy's hands, vied with each other in seeking death.