"Let them fly! Ravenna is strong. It will hold out. Do you not hear? The Goth is going to Rome! We must get there before him. Follow me to the coast--the way by sea is open. To Rome!"
CHAPTER III.
Lovely--famed far and wide for its beauty--is the valley in which the Passara flows from the north into the rapid Athesis, which hurries from the west to the south-east.
Like a bending figure, which leans longingly towards the beautiful Southland, the lofty Mendola rises at a distance from the right bank of the river.
Here, above the junction of the two streams, once lay the Roman settlement of Mansio Majæ.
A little farther up the river, on a dominating rock, stood the Castle of Teriolis.
Now--from a mountain-"muhr" or "mar" (landslip)--the town is called Meran.
The Castle has given its name to the Tyrol.
"Mansio Majæ" is heard even now in the name of the place "Mais," rich in pleasant villas.
But at the time of which we speak an East Gothic garrison lay in the Castle of Teriolis, as was the case in all the old Rhætian rock-nests on the Athesis, the Isarcus, and the œnus, in order to keep down the only half-subjected Suevi, Alamanni, and Markomanni, or, as they were already named, the Bajuvars, who dwelt in Rhætia, on the Licus, and on the lower course of the œnus.