Totila had taken all the flags and field-badges of the twelve thousand, a thing which, as Procopius angrily writes, "never before happened to the Romans."
Cethegus himself, with his small band of trusty adherents, hastened across the Æmilia to the west coast of Italy, which he reached at Populonium. There he went on board a swift ship of war, and, favoured by a strong breeze from the north-east (sent, as he said, by the ancient gods of Latium), sailed to the harbour of Rome--Portus.
He could never have succeeded in reaching Rome by land, for, after Totila's victory, all Tuscany and Valeria fell to the Goths; the plains unconditionally, and also such cities as were held by weak Byzantine garrisons.
Near Mucella, a day's march from Florence, the King once again vanquished a powerful army of Byzantines, under the command of eleven disunited leaders, who had gathered together the imperial garrisons of the Tuscan fortresses to block his way. The commander-in-chief of this army, Justinus, escaped to Florence with difficulty.
The King treated his numerous prisoners with such lenity, that very many Italians and imperial mercenaries deserted their flag and joined the Gothic army.
And now all the roads of Central Italy were covered by Goths and natives who hastened to join Totila on his march to Rome.
Arrived at the latter city, Cethegus had at once taken the necessary measures for its defence.
For Totila, after this new victory at Mucella, approached rapidly, scarcely detained by anything but the ovations made to him by the cities and castles on his way, which rivalled each other in opening wide their gates to the conqueror.
The few forts which still resisted were invested by small divisions of Italians, kept in order by a few chosen Gothic troops. Totila was enabled to do this without weakening his army, as, during his march to Rome, his power was increased, like a river, by the inflowing of greater or smaller parties of Goths and Italians. Not only did the Italian peasants join him by thousands, but even the mercenaries of Belisarius, who for months had received no pay, now offered their weapons to the Goths, so that a few days after the arrival of the Prefect, Totila led a very considerable army before the walls of Rome.
With loud hurrahs the troops in the Gothic encampment greeted the arrival of the brave Duke Guntharis, Wisand the bandalarius. Earl Markja, and old Grippa, whose release Totila had procured by exchanging them for the prisoners taken at the battle of the Padus.