For weeks he had comforted the embittered inhabitants with the promise of this fleet.
At last it was announced by a swift-sailer that the fleet had reached Ostia.
Cethegus caused the news to be published in all the streets with a flourish of trumpets, and announced that at the next Ides of October, eight thousand citizens would be relieved from duty on the walls. He also caused double rations of wine to be distributed among the soldiers on the ramparts.
When the Ides of October arrived, thick fog covered Ostia and the sea.
The day after, a little sailing-boat flew from Ostia to Portus. The trembling crew announced that King Totila had attacked the Ravennese triremes with the fleet from Neapolis, under the protection of a thick fog. Of the eighty ships, twenty were burnt or sunk; the remaining sixty, with all their men and provisions, taken.
Cethegus would not believe it.
He hurried on board his own swift boat, the Sagitta, and flew down the Tiber.
But with difficulty he escaped the boats of the King, who had already blockaded the harbour of Portus and sent small cruisers up the river.
The Prefect now hastily caused a double river-bolt to be laid across the Tiber; the first consisting of masts; the second of iron chains placed an arrow's length farther up the river. The space between the two bolts was filled with a great number of small boats.
Cethegus felt deeply the blow which had fallen upon him. Not only had his long-wished-for reinforcements fallen into the enemy's hand; not only was he obliged to lay still heavier burdens upon the Romans, who began to curse him, for now the river, too, had to be defended against the constant attempts of the Gothic ships to break through; but with a slight shudder of horror he saw approaching nearer and nearer the most terrible of all enemies--famine.