The water-road, by which he, as formerly Belisarius, had received abundant provisions, was now blocked.
Italy had no third fleet. That of Neapolis and that of Ravenna blockaded Rome under the Gothic flag.
And now the horsemen which Marcus Licinius had sent on the Flaminian Way to reconnoitre and forage, came galloping back with the news that a strong army of Goths, under the dreaded Teja, was approaching at a quick step. The vanguard had already reached Reate.
The day following Rome was also invested on the last side which had remained open--the north--and had nothing left to depend upon but its own citizens.
And the latter were weak enough, however strong might be the Prefect's will and the walls of the city.
Yet for weeks and months Cethegus's stern resolution sustained the despairing defenders against their will.
At last the fall of the city, not by force, but by starvation, was expected daily.
At this juncture an unexpected event occurred, which revived the hopes of the besieged, and put the genius and good fortune of the young King to a hard proof: for there once more appeared upon the scene of battle--Belisarius!
CHAPTER VII.
When news arrived in the golden palace of the Cæsars at Byzantium of the lost battles on the Padus and at Mucella; of the renewed siege of Rome, and the loss of Neapolis and almost all Italy, the Emperor Justinian, who had already imagined the West again united to the East, was awakened from his dream of triumph in a terrible manner.