Hungry women fought for the weeds and nettles which they found on the heaps of rubbish.
Long since had hunger taught the populace to eat greedily unheard-of things.
And countless deserters fled from the city to the Goths.
Teja would have forced them to return, in order the sooner to oblige the city to surrender; but Totila gave orders that they should be received and fed, and that care should be taken that they did not injure themselves by the too sudden gratification of their ravenous appetites.
Cethegus now spent his nights upon the walls. At various hours he himself, spear and shield in hand, went the round of the patrols, and sometimes took the place of a sentinel who was overcome with hunger or the want of sleep. His example certainly had the greatest effect on the brave. The two Licinii, Piso, and Salvius Julianus stood by the Prefect and his blindly-devoted Isaurians with enthusiasm.
But not so all Romans; not Balbus, the gormandiser.
"No, Piso," said Balbus one day, "I cannot endure it any longer. It is not in a man's power, at least not in mine. Holy Lucullus! who would have thought that I should ever give my last and largest diamonds for half a rock-marten!"
"I remember the time," answered Piso, laughing, "when you would have put your cook in irons if he had let a lobster boil a minute too long."
"A lobster! Mercy on us! How can you recall such a picture to my mind! I would give my immortal soul for one claw of a lobster, or even for the tail. And never to sleep one's fill! To be awakened, if not by hunger, by the trumpets of the patrol!"
"Look at the Prefect! For the last fourteen days he has not slept fourteen hours. He lies upon his hard shield, and drinks rain-water out of his helmet."