"You should name a term; a limit to this misery. My heart bleeds for this people!"
"Who are you?" the Prefect asked the invisible speaker of the last sentence; "you can be no Roman!"
"I am Pelagius the deacon, a Christian and a priest of the Lord. And I fear not man but God. The King of the Goths, although a heretic, has promised to restore to the orthodox the churches of which his fellow-heretics, the Arians, have deprived them, in every town which surrenders. Three times already has he sent a herald to the citizens of Rome with the most lenient proposals--they have never been permitted to speak to us."
"Be silent, priest! You have no fatherland but heaven; no people but the communion of saints; no army but that of the angels. Manage your heavenly kingdom, but leave to men the kingdom of the Romans."
"But the man of God is right!"
"Set us a term."
"A short one!"
"Till then we will still hold out."
"But if it elapse without relief----"
"Then we will surrender!"