When fear or hunger led the Goths to evacuate Alba, Porto, and Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia), their place was soon supplied; the garrisons of Narni, Spoleto, and Perusia were reinforced, and the seven camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the calamities of a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius, bishop of Milan, were not without effect; and he obtained one thousand Thracians and Isaurians to assist the revolt of Liguria against her Arian tyrant. At the same time, John the Sanguinary, the nephew of Vitalian, was detached with two thousand chosen horse, first to Alba on the Fucine Lake, and afterwards to the frontiers of Picenum on the Adriatic Sea. “In that province,” said Belisarius, “the Goths have deposited their families and treasures, without a guard or suspicion of danger. Doubtless they will violate the truce; let them feel your presence, before they hear of your motions. Spare the Italians; suffer not any fortified places to remain hostile in your rear; and faithfully reserve the spoil for an equal and common partition. It would not be reasonable,” he added, with a laugh, “that whilst we are toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more fortunate brethren should rifle and enjoy the honey.”
LAST EFFORTS OF THE GOTHS (538 A.D.)
[538 A.D.]
The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the attack, and was almost entirely consumed in the siege, of Rome. If any credit be due to an intelligent spectator, one-third at least of their enormous host was destroyed, in frequent and bloody combats under the walls of the city. The bad fame and pernicious qualities of the summer air might already be imputed to the decay of agriculture and population; and the evils of famine and pestilence were aggravated by their own licentiousness, and the unfriendly disposition of the country. While Witiges struggled with his fortune; while he hesitated between shame and ruin; his retreat was hastened by domestic alarms. The king of the Goths was informed by messengers, that John the Sanguinary spread the devastations of war from the Apennine to the Adriatic; that the rich spoils and innumerable captives of Picenum were lodged in the fortifications of Rimini (Ariminum); and that this formidable chief had defeated his uncle, insulted his capital, and seduced, by secret correspondence, the fidelity of his wife, the imperious daughter of Amalasuntha. Yet, before he retired, Witiges made a last effort either to storm or to surprise the city. A secret passage was discovered by one of the aqueducts; two citizens of the Vatican were tempted by bribes to intoxicate the guards of the Aurelian gate; an attack was meditated on the walls beyond the Tiber in a place which was not fortified with towers; and the barbarians advanced with torches and scaling-ladders to the assault of the Pincian gate. But every attempt was defeated by the intrepid vigilance of Belisarius and his band of veterans, who, in the most perilous moments, did not regret the absence of their companions; and the Goths, alike destitute of hope and subsistence, clamorously urged their departure, before the truce should expire, and the Roman cavalry should again be united.
One year and nine days after the commencement of the siege, an army, so lately strong and triumphant, burned their tents, and tumultuously repassed the Milvian bridge. They repassed not with impunity: their thronging multitudes, oppressed in a narrow passage, were driven headlong into the Tiber by their own fears and the pursuit of the enemy; and the Roman general, sallying from the Pincian gate, inflicted a severe and disgraceful wound on their retreat. The slow length of a sickly and desponding host was heavily dragged along the Flaminian way; from whence the barbarians were sometimes compelled to deviate, lest they should encounter the hostile garrisons that guarded the high-road to Rimini and Ravenna. Yet so powerful was this flying army, that Witiges spared ten thousand men for the defence of the cities which he was most solicitous to preserve, and detached his nephew Uraias, with an adequate force, for the chastisement of rebellious Milan.
At the head of his principal army, Uraias besieged Rimini, only thirty-three miles distant from the Gothic capital. A feeble rampart and a shallow ditch were maintained by the skill and valour of John the Sanguinary, who shared the danger and fatigue of the meanest soldier, and emulated, on a theatre less illustrious, the military virtues of his great commander. The towers and battering engines of the barbarians were rendered useless; their attacks were repulsed; and the tedious blockade, which reduced the garrison to the last extremity of hunger, afforded time for the union and march of the Roman forces. A fleet, which had surprised Ancona, sailed along the coast of the Adriatic, to the relief of the besieged city. The eunuch Narses landed in Picenum with two thousand Heruli and five thousand of the bravest troops of the East. The rock of the Apennine was forced; ten thousand veterans moved round the foot of the mountains, under the command of Belisarius himself; and a new army, whose encampment blazed with innumerable lights, appeared to advance along the Flaminian way. Overwhelmed with astonishment and despair, the Goths abandoned the siege of Rimini, their tents, their standards, and their leaders; and Witiges, who gave or followed the example of flight, never halted till he found a shelter within the walls and morasses of Ravenna.
JEALOUSY OF THE ROMAN GENERALS
[538-539 A.D.]
To these walls, and to some fortresses destitute of any mutual support, the Gothic monarchy was now reduced. The provinces of Italy had embraced the party of the emperor; and his army, gradually recruited to the number of twenty thousand men, must have achieved an easy and rapid conquest, if their invincible powers had not been weakened by the discord of the Roman chiefs. In the confidence of approaching victory, they instigated a powerful rival to oppose the conqueror of Rome and Africa. From the domestic service of the palace, and the administration of the private revenue, Narses the eunuch was suddenly exalted to the head of an army; and the spirit of a hero, who afterwards equalled the merit and glory of Belisarius, served only to perplex the operations of the Gothic war. To his prudent counsels, the relief of Rimini was ascribed by the leaders of the discontented faction, who exhorted Narses to assume an independent and separate command. The epistle of Justinian had indeed enjoined his obedience to the general; but the dangerous exception, as far as may be advantageous to the public service, reserved some freedom of judgment to the discreet favourite, who had so lately departed from the sacred and familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise of this doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to the siege of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and marched away to the conquest of the Æmilian province.
The fierce and formidable bands of the Heruli were attached to the person of Narses; ten thousand Romans and confederates were persuaded to march under his banners; every malcontent embraced the fair opportunity of revenging his private or imaginary wrongs; and the remaining troops of Belisarius were divided and dispersed from the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the Adriatic. His skill and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Urbino was taken; the sieges of Fæsulæ (Urbs Vetus), Orvieto (Fiesole), and Auximum (Osmio), were vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was recalled to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions were healed, and all opposition was subdued, by the temperate authority of the Roman general, to whom his enemies could not refuse their esteem; and Belisarius inculcated the salutary lesson that the forces of the state should compose one body, and be animated by one soul. But, in the interval of discord, the Goths were permitted to breathe; an important season was lost, Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of Italy were afflicted by an inundation of the Franks.