Belisarius, whose generous spirit mourned over the misfortunes of Rome, attempted all sorts of means to succour the unfortunate capital. He caused a large number of barks to be constructed, furnished with boarding all round, to protect the soldiers from the arrows of the enemy. These boards were pierced at certain distances, to afford facility for launching their own bolts and arrows. He caused these barks to be laden with great quantities of provisions, placed himself at the head of them, and, leading with some fire-boats, he ascended the Tiber, and set fire to one of the enemy’s towers. But his enterprise not being seconded, he could not succeed in throwing provisions into the city; grief at his failure produced a sickness which brought him to the brink of the grave. Some Isaurian soldiers, who guarded the gate Asinaria, having slipped along the ramparts in the night by means of a cord, came and offered Totila to give up the city to him. The king having assured himself of their fidelity, and of the possibility of the enterprise, sent with them four of the bravest and strongest Goths, who, having got into the city, opened a gate and admitted the besiegers. Bessus, who commanded in the place, fled away with his troops at the first alarm. In the house of this governor were found heaps of gold and silver, the fruits of his cruel monopolies.
At daybreak the king of the Goths repaired to the church of St. Peter, to return thanks to God for his success. The deacon Pelagius, who awaited him at the entrance of the holy temple, prostrated himself humbly before him, and implored him to save the lives of the inhabitants. Totila, who knew how to pardon as well as to conquer, granted the sacred minister what he asked, and forbade his soldiers, under the strongest penalties, to shed the blood of any one. When this order was given, the Goths had already slain twenty soldiers and sixty citizens. These were the only victims of the brutality of the victors; but if he spared the lives of the inhabitants, he deprived them of all means to support them. Rome was abandoned to pillage for several days, and nothing was left to the citizens but the bare walls of their houses. Senators, formerly opulent and proud, were seen covered with miserable rags, reduced to beg their bread from door to door, and live upon the alms they received from the barbarians.
Totila was preparing to demolish Rome; he had already levelled a third of the walls, and was about to set fire to the most superb edifices of the city, when he received a letter from Belisarius, which diverted him from his design. “To found cities,” said this great man, “to maintain flourishing cities, is to serve society and immortalize ourselves; to overthrow and destroy them, is to declare ourselves the enemies of mankind, and dishonour ourselves for ever. By the agreement of all peoples, the city into which you have entered, in consequence of your victory, is the greatest and most magnificent under heaven. It is not the work of a single man, or a single army. During more than thirteen centuries, a long line of kings, consuls, and emperors have disputed the glory of embellishing it, and the superb edifices it presents to your eyes are so many monuments which consecrate their memories; to destroy them is to outrage the past centuries, of which they eternize the remembrance, and to deprive future ages of a magnificent spectacle. My lord, reflect that fortune must declare itself in favour of you or my master. If you remain the conqueror, how you will regret having destroyed your most splendid conquest! If you should succumb, the treatment you have inflicted upon Rome will serve as a rule by which Justinian will treat you. The eyes of the universe are upon you; it awaits the part you are about to take, to accord you the title which will be for ever attached to the name of Totila.” Persuaded by this eloquent appeal, the king of the Goths contented himself with depopulating the city of Rome, in which he did not leave a single inhabitant.
Forty days after the retreat of Totila, Belisarius transported himself to Rome, with the design of repeopling that famous city, and repairing its ruins. He soon put it in a state to sustain a new siege. Upon learning this, the king of the Goths quickly returned, and during three days made several attacks upon the city; but Belisarius repulsed them all, and forced him to retire with great loss.
TENTH SIEGE, A.D. 549.
In 549, Totila, without being discouraged by his defeat, once more laid siege to the capital of Italy. Diogenes, who commanded there, had had wheat sown within the inclosure of the walls, which might have supported the garrison some time. But the city was again betrayed by the Isaurians. The soldiers of that nation, dissatisfied with not having received their pay for some years, and having learnt that their companions had been magnificently rewarded by Totila, resolved to follow their example. They agreed with the king of the Goths to open the gate confided to their guard, which perfidy they executed at the time appointed. Totila caused his trumpets to be sounded at the side opposite to that by which he entered the city. The garrison immediately hastened where the danger seemed most pressing, and by this artifice the Goths met with no resistance. The commander of the Roman cavalry, named Paul of Cilicia, seeing that the city was taken, shut himself up, with four hundred horse, in the mausoleum of Adrian, and took possession of the bridge which leads to the church of St. Peter. He was attacked by the Goths, whose efforts he so warmly repulsed, that Totila determined to reduce his party by famine. This intrepid little band remained a day and a night without taking food, and then determined to die with honour. After taking a last farewell, and embracing each other, they opened the gates with a determination to fall upon the enemy like desperate men, when Totila proposed moderate and honourable conditions to them. They accepted them, and all took arms under his banner. Totila, become master of Rome a second time, restored it to its pristine splendour, and re-established as many of the citizens as could be found.—Narses, the general of the empire, having conquered and killed Totila, retook Rome, which opposed but a feeble resistance.
ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1084.
We have seen Rome besieged in its early days, when its walls were of mud; we have seen it besieged by its own sons, by the Gauls, by the barbarians; but it was still, as a warlike city, the head of a kingdom, a republic, an empire. We have now to see it besieged in a new character,—as the seat of the head of the Christian world. As if Rome was destined always to be royal, she took the same place with regard to the Church she had occupied as a temporal power; and every reader of history will allow that there has not been much less ambition, strife, and political chicanery in the latter state than in any of the former. From its foundation, Rome has always been Rome, seldom or never at rest, either within itself or with its neighbours.
“The long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the zeal and ambition of the haughty Gregory VII. Henry III., king of Germany and Italy, and afterwards emperor of the West, and the pope had degraded each other; and each had seated a rival on the temporal or spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy to assume the imperial crown, and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the Church. But the Roman people adhered to the cause of Gregory: their resolution was fortified by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany. In the fourth year he corrupted, it is said, with Byzantine gold, the nobles of Rome. The gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages were delivered into his hands; the anti-pope, Clement III., was consecrated in the Lateran; the grateful pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican, and the emperor fixed his residence in the Capitol, as the successor of Augustus and Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septigonium were still defended by the nephew of Gregory; the pope himself was invested in the castle of St. Angelo, and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries and complaints; but on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by the obligation of his oath, by his interest,—more potent than oaths,—by the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles; the most numerous of his armies, thirty thousand foot and six thousand horse, was instantly assembled, and his march from Salerno to Rome was animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favour. Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach; recollecting some indispensable affairs that required his presence in Lombardy, he exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance, and hastily retired, three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less than three years, the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors of the East and West to fly before his victorious arms. But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or scaled, but the imperial faction was still powerful and active; on the third day the people rose in a furious tumult, and a hasty word of the conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage. The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and the auxiliaries of his brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the holy city of the Christians; and many thousands of the citizens, in the sight and by the allies of their spiritual father, were exposed to violation, captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran to the Colosseum, was consumed by the flames, and devoted to perpetual solitude.”[3]