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numbers and fierce aspect of the barbarians. He proposed a
treaty, solicited a reconciliation, and offered to bind himself by
the most solemn oaths. "By what oaths can he bind himself?"
interrupted the indignant Moors. "Will he swear by the gospels,
the divine books of the Christians? It was on those books that
the faith of his nephew Sergius was pledged to eighty of our inno-
cent and unfortunate brethren. Before we trust them a second
time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement of perjury and the
vindication of their own honour." Their honour was vindicated
in the field of Tebeste,11 by the death of Solomon and the
total loss of his army. The arrival of fresh troops and more [A.D.;544]
skilful commanders, soon checked the insolence of the Moors;
seventeen of their princes were slain in the same battle; and
the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes was cele-
brated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople.
Successive inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one
third of the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors con-
tinued to reign above a century over Carthage and the fruitful
coast of the Mediterranean. But the victories and the losses of
Justinian were alike pernicious to mankind; and such was the
desolation of Africa that in many parts a stranger might wander
whole days without meeting the face either of a friend or an
enemy. The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once
amounted to an hundred and sixty thousand warriors, without
including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their numbers
were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families
extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was

tom. ii. p. 442, 443. Shaw's Travels, p. 64, 65, 66). [The road was constructed
in A.D. 123.
See C. I. L., 8, p. 865 and inscr. No. 10,048, sqq. Theveste (the
name suggested Thebes, and hence the town was known as Hecatompylos; cf.
Diodorus 4, 18) was rebuilt by Justinian after the Moorish victories of Solomon, as
the following inscription records (C. I. L., 8, 1863):-

Nutu divino feliciss. temporib. piissimor. dominor. nostror. Iustiniani et Theodoræ Augg. post abscisos ex Africa Vandalos extinctamque per Solomonem gloriosiss. et excell. magistro militum ex consul. præfect. Libyæ ac patricio universam Maurusiam gentem provi (dentia ejus) dem æminentissimi viri Theveste (civitas) a (f)undament. ædificata est.]

[The battle was fought near Cillium, or Colonia Cillitana (now Kasrin), s.e. of Theveste, and a little north of Thelepte. See Victor Tonn, in the improved text of Mommsen (Chron. Min. 2, p. 201): Stuzas tyrannus gentium multitudine adunata Solomoni magistro militiæ ac patricio Africa ceterisque Romanæ militiæ ducibus Cillio occurrit. ubi congressione facta peccantis Africæ Romanæ reipublicæ militia superatur, Solomon utriusque potestatis vir strenuus prælio moritur. (For Cillium cp. C. I. L., 8, 210.) Solomon was assisted not only by his two nephews but by Cusina, chief of a Moorish tribe which, driven out of Byzacium by Solomon in 535 (Procop. B. V. 2, 10), was now established in the neighbourhood of Lambaesis. Cp. Corippus, Joh., 3405 sqq. For a full account see Partsch, Proœm. p. xviii.-xx.]

Revolt of the
Goths. A.D.

540

[dibad]

retaliated on the Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their mutual quarrels, and the rage of the Barbarians. When Procopius first landed, he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty years, that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by the wars and government of the emperor Justinian.12

The jealousy of the Byzantine court had not permitted Belisarius to achieve the conquest of Italy; and his abrupt departure revived the courage of the Goths, 13 who respected his genius, his virtue, and even the laudable motive which had urged the servant of Justinian to deceive and reject them. They had lost their king (an inconsiderable loss), their capital, their treasures, the provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two hundred thousand Barbarians, magnificently equipped with horses and arms. Yet all was not lost, as long as Pavia was defended by one thousand Goths, inspired by a sense of honour, the love of freedom, and the memory of their past greatness. The supreme command was unanimously offered to the brave Uraias; and it was in his eyes alone that the disgrace of his uncle Vitiges could appear as a reason of exclusion. His voice inclined the election in favour of Hildibald, whose personal merit was recommended by the vain hope that his kinsman Theudes, the Spanish monarch, would support the common interest of the Gothic nation. The success of his arms in Liguria and Venetia seemed to justify their choice; but he soon declared to the world that he was incapable of forgiving or commanding his benefactor. The consort of Hildibald was deeply wounded by the beauty, the riches, and the pride of the wife of Uraias; and the death of that virtuous patriot excited the indignation of a free people. A bold assassin executed their sentence, by striking off the head of

12 Procopius, Anecdot. c. 18. The series of the African history attests this melancholy truth.

13 In the second (c. 30) and third books (c. 1-40), Procopius continues the history of the Gothic war from the fifth to the fifteenth year of Justinian [leg. year of the war]. As the events are less interesting than in the former period, he allots only half the space to double the time. Jornandes, and the Chronicle of Marcellinus, afford some collateral hints. Sigonius, Pagi, Muratori, Mascou, and De Buat are useful, and have been used. [The space allotted by Procopius to the various events depends on his presence at, or absence from, the scene of war. Cp. Haury, Procopiana, i. p. 8.]

c. May]

Hildibald in the midst of a banquet; the Rugians, a foreign (A.D. 541 tribe, assumed the privilege of election; and Totila,1 the nephew of the late king, was tempted, by revenge, to deliver himself and the garrison of Treviso into the hands of the Romans. But the gallant and accomplished youth was easily persuaded to prefer the Gothic throne before the service of Justinian; and, as soon as the palace of Pavia had been purified from the Rugian usurper, he reviewed the national force of five thousand soldiers, and generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom of Italy.

Totila king of

541-544

The successors of Belisarius, eleven generals of equal rank, 15 Victories of neglected to crush the feeble and disunited Goths, till they were roused to action by the progress of Totila and the re- [A.D. 542] proaches of Justinian. The gates of Verona were secretly opened to Artabazus, at the head of one hundred Persians in [Artabazes] the service of the empire. 16 The Goths fled from the city. At the distance of sixty furlongs the Roman generals halted to regulate the division of the spoil. While they disputed, the enemy discovered the real number of the victors; the Persians were instantly overpowered, and it was by leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he lost in a few days by the lance of a barbarian, who had defied him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the forces of Totila, near Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello of the Florentine territory. The ardour of freedmen who fought to regain their country was opposed to the languid temper of mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack they abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it aggravated the shame, of their defeat.17 The king of the Goths, who

14[His proper name was Baduila, which appears invariably on coins and is mentioned by Jordanes. He was probably elected towards end of A.D. 541; Eraric the Rugian reigned, after Ildıbad's death during the summer of that year.]

15 [Hardly of equal rank; for Procopius says that Constantian and Alexander were "first among them" (B. G. iii. 3). Others were Vitalius, Bessas, and John son of Vitalian.]

16 [Not 100 Persians, but 100 men selected from the whole army. Procop. ib. On ordinary occasions Artabazes commanded a Persian band.]

17 [The events are so compressed in the text that they are hardly intelligible. The Roman army, numbering (not 20,000 as the author states, but) 12,000 (dioxi Aiovs Te kai pvpiovs), advanced within five miles of Verona, and on the failure of the attempt of Artabazes retreated beyond the Po to Faventia, which is about twenty miles south-west of Ravenna. Totila then, taking the offensive, follows them from Venetia, crosses the Po, and the battle of Faenza is fought, in which the Imperial

[Faventia]

[A.D. 542]

[A.D. 543]

Contrast of vice and

virtue

blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps the path of honour and victory. Totila passed the Po, traversed the Apennine, suspended the important conquest of Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of Italy to form the siege, or rather blockade, of Naples. The Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities and accusing each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger of his Italian conquests, dispatched to the relief of Naples a fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers. They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of provisions; but the delays of the new commander, an unwarlike magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged; and the succours, which he dropt with a timid and tardy hand, were successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila in the bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was dragged with a rope round his neck to the foot of the wall, from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to implore, like himself, the mercy of the conqueror. They requested a truce, with a promise of surrendering the city if no effectual relief should appear at the end of thirty days. Instead of one month, the audacious Barbarian granted them three, in the just confidence that famine would anticipate the term of their capitulation. After the reduction of Naples and Cumæ, the provinces of Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria submitted to the king of the Goths. Totila led his army to the gates of Rome, pitched his camp at Tibur, or Tivoli, within twenty miles of the capital, and calmly exhorted the senate and people to compare the tyranny of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.

The rapid success of Totila may be partly ascribed to the revolution which three years' experience had produced in the sentiments of the Italians. At the command, or at least in the name, of a catholic emperor, the pope,18 their spiritual father,

ists are routed and Artabazes slain in single combat with Viliaris. The Romans, having suffered a severe loss, retreat to Ravenna, and Totila advances into Tuscany, besieges Florence (which is held by Justin), and defeats, in the valley of Mugello (a day's journey from Florence), the army of relief which has come from Ravenna under John and Bessas. The Battle of Mugello gave central and southern Italy to the Goths. It was fought towards end of 542. Procopius, B. G. iii. 3-5.]

18 Sylverius, bishop of Rome, was first transported to Patara, in Lycia, and at length starved (sub eorum custodiâ inediâ confectus) in the isle of Palmaria, A.D. 538, June 20 [probably May 21; cp. Clinton, F. R., ad ann.] (Liberat. in Breviar. Anastasius, in Sylverio. Baronius, A.D. 540, No. 2, 3. Pagi, in Vit. Pont.

C. 22.

had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or murdered on a desolate island.19 The virtues of Belisarius were replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice. The improvement of the revenue was committed to Alexander, a subtle scribe, long practised in the fraud and oppression of the Byzantine schools; and whose name of Psalliction, the scissors, 20 was drawn from the dexterous artifice with which he reduced the size, without defacing the figure, of the gold coin. Instead of expecting the restoration of peace and industry, he imposed an heavy assessment on the fortunes of the Italians. Yet his present or future demands were less odious than a prosecution of arbitrary rigour against the persons and property of all those who, under the Gothic kings, had been concerned in the receipt and expenditure of the public money. The subjects of Justinian who escaped these partial vexations were oppressed by the irregular maintenance of the soldiers, whom Alexander defrauded and despised; and their hasty sallies in quest of wealth, or subsistence, provoked the inhabitants of the country to await or implore their deliverance from the virtues of a Barbarian. Totila 21 was chaste and temperate; and none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who depended on his faith or his clemency. To the husbandmen of Italy the Gothic king issued a welcome proclamation, enjoining them to pursue their important labours and to rest assured that, on the payment of the ordinary taxes, they should be defended by his valour and discipline from the injuries of war. The strong towns he successively attacked; and, as soon as they had yielded to his arms, he demolished the fortifications, to save the people from the calamities of a future siege, to deprive the Romans of the arts of defence, and to decide the tedious quarrel of the two tom. i. p. 285, 286). Procopius (Anecdot. c. 1) accuses only the empress and Antonina. [Liberatus and the Liber Pont. ("= Anastasius") attribute to Vigilius the removal of Silverius to Palmaria. Procopius (Anecd.) states that this wickedness was wrought by a servant of Antonina.]

19 Palmaria, a small island, opposite to Tarracina and the coast of the Volsci (Cluver. Ital. Antiq. 1. iii. c. 7, p. 1014).

20 As the Logothete Alexander and most of his civil and military colleagues were either disgraced or despised, the ink of the Anecdotes (c. 4, 5, 18) is scarcely blacker than that of the Gothic History (l. iii. c. 1, 3, 4, 9, 20, 21, &c.). [Alexander received for himself a commission of one-twelfth on his extortions. The office of logothete is fully discussed by Panchenko, Viz. Vrem., 3, p. 468 sqq.]

21 Procopius (1. iii. c. 2, 8, &c.) does ample and willing justice to the merit of Totila. The Roman historians, from Sallust and Tacitus, were happy to forget the vices of their countrymen in the contemplation of Barbaric virtue.

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