Volume Ii Part 52 (2/2)

”For,” Procopius had said to him, ”since you, O great hero, Belisarius, have crept into Neapolis through such a water-runnel, the same idea might occur to the barbarians, and they would scarcely think it a shame to crawl into Rome by a similar hero-path.”

The besieged were now obliged to deny themselves the luxury of their baths; the wells in the quarters of the city at a distance from the river scarcely sufficed for drinking water.

But by cutting off the supply of water, the barbarians had also deprived the Romans of bread.

At least it seemed so, for all the water-mills of Rome were stopped.

The garnered grain bought in Sicily by Cethegus, and that which Belisarius had, by force, caused to be brought into Rome from all the neighbouring country, in spite of the outcry of farmers and husbandmen, could no longer be ground.

”Let the mills be turned by a.s.ses and oxen!” cried Belisarius.

”Most of the a.s.ses and oxen were too wise to allow themselves to be shut up with us here, O Belisarius,” said Procopius; ”we have only as many as we shall want for the shambles, and it is impossible that they should first drive the mills and then be still fat enough to afford meat to eat with the bread thus gained.”

”Then call Martinus. Yesterday, as I stood by the Tiber counting the Gothic tents, I had an idea----”

”Which Martinus must translate from the Belisarian into the possible!

Poor man! But I will go and fetch him.”

But when, on the evening of the same day, Belisarius and Martinus caused the first boat-mills that the world had ever known to be erected in the Tiber, by means of boats ranged one near the other, Procopius said admiringly:

”The bread of these boat-mills will rejoice men longer than your greatest deeds. Flour, ground in this wise, savours of immortality.”

And indeed these boat-mills, imagined by Belisarius and practically carried out by Martinus, fully compensated to the besieged, during the whole siege, for the loss of the powerless water-mills.

Behind the bridge which is now called Ponte San Sisto, on the flat of the Janiculum, Belisarius caused two boats to be fastened with ropes, and laid mills over their flat decks, so that the wheels were driven by the river, which streamed from between the arches of the bridge with increased force.

The besiegers, who were informed of these arrangements by deserters from the city, soon attempted to destroy them.

They threw beams, rafts, and trees into the river above the bridge, and in a single night all the mills were destroyed.

But Belisarius caused them to be reconstructed, and ordered strong chains to be drawn across the river above the bridge, which caught and arrested everything that floated down.

These iron river-bolts were not only intended to protect the mills, but also to prevent the Goths from reaching the city on boats or rafts.

For now Witichis began to make preparations for storming the city.

He caused wooden towers, higher than the ramparts, to be built, which, placed upon four wheels, could be drawn by oxen. Then he caused storming-ladders to be prepared in great numbers, and four tremendous rams or wall-breakers, which were each pushed and served by fifty men.

The deep moats were to be filled up with countless bundles of brushwood and reeds.

To defeat these plans, Belisarius and Cethegus, the first defending the city in the north and east, the latter in the west and south, planted catapults and other projectile machines on the walls, which were able to cast immense spears to a great distance, with such force that they could pierce the strongest coat of mail.

They protected the gates by means of ”wolves,” that is, cross-beams set with iron spikes, which were let cras.h.i.+ng down upon the a.s.saulters as soon as the latter approached the gate.

And, lastly, they strewed innumerable caltrops and steel-traps upon the s.p.a.ce between the town-moats and the camp of the besiegers.

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