Volume Ii Part 58 (2/2)
These three separate lines of attack advanced steadily, in good order, and with an even step. The sun glittered upon their helmets; at intervals of equal lengths sounded the long-drawn summons of the Gothic horns.
”They have learned something of us,” cried Cethegus, with a soldier's pride in the fine array. ”The man who has ordered these ranks understands war.”
”Who is it?” asked Kallistratos, who, in splendid armour, stood near Lucius Licinius.
”King Witichis, without doubt,” answered Cethegus.
”I should not have thought that simple man, with his modest expression, capable of such generals.h.i.+p.”
”These barbarians are often unfathomable,” remarked Cethegus.
And now he rode away from the Capitol, over the river to the ramparts at the Pancratian Gate, where the first attack seemed to threaten.
There he ascended the corner tower with his followers.
”Who is the old man with the flowing beard, marching before his troop and carrying a stone axe? He looks as if the lightning of Zeus had missed him in the battle with the t.i.tans.”
”It is Theodoric's old master-at-arms; he marches against this gate,”
answered the Prefect.
”And who is the richly-accoutred man upon the brown charger, with the wolfs head upon his helmet? He is marching towards the Porta Portuensis.”
”That is Duke Guntharis, the Wolfung,” said Lucius Licinius.
”And see there, too, on the eastern side of the city, away over the river, as far as the eye can reach, the ranks of the enemy advance against all the gates,” cried Piso.
”But where is the King himself!” asked Kallistratos.
”Look! there in the middle you see the Gothic standard. There he is, opposite the Pancratian Gate,” answered the Prefect.
”He alone, with his strong division, stands motionless far behind the lines,” said Salvius Julia.n.u.s, the young jurist.
”Will he not join in the fight!” asked Ma.s.surius.
”It would be against his habit not to do so. But let us go down upon the ramparts; the fight begins,” said Cethegus.
”Hildebrand has reached the trench.”
”There stand my Byzantines, under Gregorius. The Gothic archers aim well. The ramparts become thinned. Ma.s.surius, bring up my Abasgian archers, and the best archers of the legions. They must aim at the oxen and horses of the battering-rams.”
Very soon the battle was kindled upon all sides, and Cethegus remarked with rage that the Goths progressed everywhere.
The Byzantines seemed to miss their leader; they shot at random and fell back from the walls, against which the Goths pressed with unusual daring.
They had already crossed the trenches at many points, and Duke Guntharis had even erected ladders against the walls near the Portuensian Gate; while the old master-at-arms had dragged a strong battering-ram to the Pancratian Gate, and had caused it to be protected by a penthouse against the fiery darts from above.
Already the first strokes of the ram thundered through the uproar of the battle against the beams of the gate.
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