Volume Ii Part 69 (1/2)

And now this victory obstinately tarried.

In spite of all efforts, the state of his people became more hopeless every month. With the single exception of the battle fought and won on the march to Rome, fortune had never smiled upon the Goths.

The siege of Rome, undertaken with such proud hopes, had ended in a woeful retreat and the loss of three-fourths of the army. New strokes of fortune, bad news that followed each other like rapid blows, increased the King's depression, until it degenerated into a state of dull despair.

Almost all Italy, except Ravenna, was lost. Belisarius, while yet in Rome, had sent a fleet to Genoa, under the command of Mundila the Herulian, and Ennes the Isaurian. The troops had landed without resistance, had conquered the sea-ruling harbour of Genoa, and, from that point, almost all Liguria.

Datius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, himself invited the Byzantines to that important city. Thence they easily won Bergomum, Comum, and Novaria.

On the other side, the discouraged Goths in Clusium and the half-ruined Dertona surrendered to the besiegers and were led prisoners out of Italy.

Urbinum, after a brave resistance, was taken by the Byzantines; also Forum Cornelii and the whole district of aemilia by Johannes. The Goths failed to retake Ancona, Ariminum, and Mediolanum.

Still worse news presently arrived to increase the despondency of the King. For meanwhile famine was making ravages in the wide districts of aemilia, Picenum and Tuscany.

There were neither men, cattle, nor horses to serve the plough. The people fled into the woods and mountains, made bread of acorns, and devoured gra.s.s and weeds.

Devastating maladies were the consequence of insufficient or unwholesome nourishment.

In Picenum alone perished fifty thousand souls; a still greater number succ.u.mbed to hunger and pestilence on the other side of the Ionian Gulf, in Dalmatia, Pale and thin, those still living tottered to the grave; their skins became black and like leather; their gla.s.sy eyes started from the sockets; their intestines burned as if with fire.

The vultures despised the corpses of the victims of pestilence; but human flesh was devoured by men. Mothers killed and ate their newly-born children.

In a farm near Ariminum only two Roman women had remained alive. These women murdered and devoured, one after another, seventeen men, who, singly, had sought a shelter in their house. The eighteenth awoke as they were about to strangle him in his sleep. He killed the fiendish women, and discovered the fate of their earlier victims.

Lastly, the hopes placed in the Franks and Longobardians were utterly destroyed.

The Franks, who had already received large sums for the promised army of alliance, were silent. The messengers of the King, who were sent to urge the fulfilment of their promise, were detained at Mettis, Aurelianum, and Paris; no answer came from these courts.

The King of the Longobardians sent word that he could decide nothing without the consent of his warlike son Alboin. That the latter was absent in search of adventures. Perhaps he would at some time reach Italy; he was an intimate friend of Na.r.s.es. Then he could observe the country for himself, and advise his father and his countrymen as to the course to be taken.

It is true that the important fortress of Auximum withstood, for months, all the efforts of the powerful army which besieged it under Belisarius, accompanied by Procopius. But it wrung the King's heart when a messenger (who had, with much difficulty, stolen his way through the two investing armies to Ravenna) brought him the following message from the heroic Earl Wisand:

”When Auximum was entrusted to my care, thou saidst that therewith I should hold the keys of Ravenna; yea, of the kingdom. Thou badest me resist manfully until thou camest thyself with thy whole army to my a.s.sistance. We have manfully resisted not only Belisarius, but famine.

Where is thy relief? Woe to us if thy words are true, and with this fortress the keys of our kingdom fall into the enemy's hands! Come therefore, and help us; more for the kingdom's sake than for our own!”

This messenger was soon followed by a second: Burcentius, a soldier belonging to the besieging army, who had been bribed with much gold.

His message ran--the short letter was written in blood:

”We have now only the weeds that grow between the stones to eat. We cannot hold out longer than four days more.”

As this last messenger was returning with the King's reply, he fell into the hands of the besiegers, who burnt him alive in sight of the Goths before the walls of Auximum.

And the King could give no help.

The small party of Goths in Auximum still resisted, although Belisarius cut off the supply of water by destroying the aqueducts and poisoning the remaining wells with the corpses of men and animals, thrown in with lime.

Wisand still fiercely repelled every attack. On one of these occasions Belisarius only escaped death at the sacrifice of one of his body-guard.

Finally, Caesena, the last of the Gothic towns on the aemilia, was the first to fall; and then Faesulae, which was besieged by Cypria.n.u.s and Justinus.