A Struggle for Rome, v. 2

"Could no other messenger do that? Listen, Roman, you are unworthy of being liberated. You tremble, you coward heart! Return at once to the front. You will lead our horsemen to...

She could sun herself more frequently than ever in the presence of the man she loved, for the Porta Capuana was an important point of the fortifications, and Totila was obliged...

Witichis had left untouched all the rooms which had been occupied by the Amelungs--Theodoric, Athalaric, and Amalaswintha--and had appropriated to his own use the apartments whi...

The city of Florentia was full of eager and warlike activity. The gates were closed; on the ramparts and bastions paced numerous sentinels; the streets rang with the clatter of...

The report of the approach of the Holy Father, which outsped his gilded litter, aroused thousands of soldiers, attracted by feelings of reverence, piety, superstition, or curios...

On the evening of the third day after the arrival of the Gothic escort sent by Totila, Valerius had terminated his arrangements and fixed the next morning for his departure from...

The intellectual struggle, the rapid alternation of anger, fear, anxiety, and triumph had exhausted the hero Belisarius more than half a day of battle. He longed for rest and re...

"Those are Gothic weapons! The waving banner bears the figure of the scales: that is the crest of Earl Witichis! and there he is himself at the head of the troop! and the tall f...

Whenever Teja or Hildebad attempted to carry a gate by storm or sweep away a redoubt--Cethegus foretold their coming, and the assaulters met with double the usual number of defe...

For the quick trampling of approaching horses and the jingling of armour was heard in the wood, and soon a little group of horsemen appeared issuing from under the trees, and fa...

The whole contents of the magazines, together with the wooden walls and roofs, and everything that could burn, had been destroyed; not a remnant of corn nor a splinter of wood w...

Early the next morning the prisoner, with his head covered, was led to a meadow on the north, the "cold corner" of the camp, where were assembled the leaders of the army and a g...

The stable-man was fetching the young horses from the pasture; two other servants were bringing a herd of fine cattle home from the fields to the stable; while the goatherd, wit...

"As soon as we are inside, Perseus," said Johannes, "you must break open the sally-port to the right of the Porta Capuana at the moment when the others unfold our flag upon the...

He carried with him four letters: the letter of Justinian to Belisarius, the letters of the King of the Franks to Cethegus and Belisarius, and a letter from Belisarius to Witichis.

If they could reach and win this fortress, which was considered impregnable, before Witichis, who pressed forward after them, they would be able to make any conditions with the...

Splendidly rose the sun out of the sea the next morning. Its beams glittered upon the shining weapons of many thousand Gothic warriors, who crowded the wide levels of Regeta.

The next morning Procopius, Johannes, Demetrius, Bessas, Acacius, Vitalius, and many other Byzantine leaders arrived in the city, and, to the great astonishment of the Ravennese...

He found the army split into numerous parties, and on the point of dissolution. He acknowledged to himself that, if he had abdicated, or abandoned the camp, the complete ruin of...

As, week by week, and day by day, larger or smaller divisions of the Gothic troops which had been treacherously sent to the frontiers by Theodahad, returned to the city, the Kin...

"It is a piece of booty from the wars of the Vandals; I took it with me from Carthage. And these soft cushions once lay upon the bed of the Persian King; I gained them in the ba...

After the terrible exertion of strength in the general attack and its repulse, which had begun with the dawn of day, and had only ended at its close, a long pause of exhaustion...

They were to send all the men they could dispose of as fast as possible round the city to the Aurelian Gate, through which their comrades had just entered the city; there the gr...

Meanwhile it had become quite dark. The slave brought the pretty bronze lamp of Corinthian workmanship--an eagle, which carried the ball of the sun in its beak, filled with scen...

They had heard of the plot of the three Goths against the life of Belisarius, and of the earlier plan of a sham assault upon the Gate of St. Paul.

As Hildebad was struggling to get loose, the noise of voices was heard from the other end of the lane of tents; two sentries were trying in vain to stop a strong Goth, who, cove...

"And by the slumber of Justinian," cried Belisarius angrily, "you shall answer for it! You shall no longer tyrannise over the Emperor's army and the Emperor's generals. The hour...

While, during the next few days, the now childless pair lived in quiet seclusion, and Witichis scarcely ever left his tent, it happened that the outposts of the royal besiegers...

"Put an end to it. I cannot bear to see this misery any longer. The sight of the interment of forty thousand of my countrymen has broken my heart. The death-choruses all seem to...

In the peaceful light of late afternoon shone the chapel and convent which Valerius had built in order to release his daughter from the service of the Church. It was situated at...

The fall of Neapolis had occurred a few days after the meeting at Regeta, and Totila, on his march thither, met at Formiæ with his brother Hildebad, whom King Witichis had at on...

The day after the arrival of this news, so fateful for the Goths, King Witichis abandoned the siege of Rome and led his thoroughly disheartened troops out of the four remaining...

His unchecked and victorious march, and the successes of his advanced troops of skirmishers--who, through the revolt of the Italians, had won all the fortresses, castles, and to...

During these portentous events the Goths had been by no means idle. But all measures of vigorous defence were paralysed, and, indeed, intentionally frustrated, by the cowardly t...

"A great misfortune! Constantinus is severely wounded. He led a sortie from the Salarian Gate, and at once stumbled upon the Gothic ranks. A stone from a sling hit him on the br...

Witichis had left only two thousand men behind in Ravenna; eight thousand he had sent, under Earl Uligis of Urbssalvia, and Earl Ansa of Asculum, to Dalmatia, to wrest that prov...

Lost in thought, the Prefect left the tent, and went round the camp to the rather distant outwork, where he had entrenched himself and his Isaurians before the Gate of Honorius.

Scarcely had the Goths turned their backs upon the walls of Rome, when Pope Silverius--the very day after taking the oath--summoned the heads of the priesthood and nobility, the...

As the woman turned in the direction of the sound, she stood for a moment with her back to the granaries. But she suddenly looked round, for she thought she heard the bang of a...

Rapid and irresistible as a fire in dry heather, the army of the Byzantines had advanced from the southernmost point of Italy to the walls of the Parthenopeian town, meeting wit...

A few days later Mataswintha again repaired to the camp, this time unaccompanied by Aspa, for the latter never stirred, by day or night, from the bedside of her wounded countrym...

A few days later, on the eve of the entry of the Goths into Rome, we find the young "knights," Lucius and Marcus Licinius, Piso the poet, Balbus the corpulent, and Julianus the...

She had become dull and impassive to all that passed around her, taking no interest in the great changes which were in preparation. She appeared to have no other feeling than th...

Hildebad, impatient at the long pause of idleness, had, one day at dawn, made a sudden sally upon the Byzantines from the Porta Faventina, which was under his special command. H...

The next morning, before cockcrow, a veiled woman rode out of the camp. A man in a brown war-mantle walked beside her, holding her horse's bridle, and ever and again looking int...