Soon after the return of Belisarius
to Constantinople came the Fourth Siege of Rome.
Totila, who had sought the hand of a Frankish princess
in marriage, received for answer from her father,
“that the man who had not been able to keep Rome
when he had taken it, but had destroyed part and abandoned
the rest to the enemy, was no King of Italy".
The taunt stung Totila to the quick.
We know not whether he won his Frankish bride or no,
but he was determined to win Rome. Assault again
failing, he occupied Portus and instituted a more
rigorous blockade than ever. But it had become
a matter of some difficulty to starve out the defenders
of Rome, for there were practically no citizens there,
only a garrison, for whose food the corn grown within
the enclosure of the walls was nearly sufficient.
The economic change from the days of the Empire thus
revealed to us is almost as great as if the harvests
of Hyde Park and Regent’s Park sufficed to feed
the diminished population of London.
There was, however, among the Imperial
soldiers in the garrison of Rome, as elsewhere, deep
discontent, amounting sometimes to mutiny, at the
long withholding of their arrears of pay; and the sight
of the pomp and splendour, which surrounded the former
betrayer of Rome when they rode in the ranks with
Totila, was too much for their Isaurian countrymen.
The men who kept watch by the Gate of St. Paul (close
to the Pyramid of C. Sestius, and now overlooking
the English Cemetery and Keats’ grave) offered
to surrender their post to the Gothic king. To
distract the attention of the garrison he sent by
night a little band of soldiers on two skiffs up the
Tiber as far as they could penetrate towards the heart
of the City. These men blew a loud blast with
their trumpets, and thereby called the bulk of the
defenders down to the river-walls, while the Isaurians
were opening St. Paul’s Gate to the besiegers,
who marched in almost unopposed. The garrison
galloped off along the road to Civita Vecchia,
and on their way fell into an ambush which Totila had
prepared for them, whereby most of them perished (549).
Totila, now a second time master of
Rome, determined to hold it securely. He restored
some of the public buildings which he had previously
destroyed; he adorned and beautified the City to the
utmost of his power; he invited the Senators and their
families to return; he celebrated the equestrian games
in the Circus Maximus: in all things he behaved
himself as much as possible like one of the old Emperors
of Rome.
The year 550 was the high-water mark
of the success of the Gothic arms. In Italy only
four citiesall on the sea-coastwere
left to the Emperor; these were Ravenna, Ancona, Otranto,
and Crotona. In Sicily most of the cities were
still Imperial, but Totila had moved freely hither
and thither through the island, ravaging the villas
and the farms, collecting great stores of grain and
fruit, driving off horses and cattle, and generally
visiting on the hapless Sicilians the treachery which
in his view they had shown to the Ostrogothic dynasty
by the eagerness with which, fifteen years before,
they had welcomed the arms of Belisarius.
But at the end of a long and exhausting
war it is often seen that victory rests with that
power which has enough reserve force left to make
one final effort, even though that effort in the earlier
years of the war might not have been deemed a great
one. So was it now with Justinian’s conquest
of Italy. Though he himself was utterly weary
of the Sisyphean labour, he would not surrender a
shred of his theoretical claims, nor would he even
condescend to admit to an audience the ambassadors
of Totila, who came to plead for peace and alliance
between the two hostile powers.
In his perplexity as to the further
conduct of the war he offered the command to his Grand
Chamberlain Narses, who eagerly accepted it. The
choice was indeed a strange one. Narses, an Armenian
by birth, brought as an eunuch to Constantinople,
and dedicated to the service of the palace, had grown
grey in that service, and was now seventy-four years
of age. But he was of “Illustrious”
rank, he shared the most secret counsels of the Emperor,
he was able freely to unloose the purse-strings which
had been so parsimoniously closed to Belisarius, and
he had set his whole heart on succeeding where Belisarius
had failed. Moreover, he was himself both wealthy
and generous, and he brought with him a huge and motley
host of barbarians, Huns, Lombards, Gepids, Herulians,
all eager to serve under the free-handed Chamberlain,
and to be enriched by him with the spoil of Italy.
In the spring of 552, the Eunuch-general,
with this strange multitude calling itself a Roman
army, marched round the head of the Adriatic Gulf
and entered the impregnable seat of Empire, Ravenna.
By adroit strategy he evaded the Gothic generals who
had been ordered to arrest his progress in North-eastern
Italy andprobably by about midsummerhe
had reached the point a little south-west of Ancona,
where the Flaminian Way, the great northern road from
Rome, crosses the Apennines. Here on the crest
of the mountains Narses encamped, and here Totila
met him, eager for the fight which was to decide the
future dominion of Italy.
A space of about twelve miles separated
the hostile camps. Narses sent some of his most
trusted counsellors to warn Totila not to continue
the struggle any longer against the irresistible might
of the Empire; “but if you will fight”,
said the messengers, “name the day”.
Totila indignantly spurned the proposal of surrender
and named the eighth day from thence as the day of
battle. Narses, however, suspecting some stratagem,
bade his troops prepare for action, and it was well
that he did so, for on the next day Totila with all
his army was at hand.
A hill, which to some extent commanded
the battle-field, was the first objective point of
both generals. Narses sent fifty of his bravest
men over-night to take up their position on this hill,
and the Gothic troops, chiefly cavalry, which were
sent to dislodge them, failed to effect their purpose,
the horses being frightened by the din which the Imperial
soldiers made, clashing with their spears upon their
shields. Several lives were lost on this preliminary
skirmish, the honours of which remained with the soldiers
of Narses.
At dawn of day the troops were drawn
up in order of battle, but Narses had made all his
arrangements on a defensive rather than an offensive
plan and Totila, who was expecting a reinforcement
of two thousand Goths under his brave young lieutenant
Teias, wished to postpone the attack. Both generals
harangued their armies: Totila, in words of lordly
scorn for the patch-work host of various nationalities
which Justinian, weary of the war, had sent against
him. It was the Emperor’s last effort,
he declared, and when this heterogeneous army was defeated,
the brave Goths would be able to rest from their labours.
Narses, on the other hand, congratulated his soldiers
on their evident superiority in numbers to the Gothic
host. They fought too, as he reminded them, for
the Roman Empire, which was in its nature, and by the
will of Providence, eternal, while these little barbarian
states, Vandal, Gothic, and the like, sprang up like
mushrooms, lived their little day, and then vanished
away, leaving no trace behind them. He had recourse
also to less refined and philosophical arguments.
Riding rapidly along the ranks, the Eunuch dangled
before the eyes of his barbarian auxiliaries golden
armlets, golden collars, golden bridles. “These”,
said he, “and such other ornaments as these,
shall be the reward of your valour, if you fight well
to-day”.
The long morning of waiting was partly
occupied by a duel between two chosen champions.
A warrior, named Cocas, who had deserted from
Emperor to King, rode up to the Imperial army, challenging
their bravest to single combat. One of Narses’
lifeguards, an Armenian’ like his master, Anzalas
by name, accepted the challenge. Cocas couched
his spear and rode fiercely at his foe, thinking to
pierce him in the belly. Anzalas dexterously
swerved aside at the critical moment and gave a thrust
with his spear at the left side of his antagonist,
who fell lifeless to the ground. A mighty shout
rose from the Imperial ranks at this propitious omen
of the coming battle. Not yet, however, was that
battle to be gained. King Totila rode forth in
the open space between both armies, “that he
might show the enemy what manner of man he was”.
His armour was lavishly adorned with gold: from
the cheek-piece of his helmet, from his pilum
and his spear hung purple pennants; his whole equipment
was magnificent and kingly. Bestriding a very
tall war-horse he played the game of a military athlete
with accomplished skill. He wheeled his horse
first to the right, then to the left, in graceful curves;
then he tossed his spear on high to the morning breezes
and caught it in the middle as it descended with quivering
fall; then he threw it deftly from one hand to another,
he stooped low on his horse, he raised himself up again.
Everything was done as artistically as the dance of
a well-trained performer. All this “was
beautiful to look at, but it was not war”.
The ugly, wrinkled old Armenian in the other camp,
who probably kept his seat on horseback with difficulty,
knew, one may suspect, more of the deadly science
of war than the brilliant and martial Totila.
At length the long-looked-for two
thousand arrived, and Totila gave the signal to charge
upon the foe. It was the hour of the noon-tide
meal, and he hoped to catch the Imperial troops in
the disorder of their repast; but for this also Narses,
the wary, had provided. Even the food necessary
to support their strength was to be taken by the soldiers,
all keeping their ranks, all armed, and all watching
intently the movements of the enemy. Narses had
purposely somewhat weakened his centre in order to
strengthen his wings, which, as the Gothic cavalry
charged, closed round them and poured a deadly shower
of arrows into their flanks. Again, as in the
campaigns of Belisarius, the Hippo-toxotai,
the “Mounted Rifles” of the Empire, decided
the fate of the battle. Vain against their murderous
volleys was the valour of the Gothic horseman, the
thrust of the Gothic lance, the might of the tall Gothic
steed. Charge upon charge of the Goths was made
in vain; the cavalry could never reach the weak but
distant centre of the Imperialists. At length,
when the sun was declining, the horsemen came staggering
back, a disorganised and beaten band. Their panic
communicated itself to the infantry, who were probably
the weakest section of the army; the rout was complete,
and the whole of the Gothic host was seen either flying,
surrendering, or dying.
As evening fell Totila, with five
of his friends hastened from the lost battle-field.
A young Gepid chief, named Asbad, ignorant who he was
couched his lance to strike Totila in the back.
A young Gothic page incautiously cried out, “Dog!
would you strike your lord?” hereby revealing
the rank of the fugitive and, of course, only nerving
the arm of Asbad to strike a more deadly blow.
Asbad was wounded in return and his companions intent
on staunching his wound let the fugitives ride on,
but the wound of Totila was mortal. His friends
hurried him on, eight miles down the valley, to the
little village of Caprae, where they alighted
and strove to tend his wound. But their labour
was vain; the gallant king soon drew his last breath
and was hastily buried by his comrades in that obscure
hamlet.
The Romans knew not what had become
of their great foe till several days after, when some
soldiers were riding past the village, a Gothic woman
told them of the death of Totila and pointed out to
them his grave. They doubted the truth of her
story, but opened the grave and gazed their fill on
that which was, past all dispute, the corpse of Totila.
The news brought joy to the heart of Narses, who returned
heartiest thanks to God and to the Virgin, his especial
patroness, and then proceeded to disembarrass himself
as quickly as possible of the wild barbarians, especially
the Lombards, by whose aid he had won the victory which
destroyed the last hopes of the Ostrogothic monarchy
in Italy.
(568) Not thus easily, however, was
the tide of barbarian invasion to be turned.
The Lombards had found their way into Italy as auxiliaries.
They returned thither sixteen years after as conquerors,
conquerors the most ruthless and brutal that Italy
had yet groaned under. From that day for thirteen
centuries the unity of Italy was a dream. First
the Lombard King and the Byzantine Emperor tore her
in pieces. Then the Frank descended from the
Alps to join in the fray. The German, the Saracen,
the Norman made their appearance on the scene.
Not all wished to ravage and despoil; some had high
and noble purposes in their hearts, but, in fact,
they all tended to divide her. The Popes even
at their best, even while warring as Italian patriots
against the foreign Emperor, still divided their country.
Last of all came the Spaniard and the Austrian, by
whom, down to our own day, Italy was looked upon as
an estate, out of which kingdoms and duchies might
be carved at pleasure as appanages for younger sons
and compensations for lost provinces. Only at
length, towards the close of the nineteenth century,
has Italy regained that priceless boon of national
unity, which might have been hers before it was attained
by any other country in Europe, if only the ambition
of emperors and the false sentiment of “Roman”
patriots would have spared the goodly tree which had
been planted in Italian soil by Theodoric the Ostrogoth.