65: Nero (says Tacitus, Annal. xv. 35) Neapolim quasi Graecam
urbem delegit. One hundred and fifty years afterwards, in the time
of Septimius Severus, the Hellenism of the Neapolitans is praised by
Philostratus. (Icon. l. i. p. 763, edit. Olear.)]

[Footnote 66: The otium of Naples is praised by the Roman poets, by
Virgil, Horace, Silius Italicus, and Statius, (Cluver. Ital. Ant. l.
iv. p. 1149, 1150.) In an elegant epistles, (Sylv. l. iii. 5, p. 94--98,
edit. Markland,) Statius undertakes the difficult task of drawing his
wife from the pleasures of Rome to that calm retreat.]

[Footnote 67: This measure was taken by Roger l., after the conquest
of Naples, (A.D. 1139,) which he made the capital of his new kingdom,
(Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. p. 169.) That city, the third in
Christian Europe, is now at least twelve miles in circumference,
(Jul. Caesar. Capaccii Hist. Neapol. l. i. p. 47,) and contains more
inhabitants (350,000) in a given space, than any other spot in the known
world.]

[Footnote 68: Not geometrical, but common, paces or steps, of 22 French
inches, (D' Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 7, 8.) The 2363 do not take
an English mile.]

[Footnote 69: Belisarius was reproved by Pope Silverius for the
massacre. He repeopled Naples, and imported colonies of African captives
into Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia, (Hist. Miscell. l. xvi. in Muratori,
tom. i. p. 106, 107.)]

[Footnote 70: Beneventum was built by Diomede, the nephew of Meleager
(Cluver. tom. ii. p. 1195, 1196.) The Calydonian hunt is a picture of
savage life, (Ovid, Metamorph. l. viii.) Thirty or forty heroes were
leagued against a hog: the brutes (not the hog) quarrelled with lady for
the head.]

The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person within
the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles on the Appian
way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which, by a canal of nineteen
miles in length, had been recently drained and converted into excellent
pastures. [71] But the principal forces of the Goths were dispersed
in Dalmatia, Venetia, and Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was
confounded by the unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed to
presage the downfall of his empire. [72] The most abject slaves have
arraigned the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. Th