have been Persarmenians. Note,
p. 256.--M.]

[Footnote 31: Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard, records with complacency the
succor, service, and honorable dismission of his countrymen--reipublicae
Romanae adversus aemulos adjutores fuerant, (l. ii. c. i. p. 774, edit.
Grot.) I am surprised that Alboin, their martial king, did not lead
his subjects in person. * Note: The Lombards were still at war with the
Gepidae. See Procop. Goth. lib. iv. p. 25.--M.]

[Footnote 3111: Gibbon has blindly followed the translation of Maltretus:
Bis mille ducentos--while the original Greek says expressly something
else, (Goth. lib. iv. c. 26.) In like manner, (p. 266,) he draws
volunteers from Germany, on the authority of Cousin, who, in one place,
has mistaken Germanus for Germania. Yet only a few pages further we find
Gibbon loudly condemning the French and Latin readers of Procopius. Lord
Mahon, p. 403. The first of these errors remains uncorrected in the new
edition of the Byzantines.--M.]

[Footnote 32: He was, if not an impostor, the son of the blind Zames,
saved by compassion, and educated in the Byzantine court by the various
motives of policy, pride, and generosity, (Procop. Persic. l. i. c.
23.)]

[Footnote 33: In the time of Augustus, and in the middle ages, the
whole waste from Aquileia to Ravenna was covered with woods, lakes, and
morasses. Man has subdued nature, and the land has been cultivated since
the waters are confined and embanked. See the learned researches of
Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi. tom. i. dissert xxi. p.
253, 254,) from Vitruvius, Strabo, Herodian, old charters, and local
knowledge.]

Chapter XLIII: Last Victory And Death Of Belisarius, Death Of Justinian.--Part III.

The prudence of Narses impelled him to speedy and decisive action.
His powers were the last effort of the state; the cost of each day
accumulated the enormous account; and the nations, untrained to
discipline or fatigue, might be rashly provoked to turn their arms
against each other, or against their benefactor. The same considerations
might have tempered the ardor of Totila. But he was conscious that the
clergy and people of Italy aspired to a second revolution: he felt or
suspected the rapid progress of treason; and he resolved to risk the
Gothic kingdom on the chance of a day, in which the valiant would be
animated by instant danger and the disaffected might be awed by mutual
ignorance. In his march from Ravenna, the Roma