is mentioned by Pliny; but the
bishopric of that obscure town, a mile from Gualdo, in the plain, was
united, in the year 1007, with that of Nocera. The signs of antiquity
are preserved in the local appellations, Fossato, the camp; Capraia,
Caprea; Bastia, Busta Gallorum. See Cluverius, (Italia Antiqua, l. ii.
c. 6, p. 615, 616, 617,) Lucas Holstenius, (Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 85,
86,) Guazzesi, (Dissertat. p. 177--217, a professed inquiry,) and the
maps of the ecclesiastical state and the march of Ancona, by Le Maire
and Magini.]

[Footnote 36: The battle was fought in the year of Rome 458; and the
consul Decius, by devoting his own life, assured the triumph of his
country and his colleague Fabius, (T. Liv. x. 28, 29.) Procopius
ascribes to Camillus the victory of the Busta Gallorum; and his error is
branded by Cluverius with the national reproach of Graecorum nugamenta.]

[Footnote 3611: "Dog, wilt thou strike thy Lord?" was the more
characteristic exclamation of the Gothic youth. Procop. lib. iv. p.
32.--M.]

[Footnote 37: Theophanes, Chron. p. 193. Hist. Miscell. l. xvi. p. 108.]

As soon as Narses had paid his devotions to the Author of victory, and
the blessed Virgin, his peculiar patroness, [38] he praised, rewarded,
and dismissed the Lombards. The villages had been reduced to ashes by
these valiant savages; they ravished matrons and virgins on the altar;
their retreat was diligently watched by a strong detachment of regular
forces, who prevented a repetition of the like disorders. The victorious
eunuch pursued his march through Tuscany, accepted the submission of
the Goths, heard the acclamations, and often the complaints, of the
Italians, and encompassed the walls of Rome with the remainder of
his formidable host. Round the wide circumference, Narses assigned to
himself, and to each of his lieutenants, a real or a feigned attack,
while he silently marked the place of easy and unguarded entrance.
Neither the fortifications of Hadrian's mole, nor of the port, could
long delay the progress of the conqueror; and Justinian once more
received the keys of Rome, which, under his reign, had been five times
taken and recovered. [39] But the deliverance of Rome was the last
calamity of the Roman people. The Barbarian allies of Narses too
frequently confounded the privileges of peace and war. The despair of
the flying Goths found some consolation in sanguinary revenge; and three
hundred youths of the noblest families, w