g of the same day, Belisarius and Martinus
caused the first boat-mills that the world had ever known to be erected
in the Tiber, by means of boats ranged one near the other, Procopius
said admiringly:

"The bread of these boat-mills will rejoice men longer than your
greatest deeds. Flour, ground in this wise, savours of immortality."

And indeed these boat-mills, imagined by Belisarius and practically
carried out by Martinus, fully compensated to the besieged, during the
whole siege, for the loss of the powerless water-mills.

Behind the bridge which is now called Ponte San Sisto, on the flat of
the Janiculum, Belisarius caused two boats to be fastened with ropes,
and laid mills over their flat decks, so that the wheels were driven by
the river, which streamed from between the arches of the bridge with
increased force.

The besiegers, who were informed of these arrangements by deserters
from the city, soon attempted to destroy them.

They threw beams, rafts, and trees into the river above the bridge, and
in a single night all the mills were destroyed.

But Belisarius caused them to be reconstructed, and ordered strong
chains to be drawn across the river above the bridge, which caught and
arrested everything that floated down.

These iron river-bolts were not only intended to protect the mills, but
also to prevent the Goths from reaching the city on boats or rafts.

For now Witichis began to make preparations for storming the city.

He caused wooden towers, higher than the ramparts, to be built, which,
placed upon four wheels, could be drawn by oxen. Then he caused
storming-ladders to be prepared in great numbers, and four tremendous
rams or wall-breakers, which were each pushed and served by fifty men.

The deep moats were to be filled up with countless bundles of brushwood
and reeds.

To defeat these plans, Belisarius and Cethegus, the first defending the
city in the north and east, the latter in the west and south, planted
catapults and other projectile machines on the walls, which were able
to cast immense spears to a great distance, with such force that they
could pierce the strongest coat of mail.

They protected the gates by means of "wolves," that is, cross-beams set
with iron spikes, which were let crashing down upon the assaulters as
soon as the latter approached the gate.

And, lastly, they strewed innumerable caltrops and steel-traps upon the
space between the town-moats and the camp of the bes