to have avenged himself on them enough. He had begun a new course
with them. They must begin a new course with him; and justice was the
only path. As for the man's being a valiant hero: let them know that the
unjust and the ravisher were never brave in fight; but that according to
a man's life, such was his luck in battle.

His noble words came all but true. The feeble generals who were filling
Belisarius's place were beaten one by one, and almost all Italy was
reconquered. Belisarius had to be sent back again to Italy: but the
envy, whether of Justinian himself, or of the two wicked women who ruled
his court, allowed him so small a force that he could do nothing.

Totila and the Goths came down once more to Rome. Belisarius in agony
sent for reinforcements, and got them; but too late. He could not
relieve Rome. The Goths had massed themselves round the city, and
Belisarius, having got to Ostia (Portus) at the Tiber's mouth, could get
no further. This was the last woe; the actual death-agony of ancient
Rome. The famine grew and grew. The wretched Romans cried to Bessas and
his garrison, either to feed them or to kill them out of their misery.
They would do neither. They could hardly at last feed themselves. The
Romans ate nettles off the ruins, and worse things still. There was not
a dog or a rat left. They even killed themselves. One father of five
children could bear no longer their cries for food. He wrapped his head
in his mantle, and sprang into the Tiber, while the children looked on.
The survivors wandered about like spectres, brown with hunger, and
dropped dead with half-chewed nettles between their lips. To this, says
Procopius, had fortune brought the Roman senate and people. Nay, not
fortune, but wickedness. They had wished to play at being free, while
they themselves were the slaves of sin.

And still Belisarius was coming,--and still he did not come. He was
forcing his way up the Tiber; he had broken Totila's chain, burnt a tower
full of Goths, and the city was on the point of being relieved, when one
Isaac made a fool of himself, and was taken by the Goths. Belisarius
fancied that Portus, his base of operations, with all his supplies, and
Antonia, the worthless wife on whom he doted, were gone. He lost his
head, was beaten terribly, fell back on Ostia, and then the end came.
Isaurians from within helped in Goths by night. The Asinarian gate was
opened, and Rome was in the hands of