e, even the
most venturesome lost all desire to follow their example.

The dung of animals was sold at a high price.

Hungry women fought for the weeds and nettles which they found on the
heaps of rubbish.

Long since had hunger taught the populace to eat greedily unheard-of
things.

And countless deserters fled from the city to the Goths.

Teja would have forced them to return, in order the sooner to oblige
the city to surrender; but Totila gave orders that they should be
received and fed, and that care should be taken that they did not
injure themselves by the too sudden gratification of their ravenous
appetites.

Cethegus now spent his nights upon the walls. At various hours he
himself, spear and shield in hand, went the round of the patrols, and
sometimes took the place of a sentinel who was overcome with hunger or
the want of sleep. His example certainly had the greatest effect on the
brave. The two Licinii, Piso, and Salvius Julianus stood by the Prefect
and his blindly-devoted Isaurians with enthusiasm.

But not so all Romans; not Balbus, the gormandiser.

"No, Piso," said Balbus one day, "I cannot endure it any longer. It is
not in a man's power, at least not in mine. Holy Lucullus! who would
have thought that I should ever give my last and largest diamonds for
half a rock-marten!"

"I remember the time," answered Piso, laughing, "when you would have
put your cook in irons if he had let a lobster boil a minute too long."

"A lobster! Mercy on us! How can you recall such a picture to my mind!
I would give my immortal soul for one claw of a lobster, or even for
the tail. And never to sleep one's fill! To be awakened, if not by
hunger, by the trumpets of the patrol!"

"Look at the Prefect! For the last fourteen days he has not slept
fourteen hours. He lies upon his hard shield, and drinks rain-water out
of his helmet."

"The Prefect! He need not eat. He lives upon his pride, like the bear
on his fat, and sucks his own gall. He is made of nothing but sinews
and muscles, pride and hatred! But I--who had accumulated such soft
white flesh, that the mice nibbled at me when I slept, thinking that I
was a Spanish ham!--Do you know the latest news? A whole herd of fat
oxen was driven into the Gothic camp this morning--all from Apulia;
darlings of gods and men!"

The next day early Piso, with Salvius Julianus, came to wake the
Prefect, who had lain down on the wall by the Porta Portuensis, close
to the mos