, this body of men was too small to
hold so vast a city unless they were aided by the inhabitants. As for
Witigis, he marched northward to Ravenna with the bulk of the Gothic
army and there celebrated, not a victory, but a marriage. The only
remaining scion of the race of Theodoric was a young girl named
Matasuentha, the sister of Athalaric. In some vain hope of consolidating
his dynasty, Witigis divorced his wife and married this young princess.
The marriage was, as might have been expected, an unhappy one.
Matasuentha shared the Romanising tendencies of her mother, and her
spirit revolted against the alleged reasons of state which gave her this
elderly and low-born barbarian for a husband. In the darkest hour of the
Gothic fortunes (540) Matasuentha was suspected of opening secret
negotiations with the Imperial leaders, and even of seeking to aid the
progress of their arms by crime.

By the end of November, 536, Belisarius, partly aided by the treachery
of the Gothic general who commanded in Samnium, had recovered for the
Empire all that part of the Italian peninsula which, till lately, formed
the Kingdom of Naples. Pope Silverius, though he had sworn under duresse
an oath of fealty to King Witigis, sent messengers offering to surrender
the Eternal City, and the four thousand Goths, learning what
negotiations were going forward, came to the conclusion that it was
hopeless for them to attempt to defend the City against such a general
as Belisarius and against the declared wish of the citizens. They
accordingly marched out of Rome by a northern gate as Belisarius entered
it on the south.[146] The brave old Leudaris, refusing to abandon his
trust, was taken prisoner, and sent, together with the keys of the City,
to Justinian, most undoubted evidences of victory.

[Footnote 146: December, 536.]

Belisarius took up his headquarters in the Pincian Palace (on that hill
at the north of the City which is now the fashionable promenade of the
Roman aristocracy), and from thence commanded a wide outlook over that
part of the Campagna on which, as he knew, a besieging army would
shortly encamp. He set to work with all speed to repair the walls of the
City, which had been first erected by Aurelian and afterwards repaired
by Honorius at dates respectively 260 and 130 years before the entry of
Belisarius. Time and barbarian sieges had wrought much havoc on the line
of defence, the work of repair had to be done in haste, and to this