almost more besieged than
besiegers, and who were dying by thousands in the unhealthy Campagna.
Before the end of March, 538, they broke up their encampment, and
marched, in sullen gloom, northwards to defend Ravenna, which was
already being threatened by the operations of a lieutenant of
Belisarius. The 150,000 men who had hastened to Rome, dreading lest the
Imperialists should escape before they could encompass the City, were
reduced to but a small portion of that number, perhaps not many more
than the 10,000 which, after all his reinforcements had been received,
seems to have been the greatest number of actual soldiers serving under
Belisarius in the defence of Rome.

I pass rapidly over the events of 538 and 539. The Imperial generals
pressed northwards along the Flaminian Way. Urbino, Rimini, Osimo, and
other cities in this region were taken by them. But the Goths fought
hard, though they gave little proof of strategic skill; and once, when
they recaptured the great city of Milan, it looked as though they might
almost be about to turn the tide of conquest. Evidently they were far
less demoralised by their past prosperity than the Vandals. Perhaps also
the Roman population of Italy, who had met with far gentler and more
righteous treatment from the Ostrogoths than their compeers in Africa
had met with from the Vandals, and who were now suffering the horrors of
famine, owing to the operations of the contending armies, assisted the
operations of the Byzantine invaders less than the Roman provincials in
Africa had done. Whatever the cause, it was not till the early months of
540, nearly five years after the beginning of the war, that Belisarius
and his army stood before the walls and among the rivers of Ravenna,
almost the last stronghold of Witigis. Belisarius blockaded the city,
and his blockade was a far more stringent one than that which Witigis
had drawn around Rome. Still there was the ancient and well-founded
reputation for impregnability of the great Adrian city, and, moreover,
just at this time the ambassadors, sent by Witigis to Justinian,
returned from Constantinople, bearing the Emperor's consent to a
compromise. Italy, south of the Po, was to revert to the Empire; north
of that river, the Goths were still to hold it, and the royal treasure
was to be equally divided between the two states. Belisarius called a
council of war, and all his officers signed a written opinion "that the
proposals of the Emperor w