not whether he won his
Frankish bride or no, but he was determined to win Rome. Assault again
failing, he occupied Portus and instituted a more rigorous blockade than
ever. But it had become a matter of some difficulty to starve out the
defenders of Rome, for there were practically no citizens there, only a
garrison, for whose food the corn grown within the enclosure of the
walls was nearly sufficient. The economic change from the days of the
Empire thus revealed to us is almost as great as if the harvests of Hyde
Park and Regent's Park sufficed to feed the diminished population of
London.

There was, however, among the Imperial soldiers in the garrison of Rome,
as elsewhere, deep discontent, amounting sometimes to mutiny, at the
long withholding of their arrears of pay; and the sight of the pomp and
splendour, which surrounded the former betrayer of Rome when they rode
in the ranks with Totila, was too much for their Isaurian countrymen.
The men who kept watch by the Gate of St. Paul (close to the Pyramid of
C. Sestius, and now overlooking the English Cemetery and Keats' grave)
offered to surrender their post to the Gothic king. To distract the
attention of the garrison he sent by night a little band of soldiers on
two skiffs up the Tiber as far as they could penetrate towards the heart
of the City. These men blew a loud blast with their trumpets, and
thereby called the bulk of the defenders down to the river-walls, while
the Isaurians were opening St. Paul's Gate to the besiegers, who marched
in almost unopposed. The garrison galloped off along the road to Civita
Vecchia, and on their way fell into an ambush which Totila had prepared
for them, whereby most of them perished (549).

Totila, now a second time master of Rome, determined to hold it
securely. He restored some of the public buildings which he had
previously destroyed; he adorned and beautified the City to the utmost
of his power; he invited the Senators and their families to return; he
celebrated the equestrian games in the Circus Maximus: in all things he
behaved himself as much as possible like one of the old Emperors of
Rome.

The year 550 was the high-water mark of the success of the Gothic arms.
In Italy only four cities--all on the sea-coast--were left to the
Emperor; these were Ravenna, Ancona, Otranto, and Crotona. In Sicily
most of the cities were still Imperial, but Totila had moved freely
hither and thither through the island, ravaging the vil