othic war will, I think, show that no severer
test of the foundation of his spiritual authority could be applied than
what this great event brought in its train. Nor must we omit to note that
this test was brought about not only by the operation of political causes,
but by actors who had not the intention of producing such a result. The
suffering of Rome, in particular, during this war at the hands of Vitiges,
Belisarius, Totila, Teia, Narses, is indescribable. It is hard to say
whether defender or assailant did it most injury; but it is true to say
that the one and the other were equally merciless in their purpose to
retain it as a prey or to recover it as a conquest. Vitiges, besides
pressing the people cooped up in its walls with a terrible famine during
his siege of a year, broke down its aqueducts and ruined every building on
that part of the Campagna which he scoured. Totila, in like manner, after
famishing the inhabitants, when he took Rome, broke down a good part of its
walls, and at his second capture, in 546, the city is described as having
been absolutely deserted. In the last struggle, Teia slew without pity the
three hundred hostages of Rome's noblest blood who had been sent to Pavia,
thereby almost destroying its patricians. These were the parting tokens of
Gothic affection for Italy. Then Belisarius, attempting to relieve Rome
with inadequate forces, which was all that the penury of Justinian allowed
him, was the means of prolonging the famine, while he did not save the city
from capture. Lastly, Narses, sent to finish the war, enrolled in Dalmatia
an army of adventurers. Huns, Lombards, Herules, Gepids, Greeks, and even
Persians, in figure, language, arms, and customs utterly dissimilar, fought
for him under the imperial standard, greedy for the treasures of Italy.
Narses took Rome in 552, and governed it as imperial prefect for fifteen
years at the head of a Greek garrison, until he was recalled in 567. That
occupation of Narses in 552 is the date of Rome's extinction as the old
secular imperial city. The year after his recal came the worst plague of
all, and the most enduring. The Lombards did but repeat for the subjection
of Italy to a fresh northern invasion what Narses had done to deliver it
from Theodorick's older one in the preceding century.

Now let us see the nature of the test which this course of events, the work
of Goth and Greek alike--inflicting great misery and danger on the clergy
and the