n the
work had been silently executed, the humane general risked the discovery
of his secret by a last and fruitless admonition of the impending
danger. In the darkness of the night, four hundred Romans entered
the aqueduct, raised themselves by a rope, which they fastened to an
olive-tree, into the house or garden of a solitary matron, sounded
their trumpets, surprised the sentinels, and gave admittance to their
companions, who on all sides scaled the walls, and burst open the
gates of the city. Every crime which is punished by social justice was
practised as the rights of war; the Huns were distinguished by cruelty
and sacrilege, and Belisarius alone appeared in the streets and churches
of Naples to moderate the calamities which he predicted. "The gold and
silver," he repeatedly exclaimed, "are the just rewards of your valor.
But spare the inhabitants; they are Christians, they are suppliants,
they are now your fellow-subjects. Restore the children to their
parents, the wives to their husbands; and show them by you, generosity
of what friends they have obstinately deprived themselves." The city
was saved by the virtue and authority of its conqueror; and when the
Neapolitans returned to their houses, they found some consolation in
the secret enjoyment of their hidden treasures. The Barbarian garrison
enlisted in the service of the emperor; Apulia and Calabria, delivered
from the odious presence of the Goths, acknowledged his dominion; and
the tusks of the Calydonian boar, which were still shown at Beneventum,
are curiously described by the historian of Belisarius.

The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person within
the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles on the Appian
way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which, by a canal of nineteen
miles in length, had been recently drained and converted into excellent
pastures. But the principal forces of the Goths were dispersed in
Dalmatia, Venetia, and Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was
confounded by the unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed
to presage the downfall of his empire. The most abject slaves have
arraigned the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. The character
of Theodatus was rigorously scrutinized by a free and idle camp of
Barbarians, conscious of their privilege and