usty hinges
revealed the scandalous secret that some Romans were still attached to
the superstition of their ancestors.

Eighteen days were employed by the besiegers, to provide all the
instruments of attack which antiquity had invented. Fascines were
prepared to fill the ditches, scaling-ladders to ascend the walls. The
largest trees of the forest supplied the timbers of four battering-rams:
their heads were armed with iron; they were suspended by ropes, and each
of them was worked by the labor of fifty men. The lofty wooden turrets
moved on wheels or rollers, and formed a spacious platform of the level
of the rampart. On the morning of the nineteenth day, a general attack
was made from the Praenestine gate to the Vatican: seven Gothic columns,
with their military engines, advanced to the assault; and the Romans,
who lined the ramparts, listened with doubt and anxiety to the cheerful
assurances of their commander. As soon as the enemy approached the
ditch, Belisarius himself drew the first arrow; and such was his
strength and dexterity, that he transfixed the foremost of the Barbarian
leaders.

As shout of applause and victory was reechoed along the wall. He drew a
second arrow, and the stroke was followed with the same success and the
same acclamation. The Roman general then gave the word, that the archers
should aim at the teams of oxen; they were instantly covered with mortal
wounds; the towers which they drew remained useless and immovable, and
a single moment disconcerted the laborious projects of the king of the
Goths. After this disappointment, Vitiges still continued, or feigned
to continue, the assault of the Salarian gate, that he might divert the
attention of his adversary, while his principal forces more strenuously
attacked the Praenestine gate and the sepulchre of Hadrian, at the
distance of three miles from each other. Near the former, the double
walls of the Vivarium were low or broken; the fortifications of the
latter were feebly guarded: the vigor of the Goths was excited by the
hope of victory and spoil; and if a single post had given way, the
Romans, and Rome itself, were irrecoverably lost. This perilous day was
the most glorious in the life of Belisarius. Amidst tumult and dismay,
the whole plan of the attack and defence was distinctly present to his
mind; he observed the changes of each instant, weighed every possible
advantage, transported his person to the scenes of danger, and
communicated h