pting offers of Totila.
But the officer who succeeded to the command (his name was Diogenes)
deserved their esteem and confidence; and the Goths, instead of finding
an easy conquest, encountered a vigorous resistance from the soldiers
and people, who patiently endured the loss of the port and of all
maritime supplies. The siege of Rome would perhaps have been raised,
if the liberality of Totila to the Isaurians had not encouraged some of
their venal countrymen to copy the example of treason. In a dark night,
while the Gothic trumpets sounded on another side, they silently opened
the gate of St. Paul: the Barbarians rushed into the city; and the
flying garrison was intercepted before they could reach the harbor of
Centumcellae. A soldier trained in the school of Belisarius, Paul of
Cilicia, retired with four hundred men to the mole of Hadrian. They
repelled the Goths; but they felt the approach of famine; and their
aversion to the taste of horse-flesh confirmed their resolution to risk
the event of a desperate and decisive sally. But their spirit insensibly
stooped to the offers of capitulation; they retrieved their arrears of
pay, and preserved their arms and horses, by enlisting in the service of
Totila; their chiefs, who pleaded a laudable attachment to their wives
and children in the East, were dismissed with honor; and above four
hundred enemies, who had taken refuge in the sanctuaries, were saved
by the clemency of the victor. He no longer entertained a wish of
destroying the edifices of Rome, which he now respected as the seat
of the Gothic kingdom: the senate and people were restored to their
country; the means of subsistence were liberally provided; and Totila,
in the robe of peace, exhibited the equestrian games of the circus.
Whilst he amused the eyes of the multitude, four hundred vessels were
prepared for the embarkation of his troops. The cities of Rhegium
and Tarentum were reduced: he passed into Sicily, the object of his
implacable resentment; and the island was stripped of its gold and
silver, of the fruits of the earth, and of an infinite number of horses,
sheep, and oxen. Sardinia and Corsica obeyed the fortune of Italy; and
the sea-coast of Greece was visited by a fleet of three hundred galleys.
The Goths were landed in Corcyra and the ancient continent of Epirus;
they advanced as far as Nicopolis, the trophy of Augustus, and Dodona,
once famous by the oracle of Jove. In every step of his victories, the