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his just confidence was placed in the veterans who CHA P. had fought under his banner in the Persian and Africah wars; and although that gallant band was reduced to five thousand men, he undertook, with such contemptible numbers, to defend a circle of twelve miles, against an army of one hundred and fifty thousand Barbarians. In the walls of Rome, which Belisarius constructed or restored, the materials of ancient architecture may be discerned* ; and the whole fortification was completed, except in a chasm still extant between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the prejudices of the Goths and Romans left under the effectual guard of St. Peter the apostle +. The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles; a ditch, broad and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the archers on the rampart were assisted by military engines; the balista, a powerful cross-bow, which darted short but massy arrows; the onagri, or wild asses, which, on the principle of a sling, threw stones and bullets of an enormous size ‡. A chain was drawn across the Tyber; the arches of the aqueducts were made impervious, and the mole or sepulchre

Q3

The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, 1. i. c. viii. p. 31.) could distinguish the tumultuary opera di Belisario.

+ The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the wall, which Procopius observed (Goth. 1. i. c. 13.), is visible to the present hour (Donat. Roma Vetus, 1. i. c. 17. p. 53, 54.).

Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet. 1. iii.) was ignorant of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius (Goth. 1. i. e. 21.). The engine was named oraygos, the wild ass, a calcitrando (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Linguæ Græc. tom. ii. p. 1340, 1341. tom. iii. p. 877.). I have seen an ingenious model, contrived and executed by general Melville, which imitates or surpasses the art of antiquity.

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CHA P. sepulchre of Hadrian was converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines, was a circular turret, rising from a quadrangular basis; it was covered with the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the statues of gods and heroes; and the lover of the arts must read with a sigh, that the works of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the heads of the bisiegers + To each of his lieutenants, Belisarius assigned the defence of a gate, with the wise and peremptory instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their general for the safety of Rome. The foṛmidable host of the Goths was insufficient to embrace the ample measure of the city of the fourteen gates, seven only were invested from the Prænestine to the Flaminian way; and Vitiges divided his troops into six camps, each of which was fortified with a ditch and rampart. On the Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment was formed in the field or circus of the Vatican, for the important purpose of commanding the Milvian bridge

and

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and the course of the Tiber; but they approached CHA P. with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter; and the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the siege by a Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as the senate decreed some distant conquest, the consul denounced hostilities, by unbarring in solemn pomp, the gates of the temple of Janus *. Domestic war now rendered the admonition superfluous, and the ceremony was superceded by the establishment of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was left standing in the forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but with two faces, directed to the east and west. The double gates were likewise of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on their rusty hinges, revealed the scandalous secret, that some Romans were still attached to the superstition of their ancestors..

CHA P. rollers, and formed a spacious platform of the level

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of the rampart On the morning of the nineteenth day, a general attack was made from the Prænestine 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. A shout of applause and victory was re echoed 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 immoveable, and a single moment disconcerted the laborious projects of the king of the Goths. After this disappointment, Viriges 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 Prænestine 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:

* Vivarium was an angle in the new wall inclosed for wild beasts Procopius, Goth. I. i. 23.). The spot is still visible in Nardini (1. iv. c. 2. p. 159, 160.) and Nolii's great plan of Rome.

A

guarded: the vigour of the Goths was excited c H a p. ! by the hope of victory and spoil; and if a single

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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 thè scenes of danger, and communicated his spirit in calm and decisive orders. The contest was fiercely maintained from the morning to the evening; the Goths were repulsed on all sides, and each Roman might boast, that he had vanquished thirty Barbarians, if the strange disproportion of numbers were not counterbalanced by the merit of one man. Thirty thousand Goths, according to the confession of their own chiefs, perished in this bloody action; and the multitude of the wounded was equal to that of the slain. When they advanced to the assault, their close disorder suffered not a javelin to fall without effect; and as they retired, the popu lace of the city joined the pursuit, and slaughtered, with impunity, the backs of their flying enemies. Belisarius instantly sallied from the gates; and while His sallies. the soldiers chaunted his name and victory, the hostile engines of war were reduced to ashes. Such was the loss and consternation of the Goths, that, from this day, the siege of Rome degenerated into a tedious and indolent blockade; and they were incessantly harassed by the Roman general, who in frequent skirmishes, destroyed above five

thousand