Belisarius wished to revive my mistress from her melancholy and at the same time to make generous amends to Theodosius for his former suspicions of him. He therefore sent Photius back to Constantinople; who took with him, for Justinian, the keys of Naples, the Gothic prisoners, and a letter requesting immediate reinforcements. Then Belisarius wrote to tell Theodosius that he could now return without fear. But my mistress thought it a weary time to wait.
The Gothic garrison at Rome was surprised by our arrivaclass="underline" their advance-guard, posted on the Appian Way, had believed us still to be at Naples. Once more the name of Belisarius proved its value. The people of Rome were convinced that the City must fall to him, and were anxious to avoid the fate of the Neapolitans. The Pope Silverius then violated his oath to Wittich, with the excuse that it was sworn under duress and to a heretic. He sent Belisarius a letter inviting him to enter without fear, since he would soon persuade the Gothic garrison to march out. As we descended the long ridge of Albano and entered the city by the Asinarian Gate, the Gothic garrison marched out of the Flaminian, to the northward. Only their commander refused to desert his post. Belisarius took him alive and sent him to Constantinople with the keys of the city.
I confess that the sight of Rome disappointed me. It is venerable and vast indeed, and contains most remarkable buildings, the greatest of them overshadowing anything that we can show in Constantinople. But in three things it is inferior in my mind even to Carthage: it is a city that has greatly declined in riches and population, it does not lie upon the sea, the climate is unhealthy.
The Roman Senators and clergy greeted us warmly and urged us to push on to Ravenna and destroy the usurper Wittich before he had time to assemble his forces. But they were distressed when Belisarius replied that he preferred to remain awhilc in the city and enjoy its hospitality, and especially when he began to repair the city defences, which were in a ruinous condition. The Pope Silverius himself came to my mistress secretly, and said to her — I was present — 'Most Virtuous and Illustrious daughter, perhaps you will be able to persuade the victorious Belisarius, your husband, to give over his unwise intentions. It seems that he is intending to stand a siege in our Holy Rome, which (though abundantly blessed by God) is the least defensible city in the world, and in twelve hundred years of its history has never successfully stood a long siege. Its circuit walls, as you can sec, are twelve miles in length and rise from a level plain; it is without sufficient food for its many hundred thousands of souls, and cannot easily be provisioned from the sea — as Naples, for instance, could be. Since your forces are insufficient, why not return to Naples and leave us Romans in peace?'
My mistress Antonina replied: 'Beloved of Christ, Most Holy and Eminent Silverius, fix your thoughts rather on the Heavenly City, and my husband and I will concern ourselves with this earthly one. Permit me to warn Your Holiness that it is to your advantage not to meddle in our affairs.'
Pope Silverius went away offended, not offering my mistress his customary blessing — which, as you may imagine, did not greatly distress her. Enmity sprang up between them, and he repented of having welcomed our small army. He was convinced that we would be overwhelmed, and that Wittich would depose him for his breach of faith.
Belisarius, having sent out Constantine and Bessas with a small force to win Tuscany over to our arms, set his remaining troops to work at strengthening the ancient city ramparts, clearing and deepening the choked fosse, and patching up the gates. Since early in Theoderich's reign no one had troubled about the repair of the ramparts. They consisted of the customary broad terrace of earth enclosed between two battlemcnted walls, with guard-towers at intervals. Belisarius now improved on the battlements by adding a defensive wing to each of them, on the left; so that to birds or angels looking down from the sky they would appear like the letter Gamma written many times over. He employed all the available masons and labourers in the city on this work, as he had done at Carthage. He also filled the Roman granaries with corn that he had brought from Sicily and requisitioned all stocks of grain within 100 miles of the city; paying for them at a fair price.
We had entered Rome on the tenth day of December; three months were gone before King Wittich came against us with his army. But by then it was a very strong army, drawn from every part of Italy and from across the Alps — consisting for the most part of heavy cavalry. Tuscany had yielded to our arms, but Belisarius now recalled from there all but the garrisons which he had put into Perugia and Narni and Spoleto, a mere thousand men. With the marines whom he took from the fleet, he had 10,000 men of all arms to oppose to 150,000 Goths. Thus the siege of Rome began.
Wittich rode southward at the head of his army, which strung out behind him on the Flaminian Way for a hundred miles and with only a little interval between division and division. Not far from Rome, he met a priest being carried out from the city in a sedan-chair on his way to take up a bishopric in the North. Wittich asked this priest:' What news, Holy Father? Is Belisarius still at Rome? Do you think that we shall catch him before he falls back on Naples?'
The priest, who was a man of penetration, replied: 'There is no need to hurry, King Wittich. The Lady Antonina, wife of this Belisarius, is reglazing the windows of a palace which they are to occupy, and putting new hinges on the doors and buying furniture and pictures, and re-planting the garden with rose-trees and building a new north porch. Belisarius himself is doing the same sort of thing for the city defences — when you reach the Tiber you will find a new sort of north porch that he has built at the Mulvian Bridge.'
There are many bridges over the Tiber. The Mulvian is the only one near Rome that is not part of the city fortifications, lying two miles to the northward. Belisarius had built two strong stone towers here and garrisoned them with a detachment of 150 cavalrymen; whom he provided with catapults and scorpions to sink any boat in which the Goths might attempt to cross the river and take them in the rear. He intended the fortification of this bridge to delay Wittich's advance, obliging him cither to make a long detour or to send his men across the river by tens or twenties in a few small ferry-boats — he had removed all larger boats and barges himself. Whichever choice Wittich made, his army was so huge that Belisarius would gain something like twenty clays for completing his work on the city fortifications; and in those twenty days the reinforcements that he was expecting from Constantinople might well arrive. Perhaps he would also be able to delay the enemy's crossing at another point.
The Mulvian Bridge garrison proved cowardly. When they saw the Gothic knights approaching in their hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands, mounted on fine horses, the spring sunshine twinkling on helmets and armour and lance-points and frontlets and poitrails, they said to one another: 'Why should we stay here and be killed to please Belisarius? Not even he would care to face the odds of a thousand to one.' Some of them were Thracian Goths, who suddenly realized that this impressive army consisted of their kinsmen and co-religionists. What quarrel had they with them? At dusk the garrison lied: the Thracian Goths as deserters to Wittich, the remainder in the direction of Campania, being ashamed or afraid to return to Rome.