A Struggle For Rome Volume Ii Part 58

"Archon," he cried to Constantinus, "Bessas begs for reinforcements for the Praenestinian Gate! The Goths are advancing."

Constantinus looked doubtfully at Cethegus.

"Pshaw!" said the latter; "the only attack to be feared will be made upon the Gate of St. Paul, and that is well defended, I am certain.

Tell Bessas that he is scared too soon. Besides, I have six lions, ten tigers and twelve bears in the Vivarium waiting for the next feast at the Circus. Let them loose upon the barbarians for the present. It will afford a spectacle for the Romans."

But now one of the body-guard hurried up from Mons Pincius.

"Help, sir. Help, Constantinus! your own gate, the Flaminian, is in danger! Countless barbarians! Ursicinus begs for a.s.sistance!"

"There too?" asked Cethegus incredulously.

"Reinforcements for the broken walls between the Flaminian and the Pincian Gates!" cried a second messenger, also sent by Ursicinus.

"You need not defend that part. You know that it stands under the special protection of St. Peter; that will suffice," said Constantinus encouragingly.

Cethegus smiled.

"Yes, to-day most surely; for it will not be attacked at all."

"Prefect!" cried Marcus Licinius, who just then hurried up, out of breath; "quick to the Capitol! I have just come thence. All the seven camps of the enemy are vomiting Goths from every exit. A general storm is intended upon all the gates of Rome."

"That can hardly be," said Cethegus with a smile. "But I will go up.

You, Marcus Licinius, will answer to me for the Tiburtinian Gate. It _must_ be mine. Away with you! Take your two hundred legionaries."

With these words he mounted his horse and rode towards the Capitol round the foot of the Viminalian Hill. There he met with Lucius Licinius and his Isaurians.

"General," said Lucius, "things look grave, very grave! What about the Isaurians? Do you persist in your order?"

"Have I retracted it?" said Cethegus severely. "Lucius, you and the other tribunes must follow me. Isaurians, you, under your chief, Asgares, will march between the Baths and the Tiburtinian Gate."

He did not believe there was danger for Rome. He thought he knew what the barbarians really intended at this moment.

"The feint of a general attack," he argued, "is only meant to prevent the Byzantines from thinking of the danger of their commander outside the walls."

He soon reached and ascended a tower of the Capitol, whence he could overlook the whole plain.

It was filled with Gothic weapons.

It was a splendid spectacle.

From all the gates of the encampment poured the Gothic troops, encircling the whole circ.u.mference of the city.

It was evident that the a.s.sault was intended to be carried on simultaneously against all the gates of Rome.

Foremost came the archers and slingers, in light groups of skirmishers, whose business it was to rid the ramparts of their defenders.

Then followed battering-rams and wall-breakers, taken from Roman a.r.s.enals or constructed on Roman models, though often clumsily enough; harnessed with horses and oxen and served by soldiers without weapons of attack, whose sole business it was to protect themselves and their teams against the projectiles of the enemy by means of their shields.

Close behind, in thick ranks and fully armed, furnished with battle-axes and strong knives for the hand-to-hand struggle, and dragging heavy ladders, came the warriors who were to undertake the a.s.sault.

These three separate lines of attack advanced steadily, in good order, and with an even step. The sun glittered upon their helmets; at intervals of equal lengths sounded the long-drawn summons of the Gothic horns.

"They have learned something of us," cried Cethegus, with a soldier's pride in the fine array. "The man who has ordered these ranks understands war."

"Who is it?" asked Kallistratos, who, in splendid armour, stood near Lucius Licinius.

"King Witichis, without doubt," answered Cethegus.

"I should not have thought that simple man, with his modest expression, capable of such generalship."

"These barbarians are often unfathomable," remarked Cethegus.

And now he rode away from the Capitol, over the river to the ramparts at the Pancratian Gate, where the first attack seemed to threaten.

There he ascended the corner tower with his followers.

"Who is the old man with the flowing beard, marching before his troop and carrying a stone axe? He looks as if the lightning of Zeus had missed him in the battle with the t.i.tans."

"It is Theodoric's old master-at-arms; he marches against this gate,"

answered the Prefect.

"And who is the richly-accoutred man upon the brown charger, with the wolfs head upon his helmet? He is marching towards the Porta Portuensis."

"That is Duke Guntharis, the Wolfung," said Lucius Licinius.

"And see there, too, on the eastern side of the city, away over the river, as far as the eye can reach, the ranks of the enemy advance against all the gates," cried Piso.

"But where is the King himself!" asked Kallistratos.

"Look! there in the middle you see the Gothic standard. There he is, opposite the Pancratian Gate," answered the Prefect.

"He alone, with his strong division, stands motionless far behind the lines," said Salvius Julia.n.u.s, the young jurist.

"Will he not join in the fight!" asked Ma.s.surius.

"It would be against his habit not to do so. But let us go down upon the ramparts; the fight begins," said Cethegus.

"Hildebrand has reached the trench."

"There stand my Byzantines, under Gregorius. The Gothic archers aim well. The ramparts become thinned. Ma.s.surius, bring up my Abasgian archers, and the best archers of the legions. They must aim at the oxen and horses of the battering-rams."

Very soon the battle was kindled upon all sides, and Cethegus remarked with rage that the Goths progressed everywhere.

The Byzantines seemed to miss their leader; they shot at random and fell back from the walls, against which the Goths pressed with unusual daring.

They had already crossed the trenches at many points, and Duke Guntharis had even erected ladders against the walls near the Portuensian Gate; while the old master-at-arms had dragged a strong battering-ram to the Pancratian Gate, and had caused it to be protected by a penthouse against the fiery darts from above.

Already the first strokes of the ram thundered through the uproar of the battle against the beams of the gate.