A Struggle For Rome Volume Iii Part 20

But the young guide looked up into the King's shining countenance, and sang in a soft sweet voice:

"Cunning Cethegus: Tricks will not serve thee!

Teja the terrible Daunts thy defiance.

And brightly arises, Like morning and May-time, Like night from the darkness, The favourite of heaven, The bright, and the beautiful King of the Goths!

To him are wide opened All halls and all hearts; To him, overpowered, Yield Winter and Woe!"

When the King entered the Forum, there fell a dead silence upon the people.

But Cethegus, who had expected this, immediately took advantage of it.

He urged his horse into the crowd and cried:

"What would you, Goth, in this my city?"

Totila cast one flaming look at him, and then turned away.

"With _him_ I speak, for evermore, only with my sword! With him, the threefold liar and murderer! To _you_ I speak, unhappy and befooled inhabitants of Rome! Your sufferings wring my heart. I come to end your misery. I come without arms, for I am safer, trusting to the honour of Romans, than protected by sword and shield."

He paused.

Cethegus no more attempted to interrupt him.

"Quirites," continued Totila, "you yourselves have truly acknowledged that I might long since have stormed your walls with my hosts. For now you have but stones, and no men to defend them. But if Rome were carried by storm, then Rome would burn; and I confess that I would rather never enter Rome, than enter to find it in ashes. I will not reproach you with the manner in which you have requited the kindness of Theodoric and the Goths. Have you forgotten the time when you coined your gold with the grateful inscription, 'Roma felix'? Truly you are punished enough; more heavily punished by hunger, pestilence, and the yoke of the Byzantines and that demon Cethegus, than by the severest penalty which we could have inflicted. More than eight thousand people--women and children not included--have perished. Your deserted houses fall into ruins; you greedily pluck the gra.s.s which grows in your temples; despair walks your streets with hollow eyes; famished mothers--Roman mothers--have devoured the flesh of their own children.

Until this day, your resistance was heroic, although lamentable. But henceforward it is madness. Your last hope was placed in Belisarius.

Then hear: Belisarius has sailed from Sicily to Byzantium. He has deserted you."

Cethegus ordered the trumpets to be sounded, in order to drown the groans of the mult.i.tude.

For some time it was all in vain, but at last the brazen tones conquered.

When all was quiet the Prefect cried:

"It is a lie! Do not believe such barefaced lies!"

"Have the Goths, have I, ever lied to you, Romans? But you shall believe your own eyes and ears. Come forward, man, and speak. Do you know him?"

A Byzantine in rich armour was led forward by the Gothic hors.e.m.e.n.

"Konon!"

"The navarchus of Belisarius!"

"We know him!" cried the crowd.

Cethegus turned pale.

"Men of Rome," said the Byzantine, "Belisarius, the magister militum, has sent me to King Totila. I arrived in the camp to-day. Belisarius was obliged to return to Byzantium. On leaving Sicily, he recommended Rome and Italy to the well-known benevolence of King Totila. This was my message to him and to you."

"If this be so," cried Cethegus, with a threatening voice, "then now is the day to prove whether you be Romans or b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Mark me well!

Cethegus the Prefect will never, never surrender his Rome to the barbarians! Oh I think once more of the time when I was your all! When you exalted my name above those of the saints! Who has given you, for years, work, bread, and, what is more, weapons? Who protected you--Belisarius or Cethegus?--when these barbarians encamped by millions before your walls? Who saved Rome, with his heart's blood, from King Witichis? For the last time I call you to the combat! Do you hear me, grandchildren of Camillus? As he once, solely by the might of the Roman sword, swept the Gauls, who had already taken the city, away from the Capitol, so will I sweep away these Goths! Follow me! We will sally forth and let the world see what is possible to Roman valour when led by Cethegus and despair. Choose!"

"Aye, choose!" cried Totila, raising himself in his stirrups. "Choose between certain destruction or certain freedom. If you once more follow this madman, I can no longer protect you. Listen to Earl Teja, who stands at my right hand. You know him, I think. I can no longer protect you."

"No," cried Teja, raising his mighty axe, "then, by the G.o.d of Hate, no more mercy! If you refuse this last offer, not a life will be spared within these walls. I, and a thousand others, have sworn it!"

"I offer you complete immunity, and will prove a mild and just king to you. Ask Neapolis what I am! Choose between me and the Prefect!"

"Hail to King Totila! Death to the Prefect!" was the unanimous acclamation.

And, as if at a signal, the women and children, with uplifted hands, threw themselves on their knees; while all the armed inhabitants raised their weapons threateningly, and many a spear was hurled at the Prefect. They were the very weapons which he himself had given to the people.

"They are dogs--no Romans!" exclaimed Cethegus, with disdainful fury, and turned his horse. "To the Capitol!"

And his horse, with a sudden leap, cleared the row of kneeling and screaming women. Through a shower of darts which the Romans now sent after him galloped the Prefect, riding down the few who had courage enough to try to stop him.

His crimson crest soon disappeared in the distance.

His companions galloped swiftly after him. The lance-bearers on foot retreated in good order, now and then turning and levelling their spears. Thus they reached the lofty bulwark which, held by Marcus Licinius, protected the ascent to the Capitol, and the way to the Prefect's house.

"What next? Shall we pursue?" the citizens asked the King.

"No--stay. Let all the gates be opened. Wagons laden with meat, bread, and wine stand ready in the camp. Let them be brought into all parts of the city. Feed the people of Rome for three whole days. My Goths shall keep watch to prevent excess."

"And the Prefect?" asked Duke Guntharis.

"Cornelius Cethegus, the ex-Prefect of Rome, will not escape the vengeance of G.o.d," cried Totila, turning away.

"And not mine!" cried the shepherd-boy.

"And not mine!" said Teja, and galloped after the King.

CHAPTER X.

Most of the quarters of the city of Rome had now fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Cethegus was in possession of that part of the city which extended on the right bank of the Tiber from the Mausoleum of Hadrian in the north to the Porta Portuensis in the south, near which were situated the two bolts across the river.

On the left bank the Prefect held only the small but dominating quarter west of the Forum Romanum, of which the Capitol formed the centre. This quarter was enclosed by walls and high bulwarks which stretched from the sh.o.r.e of the Tiber at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and round the hill eastwards, to the Forum of Trajan in the north; while at the back and westwards from the Capitol, they pa.s.sed between the Circus Flaminius and the Theatre of Marcellus (abandoning the first and enclosing the last), and ended at the Fabrician Bridge and the Island of the Tiber.

The King had left the Forum, and the rest of the day was spent by the inhabitants of the city in feasting and rejoicing.

The King caused eighty wagons, each drawn by four oxen, to be drawn up in all the princ.i.p.al squares and places of those parts of the city which had surrendered. And round about these wagons, upon the pavement or upon speedily-erected wooden benches, lay the famishing population, raising their voices in thanks to G.o.d, the saints, and the "good King."

The Prefect had at once closed all the gates which led from those parts of the city occupied by the Goths into _his_ Rome; particularly the approaches from the Forum Romanum to the Capitol, and the Flumentanian, Carmentalian and Ratumenian Gates. He caused them all to be barricaded, and divided the few soldiers he had at his command among the most important points of defence.