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 Chap, xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 333 savages of the north ; and, without reflecting that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman emperor as a new aera of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown open for his reception. As soon as Belisarius had fortified his new conquests, Naples and Cumse, he advanced about twenty miles to the banks of the Vulturnus, contem- plated the decayed grandeur of Capua, and halted at the separation of the Latin and Appian ways. The work of the censor, after the incessant use of nine centuries, still preserved its primaeval beauty, and not a flaw could be discovered in the large polished stones, of which that solid though narrow road was so firmly compacted. 82 Belisarius, however, preferred the Latin way, which, at a distance from the sea and the marches, skirted in a space of one hundred and twenty miles along the foot of the mountains. His enemies had disappeared ; when Belisarius he made his entrance through the Asinarian gate, the garrison Rome, departed without molestation along the Flaminian way ; and Dec. 10 '[9] the city, after sixty years' servitude, was delivered from the yoke of the Barbarians. Leuderis alone, from a motive of pride or discontent, refused to accompany the fugitives ; and the Gothic chief, himself a trophy of the victory, was sent with the keys of Rome to the throne of the emperor Justinian. 83 The first days, which coincided with the old Saturnalia, siege of were devoted to mutual congratulation and the public joy ; fhe^otL and the Catholics prepared to celebrate, without a rival, the March approaching festival of the nativity of Christ. In the familiar conversation of an hero, the Romans acquired some notion of the virtues which history ascribed to their ancestors ; they were 82 Bergier (Hist, des Grands Chemins des Romains, torn. i. p. 221-228, 440-444) examines the structure and materials, while d'Anville (Analyse de l'ltalie, p. 200- 213) defines the geographical line. 83 Of the first recovery of Rome the year (536) is certain from the series of events, rather than from the corrupt, or interpolated, text of Procopius ; the month (December) is ascertained by Evagrius (1. iv. c. 19) ; and the day (the tenth) may be admitted on the slight evidence of Nicephorus Callistus (1. xvii. c. 13). [And so Liber Pontificalis. But Evagrius gives the 9th. The corrupt text of Procopius, B. G., i. c. 14, is restored by Haury (p. 77 of his edition) thus, from Evagrius : "Pdi^i) re avdis k£rKOVTO. tTecriv vffrepov vwh Pce/j.alois yeyovep, ivory rod reXevraiov, wpbs 5e ^"Paifiaicav irpoffayopeuofitt'ov Aexenfiplov /*??«/<$$.>] For this accurate chronology, we are indebted to the diligence and judgment of Pagi (torn. ii. p. 559, 560). a-d. 537,