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 342 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap xli on the right of the Tiber, and the best communication with the sea ; and he reflected with grief and anger, that three hundred men, could he have spared such a feeble band, might have de- fended its impregnable works. Seven miles from the capital, between the Appian and the Latin ways, two principal aque- ducts crossing, and again crossing each other, inclosed within their solid and lofty arches a fortified space, 100 where Vitiges established a camp of seven thousand Goths to intercept the convoys of Sicily and Campania. The granaries of Rome were insensibly exhausted, the adjacent country had been wasted with fire and sword ; such scanty supplies as might yet be ob- tained by hasty excursions were the reward of valour and the purchase of wealth : the forage of the horses and the bread of the soldiers never failed ; but in the last months of the siege the people were exposed to the miseries of scarcity, unwholesome food, 101 and contagious disorders. Belisarius saw and pitied their sufferings ; but he had foreseen, and he watched, the decay of their loyalty and the progress of their discontent. Adversity had awakened the Romans from the dreams of grandeur and freedom, and taught them the humiliating lesson that it was of small moment to their real happiness whether the name of their master was derived from the Gothic or the Latin language. The lieutenant of Justinian listened to their just complaints, but he rejected with disdain the idea of flight or capitulation ; repressed their clamorous impatience for battle ; amused them with the prospect of sure and speedy relief ; and secured him- self and the city from the effects of their despair or treachery. Twice in each month he changed the station of the officers to whom the custody of the gates was committed ; the various precautions of patrols, watch-words, lights, and music were re- 100 Procopius (Goth. 1. ii. c. 3) has forgot to name these aqueducts ; nor can such a double intersection, at such a distance from Eome, be clearly ascertained from the writings of Frontinus, Fabretti, and Eschinard, de Aquis and de Agro Romano, or from the local maps of Lameti and Cingolani. Seven or eight miles from the city (50 stadia), on the road to Albano, between the Latin and Appian ways, I dis- cern the remains of an aqueduct (probably the Septimian), a series (630 paces) of arches twenty-five feet high (vp^Kw is &yav). [The two aqueducts are obviously the Anio Novus + Claudia and the Marcia + Julia Tepula, which cross each other twice, and so enclose a space, near the Torre Fiscale on the Via Latina, at about three and a half miles from Rome. The only difficulty is that Procopius gives the distance from Rome as 50 stadia.] 101 They made sausages, aWavras, of mules' flesh : unwholesome, if the animals had died of the plague. Otherwise the famous Bologna sausages are said to be made of ass flesh (Voyages de Labat, torn. ii. p. 218).