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 chap, xliii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 433 mbal. 30 The senators were dragged in his train, and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania ; the citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile; and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary solitude. 37 The loss of Rome was speedily retrieved by an action to Recovered which, according to the event, the public opinion would apply sarius. the names of rashness or heroism. After the departure of Totila, February the Roman general sallied from the port at the head of a thou- sand horse, cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city. Resolved to maintain a station so conspicuous in the eyes of mankind, he summoned the greatest part of his troops to the standard which he erected on the Capitol; the old in- habitants were recalled by the love of their country and the hopes of food ; and the keys of Rome were sent a second time to the emperor Justinian. The walls, as far as they had been demolished by the Goths, were repaired with rude and dissimilar materials ; the ditch was restored ; iron spikes 38 were profusely scattered on the highways to annoy the feet of the horses ; and, as new gates could not suddenly be procured, the entrance was guarded by a Spartan rampart of his bravest soldiers. At the expiration of twenty-five days, Totila returned by hasty marches from Apulia, to avenge the injury and disgrace. Belisarius ex- pected his approach. The Goths were thrice repulsed in three general assaults ; they lost the flower of their troops ; the royal standard had almost fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the fame of Totila sunk, as it had risen, with the fortune of his darker ages was illustrated by the apparition, miracles, and church of St. Michael the archangel. Horaoe, a native of Apulia or Lucania, had seen the elms and oaks of Garganus labouring and bellowing with the north wind that blew on that lofty coast (Carm. ii. 9 ; Epist. ii. i. 201 [leg. 202]). 36 I cannot ascertain this particular camp of Hannibal ; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the neighbourhood of Arpi (T. Liv. xxii. 9, 12 ; xxiv. 3, &c). 37 Totila. . . Roman ingreditur. . . ac evertit muros domos aliquantas igni comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in prsedam accepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Cam- paniam captivos abduxit. Post quam devastationem, xl. aut aniplius dies, Roma fuitita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, niBi (nullae ?) bestise morarentur (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54). 38 The tribuli are small engines with four spikes, one fixed in the ground, the three others erect or adverse (Procopius, Gothic. 1. ill. e. 24; Just. Lipsius, Poliorcetwi/, 1. v. c. 3). [Rather the opposite ; three fixed in the ground, one always erect, how- ever thrown. The description of Prooopius is quite clear.] The metaphor was bor- rowed from the tribuli (land-caltrops), an herb with a prickly fruit common in Italy (Martin, ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 153, vol. ii. p. 33). vol. iv. — 28