Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/217

 down the enemy if they attempted to force the portals; and the towers were brought to a standstill by killing the draught-oxen with arrows.

During the first few weeks of the siege many determined efforts to scale the walls were made by the Goths, who expected to overwhelm the small garrison by their superior numbers. The most notable of these attacks was that made on the Aurelian gate, which stood on the river bank and was connected by a bridge over the Tiber with the quadrangular base of the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Constantine, with a small detachment of the garrison, occupied the walls and the monument, from which a colonnade extended to the church of St. Peter. Under cover of the portico the Goths were able to advance to close quarters without fear of missiles shot by hand or from the engines. They emerged from beneath in great force, protecting themselves with large shields and carrying numerous ladders. Some strove to ascend the monument; others crossed the bridge to scale the city walls. As soon as they appeared in the open their attack was hotly contested by the Byzantines, who aimed at them with arrows and stones from the engines. By a sudden impulse, those who defended the Mausoleum seized on the statues with which it was decorated, broke them in pieces, and hurled the fragments with both hands on the heads of the assailants. Thus for some time the battle raged furiously, but at length the Goths were repulsed.

As the siege proceeded, weekly sallies from the gates were studiously organized by Belisarius; and in these encounters the Goths almost invariably suffered in extraordinary disproportion to what might be expected from the paucity of combatants arrayed against them. On one occasion, for example, in a battle at the Salarian gate, thirty