Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/231

 a famine within the walls in order to bring about its surrender. Under the circumstances, however, the Byzantine general possessed every facility for achieving this object. The Goths had neither an army nor a fleet which could succour them from without, and hence the Romans were unhampered while making their dispositions for cutting off supplies from every direction. The environs were hemmed in by their land forces, whilst their fleet rode at anchor off the harbour. At the same time the transit of provision boats down the Po from the fields of the north and west was blocked by guards stationed on the river banks.

Directly Theodebert heard that Vitigis was in a critical position, he made a diplomatic attempt to encompass the subjugation of Italy. A legation arrived with the proposal that the two kings should reign as joint sovereigns, and contingently an army of fifty thousand Franks, which had already surmounted the Alps, should at the first onset annihilate the Byzantines with their axes. A companion embassy from Belisarius, who had been apprized of the intended debate, was received in audience at the same time. By them the Gothic king was warned not to put his trust in numbers, but to believe that the Imperial army would find means to deal with a multitude of Franks as effectively as it had already done with his own very numerous forces. Moreover, he urged, the perfidy displayed by the recent invasion proved that no compact would be binding on the Franks. After consultation with his nobles Vitigis decided that he would open peace negotiations with Justinian, and dismissed the envoys of Theodebert with a negative reply. Legates were then despatched to Constantinople, ready to accept any terms of peace which should be granted by the Byzantine Court.