Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/296

 while the capital had been committed to the charge of an excellent soldier named Diogenes, with a garrison of three thousand picked men. Early in 549 the third siege of Rome by the Goths was begun, but the city was now well provisioned, and the governor vigilant, so that for several months the enemy made no sensible progress. There was still, however, among the defenders a band of Isaurians, to whom was entrusted the custody of a gate on the south, that named after the Apostle Paul; and they also conceived the idea of betraying their charge to Totila. As the reward of their treachery, they saw some of their former comrades abounding in wealth, whilst the arrears of pay due to the Byzantine army already extended over several years. They opened up communications, therefore, with the King; and in collusion with the traitors a plan of capture was soon agreed upon. But the circumstances were now very different, and an elaborate scheme had to be devised in order to attain to the same result. Success, however, was made commensurate with the greater complication of detail. The Tiber was now entirely at the command of Totila, as he had recently taken the fortress of Portus; whilst the only strong-*hold in the vicinity still held by the Romans was Centumcellae, a sea-port nearly forty miles to the north. Having posted a strong ambush on the road to the latter place, the King led the bulk of his forces secretly in the first watch of the night to the neighbourhood of the gate in question. At the same time he instructed two boats carrying trumpeters to row quietly up the river, and, as soon as they arrived at the north wall of the city, to begin sounding their instruments with all their force. Everything turned out as had*