by Felix Dahn
CHAPTER XII.
At the same time a pause ensued before the Tiburtinian Gate.
A messenger had recalled the Gothic horsemen from the useless fight.
They were to send all the men they could dispose of as fast as possibleround the city to the Aurelian Gate, through which their comrades hadjust entered the city; there the greatest available force wasnecessary.
The horsemen, turning to the left, galloped towards the gate which hadnow become the centre of the struggle; but their own foot-soldiers,storming the five gates which lay between--the Porta Clausa, theNomentanian, Salarian, Pincian, and Flaminian Gates--blocked theirprogress so long, that they arrived too late for the result of theattack upon the Mausoleum.
We recollect the position of this favourite resort of the Prefect.Opposite the Vatican Hill, at about a stone's throw from the AurelianGate, with which it was connected by side walls, and protectedeverywhere, except on the south, where ran the river, by newfortifications, towered the "Moles Hadriani," an immense round tower ofthe firmest masonry.
A sort of court surrounded the principal building. On the south, beforethe first and outer wall of defence, flowed the Tiber. The ramparts ofthis outer wall, and the court and battlements of the inner wall, wereusually occupied by the Isaurians, whom, in an evil hour, the Prefecthad withdrawn in order to carry out his plot against Belisarius.
On the parapet of the inner wall stood the numerous statues of marbleand bronze, which had been raised to the number of three hundred by thegift of Kallistratos.
The King of the Goths had chosen for himself a position far back in themiddle of the wide semicircle which his army had drawn around the cityto the west. He had stationed himself upon the "field of Nero," on theright bank of the Tiber, between the Pancratian (old Aurelian) and the(new) Aurelian Gates, a post usually occupied by Earl Markja, ofMediolanum.
Witichis founded his plan upon the fact that the general storming ofall the gates would necessarily disperse the forces of the besieged;and as soon as some part of the ramparts should be more than usuallyexposed by the withdrawal of its defenders, he intended to make use ofthe circumstance, and attack at that point.
With this view, he had quietly remained immovable far behind thestorming columns.
He had given orders to his leaders to call him at once should a gap inthe line of defence be observed.
He had waited long--very long.
He had had to bear many a word of impatience from his troops, who wereforced to remain idle while their comrades were advancing on all sides.Long, long they waited for a messenger to call them into action.
At last the King himself was the first to notice that the well-knownflags and the thickly-crowded spears of the Isaurians had disappearedfrom the outer wall of the Mausoleum.
He observed the place attentively. The Isaurians could not have beenrelieved, for the gaps were not filled up.
Then he sprang from his saddle, gave his horse a stroke with the flatof his hand, and cried, "Home, Boreas!"
The clever animal galloped straight back to the camp.
"Now forward, my Goths! forward, Earl Markja!" cried the King. "Overthe river there! Leave the wall-breakers behind: take only shields andstorming-ladders, and the axes. Forward!"
And at a run he reached the steep bank at the southern bend of theriver, and descended the hill.
"No bridge. King, and no ford!" asked a Goth behind him.
"No, friend Iffamer; we must swim!"
And the King sprang into the dirty yellow water, which splashed,hissing, high above his helmet.
In a few moments he had reached the opposite bank, the foremost of hispeople with him.
Soon they stood close before the lofty outer wall of the Mausoleum, andthe warriors looked up inquiringly and anxiously.
"Bring the ladders!" cried Witichis. "Do you not see? There are nodefenders! Are you afraid of mere stones?"
The ladders were quickly raised, and the outer wall scaled. The fewsoldiers who had remained to defend this wall were overcome, theladders drawn up and let down on the inner side.
The King was the first in the court.
There, it is true, the progress of the Goths was for a time arrested.
For Quintus Piso and Kallistratos stood on the ramparts of the innerwall, with a hundred legionaries and a few Isaurians. They had hastenedthither from the Pancratian Gate. They hurled a thick hail of spearsand arrows at the Goths as they descended singly into the court. Theircatapults were also not without effect.
"Send for assistance to Cethegus!" cried Piso, on the wall; andKallistratos immediately rushed away.
Below in the court the Goths fell right and left at the side ofWitichis.
"What shall we do?" asked Markja.
"Wait until they have exhausted their projectiles. It cannot last muchlonger. They shoot and hurl too hastily in their fright. Do you see?Already more stones are flying than arrows, and there are no morespears."
"But their balistas?"
"They will presently be able to hurt us no longer. Prepare to storm!See, the hail is much thinner; now be ready with the ladders and axes.Follow me quickly!"
And the Goths ran at a quick step across the court. Very few fell. Thegreater part reached the second and inner wall in safety, and a hundredladders were raised.
And now all Procopius's balistas and machines were useless; for beingdirected for a wide range, they could not be placed in a perpendiculardirection without great trouble and loss of time.
Piso observed this, and turned pale.
"Spears! spears! or all is lost!"
"They are all cast away," panted fat Balbus, who stood near him, with alook of despair.
"Then all is lost!" sighed Piso, letting fall his wearied arms.
"Come, Massurius, let us save ourselves," cried Balbus.
"No, let us stand and die," cried Piso.
Over the edge of the wall appeared the first Gothic helmet.
All at once a cry was heard upon the steps leading on to the wallcitywards.
"Cethegus! Cethegus the Prefect!"
And he it was. He sprang upon the ramparts, and attacking the Goth, whohad just laid his hand upon the breastwork before swinging himselfover, he cut off hand and arm. The man screamed and fell.
"Oh, Cethegus!" cried Piso; "you come in the very nick of time!"
"I hope so," said Cethegus, and overturned the ladder which was raisedagainst the wall just in front of him.
Witichis had mounted it--he sprang down with agility.
"But I must have projectiles; spears, lances! else we can do nothing!"cried Cethegus.
"There is nothing left," answered Balbus; "we hoped that you would comewith your Isaurians."
"They are still far, far behind me!" cried Kallistratos, who was thefirst to arrive after Cethegus.
And the number of ladders and the rising helmets increased. Ruin wasimminent. Cethegus looked wildly round.
"Projectiles," he cried, stamping his foot; "we must have them!"
At that moment his eye fell upon a gigantic marble statue of Jupiter,which stood upon the ramparts to his left hand. A thought flashedacross him. He sprang up, and with his axe struck off the right arm ofthe statue, together with the thunderbolt it held.
"Jupiter!" he cried, "lend me thy lightnings! Why dost thou hold themso idly? Up, my men! shatter the statues and hurl them at the enemy!"
Before he could finish his sentence, his example was followed.
The hard-pressed defenders fell upon the gods and heroes with hammersand axes, and in a moment the lovely forms were shattered.
It was a frightful sight. There lay a grand Hadrian, an equestrianstatue, man and horse split in two; there a laughing Aphrodite fellupon its knees; there the beautiful head of an Antinous fell from thetrunk, and hurled by two hands, fell crashing upon a Gothic shield ofbuffalo-hide. And far and wide upon the ramparts fell fragments andpieces of marble and bronze, of iron and gold.
Do
wn from the ramparts, thundering and crashing, fell the mighty weightof metal and stone, and shattered the helms and shields, the armour andlimbs of the attacking Goths, and the ladders which bore them.
Cethegus looked with horror at the work of destruction which his wordshad called into action.
But it had saved them.
Twelve, fifteen, twenty ladders stood empty, although a moment beforethey had swarmed with men like ants; just as many lay broken at thefoot of the wall.
Surprised by this unexpected hail of bronze and marble, the Goths fellback for a space.
But presently Markja's horn called them to the attack. And again thetons of marble thundered through the air.
"Unhappy man, what have you done?" cried Kallistratos, full of grief,and staring at the ruin.
"What was necessary!" cried Cethegus, and hurled the trunk of theJupiter-statue over the wall. "Did you see it strike? two barbarians atone blow." And he looked down with great content.
At that moment he heard the Corinthian cry:
"No, no; not this one. Not the Apollo!"
Cethegus turned and saw a gigantic Isaurian raising his axe over thehead of the statue.
"Fool, shall the Goths come up?" asked the mercenary, and raised hisarm again.
"Not my Apollo!" repeated the Greek, and embraced the statue with botharms, protecting it with his body.
Earl Markja saw this movement from his stand upon the nearest ladder,and believing that Kallistratos was about to hurl the statue at him, hecast his spear and hit the Greek in the breast.
"Ah--Cethegus!" gasped Kallistratos--and fell dead.
The Prefect saw him fall, and contracted his brows.
"Save the corpse, and spare his two gods!" he said briefly, andoverthrew the ladder upon which Markja was standing; more he couldneither say nor do, for already a new and more imminent dangerattracted his attention.
Witichis, half thrown, half springing from his ladder, had remainedstanding close under the wall, amidst a hail of stone and metal,seeking for new means of attack.
For, since the first trial with the storming-ladders had been renderedfutile by the unexpected and novel projectiles, he had scarcely anyhope left of winning the wall.
While he was thus looking and waiting, the heavy marble pedestal of a"Mars Gradivus" fell close to his feet, rebounded and struck one of theslabs of the wall. And this slab, which seemed to be made of thehardest stone, broke into little pieces of lime and mortar.
In its place was revealed a small wooden door, which, loosely coveredand concealed by the mortar, was used by the masons and workpeople as ameans of exit and entrance when obliged to repair the immense edifice.
Witichis had scarcely caught sight of this wooden door, than he criedout exultingly:
"Here, Goths, here! Bring axes!" and he himself dealt a blow at thethin boards, which seemed anything but strong.
The new and singular sound struck the ear of the Prefect; he paused inhis bloody work and listened.
"That is iron against wood, by Caesar!" he said to himself, and sprangdown the narrow stairway, which led on the inner side of the wall intothe faintly illuminated interior of the Mausoleum.
There he heard a louder stroke than all which had preceded it; a dullcrash; a sharp sound of splintered wood; and then an exultant cry fromthe Goths.
As he reached the last step of the stair, the door fell crashinginwards, and King Witichis was visible upon the threshold.
"Rome is mine!" cried Witichis, letting his axe fall and drawing hissword.
"You lie, Witichis! for the first time in your life!" cried Cethegusfuriously, and, springing forward, he pressed the strong spike of hisshield so firmly against the breastplate of the Goth, that the latter,surprised, fell back a step.
The Prefect took advantage of the movement and placed himself upon thethreshold, completely blocking up the doorway.
"Where are my Isaurians!" he shouted. But the next moment Witichis hadrecognised him. "So we meet at last in single combat for Rome!" criedthe King.
And now it was his turn to attack. Cethegus, who wished to close thepassage, covered his left side with his shield; his right hand, armedonly with a short sword, was insufficient for the protection of hisright side.
The thrust of Witichis's long sword, weakly parried by Cethegus, cutthrough the latter's coat of mail and entered deeply into his rightbreast.
Cethegus staggered; he bent forward; but he did not fall.
"Rome! Rome!" he cried faintly; and convulsively kept himself upright.
Witichis had fallen back to gain space for a final thrust.
But at that moment he was recognised by Piso on the wall, who hurled asplendid sleeping Faun which lay near him down upon the King. It struckthe King's shoulder, and he fell.
Earl Markja, Iffamer and Aligern bore him out of the fight.
Cethegus saw him fall, and then himself sank down upon the threshold ofthe door; the protecting arms of a friend received him--but he couldrecognise nothing; his senses failed him.
He was presently recalled to consciousness by a well-known sound, whichrejoiced his soul; it was the tones of the tubas of his legionaries andthe battle-cry of his Isaurians, who had at last arrived, and, led bythe Licinii, fell upon the Goths, who were disheartened by the fall oftheir King.
The Isaurians, after a bloody fight, had issued through a breach in theouter wall (which had been broken outwards by the Goths who wereinside).
The Prefect saw the last of the barbarians fly; then his eyes closedonce more.
"Cethegus!" cried the friend who held him in his arms, "Belisarius isdying; and you, you too are lost!"
Cethegus recognised the voice of Procopius.
"I do not know," he said with a last effort, "but Rome--Rome is saved!"
And his senses completely forsook him.
