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"I have heard of the Goths," said Edith, "and of the Vandals, too. Where did they come from?" "They came over from Africa, captured Rome, and remained here fourteen days, destroying the buildings and sacking the city. They carried away whole ship-loads of booty, and took many of the Romans to be their slaves.
And the Romans, under the leadership of Sittas and Belisarius, made an inroad into Persarmenia, a territory subject to the Persians, where they plundered a large tract of country and then withdrew with a great multitude of Armenian captives. These two men were both youths and wearing their first beards , body-guards of the general Justinian, who later shared the empire with his uncle Justinus.
In this almost hopeless danger one of the military tribunes, Publius Decius Mus, discovered a little hill above the enemy's camp, and asked leave to lead a small body of men to seize it, since he would be likely thus to draw off the Samnites, and while they were destroying him, as he fully expected, the Romans could get out of the valley.
The ordinary catapults and balistae of the Romans were no match for such a storm descending from such a height; and it was plainly necessary, if the place was to be taken, to have recourse to some other device. Julian, therefore, who was never sparing of his own person, took the resolution, on the second day of the siege, of attempting to burst open one of the gates.
Thereupon the Romans made a grand rally, and in five minutes they chased the entire Carthaginian army out of the school-room, and Barnes along with it; and then they locked the door and began to hunt up the apples and lunch in the desks of the enemy.
Leon was the name of this fortress, one of the strategical points, not only of the early Romans, but of the Arabs who conquered the country, and later of the nascent Christian kingdom of Asturias.
Remarks on the Roman Conduct of the War Let us pause for a moment over the conflict, which extended the dominion of Rome beyond the circling sea that encloses the peninsula. It was one of the longest and most severe which the Romans ever waged; many of the soldiers who fought in the decisive battle were unborn when the contest began.
With the shouts of the assailants, the cries of the workmen were confusedly mixed; and all things equally combined to distress the Romans: the place deep with ooze sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armour heavy; the waters deep, nor could they in them launch their javelins.
The Lombards of Spoleto yielded to the double pressure of Franks and Romans, asked to be 'taken into the service of St. Peter, and clipt their long German locks after the Roman fashion. Charlemagne, in his final invasion, had little left to do.
This levity and inconstancy of purpose in a hot-headed youth, did not excite their surprise, nor did they reprove it, anxious only to detach him from the Romans. But every thing conspired to hurry him into perdition. The rest stood here prepared and armed, waiting for the king to pass by. All was done according to the arrangement.
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