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In a few moments Adrian and his train were on the march; but still the young Colonna turned back, to gaze once more on his wild host and that lovely lady, as they themselves lingered on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled mournfully on their ears. It was not many months after that date, that the name of Fra Monreale scattered terror and dismay throughout the fair Campania.

But now those same cries seemed almost drowned by a sound more persistent if less ominous: the sound of heavy pattering rain on leaden roofs and into the marble basin of the impluvium, whilst the roll of Jove's thunders appeared to be more nigh. It was obvious that the storm which had been threatening all the morning from over the Campania, had burst over the great city at last.

A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in the heavens; earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were the traces of deep uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all these portents, which were accepted as true by Christians as well as by pagans, the Christians would give a specially terrible significance. They strengthened their conviction that the coming of the Lord drew nigh.

They were slaves who held the plough, and tilled the land, and tended the flocks, equally in Lybia, in Campania, in Egypt, as in Umbria.

As the subject of the inquiry in Campania was thus removed, the proceedings were then directed towards Rome: by construing the order of the senate to have meant, that inquiry should be made, not specially who at Capua, but generally who at any place had caballed or conspired against the state; for that cabals, for the attaining of honours, were contrary to the edicts of the state.

Thus, with perfect simplicity, with kindliest interest in things human, did Benedict draw the young man into converse. He put no question that touched on the inner life, and Basil uttered not a word concerning his late distress, but they touched for a moment upon public affairs, and Basil learnt, without show of special interest, that Totila still lingered in Campania.

After her death, he ordered a public mourning for her; during which it was capital for any person to laugh, use the bath, or sup with his parents, wife, or children. Being inconsolable under his affliction, he went hastily, and in the night-time, from the City; going through Campania to Syracuse, and then suddenly returned without shaving his beard, or trimming his hair.

He might hope that, in possession of Capua, he would be able to seize one of the Campanian ports, where he might disembark the reinforcements which his great victories had wrung from the opposition at home. Renewal of the War in Campania The War in Apulia

For the following year the Romans placed their two best generals, Publius Decius Mus and the aged Quintus Fabius Rullianus, at the head of their army in Etruria, which was reinforced with all the troops that could be spared from Campania, and amounted to at least 60,000 men, of whom more than a third were full burgesses of Rome.

Leaving therefore, a great part of his baggage among the Bruttians, and all his heavier armed troops, he took with him a body of infantry and cavalry, the best he could select for marching expeditiously, and bent his course into Campania. Rapidly as he marched he was followed by thirty-three elephants. He took up his position in a retired valley behind Mount Tifata, which overhung Capua.