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Updated: June 8, 2025
Safe, until a messenger could reach Totila, and let him know that Veranilda was rescued. An hour after midnight, one of the mules' traces broke. In the silence of the stoppage, whilst the driver was mending the harness as best he could, Marcian alighted, stepped to the side of the vehicle, laid a hand on the curtain which concealed those within, and spoke in a subdued voice.
Upon this materialism, the material benefits that Theodoric had undoubtedly conferred upon the Italian people, Totila, that formidable chieftain who now came to the front as the Gothic leader, based his appeal and his hope of victory.
After the departure of Totila, the Roman general sallied from the port at the head of a thousand horse, cut in pieces the enemy who opposed his progress, and visited with pity and reverence the vacant space of the eternal city.
The maritime towns Ancona, Crotona, Centumcellæ, resisted the assaults of Totila Sicily was reduced by the zeal of Artaban, and the Gothic navy was defeated near the coast of the Adriatic.
'Dog, cries Totila's page, 'wilt thou strike thy lord? But it is too late. Asbad's lance goes through his back, and he drops on his horse's neck. The rest carry off Totila. He dies that night, after reigning eleven stormy years. The Goths flee across the Po. There is one more struggle for life, and one more hero left. Teia by name, 'the slow one, slow, but strong. He shall be king now.
The despair of the flying Goths found some consolation in sanguinary revenge; and three hundred youths of the noblest families, who had been sent as hostages beyond the Po, were inhumanly slain by the successor of Totila. The fate of the senate suggests an awful lesson of the vicissitude of human affairs.
For an hour or more he sat talking with his host over a pitcher of wine, found how far he was from Aletrium, and heard with satisfaction that the brigand bands seemed to have gone higher into the mountains. The presbyter asked eagerly for Roman news, and cautiously concerning King Totila, whom it was evident he regarded with no very hostile feeling.
'Had I been the enemy of Totila, said Basil, 'could you still have loved me as a wife should love? 'I had not asked myself, she answered, 'for it was needless. When I look on you, I think neither of Roman nor of Goth. Basil spoke of his hope that Rome might be restored to the same freedom it had enjoyed under the great king. Then they would dwell together in the sacred city.
The Patricius himself would not be long in coming, and when did the name of Belisarius sound anything but victory? This confidence increased when Totila, instead of marching upon Rome, as all had expected, turned in the opposite direction, and led his forces across the Apennines.
'Save inasmuch as credited that strange slander, borne I know not upon what lips. 'May I hear, asked Totila, 'what this slander charged upon you? Basil raised his head, and put all his courage into a brief reply. 'That I sought to betray the lady Veranilda into the hands of the Greeks.
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