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Updated: June 10, 2025
The Gothic army in the Pontine marshes became aware of his incompetence and his secret treating with Justinian, deposed him, and elected Vitiges to be their king in his stead, by whose orders the fugitive was slain in his flight on the Flaminian Road. But Vitiges hastened to Ravenna, where he espoused the unwilling Matasunta, daughter of Amalasuntha, granddaughter of Theodorick.
One morning, Belisarius, from his Pincian palace, saw one-half of the remaining Goths on the other side of the Milvian bridge, and he forthwith ordered a sally upon their rear-guard. Vitiges left perhaps the half of his great host mouldering in the wasted, pestilent, deserted Campagna. He left also a city impoverished in numbers, full of sickness and misery.
Such was the fortune of the General Belisarius, into whose hands Fate had not long before given Gelimer and Vitiges as prisoners of war. The man's wealth had for a long time excited the jealousy of Justinian and Theodora, who considered it too great, and fit only for a king.
The colossal amphitheatre of Titus still reared its circle perfect, but stripped of its decorations. The gigantic baths, fed by no aqueduct since the ruin wrought by Vitiges the Goth, rose like fallen cities in a wilderness. Ivy began to creep over them. The costly marble mantle of their walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements split.
Here the people wished to welcome him and surrender the city, but were prevented by the garrison, which, however, was soon cleverly outwitted and taken prisoner, and by the end of November all southern Italy was in Belisarius' hands. The fall of Naples brought Theodahad to the ground. The Goths deposed him and raised upon their shields Vitiges the soldier.
It was a coin of Vitiges, showing a helmeted bust of the goddess of the city, with legend 'Invicta Roma. 'Invicta Roma, muttered Basil sadly, with head bent. Meanwhile, out of earshot of their masters, the two servants conversed with not less intimacy. At a glance these men were seen to be of different races.
The ambassadors were eager to accomplish their salutary commission; the captive Vitiges accepted, with transport, the unexpected offer of a crown; honor was less prevalent among the Goths, than the want and appetite of food; and the Roman chiefs, who murmured at the continuance of the war, professed implicit submission to the commands of the emperor.
The Goths, seeing this, slew Theodatus their king, whom they considered the cause of their misfortune, and elected Vitiges in his stead, who, after some skirmishes, was besieged and taken by Belisarius at Ravenna; but before he had time to secure the advantages of his victory, Belisarius was recalled by Justinian, and Joannes and Vitalis were appointed in his place.
His purpose evidently was to avoid all conflict which would risk a reduction of the Gothic army, and by patient blockade to starve the Romans into surrender. He could not surround the city, with its circuit of twelve miles; he could not keep ceaseless watch upon the sixteen gates and the numerous posterns. King Vitiges, in his attempt to do so, had suffered terrible losses.
Vitiges, besides pressing the people cooped up in its walls with a terrible famine during his siege of a year, broke down its aqueducts and ruined every building on that part of the Campagna which he scoured.
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