ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
BOOK V
.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR
It was a ‘truceless war’ which Justinian’s ambassador had denounced
against the cringing Theodahad when he heard of the murder of Amalasuntha. And
in truth all the schemings and machinations of the
Byzantine Court had been rewarded beyond their deservings by as fair and honourable an excuse for war as ever prince could allege.
Lilybaeum and Gratiana, Sicilian forts and Hunnish deserters, had all faded
into the background. The great Emperor now appeared upon the scene in his
proper character as Earthly Providence, preparing to avenge, on an ungrateful
and cowardly tyrant, the murder of the noble daughter of Theodoric. The pretext
was better than that put forth for the Vandal War, the foe infinitely baser. At
the same time it might perhaps be discovered that, notwithstanding the ambassador's
brave words about a truceless war, the Earthly Providence was not unwilling to
arrange terms with the murderer if it could secure any advantage for itself by
doing so.
In the summer of 535, nine years after Justinian's accession to the
throne, the armies were sent forth from Constantinople, and the Gothic War
began.
Troops, the number of whom is not stated, but probably not more than
3000 or 4000, were sent by land to invade the great Gothic province of
Dalmatia, on the east of the Adriatic. This province was larger than the old
kingdom of Dalmatia, since it included also a good deal of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Its capital was still Salona, that great city close to which rose
the vast palace of Diocletian (now represented by half of the modern town of Spalato), the city where Nepos reigned after he had been
driven from the halls of the Palatine, where his rival Glycerius chanted mass
in the basilica, where Odovacar avenged his murder by the death of Ovida and
Viator.
The commander of the Dalmatian army was himself a barbarian by birth, a
Gepid of the name of Mundus; a man whose fiery valour was not chilled by age,
and who was heartily loyal to the Emperor. It was Mundus who, during the
sedition of the Nika, when the throne of Justinian seemed rocking to its
overthrow, had penetrated with a band of Heruli to the Hippodrome, where
Hypatius at that moment was being saluted as Emperor, and had, in cooperation
with Belisarius, by a ruthless massacre of the insurgents, succeeded in
stamping out the rebellion. At the outlet of the present campaign his
operations were completely successful. The Goths who met his invading army were
defeated, and he marched on to Salona, which he entered unopposed.
The chief interest, however, was excited by the Italian expedition,
commanded by Belisarius, the successful combatant with Persia, the conqueror of
Africa—Belisarius who had been drawn a few months before in his triumphal car
through the streets of Constantinople, and who now, sole Consul for the year,
was setting forth to gather fresh laurels in the country where the Marcelli and
the Fabii gathered theirs eight centuries ago.
The chief generals under Belisarius were Constantine, Bessas, and Peranius.
Constantine was a native of Thrace, a brave and strenuous lieutenant of
the great commander, but rapacious, fierce, and not imbued with the soldierly
instinct of subordination, as was eventually proved by the strange events which
ended his career. Bessas also came from Thrace, but was of Gothic descent, and
we are expressly told that he was one of the race who had of old dwelt in
Thrace, but did not follow Theodoric. He too, though brave and warlike, showed
on a critical occasion a selfish and grasping nature, which preferred its own
ignoble gains to military duty and the most obvious interests of the Empire.
Peranius came from the far east of the Empire. He was the eldest son of Gurgenes, king of Iberia, part of that province between
Caucasus and Ararat which we now call Georgia. In the course of the endless
tussle between the Roman Emperor and the Persian King, Iberia was invaded by
the Persian army; and Gurgenes, finding himself
unable to defend his dominions, and disappointed of the expected help from
Justinian, fled to the mountains which divided his country from Colchis, and
there seems to have maintained a straitened but honourable independence. As the
dynasty was Christian, its princes naturally inclined to Constantinople rather
than to Ctesiphon. Thus it was that Peranius entered
the service of the Emperor, in which he soon rose to all but the highest
position.
The subordinate officers were—of the cavalry, Valentine, Magnus, and
Innocentius; of the infantry, Herodian, Paulus, Demetrius, and Ursicinus; none of whom require at present any special
notice on our part. The commander of the Isaurian contingent was named Eunes. Belisarius was attended by a large body-guard of
tried and daring soldiers; and, in a capacity perhaps resembling that of a
modern aide-de-camp, Photius, Antonina's son by a former marriage, accompanied
his renowned stepfather.
The total number of the army which was setting Number of forth to
reconquer Italy was only 7500 men, scarcely more than the equivalent of one
legion out of the thirty which followed Caesar’s footsteps. How it figured on
the muster-rolls of the Empire it is not easy to say. We are told that there
were 4000 soldiers ‘of the Catalogues and the Foederati’, 3000 Isaurians, 200
confederate Huns, and 300 Moors. The ‘Catalogues' must in some way represent
the dwindled Legions; as the Foederati, drawn perhaps from the medley of
Teutonic and Slavonic peoples who roamed along the banks of the Lower Danube,
represent the Socii of the early days of Rome. It will be observed by the
reader how large a proportion the gallant Isaurian highlanders, those Swiss of
the Byzantine empire, bore to the whole army, and we shall have frequent
occasion in the course of the war to notice the service rendered to Belisarius
by their mountaineering skill and headlong bravery.
After all, the armament, though it gloried in the title of Roman, and
was sometimes called Greek in derision by its enemies, was Roman or Greek only
in name. It was essentially a barbarian band. Every great exploit which we hear
of in connection with it was performed, as a rule, by some Gepid, or Herul, or
Isaurian. But the barbaric strength and stolid stalwart courage of the soldiers
were directed by generals who still cherished some of the traditions of
scientific warfare which had been elaborated in the twelve centuries of the
Roman Republic and Empire; and at the centre of the whole machine was the busy
brain of Belisarius, a man of infinite resource and patience as well as
courage, and certainly one of the greatest strategists that the world has ever seen.
The student who remembers how the battles of Republican Rome were
generally won, namely, by the disciplined valor of
the heavy-armed foot-soldiers of the Legion, experiences some surprise when he
finds that the victories of Belisarius were chiefly won by his cavalry, armed
with the bow and arrow, a force which, as has been already observed, may
perhaps be compared to the mounted rifles of a modern army, but which certainly
five centuries before was more celebrated in the tactics of Parthia than in
those of Rome.
At the outset of the first campaign it may be interesting to quote from
a later page of Procopius the reasons which Belisarius himself, in conversation
with his friends, assigned for the long series of victories which he had then
achieved over the Goths.
In public the Romans naturally expressed their wonder at the genius of
Belisarius which had achieved such a victory, but in private his friends [no
doubt including Procopius himself] enquired of him what was the token which, in
the first day of successful engagement with the enemy, had led him to conclude
that in this war he should be uniformly victorious. Then he told them that, at
the beginning, when the engagement had been limited to a few men on each side,
he had studied what were the characteristic differences of each army, in order
that when the battles commenced on a larger scale he might not see his small
army overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. The chief difference which he noted
was that all the Romans and their Hunnish allies were good archers on
horseback. The Goths, on the other hand, had none of them practiced this art.
Their cavalry fought only with javelins and swords, and their archers were
drawn up for battle as infantry, and covered by the cavalry. Thus the horsemen,
unless the battle became a hand-to-hand encounter, having no means of replying
to a discharge of weapons from a distance, were easily thrown into confusion
and cut to pieces, while the footsoldiers, though
able to reply to a volley of arrows from a distance, could not stand against
sudden charges of horse. For this reason Belisarius maintained that the Goths
in these encounters would always be worsted by the Romans.
As yet, however, there was little opportunity for the display of
military skill on the part of Belisarius, for his first laurels were all easily
gathered, in the region of politics rather than of war. His instructions were
to land in Sicily, nominally again making of that island only a house of call
on his way to Carthage: if he found that he could occupy the island with little
trouble he was to do so, but if there was likely to be tough opposition he was
to leave it for the present and proceed to Africa. The former alternative was
that which he adopted. He found the Sicilians all ready and eager to become
subjects of the Emperor. Catana, Syracuse, and every other city in Sicily,
opened her gates to him. Only in Panormus (Palermo)
was there a Gothic garrison strong enough to oppose the wishes of the
inhabitants; and to the siege of Palermo he now addressed himself.
This eager defection of the islanders from the Gothic rule was a deep
disappointment to their late lords, and was long and bitterly remembered by
them. Sicily was still rich in the wealth that had been stored up there since
the days of Gelon, rich in all manner of fruits, above all rich in corn, of
which it sent large exports every year to Rome. For this reason the Roman
inhabitants had prayed Theodoric that they might be left to themselves, and not
vexed by the presence of large bodies of Gothic troops. Their request had been
listened to; they had been left for the most part to their own sense of honour
to defend the connection which had benefited them so greatly and had imposed
such light burdens upon them. And this was their return. Not a city defended,
not a skirmish fought, no pretence of overwhelming necessity forthcoming; but
as soon as the insignificant armament of Belisarius hove in sight, every emblem
of Gothic domination torn down and the islanders vying with one another in
demonstrations of servility towards Belisarius and his master. So keenly was
this ingratitude felt by the Goths that, as we shall see, twelve years
afterwards, when there was a talk of peace between them and the Empire, and the
Gothic King seemed to be in a position to dictate its terms, one of his
indispensable conditions was that there should be no interference with the revenge
of his nation on ungrateful Sicily.
Belisarius, having reconnoitred Palermo, decided that the fortifications
on the landward side were too strong to be attacked with any hope of success.
Of these fortifications no vestige now remains, and indeed the very site of the
ancient city, successively Carthaginian, Greek, and Roman, is hopelessly
obliterated by the busy prosperity of the modern capital of Sicily. Three
features of the landscape only can we indisputably claim as identical with
those which met the eyes of Belisarius. They are (1) the beautiful, almost
land-locked bay (reminding the traveller of the bay of Naples), from which the
city derived its Greek name, All-Anchorage; (2) the rich plain stretching
inland, and now known as The Golden Shell (Concha d'Oro);
(3) the grand natural fortress of Monte Pellegrino, 2000 feet high, a few miles
out of the city, rising, like the Rock of Gibraltar, square and steep out of
the sea to northward of the bay. Here Hamilcar Barca maintained for three years
a sturdy opposition to Rome near the close of the First Punic War. But the
Gothic garrison of Sicily resorted to no such desperate measure of defence
against the army of Belisarius. Trusting in the strength of their walls, they
refused to surrender the city and bade him begone with all speed.
The line of wall skirting the harbour was that which attracted the
attention of the Byzantine general. It was detached from the ordinary line of
circumvallation, it was left altogether bare of soldiers, and, high as it was,
when he had collected his navy in the harbour he found that their masts
overtopped the battlements. With his usual fertility of resource he at once
hoisted the ships' boats filled with soldiers up to the yard-arms of the
vessels, and told his men to clamber from the boats out on to the parapet. The maneuver, though somewhat resembling that tried by the
Venetians at the Latin siege of Constantinople (AD 1204) would have been too
perilous to be executed in the face of an active foe. As it was, practiced
against an unguarded wall, it was completely successful. Soon the Byzantine
soldiers, from their position of vantage on the high sea-wall, were shooting
their arrows down into the ranks of the enemy in the city. The Goths were cowed
by the unexpected sight, and offered terms of capitulation which Belisarius at
once accepted.
Thus was all Sicily now subject to the Emperor's rule, and soon found
itself paying heavy tax and toll to the imperial exchequer. The conquest of
Sicily, peaceful comparatively as was its character, had occupied about seven
months. On the last day of the year the Consul Belisarius, who had commenced
his year of office while his victories over the Vandals were fresh in every
one's mouth, closed it by a solemn procession through the streets of Syracuse,
greeted by the loud and genuine applause of his soldiers and the Sicilians,
upon whom his lavish hands scattered a welcome largesse of Justinian's aurei.
Meanwhile, the tidings which were coming from Sicily to Rome, cleverly
enlarged upon at repeated audiences by the ambassador Peter, threw the wretched
Theodahad into an agony of terror. Already in imagination he saw himself
walking, as Gelimer had walked, a captive before his conqueror Belisarius, and
heard the well-deserved cry, 'Death to the murderer of Amalasuntha!' thundered
forth by the populace of Byzantium. In a private conference with Peter he
consented to make peace with Justinian on the following humiliating conditions
: (1) Sicily was to be abandoned to the Emperor; (2) Theodahad was to send to
Justinian every year a golden crown weighing not less than 300 pounds; (3) he
was to furnish 3000 warlike Goths whenever Justinian should require their services;
(4) except with the Emperor's leave, the Gothic King was not to sentence any
senator or any priest [Catholic priests, of course, were here meant] either to
death or confiscation of goods; (5) he was not to confer the dignity of
Patrician, or any office involving senatorial rank, upon any of his subjects
without the same gracious permission; (6) at the Hippodrome, the Theatre, and
all places of public resort the people were always to shout ‘Vivat
Justinianus!' before they shouted 'Vivat Theodatus';
(7) never was a statue of bronze or any other material to be raised to
Theodahad alone, but wherever he stood Justinian must stand beside him on his
right side.
The conditions were degrading enough and well exemplified the Byzantine
habit of making the subjection of an inferior as galling and as wounding to his
self-love as possible. That undefined relation of dependence on the Empire
which Odovacar and Theodoric had ignored rather than contradicted, and into
which Amalasuntha had been gradually sinking, was here proclaimed as
offensively as possible by the Augustus, and admitted as abjectly as possible
by the Thiudans. Though the word belongs to a later
century, Theodahad would have become by this compact virtually the vassal of
Justinian. Still, even this relationship, though marking a great fall from the
proud 'moral hegemony' of Theodoric, might in the course of centuries have
worked not unfavourably for the happiness of Italy. Leaning on the arm of her
elder sister of Byzantium, the new Romano-Gothic state might have gradually
reconciled Teutonic force with classical culture. In the convulsions which
shook the Eastern world in the seventh century, her loyalty might have been a
stay and staff to the Eastern Caesar. Greece and Italy united, and occupying
their natural place at the head of European civilization, might have formed
front against the Saracen in the East, against the Frank in the West. At the
least, had such a confederacy been possible, the Hesperian land would have
escaped the extortions of Byzantine blood-suckers on the one hand, the ravages
of half-savage Lombards on the other.
But it is useless to speculate on what might have been. The portentous
cowardice of Theodahad rendered him unable even to wait for an interchange of
embassies with Constantinople to know whether his terms were accepted or
rejected. He had not yet dispatched his own ambassador, when he sent for Peter,
who on his leisurely journey had now reached Albano, the second station on the
Appian Way, that delightful little town which, nestling under the high volcanic
cone of Monte Cavo, looks down on the one side over its own peaceful little
Alban Lake, and on the other over the broad Campagna to the faintly-seen towers
of Rome. Peter came, when summoned, to yet another private audience with the
King. The following strange dialogue then passed between them:
Theodahad. Do you think, Ambassador,
that the Emperor will be pleased with the compact into which we have entered?
Peter. I conjecture that he will.
Theod. But if he should chance to quarrel
with the terms, what will happen then?
Peter. Then, noble sir, the next thing will
be that you will have to fight.
Theod. Is that fair, dear Ambassador?
Peter. Where is the unfairness, my good
friend, in each of you following the bent of his own genius?
Theod. What do you mean by that?
Peter. I mean this. All your pleasure is in
acting the part of a philosopher; but Justinian finds his, in acting as beseems
a noble Roman Emperor. For a man who practices the precepts of philosophy to
devise the death of his fellow-creatures, especially on so large a scale as
this war involves, is quite unbecoming; and for a Platonist, it is preeminently necessary to keep his hands clean from human
blood. But for the Emperor to vindicate his rights to a land which once formed
part of his Empire is in no way unbecoming.
The result of this dialogue (in which it suited both King and Ambassador
to ignore the fact that the hands of the former were already stained with the
blood of his benefactress) was, that Theodahad swore to the Ambassador to sell
his crown to Justinian if he should be required to do so; and for some reason
which is not expressly stated, but probably because of her admitted ascendency
over the mind of Theodahad, his Queen Gudelina was
made a partner in the oath. Peter on his part was made to swear that he would
not disclose the last and highest offer till he had fairly put the lower offer
before the Emperor, and found that it was hopeless to press it. What prudent
man would thus bid against himself even in the purchase of a field? With such
utter fatuity did these children of the barbarians play their little bungling
game against the veteran diplomatists of Constantinople.
Peter was accompanied on the return embassy by Rusticus, a Roman, a
priest (probably of the orthodox Church), and an intimate friend of Theodahad.
They arrived at Constantinople; they stood in the presence of the Emperor; they
set forth the first offer of Theodahad. Had Peter sent a private messenger to
his master, or did he now, by ever so slight and scarcely perceptible a
gesture, imply that, were he in Justinian's place, he would not accept the
offered vassalage? We know not, but it is certain that Justinian declared that
the terms, abject as was their humbleness of surrender, did not at all please
him. Then Rusticus produced the Gothic King's letter, which had been reserved
for this stage of the negotiations. It was a strange letter to be written by a
member of the race whose forefathers swept like night over the shores of the
Aegean, by a grandson and great-nephew of the brave Amal kings who stood
unflinching by the side of Attila “in that world-earthquake” on the Catalaunian plains.
“I am not, O Emperor, a new comer into the halls of kings. It was my
fortune to be born a king's nephew and to be reared in a manner worthy of my
race: but I am not altogether well versed in war and its confusions. From the
first I have been passionately fond of literature and have spent my time in the
study thereof, and thus it has been till now my lot to be always far from the
clash of arms. It seems therefore unwise of me to continue to lead a life full
of danger for the sake of the royal dignity, when neither danger nor dignity is
a thing that I enjoy. No danger, since that new and strange sensation perturbs
my thoughts; not the royal dignity, since possession of it has, according to
the general law, brought satiety.
“Therefore, if some landed property could be secured to me, bringing in
a yearly income of not less than twelve cwt. of gold, I should consider that
more valuable to me than my kingship: and I am willing on those terms to hand
over to thee the sovereignty of the Goths and Italians. I think that I shall
thus be happier as a peaceful tiller of the soil than as a king immersed in
kingly cares, no sooner out of one danger than into another. Send me then as
speedily as possible a commissioner to whom I may hand over Italy and all that
pertains to my kingship”.
The letter gave supreme delight to the Emperor, and obtained the
following reply.
“I heard long ago by common fame that you were a man of high
intelligence, and now I find by experience that this is true. You show your
wisdom in declining to await the arbitrament of war, which has plunged some men
who staked their all upon it into terrible disasters. You will never have
occasion to repent having turned us from an enemy into a friend. You shall
receive all the property that you ask for, and, in addition, your name shall be
inscribed in the highest rank of Roman nobility.
“I now send Athanasius and Peter to exchange the needful ratifications,
and in a very short time Belisarius will come to complete the transaction thus
settled between us”.
Athanasius was the brother of Alexander who was sent the year before as
ambassador to Athalaric. The duties entrusted to him and to Peter were mainly
to settle the boundaries of the new Patrimonium which
was to be assigned to Theodahad, to put the compact in writing, and to secure
it by oaths given and taken; Belisarius was sent for in all speed from Sicily
to receive charge of the fortresses, arsenals, and all the machinery of
government from the royal trafficker. These arrangements were probably made
towards the end of the year 535.
When the ambassadors arrived at the Gothic Court they found the mood of
Theodahad strangely altered. To understand the reason of the change we must
look again at the affairs of Dalmatia. We left Mundus the Gepid there, holding
the retaken capital, Salona, for Justinian. A large Gothic army under the
command of Asinarius and Grippas entered the province, apparently about the middle of autumn, and approached
Salona. Maurice the son of Mundus, on a reconnoitering expedition, approached too near the main body of the Gothic army and was slain.
Maddened with grief, the old barbarian, his father, fell upon the Gothic host.
Though he attacked in too loose order he was at first successful, and broke the
ranks of the foe, but pressing on too hotly in pursuit, he was pierced by the
spear of one of the fugitives and fell dead. His fall stopped the onward
movement of his troops. Both armies dispersed, and neither dared to appropriate
the prize of war, the city of Salona; the Romans having got altogether out of
hand since the death of their general, and the Goths misdoubting both the
strength of the walls and the loyalty of the citizens.
It was some slight consolation to the Romans that these reverses robbed
of its terrors an old Sibylline prophecy which had been much of late in the
mouths of men. This prophecy, couched in mysterious characters, which are a
marvel upon the page of Procopius, had been thus interpreted:
First
Rome reconquers Africa. Then the World
Is with its progeny to ruin hurled.
Belisarius’ capture of Carthage had seemed to bring the end of the world
alarmingly near. But now the battle of Salona reassured men's minds. It was not
the world and all its inhabitants, but only Mundus and his too daring son, with
whose fate the oracle was full.
The fortune of the Roman arms in Dalmatia was soon retrieved. Constantian, who held the office of Comes Stabuli in the imperial household, was sent with a
well-equipped army to recover Salona, which had been entered by the Goths.
Having apparently the entire command of the sea, he sailed northwards from Epidamnus (Durazzo), and was soon to be seen in the offing
from the coast of Epidaurus (a little south of the modern Cattaro).
The panic-stricken Gothic general Grippas, who was
informed by his scouts that myriads of Romans were approaching by sea,
evacuated Salona and pitched his camp a little to the west of that city. Constantian sailed some hundred miles or so up the gulf and
anchored at the island of Lissa, memorable to this generation for the naval
battle fought there between the Italians and Austrians in 1866. Finding from
his scouts that Salona was deserted he landed his troops, occupied it in force,
repaired its ruinous walls, and posted 500 men to occupy the narrow pass by
which it was approached from the west. After seven days of tarriance, the two
Gothic generals, with that feebleness and absence of resource which mark the
barbarian strategy in the earlier stages of this war, simply marched back again
to Ravenna.
Dalmatia and Liburnia (or the province of
Illyricum), which had for the most part followed the fortunes of Italy for a
century and a half since the death of Theodosius, were thus permanently
recovered by the State, which we must in this connection call the Eastern
Empire, although it was, to a loyal Roman, simply the Empire, one and
undivided. From this time forward the eastern coast of the Adriatic, though
subject to Avar invasions, Slavonic migrations, Bosnian kingships, maintained a
more or less intimate political connection with Constantinople, till the
conquests of the Venetians in the tenth century brought it back once more into
the world of Italian domination.
But these were the far-reaching results of the expedition of Mundus. We
have to do with the more immediate effects of the early disasters of the
imperial forces on that feeble and futile thing, the mind of King Theodahad.
That royal student, if versed in the 'Republic' of Plato, had not laid equally
to heart the more popular philosophy of Horace. At least he conspicuously
disobeyed the precepts of that familiar ode in which the mortal Dellius is exhorted to preserve a temper 'serene in arduous
and reasonable in prosperous' circumstances. As pusillanimous as he had shown
himself at the news of the successes of Belisarius, so intolerably arrogant did
he become when the tidings reached him of the death of Mundus and his son. When
the ambassadors who arrived about the same time as the news (probably somewhere
about December 535) ventured to claim the fulfilment of his solemn promise to
surrender the kingdom, he flatly refused. Peter spoke somewhat plainly as to
the royal faithlessness. Theodahad petulantly answered, “The privilege of
ambassadors is a holy thing, but it is conceded on the supposition that it be
not abused. It is admitted that the person of an ambassador who seduces the
wife of a citizen of the country to which he is accredited is not sacrosanct;
and I shall not scruple to apply the same principle to an ambassador who
insults the King”. Peter and Athanasius made a spirited reply: “0 ruler of the
Goths, you are seeking by flimsy pretexts to cover unholy deeds. An ambassador
may be watched as strictly as his entertainer pleases, and therefore the talk
about injury to female honour is altogether beside the
mark. But as for what the ambassador says, be it good or bad, the praise
or blame for it rests solely on him who sent him. The ambassador is a mere
mouthpiece, and to him attaches no responsibility for his words. We shall
therefore say all that we heard from the lips of the Emperor: and do you listen
patiently, for if you become excited you will perhaps commit some outrage on
our sacred character. We declare then that the time is come for you loyally to fulfil
your compact with the Emperor. Here is the letter which he wrote to you. The
notes which he has addressed to the chief men among the Goths we shall hand to
no one but themselves only.”
However, the Gothic nobles who were present authorized the ambassadors
to hand over their letters to Theodahad. These dispatches congratulated the
Goths on the near prospect of their absorption in the great polity of Rome, a
state with whose laws and customs they had long ago become acquainted [in their
capacity of Foederati]; and Justinian promised that they should find their
dignity and credit increased, not diminished, by the change.
This was not, however, the view which the Gothic nobles took of the
situation. Whatever their secret contempt for the weakly truculent character of
their King, they were ready to second him heartily in his present mood of
defiance to the Empire. Both sides therefore prepared for that which was now to
be really “a truceless war”.
In these preparations the winter of 535-536 wore away, and the second
year of the great Gothic War commenced.
