have qualified or checked a ruinous defeat. As it was, the French, unable to form in a solid mass, either of cavalry or infantry, by protecting their flank, were driven headlong into the river, rapid and impassable, where many perished miserably, and the remaining survivors were made prisoners on the brink. The battalions in Blenheim, entirely deserted by the rest of their own army, attacked in front by the English infantry, and in the rear by the cavalry, flushed with success, laid down their arms, and by their surrender, completed the triumph of the conquerors. Blenheim was in truth a great but fruitless stroke in war. The peace of Utrecht neutralised the important consequences of that signal victory, with the advantages of all the subsequent campaigns, and suggested, long after, the question of pertinacious little Peterkin, in Southey's poem, which it would be difficult to answer, except as the boy's grandfather did :

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene.
'But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.

Nay, that I cannot tell,' said he ;
But 'twas a famous victory.'"

When Justinian determined on the African war, and committed its direction to Belisarius, he relied more on the talents of his general than on the number of his troops. Five thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry, was the force allotted, and expected to reduce the warlike kingdom of the Vandals, which, even in its decline, could bring eighty thousand fighting men into the field. The expedition was nearly rendered abortive before the fleet and army had rounded the Peloponnesus. A disease broke out among the soldiers, owing to the badly baked bread or biscuit furnished by the minister of finance, the infamous John of Cappadocia. Acting in the spirit of paltry peculation, of which commissaries-general, before and since, have furnished examples, he put into his own pocket the money levied for the public service, regardless of complaint or consequences; and although Belisarius checked the evil by obtaining a fresh supply of wholesome food, when five hundred men had been sacrificed, the emperor wanted firmness to punish the fraud of his favourite, although he

praised the zeal of his general.

It is

to be regretted that we cannot record of John of Cappadocia the retributive justice which fell on old Booty, a navy contractor of the last century. He was seen by the crew of a vessel who had suffered under his mouldy biscuit, to be chased up Stromboli, one of the Lipari islands, by a battalion of pursuing demons, who pitchforked him into the crater. Booty is not the only public delinquent thus disposed of, and in the same penal locality. A few years before the ministry of the corrupt John, above-named, Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, was plunged, immediately after his death, A.D. 526, into the volcano of Lipari, the principal island of the group, of which Stromboli forms one, and always a popular mouth of the infernal world. An Italian hermit witnessed the operation in a vision. The legend is attested by Pope Gregory I. and Cardinal Baronius. Perhaps some of our readers may think the evidence is scarcely as good as the log of a ship or the verdict of an English jury.

The fleet of Belisarius proceeded slowly on its course. The summer calms of the Mediterranean are baffling and tedious, and impede an expedition as much as the squalls and storms of the winter. The soldiers were sick and desponding, conscious that half their powers were neutralised on an element to which they were unaccustomed. The earth retains permanent vestiges of man's footsteps, but the ocean rejects the impress of his march. The furrow of the deepest keel is ef faced by the next advancing wave. The shores of that inland sea, on which were situated the four great empires of the ancient world, for ages exhibited memorials of the wars and armaments by which they had been subverted, long, lurid, and portentous as the tail of a comet; but the sea itself closed over the track of the mighty hosts that had been borne on its surface, in a moment after they had passed along. Beautifully and truthfully does the poet sing when apostrophising the unchangeable ocean :

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."† The army disembarked on the coast

of Africa, three months after its departure from Constantinople; a voyage which now, by the aid of steam, might be easily accomplished in a few days. The point of landing, Caput Vada, was distant from the capital about one hundred and fifty miles. The Vandals were totally unprepared, but Belisarius advancing slowly along the coast, to prevent surprise, directed the fleet to keep in sight, and accompany the movements of the army. In all his operations he displayed the most consummate generalship. Two victorious battles brought him to the gates of Carthage, which were opened without resistance. Gelimer, the Vandal king, fled to a mountain, where he was surrounded, and compelled to surrender; and in less than one year the ancient province of Africa, including Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic isles, was once more incorporated with the dominions of the Roman Emperor. But now the jealousy of Justinian began to break out against his successful general. Secret envy whispered that he aspired to an independent throne. An order for his recall was issued, which he instantly obeyed, although empire wooed him where he was, and court faction awaited his return. The inducements which would have persuaded many, appear not to have tempted or shaken his loyalty for a moment. Justinian repented of his unfounded suspicions, ordered medals to be struck, bearing on one side his own effigy, on the other that of his victorious general, and decreed to Belisarius the honours of a triumph, the first on which the inhabitants of the Eastern capital had ever gazed. The captive monarch walked in the procession, the treasures of the Vandals were exhibited in vast profusion, and some of the most sacred memorials of religion were restored from a long captivity. The holy table inlaid with gold, and the golden candlestick, with six branches, from the temple of Solomon, originally brought to Rome by Titus, and transplanted to Carthage by Genseric, were recovered by the conquests of Belisarius, and the piety of Justinian placed them, after many vicissitudes and wanderings, in the Christian cathedral of Jerusalem. Here history loses sight of these interesting relics, which perished, un

doubtedly, in the subsequent inroads of the Persian and Saracen invaders. Had they remained at Constantinople they might still be in existence. Belisarius was still further rewarded by a large portion of the captured spoil, and was named sole consul for the ensuing year. He was now, apparently, at the height of human glory; honoured, respected, and loved; an object of universal admiration wherever he appeared, and attended on all public occasions by a bodyguard of devoted followers, more numerous and more splendidly equipped than even the personal household of the emperor himself. His demeanour was mild, affable, and unassuming; his justice impartial, and his benevolence unbounded. From his generosity, says Procopius, you would have deemed him very rich; from his manners very poor. When we add to all these noble qualities, a fervent constitutional loyalty, which no wrongs could undermine, or no temptation shake, we look through history in vain for a perfect parallel or an adequate associate.

•

Neither civilisation nor religion were advanced by the overthrow of the kingdom of Genseric. The substituted government of the Greeks was weak and tyrannical, and opposed no barrier to the progress of the Saracens, or the spread of Islamism. Had the Vandals remained in possession of Africa, a more vigorous monarch than Gelimer might have concentrated their strength, and revived their ancient hardihood. A flourishing country would not have been depopulated, and in all probability, the tide of Mohammedan invasion would have been checked and broken on the shores of Carthage, instead of penetrating to the banks of the Loire and the plain of Tours. But as it was, Christianity gradually became extinct in the entire province, and fanatic barbarism reigned in its stead.

The easy conquest of the Vandalic kingdom expanded the ambition of the Roman Emperor, who now dreamed of restoring Italy to the sway of the Cæsars. A pretext was easily found in the murder of his friend and ally, Queen Amalasontha, by Theodotus, and an army not exceeding twelve thousand men was destined for the en

terprise a force totally inadequate,

which might have been swallowed up or dissipated in a single battle; but the name of Belisarius was considered a talisman which could fill his ranks and make up for all deficiencies. No general on record has achieved such great successes with such scanty means. Twice he conquered a powerful kingdom, and twice rescued his own country from innumerable invaders, and never had twenty thousand men at his disposal. A French writer (M. Le Beau) says, he preferred small armies to large ones. The position is absurd. He often complained bitterly that his plans were crippled by his defective numbers, and petitioned for reinforcements, which were sparingly granted, or withheld altogether. A general may select small bodies of chosen troops for particular enterprises, which require secrecy or despatch; but he knows little of war who imagines that any commander would choose to invade a kingdom with a detachment, if an army was to be obtained. Judging by what Belisarius did, we may calculate what his genius might have accomplished had he led into the field the numerous squadrons and battalions with which Marlborough and Eugene beat down the power of Louis XIV., and humbled the pride of the French marshals. The end obtained, the difficulties accomplished are only to be judged fairly by the allotted means.

He

Belisarius commenced the Gothic war by the conquest of the Island of Sicily, which remained subsequently under Greek dominion for three hundred years, until torn from them by the Saracens; but Sicily had then long ceased to be the granary of Rome, and had dwindled into a useless appendage. At the siege of Palermo, Belisarius had recourse to a stratagem of mechanieal ingenuity, which carries us back to the days of Archimedes and Marcellus, and the second Punic war. moored his ships close to the walls, in the deepest recess of the harbour. The boats were laboriously hoisted by ropes and pulleys to the top-mast heads, and filled with archers, who, from that superior height, completely commanded the fortifications of the city, drove the defenders from the ramparts, and compelled a speedy surrender. In the following year (A.D. 536), the Roman general crossed over from Messina to Rhegium, and advanced on Naples ; the fleet, as in the preceding war

against the Vandals, accompanying the army in their coast march of three hundred miles. The conquest of Italy, by Belisarius, stands in the very first class of military achievements, and formed one of the six subjects for an epic poem, long contemplated by Tasso, before he decided on the deliverance of Jerusalem. After a close investment of twenty days, Belisarius, who had little time to lose, was disposed to abandon the siege of Naples, when an accident discovered a hidden passage through the channel of an aqueduct, by which his troops passed, in the silence of the night, and carried the city by storm. The severe discipline of Belisarius restrained the unbridled license which usually follows, and compelled his soldiers to spare the persons of the unfortunate inhabitants, and to restore much of their captured property. The surviving garrison of eight hundred Goths, were incorporated with his forces, and proved valuable recruits. From Naples he advanced to Rome, the surrounding country and cities submitting as he moved along. Beneventum opened its gates, and presented to the conqueror a tusk of the Calydonian boar, still preserved as their most valuable possession. Procopius describes this authentic curiosity as having been twenty-seven inches long, about three times the usual dimensions. Ovid says, in a loose computation, the tusks of this extraordinary animal were as large as those of an elephant. The pedigree of the one named by Procopius could scarcely be doubted. It came with Diomede, the founder of the city, and nephew of Meleager, the hero of the hunt, by whom the boar was killed. The thirty warriors who leagued in this feat of valour, were less polite than brave, seeing that they quarrelled with Atalanta, the only lady in company, for the possession of the head. Other vestiges of remote antiquity of greater interest, were still in existence, with good reputation, when Procopius accompanied Belisarius to Italy. Rome, the original galley of Æneas, at that time aged at least seventeen hundred years, was preserved entire among the Navalia, near Monte Testaceo, at the foot of the Aventine. The given proportions are one hundred and twenty feet in length, and twentyfive in breadth, with a single bank of oars; but the relic is not mentioned

In

by any earlier writer. Procopius also saw at Phæacia, or Corcyra (now Corfu), what was called the petrified ship of Ulysses; the pretensions of which he destroyed by a close examination, proving it to be a recent fabric of many stones, dedicated by a merchant to Jupiter Cassius. In those seas he searched without success for the Isle of Calypso, which he was not likely to find there, unless it was locomotive, like the flying island of Laputa; but he might have stumbled on Meleda (or Melita), nearly opposite to Ragusa, which has been set up as a rival to Malta, and claimed by the inhabitants, on the faith of long tradition, as the veritable place of St. Paul's shipwreck. They build principally on the passage, "We were driven up and down in Adria," which would seem to exclude Malta as not lying within the boundaries of the Adriatic sea; but the subsequent verses,* describing the course of the apostle in a ship of Alexandria, by Syracuse and Rhegium, through the straits of Messina, establishes evidence in favour of Malta, superior to any which can be produced by the Adriatic Melita. We once landed on the island, and heard a long dissertation on the subject from a worthy friar, who would have suffered ten martyrdoms rather than give up the claim.

Belisarius found Rome deserted by its Gothic defenders, who retired at one gate as he entered by another, and he took possession of the imperial city without resistance. The keys were forwarded to Constantinople, to be laid at the feet of Justinian, an operation which was twice repeated, Rome having been taken and recovered five times during his reign. Shortly after this, the imbecile Theodotus was deposed and murdered, and Vitiges, a renowned warrior, was elected in his place. determined to march at once to the recovery of the capital, and loudly expressed his fear that the Greek general and his handful of troops would escape him by flight. But Belisarius had no such intention; he determined to keep his ground, and never was military

Acts, chap. xxvii. 11, 12, 13.

He

skill, with all the resources of a mas ter mind, more eminently evinced than in the operations by which he withstood, and finally baffled the gigantic efforts of his opponents. With a garrison of five thousand veterans, he held for twelve months, a city twelve miles in circumference, against a besieging army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, bravely led, abundantly supplied, and amply provided with all the instruments of attack which antiquity had invented.† Rome, even in her abject decline, could still muster thirty thousand males, capable of bearing arms, many of them inured to sufferance by poverty, and willing to fight in defence of their country and religion. They laboured cheerfully at the construction of new works, or the repairs of the old fortifications which had fallen into decay, and manned the walls during the intervals of repose, or more active service, which were required by the regular troops.

As the host of Vitiges came headlong on, they paused for a moment at the Milvian Bridge, the scene of the great victory of Constantine over Maxentius. Here the skill and forethought of Belisarius had prepared an obstacle by which he hoped to gain valuable time. He fortified the bridge by a massive tower, sufficiently strong to command its passage, and a select detachment on whose courage he placed full dependence. It was his intention to sally forth at the critical moment with some light troops, to support his advanced garrison, and line the banks of the Tiber, which were here precipitous and the river deep. Terrified or treacherous, they fled across the open country to Campania, at the appearance of the Goths, and sent no intelligence that the post was abandoned. The prudent arrangements of the general were thus baffled by an act of cowardice it was impossible to foresee. The Goths passed the bridge without delay or loss, when twenty days might have been consumed had they been compelled to collect boats sufficient for the transit of the river by such a mighty armament. A similar act of

Now called Ponte Molle.

delinquency saved the remains of the French army, after the battle of Salamanca. The Spanish Colonel and garrison, who occupied the castle of Alba de Tormes, commanding the ford of the river, fled on the tumultuous approach of the routed battalions, and opened the door of the only passage by which they could retreat. So much and so constantly are the best-laid plans and most sanguine hopes of the most scientific general, thwarted by the incompetence of subordinates, or the influence of a controlling accident. Belisarius, ignorant that his post was in possession of the enemy, in pursuance of the plan laid down, sallied forth at the head of one thousand guards, and to his utter surprise found himself surrounded by the Gothic cavalry. A desperate fight ensued, which lasted throughout the day. The passage of the enemy across the Tiber, by a single bridge, was unavoidably slow, and gave time for the Roman general to concentrate his movements, and take advantage of every opportunity which the varying tide of success afforded him. His personal prowess was as eminently displayed as his military skill.

Many of the bravest among the hostile army fell by his hands; and when he finally withdrew his small detachment within the walls, it was found that the killed on the enemy's side exceeded the entire number of the Romans engaged.

The history of that day's adventures would be rejected as fabulous, did it not come down to us through an eyewitness of undoubted authority. On the following morning (March 12th, A.D. 537), the city was regularly invested, and the desponding inhabitants smiled in bitter incredulity, when Belisarius assured them he should ultimately triumph, and rescue them from the besieging barbarians. He had no confidence either in the attachment or valour of the Roman citizens. His time was as much occupied in watching their expected perfidy, in reconciling them to the severe duties of defence, and in silencing their perpetual clamours for surrender, as in the more

energetic and decisive measures by which he hoped to render capitulation unnecessary. One by one, he destroyed all the besieging engines of the enemy, repulsed their incessant attacks, and, in a sally with his entire garrison, brought on a general combat, in which thirty thousand of the Goths were slain. It was during this memorable siege, that in a furious attack on the sepulchre of Hadrian," the soldiers of Belisarius flung down in fragments on the heads of the assailants the precious monuments of art, the marble statues of the ancient masters, with which that ponderous edifice was ornamented. The masterpieces of Lysippus and Praxiteles were torn from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch, with more consideration for the weight of the materials, and their value as missiles, than for the exquisite perfection of their workmanship. It is not impossible that many of them remain there still. When the ditch of St. Angelo was partially cleansed under Pope Urban the Eighth, the workmen found the "Sleeping Fawn" of the Barberini palace; but a leg, a thigh, and the right

arm had been broken from that beautiful statue.

Towards the end of April, Belisarius, who had urgently petitioned the emperor for reinforcements, received a scanty augmentation of sixteen hundred men, well disciplined and appointed, who entered Rome in safety, but failed to secure the town and harbour of Porto, the loss of which, by cutting off the avenue of supplies, soon began to expose the Romans to the miseries of famine. The desertion of the Milvian Bridge had hastened the investment of the city by many days, and deprived the general of the time he required to complete his supplies. He was therefore compelled to adopt a measure apparently harsh, but in reality humane, in commanding the immediate departure of a great number of the aged men, women, and children, for whose reception a secure retreat was prepared in Campania. They were conducted along the Appian-way,