If Theodahad was a villain as well as a fool, perhaps Vitiges was only
the latter. At any rate, he is generally considered to have acted with
criminal folly, when, as the first act of his reign, he abandoned Rome
and fell back upon Ravenna, determined to make his great defence in
northern Italy. But I think, if we consider the position more closely,
we shall see that Vitiges was not such a fool as he looks. He had seen
the two great fortresses of Palermo and Naples fall, and mainly for
the same reason, the fact that the whole of their populations except
the Gothic garrisons were eagerly on the side of the enemy. The
situation of Rome, its great size, made it difficult to defend except
with a very great army, and this would become a hundred times more
difficult, if not impossible, if the population were to side with the
attack. Yet not only was that already certain, but the sympathies of
the citizens there might be expected to be even more passionately
Roman than others had been elsewhere; for Rome was the capital of
Catholicism, the throne of the Church, the seat of Peter. The Goth had
to face the fact that, while he was perhaps hardly holding his own in
Rome, Belisarius might stealthily pass on to overthrow the Gothic
citadel at Ravenna. He had to ask himself whether he could expect to
defend both Rome and Ravenna, for if Ravenna were to fall the whole
kingdom was lost, since now, not less but rather more than before,
Ravenna was the key to Italy.

There is this also; Justinian had in the summer of 535 despatched two
armies from Constantinople. One of these was that which Belisarius had
disembarked in Sicily, and which till now had been so uniformly and so
easily victorious. The other under Mundus had entered Dalmatia which
it had completely wrested from the Goths by the middle of 536. It is
probable that Vitiges expected to be attacked in the rear and from the