He had consulted a Jew diviner just before, who had given him a
warning. Thirty pigs, signifying the unclean Gentiles, the Jew shut
up in three sties; naming ten Goths, ten Romans, and ten Imperialists
of Belisarius' army, and left them to starve. At the end they found
dead all the Goths but two, hardly any of the Imperialists, and half
the Romans: but the five Roman pigs who were left had lost their
bristles--bare to the skin, as the event proved.

After that Theodatus had no heart to fight, and ended his dog's life
by a dog's death, as we have seen.

Note also this, that there was a general feeling of coming ruin; that
there were quaint signs and omens. We have heard of the pigs which
warned the Goths. Here is another. There was a Mosaic picture of
Theodoric at Naples; it had been crumbling to pieces at intervals,
and every fresh downfall had marked the death of an Amal. Now the
last remains went down, to the very feet, and the Romans believed
that it foretold the end of the Amal dynasty. There was a Sibylline
oracle too;


'Quintili mense Roma nihil Geticum metuet.'


Here, too, we find the last trace of heathenism, of that political
mythology which had so inextricably interwoven itself with the life
and history of the city. The shrine of Janus was still standing, all
of bronze, only just large enough, Procopius says, to contain the
bronze image of Janus Bifrons. The gates, during Christian
centuries, had never been opened, even in war time. Now people went