Italy was reconquered. Belisarius had to be sent back again to
Italy: but the envy, whether of Justinian himself, or of the two
wicked women who ruled his court, allowed him so small a force that
he could do nothing.

Totila and the Goths came down once more to Rome. Belisarius in
agony sent for reinforcements, and got them; but too late. He could
not relieve Rome. The Goths had massed themselves round the city,
and Belisarius, having got to Ostia (Portus) at the Tiber's mouth,
could get no further. This was the last woe; the actual death-agony
of ancient Rome. The famine grew and grew. The wretched Romans
cried to Bessas and his garrison, either to feed them or to kill them
out of their misery. They would do neither. They could hardly at
last feed themselves. The Romans ate nettles off the ruins, and
worse things still. There was not a dog or a rat left. They even
killed themselves. One father of five children could bear no longer
their cries for food. He wrapped his head in his mantle, and sprang
into the Tiber, while the children looked on. The survivors wandered
about like spectres, brown with hunger, and dropped dead with half-
chewed nettles between their lips. To this, says Procopius, had
fortune brought the Roman senate and people. Nay, not fortune, but
wickedness. They had wished to play at being free, while they
themselves were the slaves of sin.

And still Belisarius was coming,--and still he did not come. He was
forcing his way up the Tiber; he had broken Totila's chain, burnt a
tower full of Goths, and the city was on the point of being relieved,
when one Isaac made a fool of himself, and was taken by the Goths.
Belisarius fancied that Portus, his base of operations, with all his
supplies, and Antonia, the worthless wife on whom he doted, were