they begin to flock to the ghastly ruin. Perhaps there will be once
again a phantom senate, phantom consuls, under the Romani nominis
umbram. The Goths catch them, and kill them to a man. And there is
an end of the Senatus Populusque Romanus.

The end is near now. And yet these terrible Goths cannot be killed
out of the way. On the slopes of Vesuvius, by Nuceria, they fortify
a camp; and as long as they are masters of the neighbouring sea, for
two months they keep Narses at bay. At last he brings up an
innumerable fleet, cuts off their supplies; and then the end comes.
The Goths will die like desperate men on foot. They burst out of
camp, turn their horses loose, after the fashion of German knights--
One hears of the fashion again and again in the middle age,--and rush
upon the enemy in deep solid column. The Romans have hardly time to
form some sort of line; and then not the real Romans, I presume, but
the Burgunds and Gepids, turn their horses loose like the Goths.
There is no need for tactics; the fight is hand to hand; every man,
says Procopius, rushing at the man nearest him.

For a third of the day Teia fights in front, sheltered by his long
pavisse, stabbing with a mighty lance at the mob which makes at him,
as dogs at a boar at bay. Procopius is awed by the man. Most
probably he saw him with his own eyes. Second in valour, he says, to
none of the Heroes.

Again and again his shield is full of darts. Without moving a foot,
without turning an inch right or left, says Procopius, he catches
another from his shield-bearer, and fights on. At last he has twelve
lances in his shield, and cannot move it: coolly he calls for a
fresh one, as if he were fixed to the soil, thrusts back the enemy