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companions who had sworn to perish with their leader. They fought till darkness descended on the earth. They reposed on their arms. The combat was renewed with the return of light, and maintained with unabated vigour till the evening of the second day. The repose of a second night, the want of water, and the loss of their bravest champions, determined the surviving Goths to accept the fair capitulation which the prudence of Narses was inclined to propose. They embraced the alternative of residing in Italy as the subjects and soldiers of Justinian, or departing with a portion of their private wealth, in search of some independent country.[1] Yet the oath of fidelity or exile was alike rejected by one thousand Goths, who broke away before the treaty was signed, and boldly effected their retreat to the walls of Pavia. The spirit as well as the situation of Aligern prompted him to imitate rather than to bewail his brother: a strong and dexterous archer, he transpierced with a single arrow the armour and breast of his antagonist; and his military conduct defended Cumæ[2] above a year against the forces of the Romans. Their industry had scooped the Sibyll's cave[3] into a prodigious mine; combustible materials were introduced to consume the temporary props; the wall and the gate of Cumæ sunk into the cavern, but the ruins formed a deep and inaccessible precipice. On the fragment of a rock Aligern stood alone and unshaken, till he calmly surveyed the hopeless condition of his country, and judged it more honourable to be the friend of Narses than the slave of the Franks.[4] After the death of Teias, the Roman general separated his troops to reduce the cities of Italy; Lucca sustained a long and vigorous siege; and such was the humanity
- ↑ Buat (tom. xi. p. 2, &c.) conveys to his favourite Bavaria this remnant of Goths, who by others are buried in the mountains of Uri, or restored to their native isle of Gothland (Mascou, Annot. xxi.).
- ↑ I leave Scaliger (Animadvers. in Euseb. p. 59) and Salmasius (Exercitat. Pliman. p. 51, 52) to quarrel about the origin of Cumae, the oldest of the Greek colonies in Italy (Strab. l. v. p. 372 [4, § 4]. Velleius Paterculus, l. i. c. 4), already vacant in Juvenal's time (Satir. iii.), and now in ruins.
- ↑ Agathias (l. i. c. [leg. p.] 21 [c. 10]) settles the Sibyll's cave under the wall of Cumæ; he agrees with Servius (ad l. vi. Æneid.); nor can I perceive why their opinion should be rejected by Heyne, the excellent editor of Virgil (tom. ii. p. 650, 651). In urbe mediâ secreta religio! But Cumæ was not yet built; and the lines (l. vi. 96, 97) would become ridiculous, if Æneas were actually in a Greek city. [Cp. Beloch, Campanien, p. 160. There is no reason to suppose that the cave which is now shown as the Sibyl's grotto, south of L. Avernus, had any ancient tradition associated with it.]
- ↑ [The surrender of Cumæ was subsequent to that of Lucca.]
