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chap, xliii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 423 were instantly overpowered, and it was by leaping from the wall that Artabazus preserved a life which he lost in a few days by the lance of a barbarian, who had defied him to single combat. Twenty thousand Romans encountered the forces of Totila, near Faenza, and on the hills of Mugello of the [Faventia] Florentine territory. The ardour of freedmen who fought to regain their country was opposed to the languid temper of mercenary troops, who were even destitute of the merits of strong and well-disciplined servitude. On the first attack they abandoned their ensigns, threw down their arms, and dispersed on all sides with an active speed, which abated the loss, whilst it aggravated the shame, of their defeat. 17 The king of the Goths, who blushed for the baseness of his enemies, pursued with rapid steps the path of honour and victory. Totila passed the Po, traversed the Apennine, suspended the important con- quest of Ravenna, Florence, and Rome, and marched through the heart of Italy to form the siege, or rather blockade, of u.d. 542] Naples. The Roman chiefs, imprisoned in their respective cities and accusing each other of the common disgrace, did not presume to disturb his enterprise. But the emperor, alarmed by the distress and danger of his Italian conquests, dispatched to the relief of Naples a fleet of galleys and a body of Thracian and Armenian soldiers. They landed in Sicily, which yielded its copious stores of provisions ; but the delays of the new com- mander, an unwarlike magistrate, protracted the sufferings of the besieged ; and the succours, which he dropt with a timid and tardy hand, were successively intercepted by the armed vessels stationed by Totila in the bay of Naples. The principal officer of the Romans was dragged with a rope round his neck to the foot of the wall, from whence, with a trembling voice, he exhorted the citizens to implore, like himself, the mercy of 17 [The events are so compressed in the text that they are hardly intelligible. The Eornan army, numbering (not 20,000 as the author states, but) 12,000 (8i(rx«- lous Te Kal nvpiovs), advanced within five miles of Verona, and on the failure of the attempt of Artabazes retreated beyond the Po to Faventia, which is about twenty miles south-west of Ravenna. Totila then, taking the offensive, follows them from Venetia, crosses the Po, and the battle of Faenza is fought, in which the Imperial- ists are routed and Artabazes slain in single combat with Viliaris. The Romans, having suffered a severe loss, retreat to Ravenna, and Totila advances into Tuscany, besieges Florence (which is held by Justin), and defeats, in the valley of Mugello (a day's journey from Florence), the army of relief which has come from Ravenna under John and Bessas. The Battle of Mugello gave central and southern Italy to the Goths. It was fought towards end of 542. Procopius, B. G. iii. 3-5.]