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450 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliii Defeat of the Franks and Ala- manni by Narses. A.D. 554 [Garda] melted or profaned the consecrated vessels, and the ruins of shrines and altars were stained with the blood of the faithful. Buccelin was actuated by ambition, and Lothaire by avarice. The former aspired to restore the Gothic kingdom ; the latter, after a promise to his brother of speedy succours, returned by the same road to deposit his treasure beyond the Alps. The strength of their armies was already wasted by the change of climate and contagion of disease ; the Germans revelled in the vintage of Italy ; and their own intemperance avenged in some degree the miseries of a defenceless people. At the entrance of the spring, the Imperial troops, who had guarded the cities, assembled to the number of eighteen thousand men, in the neighbourhood of Eome. Their winter hours had not been consumed in idleness. By the command, and after the example, of Narses they repeated each day their military exercise on foot and on horseback, accustomed their ear to obey the sound of the trumpet, and practised the steps and evolutions of the Pyrrhic dance. From the straits of Sicily, Buccelin, with thirty thousand Franks and Alamanni, slowly moved towards Capua, occupied with a wooden tower the bridge of Casilinum, 84 covered his right by the stream of the Vulturnus, and secured the rest of his encampment by a rampart of sharp stakes and a circle of waggons, whose wheels were buried in the earth. He impatiently expected the return of Lothaire ; ignorant, alas ! that his brother could never return, and that the chief and his army had been swept away by a strange disease S5 on the banks of the lake Benacus, between Trent and Verona. The banners of Narses soon approached the Vulturnus, and the eyes of Italy were anxiously fixed on the event of this final contest. Perhaps the talents of the Eoman general were most conspicuous in the calm operations which pre- cede the tumult of a battle. His skilful movements intercepted the subsistence of the Barbarian, deprived him of the advantage of the bridge and river, and, in the choice of the ground and moment of action, reduced him to comply with the inclination S4 [Casilinum, on the Vulturnus, is the modern Capua ; the ancient Capua, about three miles distant, is now S. Maria di Capua Vetere.] 85 See the death of Lothaire in Agathias (1. ii. p. 38 [c. 3]), and Paul Warnefrid, surnamed Diaconus (1. ii. c. 3 [leg. 2], 775). The Greek makes him rave and tear his flesh. He had plundered churches. [Leuthar's troops had previously been sur- prised and defeated near Fano.]