ey pierced the feeble centre
of Narses, who received them with a smile into the fatal snare, and
directed his wings of cavalry insensibly to wheel on their flanks and
encompass their rear. The host of the Franks and Alamanni consisted
of infantry: a sword and buckler hung by their side; and they used, as
their weapons of offence, a weighty hatchet and a hooked javelin, which
were only formidable in close combat, or at a short distance. The flower
of the Roman archers, on horseback, and in complete armor, skirmished
without peril round this immovable phalanx; supplied by active speed
the deficiency of number; and aimed their arrows against a crowd of
Barbarians, who, instead of a cuirass and helmet, were covered by a
loose garment of fur or linen. They paused, they trembled, their ranks
were confounded, and in the decisive moment the Heruli, preferring glory
to revenge, charged with rapid violence the head of the column. Their
leader, Sinbal, and Aligern, the Gothic prince, deserved the prize
of superior valor; and their example excited the victorious troops to
achieve with swords and spears the destruction of the enemy. Buccelin,
and the greatest part of his army, perished on the field of battle, in
the waters of the Vulturnus, or by the hands of the enraged peasants:
but it may seem incredible, that a victory, [52] which no more than five
of the Alamanni survived, could be purchased with the loss of fourscore
Romans. Seven thousand Goths, the relics of the war, defended the
fortress of Campsa till the ensuing spring; and every messenger of
Narses announced the reduction of the Italian cities, whose names were
corrupted by the ignorance or vanity of the Greeks. [53] After the
battle of Casilinum, Narses entered the capital; the arms and treasures
of the Goths, the Franks, and the Alamanni, were displayed; his
soldiers, with garlands in their hands, chanted the praises of the
conqueror; and Rome, for the last time, beheld the semblance of a
triumph.

[Footnote 50: See the death of Lothaire in Agathias (l. ii. p. 38) and
Paul Warnefrid, surnamed Diaconus, (l. ii. c. 3, 775.) The Greek makes
him rave and tear his flesh. He had plundered churches.]

[Footnote 51: Pere Daniel (Hist. de la Milice Francoise, tom. i. p.
17--21) has exhibited a fanciful representation of this battle, somewhat
in the manner of the Chevalier Folard, the once famous editor of
Polybius, who fashioned to his own habits and opinions all the military