ads leading
up to the city, the one on the east, and the other on the west. One of
these is very narrow and difficult by reason of precipitous rocks, while
the other cannot be reached except by way of the bridge which spans the
river and provides a passage over it at that point. This bridge was
built by Caesar Augustus in early times, and is a very noteworthy sight;
for its arches are the highest of any known to us.

So Vittigis, not enduring to have his time wasted there, departed thence
with all speed and went with the whole army against Rome, making the
journey through Sabine territory. [W]And when he drew near to Rome, and
was not more than fourteen stades away from it, he came upon a bridge
over the Tiber River.[87] There a little while before Belisarius had
built a tower, furnished it with gates, and stationed in it a guard of
soldiers, not because this is the only point at which the Tiber could be
crossed by the enemy (for there are both boats and bridges at many
places along the river), but because he wished the enemy to have to
spend more time in the journey, since he was expecting another army from
the emperor, and also in order that the Romans might bring in still more
provisions. For if the barbarians, repulsed at that point, should try to
cross on a bridge somewhere else, he thought that not less than twenty
days would be consumed by them, and if they wished to launch boats in
the Tiber to the necessary number, a still longer time would probably be
wasted by them. These, then, were the considerations which led him to
establish the garrison at that point; and the Goths bivouacked there
that day, being at a loss and supposing that they would be obliged to
storm the tower on the following day; but twenty-two deserters came to
them, men who were barbarians by race but Roman soldiers, from the
cavalry troop commanded by Innocentius.[88] Just at that time it
occurred to Belisarius to establish a camp near the Tiber River, in
order that they might hinder still more the crossing of the enemy and
make some kind of a display of their own daring to their opponents. But
all the soldiers who, as has been stated, were keeping guard at the
bridge, being overcome with terror at the throng of Goths and quailing
at the magnitude of their danger, abandoned by night the tower they were
guarding and rushed off in flight. But thinking that they could not
enter Rome, they stealthily marched off toward Campania, either because
the