Goths came near the moat, the general first of all stretched his bow and
with a lucky aim hit in the neck and killed one of the men in armour who
were leading the army on. And he fell on his back mortally wounded,
while the whole Roman army raised an extraordinary shout such as was
never heard before, thinking that they had received an excellent omen.
And twice did Belisarius send forth his bolt, and the very same thing
happened again a second time, and the shouting rose still louder from
the circuit-wall, and the Romans thought that the enemy were conquered
already. Then Belisarius gave the signal for the whole army to put
their bows into action, but those near himself he commanded to shoot
only at the oxen. And all the oxen fell immediately, so that the enemy
could neither move the towers further nor in their perplexity do
anything to meet the emergency while the fighting was in progress. In
this way the forethought of Belisarius in not trying to check the enemy
while still at a great distance came to be understood, as well as the
reason why he had laughed at the simplicity of the barbarians, who had
been so thoughtless as to hope to bring oxen up to the enemy's wall. Now
all this took place at the Salarian Gate. But Vittigis, repulsed at this
point, left there a large force of Goths, making of them a very deep
phalanx and instructing the commanders on no condition to make an
assault upon the fortifications, but remaining in position to shoot
rapidly at the parapet, and give Belisarius no opportunity whatever to
take reinforcements to any other part of the wall which he himself might
propose to attack with a superior force; he then went to the Praenestine
Gate with a great force, to a part of the fortifications which the
Romans call the "Vivarium,"[108] where the wall was most assailable. Now
it so happened that engines of war were already there, including towers
and rams and a great number of ladders.

But in the meantime another Gothic assault was being made at the
Aurelian Gate[109] in the following manner. The tomb of the Roman
Emperor Hadrian[110] stands outside the Aurelian Gate, removed about a
stone's throw from the fortifications, a very noteworthy sight. For it
is made of Parian marble, and the stones fit closely one upon the other,
having nothing at all[111] between them. And it has four sides which are
all equal, each being about a stone's throw in length, while their
height exceeds that of the city wall;