nt orders
to the troops of Valerian and Martinus[121] to proceed with all speed.
For they had been sent, as it happened, with another army at about the
winter solstice, with instructions to sail to Italy. But they had sailed
as far as Greece, and since they were unable to force their way any
farther, they were passing the winter in the land of Aetolia and
Acarnania. And the Emperor Justinian sent word of all this to
Belisarius, and thus filled him and all the Romans with still greater
courage and confirmed their zeal.

At this time it so happened that the following event took place in
Naples. There was in the market-place a picture of Theoderic, the ruler
of the Goths, made by means of sundry stones which were exceedingly
small and tinted with nearly every colour. At one time during the life
of Theoderic it had come to pass that the head of this picture fell
apart, the stones as they had been set having become disarranged without
having been touched by anyone, and by a coincidence Theoderic finished
his life forthwith. And eight years later the stones which formed the
body of the picture fell apart suddenly, and Atalaric, the grandson of
Theoderic, immediately died. And after the passage of a short time, the
stones about the groin fell to the ground, and Amalasuntha, the child
of Theoderic, passed from the world. Now these things had already
happened as described. But when the Goths began the siege of Rome, as
chance would have it, the portion of the picture from the thighs to the
tips of the feet fell into ruin, and thus the whole picture disappeared
from the wall. And the Romans, divining the meaning of the incident,
maintained that the emperor's army would be victorious in the war,
thinking that the feet of Theoderic were nothing else than the Gothic
people whom he ruled, and, in consequence, they became still more
hopeful.

In Rome, moreover, some of the patricians brought out the Sibylline
oracles,[122] declaring that the danger which had come to the city would
continue only up till the month of July. For it was fated that at that
time someone should be appointed king over the Romans, and thenceforth
Rome should have no longer any Getic peril to fear; for they say that
the Goths are of the Getic race. And the oracle was as follows: "In the
fifth (Quintilis) month . . . under . . . as king nothing Getic
longer. . . ." And they declared that the "fifth month" was July, some
because the siege began on the first day