serve thee!
Teja the terrible
Daunts thy defiance.
And brightly arises,
Like morning and May-time,
Like night from the darkness,
The favourite of heaven,
The bright, and the beautiful
King of the Goths!
To him are wide opened
All halls and all hearts;
To him, overpowered,
Yield Winter and Woe!"

When the King entered the Forum, there fell a dead silence upon the
people.

But Cethegus, who had expected this, immediately took advantage of it.
He urged his horse into the crowd and cried:

"What would you, Goth, in this my city?"

Totila cast one flaming look at him, and then turned away.

"With _him_ I speak, for evermore, only with my sword! With him, the
threefold liar and murderer! To _you_ I speak, unhappy and befooled
inhabitants of Rome! Your sufferings wring my heart. I come to end your
misery. I come without arms, for I am safer, trusting to the honour of
Romans, than protected by sword and shield."

He paused.

Cethegus no more attempted to interrupt him.

"Quirites," continued Totila, "you yourselves have truly acknowledged
that I might long since have stormed your walls with my hosts. For now
you have but stones, and no men to defend them. But if Rome were
carried by storm, then Rome would burn; and I confess that I would
rather never enter Rome, than enter to find it in ashes. I will not
reproach you with the manner in which you have requited the kindness of
Theodoric and the Goths. Have you forgotten the time when you coined
your gold with the grateful inscription, 'Roma felix'? Truly you are
punished enough; more heavily punished by hunger, pestilence, and the
yoke of the Byzantines and that demon Cethegus, than by the severest
penalty which we could have inflicted. More than eight thousand
people--women and children not included--have perished. Your deserted
houses fall into ruins; you greedily pluck the grass which grows in
your temples; despair walks your streets with hollow eyes; famished
mothers--Roman mothers--have devoured the flesh of their own children.
Until this day, your resistance was heroic, although lamentable. But
henceforward it is madness. Your last hope was placed in Belisarius.
Then hear: Belisarius has sailed from Sicily to Byzantium. He has
deserted you."

Cethegus ordered the trumpets to be sounded, in order to drown the
groan