y would lose the honor
of the victory. His troops were disposed in a long front, the cavalry on
the wings; in the centre, the heavy-armed foot; the archers and slingers
in the rear. The Germans advanced in a sharp-pointed column, of the form
of a triangle or solid wedge. They 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, 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. 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.

After a reign of sixty years, the throne of the Gothic kings was filled
by the exarchs of Ravenna, the representatives in peace and war of the
emperor of the Romans. Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits