442 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliii death of Totila. a.d. 552, July experience proposed a measure, secure by the appearance of rashness : that the Roman army should cautiously advance along the sea-shore, while the fleet preceded their march, and succes- sively cast a bridge of boats over the mouths of the rivers, the Timavus, the Brenta, Adige, and the Po, that fall into the Hadriatic to the north of Ravenna. Nine days he reposed in the city, collected the fragments of the Italian army, and marched towards Rimini to meet the defiance of an insulting enemy. The prudence of Narses impelled him to speedy and decisive action. His powers were the last effort of the state : the cost of each day accumulated the enormous account ; and the nations, untrained to discipline or fatigue, might be rashly provoked to turn their arms against each other, or against their benefactor. The same considerations might have tempered the ardour of Totila. But he was conscious that the clergy and people of Italy aspired to a second revolution ; he felt or suspected the rapid progress of treason ; and he resolved to risk the Gothic kingdom on the chance of a day, in which the valiant would be animated by instant danger and the disaffected might be awed by mutual ignorance. In his march from Ravenna, the Roman general chastised the garrison of Rimini, traversed in a direct line the hills of Urbino, and re-entered the Flaminian way, nine miles beyond the perforated rock, an obstacle of art and nature which might have stopped or retarded his progress. 60 The Goths were assembled in the neighbourhood of Rome, they advanced without delay to seek a superior enemy, and the two armies approached each other at the distance of one hundred furlongs, between Tagina 61 and the sepulchres of the Gauls. 62 The haughty subdued nature, and the land has been cultivated, since the waters are confined and embanked. See the learned researches of Muratori (Antiquitat. Italics medii Mvi, torn. i. dissert, xxi. p. 253, 254), from Vitruvius, Strabo, Herodian, old charters, and local knowledge. 80 The Flaminian way, as it is corrected from the Itineraries, and the best modern maps, by d'Anville (Analyse de l'ltalie, p. 147-162), may be thus stated : Rome to Narni, 51 Roman miles ; Terni, 57 ; Spoleto, 75 ; Foligno, 88 ; Nocera, 103 ; Cagli, 142 ; Intercisa [Petra Pertusa], 157 ; Fossombrone, 160 ; Fano, 176 ; Pesaro, 184 ; Rimini, 208 — about 189 English miles. He takes no notice of the death of Totila ; but Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 614) exchanges for the field of Taginas the unknown appellation of Ptanias, eight miles from Nocera. 61 Taginae, or rather Tadinse, is mentioned by Pliny ; but the bishopric of that obscure town, a mile from Gualdo, in the plain, was united, in the year 1007, with that of Nocera. The signs of antiquity are preserved in the local appellations, Fossato, the camp ; Capraia, Caprea ; Bastia, Busta Gallorum. See Cluverius [Petra Pertusa]
