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THE DECLINE AND FALL
Defeat and death of Totila. A.D. 552, July 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, [Petra Pertusa] nine miles beyond the perforated rock, an obstacle of art and nature which might have stopped or retarded his progress.[1] 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[2] and the sepulchres of the Gauls.[3]
- ↑ The Flaminian way, as it is corrected from the Itineraries, and the best modern maps, by d'Anville (Analyse de l'Italie, 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.
- ↑ Taginæ, or rather Tadinæ, 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 (Italia Antiqua, l. ii. c. 6, p. 615, 616, 617), Lucas Holstenius (Annotat. ad Cluver. p. 85, 86), Guazzesi (Dissertat. p. 177-217, a professed inquiry), and the maps of the ecclesiastical state and the march of Ancona, by Le Maire and Magini. [See a memoir on the site of the battle by Mr. Hodgkin in the "Atti e memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le provincie di Romagna," 1884 (p. 35 sqq.), and Italy and her Invaders, iv. p. 710 sqq. The site has not been determined with certainty. (1) The mention of the Busta Gallorum (see next note) has been used as an argument for Sassoferrato near Sentinum. Procopius is mistaken in naming Camillus, who fought no battles in Umbria; but it is supposed that he may have been thinking of the Battle of Sentinum (B.C. 295). Sassoferrato is east of the Flaminian road, and is separated from Tadinum by a high pass. (2) Mr. Hodgkin argues for Ad Ensem, or Scheggia, where the Flaminian road reaches the top of the pass. His view is that Narses, having turned the fortress of Petra Pertusa by taking a southern route, reached the Flaminian Way at Callis and marched up to Ad Ensem. This site suits the words of Procopius, ἐν χωρίῳ ὁμαλῷ, "at a level place," but it has been objected that there is hardly room for a battle on such a scale. Procopius states that the distance between the camps of Narses and Totila was at first 100 stadia, and the distance between Scheggia and Tadino, 15 miles, nearly corresponds.]
- ↑ The battle [of Sentinum] was fought in the year of Rome 458 [B.C. 295]; and
