crews, however, mistook the gesticulations and imagined that their advent was being hailed with rejoicings, wherefore they redoubled their energies in order to complete the voyage. Hence they steered straight into the ambuscade of barbarians and were all captured without a chance of being rescued. Among the prisoners was a bishop, whom Totila relieved of both his hands, as the penalty of answering falsely to his interrogations.
At the beginning of the next year (546) the Romans were hard pressed by famine, and began to debate the advisability of surrender. As a preliminary they sent an envoy to Totila to ask for a short truce on condition that if succour did not arrive in the interval they would give themselves up. Pelagius, the chosen deputy, was a man who acted a considerable part on the ecclesiastical stage, and was already well known to Justinian, at whose Court he had resided for several years as Papal legate. The Gothic king received him warmly, but interrupted him, as he was about to begin his exhortation, in order to enter on a justification of himself. First he warned Pelagius that there were three things which it would be useless for him to solicit, viz., clemency towards the Sicilians, to spare the walls of Rome, or to deliver up fugitives who had joined his army. He went on to picture the happy state of Sicily when the Goths first conquered the peninsula, abounding in wealth through the splendid fertility of its soil, and able to export copious supplies for the sustenance of Rome. At the prayer of the Romans Theodoric had left the island almost ungarrisoned, lest the inhabitants should be disturbed in their peaceful occupations to the detriment of the capital. Yet when a small Byzantine force landed they were received everywhere with open arms and the island was allowed to become a
