In acting thus he had been also influenced by other reasons. He wished first of all to check Belisarius on his march to Ravenna. Secondly, he was afraid, in case of a siege, that if all his troops were with him, they would speedily be exposed to the evils of starvation, and, lastly, he wished to attack the besiegers in their rear from various sides. His plan was to occupy his stronghold of Ravenna, limiting himself to defensive proceedings until the foreign troops which he expected, Longobardians and Franks, should place him in a position to take the open field. But his hope of checking Belisarius on his way to Ravenna was disappointed, for the Byzantine contented himself with investing all the Gothic fortresses with a portion of his army, marching on with the main army to the capital city and last important refuge of the Goths. "If I have mortally wounded the heart," he said, "the clenched fists will open of themselves." And so, very soon, the tents of the Byzantines were seen stretching in a wide semicircle round the royal residence of Theodoric, from the harbour-town of Classis to the canals and branches of the Padus, which, particularly to the west, formed a natural line of defence. The old aristocratic city had indeed, even at that time, lost much of the glory in which it had rejoiced for nearly two centuries as the residence of the Roman emperors; and the last rays which the splendid reign of Theodoric had shed over it, were extinguished since the breaking out of the war. But even thus, what a different impression must the still thickly-populated city--similar to the present Venice--have made at that period, in comparison with its aspect at present; when the interior of the city, with its silent streets, its deserted squares and its lonely basilicas, appears to the beholder no less melancholy than the plain outside the walls, where the desolate and marshy levels of the Padus stretch far away, until they are lost in the mud of the receding sea. Where once the harbour-town of Classis was filled with active life on land and sea; where the proud triremes of the royal fleet of Ravenna rocked on the blue waters, now lie swampy meadows, in whose tall reeds and grass the wild buffalo feeds; the streets foul with stagnant water; the harbour choked with sand; the once joyous population vanished; only one gigantic tower of the time of the Goths still stands near the sole remaining Basilica, of Saint Apollonaris in _Classe fuori_, which, commenced by Witichis and completed by Justinian, now rises sadly out of the marshy plain, far from any human abode. In the time of which our story speaks the strong fortress was considered impregnable, and for that reason the emperors, when their power began to decay, had chosen it for their residence.