"Happy are we that this sunny youth still lives!"--_Margrave Ruediger of Bechelaren_, Act i., Scene i. PART II. CHAPTER I. Thenceforth King Totila held his court in Rome with much splendour and rejoicing. The heaviest task of all the war seemed to be completed. After the fall of Rome, most of the small forts on the coast and in the Apennines opened their gates; very few remained to be taken by siege. For this purpose the King sent forth his generals, Teja, Guntharis, Grippa, Markja, and Aligern; while he himself undertook the difficult political task of reducing to order the kingdom so long disturbed by war or rebellion. He had, indeed, almost to refound it. He sent his dukes and earls into the towns and districts to carry out his intentions in all departments of the state; particularly to protect the Italians from the vengeance of the victorious Goths. He had published from the Capitol a general amnesty; excluding only one person: the ex-Prefect, Cornelius Cethegus Cæsarius. Everywhere he caused the destroyed churches, both Catholic and Arian, to be restored; everywhere the landed property was settled, the taxes newly-laid and diminished. The beneficial results of all this care were not long in making themselves felt. Even when Totila had first assumed the crown and issued his manifesto, had the Italians resumed the long-neglected cultivation of the land. The Gothic soldiers were directed to refrain from disturbing this important work, and to do all in their power to prevent any such disturbance on the part of the Byzantines. And a wonderful fertility of the soil, a harvest of grain, wine, and oil, such as had not been seen for ages, seemed to prove that the blessing of Heaven had fallen upon the young King. The news of the taking of Neapolis and Rome spread rapidly through the Eastern Empire, where it was received with great astonishment, for all there had long since considered the Gothic kingdom to be extinct. Merchants who had been tempted by the strong and just government, the security of the high-roads and of the sea--which were severally protected by patrols of soldiers and watchful squadrons of Gothic ships--to revisit the deserted towns and harbours of the peninsula, praised the justice and benevolence of the royal youth, and told of the flourishing state of his kingdom, and of the brilliancy of his court at Rome, where he gathered about him the senators who had repented of their rebellion, and gave to the populace liberal alms and splendid games in the Circus. The Kings of the Franks acknowledged this change of circumstances. They sent presents--Totila rejected them; they sent ambassadors--Totila would not receive them.