History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
the camps of Hannibal. 15 The senators were dragged in his train,
and afterwards confined in the fortresses of Campania: the
citizens, with their wives and children, were dispersed in exile;
and during forty days Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary
solitude. 16
13 (return) [ During the long exile, and after the death of
Vigilius, the Roman church was governed, at first by the
archdeacon, and at length (A. D 655) by the pope Pelagius, who
was not thought guiltless of the sufferings of his predecessor.
See the original lives of the popes under the name of Anastasius,
(Muratori, Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 130, 131,)
who relates several curious incidents of the sieges of Rome and
the wars of Italy.]
14 (return) [ Mount Garganus, now Monte St. Angelo, in the
kingdom of Naples, runs three hundred stadia into the Adriatic
Sea, (Strab.—vi. p. 436,) and in the darker ages was illustrated
by the apparition, miracles, and church, of St. Michael the
archangel. Horace, a native of Apulia or Lucania, had seen the
elms and oaks of Garganus laboring and bellowing with the north
wind that blew on that lofty coast, (Carm. ii. 9, Epist. ii. i.
201.)]
15 (return) [ I cannot ascertain this particular camp of
Hannibal; but the Punic quarters were long and often in the
neighborhood of Arpi, (T. Liv. xxii. 9, 12, xxiv. 3, &c.)]
16 (return) [ Totila.... Romam ingreditur.... ac evertit muros,
domos aliquantas igni comburens, ac omnes Romanorum res in
praedam ac cepit, hos ipsos Romanos in Campaniam captivos
abduxit. Post quam devastationem, xl. autamp lius dies, Roma fuit
ita desolata, ut nemo ibi hominum, nisi (nulloe?) bestiae
morarentur, (Marcellin. in Chron. p. 54.)]
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