The plague of the northern wind, at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, was to cause _the Sun, Moon and Stars_, that is, the King, kingdom and Princes of the _Western_ Empire, _to be darkned_, and to continue some time in darkness. Accordingly _Belisarius_, having conquered the _Vandals_, invaded _Italy_ A.C. 535, and made war upon the _Ostrogoths_ in _Dalmatia_, _Liburnia_, _Venetia_, _Lombardy_, _Tuscany_, and other regions northward from _Rome_, twenty years together. In this war many cities were taken and retaken. In retaking _Millain_ from the _Romans_, the _Ostrogoths_ slew all the males young and old, amounting, as _Procopius_ reckons, to three hundred thousand, and sent the women captives to their allies the _Burgundians_. _Rome_ itself was taken and retaken several times, and thereby the people were thinned; the old government by a Senate ceased, the nobles were ruined, and all the glory of the city was extinguish'd: and A.C. 552, after a war of seventeen years, the kingdom of the _Ostrogoths_ fell; yet the remainder of the _Ostrogoths_, and an army of _Germans_ called in to their assistance, continued the war three or four years longer. Then ensued the war of the _Heruli_, who, as _Anastasius_ tells us, _perimebant cunctam Italiam_, slew all _Italy_. This was followed by the war of the _Lombards_, the fiercest of all the _Barbarians_, which began A.C. 568, and lasted for thirty eight years together; _facta tali clade_, saith _Anastasius_, _qualem a saeculo nullus meminit_; ending at last in the Papacy of _Sabinian_, A.C. 605, by a peace then made with the _Lombards_. Three years before this war ended, _Gregory_ the great, then Bishop of _Rome_, thus speaks of it: _Qualiter enim & quotidianis gladiis & quantis Longobardorum incursionibus, ecce jam per triginta quinque annorum longitudinem premimur, nullis explere vocibus suggestionis valemus_: and in one of his Sermons to the people, he thus expresses the great consumption of the _Romans_ by these wars: _Ex illa plebe innumerabili quanti remanseritis aspicitis, & tamen adhuc quotidie flagella urgent, repentini casus opprimunt, novae res & improvisae clades affligunt_. In another Sermon he thus describes the desolations: _Destructae urbes, eversa sunt castra, depopulati agri, in solitudinem terra redacta est. Nullus in agris incola, pene nullus in urbibus habitator remansit. Et tamen ipsae parvae generis humani reliquiae adhuc quotidie & sine cessatione feriuntur, & finem non habent flagella coelestis justitiae. Ipsa autem quae aliquando mundi Domina esse videbatur, qualis remansit Roma conspicimus innumeris doloribus multipliciter attrita, defolatione civium, impressione hostium, frequentia ruinarum.--Ecce jam de illa omnes hujus faeculi potentes ablati sunt.--Ecce populi defecerunt.--Ubi enim Senatus? Ubi jam populus? Contabuerunt ossa, consumptae sunt carnes. Omnis enim saecularium dignitatum ordo extinctus est, & tamen ipsos vos paucos qui remansimus, adhuc quotidie gladii, adhuc