In 549, Totila, without being discouraged by his defeat, once more laid siege to the capital of Italy. Diogenes, who commanded there, had had wheat sown within the inclosure of the walls, which might have supported the garrison some time. But the city was again betrayed by the Isaurians. The soldiers of that nation, dissatisfied with not having received their pay for some years, and having learnt that their companions had been magnificently rewarded by Totila, resolved to follow their example. They agreed with the king of the Goths to open the gate confided to their guard, which perfidy they executed at the time appointed. Totila caused his trumpets to be sounded at the side opposite to that by which he entered the city. The garrison immediately hastened where the danger seemed most pressing, and by this artifice the Goths met with no resistance. The commander of the Roman cavalry, named Paul of Cilicia, seeing that the city was taken, shut himself up, with four hundred horse, in the mausoleum of Adrian, and took possession of the bridge which leads to the church of St. Peter. He was attacked by the Goths, whose efforts he so warmly repulsed, that Totila determined to reduce his party by famine. This intrepid little band remained a day and a night without taking food, and then determined to die with honour. After taking a last farewell, and embracing each other, they opened the gates with a determination to fall upon the enemy like desperate men, when Totila proposed moderate and honourable conditions to them. They accepted them, and all took arms under his banner. Totila, become master of Rome a second time, restored it to its pristine splendour, and re-established as many of the citizens as could be found.--Narses, the general of the empire, having conquered and killed Totila, retook Rome, which opposed but a feeble resistance. ELEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1084. We have seen Rome besieged in its early days, when its walls were of mud; we have seen it besieged by its own sons, by the Gauls, by the barbarians; but it was still, as a warlike city, the head of a kingdom, a republic, an empire. We have now to see it besieged in a new character,--as the seat of the head of the Christian world. As if Rome was destined always to be royal, she took the same place with regard to the Church she had occupied as a temporal power; and every reader of history will allow that there has not been much less ambition, strife, and political chicanery in the latter state than in any of the former. From its foundation, Rome has always been Rome, seldom or never at rest, either within itself or with its neighbours.