In Picenum, John had perhaps rashly pushed forward from Ancona to Rimini; which he held precariously and to the danger of Ancona.  The first act of Belisarius after the raising of the siege of the City was to despatch troops post haste to Rimini.  He sent Ildiger and Martin with a thousand horse to fight their way if necessary to Rimini to withdraw John and his two thousand horse.  He purposed to hold Rimini only with the tips of his fingers, for his determination was to secure all he held before he entered upon a final and a real advance northward.

The position of Belisarius seemed more insecure than in fact it was.  If we consider the great artery of his advance northward, the Via Flaminia, we shall find that he held everything to the east of the road between Rome and Ancona save one fortress, Osimo above Ancona, which was held by four thousand of the enemy.  But all was or seemed to be insecure because he held nothing to the west of the great road save Perugia:  Orvieto, Todi, Chiusi, Urbino were all in Gothic hands, while the Furlo Pass over the Apennines was also held by the enemy.

Well might Belisarius desire the cavalry of John, useless in Rimini, for the direct road to that city was still in the hands of the enemy.  But when John got his orders he refused to obey them and Ildiger and Martin returned without him.  What excuse is possible for this refusal of obedience on the part of a subordinate which might well have imperilled the whole campaign?  This only:  that he had orders from one superior even to Belisarius.  It is probable that John in Rimini and Ancona was aware that he might expect reinforcement from Constantinople and that Belisarius knew nothing of them.  These reinforcements arrived under Narses, the great and famous chamberlain of Justinian, not long after Rimini had begun to suffer the memorable siege that followed the departure of Ildiger and Martin, and Ancona had only just been saved.  The presence of Narses in Italy changed the whole aspect of the campaign, and whatever motives Justinian may have had for sending him thither, the effect of his landing at Ancona with great reinforcements can have had only a good effect upon the war.

[Illustration:  Sketch Map CITIES UNDERLINED WERE IN IMPERIAL HANDS]

Belisarius had now secured himself to this extent that Todi and Chiusi were in his hands, and he hastened to meet Narses at Fermo forty miles south of Ancona.  There a council of war was held in which Belisarius maintained his plan, namely, that Rimini should be abandoned because Osimo, very strongly held over Ancona, was in the hands of the Goths.  Narses, on the contrary, looked only to the spiritual side of war.  He maintained that if a city once recovered for the empire was abandoned the moral result would be disastrous.  At any cost he was for the relief of Rimini.  Somewhat reluctantly, realising the danger, Belisarius consented to try.  A screen of a thousand men was placed before Osimo, an army was embarked for Rimini