and another was sent out by the coast road, while Belisarius himself and Narses with a column of cavalry set out from Fermo westward, crossed the Apennines above Spoleto, struck into the Flaminian Way, recrossed the Apennines by the Furlo, and had come within a day’s journey of Rimini when they came upon a party of Goths, who fled and gave the alarm to Vitiges.  But before the Goth could decide what to do, Ildiger was upon him from the sea, Martin was upon him with a great army from the south, and Belisarius and Narses came down from the mountains in time to rejoice at the delivery of the city.

That deliverance but disclosed the two parties that divided the imperial army.  When John refused obedience to Belisarius we may be sure he was not acting wholly without encouragement, and this at once became obvious after the deliverance of Rimini which Belisarius had carried out but which had been conceived by Narses.  It will be remembered that Milan was by the act of Belisarius in the hands of the Romans; it was, however, now besieged even as Rimini had been by a very redoubtable Gothic leader, Uraius.  Orvieto and Osimo also were still in barbarian hands.  Belisarius now proposed to employ the army in the relief of the one and the capture of the others.  Narses, on the other hand, proposed to take his part of the army and with it to reoccupy the province of Aemilia between the Apennines and the Po.  These rivalries and differences were to cost the life of a great city, Milan.  For since Narses would not consent to the plan of Belisarius, only what seemed most urgent was done; Orvieto was taken, Urbino too, and the energy of the imperial army and its purpose, also, was expended upon many unimportant things, an attempt upon Cesena, the reduction of Imola, which involved a hopeless dispersal of forces upon no great end.  Belisarius, warned of the danger, ordered John to the relief of Milan; again that creature of Narses refused.  And down came Milan before Uraius the Goth, who fell upon the helpless citizens and massacred three hundred thousand of them, being all the men of the city; and the women he gave as payment to his Burgundian ally; and of Milan he left not one stone upon another.  But when Justinian read the despatch of Belisarius, he recalled Narses, for if the fall of Rimini would have injured so sorely the imperial cause, what of the fall of Milan, the massacre of its inhabitants, the utter destruction of the city?  So great was its effect that we read even Justinian thought of treating with the Goths; for he was haunted by the weakness of his Persian frontier, and he had soon to look to the western Alps.

Not so Belisarius.  He went on his way and first he reduced two fortresses that had long threatened him, Osimo and Fiesole, and then and at long last he began the great advance upon Ravenna.