CHAPTER XXIX.
ROME BELEAGUERED A few days later the guards at the Tiburtine Gate of Rome were hailed, before dawn, by a number of Greek soldiers in the disarray of flight.
It was a portion of the garrison of Tibur: the town had been betrayed at sunset, by certain of its inhabitants who watched at one of the gates.

The soldiers fought their way through and most of them escaped, and had fled hither through the darkness.

Before the end of the day came news more terrible.

A peasant from a neighbouring farm declared that all the people of Tibur, men, women, and children, had perished under the Gothic sword, not even ministers of religion having found mercy.

And very soon this report, at first doubted, was fully confirmed.