Note 154 — Chapter XVII
Reading edition
Footnote 154:
(return)
As the passage is an important one I will give a literal translation of the words of Procopius ("De Bell. Gotthico", iii., 22): "Of the Romans, however, he kept the members of the Senate with him, but sent away all the others with their wives and children to the regions bordering on Campania, having permitted not a single human being to remain in Rome, but having left her absolutely desolate". (έν Ροόμη ανθρωπον ούδένα έάσας, άλλ́ έρημον αύτήν τό παράπαν άπολιποόν.)
The contemporary chronicler Marcellinus Comes confirms this statement: "Post quam devastationem XL. aut amplius dies Roma fuit ita desolata ut nemo ibi hominum nisi bestiæ morarentur".