CHAP. much to fear or to hope from the paffions of her XXIX. lover. Honorius was only in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his bride, deferred, by art or persuasion, the confummation of the royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after fhe had been ten years a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was fecured by the coldness, or, perhaps, the debility, of his conftitution ". His fubjects, who attentively ftudied the character of their young fovereign, discovered that Honorius was without paffions, and confequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid difpofition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made fome progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow: but he foon relinquished these fatiguing occupa tions, and the amusement of feeding poultry became the ferious and daily care of the monarch of the Weft", who refigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho. The experience of hiftory will countenance the fufpicion, that a prince who was born in the purple, received a worfe education than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and that the ambitious minifter fuffered him to attain the age of manhood, without attempting to excite his courage, or to enlighten his understanding "2. The 60 See Zofimus, 1. v. p. 333. 62 61 Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 2. I have borrowed the general practice of Honorius, without adopting the fingular, and, indeed, improbable tale, which is related by the Greek historian. 62 The lessons of Theodofius, or rather Claudian (iv Conf. Honor. 214-418.), might compofe a fine institution for the future prince af XXIX. The predeceffors of Honorius were accustomed to CHAP. of a great and free nation. It was far above Honorius, and his de- CHAP. Revolt of С Н А Р. XXX. Revolt of the Goths. They plunder Greece.-Two great Invafions of Italy by Alaric and Radagaifus. -They are repulfed by Stilicho.-The Germans over-run Gaul.-Ufurpation of Conftantine in the Weft.-Difgrace and Death of Stilicho. F the fubjects of Rome could be ignorant of IF I their obligations to the great Theodofius, the Goths, they were too soon convinced, how painfully the A.D. 395. fpirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had fupported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in arms'. The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed the hoftile defigns which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of the laft treaty, to a life of tranquillity and labour, deferted their farms at the first found of the trumpet; and eagerly refumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the favage warriors of Scythia iffued from their forefts; and the uncommon feverity of the winter allowed the poet to remark," that they 1 The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of Conftantinople, are diftinctly mentioned by Claudian (in Rufin, 1. ¡i. 7—100.), Zofimus (1. v. p. 292.), and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 29.). 4. "rolled XXX. "rolled their ponderous waggons over the broad CHAP. "and icy back of the indignant river 2." The unhappy natives of the provinces to the South of the Danube, fubmitted to the calamities, which, in the course of twenty years, were almoft grown familiar to their imagination; and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularly fpread from the woody fhores of Dalmatia, to the walls of Conftantinople *. The interruption, or at least the diminution, of the fubfidy, which the Goths had received from the prudent liberality of Theodofius, was the fpecious pretence of their revolt: the affront was embittered by their contempt for the unwarlike fons of Theodofius; and their refentment was inflamed by the weakness, or treachery, of the minifter of Arcadius. The frequent vifits of Rufinus to the camp of the Barbarians, whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were confidered as a fufficient evidence of his guilty correfpondence and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general devaftation, to fpare the private eftates of the unpopular præfect. The Goths, instead 2 Alii per terga ferocis Danubii folidata ruunt; expertaque remis Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavours to comfort his friend Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the lofs of his nephew Nepotian, by a curious recapitulation of all the public and private misfortunes of the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Ecclef. tom. xii. p. 200, &c. N VOL. V. of XXX. 4 CHAP. of being impelled by the blind and headstrong paffions of their chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned leader was defcended from the noble race of the Balti ; which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali: he had folicited the command of the Roman armies; and the Imperial court provoked him to demonftrate the folly of their refufal, and the importance of their lofs. Whatever hopes might be entertained of the conqueft of Conftantinople, the judicious general foon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst of a divided court, and a difcontented people, the emperor Arcadius was terrified by the afpect of the Gothic arms: but the want of wifdom and valour was fupplied by the ftrength of the city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might fecurely brave the impotent and random darts of the Barbarians. Alaric difdained to trample any longer on the proftrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he refolved to feek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war ". 4 Baltha, or bold: origo mirifica, fays Jornandes (c. 29.). This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France, in the Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc; under the corrupted appellation of Baux: and a branch of that family afterwards settled in the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom. ad Hift. Gothic. p. 53.). The lords of Baux, near Arles, and of seventy-nine subordinate places, were independent of the counts of Provence (Longuèrue, Defcription de la France, tom. i. p. 357.). 5 Zofimus (1. v. p. 293-295.) is our best guide for the conquest of Greece: but the hints and allufion of Claudian are so many rays of historic light. The |