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569-582.

500-530.

545. Origin and Monarchy of the Turks in Asia.

The Avars fly before the Turks, and approach the Empire...
558. Their Embassy to Constantinople....

Embassies of the Turks and Romans
State of Persia.........

531--579. Reign of Nushirvan or Chosroes

His Love of Learning.

533-539. Peace and War with the Romans.

And ruins Antioch.

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RORS. AUTHORITY OF THE CIVILIANS.CODE, PANDECTS, NOVELS, AND
INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN: I. RIGHTS OF PERSONS.-II. RIGHTS OF THINGS.
-III. PRIVATE INJURIES AND ACTIONS.-IV. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

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THE HISTORY

OF

THE DECLINE AND FALL

OF THE

ROMAN EMPIRE.

CHAPTER XXXI.

INVASION OF ITALY BY ALARIC.-MANNERS OF THE ROMAN SENATE AND PEOPLE.-ROME IS THRICE BESieged, and AT LENGTH PILLAGED, BY THE GOTHS.-DEATH OF ALARIC.THE GOTHS EVACUATE ITALY.-FALL OF CONSTANTINE.GAUL AND SPAIN ARE OCCUPIED BY THE BARBARIANS. INDEPENDENCE OF BRITAIN.

THE incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance, and produce the effects. of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same meas ures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.1 The king of the Goths would have conspired, per haps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adver sary, by whose arms, in Italy, as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho. The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as

1 The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to the arrival of Alaric be fore Rome, can only be found in Zosimus, 1. v. pp. 347-350. (11)

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