Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/295

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 275 the possession of the Western provinces of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the causes and of the effects of the most important revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated even the last resource of a despotic govei'nment ; and the revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military service of a discontented and pusillanimous people. The poet whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the Negotiation victories of Pollentia and Verona pursues the hasty I'etreat of stiucho. a.d. Alaric, from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of Barbarians, which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and disease, i- In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss, and his harassed forces required an interval of repose, to recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity had exercised, and displayed, the genius of Alaric ; and the fame of his valour invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian warriors, who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself Renouncing the service of the emperor of the East, Alaric concluded, with the court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the prsefectui'e of Illyricum ; as it was claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius.^*^^ The execution of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated, or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to have been suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus ; and the neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the indifference of Caesar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline, refused either to assist or to oppose the enemy of the republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his pretensions to the provinces of the East ; appointed civil magistrates for the 1"'- Comitatur euntem Pallor et atra fames, et saucia lividus ora Luctus, et inferni stridentes agmine morbi. Claiidian in vi. Cons. Hon. 321, &c. 103 These dark transactions are investigated by the Count de Buat (Hist, des Peuples de 1' Europe, torn. vii. c. iii.-viii. p. 69-206), whose laborious accuracy may sometimes fatigue a superficial reader.