Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/352

332 THE DECLINE AND FALL gardens, one inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the beauteous coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons and daughtei-s of Roman senators, presented in goblets of gold and gems large draughts of Falernian wine to the haughty victors ; who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of plane-trees, 1-^^ ai'tificially disposed to exclude the scorching rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These delights were enhanced by the memory of past hardships ; the compari- son of their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the frozen banks of the Kibe and Danube, added new charms to the felicity of the Italian climate. ^^^ Death of Whether fame or conquest or riches were the object of Alaric, A.D. 110 he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardour, which could neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy than he was attacked by the neighbouring prospect of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as an intermediate step to the important expedition which he already meditated against the continent of Africa. The streights of Rhegium and Messina ^^- are twelve miles in length, and in the narrowest passage about one mile and a half broad ; and the fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and unskilful mariners. Yet, as soon as the fii'st division of the Goths had embarked, a sudden tempest arose, which sunk or scattered many of the transports ; their courage was daunted by 130 The />/a/i7fi US, or plane-tree, was a favourite of the ancients, by whom it was propagated, for the sake of shade, from the East to Gaul, Pliny, Hist. Natur. xiii. 3, 4, 5. He mentions several of an enormous size ; one in the Imperial villa at Velitrae, which Caligula called his nest, as the branches were capable of holding a large table, the proper attendants, and the emperor himself, whom Pliny quaintly styles pars umbrae ; an expression which might with equal reason be applied to Alaric. i"'i The prostrate South to the destroyer yields Her boasted titles, and her golden fields : With grim delight the brood of winter view A brighter day, and skies of azure hue ; Scent the new fragrance of the opening rose, And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows. See Gray's Poems, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197. Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural histor>', why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen ? 132 por the perfect description of the Streights of Messina, Scylla, Charybdis, &c. , see Cluverius (Ital. Antiq. 1. iv. p. 1293, and Sicilia Antiq. 1. i. p. 60-76), who had diligently studied the ancients and surveyed with a curious eye the actual face of the country.