Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I

Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great Invasions Of
Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are Repulsed By Stilicho.—The
Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation Of Constantine In The
West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.

If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to
the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully
the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported
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. 1 The Barbarian auxiliaries
erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed the hostile
designs, which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds.
Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of
the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor, deserted
their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The
barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of
Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of
the winter allowed the poet to remark, “that they rolled their
ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant
river.” 2 The unhappy natives of the provinces to the south of
the Danube submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of
twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination;
and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic
name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia, to
the walls of Constantinople. 3 The interruption, or at least the
diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the
prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of
their revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for
the unwarlike sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was
inflamed by the weakness, or treachery, of the minister of
Arcadius. The frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the
Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were
considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty correspondence,
and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of
policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare
the private estates of the unpopular præfect. The Goths, instead
of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their
chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of
Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of
the Balti; 4 which yielded only to the royal dignity of the
Amali: he had solicited the command of the Roman armies; and the
Imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their
refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes might
be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious
general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst
of a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor
Arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms; but the
want of wisdom and valor was supplied by the strength of the
city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might
securely brave the impotent and random darts of the Barbarians.
Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and
ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a
plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had
hitherto escaped the ravages of war. 5

1 (return) [ The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of
Constantinople, are distinctly mentioned by Claudian, (in Rufin.
l. ii. 7-100,) Zosimus, (l. v. 292,) and Jornandes, (de Rebus
Geticis, c. 29.)]

2 (return) [—

Alii per toga ferocis Danubii solidata ruunt; expertaque remis
Frangunt stagna rotis.

Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the
metaphors and properties of liquid water, and solid ice. Much
false wit has been expended in this easy exercise.]

3 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavors to comfort his
friend Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew,
Nepotian, by a curious recapitulation of all the public and
private misfortunes of the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
tom. xii. p. 200, &c.]

4 (return) [ Baltha or bold: origo mirifica, says 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 Boax; and a branch of that family
afterwards settled in the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom.
ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53.) The lords of Baux, near Arles, and of
seventy-nine subordinate places, were independent of the counts
of Provence, (Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p.
357).]

5 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 293-295) is our best guide for the
conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so
many rays of historic light.]

The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus
had devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public
suspicion, that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and
learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the
unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who
commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to
execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant, than to defend, with
courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by the
hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the
plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount
Oeta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his
cavalry. They stretched from east to west, to the edge of the
sea-shore; and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf,
an interval of three hundred feet, which, in some places, was
contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single carriage.
6 In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the
three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the
Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful
general; and perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have
kindled some sparks of military ardor in the breasts of the
degenerate Greeks. The troops which had been posted to defend the
Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without
attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; 7
and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly
covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males of an
age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the
spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who
visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover
the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes
was less indebted for her preservation to the strength of her
seven gates, than to the eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to
occupy the city of Athens, and the important harbor of the
Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the delay and
danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and as soon as
the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were
easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as
the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty
was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity.
The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted
within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the
bath, accepted a splendid banquet, which was provided by the
magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the
manners of civilized nations. 8 But the whole territory of
Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was
blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled
the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance
between Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles;
but the bad road, an expressive name, which it still bears among
the Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for
the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount
Cithaeron covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks
approached the water’s edge, and hung over the narrow and winding
path, which was confined above six miles along the sea-shore. 9
The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age, was
terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a
temporary intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to
the Aegean Sea. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in
their natural rampart, had tempted them to neglect the care of
their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had
exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province. 10 Corinth, Argos,
Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and
the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from
beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of
their cities. 11 The vases and statues were distributed among the
Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than
to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted
to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of
valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse
which was justified by the example of the heroic times. 12 The
descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered
valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered
the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more
formidable than Alaric. “If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt
those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man,
advance:—and thou wilt find men equal to thyself.” 13 From
Thermopylae to Sparta, the leader of the Goths pursued his
victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists: but
one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently
asserted, that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess
Minerva, with her formidable Aegis, and by the angry phantom of
Achilles; 14 and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence
of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles, it would
perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus
to the common benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled, that the mind
of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or
waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs
of Homer, and the fame of Achilles, had probably never reached
the ear of the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith,
which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the
imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths,
instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at least
accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism: and the
mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years,
did not survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the calamities of
Greece. 15

6 (return) [ Compare Herodotus (l. vii. c. 176) and Livy, (xxxvi.
15.) The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each
successive ravisher.]

7 (return) [ He passed, says Eunapius, (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93,
edit. Commelin, 1596,) through the straits, of Thermopylae.]

8 (return) [ In obedience to Jerom and Claudian, (in Rufin. l.
ii. 191,) I have mixed some darker colors in the mild
representation of Zosimus, who wished to soften the calamities of
Athens.

Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres.

Synesius (Epist. clvi. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes, that
Athens, whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul’s avarice,
was at that time less famous for her schools of philosophy than
for her trade of honey.]

9 (return) [—

Vallata mari Scironia rupes, Et duo continuo connectens aequora
muro Isthmos. —Claudian de Bel. Getico, 188.

The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias, (l. i. c. 44, p.
107, edit. Kuhn,) and our modern travellers, Wheeler (p. 436) and
Chandler, (p. 298.) Hadrian made the road passable for two
carriages.]

10 (return) [ Claudian (in Rufin. l. ii. 186, and de Bello
Getico, 611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene
of rapine and destruction.]

11 (return) [ These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. l. v. 306)
were transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the
tears of Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was
ignorant of the value of an original picture, possessed the
purest source of good taste, a benevolent heart, (Plutarch,
Symposiac. l. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit. Wechel.)]

12 (return) [ Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience
of those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their
hearts, to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a
passion (of Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable
delicacy by Racine.]

13 (return) [ Plutarch (in Pyrrho, tom. ii. p. 474, edit. Brian)
gives the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked
Sparta with 25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants, and the
defence of that open town is a fine comment on the laws of
Lycurgus, even in the last stage of decay.]

14 (return) [ Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) had so
nobly painted him.]

15 (return) [ Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates
that a troop of monks betrayed Greece, and followed the Gothic
camp. * Note: The expression is curious: Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53,
edit. Boissonade.—M.]

The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their
arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful
assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not
been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of
Greece. 16 A numerous fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy;
and the troops, after a short and prosperous navigation over the
Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the
ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia,
the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene of
a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals not
unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman
at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a
considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually retreated
to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus,
and on the frontiers of Elis; a sacred country, which had
formerly been exempted from the calamities of war. 17 The camp of
the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters of the river
18 were diverted into another channel; and while they labored
under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong
line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After
these precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to
enjoy his triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious
dances, of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards,
spread themselves over the country of their allies, which they
stripped of all that had been saved from the rapacious hands of
the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the favorable moment to
execute one of those hardy enterprises, in which the abilities of
a general are displayed with more genuine lustre, than in the
tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison
of Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce the
intrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a
difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf
of Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his
captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the
narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least
half a mile in breadth. 19 The operations of Alaric must have
been secret, prudent, and rapid; since the Roman general was
confounded by the intelligence, that the Goths, who had eluded
his efforts, were in full possession of the important province of
Epirus. This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to
conclude the treaty, which he secretly negotiated, with the
ministers of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war
compelled Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his
rivals, from the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the
enemy of Rome, the honorable character of the ally and servant of
the emperor of the East.

16 (return) [ For Stilicho’s Greek war, compare the honest
narrative of Zosimus (l. v. p. 295, 296) with the curious
circumstantial flattery of Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i.
172-186, iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487.) As the event was not glorious,
it is artfully thrown into the shade.]

17 (return) [ The troops who marched through Elis delivered up
their arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of
a rural life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege,
and they suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more
within their magic circle. See a learned and judicious discourse
on the Olympic games, which Mr. West has prefixed to his
translation of Pindar.]

18 (return) [ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the
fact without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus, (i. Cons.
Stil. l. i. 185.)

—-Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum
pergit amores.

Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and
deep bed, which runs through Elis, and falls into the sea below
Cyllene. It had been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the
Augean stable. (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 760. Chandler’s Travels, p.
286.)]

19 (return) [ Strabo, l. viii. p. 517. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3.
Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different
points the distance between the two lands.]

A Grecian philosopher, 20 who visited Constantinople soon after
the death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions
concerning the duties of kings, and the state of the Roman
republic. Synesius observes, and deplores, the fatal abuse, which
the imprudent bounty of the late emperor had introduced into the
military service. The citizens and subjects had purchased an
exemption from the indispensable duty of defending their country;
which was supported by the arms of Barbarian mercenaries. The
fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace the illustrious
dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who disdained the
salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire the
riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of
their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the
stone of Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and
safety of the devoted state. The measures which Synesius
recommends, are the dictates of a bold and generous patriot. He
exhorts the emperor to revive the courage of his subjects, by the
example of manly virtue; to banish luxury from the court and from
the camp; to substitute, in the place of the Barbarian
mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of their
laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public
danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his
school; to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure,
and to arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the
laborious husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might
deserve the name, and would display the spirit, of Romans, he
animates the son of Theodosius to encounter a race of Barbarians,
who were destitute of any real courage; and never to lay down his
arms, till he had chased them far away into the solitudes of
Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of ignominious
servitude, which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the
captive Helots. 21 The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal,
applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius.
Perhaps the philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in
the language of reason and virtue, which he might have used to a
Spartan king, had not condescended to form a practicable scheme,
consistent with the temper, and circumstances, of a degenerate
age. Perhaps the pride of the ministers, whose business was
seldom interrupted by reflection, might reject, as wild and
visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the measure of their
capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents of office.
While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the
Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was
published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of
Alaric to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum.
The Roman provincials, and the allies, who had respected the
faith of treaties, were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece
and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror
was received as a lawful magistrate, in the cities which he had
so lately besieged. The fathers, whose sons he had massacred, the
husbands, whose wives he had violated, were subject to his
authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the
ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The use to
which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm and
judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the
four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms,
Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his
troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords,
and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the
instruments of their own destruction; and the Barbarians removed
the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of
their courage. 22 The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past
exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly
united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and,
with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains, the
master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the
Visigoths. 23 Armed with this double power, seated on the verge
of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to
the courts of Arcadius and Honorius; till he declared and
executed his resolution of invading the dominions of the West.
The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor,
were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the
strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was
tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he
had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic
standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the
accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs. 25

20 (return) [ Synesius passed three years (A.D. 397-400) at
Constantinople, as deputy from Cyrene to the emperor Arcadius. He
presented him with a crown of gold, and pronounced before him the
instructive oration de Regno, (p. 1-32, edit. Petav. Paris,
1612.) The philosopher was made bishop of Ptolemais, A.D. 410,
and died about 430. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 490,
554, 683-685.]

21 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, p. 21-26.]

22 (return) [—qui foedera rumpit

Ditatur: qui servat, eget: vastator Achivae Gentis, et Epirum
nuper populatus inultam, Praesidet Illyrico: jam, quos obsedit,
amicos Ingreditur muros; illis responsa daturus, Quorum
conjugibus potitur, natosque peremit.

Claudian in Eutrop. l. ii. 212. Alaric applauds his own policy
(de Bell Getic. 533-543) in the use which he had made of this
Illyrian jurisdiction.]

23 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 29, p. 651. The Gothic historian
adds, with unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore
quaerere regna, quam alienis per otium subjacere.

Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis, Non sua vis tutata diu,
dum foedera fallax Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
—-Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]

25 (return) [ Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem. This
authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event.
But as it was not accomplished within the term which has been
rashly fixed the interpreters escaped through an ambiguous
meaning.]

The scarcity of facts, 26 and the uncertainty of dates, 27 oppose
our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion
of Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from
Thessalonica, through the warlike and hostile country of
Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; his passage of
those mountains, which were strongly guarded by troops and
intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the conquest of the
provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed a
considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious
and slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable
suspicion, that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of
the Danube; and reenforced his army with fresh swarms of
Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into the heart
of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the
diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with
contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric
on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of
Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was
summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, 28 wisely
preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who
furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the
cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the
same bishops, was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual
exile on a desert island. 29 The old man, 30 who had passed his
simple and innocent life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a
stranger to the quarrels both of kings and of bishops; his
pleasures, his desires, his knowledge, were confined within the
little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff supported his
aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in his
infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian
describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to
the undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary
trees, 31 must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a
detachment of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his
family; and the power of Alaric could destroy this happiness,
which he was not able either to taste or to bestow. “Fame,” says
the poet, “encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed
the march of the Barbarian army, and filled Italy with
consternation:” the apprehensions of each individual were
increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and
the most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects,
meditated their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African
coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and
reproaches of superstition. 32 Every hour produced some horrid
tale of strange and portentous accidents; the Pagans deplored the
neglect of omens, and the interruption of sacrifices; but the
Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful
intercession of the saints and martyrs. 33

26 (return) [ Our best materials are 970 verses of Claudian in
the poem on the Getic war, and the beginning of that which
celebrates the sixth consulship of Honorius. Zosimus is totally
silent; and we are reduced to such scraps, or rather crumbs, as
we can pick from Orosius and the Chronicles.]

27 (return) [ Notwithstanding the gross errors of Jornandes, who
confounds the Italian wars of Alaric, (c. 29,) his date of the
consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian (A.D. 400) is firm and
respectable. It is certain from Claudian (Tillemont, Hist. des
Emp. tom. v. p. 804) that the battle of Polentia was fought A.D.
403; but we cannot easily fill the interval.]

28 (return) [ Tantum Romanae urbis judicium fugis, ut magis
obsidionem barbaricam, quam pacatoe urbis judicium velis
sustinere. Jerom, tom. ii. p. 239. Rufinus understood his own
danger; the peaceful city was inflamed by the beldam Marcella,
and the rest of Jerom’s faction.]

29 (return) [ Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who
was persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerom, (Jortin’s
Remarks, vol. iv. p. 104, &c.) See the original edict of
banishment in the Theodosian Code, xvi. tit. v. leg. 43.]

30 (return) [ This epigram (de Sene Veronensi qui suburbium
nusquam egres sus est) is one of the earliest and most pleasing
compositions of Claudian. Cowley’s imitation (Hurd’s edition,
vol. ii. p. 241) has some natural and happy strokes: but it is
much inferior to the original portrait, which is evidently drawn
from the life.]

31 (return) [

Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum Aequaevumque videt
consenuisse nemus.
A neighboring wood born with himself he sees, And loves his old
contemporary trees.

In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and
the English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks
under a more general expression.]

32 (return) [ Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix:
but fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds
of the Italians.]

33 (return) [ From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that
the general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in
Campania, where that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]