OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 267 enemy. The despair of the hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the fortifications of Stihcho ; the general might sometimes indulge the ardour of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the Cxermans ; and these various incidents might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the narrative of Zosimus and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus.^'- A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation or in the clemency of Stilicho.^ But the death of the royal captive, who Avas ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity, and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty.^* The famished Germans who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries were sold as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many single pieces of gold ; but the difference of food and climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy strangers ; and it was observed that the inhuman purchasers, instead of reaping the fruits of their labour, were soon obliged to provide the expense of their interment. Stilicho informed the emperor and the senate of his success ; and de- served, a second time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy. ^-^ The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle. The re- has encouraged a vain persuasion that the whole army, or Si* Gennans rather nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the a.d! 406, Baltic, miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of ^.j-dagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, i^^See Zosimus, 1. v. p. 331 [c. 26], and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcel- linus. 83 Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an expression (7rpo<rt)Toipi(raTo) which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and render Stilicho still more criminal [fr. 9, F. H. G. iv. p. 59. The expression refers to Gothic chiefs, not to Radagaisus]. The paulisper detentus, deinde interfectus, of Orosius is sufficiently odious. ^ Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and people, Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion. The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool unfeeling historian. s*'" And Claudian's muse, was she asleep ? had she been ill paid ? Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (a.d. 407) would have furnished the subject of a noble poem. [See below, p. 282, and cp. Appendix i.] Before it was discovered that the state could no longer be saved, Stilicho (after Romulus, Camillus, and Marius) might have been worthily surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.
