OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 287 the Goths to invade Italy, was enforced by a Hvely sense of his personal injuries ; and he might speciously complain that the Imperial ministers still delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold, which had been granted by the Roman senate either to rewai'd his services or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an artful modera- tion, which contributed to the success of his designs. He re- quired a fair and reasonable satisfaction ; but he gave the strongest assurances that, as soon as he had obtained it, he would immediately retire. He refused to trust the faith of the Romans, unless Aetius and Jason, the sons of two great officers of state, wei'e sent as hostages to his camp ; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted, by the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a treaty or to assemble an army ; and with a rash confidence, derived only frona their ignorance of the extreme danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war. While they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians should evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po ; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Con- cordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms ; ^ increased his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliai'ies ; and without meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his i*avages along the sea-coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient misti-ess of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were respected by the Barbarians themselves, en- countered the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of heaven against the oppressors of the earth ; but the saint himself was so confounded by the solemn assevera- tion of Alaric, that he felt a secret and praeternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome. He felt that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous enterpris es ; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the Goths insensibly removed the popular, ■1 [That he took and plundered these cities is not implied by the plirase of Zosimus (KaTaTpe'x^O- *^P ^on Wietersheim, Gesch. der Volkerwanderung, 2, 146.]
