318 THE DECLINE AND FALL to the size of an episcopal city,^^ where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion, and his demands were enforced by the positive declaration that a refusal or even a delay should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamours of that people and the teiTor of famine subdued the pride of the senate ; they listened without reluctance to the proposal of placing a new emperor on the throne of the un- worthy Honorius ; and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror [Priscus bestowed the purple on Attains, prajfect of the city. The grate- "" ful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as master- general of the armies of the West ; Adolphus, with the rank of count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attains ; and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of friendship and alliance.'-'^ Attains is The gates of the city were thro^v^l open, and the new emperor pero/by'?he of the Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic RomaM° arms, was conducted in tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favourites and followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate ; before whom, in a formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the majesty of the republic, and of uniting to the empire the provinces of Eg}'pt and the East, which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper ; whose elevation was the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet sustained from the insolence of the Barbarians. But the populace, with their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public discontent was favourable to the rival of Honorius ; and the sectaries, oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some 93 As early as the third (Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel, part ii. vol. ill. p. 89-92), or at least the fourth, century (Carol, a Sancto Paulo, Notit. Eccles. p. 47), the Port of Rome was an episcopal city, which was demolished, as it should seem, in the ninth century, by Pope Gregory IV. during the incursions of the .Arabs. It is now reduced to an inn, a church and the house or palace of the bishop, who ranks as one of six cardinal bishops of the Romish church. See lischinard, Des- crizione di Roma et dell' .'gro Romano, p. 328.
- For the elevation of -A^ttalus consult Zosimus, 1. vi. p. 377-380 [7 sgf.] ; Sozo-
men, 1. ix. c. 8,9; Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 180, 181 [fr. 13] ; Philostorg. 1. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 470.
