the pass where three hundred Spartan heroes had once arrested the Persian hosts, and fled as Alaric approached.  Even at Thermopylae no resistance was made.  The country was laid waste with fire and sword.  Athens purchased her preservation at an enormous ransom.  Corinth, Argos, and Sparta yielded without a blow, but did not escape the doom of vanquished cities.  Their palaces were burned, their families were enslaved, and their works of art were destroyed.

Only one general remained to the desponding Arcadius,—­Stilicho, trained in the armies of Theodosius, who had virtually intrusted to him, although by birth a Vandal, the guardianship of his children.  We see in these latter days of the Empire that the best generals were of barbaric birth,—­an impressive commentary on the degeneracy of the legions.  At the approach of Stilicho, Alaric retired at first, but collecting a force of ten thousand men penetrated the Julian Alps, and advanced into Italy.  The Emperor Honorius was obliged to summon to his rescue his dispirited legions from every quarter, even from the fortresses of the Rhine and the Caledonian wall, with which Stilicho compelled Alaric to retire, but only on a subsidy of two tons of gold.  The Roman people, supposing that they were delivered, returned to their circuses and gladiatorial shows.  Yet Italy was only temporarily delivered, for Stilicho,—­the hero of Pollentia,—­with the collected forces of the whole western Empire, might still have defied the armies of the Goths and staved off the ruin another generation, had not imperial jealousy and the voice of envy removed him from command.  The supreme guardian of the western Empire, in the greatest crisis of its history, himself removes the last hope of Rome.  The frivolous senate which Stilicho had saved, and the weak and timid emperor whom he guarded, were alike demented. Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.  In an evil hour the brave general was assassinated.

The Gothic king observing the revolutions at the palace, the elevation of incompetent generals, and the general security in which the people indulged, resolved to march to a renewed attack.  Again he crossed the Alps, with a still greater army, and invaded Italy, destroying everything in his path.  Without obstruction he crossed the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of Umbria, and reached the city, which for four hundred years had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy.  The walls were then twenty-five miles in circuit, and contained so large a population that it affected indifference.  Alaric made no attempt to take the city by storm, but quietly and patiently enclosed it with a cordon through which nothing could force its way,—­as the Prussians in our day invested Paris.  The city, unprovided for a siege, soon felt all the evils of famine, to which pestilence was naturally added.  In despair, the haughty citizens condescended to sue for a ransom.  Alaric fixed the price of his retreat at the surrender of all the gold and silver, all the precious movables, and all the slaves of barbaric birth.  He afterwards somewhat modified his demands, but marched away with more spoil than the Romans brought from Carthage and Antioch.