yond, and then gained the open space
before the Pincian Gate. Here a great concourse of people had
assembled, and were suffered, in their proper turn, to ascend the
ramparts in divisions, by some soldiers who guarded the steps by which
they were approached. After a short delay, Ulpius and those around him
were permitted to gratify their curiosity, as others had done before
them. They mounted the walls, and beheld, stretched over the ground
within and beyond the suburbs, the vast circumference of the Gothic
lines.

Terrible and almost sublime as was the prospect of that immense
multitude, seen under the brilliant illumination of the noontide sun,
it was not impressive enough to silence the turbulent loquacity rooted
in the dispositions of the people of Rome. Men, women, and children,
all made their noisy and conflicting observations on the sight before
them, in every variety of tone, from the tremulous accents of terror,
to the loud vociferations of bravado.

Some spoke boastfully of the achievements that would be performed by
the Romans, when their expected auxiliaries arrived from Ravenna.
Others foreboded, in undissembled terror, an assault under cover of the
night. Here, a group abused, in low confidential tones, the policy of
the government in its relations with the Goths. There, a company of
ragged vagabonds amused themselves by pompously confiding to each other
their positive conviction, that at that very moment the barbarians must
be trembling in their camp, at the mere sight of the all-powerful
Capital of the World. In one direction, people were heard noisily
speculating whether the Goths would be driven from the walls by the
soldiers of Rome, or be honoured by an invitation to conclude a peace
with the august Empire, which they had so treasonably ventured to
invade. In another, the more sober and reputable among the spectators
audibly expressed their apprehensions of starvation, dishonour, and
defeat, should the authorities of the city be foolhardy enough to
venture a resistance to Alaric and his barbarian hosts. But wide as
was the difference of the particular opinions hazarded among the
citizens, they all agreed in one unavoidable conviction, that Rome had
escaped the immediate horrors of an assault, to be threatened--if
unaided by the legions at Ravenna--by the prospective miseries of a
blockade.

Amid the confusion of voices around him, that word 'blockade' alone
reached the Pagan's ear. It bro