w inhabitants. The nations who now
usurp an extent of land which they are unable to cultivate, would
soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their neighbors, if
the government of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and
property.

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.--Part IV.

The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge
of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along
the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the
Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his
amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being
the occasion, and the spectator, of the war. The safety of Rome was
intrusted to the counsels, and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was
the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to
restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
effort, the invasion of the Germans. The hopes of the vigilant minister
of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more
abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies,
which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the
most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered
the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who
would enlist. By these efforts he painfully collected, from the subjects
of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, which, in
the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished
by the free citizens of the territory of Rome. The thirty legions of
Stilicho were reenforced by a large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the
faithful Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops
of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native
princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to
oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate Germans
passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine; leaving
on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among
the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who
had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have
avoided a decisive battle, till he had assembled his distant forces.
Many cities of Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege