of
Florence, by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history
of that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the
unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled
at their approached within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and
anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the new
perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and a soldier,
the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the laws of war, who
respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had familiarly conversed
with the subjects of the empire in the same camps, and the same
churches. The savage Radagaisus was a stranger to the manners, the
religion, and even the language, of the civilized nations of the South.
The fierceness of his temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and
it was universally believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow,
to reduce the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the
most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those gods
who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which should have
reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness
of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury
respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of a devout
Pagan; loudly declared, that they were more apprehensive of the
sacrifices, than of the arms, of Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in
the calamities of their country, which condemned the faith of their
Christian adversaries.

Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of
the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose; who
had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. On
a sudden, they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who
advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and
who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The
apparent contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence to
their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately
connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this miraculous victory
to the providence of God, rather than to the valor of man. They strictly
exclude every idea of chance, or even of bloodshed; and positively
affirm, that the Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty and
id