leness, enjoyed the distress of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the
sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above the city
of Florence. Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier of
the Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with
silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and Orosius
is consistent with the state of the war, and the character of Stilicho.
Conscious that he commanded the last army of the republic, his prudence
would not expose it, in the open field, to the headstrong fury of
the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of
circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king,
was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The
examples of Caesar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the
Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which connected
twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart of fifteen miles,
afforded the model of an intrenchment which might confine, and starve,
the most numerous host of Barbarians. The Roman troops had less
degenerated from the industry, than from the valor, of their ancestors;
and if their servile and laborious work offended the pride of the
soldiers, Tuscany could supply many thousand peasants, who would labor,
though, perhaps, they would not fight, for the salvation of their
native country. The imprisoned multitude of horses and men was gradually
destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans were
exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent
attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the hungry Barbarians
would precipitate them against the fortifications of Stilicho; the
general might sometimes indulge the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who
eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the Germans; and these various
incidents might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the
narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus.
A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the
walls of Florence, and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn
besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss
of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a
capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho. But the death of the royal
captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome