dian,as the poet laureate, composed a serious and
elaborate epithalamium of 340 lines; besides some gay Fescennines, which
were sung, in a more licentious tone, on the wedding night.]

[Footnote 59:

Calet obvius ire
Jam princeps, tardumque cupit discedere solem.
Nobilis haud aliter sonipes.

(De Nuptiis Honor. et Mariae, and more freely in the Fescennines
112-116)

Dices, O quoties,hoc mihi dulcius
Quam flavos decics vincere Sarmatas.
....
Tum victor madido prosilias toro,
Nocturni referens vulnera proelii.]

[Footnote 60: See Zosimus, l. v. p. 333.]

[Footnote 61: Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 2. I have borrowed
the general practice of Honorius, without adopting the singular, and
indeed improbable tale, which is related by the Greek historian.]

[Footnote 62: The lessons of Theodosius, or rather Claudian, (iv. Cons.
Honor 214-418,) might compose a fine institution for the future
prince of a great and free nation. It was far above Honorius, and his
degenerate subjects.]

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

Revolt Of The Goths.--They Plunder Greece.--Two Great
Invasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.--They Are
Repulsed By Stilicho.--The Germans Overrun Gaul.--Usurpation
Of Constantine In The West.--Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.

If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the
great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully the spirit
and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and
mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and
before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in
arms. [1] The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard;
and boldly avowed the hostile designs, which they had long cherished in
their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by
the conditions of the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor,
deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers
of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued
from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the
poet to remark, "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over the broad
and icy back of the indignant river." [2] The unhappy natives of the
provinces to the south of the Danube submitted to th