hreatened the power and
safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family was
surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the
good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the other two,
after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius
could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be
affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were
the feeble arms which decided the possession of the Western provinces
of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The
events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow
and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally
ignorant of the causes, and of the effects, of the most important
revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had
annihilated even the last resource of a despotic government; and the
revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military
service of a discontented and pusillanimous people.

[Footnote 98: Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who
in modern courts would be styled princes of the blood, were not
distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their
fellow-subjects.]

[Footnote 99: These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two bands of
Scots, or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni, the Victores, the
Asca in, and the Gallicani, (Notitia Imperii, sect. xxxiii. edit. Lab.)
They were part of the sixty-five Auxilia Palatina, and are properly
styled by Zosimus, (l. vi. 374.)]

The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the victories
of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of Alaric, from the
confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as
might hover over an army of Barbarians, which was almost exterminated
by war, famine, and disease. [100] In the course of this unfortunate
expedition, the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a
considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an interval of
repose, to recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity
had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of
his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian
warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire
of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted
the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the serv