the successor of St. Peter is accused, perhaps
without foundation, of preferring the safety of the republic to the
rigid severity of the Christian worship. But when the question was
agitated in the senate; when it was proposed, as an essential condition,
that those sacrifices should be performed in the Capitol, by the
authority, and in the presence, of the magistrates, the majority of
that respectable assembly, apprehensive either of the Divine or of the
Imperial displeasure, refused to join in an act, which appeared almost
equivalent to the public restoration of Paganism. [78]

[Footnote 74: For the events of the first siege of Rome, which are often
confounded with those of the second and third, see Zosimus, l. v.
p. 350-354, Sozomen, l. ix. c. 6, Olympiodorus, ap. Phot. p. 180,
Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 467-475.]

[Footnote 75: The mother of Laeta was named Pissumena. Her father,
family, and country, are unknown. Ducange, Fam. Byzantium, p. 59.]

[Footnote 76: Ad nefandos cibos erupit esurientium rabies, et sua
invicem membra laniarunt, dum mater non parcit lactenti infantiae; et
recipit utero, quem paullo ante effuderat. Jerom. ad Principiam, tom. i.
p. 121. The same horrid circumstance is likewise told of the sieges
of Jerusalem and Paris. For the latter, compare the tenth book of the
Henriade, and the Journal de Henri IV. tom. i. p. 47-83; and observe
that a plain narrative of facts is much more pathetic, than the most
labored descriptions of epic poetry]

[Footnote 77: Zosimus (l. v. p. 355, 356) speaks of these ceremonies
like a Greek unacquainted with the national superstition of Rome and
Tuscany. I suspect, that they consisted of two parts, the secret and the
public; the former were probably an imitation of the arts and spells, by
which Numa had drawn down Jupiter and his thunder on Mount Aventine.

Quid agant laqueis, quae carmine dicant,
Quaque trahant superis sedibus arte Jovem,
Scire nefas homini.

The ancilia, or shields of Mars, the pignora Imperii, which were carried
in solemn procession on the calends of March, derived their origin
from this mysterious event, (Ovid. Fast. iii. 259-398.) It was probably
designed to revive this ancient festival, which had been suppressed by
Theodosius. In that case, we recover a chronological date (March the
1st, A.D. 409) which has not hitherto been observed. * Note: On this
curious question of the knowledge of conducti