hip, to the son
of Theodosius. [95] The officers who returned to their duty, were
reinstated in their employments, and even the merit of a tardy
repentance was graciously allowed; but the degraded emperor of the
Romans, desirous of life, and insensible of disgrace, implored the
permission of following the Gothic camp, in the train of a haughty and
capricious Barbarian. [96]

[Footnote 94: Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.]

[Footnote 95: See the cause and circumstances of the fall of Attalus in
Zosimus, l. vi. p. 380-383. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8. Philostorg. l. xii.
c. 3. The two acts of indemnity in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit.
xxxviii. leg. 11, 12, which were published the 12th of February, and the
8th of August, A.D. 410, evidently relate to this usurper.]

[Footnote 96: In hoc, Alaricus, imperatore, facto, infecto, refecto, ac
defecto... Mimum risit, et ludum spectavit imperii. Orosius, l. vii. c.
42, p. 582.]

The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the
conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles of
Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers, whose
insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His indignation was
kindled by the report, that a rival chieftain, that Sarus, the personal
enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary foe of the house of Balti, had
been received into the palace. At the head of three hundred followers,
that fearless Barbarian immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna;
surprised, and cut in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reentered
the city in triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary, by the
voice of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had
forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the emperor.
[97] The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was expiated, a third
time, by the calamities of Rome. The king of the Goths, who no longer
dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under
the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hopes of
relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to defray the ruin of their
country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy
of their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest,
were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the
Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened
by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hu