the price, of her estates, contributed to alleviate the
misfortunes of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself
was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who
basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to
the lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants. The Italian fugitives were
dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and Asia, as
far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of Bethlem, the
solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female converts, was crowded
with illustrious beggars of either sex, and every age, who excited the
public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune. [114] This
awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and
terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin, disposed the
fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the
afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent
events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted
to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the
globe.

[Footnote 108: Orosius (l. ii. c. 19, p. 142) compares the cruelty
of the Gauls and the clemency of the Goths. Ibi vix quemquam inventum
senatorem, qui vel absens evaserit; hic vix quemquam requiri, qui forte
ut latens perierit. But there is an air of rhetoric, and perhaps of
falsehood, in this antithesis; and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) affirms,
perhaps by an opposite exaggeration, that many senators were put to
death with various and exquisite tortures.]

[Footnote 109: Multi... Christiani incaptivitatem ducti sunt. Augustin,
de Civ Dei, l. i. c. 14; and the Christians experienced no peculiar
hardships.]

[Footnote 110: See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. i. p. 96.]

[Footnote 111: Appendix Cod. Theodos. xvi. in Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p.
735. This edict was published on the 11th of December, A.D. 408, and is
more reasonable than properly belonged to the ministers of Honorius.]

[Footnote 112: Eminus Igilii sylvosa cacumina miror; Quem fraudare nefas
laudis honore suae.

Haec proprios nuper tutata est insula saltus;

Sive loci ingenio, seu Domini genio.
Gurgite cum modico victricibus obstitit
armis, Tanquam longinquo dissociata mari.

Haec multos lacera suscepit ab urbe fugates,

Hic fessis posito certa timore salus.
Plurima terreno populaverat aequora bello,