Contra naturam classe timendus eques:
Unum, mira fides, vario discrimine portum!

Tam prope Romanis, tam procul esse Getis.

---Rutilius, in Itinerar. l. i. 325

The island is now called Giglio. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. ii. ]

[Footnote 113: As the adventures of Proba and her family are connected
with the life of St. Augustin, they are diligently illustrated by
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 620-635. Some time after their
arrival in Africa, Demetrias took the veil, and made a vow of virginity;
an event which was considered as of the highest importance to Rome and
to the world. All the Saints wrote congratulatory letters to her; that
of Jerom is still extant, (tom. i. p. 62-73, ad Demetriad. de servand
Virginitat.,) and contains a mixture of absurd reasoning, spirited
declamation, and curious facts, some of which relate to the siege and
sack of Rome.]

[Footnote 114: See the pathetic complaint of Jerom, (tom. v. p. 400,)
in his preface to the second book of his Commentaries on the Prophet
Ezekiel.]

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the
advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. Yet, when
the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the
real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced
to confess, that infant Rome had formerly received more essential
injury from the Gauls, than she had now sustained from the Goths in
her declining age. [115] The experience of eleven centuries has enabled
posterity to produce a much more singular parallel; and to affirm with
confidence, that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led
from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities
exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince, who
styled himself Emperor of the Romans. [116] The Goths evacuated the
city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine months in
the possession of the Imperialists; and every hour was stained by some
atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The authority of Alaric
preserved some order and moderation among the ferocious multitude which
acknowledged him for their leader and king; but the constable of Bourbon
had gloriously fallen in the attack of the walls; and the death of
the general removed every restraint of discipline from an army which
consisted of three independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and
the Germans. In the be