the people;
and, after fifteen years' retirement, the Roman consul was compelled to
accept the bishopric of Nola, a few months before the city was invested
by the Goths. During the siege, some religious persons were satisfied
that they had seen, either in dreams or visions, the divine form of
their tutelar patron; yet it soon appeared by the event, that Faelix
wanted power, or inclination, to preserve the flock of which he
had formerly been the shepherd. Nola was not saved from the general
devastation; [125] and the captive bishop was protected only by the
general opinion of his innocence and poverty. Above four years elapsed
from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric, to the
voluntary retreat of the Goths under the conduct of his successor
Adolphus; and, during the whole time, they reigned without control over
a country, which, in the opinion of the ancients, had united all the
various excellences of nature and art. The prosperity, indeed, which
Italy had attained in the auspicious age of the Antonines, had gradually
declined with the decline of the empire.

The fruits of a long peace perished under the rude grasp of the
Barbarians; and they themselves were incapable of tasting the more
elegant refinements of luxury, which had been prepared for the use of
the soft and polished Italians. Each soldier, however, claimed an ample
portion of the substantial plenty, the corn and cattle, oil and wine,
that was daily collected and consumed in the Gothic camp; and the
principal warriors insulted the villas and gardens, once inhabited
by Lucullus and Cicero, along the beauteous coast of Campania. Their
trembling captives, the sons and daughters of Roman senators, presented,
in goblets of gold and gems, large draughts of Falernian wine to the
haughty victors; who stretched their huge limbs under the shade of
plane-trees, [126] artificially disposed to exclude the scorching rays,
and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These delights were enhanced
by the memory of past hardships: the comparison of their native soil,
the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the frozen banks of the Elbe
and Danube, added new charms to the felicity of the Italian climate.
[127]

[Footnote 118: Marcellinus, in Chron. Orosius, (l. vii. c. 39, p. 575,)
asserts, that he left Rome on the third day; but this difference is
easily reconciled by the successive motions of great bodies of troops.]

[Footnote 119: Socrates (l. vii. c. 1