and coming into the Aemilian Way at Bologna found the pass
open and without misadventure entered Italy at Rimini, and, without
attacking Ravenna, marched on "to Rome, to make that city desolate."
He besieged Rome three times and pillaged it, taking with him, when he
left it, hostages. As we know he never returned, but died at Cosentia
in southern Italy, and was buried in the bed of the Buxentius, which
had been turned aside, for a moment, by a captive multitude, to give
him sepulture.

Among those hostages which Alaric had claimed from the City and taken
with him southward was the sister of the two emperors, the daughter of
the great Theodosius, Galla Placidia.

This great lady had been born, as is thought, in Rome about 390; she
had, however, spent the first seven years of her life in
Constantinople, but had returned to Italy on the death of Theodosius
with her brother Honorius, in the care of the beautiful Serena, the
wife of Stilicho. She does not seem to have followed her brother
either to Milan or to Ravenna, for indeed his residence in both these
cities was part of the great defence. She remained in Rome, probably
in the house of her kinswoman Laeta, the widow of Gratian. That she
had a grudge against Serena seems certain, though the whole story of
the plot to marry her to Eucherius, Serena's son, would appear
doubtful. That she initiated her murder, as Zosimus[1] asserts, is
extremely improbable and altogether unproven. However that may be,
after one of his three sieges of Rome, Alaric carried Galla Placidia
off as a hostage. He seems, according to Zosimus, to have treated her
with courtesy and even with an exaggerated reverence, as the sister of
the emperor and the daughter of Theodosius, but she was compelled to
follow in his train and to see the ruin of Lucania and Calabria. For,
as a matter of fact and reality, Galla Placidia was the one hope of
the Goths and this became obvious after the death of Alaric.

[Footnote 1: Zosimus, v. 38. Zosimus was a pagan. Placidia was a
devout and enthusiastic Catholic.]

The Gothic army was in a sort of trap; it could not return without the
consent of Ravenna, and if it were compelled to remain in Italy it was
only a question of time till it should be crushed or gradually wasted
away. It is probable that Alaric was aware of this; it is certain that
it was well appreciated by his successor Ataulfus. He saw that his one
chance of coming to terms with the empire lay in his