fectually to ruin the cause of the usurper. In a large plain near
Rimini, and in the presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and
Barbarians, the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem
and purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the
pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius.

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.

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.

The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna were 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 delay 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 hundred and sixty-three
years after the foundation of Rome, the Imperial city, which had subdued
and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the
licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.

The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance