iful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to
a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who
endured the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret
object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who
expired under the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary
treasures.

The edifices of Rome, tho the damage has been much exaggerated,
received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At their entrance
through the Salarian gate, they fired the adjacent houses to guide
their march and to distract the attention of the citizens; the flames,
which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed
many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of
Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the
Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that
fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and
that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations
of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his
devout assertion that the wrath of Heaven supplied the imperfections
of hostile rage, and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the
statues of so many gods and heroes, was leveled in the dust by the
stroke of lightning.

V

THE DEATH OF HOSEIN[72]

Hosein served with honor against the Christians in the siege of
Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy
character of the grandson of the apostle, had centered in his person,
and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant
of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never
deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa to
Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who profest their
attachment to his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so
soon as he should appear on the banks of the Euphrates.

Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved to trust his
person and family in the hands of a perfidious people. He traversed
the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children;
but as he approached the confines of Irak,[73] he was alarmed by the
solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either the
defection or ruin of his party. His fears were just; Obeidollah, the
governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an
insurrection; and Hosein, in the plain of