Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/283

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 263 almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgiindians formed the strength of this mighty host ; but the Alani, who had found an hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans ; and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus that, by some historians, he has been styled the king of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van ; ''^ and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased by the accession of women, of children antl of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and Teutones to assault Rome and Italy in the vigour of the republic. After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country, which -was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts and gigantic moles,"i remained during some ages a vast and dreary solitude ; till the human species was renewed by the powers of generation, and the vacancy w as filled by the influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of land which they are unable to cultivate would soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their neighbours, if the government of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and property. The correspondence ^f nations was in that age so imperfect Radagaisus and precarious that the revolutions of the North might escape a.d. 406 [406] the knowledge of the coui't of Ravenna ; till the dark cloud which was collected along the coast of the Baltic burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator, of the war."^ The safety of Rome was entrusted to the counsels and the sword of Stilicho ; but ™ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. i8o [F. H. G. iv. p. 59, fr. 9]) uses the Greek word OTTTijxaToi ; which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they were the princes and nobles, with their faithful companions; the knights with their squires, as they would have been styled some centuries afterwards. 5^ Tacit, de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37. ■^2 Cujus agendi Spectator vel causa fui, Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon. 439, is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic war, which he had seen somewhat nearer.