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 320 THE DECLINE AND FALL abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the emperor of the East. He Is degraded But there is a Providence (such at least was the opinion of A.D. 410 ■ the historian Procopius •^") that watches over innocence and folly ; and the pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly resolution, meditated a shameful flight, -^^ a seasonable reinforcement of four thousand veterans unexpectedly landed in the port of Ravenna. To these valiant strangers, whose fidelity had not been corrupted by the factions of the court, he committed the walls and gates of the city ; and the slumbers of the emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension of imminent and internal danger. The favourable intelligence which was received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men, and the state of public affairs. The troops and officers whom Attalus had sent into that province were defeated and slain ; and the active zeal of Heraclian maintained his own allegiance and that of his people. The faithful count of Afi'ica transmitted a large sum of money, which fixed the attachment of the Imperial guards ; and his vigilance, in preventing the exportation of corn and oil, introduced famine, tumult, and discontent into the walls of Rome. The failure of the African expedition was the source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of Attalus ; and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated from the interest of a prince who wanted spirit to command or docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted, without the knov/ledge, or against the advice, of Alaric ; and the obstinate refusal of the senate to allow, in the embarkation, the mixture even of five hundred Goths betrayed a suspicious and distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic king was exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the rank of patrician, and who afterwards excused his double perfidy by declaring, without a blush, that he had only seemed to abandon the service of Honorius, more effectually 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 97 Procop. de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 2. 9* [So Sozomen ; but the text of Zosimus gives ' ' 6 divisions amounting to 40,000,' a number accepted by Mr. Hodgkin, i. 788.]