fe was slain before my eyes; my house was burnt
to the ground; I myself only escaped, mutilated with wounds; my child
soon afterwards pined and died. I had no wife, no offspring, no house,
no money. My fields still stretched round me, but I had none to
cultivate them. My walls still tottered at my feet, but I had none to
rear them again, none to inhabit them if they were reared. My father's
lands were now become a wilderness to me. I was too proud to sell them
to my rich neighbour; I preferred to leave them before I saw them the
prey of a tyrant, whose rank had triumphed over my industry, and who is
now able to boast that he can travel over ten leagues of senatorial
property untainted by the propinquity of a husbandman's farm.
Houseless, homeless, friendless, I have come to Rome alone in my
affliction, helpless in my degradation! Do you wonder now that I am
careless about the honour of my country? I would have served her with
my life and my possessions when she was worthy of my service; but she
has cast me off, and I care not who conquers her. I say to the
Goths--with thousands who suffer the same tribulation that I now
undergo--"Enter our gates! Level our palaces to the ground! Confound,
if you will, in one common slaughter, we that are victims with those
that are tyrants! Your invasion will bring new lords to the land.
They cannot crush it more--they may oppress it less. Our posterity may
gain their rights by the sacrifice of lives that our country has made
worthless. Romans though we are, we are ready to suffer and submit!"'

He stopped; for by this time he had lashed himself into fury. His eyes
glared, his cheeks flushed, his voice rose. Could he then have seen
the faintest vision of the destiny that future ages had in store for
the posterity of the race that now suffered throughout civilised
Europe, like him--could he have imagined how, in after years, the
'middle class', despised in his day, was to rise to privilege and
power; to hold in its just hands the balance of the prosperity of
nations; to crush oppression and regulate rule; to soar in its mighty
flight above thrones and principalities, and rank and riches,
apparently obedient, but really commanding;--could he but have
foreboded this, what a light must have burst upon his gloom, what a
hope must have soothed him in his despair!

To what further extremities his anger might have carried him, to what
proceedings the indignant Gordian, who stil