was afterwards restored.
In A.D. 410 he again marched upon the city, captured and entered it.
"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 Germania
and Scythia." For six days the city was sacked by the barbarous
soldiery, and the horrible scenes of robbery, murder, and rapine that
ensued can not be described. It has been said that "civilized warfare is
sufficiently terrible," but that would be almost a blessing compared
with such scenes as these. For a space of four years Alaric ravaged
Italy almost without opposition.

The slaughter and devastation that followed this storm of "hail and
fire" is thus described: "The banks of the Rhine were crowned like those
of the Tiber, with houses and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet
descended the river, he might express his doubts on which side was
situated the territory of the Romans. This scene of peace and plenty was
suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins
could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of
man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed, and many
thousand Christians inhumanly massacred in the church. Wurms perished
after a long and obstinate siege. Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay,
Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke, and
the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the
greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and
extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps and the Pyrenees, was
delivered to the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous
crowd, the bishop, the senator and the virgin, laden with the spoils of
their houses and altars."

Another historian describing the same, a few years after the event,
says: "The barbarians meeting with little resistance, indulged in the
utmost cruelty. The cities which they captured, they so utterly
destroyed that no traces of them now remain, except in Thrace and
Greece, except here and there a tower or a gate. All the men who opposed
them they slew, young and old, and indeed spared not women, nor even
children. Whence there is still but a sparse population in Italy. The
plunder which they seized in every part of Europe was immense, and
especially at Rome, where they left nothing, either public or private."
In t