example of female virtue, for the admiration
of future ages. A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith,
had excited the impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to
the sagacious remark of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy.
Exasperated by her obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with
the anger of a lover, slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine
still continued to brave his resentment, and to repel his love, till the
ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully conducted
her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six pieces of gold to
the guards of the church, on condition that they should restore her
inviolate to the arms of her husband. Such instances of courage and
generosity were not extremely common. The brutal soldiers satisfied
their sensual appetites, without consulting either the inclination or
the duties of their female captives: and a nice question of casuistry
was seriously agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly
refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost,
by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. Their were other
losses indeed of a more substantial kind, and more general concern. It
cannot be presumed, that all the Barbarians were at all times capable of
perpetrating such amorous outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or
chastity, protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger
of a rape. But avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since
the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to
the different tastes and tempers of mankind may be procured by the
possession of wealth. In the pillage of Rome, a just preference was
given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the
smallest compass and weight: but, after these portable riches had been
removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely
stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy
plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly
piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army.
The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or wantonly
destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious
materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered
into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe. The acquisition of riches
served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapaci