through
Italy he past, almost without striking a blow. Ravenna, infamous,
according to Sidonius, for its profligacy, where the Emperor's court was,
he past disdainfully, and sat down before the walls of Rome. He did not
try to storm it. Probably he could not. He had no such machines, as
those with which the Romans battered walls. Quietly he sat, he and his
Goths, 'as wolves wait round the dying buffalo;' waiting for the Romans
within to starve and die. They did starve and die; men murdered each
other for food; mothers ate their own babes; but they sent out embassies,
boasting of their strength and numbers. Alaric laughed,--'The thicker
the hay, the easier it is mowed.' What terms would he take? 'All your
gold, all your silver, the best of your precious things. All your
barbarian slaves.' That last is significant. He would deliver his own
flesh and blood. The Teuton man should be free. The trolls should drag
no more of the forest children into their accursed den. 'What then will
you leave us?' 'Your lives.'

They bought him off with a quaint ransom: 5000 pounds weight of gold,
30,000 of silver, 4000 robes of silk, 3000 pieces of scarlet cloth, and
3000 lbs. of pepper, possibly spices of all kinds. Gold, and finery, and
spices--gifts fit for children, such as those Goths were.

But he got, too, 40,000 Teuton slaves safe out of the evil place, and
embodied them into his army. He had now 100,000 fighting men. Why did
he not set up as king of Italy? Was it that the awe of the place, the
prestige of the Roman name, cowed him? It cowed each of the Teutonic
invaders successively. To make themselves emperors of Rome was a thing
of which they dared not dream. Be that as it may, all he asked was, to
be received as some sort of vassal of the Emperor. The
Master-Generalship of Italy, subsidies for his army, an independent
command in the Tyrolese country, whence he had come, were his demand.

Overblown with self-conceit, the Romans refused him. They would listen
to no conditions. They were in a thoroughly Chinese temper. You will
find the Byzantine empire in the same temper centuries after; blinded to
present weakness by the traditions of their forefathers' strength. They
had worshipped the beast. Now that only his image was left, they
worshipped that.

Alaric seized Ostia, and cut off their supplies. They tried to appease
him by dethroning Honorius, and setting up some puppet Attalus. Alaric
found