without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid
passage of Alaric; [7] and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were
instantly covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males
of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the
spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who visited
Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and
bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes was less indebted
for her preservation to the strength of her seven gates, than to the
eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens, and
the important harbor of the Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to
prevent the delay and danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation;
and as soon as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they
were easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as
the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was
ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic
prince, with a small and select train, was admitted within the walls;
he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid
banquet, which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that
he was not ignorant of the manners of civilized nations. [8] But the
whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town
of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the
bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance between
Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles; but the bad road,
an expressive name, which it still bears among the Greeks, was, or might
easily have been made, impassable for the march of an enemy. The thick
and gloomy woods of Mount Cithaeron covered the inland country; the
Scironian rocks approached the water's edge, and hung over the
narrow and winding path, which was confined above six miles along the
sea-shore. [9] The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age,
was terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary
intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to the Aegean Sea. The
confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart, had
tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice
of the Roman governors