fell, Eusebius and Allobich had contributed
their part to the ruin of the empire, by opposing the conclusion of a
treaty which Jovius, from a selfish, and perhaps a criminal, motive,
had negotiated with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls
of Rimini. During the absence of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded
to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his
situation, nor his character, could enable him to support; and a letter,
signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the
Praetorian praefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the
public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of
Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter was imprudently
communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who in the whole
transaction had behaved with temper and decency, expressed, in the most
outrageous language, his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered
to his person and to his nation. The conference of Rimini was hastily
interrupted; and the praefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was
compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions
of the court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the
state and army were obliged to swear, that, without listening, in any
circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still persevere
in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the republic. This
rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation.
The ministers of Honorius were heard to declare, that, if they had only
in voked the name of the Deity, they would consult the public safety,
and trust their souls to the mercy of Heaven: but they had sworn by the
sacred head of the emperor himself; they had sworn by the sacred head of
the emperor himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august
seat of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would
exposethem to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion. [86]

[Footnote 84: For the adventures of Olympius, and his successors in the
ministry, see Zosimus, l. v. p. 363, 365, 366, and Olympiodor. ap. Phot.
p. 180, 181. ]

[Footnote 85: Zosimus (l. v. p. 364) relates this circumstance with
visible complacency, and celebrates the character of Gennerid as the
last glory of expiring Paganism. Very different were the sentiments
of the council of Carthage, who deputed four bishops to the court of
Ravenna to complain of the la