e scorching rays and to admit the genial warmth of
the sun. These delights were enhanced by the memory of past hardships;
the comparison of their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of
Scythia, and the frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube added new charms to
the felicity of the Italian climate.[18]

Whether fame or conquest or riches were the object of Alaric, he pursued
that object with an indefatigable ardor which could neither be quelled
by adversity nor satiated by success. No sooner had he reached the
extreme land of Italy than he was attracted by the neighboring prospect
of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he
considered only as an intermediate step to the important expedition
which he already meditated against the continent of Africa.

The whole design was defeated by the premature death of Alaric, which
fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The
ferocious character of the Barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a
hero whose valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By
the labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of
the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The
royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome,
was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to
their natural channel, and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric
had been deposited was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the
prisoners who had been employed to execute the work.

The personal animosities and hereditary feuds of the Barbarians were
suspended by the strong necessity of their affairs, and the brave
Adolphus, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was unanimously
elected to succeed to his throne. The character and political system of
the new King of the Goths may be best understood from his own
conversation with an illustrious citizen of Narbonne; who afterward, in
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, related it to St. Jerome, in the presence
of the historian Orosius. "In the full confidence of valor and victory,
I once aspired (said. Adolphus) to change the face of the universe; to
obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the
Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder
of a new empire. By repeated experiments I was gradually convinced that
laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a
well-constituted