defend, he was wisely advised by those counsellors who conceived his
retreat from Milan to Ravenna; that this retreat was not a mere
flight, but a consummate and well thought out strategical and
political move, and that any other would have been for the worse and
would probably have involved the West in an utter destruction.

Cisalpine Gaul, at this crisis, as always both before and since, was
the great and proper defence of Italy; not the Alps nor the Apennines
but Cisalpine Gaul broke the barbarians, and, in so far as it could be
materially saved, saved Italy and our civilisation, of which Rome was
the soul. There Stilicho met Alaric and broke his first and worst
enthusiasm; there Leo the Great turned back Attila; there the fiercest
terror of the Lombard tide spent itself.

Now, as we have seen, Cisalpine Gaul, in its relation to Italy, was
best held and contained from Ravenna, which commanded, whenever it was
in danger, the narrow pass between them. Therefore the retreat of
Honorius upon Ravenna was a consummate strategical act, well advised
and such as we might expect from "the successor of Augustus." Its
results were momentous and entirely fortunate for Italy, and indeed,
when the truth about Ravenna is once grasped, any other move would
appear to have been craven and ridiculous.

But there is something more that is of an even greater importance.

The best hope of the West in its fight with the barbarian undoubtedly
lay in its own virility and arms, but it had the right to expect that
in such a fight it would not be unaided by the eastern empire and the
great civilisation whose capital was that New Rome upon the Bosphorus.
If it was to receive such assistance, it must receive it at Ravenna,