[Footnote 1: Cf. Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_, vol. i. pt. 2, p.
712.]

In the summer of 403 Alaric again entered Italy and laid siege to
Verona; Stilicho, however, met him and defeated him, but again allowed
him to retreat. Well might Orosius, his contemporary, exclaim that
this king with his Goths, though often hemmed in, often defeated, was
always allowed to escape.

The battle of Verona was followed by a peace of two years duration.
But in 405 the other barbarian Radagaisus came down into Cisalpine
Gaul as Alaric had done, and Stilicho, knowing that the pass through
which the great road entered Italy was secured by Ravenna, assailed
him at Ticinum (Pavia). Radagaisus, however, did a bold and perhaps an
unexpected thing. He attempted to cross the Apennines themselves by
the difficult and neglected route that ran over them and led to
Fiesole.[2] But the Romans had been right in their judgment. That way
was barred by nature. It needed no defence. Before the barbarian had
quite pierced the mountains Stilicho caught him, slew him, and
annihilated his already starving bands at Fiesole. Cisalpine Gaul and
the fortress of Ravenna, its key, still held Italy secure.

[Footnote 2: Livy asserts that C. Flamimus, the colleague of M.
Aemilius Lepidus in B.C. 187, built a road direct from Arezzo to
Bologna across the Tuscan Apennines. This road early fell into disuse
and ruin. We hear nothing of it (but see Cicero, _Phil_. xii. 9) till
this raid of Radagaisus. Later, Totila came this way to besiege Rome.
Cf. Repetti, _Dizionavio della Toscana_, vol. v. 713-715.]