could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of
Honorius, was immediately despatched to the prætorian prefect, 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 prefect
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 invoked 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 touched, in solemn ceremony, that august seat of
majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would expose them,
to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.

While the Emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the security
of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome,
almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric. Yet such was the
moderation which he still preserved, or affected, that, as he moved with
his army along the Flaminian way, he successively despatched the bishops