count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attalus;
and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of
friendship and alliance.

The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new Emperor of the
Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was conducted, in
tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he
had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favorites and
followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate; before whom, in a
formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the
majesty of the republic, and of uniting to the Empire the provinces of
Egypt and the East which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome.
Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just
contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper, whose elevation was
the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet
sustained from the insolence of the Barbarians. But the populace, with
their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public
discontent was favorable to the rival of Honorius; and the sectaries,
oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some degree of
countenance, or at least of toleration, from a prince who, in his native
country of Ionia, had been educated in the pagan superstition, and who
had since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an Arian
bishop.

The first days of the reign of Attains were fair and prosperous. An
officer of confidence was sent with an inconsiderable body of troops to
secure the obedience of Africa; the greatest part of Italy submitted to
the terror of the Gothic powers; and though the city of Bologna made a
vigorous and effectual resistance, the people of Milan, dissatisfied
perhaps with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations,