the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army, Alaric
conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of Ravenna; and a solemn
embassy of the principal ministers, of Jovius, the prætorian prefect, of
Valens, master of the cavalry and infantry, of the quæstor Potamius, and
of Julian, the first of the notaries, was introduced, with martial pomp,
into the Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to
acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide the
provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors. Their
proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was aggravated by
the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended to promise that, if
Honorius would instantly resign the purple, he should be permitted to
pass the remainder of his life in the peaceful exile of some remote
island. So desperate indeed did the situation of the son of Theodosius
appear, to those who were the best acquainted with his strength and
resources, that Jovius and Valens, his minister and his general,
betrayed their trust, infamously deserted the sinking cause of their
benefactor, and devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of
his more fortunate rival.

Astonished by such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at
the approach of every servant, at the arrival of every messenger. He
dreaded the secret enemies who might lurk in his capital, his palace,
his bed-chamber; and some ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna to
transport the abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew,
the Emperor of the East.

But there is a Providence--such at least was the opinion of the
historian Procopius--that watches over innocence and folly; and the
pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be
disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly