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Updated: June 1, 2025
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.
Already at the time of Constantine, Rome had a rival, Byzantium; disruption followed with Honorius; and then some ten emperors sufficed for decomposition to be complete, for the bones of the dying prey to be picked clean, the end coming with Romulus Augustulus, the sorry creature whose name is, so to say, a mockery of the whole glorious history, a buffet for both the founder of Rome and the founder of the empire.
By the insolent order of the count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes of the astonished emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich, in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his life, in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or resentment.
In the royal chariots, side by side with the emperor, Stilicho was seated, and the procession passed under a triumphal arch which commemorated the complete destruction of the Goths. For the last time, the amphitheatre of Rome was polluted with the blood of gladiators, for Honorius, exhorted by the poet Claudian, abolished forever the inhuman sacrifices.
But Honorius had scarcely passed the Po, before he was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic cavalry; since the urgency of the danger compelled him to seek a temporary shelter within the fortifications of Asta, a town of Liguria or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus.
Honorius was controlled by the influence of Stilicho, a brave soldier, by birth a Vandal; Arcadius was ruled by a Goth, Rufinus, a cunning and faithless diplomatist. Alaric and his followers were enraged at the withholding of the pay which was due to them yearly from Arcadius.
Where did Honorius fix the seat of his government? What new hordes invaded Italy? Why were the northern barbarians more formidable than the Goths? How was Florence saved? On what occasion was a subsidy voted to Alaric? Who conspired against Stilicho? In what manner was Stilicho slain? Time's immortal garlands twine O'er desolation's mournful shrine. Like youth's embrace around decline. Malcolm.
"Some of those inscriptions tell of the characters of the departed brethren," said Honorius. "Look at these." "And here too," he continued, "are others which tell of their private lives and domestic experiences." "And here of a wife." Domitius in peace, Lea erected this.
Stilicho was brave and faithful, and almost belonged to the imperial family, for his wife Serena was niece to Theodosius, and his daughter Maria was betrothed to the young Honorius. Stilicho was a very active, spirited man, who found troops to check the enemies of Rome on all sides of the Western Empire.
Claudian gives it in an hexameter, 'Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad urbem. Yes, he would take The City, and avenge the treachery of Valens, and all the wrongs which Teutons had endured from the Romans for now four centuries. And he did it. But not the first time. He swept over the Alps. Honorius fled to Asta, and Alaric besieged him there.
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