commission to conquer Illyricum for the Western Empire. After his defeat, he was moving against Rome with his cavalry, when his retreat was purchased by a pension. It was when Honorius was celebrating his triumph at Rome that a monk named _Telemachus_ leaped into the arena to separate the gladiators. He was stoned to death by the spectators, but the result of his self-devotion was an edict putting a final stop to the gladiatorial shows. The emperor now fixed his residence, which had been at Milan, at _Ravenna_, a city that was covered on the land side by a wide and impassable morass, over which was an artificial causeway, easily destroyed in case it could not be defended. It had served him as an asylum during the invasion of Alaric. RADAGAISUS.--The empire was not long left in peace. _Alaric_ was a Christian, and partially civilized. _Radagaisus_ was a Goth, but a heathen and a barbarian. The _Suevi_ under his command, took their course southward from the neighborhood of the Baltic, and, drawing after them the _Burgundians, Vandals_, and _Alans_,--tribes which began to be alarmed by the hordes of _Huns_ that were gathering behind them,--advanced to the pillage of the empire. Leaving the bulk of their companions on the borders of the Rhine, two hundred thousand of them crossed the Alps, and made their way as far as _Florence_. _Stilicho_ once more saved Rome and the empire by forcing them back into the Apennines, where most of them perished from famine. _Radagaisus_ surrendered, and was beheaded. The news of this disaster moved the host which had been left behind, joined by the remainder of the army of Radagaisus, to make an attack upon _Gaul_. Despite the resistance of the Ripuarian Franks, to whom Rome had committed the defense of the Rhine, they crossed that river on the last day of the year 406. For two years Gaul was a prey to their ravages, until the Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals, sought for fresh booty on the south of the Pyrenees (409). In Gaul they "destroyed the cities, ravaged the fields, and drove before them in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars." Brief as was this period of devastation, it marks the severance of _Gaul_ from the empire.