Such was the character of the nobles of Rome at the period in which their city was taken possession of by Alaric. As soon as the barbarian had got possession of the Roman port, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his demands were enforced by the positive declaration, that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamours of that people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate. They listened without reluctance to the proposing of a new emperor on the throne of Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, the præfect of the city. Attalus was created emperor by the Goths and Romans; he was, however, soon degraded by Alaric, and Rome subjected to a general sack. The conqueror no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder. The trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics. At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilised so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Scythia and Germany. A cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies, which, during the consternation, remained unburied. The despair of the inhabitants was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever the barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of 40,000 slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes, which they had formerly received, were washed away in the blood of the guilty, or obnoxious families. The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself. When the portable riches had been seized, the palaces were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture; the sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of the battle-axe. The sack lasted six days.