Rome, always victorious against external enemies, but always weak against domestic attacks, saw herself besieged by four armies, commanded by Marius, Cinna, Sertorius, and Carbo. Masters of all the passages, they subjected the city to famine, and reduced its inhabitants to extremity. Pompeius Strabo came at last, but too late, to the succour of his country with an army. Rome, in a state of consternation, and seeing herself on the verge of ruin, sent deputies to the enemies to invite them to enter the city. A council was held. Marius and Cinna, after having marked out their victims, gave the city up to all the horrors of war. A multitude of virtuous Romans were immolated to the vengeance of the two leaders; Marius inundated his country with the purest blood of the republic. Birth and riches were unpardonable crimes; a nod of this tyrant’s head was an order for death. This ferocious and barbarous man, after having exercised the most horrible cruelties, died a short time after this victory, in the middle of Rome itself, of which he had been the preserver and the executioner. SEVENTH SIEGE, A.D. 408. When we compare the date of the last siege with that of this, and glance over the events which had taken place between them, we feel great surprise that no siege of Rome should have intervened. It would appear that the Eternal City was guarded by some supernatural power, through shocks and changes of empires, from feeling convulsions, of which it really was the centre. Through the period of the empire, Rome may be said never to have been invaded by a foreign enemy, or by its own children in revolt. The empire changed masters, at times, as a conjurer shifts his balls, and men of all countries occupied its throne; but, in all these revolutions, Rome itself was held sacred. Alaric, king of the Goths, entered Italy, and advanced towards Rome to lay siege to it. On his route, a pious solitary came to throw himself at his feet, imploring him with tears to spare that city, which had become the centre of the Christian world. “Rather,” replied the prince, “it is not my will that leads me on; I incessantly hear a voice in my ears, which cries--‘On, Alaric, on! and sack Rome!’” He reduced it to the most frightful extremity, by closing every passage for provisions, and by making himself master of the navigation of the Tiber. Pestilence was soon added to famine. Rome was nothing but one vast cemetery: it became necessary to treat with the king of the Goths.