Augustine, in his celebrated work entitled “The City of God,” refers with much gratification to this memorable interposition of God in behalf of his Church. Alaric died just as he was entering upon an expedition for the conquest of Syria, having been in possession of Italy for four years. “The ferocious character of the barbarians,” writes Gibbon, “was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentius, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed. The waters were then returned to their natural channel; and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been deposited was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the work.” Adolphus, brother-in-law of Alaric, succeeded, by the vote of the Gothic army, to the supreme command. He was also a remarkable man. His intelligence and moral worth may be inferred from the following remarks which he made to a citizen of Narbonne. The conversation was related by this citizen to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius. “In the full confidence of valor and victory,” said Adolphus, “I once aspired to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted State, and that the fierce, intractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed the sword of the Goth, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.” In accordance with these views, Adolphus opened negotiations with Honorius, the Roman emperor, who was besieged at Ravenna. He entered into an alliance with him to assist in driving out the barbarians who were on the other side of the Alps. He even sought and obtained in marriage Placidia, a Christian lady, the daughter of Theodosius, and sister of Honorius. This illustrious woman, whose adventurous life we cannot here record, had been highly educated at Constantinople. The bride was young and lovely: the bridegroom was also remarkable for dignity of bearing and manly beauty. Thus the daughter of the decaying house of Rome was wedded to the chieftain of a new dynasty just emerging into fame and power.