[460] [The Goths besieged and sacked Rome under Alaric, A.D. 410, and Totila, 546. Other barbarian invaders--Genseric, a Vandal, 455; Ricimer, a Sueve, 472; Vitiges, a Dalmatian, 537; Arnulph, a Lombard, 756--may come under the head of "Goth." "The Christian," "from motives of fanaticism"--Theodosius, for instance, in 426; and Stilicho, who burned the Sibylline books--despoiled, mutilated, and pulled down temples. Subsequently, popes, too numerous to mention, laid violent hands on the temples for purposes of repair, construction, and ornamentation of Christian churches. More than once ancient structures were converted into cannon-balls. There were, too, Christian invaders and sackers of Rome: Robert Guiscard (Hofmann calls him Wiscardus), in 1004; Frederic Barbarossa, in 1167; the Connétable de Bourbon, in 1527, may be instanced. "Time and War" speak for themselves. For "Flood," _vide supra_. As for "Fire," during the years 1082-84 the Emperor Henry IV. burnt "a great part of the Leonine city;" and Guiscard "burnt the town from the Flaminian gate to the Antonine column, and laid waste the Esquiline to the Lateran; thence he set fire to the region from that church to the Coliseum and the Capitol." Of earthquakes Byron says nothing; but there were earthquakes, e.g. in 422 and 1349. Another foe, a destroying angel who "wasteth at noonday," modern improvement, had not yet opened a seventh seal. (See _Historical Illustrations_, pp. 91-168.)] [nn] {391} _She saw her glories one by one expire_.--[MS. M.] [461] [Compare Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_, "Prophecy of Capys," stanza xxx.-- "Blest and thrice blest the Roman Who sees Rome's brightest day, Who sees that long victorious pomp Wind down the Sacred Way, And through the bellowing Forum, And round the Suppliant's Grove, Up to the everlasting gates Of Capitolian Jove."] [no] _The double night of Ruin_----.--[MS. M.] [462] [The construction is harsh and puzzling. Apparently the subject of "hath wrapt" is the "double night of ages;" the subjects of "wrap," the "night of ages" and the "night of Ignorance;" but, even so, the sentence is ambiguous. Not less amazing is the confusion of metaphors. Rome is a "desert," through which we steer, mounted, presumably, on a camel--the "ship of the desert." Mistaken associations are, as it were, stumbling-blocks; and no sooner have we verified an association, discovered a ruined temple in the exact site which Livy's "pictured page" has assigned to it--a discovery as welcome to the antiquarian as water to the thirsty traveller--than our theory is upset, and we perceive that we have been deluded by a mirage.] [463] {392} Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs [i.e. from Romulus to the double triumph of Vespasian and Titus (_Hist._, vii. 9)]. He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers.