It is the very imbecility of this man, at such a time as that we now
write on, which invests his character with a fearful interest in the eye
of posterity. In himself the impersonation of the meanest vices
inherent in the vicious civilisation of his period, to his feebleness
was accorded the terrible responsibility of liberating the long-prisoned
storm whose elements we have attempted to describe in the preceding
chapter. With just intellect enough to be capricious, and just
determination enough to be mischievous, he was an instrument fitted for
the uses of every ambitious villain who could succeed in gaining his
ear. To flatter his puerile tyranny, the infatuated intriguers of the
Court rewarded the heroic Stilicho for the rescue of his country with
the penalty of death, and defrauded Alaric of the moderate concessions
that they had solemnly pledged themselves to perform. To gratify his
vanity, he was paraded in triumph through the streets of Rome for a
victory that others had gained. To pander to his arrogance, by an
exhibition of the vilest privilege of that power which had been
intrusted to him for good, the massacre of the helpless hostages,
confided by Gothic honour to Roman treachery, was unhesitatingly
ordained; and, finally, to soothe the turbulence of his unmanly fears,
the last act of his unscrupulous councillors, ere the Empire fell, was
to authorise his abandoning his people in the hour of peril, careless
who suffered in defenceless Rome, while he was secure in fortified
Ravenna.
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