Here a great concourse of people had assembled, and
were suffered, in their proper turn, to ascend the ramparts in
divisions, by some soldiers who guarded the steps by which they were
approached. After a short delay, Ulpius and those around him were
permitted to gratify their curiosity, as others had done before them.
They mounted the walls, and beheld, stretched over the ground within and
beyond the suburbs, the vast circumference of the Gothic lines.
Terrible and almost sublime as was the prospect of that immense
multitude, seen under the brilliant illumination of the noontide sun, it
was not impressive enough to silence the turbulent loquacity rooted in
the dispositions of the people of Rome. Men, women, and children, all
made their noisy and conflicting observations on the sight before them,
in every variety of tone, from the tremulous accents of terror, to the
loud vociferations of bravado.
Some spoke boastfully of the achievements that would be performed by the
Romans, when their expected auxiliaries arrived from Ravenna.
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