He pronounced an eloquent eulogium on the noble
charity of Laeta, the widow of the Emperor Gratian, who, with her
mother, devoted the store of provisions obtained by their imperial
revenues to succouring, at that important juncture, the starving and
desponding poor: he admitted the new scarcity, consequent on the
dissipation of Laeta's stores; deplored the present necessity of
sacrificing the domestic animals of the citizens; condemned the enormous
prices now demanded for the last remnants of wholesome food that were
garnered up; announced it as the firm persuasion of every one that a few
days more would bring help from Ravenna; and ended his address by
informing his auditory that, as they had suffered so much already, they
could patiently suffer a little more, and that if, after this, they were
so ill-fated as to sink under their calamities, they would feel it a
noble consolation to die in the cause of Catholic and Apostolic Rome,
and would assuredly be canonised as saints and martyrs by the next
generation of the pious in the first interval of fertile and restoring
peace.
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