Three more days passed. The Senate, their numbers fast diminishing in
the pestilence, occupied the time in vain deliberations or in moody
silence. Each morning the weary guards looked forth from the ramparts,
with the fruitless hope of discerning the long-promised legions from
Ravenna on their way to Rome; and each morning devastation and death
gained ground afresh among the hapless besieged.
At length, on the fourth day, the Senate abandoned all hope of further
resistance and determined on submission, whatever might be the result.
It was resolved that another embassy, composed of the whole acting
Senate, and followed by a considerable train, should proceed to Alaric;
that one more effort should be made to induce him to abate his ruinous
demands on the conquered; and that if this failed, the gates should be
thrown open, and the city and the people abandoned to his mercy in
despair.
As soon as the procession of this last Roman embassy was formed in the
Forum, its numbers were almost immediately swelled, in spite of
opposition, by those among the mass of the people who were still able to
move their languid and diseased bodies, and who, in the extremity of
their misery, had determined at all hazards to take advantage of the
opening of the gates, and fly from the city of pestilence in which they
were immured, careless whether they perished on the swords of the Goths
or languished unaided on the open plains.
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