Ch. 8 - The Goths - Page 2

the army halted before the gates of Rome, when the news was
promulgated among their ranks, that Alaric, for purposes of his own, had
determined to reduce the city by a blockade.

The numbers of his forces, increased during his march by the accession
of thirty thousand auxiliaries, were now divided into battalions,
varying in strength according to the service that was required of them.
These divisions stretched round the city walls, and though occupying
separate posts, and devoted to separate duties, were so arranged as to
be capable of uniting at a signal in any numbers, on any given point.
Each body of men was commanded by a tried and veteran warrior, in whose
fidelity Alaric could place the most implicit trust, and to whom he
committed the duty of enforcing the strictest military discipline that
had ever prevailed among the Gothic ranks. Before each of the twelve
principal gates a separate encampment was raised. Multitudes watched the
navigation of the Tiber in every possible direction, with untiring
vigilance; and not one of the ordinary inlets to Rome, however
apparently unimportant, was overlooked. By these means, every mode of
communication between the beleaguered city and the wide and fertile
tracts of land around it, was effectually prevented. When it is
remembered that this elaborate plan of blockade was enforced against a
place containing, at the lowest possible computation, twelve hundred
thousand inhabitants, destitute of magazines for food within its walls,
dependent for supplies on its regular contributions from the country
without, governed by an irresolute senate, and defended by an enervated
army, the horrors that now impended over the besieged Romans are as
easily imagined as described.

Among the ranks of the army that now surrounded the doomed city, the
division appointed to guard the Pincian Gate will be found, at this
juncture, most worthy of the reader's attention: for one of the
warriors appointed to its subordinate command was the young chieftain
Hermanric, who had been accompanied by Goisvintha through all the toils
and dangers of the march, since the time when we left him at the Italian
Alps.

The watch had been set, the tents had been pitched, the defences had
been raised on the portion of ground selected to occupy every possible
approach to the Pincian Gate, as Hermanric retired to await by
Goisvintha's side, whatever further commands he might yet be entrusted
with, by his superiors in the Gothic camp. The spot occupied by the
young warrior's simple tent was on a slight eminence, apart from the
positions chosen by his comrades, eastward of the city gate, and
overlooking at some distance the deserted gardens of the suburbs, and
the stately palaces of the Pincian