Antonina; Or, The Fall of Rome

ere, in the autumn of the year 408, already furrowed in numerous directions by the tracks of t

In other places they were less palpable. Here, the temporary path was entirely hidden by the incursions of a swollen torrent; there, it was faintly perceptible in occasional patches of soft groun

the beginning of the fifth century, a little lake. Bounded on three sides by precipices, its narrow banks barren of verdure or habitations, and its dark and stagnant waters brightened but rarely by the presen

e; and a small steady rain fell, slow and unintermitting, upon the deserts around. Standing upon the path which armies had once trodden, and which armies were still destined to tread, and looking towards the solitary lake, you heard, at first, no sound but the regular dripping of the rain-drops from rock to rock; you saw no prospect but the motionless wa

the lake, this strange place of refuge commanded a view not only of the rugged path immediately below it, but of a large plot of level ground at a short distance to the west, which overhung a second and lower range of rocks. From this spot might be seen far beneat

f decayed moss. Lizards and noisome animals had tenanted its comfortless recesses undisturbed, until the perio

e scattered some withered branches and decayed leaves, which were arranged as if to form a fire. In many parts this scanty collectio

ortion of her scanty clothing had been removed to cover the child. What remained on her was composed, partly of skins of animals, partly of coarse cotton clo

en once beautiful, both in expression and form; but a deep wound, extending the whole length of his cheek, had now deformed him for ever. He shivered and

he woke with a scream-raised himself-endeavoured to advance towards the woman, and staggered backward against the side of the cave

g some herbs from her bosom, applied them to his wounded cheek. By this action her dress became discomp

y down on his face. There was little difficulty in discerning from that fixed, distracted gaze the nature of the tie that bound the mourning woman to the suffering boy. The expression of rigid and awful despair that lowered in her fixed, gloomy eyes, the livid paleness

with the other the brushwood at the entrance of her place of refuge, cautiously looking forth on all that the mists left visible of the western landscape. After

r ever before. The shadow of death deepens over the boy; the burden of anguish grows weightier than I can bear. For me, friends are murdered, defenders are distant, possessions are lost. The God o

ish successfully the fatal spring, when a sound in the east-faint, distant, and fugitive-caught her ear. In an instant her eye brightened, her chest heaved, her cheek flushed. She exer

and she could listen undisturbed. To unpractised ears the sound that so entranced her would have been scarcely audible. Even the experienced traveller would have thought it nothi

divined, the note of the Gothic trumpet. Soon the distant music ceased, and was succeeded by another sound, low and rumbling, as of an earthquake afar

on which she had been standing; and, though trembling in every limb, succeeded in mounting so much higher on the crag as to gain a fissure near the top of th

yet to be seen. At length the shrill sound of the trumpet again rang through the dull, misty a

halted, as if to communicate with the crowds of the rearguard and the stragglers among the baggage waggons, who still poured forth, apparently in interminable hosts, from the concealment of the distant trees. The advanced troops, evident

the cavern, her over-wrought energies suddenly deserted her; her hands relaxed their grasp; she tottered, and would have sunk backwards to instant destruction, had not the skins wrapped about her bosom and waist become entangled with a point of one of the jagged rocks immediately around her. Fortunately-for she

d overwhelmed most persons in the woman's exhausted condition, seemed, on the contrary, to reassure her feelings and reanimate her powers. She disengaged herself from her preserver

ermanric. I have escaped from the massacre of the hostages of A

n of wonder and respect. The chieftain whom she had addressed raised the visor of his helmet so as to uncover his face, answered her question in the affirmative, and ordered two so

t hostage with the Romans in Aquileia.

ls,' was the answer. 'The Romans

aly; but, as he looked downwards towards the plains, his brow lowered, an

sked by their aged comrade. It received the same terrible answer, which was borne with the same stern composure

which they had so recently ascended, the men in a short space of time reached the place where the army had halted, and di

ate crags which showed dim, wild, and majestic through the darkness of the mist; covered with the dusky clouds which hovered motionless over the barren mountain tops, and poured their stormy waters on the uncultivated plains-all that the appearance

ich shelved upwards at right angles with the main road from the woods, desired her to dismount; and pointing

he old men, on the highroad, was one of Alaric's waggons; and on the heaps of baggage piled against its clumsy wheels had been chosen resting-place of the future conqueror of Rome. The top of the vehicle seemed absolutely teeming with a living burden. Perched in every available nook and corner were women and children of all ages, and weapons and live stock of all varieties. Now, a child-lively, mischievous, inquisitive-peered forth over the head of a battering-ram. Now, a lean, hungry sheep advanced his inquiring nostrils sadly to th

elasticity of movement unusual among the men of his nation. At the instant when he joined the soldier who had accosted him, his face was partially concealed by an immense helmet, crowned with a boar's head, the mouth of which, forced open at

stened to meet him; placed the wounded child i

ple were at peace with the Empire. Of his household and

n tranquility, sincere in its perfect innocence of display. As he looked on the child, his blue eyes-bright, piercing, and lively-softened like a woman's; his lips, hardly hidden by his short beard, closed and quivered; and his chest heaved under the armour that lay upon its noble proportions. There was in this simple, speechless, tearless melancholy-this exquisite consideration of triumphant strength for suffering weakness-something almost sublime; opposed as it was to the emotions of malignity and

intha, Hermanric mounted the waggon, and placing the last of his sister's offspring in the arms of a decr

Revive the child, and you shall b

rrior, and shall be obeyed. Hermanric is great, for his arm can s

e a witness of her skill. With one final look at the pale, exhausted child, he slowly descended from the waggon, and approaching Goisvintha, drew her towards a sheltered position near the pon

prevailed; preserved throughout your childhood from the chances of battle; advanced to the army in your youth, only when its toils are past

rrior of renown; I believed, in my pride, that I was destined to be the mother of a race of heroes; when suddenly there came news to us that the Emperor Theodosius was dead. Then followed anarchy among the people of the soil, and outrages on the liberties of their allies, the Goths. Ere long the call to arms arose am

; of the miseries of our retreats; of the hunger that we vanquished; of the diseases that we endured; of the shameful peace that was finally ratified, against the wishes of our king! How shall I tell

Stilicho, the general of the Romans, passed many messages, for the leaders disputed on the terms of the peace that should be finally ordained. Meanwhile, as an earnest of the Gothic faith, bands of our warriors,

night when I took leave of Priulf, my husband, at the gates. I watched him as he departed with the army, and, when the

onvulsed with violent agony. When she turned towards Hermanric after an interval of silence to address him again, the same malignant expression lowered over her countenance that had appeared on it when she present

ent for me but patience-no pursuit but hope. Alone with my children, I was wont to look forth over the sea towards the camp of our king; but day succeeded to day, and his warriors appeared not on the plains; nor did Priulf return with the legions to enc

ity and shamelessness, he believed that I, who was Gothic and the wife of a Goth, might be won by him whose parentage was but Roman! Soon from prayers he rose to threats; and one night, appearing before me with smiles, he cried out that Stilicho, whose desire was to make peace with the Goths, had suffered, for his devotio

helmet-crest suddenly fell at my feet, and a voice cried to me from the garden beneath: 'Priulf thy husband has been slain in a quarrel by the soldiers of Rome! A

nce were left us to escape, there rang through the evening stillness the sound of a trumpet, and the tramp of armed men was audible in the street beneath. Then, from all quarters of the town rose, as one sudden sound, the shrieks of women and the yells of men. Already, as I rushed towards my children's beds, the fiends of Rome had mounted the stairs, and waved in bloody triumph their reeking swords! I gained the steps; and, as I looked up, they flung down at me the body of my youngest child. O Hermanric! Hermanric! it

had slain. The child that I held to my breast still breathed. I stanched with some fragments of my garment the wounds that he had received, and laying him gently by the stairs-in the moonlight, so that I might see him when he moved-I groped in the shadow of the wall for my first murdered and my last born; for that youngest and fairest one of my offspring whom they had slaughtered before my eyes! When I touched the corpse, it was wet with blood; I felt its face, and it was cold beneath my hands; I raised its body in my

death-pale face of some woman of my nation whom I had loved, stretched upward to the sky; but I still advanced until I gained

slain, for her blood still dripped slowly down into an empty wine-pot that stood within the soldier's reach. When I saw the ladder, hope revived within me. I removed it to the wall-I mounted, and laid my dead child on the great stones at its top-I returned, and placed my wounded boy by the corpse. Slowly, and with many efforts, I dragged the ladder upwards, until from its own weight one end fell to the ground on the other side. As I had risen so I descended. In the sand of the river-bank I scraped a hole, and buried there the corpse of the infant; for I could carry the weight

mple words, and render musical the most unsteady tones. It seemed as if those tenderer and kinder emotions, which the attractions of her offspring had once generated in her character, had at the bidding of memory become revivified in her manner while she lingered over the recital of their deaths. For a brief space of time

d lasted but a few minutes, when a harsh, trembling voice was heard fr

ever, so often and so perseveringly, that he noticed them ere long; and rising suddenly, as if impatient of

olished brass, on which she leant her lank, shrivelled arms. Her head shook with a tremulous, palsied action; a leer, half smile, half grimace, distended her withered lips and lightened her sunken eyes. Sinister, cringing, repulsive; her face livid with the reflection from the weapon t

till farther over the shield; and pointing to the interior of the

gaining the old woman's side, saw stretched on her collection of herbs-beautiful in

It is Hermanric that is most powerful! See, the dressings were placed on the wounds; and, though the child has died, shall not the treasures that were promised me

boy showed how tranquil had been his death. The dressings had been skilfully composed and carefully applied to his wounds, but suffering and privation had annihilated the fee

ceived from him the lifeless burden without an exclamation or a tear. That emanation from her former and kinder self which had been pr

ver have fought with the warriors! Our ancestors slew themselves when th

vengeance for the massacre of Aquileia! When blood is streaming in the palace

sting-place of the king. There, armed at all points, and rising, by his superior stature, high above the throng around him, stood the dreaded captain of the Gothic hosts. His helmet was raised so as to display his clear blue eyes gleaming over the mul

fulfil! That future destruction which he denounced against Rome, it is ours to effect! Remember your hostages that the Romans have slain; your possessions that the Romans have seized; your trust that the Romans have betrayed! Remember that I, your king, have within me that supernatural impulse

moment the trumpet ga

gun to move; 'make ready for the journey! I will charge myself with the burial of the child. Yet a few da

even now the warriors in front of the army might be seen by those in the rear mou