DECLINING AND FALLING-
YOU WERE LULLED INTO MAKING ASSUMPTIONS BY NOW, WEREN'T YOU?

THE SACK OF ROME

Many of the warriors who had served the aims of Rome under Alaric had fled from the scene of mutiny and massacre and be sought the sanctuary of Alaric, nourishing creatures of revenge in their breasts and hoping the genius of Alaric would release them through the auspices of a most destructive manner. Seeking advantage and a pretext for a second invasion of Italy, publicly, he posed as the violated friend of Stilicho, at the ready to chastise his assassins. privately he mulled over the 4,000 pounds of gold still due to him. He dispatched messengers to the Senate to inform them that once the coveted metal was his, he would at once quit Italy. The Senators, rashly emboldened by a false estimation of his weakness and encouraged by his continuing moderation, refused his offer with contempt, basely insulting his bearded and fur-clad messengers, and presuming by such a display of courage, Alaric would decamp at once seeking the sanctuary of the realm beyond the Danube.
Alaric did at once decamp, but his direction thereafter was not to the Senator's expectations. He rapidly crossed the Alps again, pillaging and garbing in flames of plunder several Italian cities, turned over to the tender mercies of his seething forest host. He passed the impregnable fortress of Ravenna, and marched into the Apennine mountain spine in the center of Italy, and halted, pondering his final move n Rome. His warriors gathered about the fire, excited and encouraged not a single soldier had appeared to oppose them, no Stilicho, no Theodosius, no Julian or Gallienus to dispute their progress. They soon decamped, and tumbled down the slopes into the rich plains of Umbria, blotting out scores of farms that supplied the tables of Senators, passed under a series of arches decorated with the spoils of past victories over barbarians, now beholding the advance of retribution, and soon appeared before the walls of Rome.
Alaric at once surrounded the city walls, commanded the gates, severing Rome from its surroundings, from the produce of Umbria, its hogs and vegetables and cheeses, and presented Rome with the novelty of famine. The citizens at first reacted with outrage that the capital of the world should be so treated by barbarians, but the failing amount of provisions was unequal to sustain anger, and the public defiance withered away to a dumb distress, as the quotidian amount of the bread, the bacon, the oil and the wine,  guaranteed to the mob was reduced by the day, as prices, now attached to the formerly free fare, conversely rose. The mob quickly spent their scant fundage for a sip of wine and a fragment of bacon, and thereafter, for a time, subsisted on the charity of wealthy matrons who threw open their mansions and larders to the starving multitude, most notably Laeta, Gratian's widow. But these measures could not long forstall the grim advance of hunger, which soon presumed to dwell even in the palaces of Senators. Without demur they yielded up their hoards of treasure to obtain a scanty and ever-increasingly inedible fare, as below their balconies and porticoes in the stricken streets, bodies began to fall and were pounced upon by the desperation of others as a sudden boon of meat, their revulsion mute. Soon, too many bodies fell to be devoured, and their rapid decomposition under a summer sun begat an overwhelming stench and it fatal companion, pestilence.
After an attempt by the surviving pagans to summon bolts of fire from the clouds through the auspices of magic and ox innards, squashed by the Senators in fear of the Divine, or a least Imperial punishment, it was decided that the clemency of Alaric had to be entrated. An embassy was appointed to approach Alaric, led by one Basillius, a Senator of presumed impeccable virtue and courage. He was conducted to Alaric's camp, and animated by his fancy of his reputation, attempted to adopt the defiance of his forbears of old. He stode into Alaric's tent demanding an honorable surrender, and threatening if such terms were denied, he would summon the desperate people of Rome to breathe in deeply the spirit of Scipio and Fabius and exhale a fearsome gust that would scatter Alaric's camp. Alaric gasped in mock terror, and then gave out a dismissive, belittling bray of laughter, well aware the martial prowess of the city was long ago conquered by Victory. Alaric in his turn now threatened an immediate attack on Rome unless ALL the gold, ALL the silver, and ALL the slaves of Rome were turned over to him as a ransom. Basillius' courage drowned in his tears, as he bewailed that nothing would be left them.
"Your LIVES will be left you," Alaric replied.
Another bellow of laughter escorted the embassy out of his tent as they retired, trembling. But at length, Alaric moderated his terms, settling for a mere 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver and ample measures of such things as silk and pepper. These were duly paid, and Alaric retired, the bounty of Umbria again allowed into Rome to relieve the public distress, and Rome seemed delivered. Alaric established his headquarters in Tuscany, there freeing a Gothic host from the chains and servitude that the death of Stilicho and the machinations of Olympius had imposed upon them, benefitting from their ardent desire to avenge their recent servility to Romans. To this potent force was added a fresh provision of Visigoths following in the train of Adolfus, Alaric's brother-in-law, summoned by an invitation to transfer their camp from beside the stream of the Danube to that of the Tiber, as Alaric's presumed intentions still mounted siege about the walls of Rome.
Alaric was still determined to raise a Roman province into the status of a Gothic kingdom, nourished by a subsidy of Roman grain, as well as the title Master General of the Soldiers, and he still attempted to negotiate in order to secure his ambition cheaply, and to confuse and disarm the caution of the Romans. He proposed an exchange of hostages as a token of mutual good faith, even sending a group to Rome. There, they were met by Olympius and his intransigence and ejected from the city under a military escort too great to be an honor guard and too minute to be an army. Alaric called again for a senatorial embassy, and at length one was assembled, led by Innocent, the bishop of Rome, whose dignity and gravity would escort them, transfixing the approach of hazard on the road to Ravenna.
Olympius was overthrown by a palace intrigue, and after several reversals of fortune thereafter as his duplicity was called upon in full measure, he expired under the lash. He was succeeded in his machinations by one Julius who swam with ease in the fetid, reeking waters of Honorius' court, full of the eddies of anarchy and corruption. He attached Honorius' name to a missive in which he was to be rewarded with the free use of the public monies, while a vile barbarianwas to refused to pollute with his name and nation the sacredness of a Roman military honour. This letter of insult was rashly delivered to Alaric who reacted with venom, and summoned a tardy fury. But he still observed a moderation as his warriors again advanced upon Rome, although he passed the city and invested the great grain port of Ostia, where the harvests of the Empire were stored in vast graneries. Rome was notified of this conquest and that only surrender would again unbolt the magazines; the terrors of the recent siege at once counciled submission, and the need to place a new emperor on the throne. One Attalus, the city prefect was nominated for the Imperial honours, secure in the protection of Alaric, whom he freshly bestowed with his coveted title. Attalus established himself in the ancient palace on the Palatine, where any remaining measures of majesty were plundered and attached to Attalus. He then bounded into the Senate House, striding vehemently across the floor, loudly declaiming the need to restore the Imperial unity under his decisive leadership. Only the contempt for Honorius which was evident in very member of that body prevented a massed brasy of Senatorial laughter. Encouraged by this 'loyalty' Attalus next sent out emissaries to North Africa and the various cities of Italy to call for a submission to his authority; the massed swords of Alaric were a far more convincing display that the paltry words of a silk-swaddled decomposing Latin. These bouquets of iron attended Attalus to Ravenna, which at once threw open is gates and disgorged several creatures of Honorius' court to announce that the Emperor was fully prepared to divide the West. This was instantly rejected with scorn, and Attalus declared from with a frame of Gothic spears that the son of Theodosius had best resign, and seek the remedy of exile to correct his grim condition. The creatures of the court trembled and embraced defection, and at word of this by servants he soon suspected of bearing swords within the roll of parchment, Honorius at once made ready a ship in the harbour after releasing another race of shrieks through the corridors, hoisting high a sail made from the cloth of Ignominy.
Honorius was suddenly rescued from his predicament by a sudden arrival of thousands of veteran soldiers in the harbour. They marched to the palace, declared fidelity to the House of Theodosius and at once were sent to man the battlements of the city walls. This reinforcement, suddenly appeared on the walls, was shearing gust to the tenuous and counterfeit purple weave of Attalus. The news that his acclamation in Africa was overturned, the soldiers come to enforce his majesty slain, and the Count of the province halting the course of grain and oil, ensured only discord and revolt would be exported to Rome. At this point, Alaric wished to evacuate some troops by sea, but the Senatorial party in Rome, emboldened by the famine in Rome, refused to allow any Visigoths to depart on the avenue of brine.
Alaric was outraged by this Latin intransigence, and sought redress. Before an assembled multiude of Romans and Barbarians, Attalus was publicly stripped of the Imperial ornaments and thrown down to tumble in the dust, marking a return to a private status dirtied in disgrace. Alaric wished to send the ornaments to Honorius, in a bid to promote friendship.
The calamity of Rome was assured by the word that one Sarus, an enemy of Adolfus' had secretly sailed to the harbour of Ravenna with a host of his warriors. As Attalus tearfully and cravenly begged Alaric to allow his return to Rome, irrespective of his shame, a city gate as thrown open on a sudden, and a martial detaxchment of Sarus' warriors  forayed out and sculpted into the ghastly postures of the slain, a large amount of Alaric's force. They returned to Honorius' public embrace and pronouncement that Alaric's friendship was to be despised.
Alaric at once indulged to the full his deferred revenge. A quick march brought him once more before the walls of Rome, a city helpless and destitute of any means of defense. The Senate trembled, martial phantoms birthed of desperation were proposed and nominated in their conclave, as back at their palaces and mansions, their slaves, animated by blood and vengeance, attached themselves to Alaric. Their complicity was a useful and fateful ally, and in the early morning of August 24, 410, the Salarian Gate was silently opened, and the warriors of Alaric surged inward. The slumber of the Romans was dissolved in an instant by the tremendous blast of a Gothic trumpet sounded in their midst, and the city that had subdued the world was now the possession of the rude fury of Alaric.

DECLINING AND FALLING-
COURAGE, ROT ITSELF IS GAINING ON US.

The Visigoths traversed Greece, Corinth surrendering, Sparta, trembling, Athens submitting, despite the measures of the remaining pagans in the city to direct fingers to the roof of the Parthenon and declare Athena herself was conducting the defense of her home and hearth from the barbarous, and Christian, Visigoths, before turning rude heels southward into the peninsula of the Peloponessus. The plumes belched by Greece in its distress were broadcast to the west and the masses of the realm turned exhausted eyes of perishing Latinity to the German Stilicho as their last hope to deliver them from the calamities strewn in the wake of Alaric. Stilicho heard the clamours and responded by felling many a forested Italian slope to furnish material for a new fleet of ships, which then speedily sailed to Greece, disgorging Stilicho and his force which at once appeared before Alaric's camp, and visited sudden defeat on the Visigoths. The intrepidity of Stilicho was matched by the invention of Alaric, however; the success of Stilicho's arms was fatal to their vigor and the spoils of victory were measured in langor and complacency. Alaric exploited their innattentions by a secret and rapid transfer of his warrors out of the prison of the Peloponessus, and across the Corinthian Gulf into Epirus which Alaric took into his possession, and through that, through placating efforts of Arcadius, the Master-General of that domain. Arcadius and his court presumed that to indulge and reward him would be to send him westward, abetted to a disernment of Alaric's ultimate designs. Alaric used his office to command the manufacture of a plentitude of sword, shield and helmet, forged by inhabitants desperate the theatre of their use would be to the westward, and placed into the hands of warriors already devoted to Alaric, in awe of his deeds and secure and compliant in his designs.
After a threat of assault on Consatntinople, Alaric began his westward march, and due to the time that elasped before his appearance in Italy, he must have detoured to the Danube to procure a fresh supply of fearsome warrior exuding the spirit of Wotan, before crossing the Alps (403) and descending onto the plains of Italy, kindling the fires of an immense conflagration that devoured many of the monuments of civilization, and drove Honorius out of his palace at Milan. Unlike his forbears who at such a grim moment in the fortunes of Rome would have called for their armour in bellows of defiance, Honorius called for his carriage in pitable cries that tore through the corridors so that his Sacred Person might be spirited away to Gaul. Stilicho alone transfixed the course of cowardice bounding about the marbles, and bade him to remain in Italy, lest it be abandoned to Alaric. Stilicho, well aware of the decay of the Italian armies and of the weight of a sword now far to vast be held in their effete hands, was impelled in the name of emergency to strip away the complete defenses of the Empire beyond the Alps. In Britain, the legions were withdrawn, the inhabitants left to face the advent of Hengist and his Saxons, drawing England behind them in their wake, the Rhine frontier denuded of all but a tenuous screen of a force that would collapse at the sound of the first harsh bellow from out of the woods on the far bank, all in the name of the defense of Italy. Stilicho hastily embarked from Milan for the Alps, depending on the spring torrents of the rivers, swelled by snowmelt, to impede Alaric. But a Visigothic detachment seized a bridge, and issued through this fateful conduit upon Milan. The chains of Stilicho on his panic were dissolved in an instant, and Honorius gave out his most shrill screech yet, and his carriage was summoned in a most disordered manner as it was wrenched out of the clutch of pandemonium. Alaric from a distance beheld Honorius' flight out of Milan, the carriage-horses churning up the dust, in a mad flight to Gaul. These designs of Imperial escape were stopped, a detachment of Visigoths impeding his flight, and a loop of swords suddenly surrounded his carriage, the Gothic curiosity enjoying the display of horror within. The detachment was at once called away by word of the advance of Stilicho, who to reach and defend his sovereign, bravely dived into the rapids of the Po, swimming to the far bank, followed by his intrepid host of soldiers. They fell upon the Visigothic lines, shattering them in the reproach of steel, spelling out a length of glory in a trail of slain Goths. The bearded and long-haired chiefs, extracted themselves from the confines of slaughter, and met in a harried conclave with Alaric who answered their cries of capitulation with a bellow that he would mount a throne or dwell in a grave. The camp where such was being declared was suddenly stormed by the Imperial cavalry, and a rout of the Visigoths and their utter ruin was answered by Alaric, who withdrew from his camp with a small detachment, not in flight across the Alps, but brazenly driving deeper into Italy, hooves bounding towards the Appenines in a bid to conquer Rome or die. At this point, Stilicho offered a tribute to Alaric, who accepted it on behalf of his semi-independent chiefs who would have at once subjected Alaric to the violence of their swords had he rejected easy spoil. He retreated back across the Alps, after a final reminder of his promise through a Imperial detachment which crimsoned a local river at the foot of the Alps with Gothic tincture. Only the example of Alaric afforded and example and offered escape again through the Alps.
Honorius was now encouraged to stage a triumph in Rome, presiding over festive celebrations over the deliverance of Italy from the savage Alaric. Wild-beast hunts were staged in the arenas, clouds of dust were raised by speding chariots in the Circus Maximus, and one final gladiatorial combat was offered before a monk by the name of Telemachus bounded onto the sand to separate the two fighters, and was stoned to death by the furious crowd. Honorius followed up his liberal gifts to the shrines of the martyrs by the final abolishment of the games in the name of this current one, whose demise was the shroud affixed to centuries of human sacrifice in the name of amusement.
In 404, after spending some months in Rome, Honorius departed for Ravenna, a fortress-city by the sea, which afforded a certain avenue of escape the locale of Milan could not offer, as well as a plentitude of vineyards around the city that could offer a sure and copious supply of wine in its salubrious setting that could not but tempt and secure th fancy of Honorius, who with glee retired behind its walls and dared Tempest approach. But Tempest accomodated him, for a furious cataclysm burst in tbunder upon him. Impelled by savages in their rear, the Huns began a new westward advance, and their pounding, hooved advance fell upon the Germans in torrents of terror, setting forth a vast exodus of tribesmen also westward, forsaking their familiar forsets and morasses in the hope of sanctuary beyond the limits of the flame-strewn advance of the Hun.
One group of confederated Germans under King Radagasius bounded over the Danube, seeking to console their current calamity with the treasures of Italy. He faced scant resistance as his howling, blade-swinging host tumbled over the Alps and stormed onto the plains of the Italian north, as Honorius, consoling himself through long drawn out gulps from his goblet, and fondling the feathers of his rooster, regretted his invitation to Tempest. Alaric was a Christian, with some regard and respect for the Roman achievement in its Christian affectation; Radagasius was a savage freshly exhaled from the morass of the wilderness, a Fury destitute of any such notions, as he encamped before Florence, throwing the bind of seige about it, the moans of the hungry within drowned out by the massed growl of the beasts witghout, the moans to their ears as drawn blood to their nostrils.
A harried Stilicho marched to the relief of Florence, and as he knew this was the last army available, he did not openly assault Radagasius, but merely beseiged the beseiger, through a loop of troops about that of Radagasius, forcing sudden privation upon his warriors, and a transfer of loyalty to bellies, trumping fidelity to Radagasius. To obtain the pardon of Stilicho, they seized their king on a sudden, and abandoned him to the axe, and themselves were abandoned to the profit of the slave auctioneer, their valour and vigor transferred to the defense of Italy.
Stilicho could barely wipe the sweat from his brow as a second group of confederated Germans, in 406, joined by a large number of Radagasius' warriors who had escaped Italy and sought revenge on the last day of that year, crossed the frozen Rhine and advanced into helpless Gaul, that frontier forever broken, as the Frank, the Vandal, the Burgundian never retreated again. The seeds of France were now brutally sown in the expiring name of Gaul.
Stilicho was impelled by this unparalled disaster to seek the friendship and alliance of Alaric, remembering his courage and genius, and taking care to ensure he remained a distance from Italy, such was concluded. Alaric, at length was not to be confined in the Balkans and at once transmitted to Honorius a list of demands, including gold, and a vacated province in which to permanently settle his Visigoths and establish a nation in return for his assistance to rescue Gaul from the reign of destruction.
The Senators in Rome were indignant over such a price, but the emergency of the times overuled that indignation and the gold was dispatched to purchase Gothic iron. But it did not subside completely, and one calculating Senator, Olympias, believing Stilicho a party to the Roman disgrace, poisoned Honorius' mind against him, fed on false rumor. This was at length realized in the massacre of Stilicho's allies, a desperately needed collection of veteran generals. Still not satisfied, it was decided to resolve the matter by an advance on Stilicho's camp. Alerted, Stilicho fled with some difficulty to Ravenna, where he flung open the doors of a church and claimed sanctuary, clutching altar cloth, sinking to his knees. The bishop suspended his protection through a ruse of the soldiers sent by Olympias, which succeeded in wrenching away the protective cloth from Stilicho's hands. He strode with some authority onto the steps of the church and seeing a cloud of swords descending upon him, knelt in firmness and gravity as the ambition of Olympias was advanced.
And thus, through the jealousy and ingratitude of an indolent, affrighted shadow-emperor in Ravenna, Italy was delivered to Alaric.

DECLINING AND FALLING-
STILL A DISTANCE BEFORE THE GROUND-BUT AT LEAST THERE IS AMPLE ATMOSPHERE.

Valentinian II was re-installed in Milan, and through the influence of Ambrose, embraced Catholocism with zeal and ardour, although these forceful pre-requisites of rule were not applied in the mere and mean secular realm, and they were cheerfully abdicated to the Frank, Arbogastes, in command of soldiers far more of his nationality than Valentinian's, gratifying his desire to rule. He craftily dispossesed all those ministers loyal to the young Emperor of their offices, replacing them with his compliant creatures, and soon Valentinian was little more than a captive in his palace, isolated and alone. He mused over the aid that Theodosius might offer, but this assistance was doubtful and far away, and altogether too tardy in his urgent situation. He shifted uneasily on his throne, reflecting. He called for a goblet of the local rich wine, gulped it down, and suffused by its warmth, suddenly, rashly, and fatally resolved at that moment on an open clash with Arbogastes. He flung the goblet away in an appeal to masculinity, and called for a scribe to take a dictation. This accomplished, the scroll was handed to Valentinian and Arbogates was summoned. Valentinian handed Arbogastes the scroll which declared his dismissal. Arbogastes erupted in a bellow of scornful, contemptuous laughter, and threw the scroll at Valentinan's feet. The youth flushed at this defiance, stood, and attempted, with great difficulty, attended by the laughter of all present, to draw out his sword from its scabbard. He was at length stopped, as the comedy grew tiresome, and he was hustled off to his private apartments. where he was found soon after strangled. Arbogastes might have wished to wear ther crown himself, but the world still was not yet ready for the inexplicable prodigy of direct barbarian rule, and he settled on one Eugenius, a pagan rhetorician of Rome who boasted learning and an elegant and severe demeanor, as a suitable recommendation to be Arbogastes' compliant Roman puppet on the throne (392).
Again an embassy of an usurper petitioned the acceptance of Theodosius, who again, put off the ambassador with gifts and evasive words, and quietly prepared his retaliation on behalf of Valentinian. Two years passed in preparations, until in the late summer of 394, the valor and discipline of the legions was revived by the Vandal, Stilicho, and the host of Alan and Goth and Arab, melding despite their mutual wonderments, and marched to the westward, crossed the Alps, and caught sight of the forces of Arbogastes and Eugenius in the valley of the Frigidus below, their Christian zeal inflamed by the sight of the emblem of Jupiter on the shields of the idolatrous force below, daring to oppose the invincible Cross. At a sudden they charged down the slopes upon them, but the Frankish line of Arbogastes stoutly repelled their advance, and Theodosius' forces retreated from the collision in a disordered rout, only the descending darkness of the evening protecting them from pursuit. Theodosius despaired, knelt, prayed and wept, and only was roused from his teary posture on the floor of his tent by word that many of the soldiers in Arbogastes were Cnristians an quite disposed to quit the pagan standards of their masters. Revived by this, Theodosius called his troops to arms, and early the following morning approached the slumbering camp of the enemy. They were assisted by a sudden wind, wont to blow in the Alps, which sheltered Theodosius, and scattered the camp of his adversaries, tents and troops flung about in disorder, their spear's and javelin's courses rebuffed by the gusts and sent back to rain down upon those who hurled them. The Franks were lost to terror, saw a divine reproach in their facile embrace of Jupiter, and submittted at once to Theodosius, whose cause Heaven seemed to adopt. Arbogastes took to flight, wandered midst the crags of the Alps for several days, until despair would only be driven off by the expident of steel driven deep into his chest. His puppet, Eugenius, for whom the luxury and sophistication of Rome was the compass of his days was already rattled by the primitive camp and his proximity to the barbarians. He rushed to Theodosius as a countryman, bounding into his tent on a gust of cries and threw himself before Theodosius, imploring mercy and a return to a humble and private station in Rome, in shrill exhalations of tears. They only increased as he was speedily given over to the axe, the mercy of Theodosius an obscure commodity.
Theodosius was confirmed as the sole master of the Empire, and his moment of triumph was attended by the ruin of paganism. The Statue of Victory, again restored by Eugenius to the Senate House was forever removed, and this was followed by the promulgation of his severe and noxious Code which declared the prohibition of all pagan rites, whether public or private, in a street bellow or in the musings of a heart, on pain of death adminstered by the steely zeal of a Christian magistrate or his partner in righteousness, the Inquisitor. The fire tended by the Vestals was forever quenched, and the temples were abandoned to ruin and public contempt and much private sorrow. Indeed throughout the realm the destruction of temples was encouraged; St. Martin in Gaul led a motley collection of rude monk and peasant to ravish pagan shrines and reduce the marble images of demons to lime, Apollo and Jove cast into the kiln. In Alexandria, the bishop of the city led a mob through the streets, marching on the sole surving monument to paganism in the city, the Temple of Serapis, bearing a vast, and hideous bronzen image of the deity. Till now it had been protected by the fear and the legend that if any impious hand were ever to strike the statue, the world would instantly be returned to its primordial chaos, and it was with great nervousness even amongst the Christians watching, that an intrepid member of the procession, leapt onto the bronze, and his zeal hefting an axe, brought down a portion of its jaw falling to the floor in a clatter. There was no peal of thunder announcing the overthrow of the elements, and at once a hundred hands worked in unison to bring down the statue and drag it through the streets, as behind them, the Alexandrian library was sacked and looted and garbed in flames to punish the pride and presumptions of man as works of Sophicles and Plato and Aristotle were lost forever and only empty shelves remained, the mute indictors of incalculable loss.
Everywhere, the pagans dispaired and submitted to the Gospel, their free and careless temper unable to produce martyrs to Apollo and Jupiter in the defense of their altars violated, desecrated and shattered before their eyes. In the country, paganism persisted longer, away from the stern vigilence of the Christian magistrate, and there, it relapsed into a simple nature worship, and the veneration of the winds and waters, yet persisting, even in Italy the last rustic shrine not closed until Charlemagne's age, by then a nation of saints having insensibly succeeded a race of gods, garbed in the trappings of their vanquished rivals.
Theodosius survived his victory at Frigidus by scant momths, his final illess striding forth to blight the remainer of his days, and he thusly elevated his two boys, Arcadius to the rule of the East, and Honorius to the West. In January of 395, he summoned Honorius to Milan to receive the Imperial Honors, and stopped the fall of the sceptre dropped from Theodosius' dying hand. Honorius was a feeble man, and the death of Theodius was bewailed as an irredemiable loss, for Honorius had not caught the scptre, only its shadow, as the substance of it had fallen into the hands of the Vandal, Stilicho, succeeding Arbogastes in a line of Germans who would now rule the Emperors in all but name.

HONORIUS

At this point, the Empire is permanently severed, Honorius Emperor of the West, Arcadius the first 'official' Byzantine Emperor in the East. I will now follow the last century of Roman rule in the West exclusively to its extinction, and then muse and then to consult whether I then attempt the tale of Byzantium down to the final downfall in 1453.
The feeble Honorius was at first protected by the revered memory of Theodosius, and the calamities of his reign could not quite bring his ruin, for he was scarcely culpable in them, a captive in his palace, first in Milan and then Ravenna, isolated and ignorant of events, the control of Empire fully abdicated to barbarians, Honorius oblivious to the cares of state and devoted to the cares of his pet rooster, Roma. Indeed to recount the reign of Honorius, one need but rarely ever mention his name.
The malignant person of Rufinus a negative legacy of Theodosius, that grasping creature who arose, propelled by his artistry of rhetoric through the civil ranks and into the company of emperors, where he gorged his avarice at the expense of entire provinces in his post of State Controller, and indeed was a prime force in nurturing the rage nd vengeance of Theodosius upon Thessalonica. Through Ambrose's threats, he came at last into the fold of the Church and spent the last days of Theodosius' reign in a dim facsimile of posture of regret. But the accession of Arcadius speedily dissolved his chains, and in the guise of fostering indolence, fastened them upon Arcadius. He then sought to advance his skill at the expense of Honorius, but was thwarted by the diligence of Stilicho, though of the savage Vandal tribe, a virtue in addition to martial valour dwelt in his Teuton frame, and he rose quickly through the ranks, serving with distinction under THeodosius, mastering military strategy and the greedy passions of the troops. fter his signal contributions against Eugenius, he was promoted to the rank of Master of the Soldiers, and soon after, in the midst of the final breaths parting the pale lips of Theodosius, was commended to care for his boys and the Empire.
Yet two rivals contested him, Gildo the Moor in North Africa, and the designs of Rufinus in Constantinople, disputing his claim. Rufinus loathed Stilicho and plotted his ruin, but Stilicho, animated by the danger, advanced to the East, the masses of the German soldiers with him, at the ready to smite any enemy of their Stilicho. He made a rapid march into the confines of early Byzantium and attained the vicinity of Constantinople. They halted a mile short of the walls, and to lure Rufinus, Stilicho appealed to his vanity, and sent a messenger to let him know that the Crown was in their power to bestow upon him. Rufinus strutted, swollen in breast and followed the messenger out the city gates and into the midst of the soldiers, which he regarded with studied haughtiness, walking amidst them striking poses of an Imperial sort, expecting acclamation. He recieved only silence and this animated his suspicions, but before they could communicate themselves to his limbs, sword metal at once fell upon him, his screams scarcely discernable over the din. His mangled body was carried through the city gate and cast before the feet of the affrighted Arcadius. There was a general cheer over the ruin of Rufinus, but the partisans of Rufinus about Arcadius could not hear the cheering over the din of their revenge. They too, loathed Stilcho and sought to dispossess him of Empire.
These hopes were vested in one Gildo,  swarthy Moor of North Africa, the brother of one Firmus placed by the need of Theodosius to keep the peace in Africa as he campaigned far elsewhere. The ambitious Gildo at once usurped his brother's place in the governorship, secured his position by the importatation of hearty and wild natives fetched from the depths of the desert and even beyond in the savannah of the Sudan, who formed a dance of blade about him that only civil war could dispel. The death of Theodosius confirmed his claim to a crown, and his exactions became more severe as gold was despoiled from the rich and virgins from the parents of his realm. An invitation to Gildo's table was but a pretext to test the efficacy of some new poison, and ultimately he discovered the slower toxin of hunger, cutting off the grain supply that North Africa regularly dispatched to Rome.
A general outrage of the masses suffused Rome, whose lives depended on the North African harvest, and calls redounded through the Senators, including an aging Symacchus of the need to remove Gildo. Stilicho firstly moved to secure a vast measure of grain from Gaul to refill the graneries, whilst appealing to the Gothic force that had recently inflicted doom on Eugenius. They gathered, and by 398, had sailed across the sea to commence an invasion of North Africa, led by one Mascezel, a younger son of Gildo, who had fled after a fraternal quarrel to the court in Milan.
Gildo met it by liberality to his African tribesman, and prepared to dispute the landing, and scald the presumption of the tribes of the chill north in the burning sand of the desert. At once the Moorish force was confronted by the person of Mascezel who had speedily assembled a Roman camp after landing, and quickly mounted an assault on Gildo through a rapid march. Having reached Gildo's camp, he called out to his troops, offerring one and all a general pardon, and when the troops bounded before Mascezel, led by their standard-bearer, to reject his maganaminity, Mascezel drew his sword, and severed the arm of the bearer, bringing down the emblem into the dust. The disaffected Romans pressed into Gildo's service at once joined Mascezel, and the natives beholding this stunning defection, at once fled. Left bereft of an army, Gildo also made a speedy departure, mounting horse and making a bolt for the nearby seashore, there seizing a fisherman's boat in an attempt to reach Constantinople, but the winds forbade his depatutre, and his hapless craft was impelled back to shore, where the inhabitants of a nearby village pounced upon him and threw him into the local dungeon, where soon expired of despair through the auspices of a loop of rope. His boy Mascezel was thereafter feted and feasted in Milan, but his praise was a veneer; having left the palace, and crossing a nearby bridge in sight of the walls, he was suddenly thrown off his horse into the river. Assistance was stiffled by a contemptuous smile on the face of Stilicho which communicated to one and all that the time of his use and his worth had perished as well.
The memory of the North African triumph   was soon trampled under the hooves of a new Visigothic invasion, and the frail brace upon which the rotting fabric of Rome had been barely re-affixed by a the valiant efforts of Theodosius was dashed to the ground by his death. This redounding echo was carried to the ears of the Goths and before the end of 395, the Danube frontier had been pierced again, and again the Balkans were the theatre of their rampage, now tamely submitted to by the unhappy inhabitants rapidly becoming inured to calamity. The Visigoths tore through Thrace, suddenly appearing before Constantinople, Arcadius trembling on his throne, the citizens in a panic, the markets quit in a scatter of terror, wares tumbling. The want of bravery was compensated by the geography of the city and its impregnable fortifications, and the Visigoths soon turned way from the fruitless enterprise of its capture, led by their resourceful king, schooled in war by the Romans and ultimately to humble them mightily, the name, Alaric.

Due to threats of litigation, although EVEN that is publicity, the VBC is now broadcasting children's programming in a bid to maintain our licence, available for viewing during business hours, although it does tend to rather melt when held by hands that smell of authority.....or musk....or sweat after a heavy session o-
Do enjoy, dears.

DECLINING  AND FALLIN
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This Literal Font does not seem to work too well. Ah, we do live, and perhaps even learn, dear rare Buzzycompatriots.