高考英语 可能考的名著《HISTORY OF ROMAN-3》30素材

《HISTORY OF ROMAN-3》Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.Part I. Revolt Of The Goths. - They Plunder Greece. - Two GreatInvasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus. - They Are RepulsedBy Stilicho. - The Germans Overrun Gaul. - Usurpation OfConstantine In The West. - Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho. If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of theirobligations to the great Theodosius, they were too soonconvinced, how painfully the spirit and abilities of theirdeceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edificeof the republic. He died in the month of January; and before theend of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was inarms. ^1 The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independentstandard; and boldly avowed the hostile designs, which they hadlong cherished in their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, whohad been condemned, by the conditions of the last treaty, to alife of tranquility and labor, deserted their farms at the firstsound of the trumpet; and eagerly resumed the weapons which theyhad reluctantly laid down. The barriers of the Danube werethrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from theirforests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poetto remark, "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over thebroad and icy back of the indignant river." ^2 The unhappynatives of the provinces to the south of the Danube submitted tothe calamities, which, in the course of twenty years, were almostgrown familiar to their imagination; and the various troops ofBarbarians, who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularlyspread from woody shores of Dalmatia, to the walls ofConstantinople. ^3 The interruption, or at least the diminution,of the subsidy, which the Goths had ...