So he spake and made ready his army to take the road, exhorting them to combat. Prophecy serves to augment his vain pride. Ah! for the grudging oracles ever dumb with mystic utterance; ’tis the event alone that (too late) discloses the true meaning which the seers themselves could not read. Alaric reached the farthest confines of Liguria where flows a river with the strange name of the City.[57] There he suffered defeat and even then scarcely realized (though that defeat made it clear) that fate had tricked him with an ambiguous word.
Stilicho, too, fails not: at full speed he advanced his army clamorous for battle and spurs their march with these words: “Friends of Rome, the time has now come for you to exact vengeance for outraged Italy. Wipe out the disgrace which the investment of your emperor by his foes has brought upon you, and let your swords end the shame which the defeat on the Timavus[58] and the enemy’s passage of the Alps has caused to Rome. This is the foe whom ye so often put to flight on the plains of Greece, whom not their own valour but a world torn by civil strife has kept safe thus far, as they treacherously mock at treaties and traffic in perjury now with the West, now the East. Reflect that all the fierce peoples of Britain and the tribes who dwell on Danube’s and Rhine’s banks are watching and stand ready. Win a victory now and so be conquerors in many an unfought war. Restore Rome to her former glory; the frame of empire is tottering; let your shoulders support it. A
[57] The river on whose banks Pollentia stood. Sozomenes (ix. 6) mentions the oracle.
[58] Little is known of this battle. It is to be attributed presumably to (?) November 401 and is doubtless connected with Alaric’s attempt on Aquileia (Jerome, Contra Ruf. iii. 21).
vindicat, haec mundo pacem victoria sancit.
non in Threiciis Haemi decernimus oris
nec super Alpheas umbrantia Maenala ripas 575
constitimus; non hic Tegean Argosque tuemur:
visceribus mediis ipsoque in corde videtis