A. D. 400-^—422. 215 



Nola in Campania * : but it could only be an improvement upon the 

 bells adapted to churches ; for bells of gold, which founded, are men- 

 tioned in the book of Exodus [c. 28.] Every claflical reader knows, 

 that inftruments of brafs, which feem to have been bells, were found- 

 ed in Rome, to give notice to the people, when the public baths were 

 ready f . 



409 — ^The Britons, abandoned to the ravages of the Saxons, Pichts, 

 Scots, and Attacots, by the degenerate emperor Honorius, who did not 

 dare to venture his perfon on the outfide of the walls of Ravenna, re- 

 fumed their independence ; and, trufting to their own courage and ex- 

 ertions, they found that thefe were fufficient, without any foreign aid, 

 to deliver their country from the invaders. If their feceffion could de- 

 rive any validity from tiae confcnt or approbation of fuch a fovereign 

 as Honorius, that was alfo beftowed in letters v/hich he addreffed to the 

 cities or ftates of Britain, wherein he exhorted them to take the ma- 

 nagement of their aflfliirs into their own hands. The example of the 

 Britons was foon followed by their neighbours on the nearell coafl: of 

 Gaul, who alio withdrew their allegiance from a mafter incapable of 

 affording them any protedion. YLofimi Hiji. L. iv.] 



410 — Alaric, the great king of the Goths, after having humbled 

 Rome by exadling a tribute of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of 

 filver, 4,000 garments of filk (or fericum), 3,000 fl<ins, or fleeces, of a 

 purple, fcarlet, or crimfon, colour, and 3,000 pounds of pepper 'J:, by 

 three fieges, and the creation and degradation of a vaflal emperor, took, 

 pofleffion of the no-longer-proud and infulting capital, gave his foldiers 

 permiflion to feize the accumulated plunder of eight hundred years (for 

 fo long was it lince the city had been taken by the Gauls), and in fome 

 degree avenged upon Rome the caufe of mankind. {Zojimi HiJi. L. v.] 



419 — Theodolius, the emperor of the Eaft, was fo fenlible of the im- 

 portance of a naval force, that he prohibited his fubjeds, under pain of 

 death, from teaching the art of fhip-building to the barbarians, i. e. na- 

 tions not fubjed: to the Roman empire. [Cod. T'heod. L. ii, tit. 40.] 



422 — It might be fuppofed, that the Britons, pofTefled of independ- 

 ence, and improved in agriculture, arts, fcience, and manufadures, by 



* Thefe bells are called nolis and catnpaiKs in the the money without melting down the (latues of 



Latin of the fiicceeding ages. feveral gold and filver deities, among which Zofi- 



f Bells (tintinabula) are mentioned by Plautus, mus particularly regrets the goddefs Virtus or Va— 



\_Trinum. ci&. iv, fc. 3] and by Varro, as quoted lour, the deftuiilion of which, he fays, was the 



by Pliny, [i. xxxvi, c. 13] authors who lived about extinftion of the laft fpark of fortitude and viitue 



hvc hundred years before Paulinus. Jofephus \_/in- among the Romans.— The meaning of the words 



tiq. L. iii, c. II, 12, or 13, as numbered in the i>a- y.oxy.coapii ^i^fiara is uncertain: the lirll was a very 



rious cdilions} fays, tliat the wide end of the trum- expenfive colour, but whether purple, fcarlet, or 



pets, made in the camp of Mofes, was in the form nf crimfon, is unknown : the fecond is tranflated by 



a bell, which inferi that the form ef them was the Mr. Gibbon pieces of Jitie cloth. It appears from 



fame in his days as at prefent. Pliny [Z. viii, c. 48] that they had a method of 



I Rome, now a fubordinate city, could not raifc dying the wool upon the living fheep. 



