You men of Rome have laughed at our rough bearskins and our heavy armour, you shall clothe us with your robes of festivity! I will add to the gold and silver of your ransom, four thousand garments of silk, and three thousand pieces of scarlet cloth.

My barbarians shall be barbarians no longer! I will make patricians, epicures, Romans of them!' The members of the ill-fated embassy looked up as he paused, in mute appeal to the mercy of the triumphant conqueror; but they were not yet to be released from the crushing infliction of his rapacity and scorn.
'Hold!' he cried, 'I will have more--more still! You are a nation of feasters;--we will rival you in your banquets when we have stripped you of your banqueting robes! To the gold, the silver, the silk, and the cloth, I will add yet more--three thousand pounds weight of pepper, your precious merchandise, bought from far countries with your lavish wealth!--see that you bring it hither, with the rest of the ransom, to the last grain! The flesh of our beasts shall be seasoned for us like the flesh of yours!' He turned abruptly from the senators as he pronounced the last words, and began to speak in jesting tones and in the Gothic language to the council of warriors around him.

Some of the ambassadors bowed their heads in silent resignation; others, with the utter thoughtlessness of men bewildered by all that they had seen and heard during the interview that was now close, unhappily revived the recollection of the broken treaties of former days, by mechanically inquiring, in the terms of past formularies, what security the besiegers would require for the payment of their demands.
'Security!' cried Alaric fiercely, instantly relapsing as they spoke into his sterner mood.

'Behold yonder the future security of the Goths for the faith of Rome!' and flinging aside the curtain of the tent, he pointed proudly to the long lines of his camp, stretching round all that was visible of the walls of the fallen city.
The ambassadors remembered the massacre of the hostages of Aquileia, and the evasion of the payment of tribute-money promised in former days, and were silent as they looked through the opening of the tent.
'Remember the conditions of the ransom,' pursued Alaric in warning tones, 'remember my security that the ransom shall be quickly paid! So shall you live for a brief space in security, and feast and be merry again while your territories yet remain to you.

Go! I have spoken--it is enough!' He withdrew abruptly from the senators, and the curtain of the tent fell behind them as they passed out.