The day which ends its moral rule will begin the epoch of humanity." A remarkable utterance anywhere; not least so within the hearing of the stream which flows over the grave of Alaric.
One goes to bed early at Cosenza; the night air is dangerous, and--Teatro Garibaldi still incomplete--darkness brings with it no sort of pastime.

I did manage to read a little in my miserable room by an antique lamp, but the effort was dispiriting; better to lie in the dark and think of Goth and Roman.
Do the rivers Busento and Crati still keep the secret of that "royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome"?
It seems improbable that the grave was ever disturbed; to this day there exists somewhere near Cosenza a treasure-house more alluring than any pictured in Arabian tale.

It is not easy to conjecture what "spoils and trophies" the Goths buried with their king; if they sacrificed masses of precious metal, then perchance there still lies in the river-bed some portion of that golden statue of _Virtus_, which the Romans melted down to eke out the ransom claimed by Alaric.

The year 410 A.D.was no unfitting moment to break into bullion the figure personifying Manly Worth.

"After that," says an old historian, "all bravery and honour perished out of Rome.".