[51] Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic.

The first momen of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny.

[52] [Footnote 49: Claudian and Prudentius must be strictly examined, to reduce the figures, and extort the historic sense, of those poets.] [Footnote 50: Et gravant en airain ses freles avantages De mes etats conquis enchainer les images.
The practice of exposing in triumph the images of kings and provinces was familiar to the Romans.

The bust of Mithridates himself was twelve feet high, of massy gold, (Freinshem.Supplement.Livian.ciii.

47.)] [Footnote 51: The Getic war, and the sixth consulship of Honorius, obscurely connect the events of Alaric's retreat and losses.] [Footnote 52: Taceo de Alarico...