But as it
was soon discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger
their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might
be provoked to murder their useless prisoners; the civil jurisprudence
had been already qualified by a wise regulation that they should be
obliged to serve the moderate term of five years, till they had
discharged by their labor the price of their redemption.
The nations who invaded the Roman Empire had driven before them, into
Italy, whole troops of hungry and affrighted provincials, less
apprehensive of servitude than of famine. The calamities of Rome and
Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the
most distant places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror
and desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the little
island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the Argentarian
promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile attempts; and at so small
a distance from Rome, great numbers of citizens were securely concealed
in the thick woods of that sequestered spot.
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