The ample patrimonies,
which many senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if
they had time, and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country,
to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most illustrious
of these fugitives was the noble and pious Proba, the widow of the
prefect Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful
subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and
successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the
consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by
the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of
immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at
sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter Laeta,
and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin Demetrias, to the coast of
Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the
fruits, or the price, of her estates, contributed to alleviate the
misfortunes of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself
was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who
basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to
the lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants.
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