ABSTRACT
THE same Cassiodorus reports in subsequent sections of the same book that ‘after Alaric, king of the Goths, glutted with sacking the city of Rome, had received the vessels of the Apostle Peter when they were brought by his men, he at once held an enquiry and learnt the cause of the situation. He then ordered them to be carried back to the holy shrines 1 by the hands of those who had snatched them away, so that the avarice which on its plundering course had committed the crime should obliterate its enormity by a generous act of piety. Is there any wonder, however, if he refused to snatch away the vessels of the revered saints, when, after being challenged by Stilicho, he had enriched himself by so thorough a sack of the City?’ 2
