Note 102 Sozomen,1. ix. c. 10. Augustine (The City of God, l. i. c. 17) intimates that some virgins or matrons actually killed themselves to escape violation; and though he admires their spirit, he is obliged, by his theology, to condemn their rash presumption. Perhaps the good bishop of Hippo was too easy in the belief, as well as too rigid in the censure, of this act of female heroism. The twenty maidens (if they ever existed) who threw themelves into the Elbe when Magdeburg was taken by storm, have been multiplied to the number of twelve hundred. See Harte's History of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 308.

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The History Of The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire— Chapter 31