Text #145
. Select Letters of St. Jerome[Jerom. Ep. 127. Translated by F. A. Wright. William Heinemann. 1933 p. 463]
While these things were taking place in Jebus, a dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold, and that when they had been thus despoiled they were again beleaguered, so as to lose not only their substance but their lives. The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell by the sword, and there were but a few found to be made prisoners. The rage of hunger had recourse to impious food; men tore one another’s limbs, and the mother did not spare the baby at her breast, taking again within her body that which her body had just brought forth.1
Letter CXXVII “To Principia” was written A.D. 412 as mentioned on p. 439 [nE] ↩