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.