XLIII. JOVIAN TO THEODOSIUS (363-395 A.D.)…

XLIII. JOVIAN TO THEODOSIUS (363-395 A.D.)

ELECTION OF JOVIAN (FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JOVIANUS)

Three or four hours of the night had not passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate the assembly. Victor and Arinthæus collected the remains of the court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two factions, so opposite in their character and interest, in their maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious principles. The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable prefect would immediately have been declared the successor of Julian if he himself, with sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his age and infirmities, so unequal to the weight of the diadem.

The generals, perplexed by his refusal, showed a disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior officer, that they should act as they would have acted in the absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were fortunate enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they should proceed with united and deliberate counsels in the election of a lawful sovereign. While they debated, a few voices saluted Jovian, who was no more than first of the domestics, with the names of emperor and augustus. The tumultuary acclamation was instantly repeated by the guards who surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to the extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own fortune, was hastily invested with the imperial ornaments, and received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favour and protection he so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation of Jovian was the merit of his father, Count Varronian, who enjoyed in honourable retirement the fruit of his long services. In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son indulged his taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the character of a Christian and a soldier. Without being conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite the admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian, his cheerful temper and familiar wit, had gained the affection of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by the arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation was moderated by the just apprehension that the same day might terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired, were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans from their actual distress.

SAPOR ASSAILS THE ROMANS

The welcome news of the death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the ten thousand Immortals, to second and support the pursuit; and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from Diocletian and his warlike colleague, were broken and trampled down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was at length restored by the persevering valour of the Romans; the Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long summer’s day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara on the banks of the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. On the ensuing day, the barbarians, instead of harassing the march, attacked the camp of Jovian, which had been seated in a deep and sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia insulted and annoyed the weary legionaries, and a body of cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the prætorian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict, near the imperial tent. In the succeeding night the camp at Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and the impatient soldiers who had fondly persuaded themselves that the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian endeavoured to check their rashness, by representing that if they possessed sufficient skill and vigour to stem the torrent of a deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked and defenceless to the barbarians who had occupied the opposite banks.

Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he consented that five hundred Gauls and Germans, accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the army. In the silence of the night they swam the Tigris, surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the promises of his architects, who proposed to construct a floating bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered with a floor of earth and fascines. Two important days were spent in the ineffectual labour; and the Romans, who already endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the Tigris, and upon the barbarians, whose numbers and obstinacy increased with the distress of the imperial army.

THE HUMILIATION OF THE ROMANS

In this hopeless situation, the fainting spirits of the Romans were revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of Sapor had vanished: he observed with serious concern, that in the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the greatest part of his train of elephants; and the experienced monarch feared to provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the unexhausted powers of the Roman Empire; which might soon advance to relieve, or to revenge, the successor of Julian. The Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, appeared in the camp of Jovian; and declared that the clemency of his sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he would consent to spare and to dismiss the cæsar, with the relics of his captive army. The hopes of safety subdued the firmness of the Romans; the emperor was compelled, by the advice of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to embrace the offer of peace; and the prefect Sallust was immediately sent, with the general Arinthæus, to understand the pleasure of the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various pretences, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties, required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of provisions which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have continued his march with unremitting diligence; the progress of the treaty would have suspended the attacks of the barbarians; and, before the expiration of the fourth day, he might have safely reached the fruitful province of Gordyene, at the distance of only one hundred miles. The irresolute emperor, instead of breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse.

As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans should be plentifully supplied; and that they should be permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed by the hands of the Persians. But if Jovian presumed to solicit those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty tyrant of the East whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the cessation of arms, and Jovian was suffered to explore the most convenient place for the passage of the river.[b]

“But when the trumpets openly gave the signal for crossing the river,” says Ammianus, “it was dreadful to see with what ardour every individual hastened to rush into this danger, preferring himself to all his comrades in the desire of avoiding the many dangers and distresses behind him. Some tried to guide the beasts who were swimming about at random, with hurdles hurriedly put together; others, seated on bladders, and others, being driven by necessity to all kinds of expedients, sought to pass through the opposing waves by crossing them obliquely. The emperor himself with a few others crossed over in the small boats, which we said were saved when the fleet was burnt, and then sent the same vessels backwards and forwards till our whole body was brought across. And at length all of us, except such as were drowned, reached the opposite bank of the river, being saved amid our difficulties by the favour of the Supreme Deity.”[d]

As soon as the Romans had landed on the western bank, they were delivered from the hostile pursuit of the barbarians; but, in a laborious march of two hundred miles over the plains of Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and hunger. At Thilsaphata, the emperor most graciously received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains of a once flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the walls of Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had proclaimed, in the language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return; and the new prince had taken the most effectual measures to secure the allegiance of the armies and provinces of Europe, by placing the military command in the hands of those officers who, from motives of interest or inclination, would firmly support the cause of their benefactor.

The minds of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with indignation and terror, when they were informed that the unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius, and shamefully surrendered to the barbarians the important city of Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety, was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were entertained, that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous behaviour by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal conditions which were extorted from the distress of her captive armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honour by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times.

But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honour concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian. Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants, decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival, Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed, in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The principal citizens of Nisibis, who till that fatal moment had confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or at least not to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a barbarian tyrant, exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms and courage to repel the invaders of their country; they requested only the permission of using them in their own defence; and as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should implore the favour of being again admitted into the ranks of his subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present of a crown of gold convinced the citizens of their hopeless condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, “O emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your dominions!”

Jovian, who in a few weeks had easily learned to assume the habits of a prince, was displeased with freedom and offended with truth; and as he reasonably supposed that the discontent of the people might incline them to submit to the Persian government, he published an edict, under pain of death, that they should leave the city within the term of three days. The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however, in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the reinforcement of a very considerable colony, soon recovered its former splendour, and became the capital of Mesopotamia. Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has justly been considered as a memorable era in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

After Jovian had performed those engagements, which the voice of his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch.[b]

Ammianus has left us a terse description of the personal traits of the emperor. “Jovian,” he says, “was slow in his movements, of a cheerful countenance, with blue eyes, very tall, so much so that it was long before any of the royal robes could be found to fit him. He was anxious to imitate Constantius, often occupying himself with serious business till after midday, and being fond of jesting with his friends in public. He was given to the study of the Christian law, sometimes doing it marked honour; he was tolerably learned in it, very well inclined to its professors, and disposed to promote them to be judges, as was seen in some of his appointments. He was fond of eating and addicted to wine and women.”[d]

Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity; and as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the cross, the Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at the head of the legions, announced to the people the faith of their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the throne, he transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces; in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of charitable contributions. The Christians were unanimous in the loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what creed, or what synod, he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy; and the peace of the church immediately revived those eager disputes which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced from experience how much their fate would depend on the earliest impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier, hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the East were crowded with Homoöusian, and Arian, and semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the holy race; the apartments of the palace resounded with their clamours; and the ears of their prince were assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and passionate invective. The moderation of Jovian, who recommended concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sentence of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of indifference; but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he expressed for the celestial virtues of the great Athanasius. The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant’s death. The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. Before his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox devotion would be rewarded by a long and peaceful reign. Athanasius had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful, though ineffectual, prayer.

The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect. Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sank irrecoverably in the dust.

[Sidenote: [363-364 A.D.]]

In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious raillery of the people of Antioch. He was impatient to possess the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosporus to the Atlantic Ocean. By the first letters which the emperor had despatched from the camp of Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation of the Franks; and to his father-in-law Count Lucillian, who had formerly distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he thought himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Remi [Rheims], in an accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. But the moderation of Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of fidelity was administered, and taken with loyal acclamations; and the deputies of the western armies saluted their new sovereign as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana, in Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. Dadastana, an obscure town, almost at an equal distance between Ancyra and Nicæa, was marked for the fatal term of his journey and his life. After indulging himself with a plentiful, perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed.

The cause of the sudden death of Jovian was variously understood. By some it was ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapour of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaster. The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred with his predecessors’; and the sad procession was met on the road by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her tears in the embraces of an imperial husband. Her disappointment and grief were embittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother expected, every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from her arms, to appease with his blood the suspicions of the reigning prince.

VALENTINIAN AND VALENS

After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained ten days without a master. The ministers and generals still continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct the army to the city of Nicæa in Bithynia, which was chosen for the place of the election. In a solemn assembly of the civil and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again unanimously offered to the prefect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory of a second refusal; and when the virtues of the father were alleged in favour of his son, the prefect, with the firmness of a disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the inexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of character or situation, they were successively rejected; but as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust himself.

Valentinian was the son of Count Gratian, who was a native of Cibalis in Pannonia, and who, from an obscure condition, had raised himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion of his son, and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers.

The person of Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, marked with the impressions of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear; and, to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of literature; he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence and inflexible severity with which he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace by the contempt which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; and it should seem from his subsequent conduct that the indiscreet and unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however, and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; and in the various events of the Persian War, he improved the reputation which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with which he executed an important commission recommended him to the favour of Jovian, and to the honourable command of the second school, or company, of targeteers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly summoned, without guilt, and without intrigue, to assume, in the forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman Empire.

The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nicæa was of little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army. The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service might excite a party in their favour, should appear in public on the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the intercalation of the bissextile. At length, when the hour was supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new prince solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple amidst the acclamations of the troops, who were disposed in martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a loud and imperious clamour, that he should name, without delay, a colleague in the empire.

The intrepid calmness of Valentinian at last obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed the assembly: “A few minutes since it was in your power, fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now my duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities, and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But, where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall be my care. Let your conduct be dutiful and consistent. Retire to your quarters, refresh your minds and bodies; and expect the accustomed donative on the accession of the new emperor.”

The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master. Their angry clamours subsided into silent reverence; and Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in warlike pomp, to the palace of Nicæa. As he was sensible, however, of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of Dagalaiphus. “Most excellent prince,” said that officer, “if you consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love the republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans.”

The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering his intention, slowly proceeded from Nicæa to Nicomedia and Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, thirty days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus on his brother Valens; and as the boldest patriots were convinced that their opposition, without being serviceable to their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens was now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities had never been exercised in any employment, military or civil, and his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace of the empire: a devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor, whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.

Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited to support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested the spotless integrity of the prefect Sallust; and his own pressing solicitations that he might be permitted to retire from the business of the state were rejected by Valentinian with the most honourable expressions of friendship and esteem. But among the favourites of the late emperor, there were many who had abused his credulity or superstition, and who could no longer hope to be protected either by favour or justice.[62] The greater part of the ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and, notwithstanding the opposite clamours of zeal and resentment, the whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in the beginning of the spring. In the castle or palace of Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn and final division of the Roman Empire. Valentinian bestowed on his brother the rich prefecture of the East, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate government the warlike prefectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart; and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained on its former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was required for two councils and two courts: the division was made with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or infantry. When this important business had been amicably transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time. The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at Mediolanum; and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of whose language he was totally ignorant.[b]

[Sidenote: [363-369 A.D.]]

When Julian had gone, the barbarians, repulsed for a while, had once more turned towards the Roman provinces. The Alamanni and Burgundians crossed the upper Rhine, the Quadi and Sarmatians the Danube. The Franks had come out of their cantonments on the lower Rhine, and Saxon pirates again swarmed on the seas. In Britain the Picts and Scots had come down from their mountains. In Africa a Moorish chief, Firmus, had revolted. It seemed as if the whole barbarian world had risen to assail a falling and humiliated empire. Valentinian had the courage necessary to face the danger; able generals, Jovin, Sebastian, above all Theodosius, helped in this difficult task. In the year 365 he established himself in Paris that he might keep a closer watch over the barbarians, degraded the corps which had allowed their standards to be seized, and, feeling more sure of his troops after this revival of ancient discipline, he marched against the Alamanni, whom he defeated near Catelauni (Châlons) (366).

Two years later, one of their kings, Randon, surprised Mogontiacum when en fête and took much booty and many captives. Similar expeditions were on foot, and the whole Alamannic league was astir. The emperor resumed the policy of Diocletian, Tiberius, and Augustus, and sowed division among the barbarians. The Burgundians, who had already attained to a certain degree of civilisation, were gained over and opposed to the Alamanni. He himself crossed the Rhine with a numerous army and conquered the rebellious tribes near Solicinium[63] (368). He employed part of the following year in raising the fortifications which guarded the river passages, and on the Neckar, near Mannheim, began works to which he wished to attach great importance. To make the barbarians understand that the empire intended to resume its aggressive position towards them, he entered the great valley of the Mœnus (Main), which flows through the heart of Germany. Macrianus, the Alamannic king, was alarmed and sued for peace, and Valentinian returned in triumph to Augusta Trevirorum (Trèves) with his son Gratian. The poet Ausonius of Burdigala (Bordeaux), the young prince’s tutor, and Symmachus, the last orator of Rome, celebrated these exploits which gave security to Gaul.

During these operations on the Rhine those “kings of the sea,” the Saxons, had been chased from the shores they had been accustomed to pillage, and the count Theodosius, the father of the future emperor, had acquired in Britain a renown almost equal among his contemporaries to that of Agricola; but he had not a Tacitus for son-in-law. He saved the Britons from pillage by the Picts, re-established the Roman dominion, which had been nearly driven from the island, and consolidated it by a wise administration. Some time after, he brought the same talents into Africa. The exactions of the last governors and their cruelties towards the Donatists had excited such great disaffection that Firmus the Moor had been able to conquer a large part of the country. Theodosius suppressed the revolt, and, after the death of Valentinian, restored peace to the province; but, becoming involved in some obscure intrigue, in spite of his innocence and his services, he was beheaded at Carthage.

In the internal government of the provinces Valentinian was hard and often cruel. He had hardly any other punishment for crimes save death. And if we are to credit a not very reliable story, he had lodged in his palace two immense bears, which tore criminals to pieces before his eyes. In religious matters he followed the principles of tolerance, with regard to all religions, although he himself belonged to the orthodox church. The magicians alone, who were then rapidly increasing in number, were diligently hunted down. Wise laws against the exposing of children, for the management of schools, the retaining of paid doctors in Rome and the establishment in provincial towns of protectors or defensors of the city, show that he was not only a man of war. Unfortunately for the empire he died in an expedition against the Quadi. When these people, whom he intended to punish for an incursion into Illyricum, heard of his coming, they sent him a humble embassy to which he refused to listen. When he had pitilessly devastated their country, he consented to receive their deputies, but spoke to them with so much passion that he burst a blood vessel, and some moments after expired (375). The successor of Valentinian was his son Gratian, who had borne the title of Augustus since 367, and was now only seventeen. He accepted his brother Valentinian II, then only four years old, as colleague, and abandoned in his favour the prefectures of Italy and Illyricum.

INVASION OF THE GOTHS IN THE EAST (375); BATTLE OF HADRIANOPOLIS AND DEATH OF VALENS (378)

[Sidenote: [366-375 A.D.]]

During these events there reigned in the East a suspicious and weak prince, Valens, who had had to suppress the revolt of Procopius, cousin to Julian. That usurper being detected in treason was beheaded (366); but Valens, far from imitating the prudent reserve of his brother, disturbed the whole Orient by a cruel persecution directed against the magicians and those who consulted them, and also by his partiality for the Arians. The faithful of the orthodox church were once more disturbed, the bishops driven from their sees, and an Arian placed on the archiepiscopal throne at Constantinople. Still worse sufferings would have been inflicted on the Church if the gravity of the political events which filled this reign had left Valens sufficient leisure to respond to all the demands of the heretic leaders. Sapor had expelled the kings of Armenia and Iberia. Valens restored them and forced the Great King to agree to a treaty with the empire. This was a success, but unfortunately a frightful catastrophe was preparing on the Thracian border.

Procopius, when he revolted, had taken into his pay a corps of three thousand Visigoths. When the usurper was overthrown Valens endeavoured to punish the barbarians for the help they had furnished. A three years’ war ended in a treaty by which the barbarians were sent beyond the Danube, the subsidies which the empire had paid them were suppressed, and two frontier towns given in exchange. Athanaric, one of the principal leaders of the western Goths or Visigoths who lived to the north of the lower Danube, accepted this convention for his people. Bishop Ulfilas had just converted a number of the Goths to Arianism. He had compiled a translation of the Gospels in their tongue, the first written monument of their language. The manuscript is preserved at Upsala. Ulfilas had first to make an alphabet, which he borrowed in great part from that of the Greeks. Arianism was therefore to return with the barbarians during the invasion.

To that invasion we are approaching, after having seen it constantly threatening for nearly two hundred years. The people who brought it about were strangers to the Germanic race, being tribes of Huns belonging to the Mongolian race, as far as can be judged from the description which ancient writers have left us of the features and customs of these ferocious hordes. The Huns were nomads and scarcely recognised social ties. The tribes in their expeditions followed particular leaders, who sometimes, however, united for common enterprises. Attila, one of them, is apparently the first who contrived to make the entire nation recognise his authority.

All the Huns were horsemen, and knew no other dwellings than their tents or huts. As greedy and cruel as those Mongols of the Middle Ages who killed five or six million men under Jenghiz Khan, they ravaged gold and silver--not for use, because that they did not understand, but simply to possess it. Following their vagabond instincts, and in order to augment these useless treasures, they undertook disastrous expeditions against civilised peoples. Their incursions, so rapid and unlooked for, spread more terror than those of any other barbarous people of the time, for wherever they passed they destroyed, merely for the pleasure of destroying. Attila, their great chief, boasted later that grass would not spring again where his horse had passed. There was a legend that they were born in the desert of demons and witches, and their cruelty towards women, whom even the Germans in their ravages respected, seemed to confirm this unclean origin.

[Sidenote: [375-378 A.D.]]

Where they first lived and what led them to migrate towards the west, is unknown, but it seems to be established that, at the time when the Scandinavian and German tribes began to stir, the nomadic hordes of western Asia furled their tents and advanced on the west. Their march, many times interrupted and by long intervals, owing to the obstinate resistance of certain tribes, resumed its course when the obstacle had been overcome or they had attracted to them the peoples who had stopped their way. This is what happened in the time of Valens. The Huns crossed the Urals and subjugated the Alans who lived between the Volga and the Black Sea. A part of these people fled beyond the Caucasus, where their descendants still live; the rest followed the conquerors, who, spreading over the vast plains of Sarmatia, found themselves confronted by the great kingdom of the Goths.

That great German nation, which had gradually descended from the mouth of the Oder, on the Danube and Pontus Euxinus, had long remained divided under a great number of chiefs. But Hermanric had united the greater part of his tribes and founded a powerful state, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths or eastern Goths, which extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and a number of peoples had submitted to him. This kingdom barred the whole continent and, had it not already been in full course of dissolution, would no doubt have stopped the invasion.

When the aged Hermanric learned of the enemy’s approach, he made great preparations, despite his 110 years. But the vassal tribes showed little zeal for such a formidable war. Two chiefs of the Roxolani, whose sister he had caused to be trampled to death under his horse’s hoofs because her husband refused to arm for him, tried to assassinate him. Other chiefs also refused obedience and the old king in desperation fell upon his sword. His successor Whithimer was vanquished and killed. He left an infant son who was saved by Alatheus and Saphrax, two Gothic warriors who had served for a long time in the Roman armies. Leaving the bulk of the nation to make submission to the conquerors, they, with the royal child, gained the interior of the country by skilful marches and escaped the pursuit of the Huns, now occupied in fighting a new enemy. Athanaric, a chief of the western Goths, had advanced as far as the Danastris (Dniester) to defend the passage; their cavalry crossed the river during the night and attacked him in the rear. There was nothing for it but to retreat as far as the Pyretus (Pruth). There Athanaric wanted to raise fortifications from the Carpathians to the sea and might thus have arrested the Huns, but his discouraged people preferred going to beg an asylum in the territories of the empire. The brave chief himself refused such a disgrace, or did not venture to trust to the hospitality of Valens, and fled to the mountains with a few faithful warriors (375).

When the emperor was told that what remained of the Gothic nation was now suppliant to him, his flattered pride made him forget his prudence, and he opened the empire to this multitude, which still numbered two hundred thousand fighting men. The only condition imposed was that they should lay down their arms and give some of their children as hostages, who were sent to the small towns of Asia Minor. The barbarians submitted to anything. But when the imperial officers saw them disarmed they would sell them no provisions except at the highest prices. All their money was first exhausted, then their slaves, and afterwards their children, whom they sold. When they had nothing more they were reduced to taking by force what was refused to them, and went marauding through the country. They had not given up all their arms and they manufactured more. Alatheus and Saphrax, who, about the same time, forced the Danube passage and came with their comrades to join them, augmented both their numbers and their confidence. All Thrace was given up to pillage. Even Huns and Alans ran to share in the prey.

Valens collected his forces to fight them and also invoked the aid of his nephew. Gratian promised help, but a young Alamannian of his guard, away on leave among his own people, having spoken of these preparations, the Alamanni thought it a favourable opportunity to attack the denuded frontiers and their movement made it necessary to keep back the troops destined for Valens. Yet every day added to the peril of this prince. All the barbarians settled in the Danubian provinces, all the Germanic captives whom the emperors had transported there, hastened to join their brethren. For a whole year the legions vainly tried to stay the devastation. At last, in 378, Valens arrived with a part of the army of the East. Gratian was also on the march; but Valens wanted to prevent the concentration of the barbarians in a single body and advanced against them.[c]

The Goths had proposed to occupy the defiles on the road from Constantinople to Hadrianopolis, but the march of the imperial troops was conducted with so much skill and celerity, that they reached the latter place unimpeded and secured themselves in a strong camp beneath its walls. A council was held to decide on future operations.[e]

VALENS MARCHES AGAINST THE GOTHS

[Sidenote: [378 A.D.]]

On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman calendar, the emperor Valens, leaving under a strong guard his baggage and military treasure, marched from Hadrianopolis to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the city. By some mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy whilst the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace, made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun, were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the dangerous commission, was applauded.

The count of the domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous but irresistible charge of the barbarian host. The event of the battle of Hadrianopolis, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a few words; the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to extricate a body of foot, encompassed on an open plain by superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their ranks, or even to use with effect their swords and javelins.

In the midst of tumult, slaughter, and dismay, the emperor, deserted by his guards, and wounded, as it was supposed, with an arrow, sought protection among the lancearii and the mattiarii, who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost unless the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated by their exhortation, advanced to his relief; they found only a bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince, either among the living or the dead. Their search could not indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances with which some historians have related the death of the emperor. By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field of battle to a neighbouring cottage, where they attempted to dress his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But his humble retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy; they tried to force the door; they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a pile of dry fagots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a youth who dropped from the window alone escaped, to attest the melancholy tale and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of Hadrianopolis, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the fields of Cannæ.

The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery that the richest part of the imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianopolis. They hastened to possess the reward of their valour; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished army, with an intrepid resolution which was the effect of their despair and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight, and astonished the ignorant barbarians by the noise and velocity, still more than by the real effects, of the discharge. The soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the palace were united in the danger and in the defence; the furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced, by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianopolis. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude: the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household and the treasury cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianopolis to the suburbs of Constantinople.

The barbarians were surprised with the splendid appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who crowded the ramparts, the various prospect of the sea and land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the gates by a party of Saracens, who had been fortunately engaged in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian horses; their riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular war, and the northern barbarians were astonished and dismayed by the inhuman ferocity of the barbarians of the south. A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a horrid delight while he sucked the blood of his vanquished enemy. The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved from the Bosporus to the mountains which form the western boundary of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear, or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the barbarians, who no longer had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished troops of the east, spread themselves over the face of a fertile and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the Adriatic Sea.[b]

[Sidenote: [378-382 A.D.]]

Gratian, more fortunate, at the same time defeated the Alamanni near Colmar. But the Eastern Empire was without a head. Gratian could not think of adding this heavy crown to that which he already wore, and to help him in the difficult task of repairing the great catastrophe under which the nation groaned, he cast his eyes on Theodosius, son of the valiant count Theodosius.

THEODOSIUS NAMED AUGUSTUS

After his father’s unhappy end Theodosius had retired to Spain, his native country. Gratian recalled him, and on the Jan. 19, 379, gave him the title of Augustus and the two prefectures of the East and of Illyricum. Theodosius set to work bravely. Asia was quiet, thanks to an atrocious measure. All the Goths sent as hostages into the provinces had been convoked on the same day in the chief cities to receive gifts in money and land. But troops awaited them there; taken by surprise and defenceless, they had been massacred. In Thrace their brothers and fathers were avenging them. Theodosius had to reform an army, and, above all, to raise the courage of the soldiers. He succeeded in so doing by giving them the opportunity of fighting a great many small battles wherein he was careful to insure their success. These were the old tactics of Fabius Cunctator against Hannibal; and in this case they were even more successful. He allowed no stronghold to fall into the hands of the enemy, whose numbers he diminished by provoking desertions, so that, without gaining a great victory, he brought the Goths to treat.

[Sidenote: [382-388 A.D.]]

Fritigern, the conqueror of Hadrianopolis, was dead; the gallant Athanaric, his successor, had allowed himself to be allured to Constantinople, and there, dazzled by the brilliance of the gorgeous court, he persuaded his people to accept the emperor’s offers (October, 382). Theodosius, as a matter of fact, gave them what they wanted. He settled them in Thrace and Mœsia, with the charge of defending the passage of the Danube. Forty thousand warriors of the Goths were enrolled among the imperial troops.

This was really to deliver the empire into their hands; for these Goths--remaining a national body under their national leaders, with a military organisation of their own--soon felt the instincts of pillage and the need of adventure reawaken in them. A few years more, and they would take Rome after ravaging Greece and Italy, and the war they would thus carry to the very heart of the empire would level the barriers over which this flood of invasion was destined to pass.

For the time being, however, Theodosius had put an end to a deplorable situation, and the empire, believing itself saved, showed its gratitude. Those sad events of which the West was the scene, and which would lead to a reunion of the whole empire of Augustus under his authority, for a while increased his renown. The church, above all, delivered by him from Arianism, looked upon him as a second Constantine, and the epithet of “the great” has remained joined to the name of the last master of the Roman world.

Gratian, active, intelligent, and brave, was nevertheless overthrown by a usurper. Passionately fond of hunting, he forgot his princely duties, and was now usually seen surrounded by Alan archers. This preference irritated the soldiers, and the British legions proclaimed their chief, Maximus, one of the able comrades of Count Theodosius, emperor. Maximus immediately marched into Gaul. Gratian, abandoned by his troops, tried to reach the Alps, but, being overtaken near Lyons, he was put to death (August 25, 383). For this expedition Maximus had withdrawn the legions from Britain. The island, left defenceless, was soon desolated by the inroads of the Picts and Scots, and by the invasions of Saxons and Frisians.

Theodosius would gladly have avenged his benefactor, but tranquillity was not yet restored in the East, and a civil war might have lost all. He recognised the usurper as master of the Gallic prefecture on condition that he should leave that of Italy to the young Valentinian II (385). The latter’s mother, Justina, in her zeal for Arianism, sought to propagate heresy in her son’s provinces, which were by no means favourably disposed towards it. At Mediolanum the opposition was very strong. She tried to overcome it by threatening to exile Saint Ambrose, the archbishop, but the people repulsed her barbarian guards. Maximus thought the occasion favourable. He crossed the Alps, and Valentinian II fled (387) to Theodosius at Thessalonica.

This prince had already declared himself strongly opposed to the Arians. As early as the year 380 he had received baptism, had promulgated edicts in favour of orthodoxy, and expelled Damophilus, patriarch of Constantinople, from his see, which was given to Gregory of Nazianzus. A council which met in Constantinople (381) condemned the heresy afresh and confirmed the Nicene creed. Justina owed her misfortunes to her zeal for Arianism, but Theodosius had married her daughter, the beautiful Galla, so the empress, despite her imprudence, could count on the support of her son-in-law. He hesitated, however, for nearly a year until he learned that Maximus by his harshness had stirred up all the Italians against him.

[Sidenote: [388-395 A.D.]]

Theodosius entered Pannonia in the year 388, and made a diversion in Gaul by means of the Saxons and Franks. Maximus used the same weapons against him and tampered with the fidelity of his barbaric troops. Dangerous defections would have ensued had he not anticipated them by severe measures. The usurper, vanquished on the banks of the Save, was given up by his own soldiers and put to death in Aquileia. Theodosius kept no part of his conquest, but gave it up to Valentinian. To confirm the young prince’s power and extirpate both heresy and the last remains of paganism which yet lingered in the Western provinces, he stayed three years in his brother-in-law’s province. On his departure he gave him as chief minister Arbogast the Frank, who had just delivered Gaul from the Germans, and filled all offices, civil and military, with barbarians. Valentinian did not long endure this guardianship; he wished to deprive the count of all his offices. “I hold my charge from Theodosius,” answered Arbogast before the whole court, “he alone can take it from me.” Valentinian, in a violent rage, threw himself upon Arbogast, sword in hand. Some days after he was found dead (May 15, 392).

Arbogast could not hope that Theodosius would leave this murder unpunished. Not daring to proclaim himself emperor, he threw the purple robe on the shoulders of an imperial secretary, the rhetorician Eugenius. Theodosius, the avenger of orthodoxy, had the Catholic clergy on his side. Arbogast and Eugenius tried to rally to their cause all that were left of the pagans. This conduct raised the Christian population against them. A single battle, near Aquileia, put an end to this rule. Eugenius, being taken prisoner, was put to death; Arbogast slew himself (394). This time the victor retained his conquests.

This victory redoubled Theodosius’ zeal for orthodoxy. He forbade, under severe penalties, the worship of the gods, who, driven from the towns, took refuge amongst the country people (pagani), and he deprived heretics not only of all claim to honours but of the right of disposing of their property. On the other hand, numerous and wise regulations showed the monarch’s constant preoccupation with remedies for some of the evils which were harassing this moribund social order. He could not succeed, for the ills were incurable, but at least he did honour to the last days of the empire by displaying such virtue on the throne as subjects rarely had been called upon to reverence. We have seen his disinterestedness and his gratitude to his benefactor’s family; let us add that peace always reigned in his numerous family--that if he retained courtiers he also had friends.

Before his death (January 17, 395) he divided the empire between his two sons Arcadius and Honorius; an irrevocable separation which still endures in the different religion and civilisation of these two halves of the ancient world.

One great act does Theodosius honour. The people of Thessalonica had killed the governor and several imperial officers in a sedition. Under similar circumstances Theodosius had pardoned the people of Antioch (387). This time he fell into a violent rage and gave orders which cost the lives of seven thousand persons. This massacre excited a feeling of horror throughout the empire. When, some time after, Theodosius presented himself at the doors of Milan cathedral, St. Ambrose had the courage to stop him. Before all the crowd he reproached him for his crime, forbidding him to enter or approach the Holy Table. Theodosius accepted the public penance which the bishop imposed upon him in the name of God and outraged humanity. For eight months he never crossed the threshold of the church.[c]

VIRTUES OF THEODOSIUS

The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without difficulty and without reluctance; and posterity will confess that the character of Theodosius might furnish the subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws and the success of his arms rendered his administration respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practised the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings. Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table; and the warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud titles of imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent. Theodosius embraced, as his own, the children of his brother and sister; and the expressions of his regard were extended to the most distant and obscure branches of his numerous kindred. His familiar friends were judiciously selected from among those persons who, in the equal intercourse of private life, had appeared before his eyes without a mask. The consciousness of personal and superior merit enabled him to despise the accidental distinction of the purple; and he proved, by his conduct, that he had forgotten all the injuries, while he most gratefully remembered all the favours and services, which he had received before he ascended the throne of the Roman Empire.

The serious or lively tone of his conversation was adapted to the age, the rank, or the character of subjects whom he admitted into his society; and the affability of his manners displayed the image of his mind. Theodosius respected the simplicity of the good and virtuous; every art, every talent, of a useful or even of an innocent nature, was rewarded by his judicious liberality; and, except the heretics, whom he persecuted with implacable hatred, the diffusive circle of his benevolence was circumscribed only by the limits of the human race. The government of a mighty empire may assuredly suffice to occupy the time and the abilities of a mortal; yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some moments of his leisure for the instructive amusement of reading. History, which enlarged his experience, was his favourite study. The annals of Rome, in the long period of eleven hundred years, presented him with a various and splendid picture of human life; and it has been particularly observed that whenever he perused the cruel acts of Cinna, of Marius, or of Sulla, he warmly expressed his generous detestation of those enemies of humanity and freedom. His disinterested opinion of past events was usefully applied as the rule of his own actions; and Theodosius has deserved the singular commendation, that his virtues always seemed to expand with his fortune. The season of his prosperity was that of his moderation; and his clemency appeared the most conspicuous after the danger and success of the civil war. The Moorish guards of the tyrant had been massacred in the first heat of the victory, and a small number of the most obnoxious criminals suffered the punishment of the law. But the emperor showed himself much more attentive to relieve the innocent than to chastise the guilty. The oppressed subjects of the West, who would have deemed themselves happy in the restoration of their lands, were astonished to receive a sum of money equivalent to their losses; and the liberality of the conqueror supported the aged mother and educated the orphan daughters of Maximus. A character thus accomplished might almost excuse the extravagant supposition of the orator Pacatus that if the elder Brutus could be permitted to revisit the earth, the stern republican would abjure, at the feet of Theodosius, his hatred of kings; and ingenuously confess that such a monarch was the most faithful guardian of the happiness and dignity of the Roman people.

Yet the piercing eye of the founder of the republic must have discerned two essential imperfections, which might perhaps have abated his recent love of despotism. The virtuous mind of Theodosius was often relaxed by indolence, and it was sometimes inflamed by passion. In the pursuit of an important object, his active courage was capable of the most vigorous exertions; but, as soon as the design was accomplished or the danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into inglorious repose; and, forgetful that the time of a prince is the property of his people, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the innocent but trifling pleasures of a luxurious court. The natural disposition of Theodosius was hasty and choleric; and, in a station where none could resist and few would dissuade the fatal consequence of his resentment, the humane monarch was justly alarmed by the consciousness of his infirmity and of his power. It was the constant study of his life to suppress or regulate the intemperate sallies of passion; and the success of his efforts enhanced the merit of his clemency. But the painful virtue which claims the merit of victory is exposed to the danger of defeat; and the reign of a wise and merciful prince was polluted by an act of cruelty which would stain the annals of Nero or Domitian. Within the space of three years, the inconsistent historian of Theodosius must relate the generous pardon of the citizens of Antioch and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica.

TUMULT IN ANTIOCH

[Sidenote: [387 A.D.]]

The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never satisfied with their own situation, or with the character and conduct of their successive sovereigns. The Arian subjects of Theodosius deplored the loss of their churches; and, as three rival bishops disputed the throne of Antioch, the sentence which decided their pretensions excited the murmurs of the two unsuccessful congregations. The exigencies of the Gothic War, and the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion of the peace, had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of the public impositions; and the provinces of Asia, as they had not been involved in the distress were the less inclined to contribute to the relief of Europe. The auspicious period now approached of the tenth year of his reign; a festival more grateful to the soldiers, who received a liberal donative, than to the subjects, whose voluntary offerings had been long since converted into an extraordinary and oppressive burden. The edicts of taxation interrupted the repose and pleasures of Antioch; and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged by a suppliant crowd, who, in pathetic but at first in respectful language, solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their complaints as a criminal resistance; their satirical wit degenerated into sharp and angry invectives; and, from the subordinate powers of government, the invectives of the people insensibly rose to attack the sacred character of the emperor himself.

Their fury, provoked by a feeble opposition, discharged itself on the images of the imperial family, erected, as objects of public veneration, in the most conspicuous places of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his father, of his wife Flaccilla, of his two sons Arcadius and Honorius, were insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or dragged with contempt through the streets; and the indignities which were offered to the representations of imperial majesty sufficiently declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the populace. The tumult was almost immediately suppressed by the arrival of a body of archers; and Antioch had leisure to reflect on the nature and consequences of her crime. According to the duty of his office, the governor of the province despatched a faithful narrative of the whole transaction; while the trembling citizens entrusted the confession of their crime and the assurances of their repentance to the zeal of Flavian their bishop, and to the eloquence of the senator Hilarius, the friend and most probably the disciple of Libanius, whose genius, on this melancholy occasion, was not useless to his country. But the two capitals, Antioch and Constantinople, were separated by the distance of eight hundred miles; and, notwithstanding the diligence of the imperial posts, the guilty city was severely punished by a long and dreadful interval of suspense. Every rumour agitated the hopes and fears of the Antiochians, and they heard with terror that their sovereign, exasperated by the insult which had been offered to his own statues, and more especially to those of his beloved wife, had resolved to level with the ground the offending city; and to massacre, without distinction of age or sex, the criminal inhabitants, many of whom were actually driven, by their apprehensions, to seek a refuge in the mountains of Syria and the adjacent desert. At length, twenty-four days after the sedition, the general Hellebicus, and Cæsarius, master of the offices, declared the will of the emperor and the sentence of Antioch. That proud capital was degraded from the rank of a city; and the metropolis of the East, stripped of its lands, its privileges, and its revenues, was subjected, under the humiliating denomination of a village, to the jurisdiction of Laodicea.

The baths, the circus, and the theatres were shut; and, that every source of plenty and pleasure might at the same time be intercepted, the distribution of corn was abolished, by the severe instructions of Theodosius. His commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the guilt of individuals; of those who had perpetrated, and of those who had not prevented, the destruction of the sacred statues. The tribunal of Hellebicus and Cæsarius, encompassed with armed soldiers, was erected in the midst of the Forum. The noblest and most wealthy of the citizens of Antioch, appeared before them in chains; the examination was assisted by the use of torture, and their sentence was pronounced or suspended according to the judgment of these extraordinary magistrates. The houses of the criminals were exposed to sale, their wives and children were suddenly reduced from affluence and luxury to the most abject distress; and a bloody execution was expected to conclude the horrors of a day, which the preacher of Antioch, the eloquent Chrysostom, has represented as a lively image of the last and universal judgment of the world. But the ministers of Theodosius performed, with reluctance, the cruel task which had been assigned them; they dropped a gentle tear over the calamities of the people; and they listened with reverence to the pressing solicitations of the monks and hermits, who descended in swarms from the mountains. Hellebicus and Cæsarius were persuaded to suspend the execution of their sentence; and it was agreed that the former should remain at Antioch, while the latter returned, with all possible speed, to Constantinople, and presumed once more to consult the will of his sovereign.

The resentment of Theodosius had already subsided; the deputies of the people, both the bishop and the orator, had obtained a favourable audience; and the reproaches of the emperor were the complaints of injured friendship, rather than the stern menaces of pride and power. A free and general pardon was granted to the city and citizens of Antioch; the prison-doors were thrown open; the senators who despaired of their lives recovered the possession of their houses and estates; and the capital of the East was restored to the enjoyment of her ancient dignity and splendour. Theodosius condescended to praise the senate of Constantinople, who had generously interceded for their distressed brethren; he rewarded the eloquence of Hilarius with the government of Palestine, and dismissed the bishop of Antioch with the warmest expressions of his respect and gratitude. A thousand new statues arose to the clemency of Theodosius; the applause of his subjects was ratified by the approbation of his own heart; and the emperor confessed that, if the exercise of justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure of a sovereign.

THE SEDITION OF THESSALONICA

[Sidenote: [387-390 A.D.]]

The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful cause, and was productive of much more dreadful consequences. That great city, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces, had been protected from the dangers of the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous garrison. Botheric, the general of those troops, and, as it should seem from his name, a barbarian, had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who excited the impure desires of one of the charioteers of the circus. The insolent and brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order of Botheric; and he sternly rejected the importunate clamours of the multitude, who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of their favourite, and considered the skill of a charioteer as an object of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the people was imbittered by some previous disputes; and, as the strength of the garrison had been drawn away for the service of the Italian War, the feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced by desertion, could not save the unhappy general from their licentious fury. Botheric, and several of his principal officers, were inhumanly murdered: their mangled bodies were dragged about the streets; and the emperor, who then resided at Mediolanum, was surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton cruelty of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of the crime; and the merit of Botheric might contribute to exasperate the grief and indignation of his master. The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry; and he hastily resolved that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of the guilty people.

Yet his mind still fluctuated between the counsels of clemency and of revenge; the zeal of the bishops had almost extorted from the reluctant emperor the promise of a general pardon; his passion was again inflamed by the flattering suggestions of his minister, Rufinus; and, after Theodosius had despatched the messengers of death, he attempted, too late, to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of the barbarians; and the hostile preparations were concerted with the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of the circus; and such was their insatiate avidity for those amusements that every consideration of fear, or suspicion, was disregarded by the numerous spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers, who had been secretly posted round the circus, received the signal, not of the races but of a general massacre. The promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without discrimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or guilt; the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand; and it is affirmed by some writers that more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the manes of Botheric. A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in his murder, offered his own life, and all his wealth, to supply the place of one of his two sons; but, while the father hesitated with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose and unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined his suspense by plunging their daggers at the same moment into the breasts of the defenceless youths. The apology of the assassins that they were obliged to produce the prescribed number of heads, serves only to increase, by an appearance of order and design, the horrors of the massacre, which was executed by the commands of Theodosius. The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long and frequent residence at Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate city, the aspect of the streets and buildings, the dress and faces of the inhabitants, were familiar, and even present to his imagination; and Theodosius possessed a quick and lively sense of the existence of the people whom he destroyed.

THEODOSIUS AND AMBROSE

The respectful attachment of the emperor for the orthodox clergy had disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose, who united all the episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The friends and ministers of Theodosius imitated the example of their sovereign; and he observed, with more surprise than displeasure, that all his secret counsels were immediately communicated to the archbishop, who acted from the laudable persuasion that every measure of civil government may have some connection with the glory of God and the interests of the true religion. The monks and populace of Callinicum, an obscure town on the frontier of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism and by that of their bishop, had tumultuously burned a conventicle of the Valentinians and a synagogue of the Jews.

The seditious prelate was condemned, by the magistrate of the province, either to rebuild the synagogue or to repay the damage; this moderate sentence was confirmed by the emperor. But it was not confirmed by the archbishop of Milan. He dictated an epistle of censure and reproach, more suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the mark of circumcision and renounced the faith of his baptism. Ambrose considers the toleration of the Jewish, as the persecution of the Christian, religion; boldly declares that he himself, and every true believer, would eagerly dispute with the bishop of Callinicum the merit of the deed, and the crown of martyrdom; and laments in the most pathetic terms that the execution of the sentence would be fatal to the fame and salvation of Theodosius. As this private admonition did not produce an immediate effect, the archbishop, from his pulpit, publicly addressed the emperor on his throne; nor would he consent to offer the oblation of the altar, till he had obtained from Theodosius a solemn and positive declaration, which secured the impunity of the bishop and monks of Callinicum. The recantation of Theodosius was sincere; and during the term of his residence at Milan his affection for Ambrose was continually increased by the habits of pious and familiar conversation.

When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessalonica, his mind was filled with horror and anguish. He retired into the country to indulge his grief, and to avoid the presence of Theodosius. But as the archbishop was satisfied that a timid silence would render him the accomplice of his guilt, he represented, in a private letter, the enormity of the crime; which could only be effaced by the tears of penitence. The episcopal vigour of Ambrose was tempered by prudence; and he contented himself with signifying an indirect sort of excommunication, by the assurance that he had been warned in a vision not to offer the oblation in the name or in the presence of Theodosius; and by the advice that he would confine himself to the use of prayer, without presuming to approach the altar of Christ, or to receive the Holy Eucharist with those hands that were still polluted with the blood of an innocent people. The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches and by those of his spiritual father; and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan.

He was stopped in the porch by the archbishop, who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the justice of the offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented that, if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God’s own heart, had been guilty, not only of murder but of adultery. “You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance,” was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose. The rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted; and the public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of the most honourable events in the annals of the Church. According to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were established in the fourth century, the crime of homicide was expiated by the penitence of twenty years; and as it was impossible, in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica, the murderer should have been excluded from the Holy Communion till the hour of his death. But the archbishop, consulting the maxims of religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his illustrious penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the diadem; and the public edification might be admitted as a weighty reason to abridge the duration of his punishment. It was sufficient that the emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan, he should humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins.

LAST DAYS OF THEODOSIUS

[Sidenote: [390-395 A.D.]]

After the defeat and death of the tyrant of Gaul, the Roman world was in the possession of Theodosius. He derived from the choice of Gratian his honourable title to the provinces of the East: he had acquired the West by the right of conquest; and the three years which he spent in Italy were usefully employed to restore the authority of the laws and to correct the abuses which had prevailed with impunity under the usurpation of Maximus and the minority of Valentinian. The name of Valentinian was regularly inserted in the public acts; but the tender age and doubtful faith of the son of Justina appeared to require the prudent care of an orthodox guardian; and his specious ambition might have excluded the unfortunate youth, without a struggle, and almost without a murmur, from the administration, and even from the inheritance, of the empire. If Theodosius had consulted the rigid maxims of interest and policy, his conduct would have been justified by his friends; but the generosity of his behaviour on this memorable occasion has extorted the applause of his most inveterate enemies. He seated Valentinian on the throne of Milan; and, without stipulating any present or future advantages, restored him to the absolute dominion of all the provinces from which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus. To the restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his successful valour had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. Satisfied with the glory which he had acquired, by revenging the death of his benefactor and delivering the West from the yoke of tyranny, the emperor returned from Milan to Constantinople; and, in the peaceful possession of the East, insensibly relapsed into his former habits of luxury and indolence. Theodosius discharged his obligation to the brother, he indulged his conjugal tenderness to the sister of Valentinian; and posterity, which admires the pure and singular glory of his elevation, must applaud his unrivalled generosity in the use of victory.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[62] Eunapius celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings of Maximus, yet he allows that this sophist or magician, the guilty favourite of Julian and the personal enemy of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.

[63] [Salzbach according to Duruy.]

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XLIV. THE DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE (395)

ARCADIUS AND HONORIUS SUCCEED THEODOSIUS

[Sidenote: [395-397 A.D.]]

The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius, the last of the successors of Augustus and Constantine who appeared in the field at the head of their armies, and whose authority was universally acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire. The memory of his virtues still continued, however, to protect the feeble and inexperienced youth of his two sons. After the death of their father, Arcadius and Honorius were saluted, by the unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful emperors of the East and of the West; and the oath of fidelity was eagerly taken by every order of the state--the senates of old and new Rome, the clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers, and the people. Arcadius, who then was about eighteen years of age, was born in Spain, in the humble habitation of a private family. But he received a princely education in the palace of Constantinople; and his inglorious life was spent in that peaceful and splendid seat of royalty, from whence he appeared to reign over the provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Ethiopia. His younger brother, Honorius, assumed, in the eleventh year of his age, the nominal government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; and the troops, which guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed on one side to the Caledonians, and on the other to the Moors.

The great and martial prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the two princes; the defence and possession of the provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to the Western Empire;[64] but the two large dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the valour of Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East. The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective advantages of territory, riches, populousness, and military strength, were fairly balanced and compensated. The hereditary sceptre of the sons of Theodosius appeared to be the gift of nature and of their father; the generals and ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the royal infants. The gradual discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep and early impressions of loyalty.

Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of Rufinus; an odious favourite, who, in an age of civil and religious faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation of every crime. The strong impulse of ambition and avarice had urged Rufinus to abandon his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, to advance his fortune in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and ready elocution qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of the law; and his success in that profession was a regular step to the most honourable and important employments of the state. He was raised by just degrees to the station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his various functions, so essentially connected with the whole system of civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch who soon discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who long remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the covetousness of his disposition.

The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent slumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue which had raised him to the throne. But the absence, and soon afterwards the death, of the emperor confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth, whom the imperious prefect considered as his pupil rather than his sovereign. Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions without remorse and without resistance; and his malignant and rapacious spirit rejected every passion that might have contributed to his own glory or the happiness of the people. His avarice, which seems to have prevailed in his corrupt mind over every other sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East by the various arts of partial and general extortion: oppressive taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by which the tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of strangers or enemies; and the public sale of justice, as well as of favour, which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople.

The ambitious candidate eagerly solicited, at the expense of the fairest part of his patrimony, the honours and emoluments of some provincial government; the lives and fortunes of the unhappy people were abandoned to the most liberal purchaser; the public discontent was sometimes appeased by the sacrifice of an unpopular criminal, whose punishment was profitable only to the prefect of the East, his accomplice and his judge. The fate of Lucian proclaimed to the East that the prefect, whose industry was much abated in the despatch of ordinary business, was indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge. Lucian, the son of the prefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul and the enemy of Julian, had employed a considerable part of his inheritance, the fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the friendship of Rufinus and the high office of count of the East. But the new magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court and of the times; disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a virtuous and temperate administration; and presumed to refuse an act of injustice, which might have tended to the profit of the emperor’s uncle.

Arcadius was easily persuaded to resent the supposed insult; and the prefect of the East resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance which he meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles from Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the dead of the night, and spread universal consternation among a people ignorant of his design but not ignorant of his character. The count of the fifteen provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest malefactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus. Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity, which was not impeached even by the voice of an accuser, Lucian was condemned, almost without a trial, to suffer a cruel and ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the order and in the presence of their master, beat him on the neck with leather thongs, armed at the extremities with lead; and when he fainted under the violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter, to conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant city. No sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman act, the sole object of his expedition, than he returned, amidst the deep and silent curses of a trembling people, from Antioch to Constantinople; and his diligence was accelerated by the hope of accomplishing without delay the nuptials of his daughter with the emperor of the East.

But Rufinus soon experienced that a prudent minister should constantly secure his royal captive by the strong though invisible chain of habit; and that the merit, and much more easily the favour, of the absent are obliterated in a short time from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign. While the prefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret conspiracy of the favourite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople. They discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the daughter of Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent, for his bride; and they contrived to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter of Bauto, a general of the Franks in the service of Rome; and who was educated, since the death of her father, in the family of the sons of Promotus.

The young emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious care of his tutor Arsenius, eagerly listened to the artful and flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed with impatient ardour on her picture, and he understood the necessity of concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a minister who was so deeply interested to oppose the consummation of his happiness. Soon after the return of Rufinus, the approaching ceremony of the royal nuptials was announced to the people of Constantinople, who prepared to celebrate, with false and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his daughter. A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the gates of the palace; bearing aloft the diadem, the robes, and the inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators; but when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the imperial robes, and conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius. The secrecy and success with which this conspiracy against Rufinus had been conducted imprinted a mark of indelible ridicule on the character of a minister who had suffered himself to be deceived in a post where the arts of deceit and dissimulation constitute the most distinguished merit. He considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the victory of an aspiring eunuch, who had secretly captivated the favour of his sovereign; and the disgrace of his daughter, whose interest was inseparably connected with his own, wounded the tenderness, or at least the pride, of Rufinus. The character of Rufinus seemed to justify the accusations that he conspired against the person of his sovereign to seat himself on the vacant throne, and that he had secretly invited the Huns and the Goths to invade the provinces of the empire, and to increase the public confusion. The subtle prefect, whose life had been spent in the intrigues of the palace, opposed, with equal arms, the artful measures of the eunuch Eutropius; but the timid soul of Rufinus was astonished by the hostile approach of a more formidable rival--of the great Stilicho, the general, or rather the master, of the empire of the West.

The celestial gift which Achilles obtained, and Alexander envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes, has been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have been expected from the declining state of genius and of art. The muse of Claudian, devoted to his service, was always prepared to stigmatise his adversaries, Rufinus or Eutropius, with eternal infamy; or to paint in the most splendid colours the victories and virtues of a powerful benefactor. In the review of a period indifferently supplied with authentic materials, we cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of Honorius from the invectives or the panegyrics of a contemporary writer; but as Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample privilege of a poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to translate the language of fiction or exaggeration into the truth and simplicity of historic prose. His silence concerning the family of Stilicho may be admitted as a proof that his patron was neither able, nor desirous, to boast of a long series of illustrious progenitors; and the slight mention of his father, an officer of barbarian cavalry, in the service of Valens, seems to countenance the assertion, that the general, who so long commanded the armies of Rome, was descended from the savage and perfidious race of the Vandals. From his earliest youth he embraced the profession of arms; his prudence and valour were soon distinguished in the field; the horsemen and archers of the East admired his superior dexterity; and in each degree of his military promotions the public judgment always forestalled and approved the choice of the sovereign. He was named by Theodosius to ratify a solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia; he supported during that important embassy the dignity of the Roman name; and after his return to Constantinople, his merit was rewarded by an intimate and honourable alliance with the imperial family. Theodosius had been prompted, by a pious motive of fraternal affection, to adopt for his own the daughter of his brother Honorius; the beauty and accomplishments of Serena were universally admired by the obsequious court; and Stilicho obtained the preference over a crowd of rivals, who ambitiously disputed the hand of the princess and the favour of her adoptive father. The assurance that the husband of Serena would be faithful to the throne which he was permitted to approach, engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes and to employ the abilities of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho. He rose through the successive steps of master of the horse and count of the domestics, to the supreme rank of master-general of all the cavalry and infantry of the Roman, or at least of the Western, Empire; and his enemies confessed that he invariably disdained to barter for gold the rewards of merit, or to defraud the soldiers of the pay and gratifications which they deserved or claimed from the liberality of the state.

The virtues and victories of Stilicho deserved the hatred of Rufinus; and the arts of calumny might have been successful, if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic foes, whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of the empire. Theodosius continued to support an unworthy minister, to whose diligence he delegated the government of the palace and of the East; but when he marched against the tyrant Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the labours and glories of the civil war; and, in the last moments of his life, the dying monarch recommended to Stilicho the care of his sons and of the republic. The ambition and the abilities of Stilicho were not unequal to the important trust; and he claimed the guardianship of the two empires, during the minority of Arcadius and Honorius. The first measure of his administration, or rather of his reign, displayed to the nations the vigour and activity of a spirit worthy to command. He passed the Alps in the depth of winter; descended the stream of the Rhine, from the fortress of Basilia (Bâle) to the marshes of Batavia; reviewed the state of the garrisons; repressed the enterprises of the Germans; and, after establishing along the banks a firm and honourable peace, returned with incredible speed to the palace of Mediolanum. The person and court of Honorius were subject to the master-general of the West; and the armies and provinces of Europe obeyed, without hesitation, a regular authority which was exercised in the name of their young sovereign. Two rivals only remained to dispute the claims and to provoke the vengeance of Stilicho. Within the limits of Africa, Gildo the Moor maintained a proud and dangerous independence; and the minister of Constantinople asserted his equal reign over the emperor and the empire of the East.

The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common guardian of the royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division of the arms, the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and furniture of the deceased emperor. But the most important object of the inheritance consisted of the numerous legions, cohorts, and squadrons of Romans, or barbarians, whom the event of the civil war had united under the standard of Theodosius. The various multitudes of Europe and Asia, exasperated by recent animosities, were overawed by the authority of a single man; and the rigid discipline of Stilicho protected the lands of the citizen from the rapine of the licentious soldiers. Anxious, however, and impatient to relieve Italy from the presence of this formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers of the empire, he listened to the just requisition of the minister of Arcadius, declared his intention of reconducting in person the troops of the East, and dexterously employed the rumour of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private designs of ambition and revenge. The guilty soul of Rufinus was alarmed by the approach of a warrior and a rival, whose enmity he deserved; he computed, with increasing terror, the narrow space of his life and greatness; and, as the last hope of safety, he interposed the authority of the emperor Arcadius.

Stilicho, who appears to have directed his march along the sea coast of the Adriatic, was not far distant from the city of Thessalonica when he received a peremptory message to recall the troops of the East, and to declare that his nearer approach would be considered by the Byzantine court as an act of hostility. The prompt and unexpected obedience of the general of the West convinced the vulgar of his loyalty and moderation; and as he had already engaged the affection of the eastern troops, he recommended to their zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be accomplished in his absence, with less danger, perhaps, and with less reproach. Stilicho left the command of the troops of the East to Gainas the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly relied; with an assurance, at least, that the hardy barbarian would never be diverted from his purpose by any consideration of fear or remorse. The soldiers were easily persuaded to punish the enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and such was the general hatred which Rufinus had excited, that the fatal secret, communicated to thousands, was faithfully preserved during the long march from Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had resolved his death, they condescended to flatter his pride; the ambitious prefect was seduced to believe that those powerful auxiliaries might be tempted to place the diadem on his head; and the treasures which he distributed with a tardy and reluctant hand were accepted by the indignant multitude as an insult rather than as a gift. At a distance of a mile from the capital, in the Field of Mars, before the palace of Hebdomon, the troops halted; and the emperor as well as his minister advanced, according to ancient custom, respectfully to salute the power which supported their throne.

As Rufinus passed along the ranks, and disguised with studied courtesy his innate haughtiness, the wings insensibly wheeled from the right and left, and enclosed the devoted victim within the circle of their arms. Before he could reflect on the danger of his situation, Gainas gave the signal of death; a daring and forward soldier plunged his sword into the breast of the guilty prefect, and Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired at the feet of the affrighted emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds from every quarter of the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty minister, at whose frown they had so lately trembled. His right hand was cut off and carried through the streets of Constantinople, in cruel mockery, to extort contributions for the avaricious tyrant, whose head was publicly exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long lance. According to the savage maxims of the Greek republics, his innocent family would have shared the punishment of his crimes. The wife and daughter of Rufinus were indebted for their safety to the influence of religion. Her sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the people; and they were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives in the exercise of Christian devotion, in the peaceful retirement of Jerusalem.

Even Stilicho did not derive from the murder of his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though he gratified his revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under the name of a favourite, the weakness of Arcadius required a master; but he naturally preferred the obsequious arts of the eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his domestic confidence; and the emperor contemplated, with terror and aversion, the stern genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided by the jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas and the charms of Eudoxia supported the favour of the great chamberlain of the palace; the perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of the East, betrayed without scruple the interest of his benefactor; and the same troops which had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to support against him the independence of the throne of Constantinople. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the daggers of hired assassins; and a decree was obtained from the senate of Constantinople to declare him an enemy of the republic, and to confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the east. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union and reciprocal aid of all the nations to whom it had been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were instructed by their respective masters to view each other in a foreign and even hostile light; to rejoice in their mutual calamities, and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the barbarians, whom they excited to invade the territories of their countrymen. The natives of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress and to usurp the dignity of Roman senators; and the Greeks had not yet forgotten the sentiments of hatred and contempt which their polished ancestors had so long entertained for the rude inhabitants of the west. The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the inclinations of a prince and people who rejected his government, wisely abandoned Arcadius to his unworthy favourites; and his reluctance to involve the two empires in a civil war displayed the moderation of a minister who had so often signalised his military spirit and abilities. But if Stilicho had any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have betrayed the security of the capital, and the majesty of the western emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo, the brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained, as the reward of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony which was forfeited by treason; long and meritorious service in the armies of Rome raised him to the dignity of a military count; the narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by the interest of a powerful family; and the brother of Firmus was invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon usurped the administration of justice and of the finances without account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign of twelve years, the possession of an office from which it was impossible to remove him, without the danger of a civil war.

During those twelve years, the province of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with the partial resentments of domestic faction. The forms of law were often superseded by the use of poison; and if the trembling guests who were invited to the table of Gildo presumed to express their fears, the insolent suspicion served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust; and if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not less dreadful to husbands and parents. The image of the republic was revived, after a long interval, under the reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample detail of the complaints of the provincials and the crimes of Gildo, to the Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and the decree of the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms. The prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed without delay the most effectual measure for the relief of the Roman people. A large and seasonable supply of corn, collected in the inland provinces of Gaul, was embarked on the rapid stream of the Rhone, and transported by an easy navigation from the Rhone to the Tiber. During the whole term of the African war, the granaries of Rome were continually filled, her dignity was vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds of an immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and plenty.

[Sidenote: [397-398 A.D.]]

The cause of Rome and the conduct of the African war were entrusted by Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal had excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons, Gildo and Mascezel. The usurper pursued with implacable rage the life of his younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared; and Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, took refuge in the court of Mediolanum, where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman uncle. The affliction of the father was suspended only by the desire of revenge. The vigilant Stilicho judged it advisable that Mascezel should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a chosen body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served under the standard of Eugenius.

Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he endeavoured to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes of Gætulia and Ethiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with the rash presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous cavalry would trample under their horses’ feet the troops of Mascezel, and involve in a cloud of burning sand the natives of the cold regions of Gaul and Germany. As Mascezel advanced before the front with fair offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard, sunk under the weight of the blow; and the imaginary act of submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line. At this signal, the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their lawful sovereign; the barbarians, astonished by the defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom, in tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the honours of an easy and almost bloodless victory. The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to the sea shore; and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbour of Thabraca, which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province, the dominion of Honorius and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious brother.

After he had finished an important war in a single winter, Mascezel was received at the court of Mediolanum with loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret jealousy; and his death, which perhaps was the effect of accident, has been considered as the crime of Stilicho. In the passage of a bridge, the Moorish prince who accompanied the master-general of the West was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the officious haste of the attendants was restrained by a cruel and perfidious smile which they observed on the countenance of Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned.

The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the nuptials of the emperor Honorius and of his cousin Maria, the daughter of Stilicho; and this equal and honourable alliance seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive pupil. Honorius was only in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his bride, deferred by art or persuasion the consummation of the royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been ten years a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the coldness, or perhaps the debility, of his constitution. His subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passions, and consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made some progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow: but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho.

The experience of history will countenance the suspicion that a prince who was born in the purple received a worse education than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and the ambitious minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood without attempting to excite his courage or to enlighten his understanding. The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western Empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.

ALARIC INVADES GREECE

[Sidenote: [395-403 A.D.]]

If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced how painfully the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same year the Gothic nation was in arms.

The Goths, instead of being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their chiefs, were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti, which yielded only to the royal dignity of the Amali; he had solicited the command of the Roman armies, and the imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the folly of their refusal and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes might be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst of a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor Arcadius was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms: but the want of wisdom and valour was supplied by the strength of the city; and the fortifications, both of the sea and land, might securely brave the impotent and random darts of the barbarians. Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war.

The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus had devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public suspicion that he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and learning to the Gothic invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable father; and Gerontius, who commanded the provincial troops, was much better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant than to defend with courage and ability a country most remarkably fortified by the hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Œta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry.

The troops which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopylæ retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Bœotia were instantly covered by a deluge of barbarians; who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle, of the flaming villages. As soon as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth as the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic prince, with a small and select train, was admitted within the walls; he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid banquet which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that he was not ignorant of the manners of civilised nations. But the whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim.

Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of their cities.

The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their arms, their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful assistance of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not been permitted to repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of Greece.[b]

It was impossible for Stilicho to remain quiet. He hastened to anticipate a landing in Italy, and crossed over to Peloponnesus with his troops. Alaric retreated before him to the mountains of Arcadia, and was there closely hemmed in, but escaped the threatening danger of destruction. He either availed himself of a momentary negligence on the part of the Roman general, or else the latter allowed him to escape for political reasons. The Goths went from Peloponnesus to Illyricum, and here suddenly, to the astonishment of the world, the Gothic king was made commander-in-chief of this border province, and his troops declared the auxiliaries of the Eastern Roman Empire. In taking this course it was the intention of Eutropius to make use of the Goths against the hated Stilicho.

The Eastern Roman Empire was then in a terrible condition. Most of the provinces had been devastated by the Goths; Alans and other barbarians had been settled in Asia for the defence of the northern frontier, and incited by Tribigildus, one of their princes, they devastated the lands entrusted to their charge. Tribigildus was led to do this by the Goth Gainas, who sought to overthrow the minister Eutropius, and for this purpose had contrived a plot in which he had persuaded Tribigildus to join. An army sent by Eutropius against the latter was beaten; the populace of Constantinople raised a furious outcry against the minister on account of this defeat and of the devastation of Asia Minor, and Gainas, who was to have marched against Tribigildus with his Gothic troops, refused to obey unless Eutropius were dismissed. As the latter had also quarrelled with the empress, he could no longer avoid the threatening storm. He was dismissed and not only deprived of his property but also of his life. He had sought refuge from his enemies in one of the churches of the capital; in this sanctuary St. Chrysostom, who was then patriarch of Constantinople, in vain sought to protect him. Eutropius had to be given up, and was first banished to Cyprus, and then executed (399).

After his fall, the empress Eudoxia carried on the government; Gainas now openly allied himself with Tribigildus, and together they committed such fearful ravages in Asia Minor that the government had to submit to negotiate with them and at their request to deliver up three distinguished officials for execution. Fortunately Tribigildus soon died. Gainas with his hordes inflicted terrible suffering on the capital and the surrounding country, until finally the people took courage and killed more than seven thousand Goths. Another Goth, Fravitta, who had been for a long time in the service of Greece, and was summoned from Asia to help against Gainas, completely defeated him, so that the devastator had to retreat with his armies to the neighbourhood of the Danube. Soon after this he was killed in a war with the Huns.

Meanwhile, Stilicho held the reins of the government of the West with a powerful hand, and distinguished himself by brilliant achievements both as statesman and general. He vindicated the fame of the Roman arms in war against the Franks and Alamanni, and successfully and quickly suppressed a dangerous rebellion by which Gildo, the brother of Firmus, had made himself master of Africa. We know too little of the private life and character of Stilicho to determine whether he, as some writers allege, really plotted the overthrow of the emperor Honorius, so as to place his own son on the throne.

Directly after Gildo’s victory, Stilicho had to protect the empire from a new danger which was threatening it from a different quarter. The title of general of the East Roman Empire, bestowed on Alaric, had been utilised by him to such good purpose that he had completely equipped his Goths with arms from the arsenals in Illyricum, and now, incited by the court of Constantinople, he broke into the Western Empire, devastating as he went (400). As, for unknown reasons, he only pushed forward into Venetia, Stilicho had time to arm himself. He gathered troops from all sides, and when, two years later, Alaric again appeared (402), Stilicho alone did not lose courage, while all Italy trembled, and the emperor fled from Mediolanum to the stronghold of Ravenna. Stilicho conducted the war with much caution, and did not engage in battle until he could attack under favourable circumstances. The opportunity offered itself at the town of Pollentia in Liguria, and here, in the spring of 403, he accepted battle.

[Sidenote: [403-406 A.D.]]

Both sides claimed the victory, but the chief advantage was undoubtedly on the side of the Romans, who in this fight freed thousands of their imprisoned countrymen and plundered the enemy’s baggage. But the Goths were by no means conquered; for throughout the summer they maintained themselves in the vicinity of the Apennines, and held the city of Rome in constant fear. They only began to retire from Italy in the autumn; and Stilicho let them depart with their booty, thinking it advisable to build golden bridges for a flying enemy. Nevertheless he observed their march, and tried to induce individual tribes who served under Alaric to leave him; and delivered a second battle at Verona, which was more disastrous to the king of the Goths than the battle of Pollentia, for it was with only a small portion of his army that he reached his own country.

For a few years the Goths remained quiet; but soon after their departure, other Germans visited Italy with far worse devastations than theirs had been (406). Radagaisus, one of the German princes who had accompanied Alaric in his first expedition to Italy, collected to the north of the upper Danube a number of private adventurers and whole tribes, whom he promised to lead to Rome itself, saying he had heard of an opportunity and a way of getting there. His expedition resembled a national migration, as women and children accompanied the army, which according to the lowest computation amounted to two hundred thousand men, and according to another and more probable one, to double that number. Stilicho did not dare to oppose this flood, but rather tried to keep it within bounds by the manner in which he divided and disposed his troops.

[Sidenote: [407-411 A.D.]]

Watched from all sides, the barbaric hordes advanced through Lombardy and over the Apennines to the neighbourhood of Florence. Here Stilicho, who had followed the expedition, took possession of all the approaches to the mountains, threw reinforcements into the towns, had his own army supplied from the sea, and quietly awaited the result of the want which an innumerable and disorderly crowd must soon begin to feel. Hemmed in on all sides by the Roman troops, in a short time the barbarians suffered from famine, disease, and every kind of misery. Stilicho destroyed a part of this great body, but the remaining and larger portion died from want. Etruria resembled a vast grave; the leader of the unfortunate swarm in vain tried to fight his way through--he was captured and executed.

Alan horsemen, Huns, Goths, and other barbarians, who were among the Roman mercenaries, here did the best service. This is especially worthy of attention, as it shows us that the inhabitants of the most beautiful of countries, whose predecessors had conquered all nations of the earth, had sunk so low that they actually called in barbarians to defend them from other barbarians. On their weakness, their love of ease and pleasure, every law of their own government was wrecked, even when the latter sought to compel them to military service by severe punishments. They even preferred to mutilate themselves, as many did at this time so as to escape from serving in war, rather than risk dangers and hardships for the sake of their country.

For the second time Stilicho had saved Italy; his merit was greater than that of a Camillus or a Marius, as he had not, like these men, to lead a warlike nation into battle, but had first to create his army. Besides this, his whole life was not only a fight of civilisation with barbarism, but at the same time the struggle of force with underhand intrigue. For this reason we can no more weigh his private character against his political merits than we can those of other Roman heroes, especially of Camillus and Marius. Much of what has been made matter of reproach against him should rather be counted to him for merit. For instance, he kept his emperor under perpetual tutelage, but immediately after Stilicho’s death the advantage of depriving Honorius of a personal share in the government became apparent.

It is with still greater injustice that the ruin of the prosperity of Gaul and Spain in the period immediately following the expedition of Radagaisus has been attributed to him as a crime. Stilicho had brought the Roman troops from Gaul and kept them with him after the liberation of Italy, as he intended seeking out the Goths in Illyricum. The barbarians in Germany seized this opportunity to invade Gaul (407). The Quadi, Vandals, Suevi, Alani, Heruli, Saxons, Burgundiones, Franks, and other barbarians broke into the unfortunate country, wasting it as they advanced, whilst the Gepidæ, Sarmatæ, and Huns pressed into the Danubian provinces which some of these peoples had hitherto occupied, and settled there. Argentoratum (Strasburg), Noviomagus (Speier), Borbetomagus (Worms), Mogontiacum, and other towns, which until then had opposed a barrier to the barbarians, were destroyed, and like a rushing stream the invaders poured themselves over all parts of Gaul.

The like misfortune overtook the province of Britain, whence Stilicho had just recalled the Roman forces. In 407 the troops of this country, amongst whom there were only a few Roman soldiers, finding themselves thus abandoned to their fate, proclaimed one of their number, Constantine, emperor, and under his leadership crossed over into Gaul. Here Constantine was universally acknowledged as ruler by the inhabitants, who stood in much need of help. An army under the general Sarus, whom Honorius sent against him, was beaten, and Constantine also fought the barbarians successfully. As, owing to the gravity of the situation in Italy and Gaul, Honorius and his ministers could not for the moment concern themselves with Spain, Constantine considered the moment propitious to subject that country also. The religious dissensions by which Spain as well as Africa was then rent, and the persecutions which the Donatists and Arians had to suffer from the orthodox Honorius and his court ecclesiastics, facilitated Constantine’s undertaking. The Roman troops and militia were vanquished by him and almost the whole land conquered. Unfortunately Constantine replaced the brave national militia of the mountaineers, who until then had defended the passes of the Pyrenees, by mercenaries of all nations, and these shortly after made common cause with the barbarians who wandered across the mountains from Gaul, and became their companions and guides.[c]

Zosimus[d] has said of Stilicho that, during the twenty-three years that he commanded the army, never had he used the funds for his own profit, nor did he resort to any dishonest means to advance the interests of his only son. This son, however, was only twenty years old, and, although Stilicho was faithful under Theodosius and during the first part of the reign of Honorius, he might have later allowed himself to be corrupted in his official capacity. Several writers have accused him of having thought to elevate his son to the throne at the sacrifice of Honorius, his prince, his pupil, and his son-in-law, and with this point in view to have brought about the invasion of the barbarians which resulted in such evil to the Romans. Olympiodorus[e] and Zosimus, both pagans, defend him on this point: this they did because perhaps they would have been content to see Eucher usurp the empire and re-establish paganism.

Zosimus does not hesitate to say that as his trust made him minister of justice it was necessary to buy it from him either with money or with favour; that “all the best and richest lands in the empire fell into his hands either through fear of incurring his disfavour or in the desire to lean upon his reputation to pillage the people; that he acquired immense riches by despoiling the most illustrious families and ruining the provinces.” One reads the same thing, and written in a more odious manner, in Suidas,[f] who seems to have taken it from Eunape, a pagan historian of that time. Zosimus also accuses Stilicho of amusing himself “by pleasures unworthy of him and even criminal, just at the time when he had most need to husband all his time.”[h]

Whilst these events were taking place, Italy was also a prey to the barbarians. Stilicho had induced the Gothic king Alaric to quit the service of the Greek Empire for that of the Latin, and had come to some secret understanding with him, about which we are completely in the dark. According to a highly improbable report, Stilicho wished to employ Alaric’s Goths against his own master; according to another, which is just as unreliable, he intended marching with the Goths against Constantinople, and placing his son on the Greek throne. Whatever the facts may have been, Stilicho and Alaric had come to some agreement; for just as the former was marching against Constantine with his army, Alaric suddenly appeared on the frontiers of Italy, complained that he had been deceived, and demanded an indemnity. The Roman senate, which was intrusted with the management of the affair, was extremely unwilling to grant this shameful tribute and only consented at Stilicho’s urgent request.

[Sidenote: [408 A.D.]]

The minister’s enemies seized this opportunity to bring about his fall, and the weak Honorius listened to the miserable persons who in their jealousy of Stilicho worked on the emperor’s timidity to make him suspicious of the only man who could save the empire.[c]

Four days after the emperor had arrived at Pavia the soldiers, incited by Olympius, revolted. Zosimus exaggerates this sedition as much as possible. Sozomen, in speaking of it, says that all those were killed who were believed to be accomplices of Stilicho.

Zosimus narrates at length the sorrow of Stilicho when he heard of this revolt, the news of which reached him at Boulogne, and how he withdrew to Ravenna where Honorius sent two separate orders; the one for his arrest, the other for his death. When the officer who carried them handed in the first, Stilicho took refuge in the church. The next day he came forth and delivered himself into the hands of the soldiers, after they had taken an oath, in the presence of the bishop, that they had orders only to hold him as a prisoner. The officer however having given the second order, he was beheaded the 23rd of August, according to Zosimus. In which statement he is upheld by history.

Eucher, sometime before the death of his father, had retired to Rome, where he also had sought refuge in a church, and, although orders had been given to kill him wherever he was found, respect for the place prevented the officers from using violence until a special order arrived from the emperor commanding them to drag him forth. He was conducted out of Rome, probably to the emperor, who condemned him to death, whereupon he was sent back to Rome to be executed. He was almost rescued on the way by the troops of Alaric, who, as we shall see, overran all Italy. Eucher was finally executed before the first siege of Rome. “Thus,” says Orosius,[g] “was the emperor Honorius and the church also (which had everything to fear from Eucher) delivered from a great peril and avenged with scarcely any noise and by the chastisement of but a few people.”[h] Olympius, who took the place of the fallen minister, from the first used his power to ruin the empire. He filled the positions in the army and state with his creatures, put to death all Stilicho’s family, friends, and clients, on whom he could lay hands, tried in every way to gratify the ecclesiastics’ greed of power, and went so far in his hypocritical piety that when Alaric threatened Rome he appointed not the bravest and most experienced, but the most pious men as commanders.

At a time when unity was of the first necessity, he prevailed upon the emperor to make a number of intolerant decrees. It was not only ordained that no Arian was to fill a public office, but the persecution of heretics on behalf of the state was made a duty binding upon all magistrates; more than this, Honorius even gave the investigation of heresies into the hands of the clergy, and set up a special inquisitorial tribunal for the purpose. The Arian Goths in the Roman army were reduced to despair by these measures, and as, after the murder of Stilicho, the wives and children of barbarian soldiers whom the Romans held as security for their fidelity had been put to death, many thousands of Goths, Alans, and other foreigners belonging to the Roman army fled to Alaric, and offered themselves to him as combatants and guides that they might take vengeance on the Romans.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[64] [Legally the division was of the same nature as that made by Diocletian; there was still one empire divided into two administrative districts, and the two Augusti were colleagues, as before. The division was not intended to be final, and we shall see (Volume VII) that it was not absolutely so in fact; for after the abdication of Romulus, the emperor at Constantinople not only claimed sovereignty over the whole empire, but at times actually exercised his sovereignty over parts of the West.]

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XLV. THE GOTHS IN ITALY

ALARIC INVADES ITALY

The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. The king of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adversary by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho. The valour of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal or hereditary influence over the confederate barbarians could recommend him only to the friends of their country, who despised or detested the worthless characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of the new favourites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown themselves of the name of soldiers, were promoted to the command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout emperor.

Honorius excluded all persons adverse to the Catholic church from holding any office in the state; obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and most skilful officers, who adhered to the pagan worship or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. These measures, so advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful whether the barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the inhuman and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the direction or at least with the connivance of the imperial ministers. The foreign auxiliaries who had been attached to the person of Stilicho lamented his death; but the desire of revenge was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety of their wives and children, who were detained as hostages in the strong cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal, the cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of universal massacre and pillage, which involved in promiscuous destruction the families and fortunes of the barbarians. Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened the tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation and hope towards the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to pursue with just and implacable war the perfidious nation that had so basely violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic lost the assistance and deserved the enmity of thirty thousand of her bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which alone might have determined the event of the war, was transferred from the scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.

[Sidenote: [408-409 A.D.]]

In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the Gothic king maintained his superiority over an enemy whose seeming changes proceeded from the total want of counsel and design. From his camp on the confines of Italy, Alaric attentively observed the revolutions of the palace, watched the progress of faction and discontent, disguised the hostile aspect of a barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular appearance of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho; to whose virtues, when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just tribute of sincere praise and regret. The pressing invitation of the malcontents, who urged the king of the Goths to invade Italy, was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he might speciously complain that the imperial ministers still delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward his services or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to the success of his designs. He required a fair and reasonable satisfaction; but he gave the strongest assurances that as soon as he had obtained it he would immediately retire. He refused to trust the faith of the Romans, unless Ætius and Jason, the sons of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to his camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the noblest youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted by the ministers of Ravenna as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear. They disdained either to negotiate a treaty, or to assemble an army; and, with a rash confidence, derived only from their ignorance of the extreme danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war.

While they expected that the barbarians would evacuate Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms; increased his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliaries; and, without meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the morass which protected the impregnable residence of the emperor of the West. Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader of the Goths proceeded to Ariminum, stretched his ravages along the seacoast of the Adriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were respected by the barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of heaven against the oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself was confounded by the solemn asseveration of Alaric that he felt a secret preternatural impulse, which directed and even compelled his march to the gates of Rome. He felt that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most arduous enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the Goths insensibly removed the popular and almost superstitious reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passages of the Apennines, descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and as they lay encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty situation, and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved the little city of Narnia (Narni); but the king of the Goths, despising the ignoble prey, still advanced with unabated vigour; and after he had passed through the stately arches adorned with the spoils of barbaric victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome.

By a skilful disposition of his numerous forces, who impatiently watched the moment of an assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tiber, from which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions.

The first emotions of the nobles and of the people were those of surprise and indignation that a vile barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune, and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay even the adoptive mother, of the reigning emperor; but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho, and they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated or overawed by the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any evidence of her guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death.

Serena was ignominiously strangled, and the infatuated multitude were astonished to find that this cruel act of injustice did not immediately produce the retreat of the barbarians and the deliverance of the city. That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing; and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Læta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature; and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and silver to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured and fiercely disputed by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was entertained that some desperate wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow-creatures, whom they had secretly murdered; and even mothers (such was the horrid conflict of the two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human breast), even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants.

Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses, or in the streets, for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential disease. The assurances of speedy and effectual relief, which were repeatedly transmitted from the court of Ravenna, supported for some time the fainting resolution of the Romans, till at length the despair of any human aid tempted them to accept the offers of a preternatural deliverance. Pompeianus, prefect of the city, had been persuaded by the art or fanaticism of some Tuscan diviners that, by the mysterious force of spells and sacrifices, they could extract the lightning from the clouds, and point those celestial fires against the camp of the barbarians. The important secret was communicated to Innocent, the bishop of Rome; and the successor of St. Peter is accused, perhaps without foundation, of preferring the safety of the republic to the rigid severity of the Christian worship. But when the question was agitated in the senate; when it was proposed, as an essential condition, that those sacrifices should be performed in the Capitol, by the authority and in the presence of the magistrates; the majority of that respectable assembly, apprehensive either of the divine or of the imperial displeasure, refused to join in an act which appeared almost equivalent to the public restoration of paganism.

The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least in the moderation, of the king of the Goths. The senate, who in this emergency assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy. This important trust was delegated to Basilius, a senator, of Spanish extraction, and already conspicuous in the administration of provinces; and to Joannes, the first tribune of the notaries, who was peculiarly qualified, by his dexterity in business as well as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war; and that if Alaric refused them a fair and honourable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised in arms and animated by despair. “The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,” was the concise reply of the barbarian; and this rustic metaphor was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome: all the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the state or of individuals; all the rich and precious movables; and all the slaves who could prove their title to the name of barbarians. The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a modest and suppliant tone: “If such, O king! are your demands, what do you intend to leave us?” “Your lives,” replied the haughty conqueror.

They trembled and retired. Yet before they retired, a short suspension of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a more temperate negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were insensibly relaxed; he abated much of the rigour of his terms; and at length consented to raise the siege on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold, of thirty thousand pounds of silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual rents of the great estates in Italy and the provinces were intercepted by the calamities of war; the gold and gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city.

As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric they were restored in some measure to the enjoyment of peace and plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the importation of provisions from the river, and the adjacent country, was no longer obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in crowds to the free market, which was held during three days in the suburbs; and while the merchants who undertook this gainful trade made a considerable profit, the future subsistence of the city was secured by the ample magazines which were deposited in the public and private granaries. A more regular discipline than could have been expected was maintained in the camp of Alaric; and the wise barbarian justified his regard for the faith of treaties by the just severity with which he chastised a party of licentious Goths who had insulted some Roman citizens on the road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the capital, slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of Tuscany, where he proposed to establish his winter quarters; and the Gothic standard became the refuge of forty thousand barbarian slaves, who had broken their chains, and aspired, under the command of their great deliverer, to revenge the injuries and the disgrace of their cruel servitude. About the same time he received a more honourable reinforcement of Goths and Huns, whom Atawulf the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tiber, and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss, through the superior numbers of the imperial troops. A victorious leader, who united the daring spirit of a barbarian with the art and discipline of a Roman general, was at the head of a hundred thousand fighting men; and Italy pronounced with terror and respect the formidable name of Alaric.

At the distance of fifteen centuries we may be satisfied with relating the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without presuming to investigate the motives of their political conduct.

In the midst of his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious perhaps of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or perhaps the moderation which he displayed was intended only to deceive and disarm the easy credulity of the ministers of Honorius. The king of the Goths repeatedly declared that it was his desire to be considered as the friend of peace and of the Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of hostages and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals, which he more clearly expressed during the course of the negotiations, could only inspire a doubt of his sincerity as they might seem inadequate to the state of his fortune. The barbarian still aspired to the rank of master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If these modest terms should be rejected Alaric showed a disposition to relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with the possession of Noricum, an exhausted and impoverished country perpetually exposed to the inroads of the barbarians of Germany. But the hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy or interested views of the minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary remonstrances of the senate he dismissed their ambassadors under the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of honour and too feeble for an army of defence. Six thousand Dalmatians, the flower of the imperial legions, were ordered to march from Ravenna to Rome, through an open country, which was occupied by the formidable myriads of the barbarians. These brave legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell a sacrifice to ministerial folly; their general Valens, with a hundred soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law of nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of gold. Yet Alaric, instead of resenting this act of impotent hostility, immediately renewed his proposals of peace; and the second embassy of the Roman senate, which derived weight and dignity from the presence of Innocent, bishop of the city, was guarded from the dangers of the road by a detachment of Gothic soldiers.

Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favourite eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius and the empire to Jovius, the prætorian prefect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone, by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of his administration. The exile or escape of the guilty Olympius reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune; he experienced the adventures of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle to the friends of Stilicho. After the removal of Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the state. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of barbarian origin, who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been obliged to lay aside the military belt; and though he was repeatedly assured by the emperor himself that laws were not made for persons of his rank or merit, he refused to accept any partial dispensation, and persevered in honourable disgrace till he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress of the Roman government. The conduct of Gennerid, in the important station to which he was promoted or restored of master-general of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rætia, seemed to revive the discipline and spirit of the republic. From a life of idleness and want, his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise and plentiful subsistence; and his private generosity often supplied the rewards which were denied by the avarice or poverty of the court of Ravenna. The valour of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent barbarians, was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier; and his vigilant care assisted the empire with a reinforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions and such a numerous train of sheep and oxen as might have been sufficient, not only for the march of an army but for the settlement of a colony.

But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy. Instigated by the prefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious mutiny, and demanded the heads of two generals and of the two principal eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent on shipboard and privately executed; while the favour of the eunuchs procured them a mild and secure exile at Mediolanum and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch, and the barbarian Allobich succeeded to the command of the bedchamber and of the guards; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order of the count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes of the astonished emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich, in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his life in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or resentment.

Yet before they fell, Eusebius and Allobich contributed their part to the ruin of the empire by opposing the conclusion of a treaty which Jovius, from a selfish and perhaps a criminal motive, had negotiated with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls of Ariminum. During the absence of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation nor his character could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the prætorian prefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honours of Rome to the proud demands of a barbarian. This letter was imprudently communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who in the whole transaction had behaved with temper and decency, expressed, in the most outrageous language, his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation. The conference of Ariminum was hastily interrupted; and the prefect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the state and army were obliged to swear that without listening, in any circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the republic. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation. The ministers had sworn by the sacred head of the emperor himself the most inviolable of oaths.

HONORIUS RETIRES TO RAVENNA; ATTALUS NAMED EMPEROR

While the emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the security of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome, almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric. Yet such was the moderation which he still preserved or affected, that, as he moved with his army along the Flaminian way, he successively despatched the bishops of the towns of Italy to reiterate his offers of peace, and to conjure the emperor that he would save the city and its inhabitants from hostile fire and the sword of the barbarians. These impending calamities were however averted, not indeed by the wisdom of Honorius but by the prudence or humanity of the Gothic king; who employed a milder, though not less effectual, method of conquest. Instead of assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his efforts against the port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence. The accidents to which the precarious subsistence of the city was continually exposed in a winter navigation and an open road had suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar the useful design which was executed under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles which formed the narrow entrance advanced far into the sea, and firmly repelled the fury of the waves; while the largest vessels securely rode at anchor within three deep and capacious basins, which received the northern branch of the Tiber, about two miles from the ancient colony of Ostia. The Roman port insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal city, where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his demands were enforced by the positive declaration that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamours of that people and the terror of famine subdued the pride of the senate; they listened without reluctance to the proposal of placing a new emperor on the throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, prefect of the city. The grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as master-general of the armies of the West; Atawulf, with the rank of count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attalus; and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of friendship and alliance.

The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new emperor of the Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was conducted in tumultuous procession to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favourites and followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate; before whom, in a formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the majesty of the republic and of uniting to the empire the provinces of Egypt and the East, which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper, whose elevation was the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet sustained from the insolence of the barbarians. But the populace, with their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public discontent was favourable to the rival of Honorius; and the sectaries, oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some degree of countenance, or at least of toleration, from a prince who, in his native country of Ionia, had been educated in the pagan superstition, and who had since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an Arian bishop.

The first days of the reign of Attalus were fair and prosperous. An officer of confidence was sent with an inconsiderable body of troops to secure the obedience of Africa; the greatest part of Italy submitted to the terror of the Gothic powers; the city of Bononia made a vigorous and effectual resistance; the people of Mediolanum, dissatisfied perhaps with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations, the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army, Alaric conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of Ravenna; and a solemn embassy of the principal ministers, of Jovius, the prætorian prefect, of Valens, master of the cavalry and infantry, of the quæstor Potamius, and of Julian, the first of the notaries, was introduced with martial pomp into the Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide the provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors. Their proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was aggravated by the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended to promise that, if Honorius would instantly resign the purple, he should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in the peaceful exile of some remote island. So desperate, indeed, did the situation of the son of Theodosius appear to those who were the best acquainted with his strength and resources, that Jovius and Valens, his minister and his general, betrayed their trust, infamously deserted the sinking cause of their benefactor, and devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of his more fortunate rival. Astonished by such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at the approach of every servant, at the arrival of every messenger. He dreaded the secret enemies who might lurk in his capital, his palace, his bedchamber; and some ships lay ready in the harbour of Ravenna to transport the abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the emperor of the East.

But there is a providence (such at least was the opinion of the historian Procopius) that watches over innocence and folly; and the pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a seasonable reinforcement of four thousand veterans unexpectedly landed in the port of Ravenna. To these valiant strangers, whose fidelity had not been corrupted by the factions of the court, he committed the walls and gates of the city; and the slumbers of the emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension of imminent and internal danger. The favourable intelligence which was received from Africa, suddenly changed the opinions of men, and the state of public affairs. The troops and officers, whom Attalus had sent into that province, were defeated and slain; and the active zeal of Heraclian maintained his own allegiance, and that of his people. The faithful count of Africa transmitted a large sum of money, which fixed the attachment of the imperial guards; and his vigilance in preventing the exportation of corn and oil, introduced famine, tumult, and discontent into the walls of Rome.

ATTALUS DEPOSED; ROME SACKED BY ALARIC

[Sidenote: [409-410 A.D.]]

The failure of the African expedition was the source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of Attalus; and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated from the interest of a prince, who wanted spirit to command or docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were adopted, without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and the obstinate refusal of the senate, to allow, in the embarkation, the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic king was exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the rank of patrician, and who afterward excused his double perfidy by declaring, without a blush, that he had only seemed to abandon the service of Honorius, more effectually to ruin the cause of the usurper. In a large plain near Ariminum, and in the presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and barbarians, the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem and purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius.

The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles of Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the imperial ministers, whose insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His indignation was kindled by the report that a rival chieftain, that Sarus, the personal enemy of Atawulf and the hereditary foe of the house of Balti, had been received into the palace. At the head of three hundred followers, that fearless barbarian immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna; surprised, and cut in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; re-entered the city in triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary, by the voice of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the emperor.

The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was expiated a third time by the calamities of Rome. The king of the Goths, who no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hope of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilised so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.

The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a vanquished city, discovered some regard for the laws of humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the rewards of valour and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy and effeminate people; but he exhorted them, at the same time, to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, several of the Christian Goths displayed the fervour of a recent conversion; and some instances of their uncommon piety and moderation are related, and perhaps adorned, by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers.

While the barbarians roamed through the city in quest of prey, the humble dwelling of an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the service of the altar, was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He immediately demanded, though in civil language, all the gold and silver in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate, of the richest materials and the most curious workmanship. The barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition, addressed to him in the following words: “These,” said she, “are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience. For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend.” The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a messenger to inform the king of the treasure which he had discovered; and received a peremptory order from Alaric, that all the consecrated plate and ornaments should be transported, without damage or delay, to the church of the Apostle. From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal Hill, to the distant quarter of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in order of battle through the principal streets, protected, with glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who bore aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the martial shouts of the barbarians were mingled with the sound of religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of age or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned work, Concerning the City of God, was professedly composed by St. Augustine to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar satisfaction, this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his adversaries by challenging them to produce some similar example, of a town taken by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been able to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries.

In the sack of Rome some rare and extraordinary examples of barbarian virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of the Vatican and the Apostolic churches could receive a very small proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more especially of the Huns, who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers to the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect, without any breach of charity or candour, that in the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed and every restraint was removed, the precepts of the gospel seldom influenced the behaviour of the Gothic Christians. The writers the best disposed to exaggerate their clemency, have freely confessed that a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and that the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies, which remained without burial during the general consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever the barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of forty thousand slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes which they had formerly received were washed away in the blood of the guilty or obnoxious families. The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and the ecclesiastical historian has selected an example of female virtue for the admiration of future ages.

A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious remark of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her obstinate resistance he drew his sword, and with the anger of a lover slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still continued to brave his resentment and to repel his love, till the ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully conducted her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on condition that they should restore her inviolate to the arms of her husband. Such instances of courage and generosity were not extremely common. The brutal soldiers satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination or the duties of their female captives; and a nice question of casuistry was seriously agitated, whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost by their misfortune the glorious crown of virginity? There were other losses indeed of a more substantial kind, and more general concern. It cannot be presumed that all the barbarians were at all times capable of perpetrating such amorous outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or chastity, protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of a rape. But avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to the different tastes and tempers of mankind, may be procured by the possession of wealth.

In the pillage of Rome, a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight; but after these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe. The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapacious barbarians, who proceeded by threats, by blows, and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of hidden treasure. Visible splendour and expense were alleged as the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who expired under the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary treasures.

The edifices of Rome, though the damage has been much exaggerated, received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At their entrance through the Salarian Gate they fired the adjacent houses to guide their march, and to distract the attention of the citizens; the flames, which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of Sallust remained in the age of Justinian a stately monument of the Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his devout assertion, that the wrath of heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage; and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes, was levelled in the dust by the stroke of lightning.

Whatever might be the numbers of equestrian or plebeian rank who perished in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that only one senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. But it was not easy to compute the multitudes who, from an honourable station and a prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives and exiles. As the barbarians had more occasion for money than for slaves, they fixed at a moderate price the redemption of their indigent prisoners; and the ransom was often paid by the benevolence of their friends or the charity of strangers. The captives who were regularly sold, either in open market or by private contract, would have legally regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for a citizen to lose or to alienate. But as it was soon discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might be provoked to murder their useless prisoners; the civil jurisprudence had been already qualified by a wise regulation that they should be obliged to serve the moderate term of five years, till they had discharged by their labour the price of their redemption. The nations who invaded the Roman Empire had driven before them into Italy whole troops of hungry and affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude than of famine. The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the most distant places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror and desolation along the sea coast of Campania and Tuscany, the little island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the Argentarian promontory, repulsed or eluded their hostile attempts; and at so small a distance from Rome great numbers of citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that sequestered spot. 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 Italian fugitives were dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of Bethlehem, the solitary residence of St. Jerome and his female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex and every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune. This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the globe.

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. Yet, when the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced to confess that infant Rome had formerly received more essential injury from the Gauls, than she had now sustained from the Goths in her declining age. The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence that the ravages of the barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by the troops of Charles V, a Catholic prince, who styled himself emperor of the Romans.

The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine months in the possession of the imperialists; and every hour was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the ferocious multitude, but in the later capture under Charles V, the commander, the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the attack on the walls; and the death of the general removed every restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Germans. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an unsettled state of society, with the polished vices which spring from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition, to assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same era, the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New World; but their high-spirited valour was disgraced by gloomy pride, rapacious avarice, and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the pursuit of fame and riches, they had improved, by repeated practice, the most exquisite and effectual methods of torturing their prisoners; many of the Castilians who pillaged Rome were familiars of the holy inquisition; and some volunteers, perhaps, were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico. The Germans were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the Spaniards; and the rustic or even savage aspect of those Tramontane warriors, often disguised a simple and merciful disposition. But they had imbibed, in the first fervour of the Reformation, the spirit as well as the principles of Luther. It was their favourite amusement to insult or destroy the consecrated objects of Catholic superstition: they indulged, without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy of every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of the inhabitants of modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to subvert the throne of Antichrist, to purify, with blood and fire, the abominations of the spiritual Babylon.

The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the sixth day, might be the result of prudence; but it was not surely the effect of fear. At the head of an army, encumbered with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian Way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country.

DEATH OF ALARIC; SUCCESSION OF ATAWULF

[Sidenote: [410-412 A.D.]]

Whether fame, or conquest, or riches were the object of Alaric, he pursued that object with an indefatigable ardour which could neither be quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No sooner had he reached the extreme land of Italy, than he was attracted by the neighbouring prospect of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession of Sicily he considered only as an intermediate step to the important expedition which he already meditated against the continent of Africa. The straits of Rhegium and Messina are twelve miles in length, and, in the narrowest passage, about one mile and a half broad; and the fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and unskilful mariners. Yet as soon as the first division of the Goths had embarked, a sudden tempest arose, which sunk or scattered many of the transports; their courage was daunted by the terrors of a new element; and the whole design was defeated by the premature death of Alaric, which fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term of his conquests.

The brave Atawulf, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was unanimously elected to succeed to his throne. The character and political system of the new king of the Goths may be best understood from his conversation with an illustrious citizen of Narbo Martius, who afterwards, in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, related it to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius. “In the full confidence of valour and victory, I once aspired,” said Atawulf, “to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted state; and that the fierce untractable humour of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish, that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman Empire.” With these pacific views, the successor of Alaric suspended the operations of war, and seriously negotiated with the imperial court a treaty of friendship and alliance. It was the interest of the ministers of Honorius, who were now released from the obligation of their extravagant oath, to deliver Italy from the intolerable weight of the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their service against the tyrants and barbarians who infested the provinces beyond the Alps. Atawulf, assuming the character of the Roman general, directed his march from the extremity of Campania to the southern province of Gaul. His troops, either by force or agreement, occupied the cities of Narbo Martius, Tolosa (Toulouse), and Burdigala (Bordeaux); and though they were repulsed by Count Bonifacius from the walls of Massilia, they soon extended their quarters from the Mediterranean to the ocean. The oppressed provincials might exclaim, that the miserable remnant, which the enemy had spared, was cruelly ravished by their pretended allies; yet some specious colours were not wanting to palliate or justify the violence of the Goths. The cities of Gaul, which they attacked, might perhaps be considered as in a state of rebellion against the government of Honorius; the articles of the treaty, or the secret instructions of the court, might sometimes be alleged in favour of the seeming usurpations of Atawulf; and the guilt of any irregular, unsuccessful act of hostility might always be imputed, with an appearance of truth, to the ungovernable spirit of a barbarian host, impatient of peace or discipline. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual to soften the temper, than to relax the courage, of the Goths; and they had imbibed the vices, without imitating the arts and institutions, of civilised society.

[Sidenote: [412-414 A.D.]]

The professions of Atawulf were probably sincere, and his attachment to the cause of the republic was secured by the ascendant which a Roman princess had acquired over the heart and understanding of the barbarian king. Placidia, the daughter of the great Theodosius, and of Galla his second wife, had received a royal education in the palace of Constantinople. The marriage of Atawulf and Placidia was consummated before the Goths retired from Italy; and the solemn, perhaps the anniversary, day of their nuptials was afterwards celebrated in the house of Ingenuus, one of the most illustrious citizens of Narbo Martius in Gaul. The bride, attired and adorned like a Roman empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented himself with a less honourable seat by her side (414).

After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Goths, some secret counsellor was permitted, amidst the factions of the palace, to heal the wounds of that afflicted country. By a wise and humane regulation, the eight provinces which had been the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence of five years; the ordinary tribute was reduced to one-fifth, and even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful institution of the public posts. By another law the lands which had been left without inhabitants or cultivation, were granted, with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbours who should occupy, or the strangers who should solicit them; and the new possessors were secured against the future claims of the fugitive proprietors. About the same time a general amnesty was published in the name of Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all the involuntary offences, which had been committed by his unhappy subjects during the term of the public disorder and calamity.

A decent and respectful attention was paid to the restoration of the capital; the citizens were encouraged to rebuild the edifices which had been destroyed or damaged by hostile fire; and extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from the coast of Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of the barbarians, were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and pleasure; and Albinus, prefect of Rome, informed the court that in a single day he had taken an account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers. In less than seven years, the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated; and the city appeared to resume its former splendour and tranquillity.

This apparent tranquillity was soon disturbed by the approach of a hostile armament from the country which afforded the daily subsistence of the Roman people. Heraclian, count of Africa, who, under the most difficult and distressful circumstances, had supported with active loyalty the cause of Honorius, was tempted, in the year of his consulship, to assume the character of a rebel and the title of emperor. The ports of Africa were immediately filled with the naval forces at the head of which he prepared to invade Italy; and his fleet, when it cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber, indeed surpassed the fleets of Xerxes and Alexander, if all the vessels, including the royal galley and the smallest boat, did actually amount to the incredible number of thirty-two hundred.

Yet with such an armament, which might have subverted or restored the greatest empire of the earth, the African usurper made a very faint and feeble impression on the provinces of his rival. As he marched from the port, along the road which leads to the gates of Rome, he was encountered, terrified, and routed, by one of the imperial captains; and the lord of this mighty host, deserting his fortune and his friends, ignominiously fled with a single ship. When Heraclian landed in the harbour of Carthage, he found that the whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned to their allegiance. The rebel was beheaded in the ancient temple of Memory; his consulship was abolished, and the remains of his private fortune, not exceeding the moderate sum of four thousand pounds of gold, were granted to the brave Constantius, who had already defended the throne which he afterwards shared with his feeble sovereign. Honorius viewed with supine indifference the calamities of Rome and Italy, but the rebellious attempts of Attalus and Heraclian against his personal safety awakened for a moment the torpid instinct of his nature. He was probably ignorant of the causes and events which preserved him from these impending dangers; and as Italy was no longer invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyrants beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius.

CONSTANTINE AND GERONTIUS; CONSTANTIUS

[Sidenote: [411-413 A.D.]]

The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the legions of Britain, had been successful; and seemed to be secure. His title was acknowledged from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules; and, in the midst of the public disorder, he shared the dominion and the plunder of Gaul and Spain with the tribes of barbarians, whose destructive progress was no longer checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees. Stained with the blood of the kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted from the court of Ravenna, with which he secretly corresponded, the ratification of his rebellious claims. Constantine engaged himself, by a solemn promise, to deliver Italy from the Goths; advanced as far as the banks of the Po; and after alarming, rather than assisting, his pusillanimous ally, hastily returned to the palace of Arles, to celebrate, with intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious triumph. But this transient prosperity was soon interrupted and destroyed by the revolt of Count Gerontius, the bravest of his generals, who, during the absence of his son Constans, a prince already invested with the imperial purple, had been left to command in the provinces of Spain.

For some reason, of which we are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem, placed it on the head of his friend Maximus, who fixed his residence at Tarraco (Tarragona), while the active count pressed forwards through the Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans, before they could prepare for their defence. The son was made prisoner at Vienna, and immediately put to death; and the unfortunate youth had scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation of his family, which had tempted or compelled him sacrilegiously to desert the peaceful obscurity of the monastic life. The father maintained a siege within the walls of Arelate (Arles); but those walls must have yielded to the assailants, had not the city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian army.

The name of Honorius, the proclamation of a lawful emperor, astonished the contending parties of the rebels. Gerontius, abandoned by his own troops, escaped to the confines of Spain, and rescued his name from oblivion by the Roman courage which appeared to animate the last moments of his life. In the middle of the night, a great body of his perfidious soldiers surrounded and attacked his house, which he had strongly barricaded. His wife, a valiant friend of the nation of the Alani, and some faithful slaves, were still attached to his person; and he used, with so much skill and resolution, a large magazine of darts and arrows, that above three hundred of the assailants lost their lives in the attempt. His slaves, when all the missile weapons were spent, fled at the dawn of day; and Gerontius, if he had not been restrained by conjugal tenderness, might have imitated their example; till the soldiers, provoked by such obstinate resistance, applied fire on all sides to the house. In this fatal extremity he complied with the request of his barbarian friend, and cut off his head. The wife of Gerontius, who conjured him not to abandon her to a life of misery and disgrace, eagerly presented her neck to his sword; and the tragic scene was terminated by the death of the count himself, who, after three ineffectual strokes, drew a short dagger, and sheathed it in his heart.[65] The unprotected Maximus, whom he had invested with the purple, was indebted for his life to the contempt that was entertained of his power and abilities. The caprice of the barbarians who ravaged Spain, once more seated this imperial phantom on the throne; but they soon resigned him to the justice of Honorius; and the tyrant Maximus, after he had been shown to the people of Ravenna and of Rome, was publicly executed.

The general, Constantius was his name, who raised by his approach the siege of Arles and dissipated the troops of Gerontius, was born a Roman; and this remarkable distinction is strongly expressive of the decay of military spirit among the subjects of the empire. The strength and majesty which were conspicuous in the person of that general marked him, in the popular opinion, as a candidate worthy of the throne, which he afterwards ascended. In the familiar intercourse of private life, his manners were cheerful and engaging: nor would he sometimes disdain, in the license of convivial mirth, to vie with the pantomimes themselves in the exercises of their ridiculous profession. But when the trumpet summoned him to arms; when he mounted his horse, and bending down (for such was his singular practice) almost upon the neck, fiercely rolled his large animated eyes round the field, Constantius then struck terror into his foes, and inspired his soldiers with the assurance of victory. He had received from the court of Ravenna the important commission of extirpating rebellion in the provinces of the West; and the pretended emperor Constantine, after enjoying a short and anxious respite, was again besieged in his capital by the arms of a more formidable enemy. Yet this interval allowed time for a successful negotiation with the Franks and Alamanni; and his ambassador, Edobic, soon returned, at the head of an army, to disturb the operations of the siege of Arles.

The Roman general, instead of expecting the attack in his lines, boldly, and perhaps wisely, resolved to pass the Rhone and to meet the barbarians. His measures were conducted with so much skill and secrecy, that while they engaged the infantry of Constantius in the front, they were suddenly attacked, surrounded, and destroyed by the cavalry of his lieutenant Ulfilas, who had silently gained an advantageous post in their rear. The remains of the army of Edobic were preserved by flight or submission, and their leader escaped from the field of battle to the house of a faithless friend, who too clearly understood that the head of his obnoxious guest would be an acceptable and lucrative present for the imperial general. On this occasion, Constantius behaved with the magnanimity of a genuine Roman. Subduing or suppressing every sentiment of jealousy, he publicly acknowledged the merit and services of Ulfilas; but he turned with horror from the assassin of Edobic, and sternly intimated his commands, that the camp should no longer be polluted by the presence of an ungrateful wretch, who had violated the laws of friendship and hospitality.

The usurper, who beheld from the walls of Arelate the ruin of his last hopes, was tempted to place some confidence in so generous a conqueror. He required a solemn promise for his security; and after receiving, by the imposition of hands, the sacred character of a Christian presbyter, he ventured to open the gates of the city. But he soon experienced that the principles of honour and integrity, which might regulate the ordinary conduct of Constantius, were superseded by the loose doctrines of political morality. The Roman general, indeed, refused to sully his laurels with the blood of Constantine; but the abdicated emperor and his son Julian were sent under a strong guard into Italy; and before they reached the palace of Ravenna, they met the ministers of death.

At a time when it was universally confessed that almost every man in the empire was superior in personal merit to the princes whom the accident of their birth had seated on the throne, a rapid succession of usurpers, regardless of the fate of their predecessors, still continued to arise. This mischief was peculiarly felt in the provinces of Spain and Gaul, where the principles of order and obedience had been extinguished by war and rebellion. Before Constantine resigned the purple, and in the fourth month of the siege of Arles, intelligence was received in the imperial camp that Jovinus had assumed the diadem at Mogontiacum, in the Upper Germany, at the instigation of Goar, king of the Alani, and of Guntiarius, king of the Burgundians; and that the candidate, on whom they had bestowed the empire, advanced with a formidable host of barbarians, from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Rhone. Every circumstance is dark and extraordinary in the short history of the reign of Jovinus. It was natural to expect that a brave and skilful general, at the head of a victorious army, would have asserted, in a field of battle, the justice of the cause of Honorius.

The hasty retreat of Constantius might be justified by weighty reasons; but he resigned, without a struggle, the possession of Gaul; and Dardanus, the prætorian prefect, is recorded as the only magistrate who refused to yield obedience to the usurper. When the Goths, two years after the siege of Rome, established their quarters in Gaul, it was natural to suppose that their inclination could be divided only between the emperor Honorius, with whom they had formed a recent alliance, and the degraded Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the occasional purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in a moment of disgust (for which it is not easy to assign a cause or a date), Atawulf connected himself with the usurper of Gaul; and imposed on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating the treaty, which ratified his own disgrace. We are again surprised to read that, instead of considering the Gothic alliance as the firmest support of his throne, Jovinus upbraided, in dark and ambiguous language, the officious importunity of Attalus; that, scorning the advice of his great ally, he invested with the purple his brother Sebastian; and that he most imprudently accepted the service of Sarus, when that gallant chief, the soldier of Honorius, was provoked to desert the court of a prince who knew not how to reward or punish.

[Sidenote: [413-415 A.D.]]

Atawulf, educated among a race of warriors, who esteemed the duty of revenge as the most precious and sacred portion of their inheritance, advanced with a body of ten thousand Goths to encounter the hereditary enemy of the house of Balti. He attacked Sarus at an unguarded moment, when he was accompanied only by eighteen or twenty of his valiant followers. United by friendship, animated by despair, but at length oppressed by multitudes, this band of heroes deserved the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies; and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils, than he was instantly despatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose alliance which Atawulf still maintained with the usurpers of Gaul. He again listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and soon satisfied the brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he would immediately transmit to the palace of Ravenna the heads of the two tyrants, Jovinus and Sebastian.

The king of the Goths executed his promise without difficulty or delay; the helpless brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were abandoned by their barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of Valentia was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of Gaul. The emperor, chosen by the Roman senate, who had been promoted, degraded, insulted, restored, again degraded, and again insulted, was finally abandoned to his fate; but when the Gothic king withdrew his protection, he was restrained, by pity or contempt, from offering any violence to the person of Attalus. The unfortunate Attalus, who was left without subjects or allies, embarked in one of the ports of Spain in search of some secure and solitary retreat; but he was intercepted at sea, conducted to the presence of Honorius, led in triumph through the streets of Rome or Ravenna, and publicly exposed to the gazing multitude on the second step of the throne of his invincible conqueror. The same measure of punishment with which, in the days of his prosperity, he was accused of menacing his rival, was inflicted on Attalus himself; he was condemned, after the amputation of two fingers, to a perpetual exile in the isle of Lipara, where he was supplied with the decent necessaries of life. The remainder of the reign of Honorius was undisturbed by rebellion; and it may be observed, that in the space of five years, seven usurpers had yielded to the fortune of a prince who was himself incapable either of counsel or of action.

The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had approved the friendship of Atawulf, and restored Gaul to the obedience of his brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with the situation and temper of the king of the Goths. He readily accepted the proposal of turning his victorious arms against the barbarians of Spain; the troops of Constantius intercepted his communication with the seaports of Gaul, and gently pressed his march towards the Pyrenees; he passed the mountains, and surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcino (Barcelona). The course of his victories was soon interrupted by domestic treason. He had imprudently received into his service one of the followers of Sarus, a barbarian of a daring spirit but of a diminutive stature, whose secret desire of revenging the death of his beloved patron was continually irritated by the sarcasms of his insolent master. Atawulf was assassinated in the palace of Barcelona; the laws of the succession were violated by a tumultuous faction; and a stranger to the royal race, Sigeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on the Gothic throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the six children of Atawulf, the issue of a former marriage, whom he tore without pity from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop. The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful compassion which she might have excited in the most savage breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar captives, was compelled to march on foot above twelve miles, before the horse of a barbarian, the assassin of a husband whom Placidia loved and lamented.

[Sidenote: [415-418 A.D.]]

But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge; and the view of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of his usurpation. After the death of Sigeric, the free choice of the nation bestowed the Gothic sceptre on Wallia, whose warlike and ambitious temper appeared in the beginning of his reign extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from Barcino to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he reached the southern promontory of Spain, and from the rock now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar contemplated the neighbouring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the designs of conquest which had been interrupted by the death of Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks. In this disposition, the successor of Atawulf no longer refused to listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by the real or supposed approach of a numerous army, under the conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated and observed, Placidia was honourably restored to her brother, six hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths, and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire.

A bloody war was instantly excited among the barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest, the event of which must be favourable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter of their common enemies. The Spanish War was obstinately supported during three campaigns, with desperate valour and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Bætica. He slew in battle the king of the Alani; and the remains of those Scythian wanderers who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallæcia; where they still continued, in a narrow compass, and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements; he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny of the imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to regret the time of their barbarian servitude.

His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the Danube, were established, according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the second Aquitania, a maritime province between the Garumna (Garonne) and the Liger (Loire), under the jurisdiction of Bordeaux. The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighbouring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Tolosa, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. About the same time, in the last years of the reign of Honorius, the Goths, the Burgundiones, and the Franks obtained a permanent seat and dominion in the provinces of Gaul. The liberal grant of the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian allies was confirmed by the lawful emperor; the lands of the First or Upper Germany were ceded to those formidable barbarians; and they gradually occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces which still retain, with the titles of Duchy and of County, the national appellation of Burgundy.

The Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of the Roman Republic, were soon tempted to imitate the invaders whom they had so bravely resisted. Augusta Trevirorum, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands; and the humble colony which they so long maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheldt, till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second or Lower Germany.

The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to violate the public peace. The odious name of conquerors was softened into the mild and friendly appellation of the “guests” of the Romans; and the barbarians of Gaul, more especially the Goths, repeatedly declared that they were bound to the people by the ties of hospitality, and to the emperor by the duty of allegiance and military service.

[Sidenote: [409-423 A.D.]]

Whilst Italy was ravaged by the Goths, and a succession of feeble tyrants oppressed the provinces beyond the Alps, the British island separated itself from the body of the Roman Empire. The regular forces which guarded that remote province had been gradually withdrawn; and Britain was abandoned, without defence, to the Saxon pirates and the savages of Ireland and Caledonia. The Britons, reduced to this extremity, no longer relied on the tardy and doubtful aid of a declining monarchy. They assembled in arms, repelled the invaders, and rejoiced in the important discovery of their own strength. Afflicted by similar calamities, and actuated by the same spirit, the Armorican provinces (a name which comprehended the maritime countries of Gaul, between the Seine and the Loire) resolved to imitate the example of the neighbouring island. They expelled the Roman magistrates, who acted under the authority of the usurper Constantine; and a free government was established among a people who had so long been subject to the arbitrary will of a master. The independence of Britain and Armorica was soon confirmed by Honorius himself, the lawful emperor of the West; and the letters, by which he committed to the new states the care of their own safety, might be interpreted as an absolute and perpetual abdication of the exercise and rights of sovereignty (409).[b]

FOOTNOTES

[65] The praises which Sozomen has bestowed on this act of despair, appear strange and scandalous in the mouth of an ecclesiastical historian. He observes that the wife of Gerontius was a Christian, and that her death was worthy of her religion and of immortal fame.

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