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Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.
Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great
Invasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are
Repulsed By Stilicho.—The Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation
Of Constantine In The West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II. Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III. |
Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great
Invasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are
Repulsed By Stilicho.—The Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation
Of Constantine In The West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.
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. 1 The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed the hostile designs, which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor, deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poet to remark, "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant river." 2 The unhappy natives of the provinces to the south of the Danube submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination; and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia, to the walls of Constantinople. 3 The interruption, or at least the diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of their revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for the unwarlike sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was inflamed by the weakness, or treachery, of the minister of Arcadius. The frequent visits of Rufinus to the camp of the Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected to imitate, were considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty correspondence, and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare the private estates of the unpopular praefect. 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; 4 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 valor 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. 5
1 (return)
[ The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of
Constantinople, are distinctly mentioned by Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii.
7-100,) Zosimus, (l. v. 292,) and Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 29.)]
2 (return)
[—
Alii per toga ferocis
Danubii solidata ruunt; expertaque remis
Frangunt stagna rotis.
Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the metaphors and properties of liquid water, and solid ice. Much false wit has been expended in this easy exercise.]
3 (return)
[ Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavors to comfort his friend
Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew, Nepotian, by
a curious recapitulation of all the public and private misfortunes of
the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 200, &c.]
4 (return)
[ Baltha or bold: origo mirifica, says Jornandes, (c. 29.)
This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France, in the
Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc; under the corrupted
appellation of Boax; and a branch of that family afterwards settled in
the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom. ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53.) The
lords of Baux, near Arles, and of seventy-nine subordinate places, were
independent of the counts of Provence, (Longuerue, Description de la
France, tom. i. p. 357).]
5 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. v. p. 293-295) is our best guide for the
conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so many
rays of historic light.]
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 Oeta, a steep and woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry. They stretched from east to west, to the edge of the sea-shore; and left, between the precipice and the Malian Gulf, an interval of three hundred feet, which, in some places, was contracted to a road capable of admitting only a single carriage. 6 In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful general; and perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have kindled some sparks of military ardor in the breasts of the degenerate Greeks. The troops which had been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; 7 and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia 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. The travellers, who visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes was less indebted for her preservation to the strength of her seven gates, than to the eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens, and the important harbor of the Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the delay and danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and 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 civilized nations. 8 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. The distance between Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles; but the bad road, an expressive name, which it still bears among the Greeks, was, or might easily have been made, impassable for the march of an enemy. The thick and gloomy woods of Mount Cithaeron covered the inland country; the Scironian rocks approached the water's edge, and hung over the narrow and winding path, which was confined above six miles along the sea-shore. 9 The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age, was terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to the Aegean Sea. The confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart, had tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice of the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province. 10 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. 11 The vases and statues were distributed among the Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse which was justified by the example of the heroic times. 12 The descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more formidable than Alaric. "If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man, advance:—and thou wilt find men equal to thyself." 13 From Thermopylae to Sparta, the leader of the Goths pursued his victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonists: but one of the advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently asserted, that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable Aegis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles; 14 and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles, it would perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus to the common benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled, that the mind of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs of Homer, and the fame of Achilles, had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith, which he had devoutly embraced, taught him to despise the imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism: and the mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the calamities of Greece. 15
6 (return)
[ Compare Herodotus (l. vii. c. 176) and Livy, (xxxvi. 15.)
The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each successive
ravisher.]
7 (return)
[ He passed, says Eunapius, (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93, edit.
Commelin, 1596,) through the straits, of Thermopylae.]
8 (return)
[ In obedience to Jerom and Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii. 191,)
I have mixed some darker colors in the mild representation of Zosimus,
who wished to soften the calamities of Athens.
Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres.
Synesius (Epist. clvi. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes, that Athens, whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul's avarice, was at that time less famous for her schools of philosophy than for her trade of honey.]
9 (return)
[—
Vallata mari Scironia rupes,
Et duo continuo connectens aequora muro
Isthmos.
—Claudian de Bel. Getico, 188.
The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias, (l. i. c. 44, p. 107, edit. Kuhn,) and our modern travellers, Wheeler (p. 436) and Chandler, (p. 298.) Hadrian made the road passable for two carriages.]
10 (return)
[ Claudian (in Rufin. l. ii. 186, and de Bello Getico,
611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene of rapine and
destruction.]
11 (return)
[ These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. l. v. 306) were
transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the tears of
Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was ignorant of the
value of an original picture, possessed the purest source of good taste,
a benevolent heart, (Plutarch, Symposiac. l. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit.
Wechel.)]
12 (return)
[ Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience of
those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their hearts,
to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a passion (of
Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable delicacy by Racine.]
13 (return)
[ Plutarch (in Pyrrho, tom. ii. p. 474, edit. Brian) gives
the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked Sparta with
25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants, and the defence of that open
town is a fine comment on the laws of Lycurgus, even in the last stage
of decay.]
14 (return)
[ Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) had so nobly
painted him.]
15 (return)
[ Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates that a
troop of monks betrayed Greece, and followed the Gothic camp. * Note:
The expression is curious: Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53, edit. Boissonade.—M.]
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. 16 A numerous fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy; and the troops, after a short and prosperous navigation over the Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked on the isthmus, near the ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous country of Arcadia, the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became the scene of a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals not unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman at length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a considerable loss from disease and desertion, gradually retreated to the lofty mountain of Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus, and on the frontiers of Elis; a sacred country, which had formerly been exempted from the calamities of war. 17 The camp of the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters of the river 18 were diverted into another channel; and while they labored under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After these precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to enjoy his triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious dances, of the Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards, spread themselves over the country of their allies, which they stripped of all that had been saved from the rapacious hands of the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the favorable moment to execute one of those hardy enterprises, in which the abilities of a general are displayed with more genuine lustre, than in the tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison of Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce the intrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf of Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his captives, and his spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least half a mile in breadth. 19 The operations of Alaric must have been secret, prudent, and rapid; since the Roman general was confounded by the intelligence, that the Goths, who had eluded his efforts, were in full possession of the important province of Epirus. This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to conclude the treaty, which he secretly negotiated, with the ministers of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war compelled Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his rivals, from the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the enemy of Rome, the honorable character of the ally and servant of the emperor of the East.
16 (return)
[ For Stilicho's Greek war, compare the honest narrative of
Zosimus (l. v. p. 295, 296) with the curious circumstantial flattery of
Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 172-186, iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487.) As
the event was not glorious, it is artfully thrown into the shade.]
17 (return)
[ The troops who marched through Elis delivered up their
arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of a rural
life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege, and they
suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more within their magic
circle. See a learned and judicious discourse on the Olympic games,
which Mr. West has prefixed to his translation of Pindar.]
18 (return)
[ Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the fact
without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus, (i. Cons. Stil. l. i.
185.)
—-Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis
Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum pergit amores.
Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and deep bed, which runs through Elis, and falls into the sea below Cyllene. It had been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the Augean stable. (Cellarius, tom. i. p. 760. Chandler's Travels, p. 286.)]
19 (return)
[ Strabo, l. viii. p. 517. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3.
Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different points
the distance between the two lands.]
A Grecian philosopher, 20 who visited Constantinople soon after the death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions concerning the duties of kings, and the state of the Roman republic. Synesius observes, and deplores, the fatal abuse, which the imprudent bounty of the late emperor had introduced into the military service. The citizens and subjects had purchased an exemption from the indispensable duty of defending their country; which was supported by the arms of Barbarian mercenaries. The fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace the illustrious dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who disdained the salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire the riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the stone of Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and safety of the devoted state. The measures which Synesius recommends, are the dictates of a bold and generous patriot. He exhorts the emperor to revive the courage of his subjects, by the example of manly virtue; to banish luxury from the court and from the camp; to substitute, in the place of the Barbarian mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of their laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his school; to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure, and to arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the laborious husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might deserve the name, and would display the spirit, of Romans, he animates the son of Theodosius to encounter a race of Barbarians, who were destitute of any real courage; and never to lay down his arms, till he had chased them far away into the solitudes of Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of ignominious servitude, which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the captive Helots. 21 The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal, applauded the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius. Perhaps the philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in the language of reason and virtue, which he might have used to a Spartan king, had not condescended to form a practicable scheme, consistent with the temper, and circumstances, of a degenerate age. Perhaps the pride of the ministers, whose business was seldom interrupted by reflection, might reject, as wild and visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the measure of their capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents of office. While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of Alaric to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum. The Roman provincials, and the allies, who had respected the faith of treaties, were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece and Epirus should be so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror was received as a lawful magistrate, in the cities which he had so lately besieged. The fathers, whose sons he had massacred, the husbands, whose wives he had violated, were subject to his authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The use to which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm and judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments of their own destruction; and the Barbarians removed the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of their courage. 22 The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious standard; and, with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains, the master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths. 23 Armed with this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires, he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the courts of Arcadius and Honorius; till he declared and executed his resolution of invading the dominions of the West. The provinces of Europe which belonged to the Eastern emperor, were already exhausted; those of Asia were inaccessible; and the strength of Constantinople had resisted his attack. But he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy, which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs. 25
20 (return)
[ Synesius passed three years (A.D. 397-400) at
Constantinople, as deputy from Cyrene to the emperor Arcadius. He
presented him with a crown of gold, and pronounced before him the
instructive oration de Regno, (p. 1-32, edit. Petav. Paris, 1612.) The
philosopher was made bishop of Ptolemais, A.D. 410, and died about 430.
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 490, 554, 683-685.]
21 (return)
[ Synesius de Regno, p. 21-26.]
22 (return)
[—qui foedera rumpit
Ditatur: qui servat, eget: vastator Achivae
Gentis, et Epirum nuper populatus inultam,
Praesidet Illyrico: jam, quos obsedit, amicos
Ingreditur muros; illis responsa daturus,
Quorum conjugibus potitur, natosque peremit.
Claudian in Eutrop. l. ii. 212. Alaric applauds his own policy (de Bell Getic. 533-543) in the use which he had made of this Illyrian jurisdiction.]
23 (return)
[ Jornandes, c. 29, p. 651. The Gothic historian adds, with
unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore quaerere regna,
quam alienis per otium subjacere.
Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis,
Non sua vis tutata diu, dum foedera fallax
Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
—-Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]
25 (return)
[ Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem.
This authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event. But as
it was not accomplished within the term which has been rashly fixed the
interpreters escaped through an ambiguous meaning.]
The scarcity of facts, 26 and the uncertainty of dates, 27 oppose our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from Thessalonica, through the warlike and hostile country of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; his passage of those mountains, which were strongly guarded by troops and intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the conquest of the provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed a considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious and slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable suspicion, that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of the Danube; and reenforced his army with fresh swarms of Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into the heart of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter of Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, 28 wisely preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the same bishops, was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual exile on a desert island. 29 The old man, 30 who had passed his simple and innocent life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his knowledge, were confined within the little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff supported his aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in his infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to the undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary trees, 31 must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a detachment of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his family; and the power of Alaric could destroy this happiness, which he was not able either to taste or to bestow. "Fame," says the poet, "encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the Barbarian army, and filled Italy with consternation:" the apprehensions of each individual were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and the most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects, meditated their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African coast. The public distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition. 32 Every hour produced some horrid tale of strange and portentous accidents; the Pagans deplored the neglect of omens, and the interruption of sacrifices; but the Christians still derived some comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints and martyrs. 33
26 (return)
[ Our best materials are 970 verses of Claudian in the poem
on the Getic war, and the beginning of that which celebrates the sixth
consulship of Honorius. Zosimus is totally silent; and we are reduced
to such scraps, or rather crumbs, as we can pick from Orosius and the
Chronicles.]
27 (return)
[ Notwithstanding the gross errors of Jornandes, who
confounds the Italian wars of Alaric, (c. 29,) his date of the
consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian (A.D. 400) is firm and respectable.
It is certain from Claudian (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 804)
that the battle of Polentia was fought A.D. 403; but we cannot easily
fill the interval.]
28 (return)
[ Tantum Romanae urbis judicium fugis, ut magis obsidionem
barbaricam, quam pacatoe urbis judicium velis sustinere. Jerom, tom.
ii. p. 239. Rufinus understood his own danger; the peaceful city was
inflamed by the beldam Marcella, and the rest of Jerom's faction.]
29 (return)
[ Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who was
persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerom, (Jortin's Remarks, vol.
iv. p. 104, &c.) See the original edict of banishment in the Theodosian
Code, xvi. tit. v. leg. 43.]
30 (return)
[ This epigram (de Sene Veronensi qui suburbium nusquam
egres sus est) is one of the earliest and most pleasing compositions of
Claudian. Cowley's imitation (Hurd's edition, vol. ii. p. 241) has
some natural and happy strokes: but it is much inferior to the original
portrait, which is evidently drawn from the life.]
31 (return)
[
Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum
Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus.
A neighboring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees.
In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and the English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks under a more general expression.]
32 (return)
[ Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix: but
fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds of the
Italians.]
33 (return)
[ From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that the
general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in Campania, where
that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]
The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by the preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury in which he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that there existed on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the successor of Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending danger, till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to those timid counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person, and his faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone 34 had courage and authority to resist his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome and Italy to the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had been lately detached to the Rhaetian frontier, and as the resource of new levies was slow and precarious, the general of the West could only promise, that if the court of Milan would maintain their ground during his absence, he would soon return with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic king. Without losing a moment, (while each moment was so important to the public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake, ascended the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an Alpine winter, and suddenly repressed, by his unexpected presence, the enemy, who had disturbed the tranquillity of Rhaetia. 35 The Barbarians, perhaps some tribes of the Alemanni, respected the firmness of a chief, who still assumed the language of command; and the choice which he condescended to make, of a select number of their bravest youth, was considered as a mark of his esteem and favor. The cohorts, who were delivered from the neighboring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial standard; and Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote troops of the West, to advance, by rapid marches, to the defence of Honorius and of Italy. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the safety of Gaul was protected only by the faith of the Germans, and the ancient terror of the Roman name. Even the legion, which had been stationed to guard the wall of Britain against the Caledonians of the North, was hastily recalled; 36 and a numerous body of the cavalry of the Alani was persuaded to engage in the service of the emperor, who anxiously expected the return of his general. The prudence and vigor of Stilicho were conspicuous on this occasion, which revealed, at the same time, the weakness of the falling empire. The legions of Rome, which had long since languished in the gradual decay of discipline and courage, were exterminated by the Gothic and civil wars; and it was found impossible, without exhausting and exposing the provinces, to assemble an army for the defence of Italy.
34 (return)
[ Solus erat Stilicho, &c., is the exclusive commendation
which Claudian bestows, (del Bell. Get. 267,) without condescending to
except the emperor. How insignificant must Honorius have appeared in his
own court.]
35 (return)
[ The face of the country, and the hardiness of Stilicho,
are finely described, (de Bell. Get. 340-363.)]
36 (return)
[
Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis,
Quae Scoto dat frena truci.
—-De Bell. Get. 416.
Yet the most rapid march from Edinburgh, or Newcastle, to Milan, must have required a longer space of time than Claudian seems willing to allow for the duration of the Gothic war.]
When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the unguarded palace of Milan, he had probably calculated the term of his absence, the distance of the enemy, and the obstacles that might retard their march. He principally depended on the rivers of Italy, the Adige, the Mincius, the Oglio, and the Addua, which, in the winter or spring, by the fall of rains, or by the melting of the snows, are commonly swelled into broad and impetuous torrents. 37 But the season happened to be remarkably dry: and the Goths could traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow stream. The bridge and passage of the Addua were secured by a strong detachment of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached the walls, or rather the suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans fly before him. Honorius, accompanied by a feeble train of statesmen and eunuchs, hastily retreated towards the Alps, with a design of securing his person in the city of Arles, which had often been the royal residence of his predecessors. 3711 But Honorius 38 had scarcely passed the Po, before he was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic cavalry; 39 since the urgency of the danger compelled him to seek a temporary shelter within the fortifications of Asta, a town of Liguria or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus. 40 The siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize, and seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly formed, and indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths; and the bold declaration, which the emperor might afterwards make, that his breast had never been susceptible of fear, did not probably obtain much credit, even in his own court. 41 In the last, and almost hopeless extremity, after the Barbarians had already proposed the indignity of a capitulation, the Imperial captive was suddenly relieved by the fame, the approach, and at length the presence, of the hero, whom he had so long expected. At the head of a chosen and intrepid vanguard, Stilicho swam the stream of the Addua, to gain the time which he must have lost in the attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an enterprise of much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful action, in which he cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls of Asta, revived the hopes, and vindicated the honor, of Rome. Instead of grasping the fruit of his victory, the Barbarian was gradually invested, on every side, by the troops of the West, who successively issued through all the passes of the Alps; his quarters were straitened; his convoys were intercepted; and the vigilance of the Romans prepared to form a chain of fortifications, and to besiege the lines of the besiegers. A military council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of the Gothic nation; of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped in furs, and whose stern countenances were marked with honorable wounds. They weighed the glory of persisting in their attempt against the advantage of securing their plunder; and they recommended the prudent measure of a seasonable retreat. In this important debate, Alaric displayed the spirit of the conqueror of Rome; and after he had reminded his countrymen of their achievements and of their designs, he concluded his animating speech by the solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved to find in Italy either a kingdom or a grave. 42
37 (return)
[ Every traveller must recollect the face of Lombardy, (see
Fonvenelle, tom. v. p. 279,) which is often tormented by the capricious
and irregular abundance of waters. The Austrians, before Genoa, were
encamped in the dry bed of the Polcevera. "Ne sarebbe" (says Muratori)
"mai passato per mente a que' buoni Alemanni, che quel picciolo
torrente potesse, per cosi dire, in un instante cangiarsi in un terribil
gigante." (Annali d'Italia, tom. xvi. p. 443, Milan, 1752, 8vo edit.)]
3711 (return)
[ According to Le Beau and his commentator M. St. Martin,
Honorius did not attempt to fly. Settlements were offered to the Goths
in Lombardy, and they advanced from the Po towards the Alps to take
possession of them. But it was a treacherous stratagem of Stilicho, who
surprised them while they were reposing on the faith of this treaty. Le
Beau, v. x.]
38 (return)
[ Claudian does not clearly answer our question, Where was
Honorius himself? Yet the flight is marked by the pursuit; and my idea
of the Gothic was is justified by the Italian critics, Sigonius (tom.
P, ii. p. 369, de Imp. Occident. l. x.) and Muratori, (Annali d'Italia.
tom. iv. p. 45.)]
39 (return)
[ One of the roads may be traced in the Itineraries, (p.
98, 288, 294, with Wesseling's Notes.) Asta lay some miles on the right
hand.]
40 (return)
[ Asta, or Asti, a Roman colony, is now the capital of a
pleasant country, which, in the sixteenth century, devolved to the dukes
of Savoy, (Leandro Alberti Descrizzione d'Italia, p. 382.)]
41 (return)
[ Nec me timor impulit ullus. He might hold this proud
language the next year at Rome, five hundred miles from the scene of
danger (vi. Cons. Hon. 449.)]
42 (return)
[ Hanc ego vel victor regno, vel morte tenebo Victus,
humum.——The speeches (de Bell. Get. 479-549) of the Gothic Nestor, and
Achilles, are strong, characteristic, adapted to the circumstances; and
possibly not less genuine than those of Livy.]
The loose discipline of the Barbarians always exposed them to the danger of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the dissolute hours of riot and intemperance, Stilicho resolved to attack the Christian Goths, whilst they were devoutly employed in celebrating the festival of Easter. 43 The execution of the stratagem, or, as it was termed by the clergy of the sacrilege, was intrusted to Saul, a Barbarian and a Pagan, who had served, however, with distinguished reputation among the veteran generals of Theodosius. The camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched in the neighborhood of Pollentia, 44 was thrown into confusion by the sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry; but, in a few moments, the undaunted genius of their leader gave them an order, and a field of battle; and, as soon as they had recovered from their astonishment, the pious confidence, that the God of the Christians would assert their cause, added new strength to their native valor. In this engagement, which was long maintained with equal courage and success, the chief of the Alani, whose diminutive and savage form concealed a magnanimous soul approved his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which he fought, and fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of this gallant Barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has omitted the mention of his name. His death was followed by the flight and dismay of the squadrons which he commanded; and the defeat of the wing of cavalry might have decided the victory of Alaric, if Stilicho had not immediately led the Roman and Barbarian infantry to the attack. The skill of the general, and the bravery of the soldiers, surmounted every obstacle. In the evening of the bloody day, the Goths retreated from the field of battle; the intrenchments of their camp were forced, and the scene of rapine and slaughter made some atonement for the calamities which they had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. 45 The magnificent spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the veterans of the West; the captive wife of Alaric, who had impatiently claimed his promise of Roman jewels and Patrician handmaids, 46 was reduced to implore the mercy of the insulting foe; and many thousand prisoners, released from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the provinces of Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The triumph of Stilicho 47 was compared by the poet, and perhaps by the public, to that of Marius; who, in the same part of Italy, had encountered and destroyed another army of Northern Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty helmets, of the Cimbri and of the Goths, would easily be confounded by succeeding generations; and posterity might erect a common trophy to the memory of the two most illustrious generals, who had vanquished, on the same memorable ground, the two most formidable enemies of Rome. 48
43 (return)
[ Orosius (l. vii. c. 37) is shocked at the impiety of the
Romans, who attacked, on Easter Sunday, such pious Christians. Yet, at
the same time, public prayers were offered at the shrine of St. Thomas
of Edessa, for the destruction of the Arian robber. See Tillemont (Hist
des Emp. tom. v. p. 529) who quotes a homily, which has been erroneously
ascribed to St. Chrysostom.]
44 (return)
[ The vestiges of Pollentia are twenty-five miles to the
south-east of Turin. Urbs, in the same neighborhood, was a royal
chase of the kings of Lombardy, and a small river, which excused the
prediction, "penetrabis ad urbem," (Cluver. Ital. Antiq tom. i. p.
83-85.)]
45 (return)
[ Orosius wishes, in doubtful words, to insinuate the defeat
of the Romans. "Pugnantes vicimus, victores victi sumus." Prosper (in
Chron.) makes it an equal and bloody battle, but the Gothic writers
Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 29) claim a
decisive victory.]
46 (return)
[ Demens Ausonidum gemmata monilia matrum, Romanasque alta
famulas cervice petebat. De Bell. Get. 627.]
47 (return)
[ Claudian (de Bell. Get. 580-647) and Prudentius (in
Symmach. n. 694-719) celebrate, without ambiguity, the Roman victory of
Pollentia. They are poetical and party writers; yet some credit is
due to the most suspicious witnesses, who are checked by the recent
notoriety of facts.]
48 (return)
[ Claudian's peroration is strong and elegant; but the
identity of the Cimbric and Gothic fields must be understood (like
Virgil's Philippi, Georgic i. 490) according to the loose geography of
a poet. Verselle and Pollentia are sixty miles from each other; and the
latitude is still greater, if the Cimbri were defeated in the wide and
barren plain of Verona, (Maffei, Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 54-62.)]
The eloquence of Claudian 49 has celebrated, with lavish applause, the victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious days in the life of his patron; but his reluctant and partial muse bestows more genuine praise on the character of the Gothic king. His name is, indeed, branded with the reproachful epithets of pirate and robber, to which the conquerors of every age are so justly entitled; but the poet of Stilicho is compelled to acknowledge that Alaric possessed the invincible temper of mind, which rises superior to every misfortune, and derives new resources from adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry, he escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with the greatest part of his cavalry entire and unbroken. Without wasting a moment to lament the irreparable loss of so many brave companions, he left his victorious enemy to bind in chains the captive images of a Gothic king; 50 and boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. The capital was saved by the active and incessant diligence of Stilicho; but he respected the despair of his enemy; and, instead of committing the fate of the republic to the chance of another battle, he proposed to purchase the absence of the Barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have rejected such terms, the permission of a retreat, and the offer of a pension, with contempt and indignation; but he exercised a limited and precarious authority over the independent chieftains who had raised him, for their service, above the rank of his equals; they were still less disposed to follow an unsuccessful general, and many of them were tempted to consult their interest by a private negotiation with the minister of Honorius. The king submitted to the voice of his people, ratified the treaty with the empire of the West, and repassed the Po with the remains of the flourishing army which he had led into Italy. A considerable part of the Roman forces still continued to attend his motions; and Stilicho, who maintained a secret correspondence with some of the Barbarian chiefs, was punctually apprised of the designs that were formed in the camp and council of Alaric. The king of the Goths, ambitious to signalize his retreat by some splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the important city of Verona, which commands the principal passage of the Rhaetian Alps; and, directing his march through the territories of those German tribes, whose alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to invade, on the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting provinces of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already betrayed his bold and judicious enterprise, he advanced towards the passes of the mountains, already possessed by the Imperial troops; where he was exposed, almost at the same instant, to a general attack in the front, on his flanks, and in the rear. In this bloody action, at a small distance from the walls of Verona, the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that which they had sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant king, who escaped by the swiftness of his horse, must either have been slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had not disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric secured the remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and prepared himself, with undaunted resolution, to maintain a siege against the superior numbers of the enemy, who invested him on all sides. But he could not oppose the destructive progress of hunger and disease; nor was it possible for him to check the continual desertion of his impatient and capricious Barbarians. In this extremity he still found resources in his own courage, or in the moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the Gothic king was considered as the deliverance of Italy. 51 Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first momen of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny. 52
49 (return)
[ Claudian and Prudentius must be strictly examined, to
reduce the figures, and extort the historic sense, of those poets.]
50 (return)
[
Et gravant en airain ses freles avantages
De mes etats conquis enchainer les images.
The practice of exposing in triumph the images of kings and provinces was familiar to the Romans. The bust of Mithridates himself was twelve feet high, of massy gold, (Freinshem. Supplement. Livian. ciii. 47.)]
51 (return)
[ The Getic war, and the sixth consulship of Honorius,
obscurely connect the events of Alaric's retreat and losses.]
52 (return)
[ Taceo de Alarico... saepe visto, saepe concluso, semperque
dimisso. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37, p. 567. Claudian (vi. Cons. Hon. 320)
drops the curtain with a fine image.]
The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of Alaric; and the diligence with which they labored to restore the walls of the capital, confessed their own fears, and the decline of the empire. After the retreat of the Barbarians, Honorius was directed to accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate, in the Imperial city, the auspicious aera of the Gothic victory, and of his sixth consulship. 53 The suburbs and the streets, from the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were filled by the Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years, had only thrice been honored with the presence of their sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where Stilicho was deservedly seated by the side of his royal pupil, they applauded the pomp of a triumph, which was not stained, like that of Constantine, or of Theodosius, with civil blood. The procession passed under a lofty arch, which had been purposely erected: but in less than seven years, the Gothic conquerors of Rome might read, if they were able to read, the superb inscription of that monument, which attested the total defeat and destruction of their nation. 54 The emperor resided several months in the capital, and every part of his behavior was regulated with care to conciliate the affection of the clergy, the senate, and the people of Rome. The clergy was edified by his frequent visits and liberal gifts to the shrines of the apostles. The senate, who, in the triumphal procession, had been excused from the humiliating ceremony of preceding on foot the Imperial chariot, was treated with the decent reverence which Stilicho always affected for that assembly. The people was repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the public games, which were celebrated on that occasion with a magnificence not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the appointed number of chariot-races was concluded, the decoration of the Circus was suddenly changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various and splendid entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a military dance, which seems, in the lively description of Claudian, to present the image of a modern tournament.
53 (return)
[ The remainder of Claudian's poem on the sixth consulship
of Honorius, describes the journey, the triumph, and the games,
(330-660.)]
54 (return)
[ See the inscription in Mascou's History of the Ancient
Germans, viii. 12. The words are positive and indiscreet: Getarum
nationem in omne aevum domitam, &c.]
In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators 55 polluted, for the last time, the amphitheater of Rome. The first Christian emperor may claim the honor of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; 56 but this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse, which degraded a civilized nation below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great cities of the empire; and the month of December, more peculiarly devoted to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty. Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a Christian poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his authority, the horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity and religion. 57 The pathetic representations of Prudentius were less effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, and Asiatic monk, whose death was more useful to mankind than his life. 58 The Romans were provoked by the interruption of their pleasures; and the rash monk, who had descended into the arena to separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed under a shower of stones. But the madness of the people soon subsided; they respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the honors of martyrdom; and they submitted, without a murmur, to the laws of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the amphitheater. 5811 The citizens, who adhered to the manners of their ancestors, might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of a martial spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude, which accustomed the Romans to the sight of blood, and to the contempt of death; a vain and cruel prejudice, so nobly confuted by the valor of ancient Greece, and of modern Europe! 59
55 (return)
[ On the curious, though horrid, subject of the gladiators,
consult the two books of the Saturnalia of Lipsius, who, as an
antiquarian, is inclined to excuse the practice of antiquity, (tom. iii.
p. 483-545.)]
56 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. xii. leg. i. The Commentary of
Godefroy affords large materials (tom. v. p. 396) for the history of
gladiators.]
57 (return)
[ See the peroration of Prudentius (in Symmach. l. ii.
1121-1131) who had doubtless read the eloquent invective of Lactantius,
(Divin. Institut. l. vi. c. 20.) The Christian apologists have not
spared these bloody games, which were introduced in the religious
festivals of Paganism.]
58 (return)
[ Theodoret, l. v. c. 26. I wish to believe the story of St.
Telemachus. Yet no church has been dedicated, no altar has been erected,
to the only monk who died a martyr in the cause of humanity.]
5811 (return)
[ Muller, in his valuable Treatise, de Genio, moribus et
luxu aevi Theodosiani, is disposed to question the effect produced by
the heroic, or rather saintly, death of Telemachus. No prohibitory law
of Honorius is to be found in the Theodosian Code, only the old and
imperfect edict of Constantine. But Muller has produced no evidence or
allusion to gladiatorial shows after this period. The combats with wild
beasts certainly lasted till the fall of the Western empire; but the
gladiatorial combats ceased either by common consent, or by Imperial
edict.—M.]
59 (return)
[ Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis
videri solet, et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit. Cicero Tusculan. ii.
17. He faintly censures the abuse, and warmly defends the use, of these
sports; oculis nulla poterat esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem
disciplina. Seneca (epist. vii.) shows the feelings of a man.]
The recent danger, to which the person of the emperor had been exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan, urged him to seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge of Barbarians. On the coast of the Adriatic, about ten or twelve miles from the most southern of the seven mouths of the Po, the Thessalians had founded the ancient colony of Ravenna, 60 which they afterwards resigned to the natives of Umbria. Augustus, who had observed the opportunity of the place, prepared, at the distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious harbor, for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This naval establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines, the barracks of the troops, and the houses of the artificers, derived its origin and name from the permanent station of the Roman fleet; the intermediate space was soon filled with buildings and inhabitants, and the three extensive and populous quarters of Ravenna gradually contributed to form one of the most important cities of Italy. The principal canal of Augustus poured a copious stream of the waters of the Po through the midst of the city, to the entrance of the harbor; the same waters were introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed the walls; they were distributed by a thousand subordinate canals, into every part of the city, which they divided into a variety of small islands; the communication was maintained only by the use of boats and bridges; and the houses of Ravenna, whose appearance may be compared to that of Venice, were raised on the foundation of wooden piles. The adjacent country, to the distance of many miles, was a deep and impassable morass; and the artificial causeway, which connected Ravenna with the continent, might be easily guarded or destroyed, on the approach of a hostile army These morasses were interspersed, however, with vineyards: and though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops, the town enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh water. 61 The air, instead of receiving the sickly, and almost pestilential, exhalations of low and marshy grounds, was distinguished, like the neighborhood of Alexandria, as uncommonly pure and salubrious; and this singular advantage was ascribed to the regular tides of the Adriatic, which swept the canals, interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of the waters, and floated, every day, the vessels of the adjacent country into the heart of Ravenna. The gradual retreat of the sea has left the modern city at the distance of four miles from the Adriatic; and as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian aera, the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards; and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor. 62 Even this alteration contributed to increase the natural strength of the place, and the shallowness of the water was a sufficient barrier against the large ships of the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by art and labor; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the eight century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government, and the capital of Italy. 63
60 (return)
[ This account of Ravenna is drawn from Strabo, (l. v. p.
327,) Pliny, (iii. 20,) Stephen of Byzantium, (sub voce, p. 651, edit.
Berkel,) Claudian, (in vi. Cons. Honor. 494, &c.,) Sidonius Apollinaris,
(l. i. epist. 5, 8,) Jornandes, (de Reb. Get. c. 29,) Procopius (de
Bell, (lothic, l. i. c. i. p. 309, edit. Louvre,) and Cluverius, (Ital.
Antiq tom i. p. 301-307.) Yet I still want a local antiquarian and a
good topographical map.]
61 (return)
[ Martial (Epigram iii. 56, 57) plays on the trick of the
knave, who had sold him wine instead of water; but he seriously declares
that a cistern at Ravenna is more valuable than a vineyard. Sidonius
complains that the town is destitute of fountains and aqueducts;
and ranks the want of fresh water among the local evils, such as the
croaking of frogs, the stinging of gnats, &c.]
62 (return)
[ The fable of Theodore and Honoria, which Dryden has so
admirably transplanted from Boccaccio, (Giornata iii. novell. viii.,)
was acted in the wood of Chiassi, a corrupt word from Classis, the naval
station which, with the intermediate road, or suburb the Via Caesaris,
constituted the triple city of Ravenna.]
63 (return)
[ From the year 404, the dates of the Theodosian Code become
sedentary at Constantinople and Ravenna. See Godefroy's Chronology of
the Laws, tom. i. p. cxlviii., &c.]
The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight of the Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief; till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth, they acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable power. The Topa soon compelled the pastoral nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority of their arms; they invaded China in a period of weakness and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an Imperial dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty years over the northern provinces of the monarchy. Some generations before they ascended the throne of China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who was tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous people, distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their hereditary chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed their rank among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity, broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of Tartary. His troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred and of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only such arts and institutions as were favorable to the military spirit of his government. His tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more southern latitude, were pitched, during the summer, on the fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from Corea far beyond the River Irtish. He vanquished, in the country to the north of the Caspian Sea, the nation of the Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed the fame and power which he derived from this memorable victory. 64
64 (return)
[ See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 179-189, tom
ii p. 295, 334-338.]
The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the Roman, geography. Yet the temper of the Barbarians, and the experience of successive emigrations, sufficiently declare, that the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of the Geougen, soon withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor. The countries towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred tribes; and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and level plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic Sea. The North must again have been alarmed, and agitated, by the invasion of the Huns; 6411 and the nations who retreated before them must have pressed with incumbent weight on the confines of Germany. 65 The inhabitants of those regions, which the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to the fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses; or at least of discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the Roman empire. 66 About four years after the victorious Toulun had assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, 67 marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that by some historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth, or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; 68 and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic. After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country, which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts, and gigantic moles, 69 remained, during some ages, a vast and dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by the powers of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now usurp an extent of land which they are unable to cultivate, would soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their neighbors, if the government of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and property.
6411 (return)
[ There is no authority which connects this inroad of the
Teutonic tribes with the movements of the Huns. The Huns can hardly have
reached the shores of the Baltic, and probably the greater part of the
forces of Radagaisus, particularly the Vandals, had long occupied a more
southern position.—M.]
65 (return)
[ Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. iii. p. 182) has
observed an emigration from the Palus Maeotis to the north of Germany,
which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient history are
strangely darkened by ignorance and error.]
66 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) uses the general description of
the nations beyond the Danube and the Rhine. Their situation, and
consequently their names, are manifestly shown, even in the various
epithets which each ancient writer may have casually added.]
67 (return)
[ The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of
the Obotrites, (in Mecklenburg.) A hero might naturally assume the
appellation of his tutelar god; but it is not probable that the
Barbarians should worship an unsuccessful hero. See Mascou, Hist. of the
Germans, viii. 14. * Note: The god of war and of hospitality with the
Vends and all the Sclavonian races of Germany bore the name of Radegast,
apparently the same with Rhadagaisus. His principal temple was at Rhetra
in Mecklenburg. It was adorned with great magnificence. The statue of
the gold was of gold. St. Martin, v. 255. A statue of Radegast, of much
coarser materials, and of the rudest workmanship, was discovered between
1760 and 1770, with those of other Wendish deities, on the supposed site
of Rhetra. The names of the gods were cut upon them in Runic characters.
See the very curious volume on these antiquities—Die Gottesdienstliche
Alterthumer der Obotriter—Masch and Wogen. Berlin, 1771.—M.]
68 (return)
[ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180), uses the Greek word
which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they were the
princes and nobles with their faithful companions; the knights
with their squires, as they would have been styled some centuries
afterwards.]
69 (return)
[ Tacit. de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37.]
The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator, of the war. 70 The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels, and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous effort, the invasion of the Germans. 71 The hopes of the vigilant minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would enlist. 72 By these efforts he painfully collected, from the subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of Rome. 73 The thirty legions of Stilicho were reenforced by a large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive battle, till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, 74 by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled at their approached within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the laws of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had familiarly conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same camps, and the same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the language, of the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those gods who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of a devout Pagan; loudly declared, that they were more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of the arms, of Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their country, which condemned the faith of their Christian adversaries. 75 7511
70 (return)
[
Cujus agendi
Spectator vel causa fui,
—-(Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon. 439,)
is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic war, which he had seen somewhat nearer.]
71 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) transports the war, and the victory
of Stilisho, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is awkwardly and
imperfectly cured (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 807.) In
good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus, without esteeming or
trusting him.]
72 (return)
[ Codex Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 16. The date of
this law A.D. 406. May 18 satisfies me, as it had done Godefroy, (tom.
ii. p. 387,) of the true year of the invasion of Radagaisus. Tillemont,
Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding year; but they are bound, by
certain obligations of civility and respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola.]
73 (return)
[ Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the senate,
on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and 42,000 foot;
a force which the city could not have sent forth under Augustus, (Livy,
xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an antiquary, but it is clearly
explained by Montesquieu.]
74 (return)
[ Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher, the
origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the benefit of
trade, from the rock of Faesulae to the banks of the Arno, (Istoria
Fiorentina, tom. i. p. 36. Londra, 1747.) The triumvirs sent a colony
to Florence, which, under Tiberius, (Tacit. Annal. i. 79,) deserved the
reputation and name of a flourishing city. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom.
i. p. 507, &c.]
75 (return)
[ Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor and
Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline Jove. The
accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those various and remote
deities; but the genuine Romans ahhorred the human sacrifices of Gaul
and Germany.]
7511 (return)
[ Gibbon has rather softened the language of Augustine as
to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in order to restore the
prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism; and their treasonable hopes
that the success of Radagaisus would be the triumph of idolatry. Compare
ii. 25—M.]
Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose; who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. 76 On a sudden, they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The apparent contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence to their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this miraculous victory to the providence of God, rather than to the valor of man. 77 They strictly exclude every idea of chance, or even of bloodshed; and positively affirm, that the Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty and idleness, enjoyed the distress of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above the city of Florence. Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier of the Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The examples of Caesar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which might confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians. 78 The Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than from the valor, of their ancestors; and if their servile and laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could supply many thousand peasants, who would labor, though, perhaps, they would not fight, for the salvation of their native country. The imprisoned multitude of horses and men 79 was gradually destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the Germans; and these various incidents might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus. 80 A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho. 81 But the death of the royal captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty. 82 The famished Germans, who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries, were sold as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many single pieces of gold; but the difference of food and climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers, instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to provide the expense of their interment Stilicho informed the emperor and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy. 83
76 (return)
[ Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros c. 50) relates this story, which
he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a religious matron of
Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to take an active part in the
business of the world, and never became a popular saint.]
77 (return)
[ Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37,
p. 567-571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve years after
the victory; and their authority is implicitly followed by Isidore of
Seville, (in Chron. p. 713, edit. Grot.) How many interesting facts
might Orosius have inserted in the vacant space which is devoted to
pious nonsense!]
78 (return)
[
Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Caesar
Ducit opus: pandit fossas, turritaque summis
Disponit castella jugis, magnoque necessu
Amplexus fines, saltus, memorosaque tesqua
Et silvas, vastaque feras indagine claudit.!
Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44) is far greater than the amplifications of Lucan, (Pharsal. l. vi. 29-63.)]
79 (return)
[ The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, "in arido et aspero
montis jugo;" "in unum ac parvum verticem," are not very suitable to
the encampment of a great army. But Faesulae, only three miles from
Florence, might afford space for the head-quarters of Radagaisus, and
would be comprehended within the circuit of the Roman lines.]
80 (return)
[ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331, and the Chronicles of Prosper
and Marcellinus.]
81 (return)
[ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an expression
which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and render Stilicho
still more criminal. The paulisper detentus, deinde interfectus, of
Orosius, is sufficiently odious. * Note: Gibbon, by translating this
passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had been good Greek, has probably
fallen into an error. The natural order of the words is as Gibbon
translates it; but it is almost clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs,
"whom Stilicho, after he had defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army."
So in the version corrected by Classen for Niebuhr's edition of the
Byzantines, p. 450.—M.]
82 (return)
[ Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and people,
Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion. The bloody
actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling historian.——Note:
Considering the vow, which he was universally believed to have made, to
destroy Rome, and to sacrifice the senators on the altars, and that he
is said to have immolated his prisoners to his gods, the execution of
Radagaisus, if, as it appears, he was taken in arms, cannot deserve
Gibbon's severe condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila,
p. 317) justly observes, that "Stilicho had probably authority for
hanging him on the first tree." Marcellinus, adds Mr. Herbert,
attributes the execution to the Gothic chiefs Sarus.—M.]
83 (return)
[ And Claudian's muse, was she asleep? had she been ill
paid! Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A.D. 407) would have
furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was discovered that the
state could no longer be saved, Stilicho (after Romulus, Camillus and
Marius) might have been worthily surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.]
The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic, miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general. 84 The union of such an army might excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are obvious and forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valor, the jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the obstinate conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions, among so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or to obey. After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat; who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. 85 The Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. 86
84 (return)
[ A luminous passage of Prosper's Chronicle, "In tres
partes, pes diversos principes, diversus exercitus," reduces the miracle
of Florence and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and Germany.]
85 (return)
[ Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with instigating
the in vasion. "Excitatae a Stilichone gentes," &c. They must mean a
directly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul]
86 (return)
[ The Count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans who
invaded Gaul were the two thirds that yet remained of the army of
Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Europe, (tom.
vii. p. 87, 121. Paris, 1772;) an elaborate work, which I had not the
advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As early as 1771, I find the
same idea expressed in a rough draught of the present History. I
have since observed a similar intimation in Mascou, (viii. 15.) Such
agreement, without mutual communication, may add some weight to our
common sentiment.]
Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defence of the of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine, which was the first act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself, with peculiar attention, to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomir, one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the tribunal of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the resentment of his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother; and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes, who were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho. 87 When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honorable resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground. 88
87 (return)
[
Provincia missos
Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges
Quos dederis.
Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and satisfactory. These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of Tours; but the author of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno and Marcomir, and names the latter as the father of Pharamond, (in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to write from good materials, which he did not understand.]
88 (return)
[ See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p.
576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in
the second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a valuable
fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whose three names denote a
Christian, a Roman subject, and a Semi-Barbarian.]
While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the Barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood. 89 The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tyber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side was situated the territory of the Romans. 90 This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars. 91 The ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy, 92 which attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination, soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy, the Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms, as well as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles V., he inquired of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the frontier; "Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle:" 93 such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean Mountains.
89 (return)
[ Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 221, &c., l. ii. 186)
describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier. The Abbe
Dubos (Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 174) would read Alba (a nameless
rivulet of the Ardennes) instead of Albis; and expatiates on the
danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the Elbe. Foolish enough! In
poetical geography, the Elbe, and the Hercynian, signify any river,
or any wood, in Germany. Claudian is not prepared for the strict
examination of our antiquaries.]
90 (return)
[—Germinasque viator Cum videat ripas, quae sit Romana
requirat.]
91 (return)
[ Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol. of the
Historians of France, p. 777, 782, the proper extracts from the Carmen
de Providentil Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was himself a
captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens.]
92 (return)
[ The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated A.D.
405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and Carthage. St
Augustin fought and conquered; but the Greek church was favorable to his
adversaries; and (what is singular enough) the people did not take any
part in a dispute which they could not understand.]
93 (return)
[ See the Memoires de Guillaume du Bellay, l. vi. In French,
the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed, from the double
sense of the word journee, which alike signifies, a day's travel, or a
battle.]
In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of Stilicho had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coast. 94 But those restless Barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance, and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion. 95 Marcus was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus, the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an honorable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular motive of their third choice. They discovered in the ranks a private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous levity had already seated him on the throne, before they perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious appellation. 96 Yet the authority of Constantine was less precarious, and his government was more successful, than the transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days, he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country from the rage of the Barbarians. The first successes of Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon reduced to their just value. His negotiations procured a short and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the Barbarians were engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigor of the Gallic frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic. Elated, however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws of the Alps. 97 Those mountains now separated the dominions of two rival monarchs; and the fortifications of the double frontier were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.
94 (return)
[ Claudian, (i. Cons. Stil. l. ii. 250.) It is supposed
that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole western coast of
Britain: and some slight credit may be given even to Nennius and the
Irish traditions, (Carte's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 169.) Whitaker's
Genuine History of the Britons, p. 199. The sixty-six lives of St.
Patrick, which were extant in the ninth century, must have contained
as many thousand lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish
inroads the future apostle was led away captive, (Usher, Antiquit.
Eccles Britann. p. 431, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 45 782,
&c.)]
95 (return)
[ The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (l. vi. p.
371-375,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576, 577,) Olympiodorus,
(apud Photium, p. 180, 181,) the ecclesiastical historians, and the
Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of Marcus.]
96 (return)
[ Cum in Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur,
(Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund. Sirmond.)
Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to stigmatize a prince
who had disgraced his grandfather.]
97 (return)
[ Bagaudoe is the name which Zosimus applies to them;
perhaps they deserved a less odious character, (see Dubos, Hist.
Critique, tom. i. p. 203, and this History, vol. i. p. 407.) We shall
hear of them again.]
On the side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine might be justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain; which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual subordination, and received the laws and magistrates of the Gallic praefecture. The only opposition which was made to the authority of Constantine proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four brothers 98 had obtained, by the favor of their kinsman, the deceased emperor, an honorable rank and ample possessions in their native country; and the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in the service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain their ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania, they retired to their estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expense, a considerable body of slaves and dependants, and boldly marched to occupy the strong posts of the Pyrenean Mountains. This domestic insurrection alarmed and perplexed the sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was compelled to negotiate with some troops of Barbarian auxiliaries, for the service of the Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of Honorians; 99 a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that the Scots were influenced by any partial affection for a British prince, the Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the profuse liberality of the usurper, who distributed among the Barbarians the military, and even the civil, honors of Spain. The nine bands of Honorians, which may be easily traced on the establishment of the Western empire, could not exceed the number of five thousand men: yet this inconsiderable force was sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family was surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the other two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were the feeble arms which decided the possession of the Western provinces of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the causes, and of the effects, of the most important revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated even the last resource of a despotic government; and the revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military service of a discontented and pusillanimous people.
98 (return)
[ Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who
in modern courts would be styled princes of the blood, were not
distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their
fellow-subjects.]
99 (return)
[ These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two bands of
Scots, or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni, the Victores, the
Asca in, and the Gallicani, (Notitia Imperii, sect. xxxiii. edit. Lab.)
They were part of the sixty-five Auxilia Palatina, and are properly
styled by Zosimus, (l. vi. 374.)]
The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the victories of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of Alaric, from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of Barbarians, which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and disease. 100 In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an interval of repose, to recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the service of the emperor of the East, Alaric concluded, with the court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the praefecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius. 101 The execution of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated, or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to have been suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus; and the neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the indifference of Caesar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline, refused either to assist, or to oppose, the enemy of the republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his pretensions to the provinces of the East; appointed civil magistrates for the administration of justice, and of the finances; and declared his impatience to lead to the gates of Constantinople the united armies of the Romans and of the Goths. The prudence, however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war, and his perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may countenance the suspicion, that domestic peace, rather than foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and that his principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a distance from Italy. This design could not long escape the penetration of the Gothic king, who continued to hold a doubtful, and perhaps a treacherous, correspondence with the rival courts; who protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid operations in Thessaly and Epirus, and who soon returned to claim the extravagant reward of his ineffectual services. From his camp near Aemona, 102 on the confines of Italy, he transmitted to the emperor of the West a long account of promises, of expenses, and of demands; called for immediate satisfaction, and clearly intimated the consequences of a refusal. Yet if his conduct was hostile, his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed himself the friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius; offered his person and his troops to march, without delay, against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant province of the Western empire.
100 (return)
[
Comitatur euntem
Pallor, et atra fames; et saucia lividus ora
Luctus; et inferno stridentes agmine morbi.
—-Claudian in vi. Cons. Hon. 821, &c.]
101 (return)
[ These dark transactions are investigated by the Count
de Bual (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. c. iii.—viii. p.
69-206,) whose laborious accuracy may sometimes fatigue a superficial
reader.]
102 (return)
[ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 334, 335. He interrupts his scanty
narrative to relate the fable of Aemona, and of the ship Argo; which was
drawn overland from that place to the Adriatic. Sozomen (l. viii. c.
25, l. ix. c. 4) and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) cast a pale and doubtful
light; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571) is abominably partial.]
The political and secret transactions of two statesmen, who labored to deceive each other and the world, must forever have been concealed in the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if the debates of a popular assembly had not thrown some rays of light on the correspondence of Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity of finding some artificial support for a government, which, from a principle, not of moderation, but of weakness, was reduced to negotiate with its own subjects, had insensibly revived the authority of the Roman senate; and the minister of Honorius respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic. Stilicho assembled the senate in the palace of the Caesars; represented, in a studied oration, the actual state of affairs; proposed the demands of the Gothic king, and submitted to their consideration the choice of peace or war. The senators, as if they had been suddenly awakened from a dream of four hundred years, appeared, on this important occasion, to be inspired by the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their predecessors. They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a Barbarian king; and that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the chance of ruin was always preferable to the certainty of dishonor. The minister, whose pacific intentions were seconded only by the voice of a few servile and venal followers, attempted to allay the general ferment, by an apology for his own conduct, and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. "The payment of a subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans, ought not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the odious light, either of a tribute, or of a ransom, extorted by the menaces of a Barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted the just pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were usurped by the Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the fair and stipulated recompense of his services; and if he had desisted from the prosecution of his enterprise, he had obeyed, in his retreat, the peremptory, though private, letters of the emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he would not dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by the intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of her adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily prevailed over the stern dictates of the public welfare." These ostensible reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues of the palace of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of Stilicho; and obtained, after a warm debate, the reluctant approbation of the senate. The tumult of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths. Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the assembly, still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed, with a loud voice, "This is not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;" 103 and escaped the danger of such bold opposition by immediately retiring to the sanctuary of a Christian church. [See Palace Of The Caesars]
103 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. He repeats the words of
Lampadius, as they were spoke in Latin, "Non est ista pax, sed pactio
servi tutis," and then translates them into Greek for the benefit of his
readers. * Note: From Cicero's XIIth Philippic, 14.—M.]
But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the proud minister might perceive the symptoms of his approaching disgrace. The generous boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the senate, so patiently resigned to a long servitude, rejected with disdain the offer of invidious and imaginary freedom. The troops, who still assumed the name and prerogatives of the Roman legions, were exasperated by the partial affection of Stilicho for the Barbarians: and the people imputed to the mischievous policy of the minister the public misfortunes, which were the natural consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have continued to brave the clamors of the people, and even of the soldiers, if he could have maintained his dominion over the feeble mind of his pupil. But the respectful attachment of Honorius was converted into fear, suspicion, and hatred. The crafty Olympius, 104 who concealed his vices under the mask of Christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor, by whose favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of the Imperial palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor, who had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed his timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the designs of Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius. The emperor was instigated, by his new favorite, to assume the tone of independent dignity; and the minister was astonished to find, that secret resolutions were formed in the court and council, which were repugnant to his interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in the palace of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure to return to the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit Constantinople, and to regulate, with the authority of a guardian, the provinces of the infant Theodosius. 105 The representation of the difficulty and expense of such a distant expedition, checked this strange and sudden sally of active diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the emperor to the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops, the enemies of Stilicho, and his Barbarian auxiliaries, remained fixed and unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of his confidant, Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and penetrating genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to his reputation and safety. His strenuous but ineffectual efforts confirmed the triumph of Olympius; and the prudent lawyer withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his patron.
104 (return)
[ He came from the coast of the Euxine, and exercised a
splendid office. His actions justify his character, which Zosimus (l. v.
p. 340) exposes with visible satisfaction. Augustin revered the piety
of Olympius, whom he styles a true son of the church, (Baronius, Annal.
Eccles, Eccles. A.D. 408, No. 19, &c. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.
p. 467, 468.) But these praises, which the African saint so unworthily
bestows, might proceed as well from ignorance as from adulation.]
105 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 4.
Stilicho offered to undertake the journey to Constantinople, that he
might divert Honorius from the vain attempt. The Eastern empire would
not have obeyed, and could not have been conquered.]
In the passage of the emperor through Bologna, a mutiny of the guards was excited and appeased by the secret policy of Stilicho; who announced his instructions to decimate the guilty, and ascribed to his own intercession the merit of their pardon. After this tumult, Honorius embraced, for the last time, the minister whom he now considered as a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to the camp of Pavia; where he was received by the loyal acclamations of the troops who were assembled for the service of the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he pronounced, as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence of the soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At the first signal, they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the most illustrious officers of the empire; two Praetorian praefects, of Gaul and of Italy; two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry; the master of the offices; the quaestor, the treasurer, and the count of the domestics. Many lives were lost; many houses were plundered; the furious sedition continued to rage till the close of the evening; and the trembling emperor, who was seen in the streets of Pavia without his robes or diadem, yielded to the persuasions of his favorite; condemned the memory of the slain; and solemnly approved the innocence and fidelity of their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia filled the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the confederate leaders, who were attached to his service, and would be involved in his ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly called aloud for arms, and for revenge; to march, without a moment's delay, under the banners of a hero, whom they had so often followed to victory; to surprise, to oppress, to extirpate the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans; and perhaps to fix the diadem on the head of their injured general. Instead of executing a resolution, which might have been justified by success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He was still ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the fidelity of his own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal consequences of arming a crowd of licentious Barbarians against the soldiers and people of Italy. The confederates, impatient of his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily retired, with fear and indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus, a Gothic warrior, renowned among the Barbarians themselves for his strength and valor, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor, plundered the baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded his person, and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho escaped with difficulty from the sword of the Goths and, after issuing a last and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to shut their gates against the Barbarians, his confidence, or his despair, urged him to throw himself into Ravenna, which was already in the absolute possession of his enemies. Olympius, who had assumed the dominion of Honorius, was speedily informed, that his rival had embraced, as a suppliant the altar of the Christian church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite was incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude, rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count Heraclian, with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of day, before the gates of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was satisfied by a solemn oath, that the Imperial mandate only directed them to secure the person of Stilicho: but as soon as the unfortunate minister had been tempted beyond the holy threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant execution. Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious names of traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and, with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals, submitted his neck to the sword of Heraclian. 106
106 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. v. p. 336-345) has copiously, though not
clearly, related the disgrace and death of Stilicho. Olympiodorus, (apud
Phot. p. 177.) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572,) Sozomen, (l.
ix. c. 4,) and Philostorgius, (l. xi. c. 3, l. xii. c. 2,) afford
supplemental hints.]
The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the fortune of Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most distant connection with the master-general of the West, which had so lately been a title to wealth and honors, was studiously denied, and rigorously punished. His family, united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius, might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son Eucherius was intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon followed the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial bed. 107 The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of Pavia, were persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and the most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession of a treasonable and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in silence: their firmness justified the choice, 108 and perhaps absolved the innocence of their patron: and the despotic power, which could take his life without a trial, and stigmatize his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial suffrage of posterity. 109 The services of Stilicho are great and manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language of flattery and hatred, are obscure at least, and improbable. About four months after his death, an edict was published, in the name of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two empires, which had been so long interrupted by the public enemy. 110 The minister, whose fame and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state, was accused of betraying Italy to the Barbarians; whom he repeatedly vanquished at Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended design of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the clergy; who asserted, that the restoration of idols, and the persecution of the church, would have been the first measure of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had uniformly professed, and zealously supported. 111 1111 Serena had borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta; 112 and the Pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious minister, by whose order the Sibylline books, the oracles of Rome, had been committed to the flames. 113 The pride and power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honorable reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth, and the support of his empire.
107 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 333. The marriage of a Christian with
two sisters, scandalizes Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p.
557;) who expects, in vain, that Pope Innocent I. should have done
something in the way either of censure or of dispensation.]
108 (return)
[ Two of his friends are honorably mentioned, (Zosimus,
l. v. p. 346:) Peter, chief of the school of notaries, and the great
chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the bed-chamber; and it is
surprising that, under a feeble prince, the bed-chamber was not able to
secure him.]
109 (return)
[ Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572) seems to copy the
false and furious manifestos, which were dispersed through the provinces
by the new administration.]
110 (return)
[ See the Theodosian code, l. vii. tit. xvi. leg. 1, l.
ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of proedo
publicus, who employed his wealth, ad omnem ditandam, inquietandamque
Barbariem.]
111 (return)
[ Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual laws,
which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters; and which
are still extant in the Code. He only applies to Olympius for their
confirmation, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 408, No. 19.)]
112 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 351. We may observe the bad taste of
the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward finery.]
113 (return)
[ See Rutilius Numatianus, (Itinerar. l. ii. 41-60,) to
whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and forcible
lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from the doors of the
Capitol, and read a prophetic sentence which was engraven under them,
(Zosimus, l. v. p. 352.) These are foolish stories: yet the charge of
impiety adds weight and credit to the praise which Zosimus reluctantly
bestows on his virtues. Note: One particular in the extorted praise of
Zosimus, deserved the notice of the historian, as strongly opposed to
the former imputations of Zosimus himself, and indicative of he corrupt
practices of a declining age. "He had never bartered promotion in the
army for bribes, nor peculated in the supplies of provisions for the
army." l. v. c. xxxiv.—M.]
1111 (return)
[ Hence, perhaps, the accusation of treachery is
countenanced by Hatilius:—
Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum
Proditor arcani quod fuit imperii.
Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes,
Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor.
Dumque timet, quicquid se fecerat ipso timeri,
Immisit Latiae barbara tela neci. Rutil. Itin. II. 41.—M.]
Among the train of dependants whose wealth and dignity
attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited
by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the
favor of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron.]
The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the Imperial court: he was indebted to the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with a very rich heiress of the province of Africa; 114 and the statute of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate. 115 After the praises of Stilicho became offensive and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful and unforgiving courtier, whom he had provoked by the insolence of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite characters of two Praetorian praefects of Italy; he contrasts the innocent repose of a philosopher, who sometimes resigned the hours of business to slumber, perhaps to study, with the interesting diligence of a rapacious minister, indefatigable in the pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious, gain. "How happy," continues Claudian, "how happy might it be for the people of Italy, if Mallius could be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would always sleep!" 116 The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained, from the enemies of Stilicho, the trifling sacrifice of an obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the tumult of the revolution; and, consulting the dictates of prudence rather than of honor, he addressed, in the form of an epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to the offended praefect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly; submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of his dearest friends. 117 Whatever might be the success of his prayer, or the accidents of his future life, the period of a few years levelled in the grave the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every country which has retained, or acquired, the knowledge of the Latin language. If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an interesting fable; or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life. For the service of his patron, he published occasional panegyrics and invectives: and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar, topics: his coloring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an easy, and sometimes forcible, expression; and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavorable circumstances of his birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire, a native of Egypt, 118 who had received the education of a Greek, assumed, in a mature age, the familiar use, and absolute command, of the Latin language; 119 soared above the heads of his feeble contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome. 120
114 (return)
[ At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!) all the
parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts; and the gods
themselves enriched their favorite. Claudian had neither flocks, nor
herds, nor vines, nor olives. His wealthy bride was heiress to them all.
But he carried to Africa a recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno,
and was made happy, (Epist. ii. ad Serenam.)]
115 (return)
[ Claudian feels the honor like a man who deserved it, (in
praefat Bell. Get.) The original inscription, on marble, was found at
Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of Pomponius Laetus. The
statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian, should have been erected,
during his lifetime, by the men of letters, his countrymen and
contemporaries. It was a noble design.]
116 (return)
[ See Epigram xxx.
Mallius indulget somno noctesque diesque:
Insomnis Pharius sacra, profana, rapit.
Omnibus, hoc, Italae gentes, exposcite votis;
Mallius ut vigilet, dormiat ut Pharius.
Hadrian was a Pharian, (of Alexandrian.) See his public life in Godefroy, Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 364. Mallius did not always sleep. He composed some elegant dialogues on the Greek systems of natural philosophy, (Claud, in Mall. Theodor. Cons. 61-112.)]
117 (return)
[ See Claudian's first Epistle. Yet, in some places, an
air of irony and indignation betrays his secret reluctance. * Note:
M. Beugnot has pointed out one remarkable characteristic of Claudian's
poetry, and of the times—his extraordinary religious indifference. Here
is a poet writing at the actual crisis of the complete triumph of the
new religion, the visible extinction of the old: if we may so speak, a
strictly historical poet, whose works, excepting his Mythological poem
on the rape of Proserpine, are confined to temporary subjects, and to
the politics of his own eventful day; yet, excepting in one or two
small and indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and
interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to the great
religious strife. No one would know the existence of Christianity
at that period of the world, by reading the works of Claudian. His
panegyric and his satire preserve the same religious impartiality; award
their most lavish praise or their bitterest invective on Christian or
Pagan; he insults the fall of Eugenius, and glories in the victories
of Theodosius. Under the child,—and Honorius never became more than a
child,—Christianity continued to inflict wounds more and more deadly on
expiring Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension
at the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at his
appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole prophetic
choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the world, are summoned
to predict the felicity of his reign. His birth is compared to that
of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an island must not confine the new
deity—
... Non littora nostro
Sufficerent angusta Deo.
Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon, and of Delphi, the Persian Magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers, the Sibyl herself, are described as still discharging their prophetic functions, and celebrating the natal day of this Christian prince. They are noble lines, as well as curious illustrations of the times:
... Quae tunc documenta futuri?
Quae voces avium? quanti per inane volatus?
Quis vatum discursus erat? Tibi corniger Ammon,
Et dudum taciti rupere silentia Delphi.
Te Persae cecinere Magi, te sensit Etruscus
Augur, et inspectis Babylonius horruit astris;
Chaldaei stupuere senes, Cumanaque rursus
Itonuit rupes, rabidae delubra Sibyllae.
—Claud. iv. Cons. Hon. 141.
From the Quarterly Review of Beugnot. Hist. de la Paganisme en Occident, Q. R. v. lvii. p. 61.—M.]
118 (return)
[ National vanity has made him a Florentine, or a Spaniard.
But the first Epistle of Claudian proves him a native of Alexandria,
(Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin. tom. iii. p. 191-202, edit. Ernest.)]
119 (return)
[ His first Latin verses were composed during the
consulship of Probinus, A.D. 395.
Romanos bibimus primum, te consule, fontes, Et Latiae cessit Graia Thalia togae.
Besides some Greek epigrams, which are still extant, the Latin poet had composed, in Greek, the Antiquities of Tarsus, Anazarbus, Berytus, Nice, &c. It is more easy to supply the loss of good poetry, than of authentic history.]
120 (return)
[ Strada (Prolusion v. vi.) allows him to contend with
the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. His
patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar Castiglione. His admirers
are numerous and passionate. Yet the rigid critics reproach the exotic
weeds, or flowers, which spring too luxuriantly in his Latian soil]