STORY OF ALARIC
Pursuit of the Ideal—Alaric, the Friend of Theodosius—Theodosius’
Dream—The Victory at the Birnbaumer Wald—Defection of
Alaric—Pictures of the Plundering of Rome—Marcella and
Principia—St. Peter’s Treasures—Plans Against Africa—Alaric’s Death
and Last Resting-place.
When Edmond Rostand, the truest poet of our latter day, wrote his
“Princesse Lointaine,” he embodied the most ideal passion of the
human heart, the desire of beauty unseen. The Eternal City has again
and again inspired a like overmastering longing; it has been called
by other names—ambition, revenge, desire of conquest—but the primal
sentiment, in the most notable cases at least, reveals itself as an
imperative craving to behold and possess the highest. In the saints the
aspiration leaps from earth to Heaven, for their eyes are opened to
the reality and the shadow; but even among mortals denied the Divine
Spark, this hunger for the best takes on something of the sublime and
translates itself in actions not to be altogether accounted for by
merely human motives. Such a mortal was Alaric, the Visigoth, whose
name still sounds to us across the ages with compelling power. Driven
by the spirit, earth-bound, yet ever straining at his bonds, fiercely
ambitious yet ready to renounce the fruits of conquest when the Voice,
unheard of others, bade him renounce, his career remains an unexplained
mystery, unless we are willing to reckon with the supernatural to which
he rendered such prompt obedience when its commands penetrated the din
of clamorous necessity and reached the ear of his soul.
His very advent has all the emblems of a portentous allegory. Over
the last eastern spur of the Julian Alps the old Roman roadmakers had
cut one of their splendid roads to connect the seat of Empire with
the North. They worked along the lines of least resistance, thinking
only of facilitating the movements of Roman troops, and not at all
of possible invaders who might march down to Rome. On the crest of
the pass they looked for a commanding spot to serve as the site for
a garrison station; the season was early summer and their glance at
once fell on an enormous pear tree, a dome of snowy blossoms visible
for many a mile around. That decided the question, and they built
their military hamlet beside it, and called it “At the Pear Tree,” “Ad
Pirum,” a name which was afterwards bestowed on the whole district,
which is known to us now as the “Birnbaumer Wald.” To this station
came, in the first days of September, 394 A.D., Theodosius the Great,
to meet and subdue the “little Graunnarian Emperor,” Eugenius, and his
terrible dictator, Arbogast, in the “Battle of the Frigidus,” which
turned the course of European history and left the world—as Constantine
had hoped to leave it—Christian and not pagan.
With Theodosius came a young Visigothic chieftain of noble birth,
Alaric by name, commanding a company of his countrymen, the valiant
warriors with whom Theodosius strove to surround himself when there was
real fighting to be done. They called their young leader not “Alaric,”
but “Balthe,” “the Bold,” revered him as sprung from a line that had
for its founders the gods of Walhalla, and were prepared to follow him
to Heaven or Hell. Whither they were to follow him in the end, I fancy,
was decided on that September day when, having secured a spot for their
camp and seen that all things were in order, he went and stood under
the big pear tree and looked down on the beautiful vale of Carniola,
flushing to harvest, rioting in fruit, sheltered on the north and east
by the vigilant Alps, and cooled by the mighty rush of the Frigidus,
which we call the Wipbach, and which bursts full-grown, ice-fed, from
the foot of the hills, and dashes along under banks so teeming with
fruit and grain, at that time of the year, as to be almost hidden from
sight. Tearing down from the caves of Adelsberg, it follows the lie of
the land till it enters Italy, changes name and nationality, becomes
the Isonzo, and finally, joining the other streams flowing down from
the north, empties itself into the Adriatic at Aquileia.
This is Alaric’s first appearance in history, and we can hardly doubt
that with his first view of the paradise that lay south of the Alps
came also the first faint echo of the call that haunted him all his
life, “Penetrabis ad Urbem”—“Thou shalt penetrate to the city”—the
city towards which every northerner looked with covetous longing and
superstitious fear, but which its own rulers, at least in Alaric’s
time, regarded rather as a venerable part of the insignia of the Empire
than as an active agent in its affairs. Alaric, when he first looked
towards Italy, was a loyal ally of Theodosius, and would have hotly
resented the assertion that a day would come when he should sweep the
country as an invader and a declared foe of the great man’s son. But
(how true is the Japanese proverb, “Great generals have no sons!”)
the feeble-minded Honorius again and again refused the honest alliance
and friendship proffered by the Goth, and was thus alone responsible
for those terrible six days of sack and pillage which desolated
Rome sixteen years (almost day for day) after Alaric had fought so
whole-heartedly for Theodosius in the Battle of the Frigidus.
That was indeed a hard-fought fight; Arbogast knew every inch of the
country, his troops outnumbered those of Theodosius, and the cunning
old soldier had so disposed them that, unknown to the Emperor, they cut
off every line of march save the narrow one by which he had come. The
first day’s fighting resulted in a practical defeat for the loyalists,
and as the night came down and hostilities were necessarily suspended,
Theodosius realised with anguish that the next day’s sun would probably
see paganism triumphant and the Cross of his standards trampled
underfoot. He had lost great numbers of men; those who remained were
deeply discouraged, and he doubted whether they could be persuaded to
meet the enemy again. From the adversary’s camp came shouts of triumph
and sounds of feasting; he was passing the night in celebrating what he
reckoned as a conclusive victory. Theodosius wandered away alone into
the hills and remained all night in fervent prayer that God would help
the right and vindicate His own cause. As the dawn came up behind the
eastern hills the Emperor fell asleep and had a wonderful dream. In his
dream he saw two radiant knights, clothed in white and mounted on white
horses, come towards him. They told him that they were John and Philip,
the Apostles of the Lord, and that he should be of good courage, for
God had heard his prayers. Theodosius awoke, but only to begin praying
again; nor did he cease until, just as the sun leapt up behind the
Nanosberg, an officer came running to tell him of a wonderful dream
that one of his soldiers had had—and described the same vision that had
visited and comforted the Emperor.
Then indeed Theodosius knew that he should prevail, but he neglected
no smallest point that could aid him to victory. When all was ready
he made the sign of the Cross, the preconcerted signal of attack, and
hurled his men on the foe, who was somewhat dazed and disorganised
after the night’s excesses. Still Arbogast’s men fought so fiercely
that the issue seemed once more wavering in the balance, and then
the great Emperor, like another David, rising in his saddle, shouted,
“Where is the Lord God of Theodosius?” and dashed into the thickest of
the fray. Like those other valiant ones, who carried no weapons, his
soldiers said, “Let us perish with him!” and flew to follow; and then
the Lord God of Theodosius let loose His servant, the terrible “Bora,”
the wind that science cannot account for, that blows once in a century
or once in a decade, as the case may be, and always carries death on
its wings. From behind the spurs of the Alps it roared down that day,
as if placed under the Emperor’s orders, and in its fury the very darts
of Arbogast’s men were turned back and buried in the bowmen’s flesh.
It was a great victory, one of the decisive battles of the world,
and Alaric had helped to win it, but from that day his enthusiasm
for the Emperor waned. Theodosius had given him to understand that,
if Eugenius and Arbogast were subdued, he should be promoted to high
military office and, in time, be entrusted with the command of Roman
troops in the very centre of any future line of battle; but Theodosius
forgot, or trusted that Alaric had forgotten the hopes thus held out,
and the proud young chief found himself still in the second rank, a
leader of auxiliaries, while the foremost honours of conflict remained
with men whom his soul disdained and his intelligence discredited.
There was no open rupture till after the death of Theodosius on the
17th of January, 395, little over four months after the battle of the
Frigidus. The Goths had long been murmuring that they were weary of
fighting the Romans’ battles for them and would prefer to fight for
themselves; Alaric’s allegiance to the Emperor had been in great part
a personal matter; the feeble boys, Arcadius and Honorius, who were
now hailed as the Emperors of the East and West, had inherited none
of the great attributes which the young Goth had admired and respected
in their father, and were mere tools in the hands of their ministers,
whose policy did not lead them to encourage or highly recompense their
Barbarian allies; and so it came about that soon after St. Ambrose had
pronounced his immortal funeral oration over the body of Theodosius,
the Goths, camped on the fair Illyrian plain, took Alaric, placed him
on a shield, and, raising it high on their shoulders, broke forth into
a mighty shout echoed by all their comrades: “Theodosius! Theodosius!”
“A King, a King!”
And he was a born king who stood there, smiling down on them as his
graceful young figure balanced itself so lightly and easily on the
upraised shield—and not only a king, but a king-maker and the first
of a long line of Kings, ruling over that which was destined to be
for ages the richest and most Catholic realm in Europe, the Kingdom
of Spain—the true Fatherland of dead Theodosius. But Alaric’s thoughts
travelled not thither; when his spirit freed itself at a leap from all
the practical surroundings of his life, when the veil of the present
was drawn aside in dreams, and the future, vague yet glorious, revealed
itself for a fleeting moment to his eyes, it was Rome that they saw,
insolent and mighty even in her decay, pagan at heart still, and
it was he, Alaric, who was to chastise her for her sins and cleanse
her from her corruption. His Arian impiety, shared with almost all
his countrymen, in no way diminished his zeal for Christianity as he
apprehended it, though it is hard for us to reckon as Christians the
Arian detractors from the divinity of Christ. Even in our own day the
Unitarians are indignant when we refuse the appellation to them—so
coveted are the virtues of Christianity by those who make of Christ,
the Son of God, a liar and a fraud!
So the spring of 395 saw Alaric start on a conquering career for
himself, an enterprise great enough to suit his soaring ambition,
and aided, all unconsciously, by the Huns, who chose the same moment
for their first descent on Europe. The enfeebled empires of the East
and West were appalled at the flood of devastation thus let loose
and scarcely knew which foe to meet first—Alaric in Greece (whither
he first turned his steps) or the Huns, who were pouring over the
Caucasus and terrifying Central Europe with their hideous faces and
savage war-cries. It seemed as if the last days of the world had come,
and black despair breathes out of every page of the chronicles of
the time. But Alaric at least had no idea of continuous fighting for
mere fighting’s sake; and although he did, when it suited him, permit
orgies of plunder to his followers, he showed again and again the most
unexpected and, as we should call it, capricious moderation, renouncing
suddenly, and without apparent motive, the entire fruits of a hard-won
victory. Thus, when Athens with all its riches lay, a tamed captive,
to his hand, one of those strange revulsions of feeling came over him
and he made peace with its rulers, entered the city as their guest, and
left it without having touched any of its treasures. Twice he stood
before the Gates of Rome and twice, in obedience to the Inner Voice
that had sent him there, halted at the sacred threshold and withdrew,
exacting, however, a heavy indemnity to pacify his troops.
But when, in just rage at the folly of Honorius, he stood for the third
time before Rome’s gates, neither the promptings of the “Voice” nor
the entreaties of the holy monk who had attempted to stay him and had
prophesied his doom should he persist, could turn him from his resolve
to take the city. And it is for the sake of my city that I have told
these few scanty details of the story of Alaric. His invasion was to
be the prototype of many another, but this is the first picture thrown
out by the magic lantern of history showing a self-styled Christian
and his horde robbing, destroying, dishonouring in the very streets
of the Capital of Christianity. The Goths were given but six days
(some writers say only three) in which to sate the thirst for riches
and treasures which the intercourse with Rome and Constantinople
had long ago aroused in their hearts. On Alaric’s former visit a
great part of the tribute exacted had been stipulated for in costly
garments, and—of all things!—pepper, a luxury already highly prized
by the Barbarians, perhaps as stimulating to their naturally noble
thirst for strong drinks; this time every man helped himself, the only
prohibitions proclaimed extending to holy vessels pertaining to the
great sanctuaries. It is claimed for Alaric that he forbade bloodshed,
but, if he did, the command was disregarded, as the contemporary
lamentations of St. Jerome and St. Augustine show us there was terrible
slaughter, the citizens probably attempting, at all risks, to defend
their goods and their women. St. Jerome’s quiet retreat at Bethlehem
was crowded with refugees, the cream of Roman aristocracy, who gave
him such terrible descriptions of the downfall of the city that he
was, as he tells us himself, utterly overcome with sorrow and despair.
It was on learning of the ruin of the Mistress of the World that St.
Augustine, once more convinced of the passing nature of earthly things,
conceived the idea of writing his great work, “De Civitate Dei,”
showing the indestructibility of God’s City of the Soul, the marvellous
spiritual edifice not made with hands, of which every true Christian is
co-builder and co-heir.
Alaric prided himself on his Christianity, but the sectarian hatred
of many things that Catholicism reveres was so irrepressible that, as
I have already related, the tombs of the martyrs were sacked whenever
they were discovered, and the traces of their blessed footsteps all
but obliterated in many of the Catacombs. There were, too, some of
the fairest virtues of Christianity in which the Arian conquerors
simply refused to believe; charity, self-denial, voluntary poverty
for Christ’s sake—these were such unbelievable folly in the eyes
of those baptised Barbarians that they laughed at and punished them
as various forms of fraud. One pitiful picture stands out from the
red reek of those awful six days—that of the saintly Lady Marcella,
living in her old age in her palace on the Aventine, whence every
object of value had long vanished—to feed the orphan and the widow.
Her only earthly treasure is one sweet girl, her adopted daughter,
Principia, who repays her love with all the devotion of a young heart,
and follows her example, asking nothing from life but the honour of
serving Christ in His suffering poor. No slaves surround the two noble
women; their garments are mean and threadbare in the eyes of men,
though they look marvellously rich to their Guardian Angels. Alone
in their empty palace they two pray and weep while the roar of the
sack and the shrieks of the dying sound up from the streets below.
Then the invaders have sighted the fair palace on the hill; there is
a rush for the entrance—every man would be the first to pick his loot
from the treasures it must contain. Marcella drags Principia to a
remote hiding-place—those fierce eyes only rest on youth and beauty to
destroy—and returns to face the robbers, alone. The great fair-haired
fellows, drunk with license, crowd round her, shouting in their uncouth
tongue that she must bring forth her treasures. In vain the delicate
old lady assures them that she has none, that the threadbare garments
she points to are the only ones she possesses, and that the only
vessels she uses are those common earthenware cups and jars in the
corner, that all the rest has gone to the poor.
“It is a lie!” they cry. “A lie! You have buried your gold and
silver—show us where it is!”
She calls on Heaven to witness that she has nothing, nothing but what
they see, but the lust of gold has driven them mad. They seize her,
throw her to the ground, and beat her with their heavy clubs till
she is all but dead. Yet her heart lives. She has been praying for
one thing in her torture and now she asks it of them as, weary of her
obstinacy, they turn to search the dwelling for themselves:
“One thing I ask of you, and I freely forgive you all your cruelty.
Leave me my daughter Principia—let me live for her sake. She is
young—timid—if we are separated—if she is left desolate of my
protection—she will die of despair!”
Then they believed, and they went out quietly, murmuring to one
another: “The poor old creature is mad—who ever heard of voluntary
poverty?” But they molested her no more. And she recovered from the
effect of their blows, and soon after left Rome, taking her dear
Principia with her, and they went to a far country, where they served
God according to the counsels of perfection, and, when their time came,
died in peace.
One other picture from those memorable days stands out—not sadly, but
in an almost humorous light. Alaric, with all his Arian fierceness,
had a great veneration for the Shrine of St. Peter and for the other
great Churches; any one who took sanctuary in them was to be safe, and
he forbade his men to touch any of the vessels pertaining to sacred
worship. Now, St. Peter’s was surrounded by a number of convents and
other buildings connected with its service, and one morning a big
Goth, unaware that he was treading on forbidden ground, walked into
one of these buildings to see what he could find. He was immediately
confronted by a very old nun, who boldly asked him what he was doing
there? He replied that he was in search of gold and silver, that he
was certain she had treasures concealed in the house, and that she must
produce them at once.
“Yes,” she replied meekly, “I have much silver and gold. I will show it
to you.” And, to the Goth’s huge delight, she brought out of various
hiding-places such an array of precious objects as he had never yet
beheld. Silently she spread them all before him—chalices and patens of
pure gold, lamps and candlesticks of bronze and silver—till he could
scarcely believe his eyes and began to wonder how he could carry them
all away.
Then the nun spoke. “This is all,” she said. “Behold these great
treasures! There is no one in the house but myself, and I am an old
woman, too feeble to guard them. BUT—they belong to St. Peter, and, if
you lay so much as a finger on one of them, the wrath of Heaven will
strike you dead!”
That was enough. The terrified warrior fled, and, rushing to Alaric,
told him what he had seen. “St. Peter’s treasures?” cried the chief.
“They shall indeed be taken care of!” And he commanded one of his
officers to lead a great body of men to the deserted house and see that
the old nun and the holy vessels were deposited inside the Basilica. So
that quarter of the city showed a strange sight to its inhabitants—a
hundred or so of sturdy Goths, tricked out in stolen silks and gems,
each carrying a bit of St. Peter’s property in devout fear, as if
expecting that it would blow him up; and in their midst, blinking at
the sunlight, a shabby old nun, who directed their steps and issued
her orders as to where everything should be placed when the frightened
procession finally defiled into the great, dark Church, and halted as
far as possible from the High Altar and the Tomb of the Apostle.
But St. Peter did not save Alaric. Doom was waiting for him and to doom
he marched unknowingly, though I believe he would not have swerved from
the path had he seen with his eyes its unsheathed sword. He had taken
Rome—but Rome, devastated, famine-stricken, plague-scourged, as she was
then, would have been a mere empty flare of glory in his crown, without
Rome’s storehouse and granary, Africa. Like England to-day, she had
long outgrown any possibility of dependence on her own supplies and she
had to be fed from abroad. When the African grain ships were delayed on
their way, Rome and many of her provinces went hungry; so Alaric’s next
move was towards Africa. He went down through the “Regno,” pausing not
except at Nola, the place destined long centuries after to be glorified
by St. Alphonsus’ pastorate. Thence he hurried, past all the riches
and beauty of that teeming garden country, towards Reggio in Calabria,
meaning apparently to take ship from Sicily for the opposite coast.
But he never reached Reggio; death was waiting for him at Cosenza. All
we know is that it was quick, if not sudden. And then came that funeral
which the world can never forget. Where two rivers meet, the greater
one, the Busento, was dammed up and turned aside into its sister
stream, the Crati, and in the bed thus laid bare Alaric’s last bed was
made. There they buried him who was born on an island at the mouth of
the Danube, so that the music of rushing waters might soothe his last
sleep as it had soothed his first. Great treasure they laid with him in
his deep grave, and horses and weapons, that he might ride in state to
meet his peers in Valhalla—for Valhalla was still Paradise for them.
And they sang their great old war songs for his farewell, sounding
his triumphs in his ears to the end, while the captives who had raised
the dam dug it down, each man with the sweat of death on his brow, for
the war songs were to be their requiem, too. When the Busento roared
back to its bed and took its own old way to the sea, it carried their
corpses with it, and the warriors turned away satisfied, because none
could point out and none could disturb Alaric’s last resting-place.