reforming energy during the winter of 357-8. After defeating and humbling
aggressive German tribes, he set himself to relieve the distress of the
landowners, who had suffered great losses. There was at the time a great
need of money. The praetorian prefect of the Gauls, Florentius, proposed
to raise the sums required[1679] by an additional levy, and procured
from Constantius an order to that effect. Julian would rather die than
allow this. He knew what would happen in carrying it out, and that such
‘precautions’ (_provisiones_)[1680] or rather destructions (_eversiones_)
had often brought provinces into the extremities of want. The Prefect,
to whose department the matter in strictness belonged, protested loudly,
relying on the powers given him by Constantius. But Julian stood firm,
and tried to soothe him by calmly proving that there was no necessity for
the proposed measure. Careful calculations shewed that the normal impost
(_capitatio_) would produce enough to furnish the needful supplies, and
something to spare. He would have nothing to do with the order[1681]
for an extra levy. The Prefect duly reported this to Constantius, who
reprimanded the Caesar for his obstinacy. Julian replied that the
provincials had been exposed to ravages from various quarters, and that
if they were still able to render the usual dues[1682] the government
had reason to be thankful. To wring more out of men in distress by
punishments was impossible. And he did manage to prevent extraordinary
exactions in Gaul. In the winter of 358-9 he continued the same policy.
He saw to the equitable assessment[1683] of the tribute, and kept at bay
the horde of rascally officials who made fortunes[1684] out of injuring
the people. The corruption of the law-courts he checked by hearing the
important cases himself. No wonder that in an age of Christian emperors
the virtuous pagan earned a reputation as a restorer of Roman greatness
far beyond the boundaries of Gaul. Whether the fact that adherents of
polytheism were now chiefly to be found among rustics (_pagani_) had
anything to do with Julian’s clear appreciation of the sufferings of
countryfolk, is a question on which I cannot venture to offer an opinion.
That all or most of the corn levied by imperial taxation was in the
frontier Provinces required for the military commissariat is well known,
and the granaries for storing it were a leading feature of permanent
camps and garrison towns. The feeding of armies in the field, always
wasteful, no doubt consumed a great deal. In the case of Gaul (for to
live on the country was starvation to a force invading wild Germany)
the quantity to be brought up to the front seems to have been normally
more than Gaul could spare. It was usual to rely on the harvests[1685]
of Britain. Transport was the main difficulty. Saxon pirates infested
the narrow seas, and the navigation of the Rhine was blocked by Franks.
Julian’s energy cleared away these obstacles, and saw to the erection
or repair of granaries in the Rhineland towns to receive the British
corn. These measures enabled him to do without making extra demands on
the farmers of Gaul, a step sometimes unavoidable when there was war
on the frontiers. Of course such commandeering was very unpopular, and
wise generals avoided it whenever possible. Ammianus draws particular
attention[1686] to this matter when narrating the campaign of Theodosius
in Mauretania (373). He forbade the levy of supplies from the
provincials, announcing that he would make the stores of the enemy[1687]
provide the commissariat, and the landowners were delighted.
Among the interesting references that occur in the course of the work are
some that throw further light on the conditions of life in the parts of
the empire subject to invasion. It is not necessary to cite the frequent
mention of various kinds of fortified posts from great strongholds to
mere blockhouses. These remind us that the strength of the imperial
armies could never be so maintained as to guard the frontier at all times
on all points. Barbarian raiders slipped through[1688] the inevitable
gaps, and wide stretches of country were laid waste long before
sufficient forces could be gathered to expel them. We do not need the
descriptions of their cruel ravages to convince us that agriculture near
the Danube or Rhine borders was a perilous calling. If the farmer were
not carried away into bondage or slain, he was left robbed of his all,
and in imminent danger of starving: for the barbarians ate up everything,
and hunger was a principal motive in leading them to come and warning
them to return home. Naturally it was the custom in these border-lands
to provide fortified refuges here and there in which local farmers could
find temporary shelter with their belongings, and homesteads of any
importance were more or less equipped for defence. This was the state of
things even in Mauretania. We read of a farm[1689] (_fundus_) which the
brother of Firmus the rebel leader (373) ‘built up after the fashion of a
city’; also of one girt with a strong[1690] wall, a very secure refuge
for the Moors, to destroy which Theodosius had to employ battering-rams.
These are not the only instances. And forts (_castella_) and walled towns
are often referred to. Along the northern borders the necessity for such
precautions was much greater. Still it seems that few if any in the
latter part of the fourth century foresaw that frontier defences would
at no distant date give way before the barbarian flood. A high imperial
official, with whose corrupt connivance[1691] gross wrongs had been
perpetrated (370) in Africa, on being superseded in office withdrew to
his native Rhineland, and ‘devoted himself[1692] to rural affairs.’ The
retired ease for which he apparently hoped was soon ended, though not by
barbarian raiders. The malignity of a praetorian prefect tracked him to
his retreat and by persecution drove him to suicide.
This last episode may remind us that the weakening of the empire was
not wholly due to failure of an economic kind or to decay of military
skill. The farmers might raise crops enough, the armies might prove their
superiority in the field, but nevertheless the great organism was in
decline. A general mistrust, fatal to loyal cooperation for the common
good, was the moral canker by which the exertions of farmer and soldier
were hampered and rendered vain. Officials seeking to ruin each other,
emperors turning to murders and confiscations as a source of revenue, all
classes bound fast in rigid corporations or gilds under laws which it
was their study to evade; the failure of individual enterprise, lacking
the joy of individual freedom, and the stimulus of expected reward; in
short, everyone ready to sacrifice his neighbour to save his own skin:
how was a society characterized by such phenomena to maintain a moral
advantage over the rude barbarians? That it was now protected by alien
swords, that aliens were even commanding[1693] the Roman armies, was
not the main cause of its overthrow. As a rule these barbarians kept
their bargain, and shed their blood freely for the empire that enlisted
them in masses. But we must distinguish between two or three different
classes of these alien defenders. The mere mercenaries need not detain
us. More significant were the contingents taken over in large bodies by
agreement with the tribes. A good instance[1694] is that of the year
376, when a vast host of Goths sought leave to pass the Danube with the
hope of settling on vacant lands south of the river. We are told that
the Roman commanders on that front got over their first alarm and took
the line that really the emperor was in luck. Here was a huge supply of
recruits[1695] brought to him from the ends of the earth, an unlooked-for
reinforcement ready to be blended with his own troops, and to make up
an unconquerable army. Instead of spending the yearly payments of the
provinces[1696] on filling up the ranks, the treasury would gain a great
sum of gold. It would seem that they reported to the emperor in favour
of the request, for Valens granted the petition of a Gothic embassy.
Arrangements were made for transporting them over the river, and it was
understood that they had leave to settle in the parts of Thrace. But
now troubles began. Greedy Roman officials fleeced and maltreated the
hungry horde, who were at length driven into rebellion. With the sequel,
the great battle (378) near Adrianople, and the death of Valens, we are
not here concerned. But the account[1697] of their ravages in Thrace
gives us a picture of the countryside in a harassed province and of the
slave labour employed. The rebels, unable to take fortified places by
regular siege, overran the country in raiding bands. Captives guided them
to places stocked with food. But they were especially encouraged and
strengthened by the great number of people of their own race who came
pouring in to join them. Ammianus describes[1698] these deserters as
men who had long before been sold (into slavery of course) by traders,
and with them very many whom at the time of their passing the river,
when they were perishing of hunger, they had bartered for thin wine or
worthless scraps of bread.
This scene may serve to remind us that slavery and the sale of slaves to
Roman dealers were recognized features of German tribal life as described
by Tacitus. It also gives us a glimpse of the way in which opportunities
of imperial advantage could be wasted or turned into calamities by the
unpatriotic and selfish greed of Roman officials. In this case potential
recruits were turned into actual enemies; and the barbarian slaves, who
should have been tilling Thracian fields in the interest of Rome, were
left to guide and recruit the hostile army of their kinsmen. It must
not be supposed that all schemes for raising barbarian troops in large
bodies were thus by gross mismanagement brought to a disastrous end. The
value of sound flesh and blood in the ranks was well understood, and a
successful campaign against German tribes could be made profitable from
this point of view. Thus in 377, when Gratian had a whole tribe at his
mercy, he required of them a contingent[1699] of sturdy recruits to be
incorporated in Roman army-units, on delivery of whom he set free the
rest to return to their native homes. That such recruits became under
Roman discipline so far Romanized as to provide efficient armies is
clear from the victories that still delayed the fall of the empire. But
‘Roman’ was becoming more than ever a mere name-label: there had never
been a Roman nation. Of the third class of alien soldiery little need be
said. Military colonists of barbarian origin had for a long time past
been brought into the empire, some as frontier guards holding land on
condition of army service, others more in the interior, even[1700] in
Italy; and these latter undoubtedly furnished many recruits, on whatever
terms. The general result may be summed up in saying that, when the
barbarian invaders at last came to stay, they found their kindred already
there at home.
LV. CLAUDIAN.
In =Claudian=, who wrote about 400, we have another oriental Greek,
who wrote chiefly in Latin with far more mastery of that language than
Ammianus. Stilicho his patron, the great barbarian head of the Roman
army, was at the height of his power, and Claudian’s most congenial
occupation was to sing his praises and denounce his opponents. He was
also poet laureate of the feeble emperor Honorius. Writing mainly on
contemporary themes, he is, if allowance be made for his bias, a witness
worth citing; but the passages relevant to the present subject are
naturally few. In common with other writers of the later ages of Rome
he is constantly looking back to a great and glorious past, contrasting
painfully with that present which he nevertheless is striving to glorify.
Thus he not only refers with enthusiasm[1701] to the old heroes of Roman
history and legend, the common material of Roman literature, but even
dreams[1702] of a golden age to be, when the earth of her own accord
shall render all good things in abundance to a people living happily in
communistic brotherhood. This fancy however is no more than a piece of
unreal rhetoric, an echo of Vergil. It is inspired by the victories of
Stilicho, and the world-dominion under which this beatific vision is to
be realized is—the rule of Honorius.
In January 395 the great Theodosius died, and the empire was divided
between his two sons. In November, Rufinus, who dominated Arcadius at
Constantinople, was murdered. His place was soon taken by the eunuch
Eutropius. On these two personages Claudian poured out a flood of
invective, speaking for Stilicho and the West. The greed of Rufinus
is depicted[1703] as ruinous to the landed interests. ‘The fertility
of his land was the ruin of the landlord: a good crop[1704] made the
farmers tremble. He drives men from their homes, and thrusts them out
of their ancestral borders, either robbing the living or seizing the
estates of the dead.’ The jealousy of the West expresses itself in a
passage[1705] referring to the famine created in Rome by the rebellion
of Gildo in Africa. Honorius (that is Stilicho) is effusively praised
for its relief by importations from other Provinces, chiefly from Gaul.
That, owing to the claim of the New Rome to the corn of Egypt, the
Old Rome should be so dependent on Africa, is a situation indignantly
resented[1706] in eloquent lines. A symptom ominous of imperial failure
was the attempt to wrest eastern Illyricum from the rule of Arcadius
(407-8) an enterprise[1707] secretly concerted between Stilicho and
Alaric. Fugitives from Epirus sought refuge in Italy. Stilicho treated
them as prisoners of war from an enemy’s country, and handed them over
to Italian landlords as slaves or _coloni_. When Alaric and his Goths
moved towards Italy, some of these refugees, aided by a law issued for
their protection, found their way home again. Claudian unblushingly
declares[1708] that none but Stilicho will be able to heal the empire’s
wound: ‘at length the _colonus_ will return to his own borders and the
court will once more be enriched by the tributes of Illyricum.’
A Roman view of the intruding barbarians and their capacity of peaceful
settlement is in one place[1709] put into the mouth of Bellona the
war-goddess. She addresses a Gothic chief in bitter sarcasm. ‘Go and
be a thorough ploughman, cleaving the soil: teach your comrades to lay
aside the sword and toil at the hoe. Your Gruthungians[1710] will make
fine cultivators, and tend vineyards in accordance with the seasons.’ She
taunts him with degenerating from the good old habits of his race, war
and plunder, and scornfully describes him as one captured[1711] by the
glamour of fair dealing, who had rather live as a serf on what is granted
him than as a lord on what he takes by force. In short, he is a coward.
Now no doubt there were Goths and others, Huns in particular, of this
war-loving work-hating type approved by the war-goddess. But abundant
evidence shews that many, perhaps most, of the barbarians were quite
ready to settle down in peace and produce their own food. When Claudian
himself speaks[1712] of the ‘Teuton’s ploughshare’ as one of the agencies
producing corn that relieved famine in Rome, he is most likely referring
to the many Germans already settled in Gaul as well as to inhabitants of
the ‘Germanies,’ the two provinces along the Rhine.
A curious passage[1713] in the poem on the Gothic war and Stilicho’s
defeat of Alaric at Pollentia (402) is of interest in connexion with the
Roman army and the recruiting system. Of the confidence revived in Rome
by the appearance of Stilicho and his troops a vivid picture is drawn,
and he continues ‘henceforth[1714] no more pitiful conscription, no more
of reapers laying down the sickle and wielding the inglorious javelin
... nor the mean clamorous jangling of amateur leaders: no, this is the
presence of a genuine manhood, a genuine commander, a scene of war in
real life.’ If this means anything, it implies that hasty levies[1715]
of raw countrymen were notoriously unfit to face hordes of barbarian
tribesmen in the field. True, no doubt; professional training had been
the basis of efficiency in Roman armies ever since the days of Marius.
But the words surely suggest further that conscription within the empire
was in Claudian’s time not found a success, that is in producing a
supply of fit recruits to keep the legions up to strength. This also was
doubtless true, as much other evidence attests, and was the main reason
why the ‘Roman’ soldiery of the period were mostly barbarians. But here,
as usual, the witness of the court-poet is in the form of admission
rather than statement. His business was to be more Roman than Rome. It
remains only to mention two similes, one of which perhaps refers to free
labour. An old crone[1716] has ‘poor girls’ under her engaged in weaving.
They beg for a little holiday, but she keeps them at work ‘to earn their
joint livelihood.’ This may be a scene from life, but is more likely
an echo from earlier poetry. When he illustrates[1717] the effect of
Stilicho’s coming on the peoples rising against Rome by comparing them
to slaves, deceived by false report of their lord’s death, and caught
revelling by him when he unexpectedly returns, it is a scene that might
be enacted in any age. The little poem on the old man of Verona is famous
as a picture of humble contentment in rustic life. But the main point of
it as evidence is that the case is exceptional.
LVI. VEGETIUS.
=Vegetius=, a contemporary of Ammianus and Claudian, is credited with
two surviving works, one on the military system, the other on veterinary
practice. Both are largely compilations, and belong to the class of
technical writings which formed a great part of the literature of this
age. In discussing army matters the author looks back with regret to
the sounder conditions of the past. Speaking[1718] of the quality of
recruits, he says ‘It can surely never have been matter of doubt that
the common countryfolk are more fit (than townsfolk) to bear arms, reared
as they are in toil under the open sky, able to stand the heat of the sun
and caring not for the shade, with no experience of baths or knowledge
of luxuries, straightforward and frugal, with limbs hardened to endure
any kind of toil; for the wearing of armour, digging of trenches, and
carrying their kit, are continuations of rustic habit.’ It is true that
sometimes town-bred recruits have to be levied, but they need long and
careful training to fit them for active service. True, the Romans of old
went out to war from the city. But luxury was unknown in those days:
the farmer of today was the warrior of tomorrow, by change of weapons.
Cincinnatus went straight from the plough to be dictator. A little after,
speaking[1719] of the standard of height, he tells us that it has always
been usual to have a standard tested by actual measurement, below which
no recruit was passed for service in certain crack units. But there
were then[1720] larger numbers to draw from, and more men followed the
combatant service, for the civil service[1721] had not as yet carried off
the pick of those in military age. Therefore, if circumstances require
it, strength rather than height should be the first consideration. I am
loth to infer much[1722] from this passage, the period referred to in
‘then’ being undefined. What it does shew is that in the writer’s own
time a considerable number of men of military age (Romans being meant)
were attracted by the civil career of the new imperial service, which
in all its grades was technically styled[1723] a _militia_. Nor does
it appear certain that in preferring the rustic recruit to the urban
Vegetius implies the existence of a plentiful supply of the former among
the subjects of the empire. His words rather suggest to me the opposite
conclusion, which is in agreement with the evidence from other sources.
Turning to the veterinary work (_ars mulomedicinae_) we come upon a
chapter devoted[1724] to the management of horses. It is well to keep a
free space near the stable for the beasts to get exercise by rolling,
for they need exercise. ‘And for this end it is very helpful to have
them mounted[1725] often and ridden gently. Unskilful riders spoil both
their paces and their temper. Most mischievous is the recklessness[1726]
of slaves. When the master is not there, they urge his horses to gallop,
using spur as well as whip, in matches of speed with their mates or in
fiercely-contested races against outsiders: it never occurs to them to
halt or check their mounts. For they give no thought[1727] to what is
their master’s loss, being well content that it falls on him. A careful
owner will most strictly forbid such doings, and will only allow his
cattle to be handled by suitable grooms who are gentle and understand
their management.’ We must bear in mind that the horse was not used in
agriculture or as an ordinary beast of burden. Horse-breeding was kept
up to supply chargers for war, racers for the circus, mounts for men
of the wealthier classes in hunting or occasionally for exercise, for
solemn processions and such like. When Vegetius treats of a stable or
stud of horses, he has in mind the establishment of a gentleman of means,
and it is worth noting that such an establishment could be contemplated
by a writer of about 400 AD. This harmonizes with the picture of
Italian conditions that we get from the letters of Symmachus and other
sources. A few rich were very rich, the many poor usually very poor.
The carelessness, wastefulness, thievishness, of slaves is a very old
story, and in the middle of the fourth century had been bitterly referred
to[1728] by the emperor Julian. That Vegetius does not advise the owner
of these slave grooms to make a _vilicus_ responsible for seeing that his
orders are obeyed, is probably due to the rigidly technical character of
the treatise: he is not writing on the management of estates.
CHRISTIAN WRITERS
LVII. LACTANTIUS.
When we turn to the Christian writers, whom it is convenient to take
by themselves, we pass into a different atmosphere. Of rhetoric there
is plenty, for most of them had been subjected to the same literary
influences as their Pagan contemporaries. But there is a marked
difference of spirit, more especially in one respect very important
from the point of view of the present inquiry. Christianity might
counsel submission to the powers that be: it might recognize slavery
as an institution: it might enjoin on the slave to render something
beyond eye-service to his legal master. But it could never shake off
the fundamental doctrine of the equal position of all men before their
Almighty Ruler, and the prospect of coming life in another world, in
which the standards and privileges dominating the present one would go
for nothing. Therefore a Christian writer differed from the Pagan in his
attitude towards the poor and oppressed. He could sympathize with them,
not as a kindly though condescending patron, but as one conscious of
no abiding superiority in himself. The warmth with which the Christian
witnesses speak is genuine enough. The picture may be somewhat overdrawn
or too highly coloured, and we must allow for some exaggeration, but in
general it is surely true to fact.