(410 A.D.)
At the hour of midnight the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the
inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic
trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of
Rome, the imperial city which had subdued and civilized so
considerable a part of mankind was delivered to the licentious fury of
the tribes of Germany and Scythia.
The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a
vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of
humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the
rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a
wealthy and effeminate people; but he exhorted them at the same time
to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the
churches of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul as holy and inviolable
sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, several of the
Christian Goths displayed the fervor of a recent conversion; and some
instances of their uncommon piety and moderation are related, and
perhaps adorned, by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers.
While the Barbarians roamed through the city in quest of prey, the
humble dwelling of an aged virgin who had devoted her life to the
service of the altar was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He
immediately demanded, tho in civil language, all the gold and silver
in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness with which she
conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate of the richest
materials and the most curious workmanship. The Barbarian viewed with
wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted
by a serious admonition addrest to him in the following words:
"These," said she, "are the consecrated vessels belonging to St.
Peter; if you presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain
on your conscience. For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to
defend." The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, dispatched a
messenger to inform the King of the treasure which he had discovered,
and received a peremptory order from Alaric that all the consecrated
plate and ornaments should be transported, without damage or delay, to
the church of the Apostle.
From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant
quarter of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in
order of battle through the principal streets, protected with
glittering arms the long train of their devout companions, who bore
aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the
martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled with the sound of
religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians
hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of
fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had
the good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of
the Vatican. The learned work "Concerning the City of God" was
professedly composed by St. Augustine to justify the ways of
Providence in the destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates
with peculiar satisfaction this memorable triumph of Christ, and
insults his adversaries by challenging them to produce some similar
example of a town taken by storm, in which the fabulous gods of
antiquity had been able to protect either themselves or their deluded
votaries.
In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of Barbarian
virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of the
Vatican and the Apostolic churches could receive a very small
proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more
especially of the Huns who served under the standard of Alaric, were
strangers to the name, or at least to the faith of Christ; and we may
suspect without any breach of charity or candor that in the hour of
savage license, when every passion was inflamed and every restraint
was removed, the precepts of the gospel seldom influenced the behavior
of the Gothic Christians. The writers the best disposed to exaggerate
their clemency have freely confest that a cruel slaughter was made of
the Romans, and that the streets of the city were filled with dead
bodies, which remained without burial during the general
consternation. The despair of the citizens was sometimes converted
into fury; and whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition,
they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent and
the helpless. The private revenge of forty thousand slaves was
exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes which
they had formerly received were washed away in the blood of the guilty
or obnoxious families. The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to
injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death
itself....
The want of youth, or beauty, or chastity protected the greatest part
of the Roman women from the danger of a rape. But avarice is an
insatiate and universal passion, since the enjoyment of almost every
object that can afford pleasure to the different tastes and tempers of
mankind may be procured by the possession of wealth. In the pillage of
Rome, a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain
the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight; but after these
portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the
palaces of Rome were rudely stript of their splendid and costly
furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes
of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons that always
followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art
were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted
for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the
division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a
battle-ax. The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the
avarice of the rapacious Barbarians, who proceeded by threats, by
blows, and by tortures to force from their prisoners the confession of
hidden treasure. Visible splendor and expense were alleged as the
proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to
a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who
endured the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret
object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who
expired under the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary
treasures.
The edifices of Rome, tho the damage has been much exaggerated,
received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At their entrance
through the Salarian gate, they fired the adjacent houses to guide
their march and to distract the attention of the citizens; the flames,
which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night, consumed
many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace of
Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the
Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that
fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and
that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations
of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his
devout assertion that the wrath of Heaven supplied the imperfections
of hostile rage, and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the
statues of so many gods and heroes, was leveled in the dust by the
stroke of lightning.
V