THE LAST EMPRESSES OF THE WEST
The course of our inquiry has led us through five centuries of
change. We have passed from the sober and virile integrity of the
first Imperial pair, the golden age of Roman life and letters, to
the successive depths of the Cæsars. We have then seen the decrepit
and corrupt city refreshed with an inflow of sound provincial blood,
the enervated patrician families replaced on the throne by vigorous
soldiers, and a new period of sobriety and prosperity open under the
Stoics, to sink again under the burden of vice and luxury. Diocletian
restores its strength, and then a singular and momentous change comes
over the face of the Empire. The white homes of the gods perish or
decay, the gay processions no longer enliven the streets, the cross
of Christ heads the legions and towers austerely above the public
buildings and monuments. The ante-chambers of the Emperors are filled
with Christian bishops, and the rulers of the world bend meekly before
the ragged figures of monks and tremble at the threats of lowly priests.
We return to the Western world to find another and a greater change.
Rome has fallen, the frontiers are obliterated, the provinces, even
to Africa, are cowering under the armies of the barbarians. Poverty,
misery, and violence are scattered over the Empire, as if the departing
gods had sown its fields with salt or with dragons’ teeth as they
retired to Olympus. Civilization, law, culture, art, seem to be
doomed, and the end of the world is confidently expected. But amid
the crumbling frame of the vast Empire a few shades of Emperors and
Empresses linger for a generation, and we may glance briefly at their
sobered features and adventurous experiences.
The chief figure of interest is Ælia Galla Placidia, the sister of
Honorius, whom we found visiting Constantinople in 423. Her adventures
began when the Goths invested Rome in 408. She is then mentioned as
concurring with the Senate in the pitiful execution of her cousin, the
widow of Stilicho. Placidia was then in her eighteenth year. Bearing
a heavy ransom, the Gothic army went away to harass her useless and
trembling brother at Ravenna, and Placidia thought fit to remain at
Rome. It still contained wealth enough to capitulate to barbarians on
fair terms. But the Goths returned in 410. Rome was awakened in the
dead of night by the blare of their trumpets, and looked out to find
palaces in flames, the streets filled with the terrible Goths, and the
work of looting already begun. After six days of pillage they retreated
northward, taking Placidia with them. We cannot follow her closely in
that extraordinary march. She was treated as a princess, however, and
two years later was sought in marriage by the new king of the Goths,
Ataulph. Ataulph was a barbarian only in name; a large, handsome man,
princely, intelligent, and amiable. He aspired to be a Roman Emperor.
Honorius weakly resented the proposal, and demanded that he should
prove the friendship he offered to Rome by returning Placidia. For two
years she had wandered over Italy in the Gothic army.
It appears that Placidia was attracted to the graceful and courtly
Goth, and they were married at Narbonne--the Goths having now returned
to Gaul--in 414. When she reflected on the splendour of the wedding
gifts, she may have thought that even an alliance with a Roman prince
could not be more magnificent. Fifty beautiful youths, clothed in silk,
brought to her one hundred dishes laden with the gold and jewels which
the Goths had brought from Rome. But Ataulph was assassinated in the
following year, and Placidia sank again to the position of captive. She
had to walk twelve miles on foot, amid a crowd of captives, before the
victorious barbarian who had slain her husband. Within another year her
persecutor was slain, and his more humane successor restored her--or
sold her--to the court at Ravenna.
The Roman commander Constantius, into whose hands she was committed,
at once claimed her in marriage. Honorius had promised that he should
marry her if, by whatever means, he recovered her from the Goths.
Placidia shrank resentfully from his embraces, and found his coarse,
large, surly person a poor exchange for her handsome Gothic husband.
The wedding took place, however, in 417, and Placidia settled down
to the prosy duties of a matron, giving birth, in succession, to the
princess Honoria and the future Emperor Valentinian III. In 421 her
husband compelled the weak-minded Honorius to clothe him with the
purple. Placidia received the title of Augusta, and a better prospect
seemed to open before her. But Constantius died within a few months,
and it was not long before she fell into a violent quarrel with
Honorius. The cause of the quarrel is, as usual, obscure. Some of the
later writers suggest that Honorius became enamoured of his sister in
her young widowhood. We know only that the palace at Ravenna was filled
with bitter recriminations, its courts were stained with the blood of
their followers, and Placidia fled to Constantinople with her children.
[Illustration: PLACIDIA
ENPHEMIA
ENLARGED FROM COINS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM]
Honorius died a few months later (August 423), and Placidia, confirmed
in her title of Augusta by Theodosius, was sent in the following year
to claim the throne for Theodosius, at the head of a considerable
force. A secretary had usurped the vacant throne during her absence. It
was the spring of 425 before they set out from Thessalonica for Italy;
Placidia was with the cavalry, which reached and took Aquileia
with great speed. There, after a short time, she received the captive
usurper. His hand was cut off in the public Circus, he was placed on an
ass and conducted round the town, amid the jeers of the crowd and the
actors of the Circus, and was finally beheaded. They then proceeded to
Ravenna. Valentinian, a boy of six years, was created Emperor of the
West, and Placidia settled down to a long period of government in his
name.
As the legislation which followed, bearing the name of Valentinian
but breathing the spirit of Placidia, was mainly of an ecclesiastical
character, we will not linger over it. She fell ruthlessly upon Pagans,
Jews, Pelagians, Manichæans, and every other class who were obnoxious
to her clergy. As in the case of most of the later Empresses, her piety
so impressed the writers of the time that her personality is almost
entirely hidden from us. Apart from her decrees of religious coercion,
we know her only as experiencing, not doing, things. Procopius, not
a biased historian, severely complains that she reared her son in a
luxurious softness that led inevitably to his later vices and his
violent death; and it is frequently suspected that she had no eagerness
to see him fitly educated in the duties of a prince. Cassiodorus
pronounces that she conducted the affairs of the State with wavering
and incompetent counsel, just at the time when Rome most urgently
needed a firm and enlightened ruler. Tillemont, after praising her
piety, admits sadly that she brought great evils upon her afflicted
Empire.
Though Rome had been looted by the Goths at their leisure, and barbaric
armies commanded every province, the cause of the Empire was not yet
lost. A judicious policy might have utilized the mutual hatreds of the
various tribes, and have put the able commanders, who were still in the
service of Rome, at the head of formidable armies. But the weakness and
obtuseness of Placidia led, on the contrary, to the loss of her finest
general, her last free province, and a large proportion of her troops.
Listening injudiciously to the malignant persuasions of one general,
Ætius, she commanded the other, Count Boniface, to relinquish his post
in Africa, under the impression that he meditated treachery. Ætius at
the same time warned Boniface that the recall was due to suspicion,
and the gallant officer was driven into rebellion. He invited the
Vandals to Africa, and soon twenty thousand of the tall, fair-haired
northerners, with a vast crowd of dependents and followers, spread over
the province. Placidia discovered too late the deceit of Ætius. She was
induced to send a friendly ambassador to Boniface, and the fraud was
at once detected. But the Vandals could not be dislodged. Boniface was
slain (432) in his struggle with them, Ætius was driven to the camp of
the Huns, and Africa, the granary of Rome, was irretrievably lost.
The next blow that threatened the distracted Empire was an invasion
of the Huns. Placidia cannot be held responsible for the subsequent
calamities, for Ætius, strong in his alliance with the Huns, had forced
his way back into power, and was the real governor of the Empire.
But the formidable task he undertook was made more difficult by a
romantic and unhappy occurrence within Placidia’s domestic circle. We
have already spoken of her daughter Honoria, who came in disgrace to
Constantinople in 434. The great distinction of the Constantinopolitan
court, the possession of three royal virgins, seems to have excited the
pious jealousy of Placidia, and she apparently designed that her court
should not lack its Vestal Virgin. We are not told that any vow was
imposed on the young Honoria, but she was reared with the discipline of
a conventual novice, and given to understand that the exalted state of
virginity was assigned to her. In 433 the title of Augusta was bestowed
on her, in some compensation of her sacrifice. But the daughter of
Constantius had thicker blood in her veins than the daughters of
Arcadius, and the claustral regime--the restriction of attendance to
eunuchs and women--does not seem to have been rigorously enforced at
Ravenna. In 434 the seventeen-year-old princess was discovered to
be in a painful condition, and was dispatched to Constantinople, and
incarcerated in a nunnery by the indignant Pulcheria.
But the young girl had a spirit beyond her years. She had heard of the
formidable nation of the Huns, which awaited, in the neighbourhood of
the Danube and the Volga, its turn to fill the Imperial stage; she had
heard that the young and powerful Attila had recently acceded to the
throne of that nation. In some way she secured a messenger who took
from her a letter and a ring to Attila, offering him her heart and her
dowry if he would release her. The girlish freak was destined to have
terrible consequences for the Empire. The lady herself we may dismiss
in a word. She seems to have been kept in close confinement in the East
until about 450, sending fruitless messages, from time to time, to her
romantic lover. Attila had sufficient occupation during those fifteen
years, and was content to put her name on the lengthy list of his
wives. When, in 450, he formally demanded her person, he was assured
that she was married. It is not impossible that she was released on
condition that she accepted a husband chosen for her. But her end is
obscure, and one is disposed to doubt if she would ever have resumed
her liberty without joining the victorious Hun.
Placidia died in the year 450, leaving the astute Ætius to avert the
oncoming disaster by an alliance with the Ostrogoths against the
Huns. For a quarter of a century she had had supreme power over the
Western Empire. It is, perhaps, only an indication of mediocrity on
her part that she could not avert the blows that fell upon it during
that period, but it was a calamity for Rome. Her memory survived, in
a singular way, for more than a thousand years. The pagan habit of
cremating the bodies of Emperors and Empresses had been replaced by
the Egyptian process of embalming, and Placidia had built a chapel
at Ravenna for the reception of her body. There it sat, in a chair
of cedar-wood, until the year 1577, when some children, thrusting a
lighted taper into the tomb to see it better, set it aflame and reduced
it to ashes.
Meantime, another Empress of the West had appeared. In 437 Valentinian
had married Licinia Eudoxia, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Eudocia,
at Constantinople, and brought her to Italy. He had parted with a large
slice of his Empire to Pulcheria and Theodosius for the honour, and is
said to have held it lightly. The sequel will dispose us to believe his
irregularities. A youth of eighteen at the time, frivolous, luxurious,
and light-headed, he was content to enjoy the palace, and leave his
mother, and then Ætius, to discharge his duties. Eudoxia could but
idly follow the momentous movements of the nations, and appreciate the
defeat of the Huns in the terrible battle of Chalons in 451; or shudder
when, in the following year, Attila marched to the gates of Rome,
demanding half the Empire as the dowry of his distant bride, Honoria;
or when, in 453, the profligate Valentinian plunged his sword in the
breast of his great minister Ætius. A grave personal tragedy was upon
her.
The court resided generally at Rome, where Valentinian enjoyed the
larger and faster amusements of a metropolis. Here, in the year 455,
he was stabbed by his soldiers, and a romantic story is told in
connexion with his death. The story is rejected by a recent historical
writer, Mr. Hodgkin (“Italy and her Invaders”), but Professor Bury has
shown that it is probably true in substance. The full story, to which
fictitious details may have been added before it reached Procopius,
is that Valentinian, gambling heavily with the distinguished Senator
Petronius Maximus, obtained his ring as a security for the money he had
won. Maximus had a beautiful wife whom the Emperor desired, and he sent
the ring to her with a summons to the palace. The unsuspecting lady was
conducted to Valentinian’s apartments, and outraged by him. For this
crime, and in virtue of the general discontent, Maximus had him slain
and occupied his throne.
Maximus was a wealthy Roman, of illustrious family, and peaceful
and luxurious ways, so that we have little reason to doubt that an
outrage on his wife inspired him with the thought of assassination.
The further course of events adds authority to the narrative. His wife
died very closely after the death of Valentinian, and he invited or
compelled Eudoxia to marry him. In the obscurity and uncertainty of the
records we are unable to understand the consent of Eudoxia, even under
pressure. Some of the later Greeks affirm that he violated her. It is
certain, at least, that she married him within a month or two of her
husband’s tragic death, and almost immediately afterwards sought to
destroy him. Our authorities, late and uncertain as they are, do not
lack plausibility when they affirm that he one day confessed that, out
of love for her, he had directed the assassination of her husband. Rome
had returned to evil days, and tragedy was brooding over its very ruins.
In a fit of repulsion Eudoxia secretly invited the Vandals to cross
the Mediterranean and avenge her. Historians too lightly admit, in
extenuation of her criminal act, that she had no hope of help from
the East. The aged and upright Marcian was, it is true, intent upon
the internal prosperity of his Empire, but it is extremely doubtful,
as the sequel will show, whether the deposition of Maximus would have
offered much difficulty, and Eudoxia was the niece of Pulcheria. Her
vindictive act hastened the end of the Empire. Genseric speedily landed
his fierce troops on Italian soil, and the Romans at once slew the
sullen or remorseful Maximus and cast his mangled body in the Tiber.
The further adventures of Eudoxia, interesting as they must have
been, are compressed in a few lines. After fourteen days’ pillage,
the Vandals retreated once more from the stricken city of Octavian,
laden with gold, silver, women, and all kinds of valuables. Genseric
compelled Eudoxia and her two young daughters to accompany him. They
were detained at Carthage for seven years. The Eastern court repeatedly
asked for their release, but it was refused until, in 462, the elder
daughter, Eudocia, was married to Genseric’s son. Eudoxia and the
second daughter, Placidia, were then sent to Constantinople. Years
afterwards--in one of the legends--we catch a last glimpse of Eudoxia,
the last prominent Empress of the West. She is standing before the
column of Simeon Stylites, asking him to come and live somewhere on her
ample estate. Eudocia lived for sixteen years at Carthage, then escaped
to the East, and ended her life in Palestine. Placidia we shall meet
again for a moment.
We turn back to the shrinking Empire of the West, to dismiss the last
four Imperial shadows that flit about its ruins. The vacant throne was
occupied by the commander of the Roman forces in Gaul, Avitus. He had
married, since we know that Sidonius Apollinaris was married to his
daughter Papianilla, but his wife was dead, and we need only say that,
after he had enjoyed the Imperial banquets for a few months, he was
degraded to the rank of a bishopric by the commander of the barbaric
troops, with the consent of the disgusted Romans, and he died soon
afterwards. He was followed by a worthy and able officer, whose rule
might have illumined a more propitious age; but we find no Empress in
association with him, and must pass over the four years of his earnest
effort to redeem the Empire. After his death Libius Severus had a
nominal and obscure reign of four years (461–5), and again we find no
Empress in the scanty records.
The throne remained vacant for nearly two years, during which the
Vandals harassed the miserable remnant of the great Empire. At length
the chief commander in Italy, Ricimer, sought the aid of the Eastern
Empire, and the alliance was sealed by the Eastern court sending one of
its wealthiest and, by birth, most illustrious nobles, Anthemius, to
occupy the throne. His Empress was Euphemia, daughter of the Emperor
Marcian by his first wife. But her name, and the names of her father
and her children, are all that we find recorded concerning her, and we
need not dwell on the failures and quarrels, or the last faint flicker
of Roman paganism, which characterized his inauspicious reign. Within
four years he quarrelled with Ricimer, and his life was trodden out on
the streets of Rome.
For a few months Placidia, the daughter of Eudoxia, then occupies the
throne. At Constantinople, to which she went with her mother from her
Vandal captivity, she married the wealthy noble Olybrius. He had fled
from Rome when it was looted by the Vandals, and had little mind to
exchange the safe luxury of Constantinople for its uneasy throne when
Ricimer offered it to him. It is said that Placidia impelled him. It
was a fatal adventure. They entered Rome in the train of Ricimer’s
troops, but Olybrius succumbed to that atmosphere of death in a few
months, and we have not time to discern the features of Eudoxia’s
daughter before she sinks into the large category of obscure Imperial
widows. His successor, Glycerius, a puppet of the chief commander,
seems to have had no wife. A competitor appeared immediately, and he
exchanged the uncertain sceptre of the Western Empire for the solid
crozier of a bishop.
One faint and shadowy Empress crosses the scene before the curtain
falls. Once more the Eastern court had provided Italy--which was now
the Western Roman Empire--with a ruler. Julius Nepos set up his court
at Ravenna, and had for Empress a niece of Verina, the Empress of the
East. But the barbarian leaders of the barbarian army--the only army
that remained in the service of Rome--resented the Eastern intruder,
and marched on Ravenna. Nepos fled ignominiously; and one reads with
interest, though not without reserve, that he was put to death by his
predecessor, Bishop Glycerius. The fate of his wife is unknown, and the
last Empress of the Western provinces entirely escapes our search.
The tattered purple was offered to the commander Orestes. He refused
it, and allowed them to place it on the shoulders of his young son
(476). The name of this pretty and innocuous boy united, as if in
mockery, the names of Romulus and Augustus. To later times his
pathetic figure is known as Augustulus. His father was slain by the
troops immediately afterwards, because he refused to distribute
one-third of the soil of Italy between them. The Empire was now a
mere phrase; Rome a plaything of the barbarians whom it had cowed for
five or six hundred years. Odoacer, the latest leader of the troops,
bade the child put off his purple mantle and begone, and some time
afterwards--so low had Rome fallen that the year of this impressive
consummation cannot accurately be determined--forced the Senate to
abolish the Imperial succession in the West. Italy became the kingdom
of a barbarian. Britain, Gaul, Germany, and Spain were turned into
the battle-grounds of those fierce tribes who, after the violence and
darkness of the Middle Ages, would in their turn scatter the seed of
civilization over the earth. The gallery of Western Empresses was
closed by the irrevocable hand of fate, and the long, quaint gallery of
the Byzantine Empresses was thrown open.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The title “Empress” was unknown to the Romans. “Imperator” was
a name of military command. The special use of it in connexion with
Octavian and his successors was that it was given for life. The
more novel title “Augustus” was extended to Livia, who later became
“Augusta.”
[2] Pliny places her birth in the year 54 B.C., but Dio says 57 B.C.,
and this date is confirmed by Tacitus.
[3] Improperly, because it is not a distinctive name, but common to the
emperors. Livia and Octavia received the title of “Augusta” a few years
later, yet even Livia is rarely known by it.
[4] “Non nisi plena nave tollo vectorem.”
[5] Writers often convey the impression that Julia indulged even her
most vicious inclinations in the Rostra, but Dio merely speaks of
“revelling” and “carousing”: ὥστε καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ καὶ ἐπ’ αὐτοῦ γε
τοῦ βήματος κωμάζειν νύκτως καὶ συμπίνειν. The emptying of a cup of
Falernian wine in the Rostra, on some occasion of especial devilry or
intoxication, may be all that is meant.
[6] Vol. V, p. 353.
[7] “Annals,” v. 3.
[8] An apology should be made for retaining the nickname of the third
Emperor, but it seems to be ineradicably fixed in history.
[9] Tacitus, who is followed by Merivale and other historians, makes
Claudius also retire to Sinuessa. This is probably an error, as the
Emperor fell ill and died at Rome.
[10] “The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero,” 1903.
[11] καὶ οὕτω γε ἑαυτὴν διὰ πάσης τῆς ἀρχῆς διήγαγεν ὥστε μηδεμίαν
ἐπηγορίαν σχεῖν: lxviii, 5.
[12] Duruy quotes Aurelius Victor (“Epitome,” xiv) as saying: “It is
impossible to say how much Plotina enhanced the glory of Trajan.” The
passage is really found in c. xxxix of the “Epitome.”
[13] Gregorovius points out that the incident may have occurred at
Rome, and that we have no positive proof that Sabina accompanied him on
this journey. But the narrative of Spartianus seems to imply that she
was in Britain, and we shall see that she accompanied him on his longer
journey to the East. Duruy and other writers hold that the officers
were dismissed for lack, not excess, of respect for Sabina, but the
word “familiarius,” coupled with a threat of divorce, seems to demand
the interpretation I have put on it.
[14] See Dr. Bassani’s little work, “Commodo e Marcia.”
[15] The references on coins and inscriptions to Julia Domna have been
industriously collected by Mary Gilmore Wilkins, _American Journal of
Archæology_, 2nd series, vol. vi. They do not add materially to our
knowledge of her, but are so abundant that they show her to have been
an Empress of exceptional prominence and influence. She became Augusta
in the first year.
[16] I conclude that they had already come to Rome because Elagabalus,
the son of Soæmias, was given serious consideration in his later claim
that he was the son of Bassianus. He was born in 204, and, unless his
mother had been in the palace before that date, the claim could not
have been made.
[17] It is difficult to imagine Elagabalus beginning his appalling
career at such an age, and Gibbon, calculating from the age given to
Alexander Severus in the “Historia Augusta” at the time of his death,
changes the age to seventeen. But the “Historia Augusta” is very
commonly wrong in the ages it ascribes to Emperors at their death.
Professor Bury admits that Gibbon is probably wrong, and we may follow
Herodian.
[18] Ammianus Marcellinus tells us the one fact, Zosimus the other.
Neither mentions her name, but we learn it from coins.
[19] Some writers have conjectured, from the fact that the legend “In
Pace” occurs on the coins of Salonina after her death, that she became
a Christian. The phrase is not found otherwise except on Christian
monuments. Duruy does not admit the inference, and points out that she
built a temple to the goddess of the seasons.
[20] Her name is variously given as Vitruvia, Victoria, or Victorina.
Since it appears as Vitruvia where the “Augustan History” copies from
the Acts of the Senate, and no Roman would corrupt Victoria into
Vitruvia, I take it that it was originally Vitruvia, and was Latinized,
or changed by her when she became Empress, into Victoria.
[21] It has been suggested that the fifteen months of Lactantius may
date from their expulsion from the court of Maximin. This is hardly
possible. Galerius died in May, 311, and Valeria was still in mourning
for him, and pleaded his recent death, when Maximin sought to wed her.
Maximin died in April, 313, so that the deaths of Prisca and Valeria
cannot have been earlier than the summer of that year.
[22] The Greek original of the “Chronicle” is lost, and Jerome informs
us that he has added many details in the Latin version which we now
have.
[23] One of the most authoritative works on Roman institutions,
Marquardt and Mommsen’s “Handbuch,” says this emphatically: “Ehen,
bei welchen der eine Theil der Römischen Bürgerschaft, der Andere den
Latinern jüngeren Rechtes oder den Peregrinen angehörte, sind nach
Römischen Recht nicht gültig” (vii. 29). Göteke, in a special study of
the subject (“Constantinum honeste et ex legitimo matrimonio natum”),
says that special edicts made it impossible for an officer to marry in
the province in which he served. He believes that the effect of these
would not be permanent, but he fails to consider Helena’s disability as
a _peregrina_.
[24] The question may be raised whether St. Augustine had not the case
of Constantine in mind when, in his moral treatise “De Bono Conjugali,”
he refuses to condemn a man who, having a barren wife, takes a
concubine in addition, to provide a family. It is clear, at least,
that early Christian opinion was not fixed. Gibbon again improves upon
Christian writers by holding that Minervina was an earlier wife, not
a concubine, of Constantine; but, as Professor Bury points out, the
document on which he relies does not apply to that Emperor.
[25] It is from the confusion of dates that I ascribe the words
confidently to Jerome, and not Eusebius The words “ninth year” can
only refer to the ninth year of the Cæsarate of Crispus, or 326. The
interval of three years has no significance in view of the confusion of
dates.
[26] Gibbon, Professor Bury, and Mr. Firth make Zosimus coincide with
Zonaras. The reader will see from my literal translation of his words
that he differs very materially. He does not suggest that Fausta
accused Crispus, or that she was really guilty of any misconduct; but
he pointedly accuses Helena.
[27] Miss Gardner observes, in her life of Julian, that we do not know
if Helena was older than Julian, But, while Julian is known to have
been born in 331 or 332, since he was in his sixth year at the time of
the massacre of 337, and died at thirty-two, Helena’s mother had been
murdered in 326.
[28] Philostorgius says that, as she lay ill with her malady,
Constantius recalled Bishop Theophilus from exile, and he cured her.
But Zonaras makes her die of this very malady, scouting the Arian
miracle.
[29] The Alexandrian Chronicle repeatedly calls her Marina, and we have
no coins to determine the full and accurate name. Cohen, at least,
gives no coins, though Tillemont refers to them.
[30] Lib. xxviii. 1: He says that Gratian put a certain man to death
“on the advice of his mother.” Zonaras says that Severa still lived at
the time of the second marriage.
[31] Gratian, the youthful son of Severa, had been clothed with
the purple by Valentinian, “at the instigation of his wife and
father-in-law,” says the epitomist of Aurelius Victor, in the autumn of
367. On the other hand, Justina’s brother was killed, in the service of
Valentinian, in 369, The second marriage falls most naturally in 368.
[32] Yet St. Augustine, who was in Rome the year after the death of
Gratian, says in his “Confessions” (viii. 2) that “nearly the whole
nobility of Rome” still clung to the old religion.
[33] Hence Tillemont and others, who give these dates, must be wrong in
placing the quarrel with Eutropius in 399. Philostorgius expressly says
that she had two daughters in her arms when she appealed to Arcadius.
[34] See Professor Puech’s “Saint Jean Chrysostome,” 1891.
[35] The curious reader will find Chrysostom’s surprising strictures of
the clergy more than confirmed in the letters of Jerome, and his fierce
denunciation of the monks borne out in Augustine’s treatise on them.
[36] Gibbon makes her survive Chrysostom, and die in 408. But Tillemont
has pointed out that the “Life of Chrysostom” by George of Alexandria,
on which he seems to have relied, forges letters, and is quite
unreliable. The earlier writers put the death of Eudoxia in 404.
INDEX
Ablabius, 283
Acerronia Pollia, 102
Acholius, 318
Acte, 95, 105, 121
Actium, 19
Adultery at Rome, 26, 200
Ælia Capitolina, 160
-- Pætina, 62, 80
Æmilianus, L. A. L., 130, 131
Ætius, 344, 345, 346
Afer, 253
Agrippa, M. V., 25, 26, 27
-- son of Julia, 33, 35–6
Agrippina, the elder, 33, 37, 41, 42, 46
-- the younger, 54, 65, 67, 80, 81, 82–104
-- memoirs of, 14, 44, 64, 73, 80
Ahenobarbus, C. D., 81
Albinus, 196, 197, 198
Alexander Severus, 212, 219–21, 222–31
Alexandra, St., 256
Alexandria, 159, 207
Alexandrian Chronicle, the, 307, 311
Alexianus. _See_ Alexander
Ambrose, St., 266, 314, 315, 318, 319
Anastasia, 288
Anicetus, 100, 102, 103, 111
Annius Verus, 164
“Anonymus Valesii,” 267
Antinous, 157, 159
Antioch, 27, 145, 171
Antonia, 81
Antoninus Pius, 162, 163, 165–8, 169
Apollodorus, 153
Appian, 202
Appius Silanus, 68
Appuleia Varilia, 42
Arcadia, 328
Arcadius, 320, 321, 323, 325, 326–32
Argentocoxus, 203
Argobastes, 321
Arintheus, 325
Arsenius, 320
Asiaticus, Valerius, 71–2
Astrology at Rome, 85
Ataulph, 341, 342
Athanasius, 295, 296
Athenais, 333, 334
Athens, 158
Attalus, 239
Attianus, 142, 147, 149, 153
Attila, 345, 346
Auctions of Caligula, the, 54, 57
Augustans, the, 119, 120
Augustine, St., 274, 314
Augustulus, 350
Augustus, title of, 19
Aurelian, 241, 245–51
Avitus, 348
Bacchanalia, the, 74
Baiæ, 53, 101
Balbinus, 235, 236
_Barbatoria_, 14
Baring-Gould, Mr., 3, 90, 91, 100, 103, 118
Baronius, 256, 311
Basil, St., 310
Bassani, 186
Bassianus, the elder, 195
-- the younger. _See_ Caracalla
Bassianus, Senator, 273
-- V. A. _See_ Elagabalus
Bassus, Pomponius, 217
Bauto, 326
Berenice, 130
Boissier, M., 136
Boniface, Count, 344
Britannicus, 65, 76, 83, 86, 92, 96
Bruttius Præsens, 182
Burrus, 85, 92, 95, 103, 107, 108
Bury, Prof., 211, 273, 277, 280, 346
Cænis, 128–9
Cæsar, Julius, 6, 10
Cæsonia, Milonia, 55, 56, 59, 130
Caius Cæsar = Caligula
Caius, son of Julia, 32–3
Caledonians, the, 203
Caligula, 37, 49–59
Callistus, 80
Calpurnia, 75, 79, 84
Calpurnius Piso, 52
Candidian, 263
Capitolinus, Julius, 166, 172, 173
Capreæ, 34, 48
Caracalla, 196, 199, 202, 203, 204–9
Caractacus, 84
Carinus, 252–4
Carnuntum, 261
Carus, 251
Cassianus Postumus, 242
Cassiodorus, 267
Cassius, Avidius, 175, 177
Castricia, 330
Ceionia, 170
Celsa, Nonia, 210, 213
Celsus, 153
Centumcellæ, 182
Charito, 306
Christians, persecution of the, 257–9
Chrysaphius, 336, 337
Chrysostom, John, 327, 328, 329, 330–2
Cinna, 20
Circus, the, 7
-- factions of the, 56, 109, 124
Claudii, the, 9
Claudius, 60, 61, 62, 64–76, 79–82, 141
-- II, 244
Cleander, 187
Cleopatra, 8, 10, 13, 18, 19
-- servant of Claudius, 73, 79
Clodia, 12
Cohen, 238, 253, 307
Cologne, 84, 138
Commodus, L. C., 157, 162
-- L. V., 169, 170, 172, 175, 180
-- son of Marcus, 172, 181, 182–9
Constans, 286, 289
Constantia, 273, 275, 276, 283
-- wife of Gratian, 313
Constantina, F. J., 288, 289, 290–3
Constantine, 260, 271–85
-- the younger, 286, 287
Constantinople, founding of, 283, 284
Constantius, 254, 260, 266–71
-- the younger, 286, 287, 289, 290, 292–304
-- General, 342
_Contubernium_, 129
Corbulo, Domitius, 130
Cornificia, 205
Corruption at Rome, 21, 34, 136–7
Crepereius Gallus, 102
Crinitus, Ulpius, 250
Crispilla, Quintia, 236
Crispina, 183, 184
Crispus, 274, 278–82
-- Passienus, 67
_Curia mulierum_, 6, 202
Daza, 259
“Deaths of the Persecutors,” 256, 258
Decius, 237
Delmatius, 286, 287
Dexippus, 225
Diadumenianus, 210
Didia Clara, 192, 193
Dill, Dr. S., 136
Dio, 9, 15, 16, 26, 29, 43, 45, 51, 64, 73, 84, 95, 99, 114, 129, 131,
133, 142, 146, 169, 176, 188, 200, 202, 207, 228
Diocletian, 253–60, 261, 262
Divination at Rome, 85
Dominica, Albia, 307, 308, 310
Domitia Lepida, 68, 89
-- Longina, 130, 131–5
Domitian, 130–4
Domitian, Prefect, 292
Domitilla, Flavia, 128, 130
Domna, Julia, 194, 195, 196–209
Domus Vectiliana, 190
Drepanum, 266
Drusilla, daughter of Agrippina, 51
-- daughter of Cæsonia, 55, 59
Drusus Nero, 15
-- son of Agrippina, 47
-- son of Livia, 24, 31, 37, 41, 61
Duruy, 148, 156, 161, 172, 239
Eboracum, 155, 203
Eclectus, 188, 193
Elagabal, 195, 215
Elagabalus, 200, 211–21
Eleuthera, St., 256
Emesa, 195, 209, 212
Empress, the title, 9
Ennia, 50–1
Ephesus, 158
Epicureanism, 164
Etruscilla, Herennia, 237
Eucer, 110
Eudocia, 334–8
Eudoxia, 325, 326, 327–31
-- Licinia, 335, 346, 347
Euphemia, 348
Eusebia, Aurelia, 294, 296–301, 303
Eusebius, Bishop, 249, 257, 262, 267, 275, 279, 287, 296
-- eunuch, 295
Eutropia, Galeria Valeria, 254, 270, 283
Eutropius, 325, 326, 327, 328
-- historian, 200, 206, 257, 268, 272, 275, 279
Fabia, 180, 181
Fadilla, 187
-- Julia, 158
-- Junia, 230
Falco, 190
Fausta, 271, 272, 277, 278–82
Faustina, the elder, 163, 164–8
-- the younger, 169, 170–8
-- Maxima, 304, 308
-- Rupilia, 164
Faustinopolis, 177
Felix, 112
Firth, Mr., 267, 277, 280
Flaccilla, Ælia, 317, 318
Flaminian Circus, 30
Flavian, Archbishop, 336, 337
Forum, the, 7, 19
-- of Trajan, the, 143
Freedmen at Rome, 62, 63, 68
Fronto, 166, 172
Fucine Lake, 87
Fulvia, 10, 12, 13
Fundana, Galeria, 123, 124, 125, 126–8
Furnilla, Marcia, 129, 130
Gainas, 329
Galba, Sulpicius, 67, 120, 123
Galerius, 254, 256, 258, 260, 261
Galla, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321
Gallienus, 238, 239, 242, 244
Gallus, 237, 290–4
Gannys, 212
Gardner, A., 299
Genseric, 347
Germanicus, 37–8
Geta, 196, 201, 202, 204, 205
Gibbon, 2, 45, 131, 136, 141, 169, 211, 224, 225, 228, 239, 245, 247,
248, 267, 274, 278, 301, 331, 337
Glycerius, 349
Golden House of Nero, 115, 129
Gordianus, 234
-- the younger, 236
Görres, Dr., 279
Göteke, 270
Gratian, 307, 312, 313, 314
Greece, Nero in, 119
Gregorovius, 151, 156, 161
Güldenpenning, 317
Hadrian, 139, 141, 142, 145, 147, 149–63, 169
Hannibalian, 286, 287, 288
Helena, 265, 266–70, 277, 278, 282–3
-- wife of Julian, 297, 298, 299–304
Henderson, Mr., 90, 109
Herennianus, 241
Herod, 27
-- Agrippa, 49, 59
Herodes, 241
Herodian, 200, 201, 206, 225
“Historia Augusta,” the, 45, 142, 146, 150, 152, 166, 172, 175, 188,
205, 206, 211, 217, 249, 257
Hodgkin, Mr., 346
Honoria, 335, 342, 344, 345
Honorius, 317, 321, 323, 324, 341, 342
Hortensius, 19
Hostilianus, 237
Huns, the, 344
Ifland, Dr., 317
Imperator, the title, 9
Jerome, St., 267, 279
Jerusalem, 159, 160
Josephus, 112, 130, 132
Jovian, 306, 307
Julia, daughter of Octavian, 23–30
-- the younger, 33–4
-- daughter of Drusus, 66–7
-- daughter of Titus, 131
-- Livilla, 65
Julian, the Emperor, 140, 166, 172, 227, 282, 284, 288, 290, 296–305
Julianus, Didius, 192, 193
Julius, son of Julia, 32–3
Junia Claudilla, 49
-- Silana, 98
Junius Silanus, 49, 50
Justina, Aviana, 311, 312–17, 318, 319
Juvenal, 137
Kornemann, Professor, 45
Lactantius, 258, 261, 272
Læta, 313
Lætus, 188, 190, 193
Lake Agrippa, 114
Lampridius, 200, 203, 224, 225
Leontius, 296
Lepida, Domitia, 68, 89
-- wife of Galba, 123
Lepidus, 54
-- the Triumvir, 6, 8, 17
Libanius, 296
Liberius, 296
Licinius, 262, 263, 273–5
-- the younger, 276, 278
Livia, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15–17, 19–21, 24–44
-- Medullina Camilla, 61
-- Orestilla, 52
Liviada, 20
Livilla, 41, 47, 54
Livius Drusus Claudianus, 9
Locusta, 90, 96
Lollia Paulina, 52, 55, 80, 83–4
Lollius, 32
Londinium, 155
Lucilla, 175, 179, 183, 184
Lucius Domitius = Nero
Lucullan Gardens, the, 71, 72, 75
Lugdunum, 54
Lutetia, 154
Luxury at Rome, 16, 34, 54
Lycisca, 69
Macellum, 290
Macrinus, Opilius, 208, 209–12
-- Sallustius, 225
Macro, 50–1
Macrobius, 27
Mæcenas, 12, 18
Mæonius, 241, 242
Mæsa, Julia, 200, 202, 211–19
Magnentius, 289, 290, 292
Malala, John, 337
Mamæa, Julia, 211, 219, 222–31
Marcella, 24, 25, 26
Marcellinus, Ammianus, 234, 284, 291, 294, 299, 300, 311
-- Chronicle of, 319, 337
Marcellus, 24, 25
Marcia, 185–9, 193
Marcian, 339, 347
Marciana, 139, 140, 144
-- Paccia, 196
Marcus Aurelius, 162, 164, 167, 169–78
Mardonius, 296
Maria, 324
Marina, 307
-- daughter of Eudoxia, 331
Mariniana, 238
Marius, 243
-- Maximus, 173, 175, 176
Mark Antony, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 18, 19
Marriage, Roman, 268–9
Marsa, 330
Matidia, the elder, 139, 144, 148
-- the younger, 139
Maxentius, 261, 273
Maximian, 254, 261, 271–2
Maximin, 261, 262, 263
Maximinus, 229, 230, 232–5
Maximus, 314, 315, 316, 318
-- Petronius, 346–7
-- Pupienus, 235, 236
Memnia, 226
Mercurius, 295
Merivale, 2, 32, 37, 41, 43, 73, 90, 141, 147, 172
Messalina, Statilia, 118, 119, 121, 123
-- Valeria, 60, 61, 62, 63–78, 141
Metaphrastes, 320
Milvian Bridge, 29
Minervina, 274
Mnester, 70, 76
Montius, 292
Naissos, 266
Narcissus, 63, 68, 75, 76, 79, 87, 92
Negri, Gaetano, 298
Nepos, Julius, 349
Nepotian, 290
Nero, son of Agrippina the elder, 47
-- the Emperor, 80, 81, 85, 86, 89, 93, 95, 96–121
Nerva, M. C., 135
Nicæa, Council of, 277
Nicomedia, palace of, 255
Niger, 196, 197
Nigrinus, 153
Nîmes, mausoleum at, 148
Numerianus, 252, 253
Octavia, 13, 18, 24, 26, 33
-- daughter of Messalina, 65, 76, 80, 86, 95, 96, 97, 99, 105, 108–11
Octavian, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17–21, 24–36
Odenathus, 240–2
Odoacer, 350
Olybrius, 349
Oppian Law, the, 5
Orbiana, Sallustia Barbia, 225
Orestes, 349
Orosius, 267, 279
Orphanages, 144, 168, 177
Ostia, 74
Otho, Salvius, 101, 106, 108, 110, 123
Paganism, insincerity of, 216
Pagans, origin of name, 314
Pagi, 256
Palatine Hill, the, 7, 10, 19
Palladium, the, 216
Pallas, 63, 80, 83, 85, 96
Palma, 153
Palmyra, 240, 241, 246
Pandateria, 30, 47, 111
Papianilla, 348
Paris in the fourth century, 302
Paris, the actor, 98, 132
Paula, Julia Cornelia, 216
Paulina, 234
Paulinus, 333, 334, 336
Paulus, 295
Perennis, 185
Pertinax, 189–91
Petronia, 124
Petronius, 307
Philanthropy in the Roman world, 144, 168, 177
Philip, the Emperor, 236, 237
Philostorgius, 280, 287, 293
Philostratus, 202
Pipara, 239
Piso, C. C., 38, 39
Pissamena, 313
Placidia, Ælia Galla, 324, 334, 341, 342–5
-- the younger, 349
Planasia, 35
Plancina, 38, 39
Plautia Urgulanilla, 61
Plautianus, 199–201
Plautilla, 199, 201
Pliny, 9, 42, 139
Plotina, 138–48
Polemo, 166, 167
Pollio, Trebellius, 240, 247
Polybius, 63
Pompeianus, Claudius, 181, 184, 205
Pompeius Planta, 138
Pompey, 8
Poppæa, 99, 107, 108, 110–17
-- Sabina, 72, 107
Poppæus Sabinus, 107
Porphyry of Gaza, 329
Prætorian Guards, the, 50, 58, 61, 119, 227
Prisca, 256, 257, 259, 260, 261–4
Probus, 251
Procopius, 308–9
Puech, Professor, 329, 332
Puellæ Faustinianæ, 168, 177
Pulcheria, 317, 328, 332–9
Puteoli, 53
Pyrallis, 55
Pythagoras, 114
Quadratus, 184, 185
Quietus, Lusius, 152, 153
Quintilius, 245
Religion at Rome, 216
Renan, 136, 172
Ricimer, 348, 349
Rome, burning of, 114
Romula, 256, 258
Rostra, the, 29
Rubellius Plautus, 98
Rufinus, 325, 326, 327
Rufus Crispinus, 108
Sabina, 139, 144, 148, 149–61, 202
Sabinus, 131
Sacred Way, the, 8
Sallustius, 307
Salona, 260
Salonina, Cornelia, 239, 244
Saloninus, 242
Sapor, 240, 247
Saturninus, 337
Scantilla, Manlia, 192, 193
Schultz, O., 45
Scotland, 203
Scribonia, 12, 13, 14, 22
Seeck, Dr., 279
Sejanus, 41, 42, 47
Selinus, 146
Senaculum, 214
Senate, the Roman, 43, 93, 103, 111, 119, 153
Seneca, 31, 66, 77, 85, 93, 95, 96, 97, 107, 108, 110, 115
Serena, 324
-- St., 256
Servianus, Ursus, 149, 162
Serviez, Roergas de, 3, 4, 32, 33, 67, 87, 90, 112, 146, 153, 166, 207
Servilia, 11
Severa, Julia Aquilia, 216
-- Marcia Otacilia, 237
-- Valeria, 307, 311, 312
Severian, 263
-- Bishop, 330
Severina, Ulpia, 250
Severus, 261
-- deacon, 337
-- Livius, 348
-- Septimus, 193, 194–204
Sextilia, 124, 125, 126, 127
Sextus Pompeius, 10, 12, 17
Sidonius Apollinaris, 280, 348
Silanus, Junius, 95
-- Lucius, 95
Silius, Caius, 72, 73, 74, 76
Silvagni, V., 3
Simeon Stylites, 338, 348
Sinuessa, 90
Smyrna, 158
Soæmias, Julia, 200, 203, 211, 212, 213, 214–21
Socrates, the historian, 312
Sosibius, 71, 72
Sozomen, 276
Spartianus, 146, 155, 157, 160
Sporus, 118, 121
Stahr, A., 3
Stilicho, 324, 325
Stoicism, 66, 135, 144, 162, 164, 168
Subura, 6, 9, 21, 29
Suetonius, 31, 40, 42, 45, 48, 53, 55, 64, 88, 90, 134, 155
Suidas, 296
Suillius, 71
Sulpicianus, 192
Sura, 142, 150
Syria and Rome, 222
Tacitus, 9, 14, 31, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 64, 72, 79, 80, 83, 90, 95,
99, 111, 125
-- the Emperor, 251
Tarvey, Mr., 32
Tertulla, Arricidia, 129
Tertullus, 171
Tetricus, 243, 249
Theatre, the Roman, 58, 109
Thebes, 159, 160
Theoclea, 230
Theodora, Flavia Maximiana, 270, 283
Theodoret, 310, 316
Theodosius, 313, 314, 316, 317–21
-- II, 328, 332–8
Theophanes, 336, 337
Theophilus, 304, 330
Thermantia, A. M., 324
Thessalonica, massacre of, 319
Thirty Tyrants, the, 239
Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, 65
-- -- Nero, 10, 11, 14, 15, 40
-- the Emperor, 10, 24, 25, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36–42, 46–9
Tigellinus, 110, 116
Tillemont, 307, 312, 324, 326, 330, 331
Timesitheus, 236
Timolaus, 241
Titiana, Flavia, 190, 191
Titus, 129, 131
-- Ollius, 107
Tivoli, 156, 160
Toledo, Council of, 269
Trajan, 135, 138, 139–46
Tranquillina, Furia Sabina, 236
Triaria, 127
Triumphal procession, 7
Ulpianus, Domitius, 227, 228
Urbica, Magnia, 253
Urgulania, 40, 61
Vaballath, 241, 242
Valens, 307, 308, 309, 310
Valentinian, 307, 311–13
-- II, 313, 318, 319, 321
-- III, 335, 342, 343, 346
Valeria, 256, 257, 259, 260, 261–4
Valerianus, 238
Valerius Messala Barbatus, 62
Vandals, the, 344, 347
Velabrum, 6, 7, 9
Verina, 349
Vespasian, 127, 128–9, 138
Vestal Virgins, 132
Vestinus, Atticus, 118
Vetranio, 289
Vettius Valens, 74, 76
Vibidia, 75
Vice in the Roman Empire, 136–7, 144
Victor, Aurelius, 161, 165, 200, 207, 257, 268, 279, 284
-- -- “Epitome,” 148, 206, 280, 312
Victoria, 242–4
Victorinus, 243
Vindex, 120
Vipsania, 28
Vitellius, the elder, 56, 71, 75, 80, 82, 124
-- the Emperor, 124–8
Volusianus, 237
Vopiscus, 245, 247
Wilkins, M. G., 197, 207
Woman, position of, at Rome, 4–6
Xenophon, 91
Zabda, 246
Zenobia, 240, 241, 242, 244–50
Zonaras, 268, 272, 276, 303
Zosimus, 234, 245, 248, 249, 257, 267, 272, 276, 280, 284, 298, 316,
320
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unpaired.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected and
moved to precede the Index.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.