most illustrious families of the Barbarians. Her mother, the sister of
Clovis, was descended from the long-haired kings of the _Merovingian_
race; and the regal succession of the _Amali_ was illustrated in the
eleventh generation, by her father, the great Theodoric, whose merit
might have ennobled a plebeian origin. The sex of his daughter excluded
her from the Gothic throne; but his vigilant tenderness for his family
and his people discovered the last heir of the royal line, whose
ancestors had taken refuge in Spain; and the fortunate Eutharic was
suddenly exalted to the rank of a consul and a prince. He enjoyed only
a short time the charms of Amalasontha, and the hopes of the succession;
and his widow, after the death of her husband and father, was left the
guardian of her son Athalaric, and the kingdom of Italy. At the age
of about twenty-eight years, the endowments of her mind and person had
attained their perfect maturity. Her beauty, which, in the apprehension
of Theodora herself, might have disputed the conquest of an emperor,
was animated by manly sense, activity, and resolution. Education and
experience had cultivated her talents; her philosophic studies were
exempt from vanity; and, though she expressed herself with equal
elegance and ease in the Greek, the Latin, and the Gothic tongue,
the daughter of Theodoric maintained in her counsels a discreet and
impenetrable silence. By a faithful imitation of the virtues, she
revived the prosperity, of his reign; while she strove, with pious
care, to expiate the faults, and to obliterate the darker memory of his
declining age. The children of Boethius and Symmachus were restored
to their paternal inheritance; her extreme lenity never consented to
inflict any corporal or pecuniary penalties on her Roman subjects; and
she generously despised the clamors of the Goths, who, at the end of
forty years, still considered the people of Italy as their slaves or
their enemies. Her salutary measures were directed by the wisdom, and
celebrated by the eloquence, of Cassiodorus; she solicited and deserved
the friendship of the emperor; and the kingdoms of Europe respected,
both in peace and war, the majesty of the Gothic throne. But the future
happiness of the queen and of Italy depended on the education of her
son; who was destined, by his birth, to support the different and almost
incompatible characters of the chief of a Barbarian camp, and the first
magistrate of a civilized nation. From the age of ten years, Athalaric
was diligently instructed in the arts and sciences, either useful or
ornamental for a Roman prince; and three venerable Goths were chosen to
instil the principles of honor and virtue into the mind of their young
king. But the pupil who is insensible of the benefits, must abhor
the restraints, of education; and the solicitude of the queen, which
affection rendered anxious and severe, offended the untractable nature
of her son and his subjects. On a solemn festival, when the Goths were
assembled in the palace of Ravenna, the royal youth escaped from his
mother's apartment, and, with tears of pride and anger, complained of
a blow which his stubborn disobedience had provoked her to inflict. The
Barbarians resented the indignity which had been offered to their
king; accused the regent of conspiring against his life and crown; and
imperiously demanded, that the grandson of Theodoric should be rescued
from the dastardly discipline of women and pedants, and educated, like a
valiant Goth, in the society of his equals and the glorious ignorance of
his ancestors. To this rude clamor, importunately urged as the voice
of the nation, Amalasontha was compelled to yield her reason, and the
dearest wishes of her heart. The king of Italy was abandoned to wine,
to women, and to rustic sports; and the indiscreet contempt of the
ungrateful youth betrayed the mischievous designs of his favorites and
her enemies. Encompassed with domestic foes, she entered into a secret
negotiation with the emperor Justinian; obtained the assurance of a
friendly reception, and had actually deposited at Dyrachium, in Epirus,
a treasure of forty thousand pounds of gold. Happy would it have been
for her fame and safety, if she had calmly retired from barbarous
faction to the peace and splendor of Constantinople. But the mind of
Amalasontha was inflamed by ambition and revenge; and while her ships
lay at anchor in the port, she waited for the success of a crime which
her passions excused or applauded as an act of justice. Three of the
most dangerous malecontents had been separately removed under the
pretence of trust and command, to the frontiers of Italy: they were
assassinated by her private emissaries; and the blood of these noble
Goths rendered the queen-mother absolute in the court of Ravenna, and
justly odious to a free people. But if she had lamented the disorders of
her son she soon wept his irreparable loss; and the death of Athalaric,
who, at the age of sixteen, was consumed by premature intemperance,
left her destitute of any firm support or legal authority. Instead of
submitting to the laws of her country which held as a fundamental maxim,
that the succession could never pass from the lance to the distaff, the
daughter of Theodoric conceived the impracticable design of sharing,
with one of her cousins, the regal title, and of reserving in her own
hands the substance of supreme power. He received the proposal with
profound respect and affected gratitude; and the eloquent Cassiodorus
announced to the senate and the emperor, that Amalasontha and Theodatus
had ascended the throne of Italy. His birth (for his mother was the
sister of Theodoric) might be considered as an imperfect title; and the
choice of Amalasontha was more strongly directed by her contempt of
his avarice and pusillanimity which had deprived him of the love of
the Italians, and the esteem of the Barbarians. But Theodatus was
exasperated by the contempt which he deserved: her justice had repressed
and reproached the oppression which he exercised against his Tuscan
neighbors; and the principal Goths, united by common guilt and
resentment, conspired to instigate his slow and timid disposition. The
letters of congratulation were scarcely despatched before the queen of
Italy was imprisoned in a small island of the Lake of Bolsena, where,
after a short confinement, she was strangled in the bath, by the order,
or with the connivance of the new king, who instructed his turbulent
subjects to shed the blood of their sovereigns.
Justinian beheld with joy the dissensions of the Goths; and the
mediation of an ally concealed and promoted the ambitious views of
the conqueror. His ambassadors, in their public audience, demanded the
fortress of LilybÊum, ten Barbarian fugitives, and a just compensation
for the pillage of a small town on the Illyrian borders; but they
secretly negotiated with Theodatus to betray the province of Tuscany,
and tempted Amalasontha to extricate herself from danger and perplexity,
by a free surrender of the kingdom of Italy. A false and servile epistle
was subscribed, by the reluctant hand of the captive queen: but the
confession of the Roman senators, who were sent to Constantinople,
revealed the truth of her deplorable situation; and Justinian, by the
voice of a new ambassador, most powerfully interceded for her life and
liberty. Yet the secret instructions of the same minister were adapted
to serve the cruel jealousy of Theodora, who dreaded the presence and
superior charms of a rival: he prompted, with artful and ambiguous
hints, the execution of a crime so useful to the Romans; received the
intelligence of her death with grief and indignation, and denounced,
in his master's name, immortal war against the perfidious assassin. In
Italy, as well as in Africa, the guilt of a usurper appeared to
justify the arms of Justinian; but the forces which he prepared, were
insufficient for the subversion of a mighty kingdom, if their feeble
numbers had not been multiplied by the name, the spirit, and the
conduct, of a hero. A chosen troop of guards, who served on horseback,
and were armed with lances and bucklers, attended the person of
Belisarius; his cavalry was composed of two hundred Huns, three hundred
Moors, and four thousand _confederates_, and the infantry consisted of
only three thousand Isaurians. Steering the same course as in his former
expedition, the Roman consul cast anchor before Catana in Sicily, to
survey the strength of the island, and to decide whether he should
attempt the conquest, or peaceably pursue his voyage for the African
coast. He found a fruitful land and a friendly people. Notwithstanding
the decay of agriculture, Sicily still supplied the granaries of Rome:
the farmers were graciously exempted from the oppression of military
quarters; and the Goths, who trusted the defence of the island to the
inhabitants, had some reason to complain, that their confidence was
ungratefully betrayed. Instead of soliciting and expecting the aid
of the king of Italy, they yielded to the first summons a cheerful
obedience; and this province, the first fruits of the Punic war, was
again, after a long separation, united to the Roman empire. The Gothic
garrison of Palermo, which alone attempted to resist, was reduced, after
a short siege, by a singular stratagem. Belisarius introduced his ships
into the deepest recess of the harbor; their boats were laboriously
hoisted with ropes and pulleys to the top-mast head, and he filled them
with archers, who, from that superior station, commanded the ramparts
of the city. After this easy, though successful campaign, the conqueror
entered Syracuse in triumph, at the head of his victorious bands,
distributing gold medals to the people, on the day which so gloriously
terminated the year of the consulship. He passed the winter season in
the palace of ancient kings, amidst the ruins of a Grecian colony, which
once extended to a circumference of two-and-twenty miles: but in the
spring, about the festival of Easter, the prosecution of his designs was
interrupted by a dangerous revolt of the African forces. Carthage was
saved by the presence of Belisarius, who suddenly landed with a thousand
guards. Two thousand soldiers of doubtful faith returned to the
standard of their old commander: and he marched, without hesitation,
above fifty miles, to seek an enemy whom he affected to pity and
despise. Eight thousand rebels trembled at his approach; they were
routed at the first onset, by the dexterity of their master: and
this ignoble victory would have restored the peace of Africa, if the
conqueror had not been hastily recalled to Sicily, to appease a sedition
which was kindled during his absence in his own camp. Disorder and
disobedience were the common malady of the times; the genius to command,
and the virtue to obey, resided only in the mind of Belisarius.
Chapter XLI: Conquests Of Justinian, Character Of Balisarius.--Part IV.
Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was ignorant of
the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although he had studied the
writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was incapable of purifying his
mind from the basest passions, avarice and fear. He had purchased a
sceptre by ingratitude and murder: at the first menace of an enemy, he
degraded his own majesty and that of a nation, which already disdained
their unworthy sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer,
he saw himself dragged in chains through the streets of Constantinople:
the terrors which Belisarius inspired were heightened by the eloquence
of Peter, the Byzantine ambassador; and that bold and subtle advocate
persuaded him to sign a treaty, too ignominious to become the foundation
of a lasting peace. It was stipulated, that in the acclamations of the
Roman people, the name of the emperor should be always proclaimed before
that of the Gothic king; and that as often as the statue of Theodatus
was erected in brass on marble, the divine image of Justinian should be
placed on its right hand. Instead of conferring, the king of Italy was
reduced to solicit, the honors of the senate; and the consent of the
emperor was made indispensable before he could execute, against a priest
or senator, the sentence either of death or confiscation. The feeble
monarch resigned the possession of Sicily; offered, as the annual
mark of his dependence, a crown of gold of the weight of three hundred
pounds; and promised to supply, at the requisition of his sovereign,
three thousand Gothic auxiliaries, for the service of the empire.
Satisfied with these extraordinary concessions, the successful agent of
Justinian hastened his journey to Constantinople; but no sooner had
he reached the Alban villa, than he was recalled by the anxiety of
Theodatus; and the dialogue which passed between the king and the
ambassador deserves to be represented in its original simplicity. "Are
you of opinion that the emperor will ratify this treaty? _Perhaps_. If
he refuses, what consequence will ensue? _War_. Will such a war, be just
or reasonable? _Most assuredly: every one should act according to his
character_. What is your meaning? _You are a philosopher--Justinian is
emperor of the Romans: it would ill become the disciple of Plato to shed
the blood of thousands in his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus
should vindicate his rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces
of his empire_." This reasoning might not convince, but it was
sufficient to alarm and subdue the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon
descended to his last offer, that for the poor equivalent of a pension
of forty-eight thousand pounds sterling, he would resign the kingdom
of the Goths and Italians, and spend the remainder of his days in the
innocent pleasures of philosophy and agriculture. Both treaties were
intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on the frail security of
an oath not to produce the second till the first had been positively
rejected. The event may be easily foreseen: Justinian required and
accepted the abdication of the Gothic king. His indefatigable agent
returned from Constantinople to Ravenna, with ample instructions; and
a fair epistle, which praised the wisdom and generosity of the royal
philosopher, granted his pension, with the assurance of such honors as
a subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and wisely referred the final
execution of the treaty to the presence and authority of Belisarius.
But in the interval of suspense, two Roman generals, who had entered the
province of Dalmatia, were defeated and slain by the Gothic troops. From
blind and abject despair, Theodatus capriciously rose to groundless and
fatal presumption, and dared to receive, with menace and contempt,
the ambassador of Justinian; who claimed his promise, solicited the
allegiance of his subjects, and boldly asserted the inviolable privilege
of his own character. The march of Belisarius dispelled this visionary
pride; and as the first campaign was employed in the reduction of
Sicily, the invasion of Italy is applied by Procopius to the second year
of the Gothic war.
After Belisarius had left sufficient garrisons in Palermo and Syracuse,
he embarked his troops at Messina, and landed them, without resistance,
on the opposite shores of Rhegium. A Gothic prince, who had married the
daughter of Theodatus, was stationed with an army to guard the entrance
of Italy; but he imitated, without scruple, the example of a sovereign
faithless to his public and private duties. The perfidious Ebermor
deserted with his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to
enjoy the servile honors of the Byzantine court. From Rhegium to Naples,
the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each other,
advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The people of
Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name and religion of
the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that their ruined walls
were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a just equivalent for
a plentiful market; and curiosity alone interrupted the peaceful
occupations of the husbandman or artificer. Naples, which has swelled to
a great and populous capital, long cherished the language and manners
of a Grecian colony; and the choice of Virgil had ennobled this elegant
retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, elegant
retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, from the noise,
the smoke, and the laborious opulence of Rome. As soon as the place was
invested by sea and land, Belisarius gave audience to the deputies of
the people, who exhorted him to disregard a conquest unworthy of his
arms, to seek the Gothic king in a field of battle, and, after his
victory, to claim, as the sovereign of Rome, the allegiance of the
dependent cities. "When I treat with my enemies," replied the Roman
chief, with a haughty smile, "I am more accustomed to give than to
receive counsel; but I hold in one hand inevitable ruin, and in the
other peace and freedom, such as Sicily now enjoys." The impatience of
delay urged him to grant the most liberal terms; his honor secured their
performance: but Naples was divided into two factions; and the Greek
democracy was inflamed by their orators, who, with much spirit and some
truth, represented to the multitude that the Goths would punish their
defection, and that Belisarius himself must esteem their loyalty and
valor. Their deliberations, however, were not perfectly free: the city
was commanded by eight hundred Barbarians, whose wives and children were
detained at Ravenna as the pledge of their fidelity; and even the Jews,
who were rich and numerous, resisted, with desperate enthusiasm, the
intolerant laws of Justinian. In a much later period, the circumference
of Naples measured only two thousand three hundred and sixty three
paces: the fortifications were defended by precipices or the sea; when
the aqueducts were intercepted, a supply of water might be drawn from
wells and fountains; and the stock of provisions was sufficient to
consume the patience of the besiegers. At the end of twenty days, that
of Belisarius was almost exhausted, and he had reconciled himself to the
disgrace of abandoning the siege, that he might march, before the winter
season, against Rome and the Gothic king. But his anxiety was relieved
by the bold curiosity of an Isaurian, who explored the dry channel of an
aqueduct, and secretly reported, that a passage might be perforated to
introduce a file of armed soldiers into the heart of the city. When the
work had been silently executed, the humane general risked the discovery
of his secret by a last and fruitless admonition of the impending
danger. In the darkness of the night, four hundred Romans entered
the aqueduct, raised themselves by a rope, which they fastened to an
olive-tree, into the house or garden of a solitary matron, sounded
their trumpets, surprised the sentinels, and gave admittance to their
companions, who on all sides scaled the walls, and burst open the
gates of the city. Every crime which is punished by social justice was
practised as the rights of war; the Huns were distinguished by cruelty
and sacrilege, and Belisarius alone appeared in the streets and churches
of Naples to moderate the calamities which he predicted. "The gold and
silver," he repeatedly exclaimed, "are the just rewards of your valor.
But spare the inhabitants; they are Christians, they are suppliants,
they are now your fellow-subjects. Restore the children to their
parents, the wives to their husbands; and show them by you, generosity
of what friends they have obstinately deprived themselves." The city
was saved by the virtue and authority of its conqueror; and when the
Neapolitans returned to their houses, they found some consolation in
the secret enjoyment of their hidden treasures. The Barbarian garrison
enlisted in the service of the emperor; Apulia and Calabria, delivered
from the odious presence of the Goths, acknowledged his dominion; and
the tusks of the Calydonian boar, which were still shown at Beneventum,
are curiously described by the historian of Belisarius.
The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person within
the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles on the Appian
way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which, by a canal of nineteen
miles in length, had been recently drained and converted into excellent
pastures. But the principal forces of the Goths were dispersed in
Dalmatia, Venetia, and Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was
confounded by the unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed
to presage the downfall of his empire. The most abject slaves have
arraigned the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. The character
of Theodatus was rigorously scrutinized by a free and idle camp of
Barbarians, conscious of their privilege and power: he was declared
unworthy of his race, his nation, and his throne; and their general
Vitiges, whose valor had been signalized in the Illyrian war, was raised
with unanimous applause on the bucklers of his companions. On the first
rumor, the abdicated monarch fled from the justice of his country; but
he was pursued by private revenge. A Goth, whom he had injured in his
love, overtook Theodatus on the Flaminian way, and, regardless of his
unmanly cries, slaughtered him, as he lay, prostrate on the ground, like
a victim (says the historian) at the foot of the altar. The choice of
the people is the best and purest title to reign over them; yet such is
the prejudice of every age, that Vitiges impatiently wished to return to
Ravenna, where he might seize, with the reluctant hand of the daughter
of Amalasontha, some faint shadow of hereditary right. A national
council was immediately held, and the new monarch reconciled the
impatient spirit of the Barbarians to a measure of disgrace, which the
misconduct of his predecessor rendered wise and indispensable. The Goths
consented to retreat in the presence of a victorious enemy; to delay
till the next spring the operations of offensive war; to summon their
scattered forces; to relinquish their distant possessions, and to trust
even Rome itself to the faith of its inhabitants. Leuderis, an ancient
warrior, was left in the capital with four thousand soldiers; a feeble
garrison, which might have seconded the zeal, though it was incapable
of opposing the wishes, of the Romans. But a momentary enthusiasm of
religion and patriotism was kindled in their minds. They furiously
exclaimed, that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned by the
triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the CÊsars
should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North; and, without
reflecting, that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople, they
fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman emperor as a new Êra of freedom
and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the senate and
people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary
allegiance, and to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown open for
his reception. As soon as Belisarius had fortified his new conquests,
Naples and CumÊ, he advanced about twenty miles to the banks of the
Vulturnus, contemplated the decayed grandeur of Capua, and halted at the
separation of the Latin and Appian ways. The work of the censor, after
the incessant use of nine centuries, still preserved its primÊval
beauty, and not a flaw could be discovered in the large polished stones,
of which that solid, though narrow road, was so firmly compacted.
Belisarius, however, preferred the Latin way, which, at a distance from
the sea and the marshes, skirted in a space of one hundred and twenty
miles along the foot of the mountains. His enemies had disappeared: when
he made his entrance through the Asinarian gate, the garrison departed
without molestation along the Flaminian way; and the city, after
sixty years' servitude, was delivered from the yoke of the Barbarians.
Leuderis alone, from a motive of pride or discontent, refused to
accompany the fugitives; and the Gothic chief, himself a trophy of the
victory, was sent with the keys of Rome to the throne of the emperor
Justinian.