Theodosius.—Part II.
The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common guardian of the
royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division of the arms,
the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and furniture of the deceased
emperor. But the most important object of the inheritance consisted of
the numerous legions, cohorts, and squadrons, of Romans, or Barbarians,
whom the event of the civil war had united under the standard of
Theodosius. The various multitudes of Europe and Asia, exasperated by
recent animosities, were overawed by the authority of a single man; and
the rigid discipline of Stilicho protected the lands of the citizens
from the rapine of the licentious soldier. Anxious, however, and
impatient, to relieve Italy from the presence of this formidable host,
which could be useful only on the frontiers of the empire, he listened
to the just requisition of the minister of Arcadius, declared his
intention of reconducting in person the troops of the East, and
dexterously employed the rumor of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private
designs of ambition and revenge. The guilty soul of Rufinus was alarmed
by the approach of a warrior and a rival, whose enmity he deserved;
he computed, with increasing terror, the narrow space of his life and
greatness; and, as the last hope of safety, he interposed the authority
of the emperor Arcadius. Stilicho, who appears to have directed his
march along the sea-coast of the Adriatic, was not far distant from the
city of Thessalonica, when he received a peremptory message, to recall
the troops of the East, and to declare, that his nearer approach would
be considered, by the Byzantine court, as an act of hostility. The
prompt and unexpected obedience of the general of the West, convinced
the vulgar of his loyalty and moderation; and, as he had already engaged
the affection of the Eastern troops, he recommended to their zeal the
execution of his bloody design, which might be accomplished in his
absence, with less danger, perhaps, and with less reproach. Stilicho
left the command of the troops of the East to Gainas, the Goth, on whose
fidelity he firmly relied, with an assurance, at least, that the hardy
Barbarians would never be diverted from his purpose by any consideration
of fear or remorse. The soldiers were easily persuaded to punish the
enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and such was the general hatred which
Rufinus had excited, that the fatal secret, communicated to thousands,
was faithfully preserved during the long march from Thessalonica to the
gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had resolved his death, they
condescended to flatter his pride; the ambitious præfect was seduced to
believe, that those powerful auxiliaries might be tempted to place the
diadem on his head; and the treasures which he distributed, with a
tardy and reluctant hand, were accepted by the indignant multitude as
an insult, rather than as a gift. At the distance of a mile from the
capital, in the field of Mars, before the palace of Hebdomon, the troops
halted: and the emperor, as well as his minister, advanced, according to
ancient custom, respectfully to salute the power which supported their
throne. As Rufinus passed along the ranks, and disguised, with studied
courtesy, his innate haughtiness, the wings insensibly wheeled from the
right and left, and enclosed the devoted victim within the circle of
their arms. Before he could reflect on the danger of his situation,
Gainas gave the signal of death; a daring and forward soldier plunged
his sword into the breast of the guilty præfect, and Rufinus fell,
groaned, and expired, at the feet of the affrighted emperor. If the
agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a whole life, or if the
outrages inflicted on a breathless corpse could be the object of pity,
our humanity might perhaps be affected by the horrid circumstances which
accompanied the murder of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the
brutal fury of the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from
every quarter of the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty
minister, at whose frown they had so lately trembled. His right hand
was cut off, and carried through the streets of Constantinople, in cruel
mockery, to extort contributions for the avaricious tyrant, whose
head was publicly exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long lance.
According to the savage maxims of the Greek republics, his innocent
family would have shared the punishment of his crimes. The wife and
daughter of Rufinus were indebted for their safety to the influence of
religion. Her sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the
people; and they were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives
in the exercise of Christian devotions, in the peaceful retirement of
Jerusalem.
The servile poet of Stilicho applauds, with ferocious joy, this horrid
deed, which, in the execution, perhaps, of justice, violated every law
of nature and society, profaned the majesty of the prince, and renewed
the dangerous examples of military license. The contemplation of the
universal order and harmony had satisfied Claudian of the existence of
the Deity; but the prosperous impunity of vice appeared to contradict
his moral attributes; and the fate of Rufinus was the only event
which could dispel the religious doubts of the poet. Such an act might
vindicate the honor of Providence, but it did not much contribute to the
happiness of the people. In less than three months they were informed
of the maxims of the new administration, by a singular edict, which
established the exclusive right of the treasury over the spoils of
Rufinus; and silenced, under heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims
of the subjects of the Eastern empire, who had been injured by his
rapacious tyranny. Even Stilicho did not derive from the murder of
his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though he gratified his
revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under the name of a favorite,
the weakness of Arcadius required a master, but he naturally preferred
the obsequious arts of the eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his
domestic confidence: and the emperor contemplated, with terror and
aversion, the stern genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided
by the jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas, and the charms of
Eudoxia, supported the favor of the great chamberlain of the palace: the
perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of the East, betrayed,
without scruple, the interest of his benefactor; and the same troops,
who had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to
support, against him, the independence of the throne of Constantinople.
The favorites of Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcilable war
against a formidable hero, who aspired to govern, and to defend, the
two empires of Rome, and the two sons of Theodosius. They incessantly
labored, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive him of the
esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the friendship of
the Barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the
dagger of hired assassins; and a decree was obtained from the senate
of Constantinople, to declare him an enemy of the republic, and to
confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the East. At a time
when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on
the firm union, and reciprocal aid, of all the nations to whom it had
been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius
were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other in a
foreign, and even hostile, light; to rejoice in their mutual calamities,
and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the Barbarians, whom they
excited to invade the territories of their countrymen. The natives
of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of
Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity,
of Roman senators; and the Greeks had not yet forgot the sentiments
of hatred and contempt, which their polished ancestors had so long
entertained for the rude inhabitants of the West. The distinction of
two governments, which soon produced the separation of two nations, will
justify my design of suspending the series of the Byzantine history, to
prosecute, without interruption, the disgraceful, but memorable, reign
of Honorius.
The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the inclinations
of a prince, and people, who rejected his government, wisely abandoned
Arcadius to his unworthy favorites; and his reluctance to involve the
two empires in a civil war displayed the moderation of a minister,
who had so often signalized his military spirit and abilities. But if
Stilicho had any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have
betrayed the security of the capital, and the majesty of the Western
emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo, the
brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained, as the reward
of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony which was forfeited by
treason: long and meritorious service, in the armies of Rome, raised him
to the dignity of a military count; the narrow policy of the court of
Theodosius had adopted the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal
government by the interest of a powerful family; and the brother of
Firmus was invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon
usurped the administration of justice, and of the finances, without
account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign of
twelve years, the possession of an office, from which it was impossible
to remove him, without the danger of a civil war. During those twelve
years, the provinces of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant,
who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with the partial
resentments of domestic faction. The forms of law were often superseded
by the use of poison; and if the trembling guests, who were invited to
the table of Gildo, presumed to express fears, the insolent suspicion
served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the ministers of
death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust; and
if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not less dreadful
to husbands and parents. The fairest of their wives and daughters were
prostituted to the embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards abandoned to
a ferocious troop of Barbarians and assassins, the black, or swarthy,
natives of the desert; whom Gildo considered as the only guardians of
his throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the count,
or rather the sovereign, of Africa, maintained a haughty and suspicious
neutrality; refused to assist either of the contending parties with
troops or vessels, expected the declaration of fortune, and reserved for
the conqueror the vain professions of his allegiance. Such professions
would not have satisfied the master of the Roman world; but the death
of Theodosius, and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed the
power of the Moor; who condescended, as a proof of his moderation,
to abstain from the use of the diadem, and to supply Rome with the
customary tribute, or rather subsidy, of corn. In every division of the
empire, the five provinces of Africa were invariably assigned to the
West; and Gildo had to govern that extensive country in the name of
Honorius, but his knowledge of the character and designs of Stilicho
soon engaged him to address his homage to a more distant and feeble
sovereign. The ministers of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious
rebel; and the delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to
the empire of the East, tempted them to assert a claim, which they were
incapable of supporting, either by reason or by arms.
When Stilicho had given a firm and decisive answer to the pretensions of
the Byzantine court, he solemnly accused the tyrant of Africa before the
tribunal, which had formerly judged the kings and nations of the earth;
and the image of the republic was revived, after a long interval, under
the reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample
detail of the complaints of the provincials, and the crimes of Gildo,
to the Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were
required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous
suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and the decree of
the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms. A
people, who still remembered that their ancestors had been the
masters of the world, would have applauded, with conscious pride, the
representation of ancient freedom; if they had not since been accustomed
to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of
liberty and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the harvests
of Africa; and it was evident, that a declaration of war would be
the signal of famine. The præfect Symmachus, who presided in the
deliberations of the senate, admonished the minister of his just
apprehension, that as soon as the revengeful Moor should prohibit the
exportation of corn, the tranquility and perhaps the safety, of the
capital would be threatened by the hungry rage of a turbulent multitude.
The prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed, without delay, the
most effectual measure for the relief of the Roman people. A large and
seasonable supply of corn, collected in the inland provinces of Gaul,
was embarked on the rapid stream of the Rhone, and transported, by an
easy navigation, from the Rhone to the Tyber. During the whole term
of the African war, the granaries of Rome were continually filled, her
dignity was vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds
of an immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and
plenty.
The cause of Rome, and the conduct of the African war, were intrusted by
Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge his private injuries
on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of discord which prevailed in the
house of Nabal, had excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons,
Gildo and Mascezel. The usurper pursued, with implacable rage, the
life of his younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared;
and Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, took refuge in the court
of Milan, where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two
innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman
uncle. The affliction of the father was suspended only by the desire of
revenge. The vigilant Stilicho already prepared to collect the naval and
military force of the Western empire; and he had resolved, if the tyrant
should be able to wage an equal and doubtful war, to march against
him in person. But as Italy required his presence, and as it might
be dangerous to weaken the defence of the frontier, he judged it more
advisable, that Mascezel should attempt this arduous adventure at the
head of a chosen body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served under
the standard of Eugenius. These troops, who were exhorted to convince
the world that they could subvert, as well as defend the throne of
a usurper, consisted of the Jovian, the Herculian, and the Augustan
legions; of the Nervian auxiliaries; of the soldiers who displayed
in their banners the symbol of a lion, and of the troops which were
distinguished by the auspicious names of Fortunate, and Invincible. Yet
such was the smallness of their establishments, or the difficulty of
recruiting, that these seven bands, of high dignity and reputation in
the service of Rome, amounted to no more than five thousand effective
men. The fleet of galleys and transports sailed in tempestuous weather
from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany, and steered their course to the
little island of Capraria; which had borrowed that name from the wild
goats, its original inhabitants, whose place was occupied by a new
colony of a strange and savage appearance. "The whole island (says an
ingenious traveller of those times) is filled, or rather defiled, by
men who fly from the light. They call themselves Monks, or solitaries,
because they choose to live alone, without any witnesses of their
actions. They fear the gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of
losing them; and, lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of
voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how perverse their
understanding! to dread the evils, without being able to support the
blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy madness is the
effect of disease, or exercise on their own bodies the tortures which
are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice." Such was the
contempt of a profane magistrate for the monks as the chosen servants of
God. Some of them were persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board
the fleet; and it is observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that
his days and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the occupation
of singing psalms. The devout leader, who, with such a reenforcement,
appeared confident of victory, avoided the dangerous rocks of Corsica,
coasted along the eastern side of Sardinia, and secured his ships
against the violence of the south wind, by casting anchor in the and
capacious harbor of Cagliari, at the distance of one hundred and forty
miles from the African shores.
Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of Africa.
By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he endeavored to secure the
doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers, whilst he attracted to
his standard the distant tribes of Gætulia and Æthiopia. He proudly
reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with the rash
presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous
cavalry would trample under their horses' feet the troops of Mascezel,
and involve, in a cloud of burning sand, the natives of the cold
regions of Gaul and Germany. But the Moor, who commanded the legions of
Honorius, was too well acquainted with the manners of his countrymen,
to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and disorderly host of
Barbarians; whose left arm, instead of a shield, was protected only
by mantle; who were totally disarmed as soon as they had darted their
javelin from their right hand; and whose horses had never been in
combat. He fixed his camp of five thousand veterans in the face of a
superior enemy, and, after the delay of three days, gave the signal of
a general engagement. As Mascezel advanced before the front with
fair offers of peace and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost
standard-bearers of the Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck
him on the arm with his sword. The arm, and the standard, sunk under
the weight of the blow; and the imaginary act of submission was hastily
repeated by all the standards of the line. At this the disaffected
cohorts proclaimed the name of their lawful sovereign; the Barbarians,
astonished by the defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according
to their custom, in tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the honours
of an easy, and almost bloodless, victory. The tyrant escaped from the
field of battle to the sea-shore; and threw himself into a small vessel,
with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of
the East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbor
of Tabraca, which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province,
the dominion of Honorius, and the authority of his lieutenant. The
inhabitants, as a proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and
confined the person of Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him
from the intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured
and victorious brother. The captives and the spoils of Africa were
laid at the feet of the emperor; but more sincere, in the midst of
prosperity, still affected to consult the laws of the republic; and
referred to the senate and people of Rome the judgment of the most
illustrious criminals. Their trial was public and solemn; but the
judges, in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious jurisdiction,
were impatient to punish the African magistrates, who had intercepted
the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich and guilty province was
oppressed by the Imperial ministers, who had a visible interest to
multiply the number of the accomplices of Gildo; and if an edict
of Honorius seems to check the malicious industry of informers, a
subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years, continues and renews the
prosecution of the offences which had been committed in the time of the
general rebellion. The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first
fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive some consolation from
the tragic fate of his brother, who could never obtain his pardon for
the extraordinary services which he had performed. After he had finished
an important war in the space of a single winter, Mascezel was received
at the court of Milan with loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret
jealousy; and his death, which, perhaps, was the effect of passage of
a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied the master-general of the
West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the officious
haste of the attendants was on the countenance of Stilicho; and while
they delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel was
irrecoverably drowned.
The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the nuptials
of the emperor Honorius, and of his cousin Maria, the daughter of
Stilicho: and this equal and honorable alliance seemed to invest the
powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive
pupil. The muse of Claudian was not silent on this propitious day; he
sung, in various and lively strains, the happiness of the royal pair;
and the glory of the hero, who confirmed their union, and supported
their throne. The ancient fables of Greece, which had almost ceased to
be the object of religious faith, were saved from oblivion by the genius
of poetry. The picture of the Cyprian grove, the seat of harmony and
love; the triumphant progress of Venus over her native seas, and the
mild influence which her presence diffused in the palace of Milan,
express to every age the natural sentiments of the heart, in the just
and pleasing language of allegorical fiction. But the amorous impatience
which Claudian attributes to the young prince, must excite the smiles
of the court; and his beauteous spouse (if she deserved the praise of
beauty) had not much to fear or to hope from the passions of her lover.
Honorius was only in the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother
of his bride, deferred, by art of persuasion, the consummation of the
royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been ten years a
wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the coldness,
perhaps, the debility, of his constitution. His subjects, who
attentively studied the character of their young sovereign, discovered
that Honorius was without passions, and consequently without talents;
and that his feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of
discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the pleasures of his
age. In his early youth he made some progress in the exercises of
riding and drawing the bow: but he soon relinquished these fatiguing
occupations, and the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and
daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire
to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho. The experience of
history will countenance the suspicion that a prince who was born in
the purple, received a worse education than the meanest peasant of his
dominions; and that the ambitious minister suffered him to attain
the age of manhood, without attempting to excite his courage, or
to enlighten his understanding. The predecessors of Honorius were
accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence,
the valor of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the
perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman
world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life, a
captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient,
almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire,
which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the
Barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it
will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part I.
Revolt Of The Goths.—They Plunder Greece.—Two Great
Invasions Of Italy By Alaric And Radagaisus.—They Are
Repulsed By Stilicho.—The Germans Overrun Gaul.—Usurpation
Of Constantine In The West.—Disgrace And Death Of Stilicho.
If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the
great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully the spirit
and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and
mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and
before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in
arms. The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard;
and boldly avowed the hostile designs, which they had long cherished in
their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by
the conditions of the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor,
deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers
of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued
from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the
poet to remark, "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over the
broad and icy back of the indignant river." The unhappy natives of the
provinces to the south of the Danube submitted to the calamities, which,
in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their
imagination; and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the
Gothic name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia,
to the walls of Constantinople. The interruption, or at least the
diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the
prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of their
revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for the unwarlike
sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was inflamed by the weakness,
or treachery, of the minister of Arcadius. The frequent visits of
Rufinus to the camp of the Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected
to imitate, were considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty
correspondence, and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude
or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare
the private estates of the unpopular præfect. The Goths, instead of
being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their chiefs,
were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned
leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti; which yielded
only to the royal dignity of the Amali: he had solicited the command of
the Roman armies; and the Imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the
folly of their refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes
might be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious
general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst of
a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor Arcadius was
terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms; but the want of wisdom and
valor was supplied by the strength of the city; and the fortifications,
both of the sea and land, might securely brave the impotent and random
darts of the Barbarians. Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the
prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved
to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had
hitherto escaped the ravages of war.
The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus had
devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public suspicion, that
he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and learning to the Gothic
invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable
father; and Gerontius, who commanded the provincial troops, was much
better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant, than to
defend, with courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by
the hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the plains
of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Oeta, a steep and
woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry. They stretched
from east to west, to the edge of the sea-shore; and left, between the
precipice and the Malian Gulf, an interval of three hundred feet, which,
in some places, was contracted to a road capable of admitting only a
single carriage. In this narrow pass of Thermopylæ, where Leonidas and
the three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the Goths
might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful general; and perhaps
the view of that sacred spot might have kindled some sparks of military
ardor in the breasts of the degenerate Greeks. The troops which had
been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylæ, retired, as they were
directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage
of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Botia were instantly
covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males of an age
to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil
and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who visited Greece
several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and bloody
traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes was less indebted for her
preservation to the strength of her seven gates, than to the eager haste
of Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens, and the important
harbor of the Piræus. The same impatience urged him to prevent the
delay and danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation; and as soon
as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they were easily
persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as the ransom
of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was ratified by
solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic prince, with
a small and select train, was admitted within the walls; he indulged
himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid banquet,
which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that he
was not ignorant of the manners of civilized nations. But the whole
territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of
Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the
bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance between
Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles; but the bad road,
an expressive name, which it still bears among the Greeks, was, or might
easily have been made, impassable for the march of an enemy. The thick
and gloomy woods of Mount Cithæron covered the inland country; the
Scironian rocks approached the water's edge, and hung over the
narrow and winding path, which was confined above six miles along the
sea-shore. The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age, was
terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary
intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to the Ægean Sea. The
confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart, had
tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice
of the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province.
Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the
Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death,
from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration
of their cities. The vases and statues were distributed among the
Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than to the
elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted to the laws
of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of valor; and the Greeks
could not reasonably complain of an abuse which was justified by the
example of the heroic times. The descendants of that extraordinary
people, who had considered valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta,
no longer remembered the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader
more formidable than Alaric. "If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt
those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man, advance:—and
thou wilt find men equal to thyself." From Thermopylæ to Sparta, the
leader of the Goths pursued his victorious march without encountering
any mortal antagonists: but one of the advocates of expiring Paganism
has confidently asserted, that the walls of Athens were guarded by the
goddess Minerva, with her formidable Ægis, and by the angry phantom
of Achilles; and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the
hostile deities of Greece. In an age of miracles, it would perhaps
be unjust to dispute the claim of the historian Zosimus to the common
benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled, that the mind of Alaric was
ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping or waking visions, the
impressions of Greek superstition. The songs of Homer, and the fame
of Achilles, had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate
Barbarian; and the Christian faith, which he had devoutly embraced,
taught him to despise the imaginary deities of Rome and Athens. The
invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at
least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism: and the
mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not
survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the calamities of Greece.
The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their arms,
their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful assistance
of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not been permitted to
repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of Greece. A numerous fleet
was equipped in the ports of Italy; and the troops, after a short and
prosperous navigation over the Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked
on the isthmus, near the ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous
country of Arcadia, the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became
the scene of a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals
not unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman at
length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a considerable loss
from disease and desertion, gradually retreated to the lofty mountain of
Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus, and on the frontiers of Elis; a
sacred country, which had formerly been exempted from the calamities of
war. The camp of the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the waters
of the river were diverted into another channel; and while they labored
under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a strong line
of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After these
precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to enjoy his
triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious dances, of the Greeks;
his soldiers, deserting their standards, spread themselves over the
country of their allies, which they stripped of all that had been saved
from the rapacious hands of the enemy. Alaric appears to have seized the
favorable moment to execute one of those hardy enterprises, in which the
abilities of a general are displayed with more genuine lustre, than in
the tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from the prison of
Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce the intrenchments
which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a difficult and
dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf of Corinth; and that
he should transport his troops, his captives, and his spoil, over an arm
of the sea, which, in the narrow interval between Rhium and the opposite
shore, is at least half a mile in breadth. The operations of Alaric
must have been secret, prudent, and rapid; since the Roman general
was confounded by the intelligence, that the Goths, who had eluded his
efforts, were in full possession of the important province of Epirus.
This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric sufficient time to conclude
the treaty, which he secretly negotiated, with the ministers of
Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war compelled Stilicho to
retire, at the haughty mandate of his rivals, from the dominions
of Arcadius; and he respected, in the enemy of Rome, the honorable
character of the ally and servant of the emperor of the East.
A Grecian philosopher, who visited Constantinople soon after the death
of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions concerning the duties
of kings, and the state of the Roman republic. Synesius observes,
and deplores, the fatal abuse, which the imprudent bounty of the late
emperor had introduced into the military service. The citizens and
subjects had purchased an exemption from the indispensable duty of
defending their country; which was supported by the arms of Barbarian
mercenaries. The fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace
the illustrious dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who
disdained the salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire
the riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of
their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the stone of
Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and safety of the devoted
state. The measures which Synesius recommends, are the dictates of a
bold and generous patriot. He exhorts the emperor to revive the courage
of his subjects, by the example of manly virtue; to banish luxury
from the court and from the camp; to substitute, in the place of the
Barbarian mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of
their laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public
danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his school;
to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure, and to
arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the laborious
husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might deserve the name, and
would display the spirit, of Romans, he animates the son of Theodosius
to encounter a race of Barbarians, who were destitute of any real
courage; and never to lay down his arms, till he had chased them far
away into the solitudes of Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of
ignominious servitude, which the Lacedæmonians formerly imposed on the
captive Helots. The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal, applauded
the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius. Perhaps the
philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in the language of
reason and virtue, which he might have used to a Spartan king, had not
condescended to form a practicable scheme, consistent with the temper,
and circumstances, of a degenerate age. Perhaps the pride of the
ministers, whose business was seldom interrupted by reflection, might
reject, as wild and visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the
measure of their capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents
of office. While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the
Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was
published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of Alaric
to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum. The Roman
provincials, and the allies, who had respected the faith of treaties,
were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece and Epirus should be
so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror was received as a lawful
magistrate, in the cities which he had so lately besieged. The fathers,
whose sons he had massacred, the husbands, whose wives he had violated,
were subject to his authority; and the success of his rebellion
encouraged the ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The
use to which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm
and judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the four
magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus,
Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an
extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the
unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments of their
own destruction; and the Barbarians removed the only defect which
had sometimes disappointed the efforts of their courage. The birth of
Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future
designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious
standard; and, with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains,
the master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths.
Armed with this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires,
he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the courts of Arcadius and
Honorius; till he declared and executed his resolution of invading the
dominions of the West. The provinces of Europe which belonged to
the Eastern emperor, were already exhausted; those of Asia were
inaccessible; and the strength of Constantinople had resisted his
attack. But he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy,
which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the
Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the
accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs.
The scarcity of facts, and the uncertainty of dates, oppose our attempts
to describe the circumstances of the first invasion of Italy by the arms
of Alaric. His march, perhaps from Thessalonica, through the warlike and
hostile country of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; his
passage of those mountains, which were strongly guarded by troops and
intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the conquest of the provinces
of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed a considerable time.
Unless his operations were extremely cautious and slow, the length of
the interval would suggest a probable suspicion, that the Gothic king
retreated towards the banks of the Danube; and reënforced his army with
fresh swarms of Barbarians, before he again attempted to penetrate into
the heart of Italy. Since the public and important events escape the
diligence of the historian, he may amuse himself with contemplating,
for a moment, the influence of the arms of Alaric on the fortunes of two
obscure individuals, a presbyter of Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona.
The learned Rufinus, who was summoned by his enemies to appear before
a Roman synod, wisely preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the
Barbarians, who furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him
from the cruel sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the
same bishops, was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual exile
on a desert island. The old man, who had passed his simple and innocent
life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both
of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his knowledge,
were confined within the little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff
supported his aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in
his infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian
describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to the
undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary trees,
must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a detachment of
Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his family; and the
power of Alaric could destroy this happiness, which he was not able
either to taste or to bestow. "Fame," says the poet, "encircling with
terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the Barbarian army, and
filled Italy with consternation:" the apprehensions of each individual
were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and the
most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects, meditated
their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African coast. The public
distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition.
Every hour produced some horrid tale of strange and portentous
accidents; the Pagans deplored the neglect of omens, and the
interruption of sacrifices; but the Christians still derived some
comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints and martyrs.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part II.
The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by the
preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury in which
he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that there existed
on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the
successor of Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending
danger, till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound
of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with
the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to
those timid counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person,
and his faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the
provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone had courage and authority to resist
his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome and Italy to
the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had been lately detached
to the Rhætian frontier, and as the resource of new levies was slow
and precarious, the general of the West could only promise, that if the
court of Milan would maintain their ground during his absence, he would
soon return with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic king.
Without losing a moment, (while each moment was so important to the
public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake, ascended
the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an Alpine winter,
and suddenly repressed, by his unexpected presence, the enemy, who had
disturbed the tranquillity of Rhætia. The Barbarians, perhaps some
tribes of the Alemanni, respected the firmness of a chief, who still
assumed the language of command; and the choice which he condescended
to make, of a select number of their bravest youth, was considered as a
mark of his esteem and favor. The cohorts, who were delivered from
the neighboring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial standard; and
Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote troops of the West, to
advance, by rapid marches, to the defence of Honorius and of Italy.
The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the safety of Gaul was
protected only by the faith of the Germans, and the ancient terror of
the Roman name. Even the legion, which had been stationed to guard
the wall of Britain against the Caledonians of the North, was hastily
recalled; and a numerous body of the cavalry of the Alani was persuaded
to engage in the service of the emperor, who anxiously expected
the return of his general. The prudence and vigor of Stilicho were
conspicuous on this occasion, which revealed, at the same time, the
weakness of the falling empire. The legions of Rome, which had long
since languished in the gradual decay of discipline and courage, were
exterminated by the Gothic and civil wars; and it was found impossible,
without exhausting and exposing the provinces, to assemble an army for
the defence of Italy.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part III.
When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the unguarded palace of
Milan, he had probably calculated the term of his absence, the distance
of the enemy, and the obstacles that might retard their march. He
principally depended on the rivers of Italy, the Adige, the Mincius,
the Oglio, and the Addua, which, in the winter or spring, by the fall of
rains, or by the melting of the snows, are commonly swelled into broad
and impetuous torrents. But the season happened to be remarkably dry:
and the Goths could traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony
beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow stream.
The bridge and passage of the Addua were secured by a strong detachment
of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached the walls, or rather the
suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud satisfaction of seeing the
emperor of the Romans fly before him. Honorius, accompanied by a feeble
train of statesmen and eunuchs, hastily retreated towards the Alps, with
a design of securing his person in the city of Arles, which had often
been the royal residence of his predecessors. But Honorius had scarcely
passed the Po, before he was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic
cavalry; since the urgency of the danger compelled him to seek a
temporary shelter within the fortifications of Asta, a town of Liguria
or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus. The siege of an obscure
place, which contained so rich a prize, and seemed incapable of a long
resistance, was instantly formed, and indefatigably pressed, by the
king of the Goths; and the bold declaration, which the emperor might
afterwards make, that his breast had never been susceptible of fear, did
not probably obtain much credit, even in his own court. In the last, and
almost hopeless extremity, after the Barbarians had already proposed the
indignity of a capitulation, the Imperial captive was suddenly relieved
by the fame, the approach, and at length the presence, of the hero, whom
he had so long expected. At the head of a chosen and intrepid vanguard,
Stilicho swam the stream of the Addua, to gain the time which he must
have lost in the attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an
enterprise of much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful
action, in which he cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls
of Asta, revived the hopes, and vindicated the honor, of Rome. Instead
of grasping the fruit of his victory, the Barbarian was gradually
invested, on every side, by the troops of the West, who successively
issued through all the passes of the Alps; his quarters were straitened;
his convoys were intercepted; and the vigilance of the Romans prepared
to form a chain of fortifications, and to besiege the lines of the
besiegers. A military council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of
the Gothic nation; of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped in furs,
and whose stern countenances were marked with honorable wounds. They
weighed the glory of persisting in their attempt against the advantage
of securing their plunder; and they recommended the prudent measure of
a seasonable retreat. In this important debate, Alaric displayed
the spirit of the conqueror of Rome; and after he had reminded his
countrymen of their achievements and of their designs, he concluded
his animating speech by the solemn and positive assurance that he was
resolved to find in Italy either a kingdom or a grave.
The loose discipline of the Barbarians always exposed them to the danger
of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the dissolute hours of riot and
intemperance, Stilicho resolved to attack the Christian Goths, whilst
they were devoutly employed in celebrating the festival of Easter. The
execution of the stratagem, or, as it was termed by the clergy of the
sacrilege, was intrusted to Saul, a Barbarian and a Pagan, who had
served, however, with distinguished reputation among the veteran
generals of Theodosius. The camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched
in the neighborhood of Pollentia, was thrown into confusion by the
sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry; but, in a few
moments, the undaunted genius of their leader gave them an order, and
a field of battle; and, as soon as they had recovered from their
astonishment, the pious confidence, that the God of the Christians would
assert their cause, added new strength to their native valor. In this
engagement, which was long maintained with equal courage and success,
the chief of the Alani, whose diminutive and savage form concealed a
magnanimous soul approved his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which
he fought, and fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of
this gallant Barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of
Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has omitted the
mention of his name. His death was followed by the flight and dismay of
the squadrons which he commanded; and the defeat of the wing of
cavalry might have decided the victory of Alaric, if Stilicho had not
immediately led the Roman and Barbarian infantry to the attack. The
skill of the general, and the bravery of the soldiers, surmounted every
obstacle. In the evening of the bloody day, the Goths retreated from the
field of battle; the intrenchments of their camp were forced, and the
scene of rapine and slaughter made some atonement for the calamities
which they had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. The magnificent
spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the veterans of the West; the
captive wife of Alaric, who had impatiently claimed his promise of Roman
jewels and Patrician handmaids, was reduced to implore the mercy of the
insulting foe; and many thousand prisoners, released from the Gothic
chains, dispersed through the provinces of Italy the praises of their
heroic deliverer. The triumph of Stilicho was compared by the poet,
and perhaps by the public, to that of Marius; who, in the same part
of Italy, had encountered and destroyed another army of Northern
Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty helmets, of the Cimbri and
of the Goths, would easily be confounded by succeeding generations;
and posterity might erect a common trophy to the memory of the two most
illustrious generals, who had vanquished, on the same memorable ground,
the two most formidable enemies of Rome.
The eloquence of Claudian has celebrated, with lavish applause, the
victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious days in the life of his
patron; but his reluctant and partial muse bestows more genuine praise
on the character of the Gothic king. His name is, indeed, branded with
the reproachful epithets of pirate and robber, to which the conquerors
of every age are so justly entitled; but the poet of Stilicho is
compelled to acknowledge that Alaric possessed the invincible temper
of mind, which rises superior to every misfortune, and derives new
resources from adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry, he
escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with the greatest
part of his cavalry entire and unbroken. Without wasting a moment to
lament the irreparable loss of so many brave companions, he left his
victorious enemy to bind in chains the captive images of a Gothic
king; and boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the
Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and
to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. The capital was saved by the
active and incessant diligence of Stilicho; but he respected the despair
of his enemy; and, instead of committing the fate of the republic to
the chance of another battle, he proposed to purchase the absence of
the Barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have rejected such terms, the
permission of a retreat, and the offer of a pension, with contempt and
indignation; but he exercised a limited and precarious authority over
the independent chieftains who had raised him, for their service, above
the rank of his equals; they were still less disposed to follow an
unsuccessful general, and many of them were tempted to consult their
interest by a private negotiation with the minister of Honorius. The
king submitted to the voice of his people, ratified the treaty with
the empire of the West, and repassed the Po with the remains of the
flourishing army which he had led into Italy. A considerable part of the
Roman forces still continued to attend his motions; and Stilicho, who
maintained a secret correspondence with some of the Barbarian chiefs,
was punctually apprised of the designs that were formed in the camp and
council of Alaric. The king of the Goths, ambitious to signalize
his retreat by some splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the
important city of Verona, which commands the principal passage of the
Rhætian Alps; and, directing his march through the territories of those
German tribes, whose alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to
invade, on the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting provinces
of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already betrayed his bold and
judicious enterprise, he advanced towards the passes of the mountains,
already possessed by the Imperial troops; where he was exposed, almost
at the same instant, to a general attack in the front, on his flanks,
and in the rear. In this bloody action, at a small distance from the
walls of Verona, the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that
which they had sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant
king, who escaped by the swiftness of his horse, must either have been
slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had not
disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric secured the
remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and prepared himself, with
undaunted resolution, to maintain a siege against the superior numbers
of the enemy, who invested him on all sides. But he could not oppose the
destructive progress of hunger and disease; nor was it possible for
him to check the continual desertion of his impatient and capricious
Barbarians. In this extremity he still found resources in his own
courage, or in the moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the
Gothic king was considered as the deliverance of Italy. Yet the people,
and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the
business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho,
who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the
implacable enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety
is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied
by envy and calumny.
The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of Alaric;
and the diligence with which they labored to restore the walls of the
capital, confessed their own fears, and the decline of the empire.
After the retreat of the Barbarians, Honorius was directed to accept
the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate, in the Imperial
city, the auspicious æra of the Gothic victory, and of his sixth
consulship. The suburbs and the streets, from the Milvian bridge to the
Palatine mount, were filled by the Roman people, who, in the space of a
hundred years, had only thrice been honored with the presence of their
sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where Stilicho
was deservedly seated by the side of his royal pupil, they applauded the
pomp of a triumph, which was not stained, like that of Constantine, or
of Theodosius, with civil blood. The procession passed under a lofty
arch, which had been purposely erected: but in less than seven years,
the Gothic conquerors of Rome might read, if they were able to read, the
superb inscription of that monument, which attested the total defeat and
destruction of their nation. The emperor resided several months in
the capital, and every part of his behavior was regulated with care to
conciliate the affection of the clergy, the senate, and the people of
Rome. The clergy was edified by his frequent visits and liberal gifts
to the shrines of the apostles. The senate, who, in the triumphal
procession, had been excused from the humiliating ceremony of preceding
on foot the Imperial chariot, was treated with the decent reverence
which Stilicho always affected for that assembly. The people was
repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the
public games, which were celebrated on that occasion with a magnificence
not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the appointed number of
chariot-races was concluded, the decoration of the Circus was suddenly
changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various and splendid
entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a military dance, which
seems, in the lively description of Claudian, to present the image of a
modern tournament.
In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators polluted,
for the last time, the amphitheater of Rome. The first Christian emperor
may claim the honor of the first edict which condemned the art and
amusement of shedding human blood; but this benevolent law expressed
the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse, which
degraded a civilized nation below the condition of savage cannibals.
Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were annually
slaughtered in the great cities of the empire; and the month of
December, more peculiarly devoted to the combats of gladiators, still
exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood
and cruelty. Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a
Christian poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his authority,
the horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity and
religion. The pathetic representations of Prudentius were less effectual
than the generous boldness of Telemachus, an Asiatic monk, whose death
was more useful to mankind than his life. The Romans were provoked
by the interruption of their pleasures; and the rash monk, who had
descended into the arena to separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed
under a shower of stones. But the madness of the people soon subsided;
they respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the honors
of martyrdom; and they submitted, without a murmur, to the laws
of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the
amphitheater. The citizens, who adhered to the manners of their
ancestors, might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of a martial
spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude, which accustomed the
Romans to the sight of blood, and to the contempt of death; a vain and
cruel prejudice, so nobly confuted by the valor of ancient Greece, and
of modern Europe!
The recent danger, to which the person of the emperor had been exposed
in the defenceless palace of Milan, urged him to seek a retreat in some
inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while
the open country was covered by a deluge of Barbarians. On the coast of
the Adriatic, about ten or twelve miles from the most southern of the
seven mouths of the Po, the Thessalians had founded the ancient colony
of Ravenna, which they afterwards resigned to the natives of Umbria.
Augustus, who had observed the opportunity of the place, prepared, at
the distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious harbor,
for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This naval
establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines, the barracks
of the troops, and the houses of the artificers, derived its origin and
name from the permanent station of the Roman fleet; the intermediate
space was soon filled with buildings and inhabitants, and the three
extensive and populous quarters of Ravenna gradually contributed to
form one of the most important cities of Italy. The principal canal of
Augustus poured a copious stream of the waters of the Po through the
midst of the city, to the entrance of the harbor; the same waters were
introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed the walls; they
were distributed by a thousand subordinate canals, into every part
of the city, which they divided into a variety of small islands; the
communication was maintained only by the use of boats and bridges;
and the houses of Ravenna, whose appearance may be compared to that
of Venice, were raised on the foundation of wooden piles. The adjacent
country, to the distance of many miles, was a deep and impassable
morass; and the artificial causeway, which connected Ravenna with the
continent, might be easily guarded or destroyed, on the approach of a
hostile army. These morasses were interspersed, however, with vineyards:
and though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops, the town
enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh water. The air,
instead of receiving the sickly, and almost pestilential, exhalations
of low and marshy grounds, was distinguished, like the neighborhood
of Alexandria, as uncommonly pure and salubrious; and this singular
advantage was ascribed to the regular tides of the Adriatic, which swept
the canals, interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of the waters, and
floated, every day, the vessels of the adjacent country into the heart
of Ravenna. The gradual retreat of the sea has left the modern city at
the distance of four miles from the Adriatic; and as early as the
fifth or sixth century of the Christian æra, the port of Augustus was
converted into pleasant orchards; and a lonely grove of pines covered
the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor. Even this
alteration contributed to increase the natural strength of the place,
and the shallowness of the water was a sufficient barrier against the
large ships of the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified by
art and labor; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of the
West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual
confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The example of
Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings,
and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of
the emperors; and till the middle of the eight century, Ravenna was
considered as the seat of government, and the capital of Italy.
The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his
precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from
the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany,
who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been
gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of
Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned
industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the
secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive
territory to the north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight
of the Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into
independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief;
till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth, they
acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable power. The Topa
soon compelled the pastoral nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge
the superiority of their arms; they invaded China in a period of
weakness and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting
the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an Imperial
dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty years over the
northern provinces of the monarchy. Some generations before they
ascended the throne of China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in
his cavalry a slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who
was tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and
to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang of
robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous people,
distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their hereditary
chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed their rank
among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his
descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are the school of
heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity, broke the imperious yoke of
the Topa, and became the legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of
Tartary. His troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred
and of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid
honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had
knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only such
arts and institutions as were favorable to the military spirit of his
government. His tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more
southern latitude, were pitched, during the summer, on the fruitful
banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from Corea far beyond the
River Irtish. He vanquished, in the country to the north of the Caspian
Sea, the nation of the Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan,
expressed the fame and power which he derived from this memorable
victory.
The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it passes
from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval which separates
the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the Roman, geography. Yet the
temper of the Barbarians, and the experience of successive emigrations,
sufficiently declare, that the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of
the Geougen, soon withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor.
The countries towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred
tribes; and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold
attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and level
plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic Sea. The
North must again have been alarmed, and agitated, by the invasion of the
Huns; and the nations who retreated before them must have pressed with
incumbent weight on the confines of Germany. The inhabitants of those
regions, which the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the Vandals,
and the Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning to
the fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses; or at least of
discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the Roman
empire. About four years after the victorious Toulun had assumed the
title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast,
or Radagaisus, marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost
to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the
destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians,
formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a
hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to
the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded so
eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that by some historians, he
has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors,
distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth, or their valiant
deeds, glittered in the van; and the whole multitude, which was not
less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the
accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four
hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the
same coast of the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of the
Cimbri and Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the
republic. After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country,
which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts, and
gigantic moles, remained, during some ages, a vast and dreary solitude;
till the human species was renewed by the powers of generation, and the
vacancy was filled by the influx of new inhabitants. The nations who now
usurp an extent of land which they are unable to cultivate, would
soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their neighbors, if
the government of Europe did not protect the claims of dominion and
property.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV.
The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge
of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along
the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the
Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his
amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being
the occasion, and the spectator, of the war. The safety of Rome was
intrusted to the counsels, and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was
the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to
restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
effort, the invasion of the Germans. The hopes of the vigilant minister
of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more
abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies,
which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the
most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered
the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who
would enlist. By these efforts he painfully collected, from the subjects
of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, which, in
the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished
by the free citizens of the territory of Rome. The thirty legions of
Stilicho were reënforced by a large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the
faithful Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops
of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native
princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to
oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate Germans
passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine; leaving
on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among
the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who
had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have
avoided a decisive battle, till he had assembled his distant forces.
Many cities of Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of
Florence, by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history
of that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the
unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled at
their approach within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and anxiously
compared the danger which they had escaped, with the new perils to which
they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and a soldier, the leader of
a disciplined army; who understood the laws of war, who respected the
sanctity of treaties, and who had familiarly conversed with the subjects
of the empire in the same camps, and the same churches. The savage
Radagaisus was a stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the
language, of the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his
temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally
believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce the city
into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious
of the Roman senators on the altars of those gods who were appeased
by human blood. The public danger, which should have reconciled all
domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness of religious
faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury respected, in
the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of a devout Pagan; loudly
declared, that they were more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of
the arms, of Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of
their country, which condemned the faith of their Christian adversaries.
Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of
the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose; who
had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. On
a sudden, they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who
advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and
who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The
apparent contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence to
their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately
connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this miraculous victory
to the providence of God, rather than to the valor of man. They strictly
exclude every idea of chance, or even of bloodshed; and positively
affirm, that the Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty and
idleness, enjoyed the distress of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the
sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Fæsulæ, which rise above the
city of Florence. Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier
of the Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with
silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and Orosius
is consistent with the state of the war, and the character of Stilicho.
Conscious that he commanded the last army of the republic, his prudence
would not expose it, in the open field, to the headstrong fury of
the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of
circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king,
was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The
examples of Cæsar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the
Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which connected
twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart of fifteen miles,
afforded the model of an intrenchment which might confine, and starve,
the most numerous host of Barbarians. The Roman troops had less
degenerated from the industry, than from the valor, of their ancestors;
and if their servile and laborious work offended the pride of the
soldiers, Tuscany could supply many thousand peasants, who would labor,
though, perhaps, they would not fight, for the salvation of their
native country. The imprisoned multitude of horses and men was gradually
destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans were
exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent
attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the hungry Barbarians
would precipitate them against the fortifications of Stilicho; the
general might sometimes indulge the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who
eagerly pressed to assault the camp of the Germans; and these various
incidents might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the
narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus.
A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the
walls of Florence, and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn
besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss
of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a
capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho. But the death of the royal
captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome
and of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient
to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty.
The famished Germans, who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries, were sold
as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many single pieces of gold;
but the difference of food and climate swept away great numbers of those
unhappy strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers,
instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to
provide the expense of their interment. Stilicho informed the emperor
and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second time, the glorious
title of Deliverer of Italy.
The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has
encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather nation, of
Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic, miserably perished
under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus
himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one
third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and
Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general. The union of
such an army might excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are
obvious and forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valor, the
jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the obstinate
conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions, among so many kings
and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or to obey. After the defeat
of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must have exceeded
the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained in arms, between
the Apennine and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is
uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of their general;
but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness
of Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat; who
considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his
care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the wealth and
tranquillity of the distant provinces. The Barbarians acquired, from the
junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country, and
of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was
executed by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus.
Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of
Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were
disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and
the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defence of the
of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine, which was the first
act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself, with
peculiar attention, to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and
to remove the irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic.
Marcomir, one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the
tribunal of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of Tuscany;
and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the
resentment of his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent
Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother; and maintained a dutiful
allegiance to the princes, who were established on the throne by the
choice of Stilicho. When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by
the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force
of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again
separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian allies. They
paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with
their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle. The whole
people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the Alani,
advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the
Franks; who, after an honorable resistance, were compelled to relinquish
the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march,
and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the
Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the
Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated,
may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries
beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the
savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal
moment levelled with the ground.
While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks,
and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of
their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity,
which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and
herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the Barbarians; their
huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses
of the Hercynian wood. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those
of the Tyber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a
poet descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side was
situated the territory of the Romans. This scene of peace and plenty was
suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins
could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of
man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and
many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms
perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims,
Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German
yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine
over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and
extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was
delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous
crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of
their houses and altars. The ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted
for this vague description of the public calamities, embraced the
opportunity of exhorting the Christians to repent of the sins which had
provoked the Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of
a wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy, which
attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination, soon became
the serious employment of the Latin clergy, the Providence which had
decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a train of moral and natural
evils, was rashly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of
reason. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people,
were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they
arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common
destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human
species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature,
which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and
safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna
might recall the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the
remains of the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous task;
and the Barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded license
of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the
provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust
youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their
altars, if they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The
knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppose
continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an invader; and
the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms, as well as in discipline,
removed the only pretence which excuses the submission of a populous
country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was
invaded by Charles V., he inquired of a prisoner, how many days Paris
might be distant from the frontier; "Perhaps twelve, but they will be
days of battle:" such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance
of that ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis
I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than two
years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers,
were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a
combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean Mountains.
In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of Stilicho
had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain from her incessant
enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coast. But those
restless Barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic
war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the
Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from
the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character
of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance, and
to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The spirit of
revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived
by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps
the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were
the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion. Marcus
was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of
Britain and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus,
the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and their
disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an honorable epitaph
on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned with the diadem and
the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian experienced the
fate of his predecessor. The memory of the great Constantine, whom the
British legions had given to the church and to the empire, suggested the
singular motive of their third choice. They discovered in the ranks a
private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous
levity had already seated him on the throne, before they perceived his
incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious appellation. Yet the
authority of Constantine was less precarious, and his government was
more successful, than the transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian.
The danger of leaving his inactive troops in those camps, which had
been twice polluted with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt
the reduction of the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an
inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days,
he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the
Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed the
summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of Ravenna had
absolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance; their actual
distress encouraged them to accept any circumstances of change, without
apprehension, and, perhaps, with some degree of hope; and they might
flatter themselves, that the troops, the authority, and even the name
of a Roman emperor, who fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the
unhappy country from the rage of the Barbarians. The first successes of
Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were magnified
by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive victories; which
the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon reduced to their just value.
His negotiations procured a short and precarious truce; and if some
tribes of the Barbarians were engaged, by the liberality of his gifts
and promises, to undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive
and uncertain treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigor of the
Gallic frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and
to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic. Elated,
however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer of Gaul
advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a more pressing
and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to lay the head of the
rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the forces of Britain and
Italy were unworthily consumed in this domestic quarrel. After the loss
of his two bravest generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of
whom was slain in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but
treacherous interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls
of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the
Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy of
purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws of the
Alps. Those mountains now separated the dominions of two rival monarchs;
and the fortifications of the double frontier were guarded by the troops
of the empire, whose arms would have been more usefully employed to
maintain the Roman limits against the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.
Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part V.
On the side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine might
be justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon
established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain; which
yielded to the influence of regular and habitual subordination, and
received the laws and magistrates of the Gallic præfecture. The only
opposition which was made to the authority of Constantine proceeded not
so much from the powers of government, or the spirit of the people, as
from the private zeal and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four
brothers had obtained, by the favor of their kinsman, the deceased
emperor, an honorable rank and ample possessions in their native
country; and the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in
the service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain their
ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania, they retired
to their estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expense, a
considerable body of slaves and dependants, and boldly marched to occupy
the strong posts of the Pyrenean Mountains. This domestic insurrection
alarmed and perplexed the sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was
compelled to negotiate with some troops of Barbarian auxiliaries, for
the service of the Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of
Honorians; a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to
their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that the
Scots were influenced by any partial affection for a British prince, the
Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the profuse liberality
of the usurper, who distributed among the Barbarians the military, and
even the civil, honors of Spain. The nine bands of Honorians, which may
be easily traced on the establishment of the Western empire, could not
exceed the number of five thousand men: yet this inconsiderable force
was sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and
safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family was
surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the
good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the other two,
after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius
could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be
affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were
the feeble arms which decided the possession of the Western provinces
of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The
events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow
and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally
ignorant of the causes, and of the effects, of the most important
revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had
annihilated even the last resource of a despotic government; and the
revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military
service of a discontented and pusillanimous people.
The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the victories
of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of Alaric, from the
confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as
might hover over an army of Barbarians, which was almost exterminated by
war, famine, and disease. In the course of this unfortunate expedition,
the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss;
and his harassed forces required an interval of repose, to recruit
their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity had exercised and
displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his valor invited to
the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian warriors; who, from the
Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest.
He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted the friendship, of
Stilicho himself. Renouncing the service of the emperor of the East,
Alaric concluded, with the court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and
alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies
throughout the præfecture of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to
the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius. The execution
of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated, or implied, in the
articles of the treaty, appears to have been suspended by the formidable
irruption of Radagaisus; and the neutrality of the Gothic king
may perhaps be compared to the indifference of Cæsar, who, in the
conspiracy of Catiline, refused either to assist, or to oppose, the
enemy of the republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho
resumed his pretensions to the provinces of the East; appointed civil
magistrates for the administration of justice, and of the finances;
and declared his impatience to lead to the gates of Constantinople the
united armies of the Romans and of the Goths. The prudence, however, of
Stilicho, his aversion to civil war, and his perfect knowledge of the
weakness of the state, may countenance the suspicion, that domestic
peace, rather than foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and
that his principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a distance
from Italy. This design could not long escape the penetration of
the Gothic king, who continued to hold a doubtful, and perhaps a
treacherous, correspondence with the rival courts; who protracted, like
a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid operations in Thessaly and Epirus,
and who soon returned to claim the extravagant reward of his ineffectual
services. From his camp near Æmona, on the confines of Italy, he
transmitted to the emperor of the West a long account of promises, of
expenses, and of demands; called for immediate satisfaction, and clearly
intimated the consequences of a refusal. Yet if his conduct was hostile,
his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed himself the
friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius; offered his person and
his troops to march, without delay, against the usurper of Gaul; and
solicited, as a permanent retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession
of some vacant province of the Western empire.
The political and secret transactions of two statesmen, who labored to
deceive each other and the world, must forever have been concealed in
the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if the debates of a popular
assembly had not thrown some rays of light on the correspondence of
Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity of finding some artificial support
for a government, which, from a principle, not of moderation, but of
weakness, was reduced to negotiate with its own subjects, had insensibly
revived the authority of the Roman senate; and the minister of Honorius
respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic. Stilicho
assembled the senate in the palace of the Cæsars; represented, in a
studied oration, the actual state of affairs; proposed the demands of
the Gothic king, and submitted to their consideration the choice of
peace or war. The senators, as if they had been suddenly awakened from a
dream of four hundred years, appeared, on this important occasion, to
be inspired by the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their
predecessors. They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in
tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to
purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a Barbarian king; and
that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the chance of ruin was
always preferable to the certainty of dishonor. The minister, whose
pacific intentions were seconded only by the voice of a few servile and
venal followers, attempted to allay the general ferment, by an apology
for his own conduct, and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. "The
payment of a subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans,
ought not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the
odious light, either of a tribute, or of a ransom, extorted by the
menaces of a Barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted the just
pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were usurped by the
Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the fair and stipulated
recompense of his services; and if he had desisted from the prosecution
of his enterprise, he had obeyed, in his retreat, the peremptory, though
private, letters of the emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he
would not dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by
the intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too
deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of her
adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily prevailed
over the stern dictates of the public welfare." These ostensible
reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues of the palace
of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of Stilicho; and obtained,
after a warm debate, the reluctant approbation of the senate. The tumult
of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of
gold was granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace
of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths.
Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the assembly,
still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed, with a loud voice, "This is
not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;" and escaped the danger of such
bold opposition by immediately retiring to the sanctuary of a Christian
church.
[See Palace Of The Cæsars]
But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the proud minister
might perceive the symptoms of his approaching disgrace. The generous
boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the senate, so patiently
resigned to a long servitude, rejected with disdain the offer of
invidious and imaginary freedom. The troops, who still assumed the name
and prerogatives of the Roman legions, were exasperated by the partial
affection of Stilicho for the Barbarians: and the people imputed to the
mischievous policy of the minister the public misfortunes, which were
the natural consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have
continued to brave the clamors of the people, and even of the soldiers,
if he could have maintained his dominion over the feeble mind of his
pupil. But the respectful attachment of Honorius was converted into
fear, suspicion, and hatred. The crafty Olympius, who concealed his
vices under the mask of Christian piety, had secretly undermined the
benefactor, by whose favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of
the Imperial palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor,
who had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without
weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed his
timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the designs of
Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the
ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius.
The emperor was instigated, by his new favorite, to assume the tone
of independent dignity; and the minister was astonished to find, that
secret resolutions were formed in the court and council, which were
repugnant to his interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in
the palace of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure to return
to the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the
death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit Constantinople,
and to regulate, with the authority of a guardian, the provinces of the
infant Theodosius. The representation of the difficulty and expense
of such a distant expedition, checked this strange and sudden sally of
active diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the emperor to
the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops, the
enemies of Stilicho, and his Barbarian auxiliaries, remained fixed and
unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of his confidant,
Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and penetrating genius, to
oppose a journey so prejudicial to his reputation and safety. His
strenuous but ineffectual efforts confirmed the triumph of Olympius;
and the prudent lawyer withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his
patron.
In the passage of the emperor through Bologna, a mutiny of the guards
was excited and appeased by the secret policy of Stilicho; who announced
his instructions to decimate the guilty, and ascribed to his own
intercession the merit of their pardon. After this tumult, Honorius
embraced, for the last time, the minister whom he now considered as
a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to the camp of Pavia; where he was
received by the loyal acclamations of the troops who were assembled
for the service of the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he
pronounced, as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence
of the soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of
Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At
the first signal, they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the most
illustrious officers of the empire; two Prætorian præfects, of Gaul
and of Italy; two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry; the
master of the offices; the quæstor, the treasurer, and the count of the
domestics. Many lives were lost; many houses were plundered; the furious
sedition continued to rage till the close of the evening; and the
trembling emperor, who was seen in the streets of Pavia without his
robes or diadem, yielded to the persuasions of his favorite; condemned
the memory of the slain; and solemnly approved the innocence and
fidelity of their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia
filled the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he
instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the confederate
leaders, who were attached to his service, and would be involved in his
ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly called aloud for arms, and
for revenge; to march, without a moment's delay, under the banners of
a hero, whom they had so often followed to victory; to surprise, to
oppress, to extirpate the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans;
and perhaps to fix the diadem on the head of their injured general.
Instead of executing a resolution, which might have been justified by
success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He was still
ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the fidelity of his
own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal consequences of arming a
crowd of licentious Barbarians against the soldiers and people of Italy.
The confederates, impatient of his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily
retired, with fear and indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus,
a Gothic warrior, renowned among the Barbarians themselves for his
strength and valor, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor,
plundered the baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded
his person, and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and
sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho escaped
with difficulty from the sword of the Goths and, after issuing a last
and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to shut their gates
against the Barbarians, his confidence, or his despair, urged him to
throw himself into Ravenna, which was already in the absolute possession
of his enemies. Olympius, who had assumed the dominion of Honorius, was
speedily informed, that his rival had embraced, as a suppliant the altar
of the Christian church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite
was incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude,
rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count Heraclian,
with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of day, before the gates
of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was satisfied by a solemn oath,
that the Imperial mandate only directed them to secure the person of
Stilicho: but as soon as the unfortunate minister had been tempted
beyond the holy threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant
execution. Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious
names of traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his
followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and, with a
firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals, submitted his
neck to the sword of Heraclian.
The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the fortune of
Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most distant connection
with the master-general of the West, which had so lately been a title to
wealth and honors, was studiously denied, and rigorously punished. His
family, united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius,
might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son
Eucherius was intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon
followed the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister
Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial bed.
The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of Pavia, were
persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and the most exquisite
cruelty was employed to extort the confession of a treasonable and
sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in silence: their firmness justified
the choice, and perhaps absolved the innocence of their patron: and
the despotic power, which could take his life without a trial, and
stigmatize his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the
impartial suffrage of posterity. The services of Stilicho are great
and manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language of
flattery and hatred, are obscure at least, and improbable. About four
months after his death, an edict was published, in the name of Honorius,
to restore the free communication of the two empires, which had been
so long interrupted by the public enemy. The minister, whose fame
and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state, was accused of
betraying Italy to the Barbarians; whom he repeatedly vanquished at
Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended
design of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could
not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the
ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till
the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the
notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice
of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous, deliverance was
devoutly celebrated by the applause of the clergy; who asserted, that
the restoration of idols, and the persecution of the church, would have
been the first measure of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho,
however, was educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had
uniformly professed, and zealously supported. Serena had borrowed her
magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta; and the Pagans execrated
the memory of the sacrilegious minister, by whose order the Sibylline
books, the oracles of Rome, had been committed to the flames. The
pride and power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honorable
reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to have
contributed to the success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last
humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not
condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian
of his youth, and the support of his empire.
Among the train of dependants whose wealth and dignity attracted the
notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited by the celebrated
name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the favor of Stilicho, and was
overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron. The titular offices of tribune
and notary fixed his rank in the Imperial court: he was indebted to
the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with a very rich
heiress of the province of Africa; and the statute of Claudian, erected
in the forum of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of
the Roman senate. After the praises of Stilicho became offensive
and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful and
unforgiving courtier, whom he had provoked by the insolence of wit.
He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite characters of two
Prætorian præfects of Italy; he contrasts the innocent repose of a
philosopher, who sometimes resigned the hours of business to slumber,
perhaps to study, with the interesting diligence of a rapacious
minister, indefatigable in the pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious, gain.
"How happy," continues Claudian, "how happy might it be for the people
of Italy, if Mallius could be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would
always sleep!" The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by this friendly
and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of Hadrian watched
the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained, from the enemies
of Stilicho, the trifling sacrifice of an obnoxious poet. The poet
concealed himself, however, during the tumult of the revolution; and,
consulting the dictates of prudence rather than of honor, he addressed,
in the form of an epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to
the offended præfect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal
indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly;
submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples of the
clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses his hope
that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a defenceless and
contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and poverty, and deeply
wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of his dearest
friends. Whatever might be the success of his prayer, or the accidents
of his future life, the period of a few years levelled in the grave
the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in
oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every country which
has retained, or acquired, the knowledge of the Latin language. If we
fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that
Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our reason. It would not
be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime
or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the
imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of Claudian, the happy
invention, and artificial conduct, of an interesting fable; or the just
and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life.
For the service of his patron, he published occasional panegyrics and
invectives: and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged
his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These
imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical
virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and precious talent
of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and of diversifying
the most similar, topics: his coloring, more especially in descriptive
poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even
to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy,
an easy, and sometimes forcible, expression; and a perpetual flow of
harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of any
accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit which
Claudian derived from the unfavorable circumstances of his birth. In the
decline of arts, and of empire, a native of Egypt, who had received the
education of a Greek, assumed, in a mature age, the familiar use, and
absolute command, of the Latin language; soared above the heads of his
feeble contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three
hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome.