Barbarians.—Part IV.
At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with relating
the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without presuming to
investigate the motives of their political conduct. In the midst of
his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious, perhaps, of some secret
weakness, some internal defect; or perhaps the moderation which he
displayed, was intended only to deceive and disarm the easy credulity
of the ministers of Honorius. The king of the Goths repeatedly declared,
that it was his desire to be considered as the friend of peace, and
of the Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent
ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of
hostages, and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals, which he
more clearly expressed during the course of the negotiations, could only
inspire a doubt of his sincerity, as they might seem inadequate to
the state of his fortune. The Barbarian still aspired to the rank
of master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual
subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia,
Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have
commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If
these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a disposition to
relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with
the possession of Noricum; an exhausted and impoverished country,
perpetually exposed to the inroads of the Barbarians of Germany. But the
hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or interested
views, of the minister Olympius. Without listening to the salutary
remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors under the
conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of honor, and
too feeble for any army of defence. Six thousand Dalmatians, the flower
of the Imperial legions, were ordered to march from Ravenna to Rome,
through an open country which was occupied by the formidable myriads of
the Barbarians. These brave legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell
a sacrifice to ministerial folly; their general, Valens, with a hundred
soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the ambassadors,
who could no longer claim the protection of the law of nations, was
obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of thirty thousand
pieces of gold. Yet Alaric, instead of resenting this act of impotent
hostility, immediately renewed his proposals of peace; and the second
embassy of the Roman senate, which derived weight and dignity from the
presence of Innocent, bishop of the city, was guarded from the dangers
of the road by a detachment of Gothic soldiers.
Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people
who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his
power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favorite
eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius, and the empire, to
Jovius, the Prætorian præfect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone,
by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes
of his administration. The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius,
reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the
adventures of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power;
he fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired
under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle
to the friends of Stilicho. After the removal of Olympius, whose
character was deeply tainted with religious fanaticism, the Pagans and
heretics were delivered from the impolitic proscription, which excluded
them from the dignities of the state. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of
Barbarian origin, who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors,
had been obliged to lay aside the military belt: and though he was
repeatedly assured by the emperor himself, that laws were not made
for persons of his rank or merit, he refused to accept any partial
dispensation, and persevered in honorable disgrace, till he had extorted
a general act of justice from the distress of the Roman government. The
conduct of Gennerid in the important station to which he was promoted or
restored, of master-general of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhætia,
seemed to revive the discipline and spirit of the republic. From a life
of idleness and want, his troops were soon habituated to severe exercise
and plentiful subsistence; and his private generosity often supplied the
rewards, which were denied by the avarice, or poverty, of the court of
Ravenna. The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent Barbarians,
was the firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier; and his vigilant
care assisted the empire with a reenforcement of ten thousand Huns,
who arrived on the confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of
provisions, and such a numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might
have been sufficient, not only for the march of an army, but for the
settlement of a colony. But the court and councils of Honorius still
remained a scene of weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy.
Instigated by the præfect Jovius, the guards rose in furious mutiny,
and demanded the heads of two generals, and of the two principal
eunuchs. The generals, under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent
on shipboard, and privately executed; while the favor of the eunuchs
procured them a mild and secure exile at Milan and Constantinople.
Eusebius the eunuch, and the Barbarian Allobich, succeeded to the
command of the bed-chamber and of the guards; and the mutual jealousy of
these subordinate ministers was the cause of their mutual destruction.
By the insolent order of the count of the domestics, the great
chamberlain was shamefully beaten to death with sticks, before the eyes
of the astonished emperor; and the subsequent assassination of Allobich,
in the midst of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his
life, in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or
resentment. Yet before they fell, Eusebius and Allobich had contributed
their part to the ruin of the empire, by opposing the conclusion of a
treaty which Jovius, from a selfish, and perhaps a criminal, motive,
had negotiated with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls
of Rimini. During the absence of Jovius, the emperor was persuaded
to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his
situation, nor his character, could enable him to support; and a letter,
signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the
Prætorian præfect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the
public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of
Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter was imprudently
communicated to Alaric himself; and the Goth, who in the whole
transaction had behaved with temper and decency, expressed, in the most
outrageous language, his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered
to his person and to his nation. The conference of Rimini was hastily
interrupted; and the præfect Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was
compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions
of the court. By his advice and example, the principal officers of the
state and army were obliged to swear, that, without listening, in any
circumstances, to any conditions of peace, they would still persevere
in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the republic. This
rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation.
The ministers of Honorius were heard to declare, that, if they had only
invoked the name of the Deity, they would consult the public safety,
and trust their souls to the mercy of Heaven: but they had sworn by the
sacred head of the emperor himself; they had sworn by the sacred head of
the emperor himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august
seat of majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would expose
them to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.
While the emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the security
of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome,
almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric. Yet such was the
moderation which he still preserved, or affected, that, as he moved with
his army along the Flaminian way, he successively despatched the bishops
of the towns of Italy to reiterate his offers of peace, and to conjure
the emperor, that he would save the city and its inhabitants from
hostile fire, and the sword of the Barbarians. These impending
calamities were, however, averted, not indeed by the wisdom of Honorius,
but by the prudence or humanity of the Gothic king; who employed a
milder, though not less effectual, method of conquest. Instead of
assaulting the capital, he successfully directed his efforts against
the Port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman
magnificence. The accidents to which the precarious subsistence of the
city was continually exposed in a winter navigation, and an open road,
had suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar the useful design, which
was executed under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles, which
formed the narrow entrance, advanced far into the sea, and firmly
repelled the fury of the waves, while the largest vessels securely rode
at anchor within three deep and capacious basins, which received the
northern branch of the Tyber, about two miles from the ancient colony
of Ostia. The Roman Port insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal
city, where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for
the use of the capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that
important place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and
his demands were enforced by the positive declaration, that a refusal,
or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the
magazines, on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamors
of that people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the
senate; they listened, without reluctance, to the proposal of placing a
new emperor on the throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage
of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, præfect of the
city. The grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as
master-general of the armies of the West; Adolphus, with the rank of
count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attalus;
and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of
friendship and alliance.
The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new emperor of the
Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was conducted, in
tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he
had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favorites and
followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate; before whom, in
a formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the
majesty of the republic, and of uniting to the empire the provinces of
Egypt and the East, which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome.
Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just
contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper, whose elevation
was the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet
sustained from the insolence of the Barbarians. But the populace,
with their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public
discontent was favorable to the rival of Honorius; and the sectaries,
oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some degree of
countenance, or at least of toleration, from a prince, who, in his
native country of Ionia, had been educated in the Pagan superstition,
and who had since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of
an Arian bishop. The first days of the reign of Attalus were fair and
prosperous. An officer of confidence was sent with an inconsiderable
body of troops to secure the obedience of Africa; the greatest part of
Italy submitted to the terror of the Gothic powers; and though the
city of Bologna made a vigorous and effectual resistance, the people of
Milan, dissatisfied perhaps with the absence of Honorius, accepted,
with loud acclamations, the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a
formidable army, Alaric conducted his royal captive almost to the gates
of Ravenna; and a solemn embassy of the principal ministers, of Jovius,
the Prætorian præfect, of Valens, master of the cavalry and infantry,
of the quæstor Potamius, and of Julian, the first of the notaries,
was introduced, with martial pomp, into the Gothic camp. In the name of
their sovereign, they consented to acknowledge the lawful election
of his competitor, and to divide the provinces of Italy and the West
between the two emperors. Their proposals were rejected with disdain;
and the refusal was aggravated by the insulting clemency of Attalus, who
condescended to promise, that, if Honorius would instantly resign the
purple, he should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in
the peaceful exile of some remote island. So desperate indeed did the
situation of the son of Theodosius appear, to those who were the best
acquainted with his strength and resources, that Jovius and Valens, his
minister and his general, betrayed their trust, infamously deserted
the sinking cause of their benefactor, and devoted their treacherous
allegiance to the service of his more fortunate rival. Astonished by
such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at the approach of
every servant, at the arrival of every messenger. He dreaded the secret
enemies, who might lurk in his capital, his palace, his bed-chamber;
and some ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna, to transport the
abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew, the emperor of
the East.
But there is a Providence (such at least was the opinion of the
historian Procopius) that watches over innocence and folly; and the
pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be
disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly
resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a seasonable reenforcement of
four thousand veterans unexpectedly landed in the port of Ravenna. To
these valiant strangers, whose fidelity had not been corrupted by the
factions of the court, he committed the walls and gates of the city; and
the slumbers of the emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension
of imminent and internal danger. The favorable intelligence which was
received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men, and the state
of public affairs. The troops and officers, whom Attalus had sent into
that province, were defeated and slain; and the active zeal of Heraclian
maintained his own allegiance, and that of his people. The faithful
count of Africa transmitted a large sum of money, which fixed the
attachment of the Imperial guards; and his vigilance, in preventing the
exportation of corn and oil, introduced famine, tumult, and discontent,
into the walls of Rome. The failure of the African expedition was the
source of mutual complaint and recrimination in the party of Attalus;
and the mind of his protector was insensibly alienated from the interest
of a prince, who wanted spirit to command, or docility to obey. The most
imprudent measures were adopted, without the knowledge, or against the
advice, of Alaric; and the obstinate refusal of the senate, to allow,
in the embarkation, the mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed
a suspicious and distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was
neither generous nor prudent. The resentment of the Gothic king was
exasperated by the malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the
rank of patrician, and who afterwards excused his double perfidy, by
declaring, without a blush, that he had only seemed to abandon the
service of Honorius, more effectually to ruin the cause of the usurper.
In a large plain near Rimini, and in the presence of an innumerable
multitude of Romans and Barbarians, the wretched Attalus was publicly
despoiled of the diadem and purple; and those ensigns of royalty were
sent by Alaric, as the pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of
Theodosius. The officers who returned to their duty, were reinstated
in their employments, and even the merit of a tardy repentance was
graciously allowed; but the degraded emperor of the Romans, desirous of
life, and insensible of disgrace, implored the permission of following
the Gothic camp, in the train of a haughty and capricious Barbarian.
The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the
conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles of
Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers, whose
insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His indignation was
kindled by the report, that a rival chieftain, that Sarus, the personal
enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary foe of the house of Balti, had
been received into the palace. At the head of three hundred followers,
that fearless Barbarian immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna;
surprised, and cut in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reentered
the city in triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary, by the
voice of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had
forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the emperor.
The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was expiated, a third
time, by the calamities of Rome. The king of the Goths, who no longer
dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under
the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hopes of
relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to defray the ruin of their
country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy
of their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest,
were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the
Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened
by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and
sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the Imperial city,
which had subdued and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was
delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.
The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a
vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of
humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the
rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy
and effeminate people: but he exhorted them, at the same time, to spare
the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches
of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, as holy and inviolable
sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, several of the
Christian Goths displayed the fervor of a recent conversion; and some
instances of their uncommon piety and moderation are related, and
perhaps adorned, by the zeal of ecclesiastical writers. While the
Barbarians roamed through the city in quest of prey, the humble dwelling
of an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the service of the altar,
was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He immediately demanded,
though in civil language, all the gold and silver in her possession;
and was astonished at the readiness with which she conducted him to a
splendid hoard of massy plate, of the richest materials, and the most
curious workmanship. The Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this
valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition,
addressed to him in the following words: "These," said she, "are the
consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter: if you presume to touch
them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience. For my part,
I dare not keep what I am unable to defend." The Gothic captain, struck
with reverential awe, despatched a messenger to inform the king of the
treasure which he had discovered; and received a peremptory order
from Alaric, that all the consecrated plate and ornaments should be
transported, without damage or delay, to the church of the apostle. From
the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant quarter of
the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in order of battle
through the principal streets, protected, with glittering arms, the long
train of their devout companions, who bore aloft, on their heads,
the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the martial shouts of the
Barbarians were mingled with the sound of religious psalmody. From
all the adjacent houses, a crowd of Christians hastened to join this
edifying procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction
of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to
the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned work,
concerning the City of God, was professedly composed by St. Augustin,
to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of the Roman
greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar satisfaction, this memorable
triumph of Christ; and insults his adversaries, by challenging them
to produce some similar example of a town taken by storm, in which the
fabulous gods of antiquity had been able to protect either themselves or
their deluded votaries.
In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of Barbarian
virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of
the Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could receive a very small
proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more especially
of the Huns, who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers
to the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect,
without any breach of charity or candor, that in the hour of savage
license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was
removed, the precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behavior of
the Gothic Christians. The writers, the best disposed to exaggerate
their clemency, have freely confessed, that a cruel slaughter was made
of the Romans; and that the streets of the city were filled with dead
bodies, which remained without burial during the general consternation.
The despair of the citizens was sometimes converted into fury: and
whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the
promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The
private revenge of forty thousand slaves was exercised without pity or
remorse; and the ignominious lashes, which they had formerly received,
were washed away in the blood of the guilty, or obnoxious, families. The
matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in
the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and the ecclesiastical
historian has selected an example of female virtue, for the admiration
of future ages. A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith,
had excited the impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to
the sagacious remark of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy.
Exasperated by her obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with
the anger of a lover, slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine
still continued to brave his resentment, and to repel his love, till the
ravisher desisted from his unavailing efforts, respectfully conducted
her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and gave six pieces of gold to
the guards of the church, on condition that they should restore her
inviolate to the arms of her husband. Such instances of courage and
generosity were not extremely common. The brutal soldiers satisfied
their sensual appetites, without consulting either the inclination or
the duties of their female captives: and a nice question of casuistry
was seriously agitated, Whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly
refused their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost,
by their misfortune, the glorious crown of virginity. Their were other
losses indeed of a more substantial kind, and more general concern. It
cannot be presumed, that all the Barbarians were at all times capable of
perpetrating such amorous outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or
chastity, protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger
of a rape. But avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since
the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford pleasure to
the different tastes and tempers of mankind may be procured by the
possession of wealth. In the pillage of Rome, a just preference was
given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the
smallest compass and weight: but, after these portable riches had been
removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely
stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy
plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly
piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army.
The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or wantonly
destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious
materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered
into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe. The acquisition of riches
served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapacious Barbarians, who
proceeded, by threats, by blows, and by tortures, to force from their
prisoners the confession of hidden treasure. Visible splendor and
expense were alleged as the proof of a plentiful fortune; the appearance
of poverty was imputed to a parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy
of some misers, who endured the most cruel torments before they would
discover the secret object of their affection, was fatal to many unhappy
wretches, who expired under the lash, for refusing to reveal their
imaginary treasures. The edifices of Rome, though the damage has been
much exaggerated, received some injury from the violence of the Goths.
At their entrance through the Salarian gate, they fired the adjacent
houses to guide their march, and to distract the attention of the
citizens; the flames, which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of
the night, consumed many private and public buildings; and the ruins
of the palace of Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately
monument of the Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has
observed, that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid
brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the
foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed
in his devout assertion, that the wrath of Heaven supplied the
imperfections of hostile rage; and that the proud Forum of Rome,
decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes, was levelled in
the dust by the stroke of lightning.