Barbarians.—Part V.
Whatever might be the numbers of equestrian or plebeian rank, who
perished in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that only
one senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. But it was not
easy to compute the multitudes, who, from an honorable station and a
prosperous fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of
captives and exiles. As the Barbarians had more occasion for money
than for slaves, they fixed at a moderate price the redemption of their
indigent prisoners; and the ransom was often paid by the benevolence
of their friends, or the charity of strangers. The captives, who were
regularly sold, either in open market, or by private contract, would
have legally regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for
a citizen to lose, or to alienate. But as it was soon discovered that
the vindication of their liberty would endanger their lives; and that
the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might be provoked to
murder, their useless prisoners; the civil jurisprudence had been
already qualified by a wise regulation, that they should be obliged to
serve the moderate term of five years, till they had discharged by their
labor the price of their redemption. The nations who invaded the Roman
empire, had driven before them, into Italy, whole troops of hungry and
affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude than of famine.
The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most
lonely, the most secure, the most distant places of refuge. While the
Gothic cavalry spread terror and desolation along the sea-coast of
Campania and Tuscany, the little island of Igilium, separated by a
narrow channel from the Argentarian promontory, repulsed, or eluded,
their hostile attempts; and at so small a distance from Rome, great
numbers of citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that
sequestered spot. The ample patrimonies, which many senatorian families
possessed in Africa, invited them, if they had time, and prudence, to
escape from the ruin of their country, to embrace the shelter of that
hospitable province. The most illustrious of these fugitives was the
noble and pious Proba, the widow of the præfect Petronius. After
the death of her husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had
remained at the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied,
from her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her
three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba
supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense riches;
embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at sea, the flames
of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter Læta, and her
granddaughter, the celebrated virgin, Demetrias, to the coast of Africa.
The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the fruits,
or the price, of her estates, contributed to alleviate the misfortunes
of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself was not
exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely
sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the
lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants. The Italian fugitives were
dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and Asia, as
far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of Bethlem, the
solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female converts, was crowded
with illustrious beggars of either sex, and every age, who excited the
public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune. This awful
catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror.
So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin, disposed the fond
credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the
afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent
events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted
to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the
globe.
There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the
advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. Yet, when
the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the
real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced
to confess, that infant Rome had formerly received more essential
injury from the Gauls, than she had now sustained from the Goths in her
declining age. The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity
to produce a much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence,
that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks
of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by
the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince, who styled himself
Emperor of the Romans. The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six
days, but Rome remained above nine months in the possession of the
Imperialists; and every hour was stained by some atrocious act of
cruelty, lust, and rapine. The authority of Alaric preserved some order
and moderation among the ferocious multitude which acknowledged him
for their leader and king; but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously
fallen in the attack of the walls; and the death of the general removed
every restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three
independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Germans. In
the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners of Italy exhibited a
remarkable scene of the depravity of mankind. They united the sanguinary
crimes that prevail in an unsettled state of society, with the polished
vices which spring from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose
adventurers, who had violated every prejudice of patriotism and
superstition to assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to
be considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same æra,
the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New World: but their
high-spirited valor was disgraced by gloomy pride, rapacious avarice,
and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the pursuit of fame and
riches, they had improved, by repeated practice, the most exquisite and
effectual methods of torturing their prisoners: many of the Castilians,
who pillaged Rome, were familiars of the holy inquisition; and some
volunteers, perhaps, were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico.
The Germans were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the
Spaniards; and the rustic, or even savage, aspect of those Tramontane
warriors, often disguised a simple and merciful disposition. But they
had imbibed, in the first fervor of the reformation, the spirit, as well
as the principles of Luther. It was their favorite amusement to insult,
or destroy, the consecrated objects of Catholic superstition; they
indulged, without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy
of every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of
the inhabitants of modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to
subvert the throne of Antichrist, to purify, with blood and fire, the
abominations of the spiritual Babylon.
The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the sixth
day, might be the result of prudence; but it was not surely the effect
of fear. At the head of an army encumbered with rich and weighty spoils,
their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian way into the southern
provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and
contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country. The fate
of Capua, the proud and luxurious metropolis of Campania, and which
was respected, even in its decay, as the eighth city of the empire,
is buried in oblivion; whilst the adjacent town of Nola has been
illustrated, on this occasion, by the sanctity of Paulinus, who was
successively a consul, a monk, and a bishop. At the age of forty, he
renounced the enjoyment of wealth and honor, of society and literature,
to embrace a life of solitude and penance; and the loud applause of the
clergy encouraged him to despise the reproaches of his worldly friends,
who ascribed this desperate act to some disorder of the mind or body.
An early and passionate attachment determined him to fix his humble
dwelling in one of the suburbs of Nola, near the miraculous tomb of St.
Fælix, which the public devotion had already surrounded with five
large and populous churches. The remains of his fortune, and of his
understanding, were dedicated to the service of the glorious martyr;
whose praise, on the day of his festival, Paulinus never failed to
celebrate by a solemn hymn; and in whose name he erected a sixth church,
of superior elegance and beauty, which was decorated with many curious
pictures, from the history of the Old and New Testament. Such assiduous
zeal secured the favor of the saint, or at least of the people; and,
after fifteen years' retirement, the Roman consul was compelled to
accept the bishopric of Nola, a few months before the city was invested
by the Goths. During the siege, some religious persons were satisfied
that they had seen, either in dreams or visions, the divine form of
their tutelar patron; yet it soon appeared by the event, that Fælix
wanted power, or inclination, to preserve the flock of which he
had formerly been the shepherd. Nola was not saved from the general
devastation; and the captive bishop was protected only by the general
opinion of his innocence and poverty. Above four years elapsed from the
successful invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric, to the voluntary
retreat of the Goths under the conduct of his successor Adolphus; and,
during the whole time, they reigned without control over a country,
which, in the opinion of the ancients, had united all the various
excellences of nature and art. The prosperity, indeed, which Italy had
attained in the auspicious age of the Antonines, had gradually declined
with the decline of the empire. The fruits of a long peace perished
under the rude grasp of the Barbarians; and they themselves were
incapable of tasting the more elegant refinements of luxury, which
had been prepared for the use of the soft and polished Italians. Each
soldier, however, claimed an ample portion of the substantial plenty,
the corn and cattle, oil and wine, that was daily collected and consumed
in the Gothic camp; and the principal warriors insulted the villas and
gardens, once inhabited by Lucullus and Cicero, along the beauteous
coast of Campania. Their trembling captives, the sons and daughters of
Roman senators, presented, in goblets of gold and gems, large draughts
of Falernian wine to the haughty victors; who stretched their huge limbs
under the shade of plane-trees, artificially disposed to exclude the
scorching rays, and to admit the genial warmth, of the sun. These
delights were enhanced by the memory of past hardships: the comparison
of their native soil, the bleak and barren hills of Scythia, and the
frozen banks of the Elbe and Danube, added new charms to the felicity of
the Italian climate.
Whether fame, or conquest, or riches, were the object or Alaric, he
pursued that object with an indefatigable ardor, which could neither be
quelled by adversity nor satiated by success. No sooner had he reached
the extreme land of Italy, than he was attracted by the neighboring
prospect of a fertile and peaceful island. Yet even the possession
of Sicily he considered only as an intermediate step to the important
expedition, which he already meditated against the continent of Africa.
The Straits of Rhegium and Messina are twelve miles in length, and, in
the narrowest passage, about one mile and a half broad; and the
fabulous monsters of the deep, the rocks of Scylla, and the whirlpool of
Charybdis, could terrify none but the most timid and unskilful mariners.
Yet as soon as the first division of the Goths had embarked, a sudden
tempest arose, which sunk, or scattered, many of the transports; their
courage was daunted by the terrors of a new element; and the whole
design was defeated by the premature death of Alaric, which fixed,
after a short illness, the fatal term of his conquests. The ferocious
character of the Barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose
valor and fortune they celebrated with mournful applause. By the
labor of a captive multitude, they forcibly diverted the course of the
Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal
sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was
constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their
natural channel; and the secret spot, where the remains of Alaric had
been deposited, was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the
prisoners, who had been employed to execute the work.