Barbarians.—Part VI.
The personal animosities and hereditary feuds of the Barbarians were
suspended by the strong necessity of their affairs; and the brave
Adolphus, the brother-in-law of the deceased monarch, was unanimously
elected to succeed to his throne. The character and political system
of the new king of the Goths may be best understood from his own
conversation with an illustrious citizen of Narbonne; who afterwards, in
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, related it to St. Jerom, in the presence
of the historian Orosius. "In the full confidence of valor and victory,
I once aspired (said Adolphus) to change the face of the universe; to
obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the
Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder
of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced,
that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a
well-constituted state; and that the fierce, untractable humor of the
Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil
government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of
glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of
future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed
the sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the
prosperity of the Roman empire." With these pacific views, the successor
of Alaric suspended the operations of war; and seriously negotiated
with the Imperial court a treaty of friendship and alliance. It was the
interest of the ministers of Honorius, who were now released from
the obligation of their extravagant oath, to deliver Italy from the
intolerable weight of the Gothic powers; and they readily accepted their
service against the tyrants and Barbarians who infested the provinces
beyond the Alps. Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman general,
directed his march from the extremity of Campania to the southern
provinces of Gaul. His troops, either by force or agreement, immediately
occupied the cities of Narbonne, Thoulouse, and Bordeaux; and though
they were repulsed by Count Boniface from the walls of Marseilles, they
soon extended their quarters from the Mediterranean to the Ocean. The
oppressed provincials might exclaim, that the miserable remnant, which
the enemy had spared, was cruelly ravished by their pretended allies;
yet some specious colors were not wanting to palliate, or justify the
violence of the Goths. The cities of Gaul, which they attacked, might
perhaps be considered as in a state of rebellion against the government
of Honorius: the articles of the treaty, or the secret instructions
of the court, might sometimes be alleged in favor of the seeming
usurpations of Adolphus; and the guilt of any irregular, unsuccessful
act of hostility might always be imputed, with an appearance of truth,
to the ungovernable spirit of a Barbarian host, impatient of peace or
discipline. The luxury of Italy had been less effectual to soften the
temper, than to relax the courage, of the Goths; and they had imbibed
the vices, without imitating the arts and institutions, of civilized
society.
The professions of Adolphus were probably sincere, and his attachment
to the cause of the republic was secured by the ascendant which a Roman
princess had acquired over the heart and understanding of the Barbarian
king. Placidia, the daughter of the great Theodosius, and of Galla,
his second wife, had received a royal education in the palace of
Constantinople; but the eventful story of her life is connected with
the revolutions which agitated the Western empire under the reign of her
brother Honorius. When Rome was first invested by the arms of Alaric,
Placidia, who was then about twenty years of age, resided in the city;
and her ready consent to the death of her cousin Serena has a cruel
and ungrateful appearance, which, according to the circumstances of
the action, may be aggravated, or excused, by the consideration of her
tender age. The victorious Barbarians detained, either as a hostage or
a captive, the sister of Honorius; but, while she was exposed to the
disgrace of following round Italy the motions of a Gothic camp, she
experienced, however, a decent and respectful treatment. The authority
of Jornandes, who praises the beauty of Placidia, may perhaps be
counterbalanced by the silence, the expressive silence, of her
flatterers: yet the splendor of her birth, the bloom of youth,
the elegance of manners, and the dexterous insinuation which she
condescended to employ, made a deep impression on the mind of Adolphus;
and the Gothic king aspired to call himself the brother of the emperor.
The ministers of Honorius rejected with disdain the proposal of an
alliance so injurious to every sentiment of Roman pride; and repeatedly
urged the restitution of Placidia, as an indispensable condition of
the treaty of peace. But the daughter of Theodosius submitted, without
reluctance, to the desires of the conqueror, a young and valiant prince,
who yielded to Alaric in loftiness of stature, but who excelled in the
more attractive qualities of grace and beauty. The marriage of Adolphus
and Placidia was consummated before the Goths retired from Italy; and
the solemn, perhaps the anniversary day of their nuptials was afterwards
celebrated in the house of Ingenuus, one of the most illustrious
citizens of Narbonne in Gaul. The bride, attired and adorned like a
Roman empress, was placed on a throne of state; and the king of the
Goths, who assumed, on this occasion, the Roman habit, contented
himself with a less honorable seat by her side. The nuptial gift,
which, according to the custom of his nation, was offered to Placidia,
consisted of the rare and magnificent spoils of her country. Fifty
beautiful youths, in silken robes, carried a basin in each hand; and one
of these basins was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious
stones of an inestimable value. Attalus, so long the sport of fortune,
and of the Goths, was appointed to lead the chorus of the Hymeneal
song; and the degraded emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful
musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph; and
the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by the mild
influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit of their Gothic lord.
The hundred basins of gold and gems, presented to Placidia at her
nuptial feast, formed an inconsiderable portion of the Gothic treasures;
of which some extraordinary specimens may be selected from the history
of the successors of Adolphus. Many curious and costly ornaments of pure
gold, enriched with jewels, were found in their palace of Narbonne, when
it was pillaged, in the sixth century, by the Franks: sixty cups, caps,
or chalices; fifteen patens, or plates, for the use of the communion;
twenty boxes, or cases, to hold the books of the Gospels: this
consecrated wealth was distributed by the son of Clovis among the
churches of his dominions, and his pious liberality seems to upbraid
some former sacrilege of the Goths. They possessed, with more security
of conscience, the famous missorium, or great dish for the service of
the table, of massy gold, of the weight of five hundred pounds, and of
far superior value, from the precious stones, the exquisite workmanship,
and the tradition, that it had been presented by Ætius, the patrician,
to Torismond, king of the Goths. One of the successors of Torismond
purchased the aid of the French monarch by the promise of this
magnificent gift. When he was seated on the throne of Spain, he
delivered it with reluctance to the ambassadors of Dagobert; despoiled
them on the road; stipulated, after a long negotiation, the inadequate
ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold; and preserved the
missorium, as the pride of the Gothic treasury. When that treasury,
after the conquest of Spain, was plundered by the Arabs, they admired,
and they have celebrated, another object still more remarkable; a table
of considerable size, of one single piece of solid emerald, encircled
with three rows of fine pearls, supported by three hundred and
sixty-five feet of gems and massy gold, and estimated at the price
of five hundred thousand pieces of gold. Some portion of the Gothic
treasures might be the gift of friendship, or the tribute of obedience;
but the far greater part had been the fruits of war and rapine, the
spoils of the empire, and perhaps of Rome.
After the deliverance of Italy from the oppression of the Goths, some
secret counsellor was permitted, amidst the factions of the palace,
to heal the wounds of that afflicted country. By a wise and humane
regulation, the eight provinces which had been the most deeply injured,
Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and
Lucania, obtained an indulgence of five years: the ordinary tribute was
reduced to one fifth, and even that fifth was destined to restore and
support the useful institution of the public posts. By another law,
the lands which had been left without inhabitants or cultivation, were
granted, with some diminution of taxes, to the neighbors who should
occupy, or the strangers who should solicit them; and the new possessors
were secured against the future claims of the fugitive proprietors.
About the same time a general amnesty was published in the name of
Honorius, to abolish the guilt and memory of all the involuntary
offences which had been committed by his unhappy subjects, during
the term of the public disorder and calamity A decent and respectful
attention was paid to the restoration of the capital; the citizens were
encouraged to rebuild the edifices which had been destroyed or damaged
by hostile fire; and extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from
the coast of Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of
the Barbarians, were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and pleasure;
and Albinus, præfect of Rome, informed the court, with some anxiety and
surprise, that, in a single day, he had taken an account of the arrival
of fourteen thousand strangers. In less than seven years, the vestiges
of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated; and the city appeared
to resume its former splendor and tranquillity. The venerable matron
replaced her crown of laurel, which had been ruffled by the storms of
war; and was still amused, in the last moment of her decay, with the
prophecies of revenge, of victory, and of eternal dominion.
This apparent tranquillity was soon disturbed by the approach of a
hostile armament from the country which afforded the daily subsistence
of the Roman people. Heraclian, count of Africa, who, under the most
difficult and distressful circumstances, had supported, with active
loyalty, the cause of Honorius, was tempted, in the year of his
consulship, to assume the character of a rebel, and the title of
emperor. The ports of Africa were immediately filled with the naval
forces, at the head of which he prepared to invade Italy: and his fleet,
when it cast anchor at the mouth of the Tyber, indeed surpassed the
fleets of Xerxes and Alexander, if all the vessels, including the royal
galley, and the smallest boat, did actually amount to the incredible
number of three thousand two hundred. Yet with such an armament, which
might have subverted, or restored, the greatest empires of the earth,
the African usurper made a very faint and feeble impression on the
provinces of his rival. As he marched from the port, along the road
which leads to the gates of Rome, he was encountered, terrified, and
routed, by one of the Imperial captains; and the lord of this mighty
host, deserting his fortune and his friends, ignominiously fled with a
single ship. When Heraclian landed in the harbor of Carthage, he found
that the whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned
to their allegiance. The rebel was beheaded in the ancient temple of
Memory his consulship was abolished: and the remains of his private
fortune, not exceeding the moderate sum of four thousand pounds of gold,
were granted to the brave Constantius, who had already defended the
throne, which he afterwards shared with his feeble sovereign. Honorius
viewed, with supine indifference, the calamities of Rome and Italy; but
the rebellious attempts of Attalus and Heraclian, against his personal
safety, awakened, for a moment, the torpid instinct of his nature. He
was probably ignorant of the causes and events which preserved him
from these impending dangers; and as Italy was no longer invaded by
any foreign or domestic enemies, he peaceably existed in the palace of
Ravenna, while the tyrants beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished
in the name, and by the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius. In the
course of a busy and interesting narrative I might possibly forget
to mention the death of such a prince: and I shall therefore take the
precaution of observing, in this place, that he survived the last siege
of Rome about thirteen years.
The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the legions
of Britain, had been successful, and seemed to be secure. His title was
acknowledged, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules;
and, in the midst of the public disorder he shared the dominion, and
the plunder, of Gaul and Spain, with the tribes of Barbarians, whose
destructive progress was no longer checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees.
Stained with the blood of the kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted, from the
court of Ravenna, with which he secretly corresponded, the ratification
of his rebellious claims. Constantine engaged himself, by a solemn
promise, to deliver Italy from the Goths; advanced as far as the banks
of the Po; and after alarming, rather than assisting, his pusillanimous
ally, hastily returned to the palace of Arles, to celebrate, with
intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious triumph. But this
transient prosperity was soon interrupted and destroyed by the revolt of
Count Gerontius, the bravest of his generals; who, during the absence of
his son Constants, a prince already invested with the Imperial purple,
had been left to command in the provinces of Spain. From some reason, of
which we are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem,
placed it on the head of his friend Maximus, who fixed his residence
at Tarragona, while the active count pressed forwards, through the
Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans, before
they could prepare for their defence. The son was made prisoner at
Vienna, and immediately put to death: and the unfortunate youth had
scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation of his family; which had
tempted, or compelled him, sacrilegiously to desert the peaceful
obscurity of the monastic life. The father maintained a siege within the
walls of Arles; but those walls must have yielded to the assailants, had
not the city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian
army. The name of Honorius, the proclamation of a lawful emperor,
astonished the contending parties of the rebels. Gerontius, abandoned by
his own troops, escaped to the confines of Spain; and rescued his name
from oblivion, by the Roman courage which appeared to animate the last
moments of his life. In the middle of the night, a great body of his
perfidious soldiers surrounded and attacked his house, which he had
strongly barricaded. His wife, a valiant friend of the nation of the
Alani, and some faithful slaves, were still attached to his person; and
he used, with so much skill and resolution, a large magazine of darts
and arrows, that above three hundred of the assailants lost their lives
in the attempt. His slaves when all the missile weapons were spent,
fled at the dawn of day; and Gerontius, if he had not been restrained
by conjugal tenderness, might have imitated their example; till the
soldiers, provoked by such obstinate resistance, applied fire on all
sides to the house. In this fatal extremity, he complied with the
request of his Barbarian friend, and cut off his head. The wife of
Gerontius, who conjured him not to abandon her to a life of misery and
disgrace, eagerly presented her neck to his sword; and the tragic scene
was terminated by the death of the count himself, who, after three
ineffectual strokes, drew a short dagger, and sheathed it in his heart.
The unprotected Maximus, whom he had invested with the purple, was
indebted for his life to the contempt that was entertained of his power
and abilities. The caprice of the Barbarians, who ravaged Spain, once
more seated this Imperial phantom on the throne: but they soon resigned
him to the justice of Honorius; and the tyrant Maximus, after he had
been shown to the people of Ravenna and Rome, was publicly executed.
The general, (Constantius was his name,) who raised by his approach
the siege of Arles, and dissipated the troops of Gerontius, was born
a Roman; and this remarkable distinction is strongly expressive of the
decay of military spirit among the subjects of the empire. The strength
and majesty which were conspicuous in the person of that general, marked
him, in the popular opinion, as a candidate worthy of the throne, which
he afterwards ascended. In the familiar intercourse of private life, his
manners were cheerful and engaging; nor would he sometimes disdain, in
the license of convivial mirth, to vie with the pantomimes themselves,
in the exercises of their ridiculous profession. But when the trumpet
summoned him to arms; when he mounted his horse, and, bending down (for
such was his singular practice) almost upon the neck, fiercely rolled
his large animated eyes round the field, Constantius then struck terror
into his foes, and inspired his soldiers with the assurance of victory.
He had received from the court of Ravenna the important commission of
extirpating rebellion in the provinces of the West; and the pretended
emperor Constantine, after enjoying a short and anxious respite, was
again besieged in his capital by the arms of a more formidable enemy.
Yet this interval allowed time for a successful negotiation with the
Franks and Alemanni and his ambassador, Edobic, soon returned at the
head of an army, to disturb the operations of the siege of Arles. The
Roman general, instead of expecting the attack in his lines, boldly and
perhaps wisely, resolved to pass the Rhone, and to meet the Barbarians.
His measures were conducted with so much skill and secrecy, that,
while they engaged the infantry of Constantius in the front, they were
suddenly attacked, surrounded, and destroyed, by the cavalry of his
lieutenant Ulphilas, who had silently gained an advantageous post in
their rear. The remains of the army of Edobic were preserved by flight
or submission, and their leader escaped from the field of battle to the
house of a faithless friend; who too clearly understood, that the head
of his obnoxious guest would be an acceptable and lucrative present for
the Imperial general. On this occasion, Constantius behaved with
the magnanimity of a genuine Roman. Subduing, or suppressing, every
sentiment of jealousy, he publicly acknowledged the merit and services
of Ulphilas; but he turned with horror from the assassin of Edobic;
and sternly intimated his commands, that the camp should no longer be
polluted by the presence of an ungrateful wretch, who had violated the
laws of friendship and hospitality. The usurper, who beheld, from the
walls of Arles, the ruin of his last hopes, was tempted to place some
confidence in so generous a conqueror. He required a solemn promise
for his security; and after receiving, by the imposition of hands, the
sacred character of a Christian Presbyter, he ventured to open the gates
of the city. But he soon experienced that the principles of honor and
integrity, which might regulate the ordinary conduct of Constantius,
were superseded by the loose doctrines of political morality. The
Roman general, indeed, refused to sully his laurels with the blood of
Constantine; but the abdicated emperor, and his son Julian, were sent
under a strong guard into Italy; and before they reached the palace of
Ravenna, they met the ministers of death.
At a time when it was universally confessed, that almost every man
in the empire was superior in personal merit to the princes whom the
accident of their birth had seated on the throne, a rapid succession of
usurpers, regardless of the fate of their predecessors, still continued
to arise. This mischief was peculiarly felt in the provinces of
Spain and Gaul, where the principles of order and obedience had been
extinguished by war and rebellion. Before Constantine resigned the
purple, and in the fourth month of the siege of Arles, intelligence was
received in the Imperial camp, that Jovinus has assumed the diadem at
Mentz, in the Upper Germany, at the instigation of Goar, king of
the Alani, and of Guntiarius, king of the Burgundians; and that the
candidate, on whom they had bestowed the empire, advanced with a
formidable host of Barbarians, from the banks of the Rhine to those of
the Rhone. Every circumstance is dark and extraordinary in the short
history of the reign of Jovinus. It was natural to expect, that a
brave and skilful general, at the head of a victorious army, would have
asserted, in a field of battle, the justice of the cause of Honorius.
The hasty retreat of Constantius might be justified by weighty reasons;
but he resigned, without a struggle, the possession of Gaul; and
Dardanus, the Prætorian præfect, is recorded as the only magistrate
who refused to yield obedience to the usurper. When the Goths, two years
after the siege of Rome, established their quarters in Gaul, it was
natural to suppose that their inclinations could be divided only between
the emperor Honorius, with whom they had formed a recent alliance,
and the degraded Attalus, whom they reserved in their camp for the
occasional purpose of acting the part of a musician or a monarch. Yet in
a moment of disgust, (for which it is not easy to assign a cause, or a
date,) Adolphus connected himself with the usurper of Gaul; and imposed
on Attalus the ignominious task of negotiating the treaty, which
ratified his own disgrace. We are again surprised to read, that, instead
of considering the Gothic alliance as the firmest support of his
throne, Jovinus upbraided, in dark and ambiguous language, the officious
importunity of Attalus; that, scorning the advice of his great ally,
he invested with the purple his brother Sebastian; and that he most
imprudently accepted the service of Sarus, when that gallant chief, the
soldier of Honorius, was provoked to desert the court of a prince, who
knew not how to reward or punish. Adolphus, educated among a race of
warriors, who esteemed the duty of revenge as the most precious and
sacred portion of their inheritance, advanced with a body of ten
thousand Goths to encounter the hereditary enemy of the house of Balti.
He attacked Sarus at an unguarded moment, when he was accompanied only
by eighteen or twenty of his valiant followers. United by friendship,
animated by despair, but at length oppressed by multitudes, this band
of heroes deserved the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their
enemies; and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils, than he was
instantly despatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose alliance
which Adolphus still maintained with the usurpers of Gaul. He again
listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and soon satisfied the
brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he would immediately transmit
to the palace of Ravenna the heads of the two tyrants, Jovinus and
Sebastian. The king of the Goths executed his promise without difficulty
or delay; the helpless brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were
abandoned by their Barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of
Valentia was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of
Gaul. The emperor, chosen by the Roman senate, who had been promoted,
degraded, insulted, restored, again degraded, and again insulted, was
finally abandoned to his fate; but when the Gothic king withdrew his
protection, he was restrained, by pity or contempt, from offering any
violence to the person of Attalus. The unfortunate Attalus, who was left
without subjects or allies, embarked in one of the ports of Spain, in
search of some secure and solitary retreat: but he was intercepted at
sea, conducted to the presence of Honorius, led in triumph through
the streets of Rome or Ravenna, and publicly exposed to the gazing
multitude, on the second step of the throne of his invincible conqueror.
The same measure of punishment, with which, in the days of his
prosperity, he was accused of menacing his rival, was inflicted on
Attalus himself; he was condemned, after the amputation of two fingers,
to a perpetual exile in the Isle of Lipari, where he was supplied with
the decent necessaries of life. The remainder of the reign of Honorius
was undisturbed by rebellion; and it may be observed, that, in the space
of five years, seven usurpers had yielded to the fortune of a prince,
who was himself incapable either of counsel or of action.