when news reached Ravenna of the death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius.
Both Honorius and Stilicho seem to have desired the office of guardian
to the young Theodosius, son of Arcadius, and to have proposed to go
to Constantinople to claim it. Stilicho had not much difficulty in
dissuading the timid and parsimonious Honorius from the dangers and
expense of the journey, but he could not allay the suspicions which his
own eagerness for the office had excited, that he was again striving in
an underhand way to procure either the Eastern or the Western diadem
for the young Pagan, Eucherius. There was a certain officer of the
Imperial guard named Olympius, ‘a man who, under the guise of devotion to
Christianity, concealed every kind of wickedness,’ who was perpetually
whispering into the Emperor’s ear the danger to religion from this
ambition of Stilicho. A camp had been formed at Ticinum (Pavia), for the
soldiers who were to march into Gaul to quell the revolt of Constantine.
To this camp, which seems to have contained a large preponderance of
Roman-born soldiers, Honorius set forth accompanied by Olympius; and
Stilicho, who had thus allowed his most useful instrument to be purloined
from him, lingered in a curious state of irresolution and inactivity with
his _foederati_ round him at Bologna. Soon the news came of a terrible
mutiny of the troops at Ticinum. Olympius had been ingratiating himself
with the soldiers in every possible way, visiting those who were sick,
and on every occasion letting fall words of sympathy for their hardships,
and indignation at the partiality which constantly postponed their
interests to those of the barbarian favourites of Stilicho. These hints,
coming from an officer of the Imperial guard and a manifest favourite of
the Emperor, had produced their natural effect. There had been what in
Spanish politics is called a _pronunciamento_. The soldiers had risen in
rebellion, slain four officers of the highest rank in the army and four
heads of departments in the State, put the magistrates to flight, and
held a carnival of blood in the city, robbing and murdering at their will.
[Sidenote: _Stilicho arrested, and put to death._]
At first the news ran that Honorius himself had been killed in the
tumult, and then the _foederati_ at Bologna urged, and Stilicho
consented, that they should at once march to Ticinum and avenge his
death. Soon, however, a correcter version of the affair was received.
Honorius was not dead, but had been paraded up and down the streets of
the city by Olympius, in a short military cloak and without a diadem,
endeavouring to persuade the soldiers to return to their obedience. In
this he had at length succeeded. The mutiny had been quelled, but the
authors of it had gained their end. All the more powerful friends of
Stilicho at Ticinum had been treacherously slain, and it was now deemed
safe to issue an order for the apprehension of Stilicho himself. The
officers of the _foederati_, when the designs of the Court were apparent,
naturally wished to defend themselves and their great general by force,
but he refused to take any part in such a civil war, ‘not deeming it
honourable or safe to employ barbarians against the Roman army[73].’
Sarus, the Goth, having no sympathy with such scruples, perceiving that
it would, in these circumstances, ruin his prospects of a military career
to be known as an adherent of Stilicho, ungenerously turned against his
old chief, slew the brave Huns who formed his body-guard, and would fain
have captured Stilicho himself, who, however, fled to Ravenna, but even
in the hurry of his own flight found time to warn the neighbouring cities
not to receive the _foederati_ within their walls. Soon after his arrival
came a messenger from Olympius bearing the Emperor’s orders that he was
to be apprehended and imprisoned. Stilicho took refuge in one of the
many churches of Ravenna, but on the soldiers swearing a solemn oath in
the presence of the Bishop that they were ordered to imprison him only
but not to kill him, he surrendered himself to them. At once the same
messenger produced a second letter from the Emperor, denouncing against
Stilicho the punishment of death for his crimes against the Commonwealth.
His friends and servants and a mass of indignant _foederati_ entreated to
be allowed to defend him by arms, but Stilicho sternly forbade them, and
calmly presented his neck to the sword of the executioner (Aug. 22, 408).
Some men who have led apparently righteous and honourable lives are
unmasked by Death, who exposes their well-hidden wickedness. In
Stilicho’s case Death wrought exactly the opposite change. At every step
of his career we ask ourselves the question, ‘Self-seeker or Patriot?’
and it must be confessed that we scarcely get a perfectly satisfactory
answer. But the closing scenes of his life show that he was indeed
true to Rome, and refused the vengeance and the deliverance which lay
all ready to his hand rather than use against her the swords of the
barbarians.
[Sidenote: _Persecution of the friends of Stilicho._]
The death of Stilicho was the signal for an outburst of jealous rage
against his family and friends. Eucherius, who had fled to Rome, was
before long put to death. Thermantia was sent back by Honorius to her
mother. The adherents of Stilicho were tortured to make them confess
his traitorous designs, and when they steadfastly denied the existence
of any such, were beaten to death with cudgels. Above all, the Roman
soldiers, in every city where the wives and children of the _foederati_
were dwelling, rose in riotous insurrection, killing some and plundering
others. Henceforth, of course, there was open war between legionaries and
_foederati_, the latter of whom, to the number of 30,000, streamed forth
to Alaric’s Illyrian camp and urged him to avenge them on their cruel and
cowardly foes.
[Sidenote: _Alaric invades Italy, 408._]
Mindful of his former reverses in Italy, Alaric, though the voice
‘Penetrabis ad Urbem’ was still ringing in his ears, offered peace to
Honorius in exchange for a small sum of money, hostages, and the province
of Pannonia, on which by this time the Empire can have had but a slender
hold. Honorius, safe behind the canals of Ravenna, and relying on the
prayers of Olympius, refused all terms of compromise, and late in this
eventful year, 408, Alaric marched for the last time over the Julian
Alps into Italy, never again to leave that land, the goal of so many
aspirations. The events of the three years, 408-410, in each of which
there was a siege of Rome, cannot here be related with any detail, and
some of them are among the best-known commonplaces of history. I will
only briefly assign to each year its distinguishing features.
[Sidenote: _Rome ransomed, 408._]
The first, 408, was the year of _ransom_. Alaric, as has been said, in
the later months of the year marched into Italy, and did not, as before,
linger in the plains of Lombardy, but struck southward through Picenum
and Umbria, marching no doubt by the great Flaminian Way, and stood
before long at the gates of Rome. There seems to have been no opposition
to his progress. The ‘Roman’ party, so zealous in killing women and
children and in organising _pronunciamentos_, slunk into their holes
when an army appeared. It is probable that in this Italian expedition
Alaric had made his host more of an army and less of a nation than on
the previous occasion. We hear nothing of the waggons, and some of his
marches and counter-marches can hardly have been performed with a long
train of non-combatants following him.
At Alaric’s appearance under their walls the Senate (for Honorius was
safe at Ravenna) could think of no other means of opposing him than
putting the hapless Serena, the widow of Stilicho, to death, fearing
that she might open treacherous communications with the besiegers. The
cowardly deed was not long unpunished. Alaric watched the Tiber above
and below, and drew a strict line of blockade round the city. Hunger and
pestilence were soon raging among the people, and the Senate found itself
compelled to send ambassadors to Alaric to ask his terms. The threat that
despair might drive the citizens to some audacious sortie was met by the
well-known answer, ‘The thicker the hay, the easier mown’: the enquiry
what Alaric meant to leave them if he insisted on their surrendering all
their gold, all their moveable property, and all their barbarian slaves,
by the equally well-known words, ‘Your lives[74].’
More days of famine followed. At length a final embassy arranged the
terms of the ransom which Alaric condescended to receive from the
Imperial City. It consisted of 5000 lbs. weight of gold (£225,000),
30,000 lbs. of silver (£90,000), 4000 silken tunics, 3000 scarlet hides,
and 3000 lbs. of pepper. The date of this transaction is not known, but
it was probably in the very last days of 408.
[Sidenote: _409. Alaric negotiates._]
[Sidenote: _Moderation of his requests._]
The next year, 409, is the _year of the anti-Emperor, Attalus_. All
Alaric’s dealings with the Senate and People of Rome at this time were
directed to the conclusion of a firm treaty of alliance, offensive and
defensive, with the Emperor. His aim was not to conquer Rome, or to
settle his followers in any part of Italy, but to legitimise his position
within the Empire, to have a large space on the Middle Danube, either
Noricum or Pannonia, assigned to his people, and then to be recognised
as Rome’s champion against all other enemies. In fact, he desired to
renew the old _federate_ relation only on a footing of equality instead
of one of semi-dependence. To all such propositions Honorius, or rather
the ministers who spoke in his name, replied with an unceasing ‘_non
possumus_,’ as they could not be attacked, being safe behind the dykes
and lagoons of Ravenna. Alaric’s only resource was to put pressure, even
cruel pressure, on Rome, in order to bring her sovereign to terms.
[Sidenote: _Oath sworn by the head of Honorius._]
A considerable part of the year 409 was consumed in these vain
negotiations. The Praetorian Prefect, Jovius, who had supplanted Olympius
in the position of chief adviser of the Emperor, seems to have been
at first disposed to try to make terms with Alaric, and to see if the
title ‘_Magister Utriusque Militiae_’ could not divert him from his
schemes of conquest. But Honorius demurred to the proposal, and Jovius,
accommodating himself to his master’s humour, insisted on all the chief
officers of the Emperor assembling round him and swearing by their
master’s head (which they touched in making the asseveration) that they
would make no peace with Alaric, but would wage against him perpetual
war. To all subsequent overtures of Alaric (and some of them surprise
us by their moderation, offering terms such as the Empire might have
safely and honourably granted), this tremendous oath by the empty head of
Honorius was opposed as an insuperable obstacle.
[Sidenote: _Attalus proclaimed Emperor._]
Alaric, whose patience was worn out, returned to Rome, and again formed
the blockade of the City. But the Senate, whose patience was equally
exhausted, refused to again undergo the horrors of famine and pestilence
for the ungrateful Honorius, and sent messengers to Alaric declaring that
they were willing to renounce their allegiance to the Emperor. Peace on
these terms was easily arranged. Attalus, the Praetorian Prefect of the
City, a man of Greek extraction, was saluted as Emperor, and in that
capacity concluded a treaty with Alaric, recognising him as an ally
of the Empire, probably conceding to him a settlement in the coveted
provinces on the Danube, and conferring on him at once the splendid
position of _Magister Utriusque Militiae_.
[Sidenote: _410. Attalus refuses to divide Italy with Honorius._]
[Sidenote: _Supplies from Africa stopped._]
[Sidenote: _Attalus deposed._]
So opened the year 410, the ever-memorable year of the _Third Siege and
Capture of Rome_. It seemed for a time as if Attalus would indeed wrest
the Rule of All Things from his incapable rival. He marched towards
Ravenna, from whence issued forth a piteous supplication for peace on
the basis of a yet further subdivided Empire. If Honorius might but
continue to reign at Ravenna, Attalus should reign at Rome, and the
_Concordia Augustorum_ might unite them and Constantine, the Emperor
of the Gauls, with the son of Arcadius, Emperor of the East. Attalus
made a cruel and insulting reply, threatening his rival with mutilation
and banishment: but the timely arrival at Ravenna of six legions from
Constantinople prevented him from carrying his threat into execution, and
turned the tide of fortune. Famine again threatened Rome, from another
cause than the blockade of Alaric. Heraclian, to whom had been entrusted
the execution of the sentence against Stilicho, was now holding the
great province of Africa loyally for Honorius, and by cutting off the
food supplies of Carthage from Rome, brought the City into such terrible
straits that an angry cry was heard in the Amphitheatre, when the new
Emperor was sitting there in state watching the games, ‘Pone pretium
carni humanae’ (‘Fix the tariff for human flesh’). Alaric’s keen eye saw
that Africa was now the key of the position, and he urged upon Attalus
the necessity of sending troops, barbarian _foederati_, thither to
overcome Heraclian. But Attalus, who was evidently a futile, inefficient
ruler, delayed and lingered, and, as it was hinted, began to entertain
schemes for disembarrassing himself of the oppressive patronage of the
Visigoth. At length Alaric, tired of his vacillation and bad faith,
and recognising the failure of his scheme of creating a rival Emperor,
assembled his army on the plain outside Ariminum, and there, in the
sight of thousands of Romans and Goths, formally stripped Attalus of the
emblems of Empire, and proclaimed that he was reduced to the rank of a
private citizen.
[Sidenote: _Sarus breaks off the negotiations between Alaric and
Honorius._]
The diadem and the purple were sent to Honorius at Ravenna, and it seemed
for a moment as if the just and honourable peace, so eagerly desired by
Italy, by Rome, and by Alaric, might be secured. But Sarus the Goth, the
same man who had turned treacherously against Stilicho in his adversity,
and who, perhaps on that account, hated Alaric and was hated by him,
entered Ravenna at the head of 300 veterans, and succeeded in breaking
off the just-resumed thread of the negotiations.
Then at length, as it seemed that nothing but the sword could cut the
Gordian knot, Alaric again crossed the Apennines, determined to show what
he could do to Rome as an enemy, since she in her infatuation rejected
him as a friend.
[Sidenote: _Alaric enters Rome, 24 Aug. 410._]
There was this time no long agony of blockade, no famine or pestilence.
On the night of the 24th of August, 410, almost as soon as he had
appeared under the walls of the City, Alaric effected an entrance through
the Salarian Gate, at the north-east corner of the City, at very nearly
the same place where, on the 20th Sept. 1870, the soldiers of Victor
Emmanuel entered Rome. Whether the gate was carried by a sudden surprise,
or was opened by slaves or treacherous citizens within, it is impossible
now to decide; but the theory of surprise seems, upon the whole, most
probable. The splendid palace of the historian Sallust, hard by the
Salarian Gate, was set on fire, and its spacious gardens had their beauty
ruined by the entering Gothic soldiers.
[Sidenote: _Rome sacked._]
Thus, then, at length ‘the great city which reigned over the kings of the
whole earth’ was captured and was pillaged by a foreign and a barbarian
enemy. Civil war, sedition, frenzied Emperors had ‘dealt upon the
Seven-hilled City’s pride’ in the course of the centuries; but not for
800 years—not since Brennus and his Gauls had slain the Conscript Fathers
in the Forum—had Rome been violently entered by a conquering foreign foe.
There were some alleviations to the horrors of the capture, derived from
the fact that the assailants were Christians; and these alleviations
are naturally emphasised by the Church historians, from whom we derive
most of our scanty information as to the Third Siege of Rome. Alaric had
ordered that no Christian church should be injured, and that the right of
asylum, especially in the two great Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul,
should be religiously observed. These orders were perhaps made known to
the citizens, multitudes of whom, Pagan as well as Christian, were soon
flying for shelter to these islands of safety. But notwithstanding any
such humane orders, honourable both to the general who issued them and
to the army by whom they were obeyed, the sack of a great and wealthy
city by a hungry and exasperated army of barbarians was of necessity a
terrible thing. We hear of an aged widow beaten to death to make her
disclose her imaginary treasures, of matrons ravished, of palaces laid
in ashes. And above all rose now the terrible fact that _Roma Invicta_
had been conquered. Where one barbarian chief had penetrated, more could,
and of a surety would, follow. The citizens henceforth—like men who have
lived through a great and fearful earthquake—must live evermore in dread
of seeing the ghastly terror recommence.
As even political caricatures may sometimes help us to understand what
contemporary spectators think of the actors on the stage of history, let
us listen to Procopius, who wrote 150 years later, but who has preserved
to us a possibly contemporary story, as to the reception of the news of
the fall of Rome by the Roman Augustus.
[Sidenote: _Reception of the tidings by Honorius._]
‘They say that at Ravenna one of the eunuchs who was in charge of the
Imperial poultry announced to the Emperor Honorius that Roma had actually
perished. Whereupon he cried with a loud voice—“But just now he fed out
of my hands!” [for he had an exceedingly large fowl, Roma, by name.] Then
the eunuch, understanding what was passing in his mind, said that it
was Roma the _City_ which had been destroyed by Alaric. But the Emperor
in reply said, “But I thought, my friend, that the _bird_ Roma had
perished!”—so great they say was the stupidity of this Emperor.’
[Sidenote: _The capture of Rome settled nothing._]
[Sidenote: _Death of Alaric, 410._]
The capture of Rome by Alaric, though an event of incalculable importance
in the history of the world, settled nothing in the immediate present.
Still the Augustus, the only legitimate source of power in the Roman
State, remained inaccessible at Ravenna. Still Heraclian, his yet loyal
governor of Africa, held that province for his master, withholding the
grain-supplies without which Rome could not live. Still Alaric could not
conquer that firm peace, guaranteed by sufficient hostages, and securing
to him a lawful position in the Empire, without which he was determined
not to return to Illyricum. He marched to the extreme south of Italy,
and designed to cross over into Sicily, in whose ports he would probably
have collected an armament for the conquest of Africa. But he never
effected the passage of the Straits of Messina, the ships which he had
collected at Rhegium being destroyed by a violent storm. While he was
still lingering in Calabria he was seized by an illness, which lasted
but a few days. He had ‘penetrated to the City’; his work was done. The
fateful voice rang in his ears no longer, telling him of great exploits
yet reserved for him in the future, but instead of it came Death. He
was probably in about the forty-fifth year of his age; so that he, like
Theodosius, left great possibilities of conquest unexhausted. But in his
short career he had done enough to change the current of the world’s
history.
[Sidenote: _Burial of Alaric._]
The story of his burial is well known. In order to guard his grave from
the possibility of insult at the hands of the Provincials, a number of
captives were employed in diverting the stream of the Busentus, a river
of Bruttii. In the old river-bed a great trench was dug, wherein were
laid the bones of the conquering king, and, after the fashion of his
heathen forefathers, some of the most precious spoils of Rome were laid
by his side, that he might not miss them in the gardens of Paradise or
the halls of Walhalla. Then the trench was filled in, the river was
turned back into its ancient bed, the captives were slain: and thus ‘no
man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day.’
LECTURE VI.
PLACIDIA: ATTILA.
[Sidenote: _Historical perspective._]
An interval of forty-two years elapsed between Alaric’s sack of Rome
and the next great barbarian invasion of Italy. To us, looking at these
years as they appear on the outstretched map of History, it is manifest
that they were years of gradual but progressive decline and decay for the
Roman Empire. Probably, but not certainly, they wore the same aspect to
contemporary observers. But the important point to remember is that there
_was_ such an interval between the first and the second acts of the great
World-Tragedy. Reading history in a manual, or glancing over it in such
a rapid sketch as I am now attempting to draw, we are apt to forget how
slowly some of its scenes have unrolled themselves. Superficial students,
if they do not actually confound Alaric with Attila, often think of them
as contemporaries, perhaps as allies, and suppose that they and Genseric
and Odoacer, by some combined and concerted effort, brought about ‘the
fall of the Western Empire.’ What I want to impress upon my hearers is
the fact that if a child was born on the day that Alaric was laid under
the waters of the Busentus, he would be a middle-aged man when Attila
stood under the walls of Aquileia, and would be verging on threescore
and ten when the last Roman Emperor of the West was bidden to hand over
the purple and the diadem to a barbarian conqueror. I ask also for a full
measure of pity for those true Roman hearts whose allotted span of life
had to be all passed in these years of irresistible decline. There are
times like that of which a poet has sung—
‘Bliss was it in those days to be alive,
And to be young was very heaven;’
times like the first years that followed the battle of Salamis, like the
first thrill and rapture of the Crusades, like ‘the spacious days of
great Elizabeth,’ when the life of a nation has been so strong, so fresh,
and so triumphant that one feels as if even the saddest individual life
must have been overflowed by the great national gladness and saved from
utter sorrow. On the other hand, could even the most unclouded domestic
happiness atone to a patriotic Roman who lived in the fifth century for
the necessity of watching the lingering agony of his country? Like a man
dwelling upon a subsiding continent, he saw one familiar landmark after
another submerged beneath the waters of barbarism. Or like those remote
descendants of ours, if such shall then be living on this planet, who, as
physical philosophers tell us, will see this earth begin to part with her
atmosphere and become incapable of sustaining organic life, he must have
felt that all the old conditions of being were inverted, and that life by
the beautiful Mediterranean was going to become in truth unliveable.
[Sidenote: _Early life of Placidia, born about 388._]
[Sidenote: _Death of Galla, 394. Death of Theodosius, 395._]
[Sidenote: _Captivity of Placidia._]