Three coffins, one of gold, one of silver, one of iron, enclosed his
body, but the precise place of his burial was kept a secret. After his
death the ascendancy which by his own tremendous force of character he
had been able to exert over many subject nations, suddenly vanished. His
sons proposed to partition his realm among themselves. The auxiliary
peoples resented the proposal: the great confederacy was broken up:
Ostrogoths, Gepidae, and Heruli met the young Hunnish kings in battle by
the Pannonian river Netad. Attila’s sons were beaten, his first-born
slain, the rest put to flight. Ernak, his father’s favourite, became a
subject-ally of the Eastern Emperor, and ruled at the mouth of the Danube.
But the great Hunnish Empire after its short and terrible day of dominion
was now a thing of the past, a vanished nightmare of the nations. The
fierce Hun had himself built nothing that endured, though indirectly he
had contributed to three of the greatest changes in Europe,—the ‘making
of England,’ the establishment of the Papal Supremacy, the foundation of
Venice.
LECTURE VII.
GAISERIC.
We have seen that though the north-east corner of Italy was cruelly
ravaged by the Huns, the Eternal City herself escaped the degradation
of their presence as conquerors. But the blow, which had been averted
by the embassy of Pope Leo, fell three years later (455), the agents
of destruction being now, not the Huns, but the VANDALS. I purposely
abstained in my last lecture from making any but the slightest allusion
to the Vandal conquest of Africa (428-439), though that was in fact
one of the most important events under the government of Placidia, and
certainly the event which produced the most permanently disastrous
consequences for Rome.
[Sidenote: _Early history of the Vandals._]
If we go back from the fifth century after Christ to the first, we shall
find that the Vandals were then dwelling not far from the Baltic coast in
the countries which we now call West Prussia and Posen. A little later
on, sharing the general southward movement of all these races, they
appear in Silesia and give their name to the _Vandalici Montes_, which
are the same that are now called Riesengebirge, the Mountains of the
Giants. Possibly there may be in the new name some dim remembrance of
the old, for we are told[86] that the Vandals, as well as the Gepidae,
were nearly allied in blood to the Goths, and like them were tall of
stature, fair-skinned, yellow-haired, and handsome.
In the reign of Marcus Aurelius (171) we find them in the plains of
Hungary warring against the Romans. Three years later they have become
the allies of Rome, and this attitude of friendship towards the Empire
is generally maintained by them for more than two centuries (174-406).
Especially was this the case in the latter part of the reign of the
Emperor Constantine (330), when the Vandals had suffered a terrible and
well-nigh exterminating defeat at the hands of their Gothic kindred,
by the banks of the river Marisia. The survivors of that terrible day
humbly pleaded for permission to enter the province of Pannonia on the
western shore of the Danube, and there to dwell as _foederati_ under
the protection of the Empire. For more than sixty years they faithfully
observed this treaty. This was probably the time in which they embraced
the Christian faith under that Arian form of it which Ulfilas had
preached to the Goths. Many of their chiefs doubtless entered the service
of the Emperors as life-guardsmen, and it was probably in this way that
the father of the great Stilicho, though a Vandal, rose high enough to
prepare a splendid position for his son.
[Sidenote: _The Vandals enter Gaul, 406._]
The calumniators of Stilicho attributed to him, probably most unjustly,
a share in the next development of Vandal history. It came to pass in
the year 406, in the interval of suspense between the first and second
invasions of Alaric, and just after the exhausting campaign with the
terrible Radagaisus, that (as has been already mentioned) three great
barbarian hordes, taking advantage of the defenceless state of the
Rhine-frontier, denuded of its legions for the defence of Italy, poured
westwards into the provinces of Gaul. These three tribes were the
_Suevi_, a name of puzzling indefiniteness, once including almost all
the High-German family of nations; the _Alans_, a Tartar horde who had
come into Europe at the same time as the Huns, but had pressed further
westwards than their kinsmen; and the _Vandals_.
[Sidenote: _War with the Franks._]
If Stilicho had anything whatever to do with the invitation or the
permission given to these barbarian hordes to enter Gaul, it is
probable[87] that he did it in the hope of finding in them a counterpoise
to the Franks, who were already appearing with menacing strength in the
north-eastern provinces of that country. At any rate the Franks are the
only enemy that we hear of as attempting to bar their way. A great battle
was fought, in which Godigisclus, the Vandal king, fell with 20,000 of
his followers, and only the timely intervention of Respendial, King of
the Alans, saved the Vandals from utter destruction.
[Sidenote: _Three years of ravage, 407-409._]
Of the three years which followed (407-409) we know nothing, but must
imagine the three confederated nations marching up and down in Gaul
during that period, slaying and plundering at their will. Then, by the
internal discords of the Empire, a fresh prospect of rapine was opened
out before them. The British usurper, Constantine, who had penetrated
with his legions into Spain, found his precarious throne undermined by
one of his officers named Gerontius, who proclaimed his son Maximus
Emperor. While usurper and sub-usurper were quarrelling, the defence of
the Empire, which both pretended to maintain, was neglected. The passes
of the Pyrenees, which had hitherto been easily and faithfully guarded,
were left open to the enemy, and the three confederate nations marching
through them, found the rich and fruitful peninsula of Spain, which had
enjoyed four centuries of unbroken peace, at their mercy. The day of the
month, even the day of the week of this terrible invasion, was recorded
by the Spanish chroniclers, faithfully reproducing the deep dint which it
had made on the memories of their countrymen.
[Sidenote: _The Vandals and their confederates enter Spain, 28 Sept.
409._]
[Sidenote: _413._]
‘In this year’ (409) ‘the Alani and Wandali and Suevi entered the
provinces of Spain, on the 28th of September, on the third day of the
week[88].’ After wandering about for some time, enjoying the luxury
of promiscuous pillage, they divided the country in some rough
fashion between them, the Suevi taking to themselves Gallicia in the
north-western corner of Spain, the Alans, Lusitania on the west and the
province of Carthagena on the east. The Vandals were divided into two
branches, the smaller of whom, the Asdingi, dwelt in Gallicia near to
the Suevi, while the powerful clan of the Silingi occupied the fertile
province of Baetica in the south. To these entered, four years after,
the Visigoths under Ataulfus: and by these four, or if we choose so to
consider them, five barbarian nations, as well as by the Roman garrisons
in the strong cities which remained like islands amid the barbarian
flood, the hapless provinces of Spain were ruled and plundered. Famine
soon followed in the train of war. Women were accused of eating their own
children: and some Visigothic soldiers bought of some Vandals a small
mug-full of wheat for an aureus (= 12 shillings).
[Sidenote: _Internecine war between the barbarians in Spain, 413-428._]
I need not trouble you with the details of the wars which raged in
Spain from 413 to 428. The Visigoths were generally in alliance with
the Empire, and fought their fellow-barbarians, especially the Vandals,
with whom they had a long-standing family quarrel, with a ferocity which
astonished the Romans. First the Silingian Vandals in Baetica and then
the Alans sustained crushing defeats at their hands: and the scanty
remnants of these tribes joined themselves to the Asdingian Vandals,
who under their king Gunderic, son of Godigisclus, had now, from the
most insignificant, become the most powerful nation in the Peninsula,
especially as the Visigoths at this time seem to have withdrawn most
of their men north of the Pyrenees, being intent on building up their
dominion in Southern Gaul.
[Sidenote: _The Vandals occupy Andalusia, 420._]
[Sidenote: _Death of King Gunderic, 427._]
[Sidenote: _Accession of Gaiseric._]
In 420 the Asdingian Vandals, with their dependents the Alans marched
across Spain and took up their quarters in the fertile Baetica, where
their kinsmen formerly dwelt. In 422, Gunderic won a decisive victory
over Castinus, the Roman Master of the Soldiery, leaving 20,000 Imperial
soldiers dead upon the field. In 425 he took the great city of Hispalis
(Seville), and fitted out a naval expedition for the conquest of the
Balearic Islands. In 427 Gunderic died,—‘attacked by a demon,’ says a
Spanish chronicler, ‘by the just judgment of God, to punish him for
having stretched forth his hand against the Church of Seville,’ and
he was succeeded by GAISERIC[89], the illegitimate son of his father
Godigisclus.
[Sidenote: _Gaiseric invited by Count Bonifacius to enter Africa, 427._]
Such was the position of affairs in Spain when a messenger came from
Bonifacius, Count of Africa, inviting the Vandals to cross the sea
and wrest that province from the Empire. The cause of this strange
proposition is fully told us by one historian[90], writing a hundred
years after the event, and though accurate and trustworthy for his own
times, very apt to confuse persons and places of which he had no personal
knowledge. His narrative has been lately subjected to a severe analysis
by a great master of historical criticism[91], who has shown how many
questionable elements it contains. Still, in the absence of all other
information, it holds the field, and I will therefore, with this caution,
tell the story in the words of Procopius himself.
[Sidenote: _Procopius’s story of the rivalry between Aetius and
Bonifacius._]
‘The calamity of Africa came to pass in this fashion. There were two
Roman generals, Aetius and Bonifacius, both able men, and in knowledge
of the art of war second to none of their time. Between these men
jealousies arose as to the government of the Empire: but so great were
their magnanimity and other virtues that if any one were to call each
of them the last of the Romans he would not be far from the truth, so
completely had all the glory of Rome become merged in these two men. One
of these two men, Bonifacius, Placidia set over the whole of Africa,
hereby offending Aetius, who, however, did not show his displeasure, for
the ill-feeling between them had not yet produced an open rupture, but
was hidden under the mask of friendship.
‘Now when Bonifacius had departed for Africa, Aetius began to calumniate
him to Placidia as a man who aspired to the Imperial dignity and would
wrest Africa from her and the Emperor. He assured her that it would
not be difficult to bring this matter to the test, for if she summoned
Bonifacius to Rome, he would not come. When the lady heard this, she
approved and followed the advice of Aetius. The latter, however, had
previously written secretly to Bonifacius that the Emperor’s mother was
laying snares for his destruction, and as a token of the truth of his
assertion he told him that he would find himself without cause suddenly
recalled. Hearkening to this warning of Aetius but keeping a profound
silence concerning it, when the messengers arrived to invite him to the
Imperial Court he declared that he would not obey the Emperor or his
mother either. Placidia, on the receipt of this news, looked upon Aetius
as a most faithful servant of the throne, but regarded Bonifacius with
suspicion. The latter, feeling himself unable to cope with the power of
the Emperor, yet accounting himself a doomed man if he started for Rome,
began to consider how he could attach the Vandals to his cause, who had
obtained possession of the neighbouring province of Spain. Bonifacius,
then, having sent to Spain certain of the most influential of his
friends, concluded a treaty on terms of equality with both the sons of
Godigisclus, to the effect that each of them should receive a third part
of Africa, and that if any one of the three were attacked in war, his
danger should be shared by the other two.’
[Sidenote: _War between Vandals and Suevi._]
[Sidenote: _428. Numbering of the people._]
So far Procopius. It will be seen that he makes Bonifacius send his
invitation to both Kings of the Vandals, but if this were so, certainly
before the departure of the host from Spain, Gunderic was dead and
Gaiseric was sole ruler of his nation. While he was engaged in his
preparations for departure, the King of the Suevi made a devastating
inroad on the northern part of the Vandal possessions. To show that he
was not yet to be thus contumeliously ignored even on Spanish territory,
Gaiseric suspended his African projects for a while, turned round and
inflicted on the Suevi a bloody defeat, after which their king was
drowned in the waters of the Gaudiana. Then resuming his plans for the
descent upon Africa, he collected his people (or rather his two peoples,
for he was now always saluted as King of the Vandals and Alans) upon the
sunny Andalusian shore. Here in the month of May, 428[92], he had his
nation-army numbered, and found all the males, including old men and
little children, to amount to 80,000. Another computation, which it is
difficult to reconcile with this unless the limits of age for military
service were very wide, makes the warriors alone amount to 50,000 men.
[Sidenote: _The Vandals transported to Africa._]
The ships which Bonifacius, Count of Africa, supplied from the great port
of Carthage, co-operating with the little fleet of Gaiseric, carried this
great mass of persons, certainly not fewer than 160,000 in number, to
the African coast and landed them, probably in the province of Numidia.
Thus was the dream of Alaric realised by another German chieftain, and
thus did the intrigues and counter-intrigues of Roman officials enable
a Teutonic invader to strike at Rome in her most vulnerable point, the
great grain-producing provinces of Africa.
[Sidenote: _428. Bonifacius repents of his treason and is reconciled to
Placidia._]
Scarcely had the Vandals landed on the African coast when the alliance
between them and Bonifacius, born of treachery and misunderstanding,
died in the daylight of truth. To resume the narrative of Procopius.
‘All those at Rome who were well acquainted with Bonifacius, reflecting
on his character and the extreme improbability of his being so far
carried away by the desire of reigning, were filled with wonder at what
had taken place. Some of these persons, by order of Placidia, proceeded
to Carthage, conversed with Bonifacius, saw the letters of Aetius, and
understanding the whole intrigue returned with all speed to Rome and
explained the position in which Bonifacius had been placed. Placidia,
filled with astonishment, did not dare openly to blame Aetius, so great
was his power and so necessary his help, in the lamentable state into
which the Empire was falling. But calling for the friends of Bonifacius,
she explained to them the secret counsels of Aetius, and binding them
to secrecy by an oath adjured them, if it were possible, to recall him
to the love of his country, and not to allow the Roman Empire to fall
under the yoke of the barbarians. When Bonifacius understood all these
things, he was filled with repentance for his late designs and for the
treaty which he had made with the barbarians, and besought them, with the
lure of many promises, that they would depart from Africa. But as the
Vandals would not listen to his words, but rather taunted him with his
broken faith towards them, he was forced to engage in battle with them,
and being defeated withdrew to Hippo Regius, a very strong city by the
sea-coast of Numidia.
[Sidenote: _Siege of Hippo, June, 430 to July, 431._]
‘As the Vandals after a long time could neither take Hippo by storm nor
induce it to surrender, and were moreover themselves beginning to suffer
from hunger, they broke up the siege. Not long after, Bonifacius and the
Romans under his command joined forces with an army sent from Byzantium
under the command of Aspar, and dared to try the fortune of war in a
great pitched battle, but being much inferior to the enemy, they fled
whither they could, and Aspar returned to his own land. But Bonifacius
betook himself to the Court of Placidia, and there completely purged
himself of the suspicions which had been entertained of him.’
[Sidenote: _432._]
From other sources we learn that Placidia not only forgave Bonifacius
but received him into high favour, and conferred upon him the dignity
of Master of the Soldiery. Apparently he would have supplanted Aetius
in his position of Chief Counsellor of the Empress and virtual ruler
of the Empire, but at this moment Aetius returned with his army from a
victorious campaign against the Franks, and joined battle with his foe.
Aetius was defeated, but Bonifacius lost his life, according to one
account, in single combat with his rival, and, strange to say, in the act
of dying, adjured his wife to re-marry with Aetius if the death of _his_
wife should make such wedlock possible, as he and no other of living
Romans was worthy to be the successor as he had been the conqueror of
Bonifacius.
[Sidenote: _Strange character of this story._]
The whole story of the rivalry of these two Imperial generals is strange,
romantic, almost self-contradictory. Contemporary annalists scarcely
mention it; later historians tell us a good deal which it is hardly
possible that they could have known. We should be disposed to send it
back into the region of romance, to which it seems properly to belong,
but for this one clear and all-important fact—that the Roman governor of
Africa did himself promote the passage of the Vandals into his province,
and only when it was too late and the irretrievable mischief was done,
turned against them, and by vain threats and vainer promises, sought to
persuade them to leave the fruitful land into which he had given them
entrance.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Result of the Vandal migrations._]
Thus, then, at length were the dwellers by the Elbe and the Oder
settled on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. In 406 they were in
Pannonia, in 439 in Carthage. Thirty-three years, the ordinary length of
a generation, had brought them from Austria to Tunis, and in their way
they had ravaged Languedoc and set up a short-lived kingdom in Andalusia.
Remembering always that it was not a mere army, but a nation, which thus
roamed over mountains and rivers and changed its place of abode from
continent to continent, we feel that the period of history of which we
are now treating is indeed well named by the Germans _Völker-wanderung_,
‘the migration of the nations.’
[Sidenote: _Death of St. Augustine during the siege of Hippo, 28 Aug.
430._]
[Sidenote: ‘_Vandalism._’]
The siege of Hippo Regius (Bona), which has been already alluded to by
Procopius, lasted for a little more than thirteen months (June 430 to
July 431), and was, as has been already said, one of the few failures
of the Vandals. It was memorable in the history of the Church, because
the Bishop of Hippo—the greatest of all the bishops of the African
Church—St. Augustine, was present within the city at its commencement,
and died in the third month of the blockade. His biographer, Possidius,
Bishop of Calama, was with him at the end; and from his hand we have an
interesting picture of the venerable old man’s last days, sitting, as he
did, surrounded by bishops from the whole province of Africa, who had
seen their cities burned, their churches levelled with the ground, the
fruit-trees of the agriculturists torn up by the roots. It was the fury
of this first onslaught, and the especial delight taken by the heretical
barbarians in the destruction of churches, which caused their name to
become a synonym for the demolishers of beautiful buildings. Practically,
when we speak of Vandalism, we now generally think of some brutal outrage
perpetrated on a temple or a statue; and this in the fifth century would
be more probably the work of fanatic monk than of Vandal barbarian.
But the deeds of the followers of Gaiseric during the first fury of
their conquest, and afterwards, were sufficiently brutal to excuse the
opprobrium which the usage of fourteen centuries has linked indissolubly
with their name.
[Sidenote: _Temporary peace with the Empire, 11 Feb. 435._]
After seven years of desolating warfare, peace was concluded between
Gaiseric and the Empire. Aetius no doubt recognised that the fatal
work of Bonifacius could not be undone, nor the 50,000 Vandal and Alan
warriors (reinforced probably by many Moorish nomads and ruined Roman
Provincials) be forced to relinquish their prey. On his part Gaiseric had
had enough of plundering; he wished now to occupy and to rule, and he
meant to make the Romans pay a costly price for the peace which he was
willing to concede to them. The strong city of Hippo, which he had failed
to conquer by force of arms, became his as the result of negotiation. He
had Numidia and the larger part of the African territory secured to him
as his lawful possession, perhaps on the promised payment of a yearly
tribute[93] to the Emperor, and he had to promise to leave unmolested
Carthage, the capital of the Roman Diocese and that part of the Province
which immediately adjoined it, a rich and fertile district certainly,
and the gem of the whole dominion. His son Huneric was sent to Rome as a
hostage for the fulfilment of this condition.
[Sidenote: _Gaiseric pounces on Carthage, 19 Oct. 439._]
The peace seemed like a confession of something like failure on the
part of the Vandal conqueror. But he had only ‘recoiled in order to
make a bolder spring.’ He waited his time; on some pretence or other he
obtained the return of his hostage-son, and then, while Aetius was busy
warring with the Visigoths in Gaul, and Attila from his Hungarian village
was beginning to worry Placidia with his embassies and his armaments,
suddenly, on the 19th of October, 439, Gaiseric entered Carthage and made
all the vast wealth of the African capital his own. Torture was freely
used to compel some of the citizens to yield up to him their hidden
stores.
[Sidenote: _Appearance and character of Gaiseric._]
The Vandal king had now reached, apparently, the summit of his ambition.
Lord of the Roman Provinces of Africa and of the great city of Carthage,
he felt himself indeed a king; and whatever title he may have borne
before, he dated his reign—a reign which lasted thirty-seven years—from
this conquest. Like Ataulfus, like Attila (one might add, like Napoleon
and like Wellington), he was somewhat under the usual size, and he
had a limp in his gait owing to a fall from his horse. He was, by the
consenting testimony of all contemporary historians, a man of great
ability, admirably preparing his means to compass the desired ends,
simple in his habits, of few words, patient, and tenacious of purpose;
but on the other hand, sullen in his wrath, covetous, always stirring
up strife and vexing the nations, and absolutely ruthless towards all
who crossed his path[94]. In Alaric, notwithstanding some outbursts of
barbaric rage, there was much that was chivalrous and noble. Even the
dark soul of Attila was irradiated with fitful gleams of generosity
and compassion. But in Gaiseric I do not think we can discern a single
lineament of nobleness. All is hard, cruel, vulgar in his remorseless
soul. Alas that we must add, all is also successful in his life. This
cruel and greedy, but supremely able barbarian succeeded where the nobler
Alaric and the gentler Ataulfus had failed.
[Sidenote: _His maritime power and piratical expeditions._]