1312, died by assassination during a popular _emeute_, 1354.
Inspired by his patriotic enthusiasm and made powerful by his
eloquence, Rienzi, during the troubles in Rome ensuing on the
removal of the Papal See to Avignon, organized an insurrection
against the turbulent and factious nobles. The latter were crushed
and driven from Rome, and Rienzi rose to supreme power under the
title of “tribune.” Success, however, corrupted the republican
virtues of the _parvenu_ tribune of the new republic; and his
arrogance and splendor soon laid heavy burdens of taxation on the
people, which provoked a reaction. He was finally driven from power
and compelled to seek safety in flight. The return of the barons
and their iron oppression, however, paved the way for the
successful return of Rienzi to the chief magistracy in 1354.
Unwarned by experience he again resumed the pomp and pride of
royalty, and was shortly after killed in an insurrection of the
citizens of Rome.]
In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by mechanics and Jews,
the marriage of an innkeeper and a washerwoman produced the future
deliverer of Rome. From such parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could
inherit neither dignity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberal
education, which they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and
untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings of
Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus elevated above his
equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian; he perused
with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity;
loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was often
provoked to exclaim: “Where are now these Romans? their virtue, their
justice, their power? Why was I not born in those happy times?” When the
republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three
orders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place
among the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of
haranguing Pope Clement VI, and the satisfaction of conversing with
Petrarch, a congenial mind; but his aspiring hopes were chilled by
disgrace and poverty, and the patriot was reduced to a single garment
and the charity of the hospital. From this misery he was relieved by the
sense of merit or smile of favor; and the employment of apostolic notary
afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more honorable and
extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, both in words and
actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The eloquence of
Rienzi was prompt and persuasive; the multitude is always prone to envy
and censure; he was stimulated by the loss of a brother and the impunity
of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse or exaggerate the public
calamities.
A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the church door of St.
George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a nocturnal (May
20, A.D. 1347) assembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the
first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he
represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of their
enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources, were strong
only in the fear of their imaginary strength; that all power, as well as
right, was in the hands of the people; that the revenues of the
apostolical chamber might relieve the public distress; and that the Pope
himself would approve their victory over the common enemies of
government and freedom. After securing a faithful band to protect his
first declaration, he proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet,
that on the evening of the following day all persons should assemble
without arms before the church of St. Angelo to provide for the
re-establishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed in the
celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost, and in the morning,
Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armor, issued from the church,
encompassed by the hundred conspirators.
The Pope’s vicar, the simple Bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded
to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right hand,
and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems of their
design. In the first, the banner of _liberty_, Rome was seated on two
lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the other; St. Paul, with
a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner of _justice_; and in the
third, St. Peter held the keys of _concord_ and _peace_. Rienzi was
encouraged by the presence and applause of an innumerable crowd, who
understood little and hoped much; and the procession slowly rolled
forward from the castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. His triumph was
disturbed by some secret emotions which he labored to suppress; he
ascended without opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of
the republic, harangued the people from the balcony, and received the
most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The nobles, as if
destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent consternation this
strange revolution; and the moment had been prudently chosen, when the
most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from the city. On the first
rumor, he returned to his palace, affected to despise this plebeian
tumult, and declared to the messenger of Rienzi that at his leisure he
would cast the madman from the windows of the Capitol. The great bell
instantly rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so urgent was the
danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of St.
Laurence; from thence, after a moment’s refreshment, he continued the
same speedy career till he reached in safety his castle of Palestrina,
lamenting his own imprudence, which had not trampled the spark of this
mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order was issued from the
Capitol to all the nobles that they should peaceably retire to their
estates; they obeyed, and their departure secured the tranquillity of
the free and obedient citizens of Rome.
Never, perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single mind been more
remarkably felt than in the sudden though transient reformation of Rome
by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to the discipline
of a camp or convent; patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to
punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and stranger; nor
could birth or dignity or the immunities of the Church protect the
offender or his accomplices. The privileged houses, the private
sanctuaries in Rome, on which no officer of justice would presume to
trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron of their
barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The venerable father of
the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to the double shame of being
desirous and of being unable to protect a criminal. A mule, with a jar
of oil, had been stolen near Capranica, and the lord of the Ursini
family was condemned to restore the damage and to discharge a fine of
four hundred florins for his negligence in guarding the highways. Nor
were the persons of the barons more inviolate than their lands or
houses, and, either from accident or design, the same impartial rigor
was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions.
Peter Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested
in the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardy
execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence and
rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the mouth of the Tiber.
His name, the purple of two cardinals, his uncles, a recent marriage,
and a mortal disease were disregarded by the inflexible tribune, who had
chosen his victim. The public officers dragged him from his palace and
nuptial bed; his trial was short and satisfactory; the bell of the
Capitol convened the people. Stripped of his mantle, on his knees, with
his hands bound behind his back, he heard the sentence of death, and,
after a brief confession, Ursini was led away to the gallows. After such
an example, none who were conscious of guilt could hope for impunity,
and the flight of the wicked, the licentious, and the idle soon purified
the city and territory of Rome. In this time (says the historian) the
woods began to rejoice that they were no longer infested with robbers;
the oxen began to plow; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries; the roads
and inns were replenished with travelers; trade, plenty, and good faith
were restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed
without danger in the midst of the highway. As soon as the life and
property of the subject are secure, the labors and rewards of industry
spontaneously revive. Rome was still the metropolis of the Christian
world, and the fame and fortunes of the tribune were diffused in every
country by the strangers who had enjoyed the blessings of his
government.
The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast and perhaps
visionary idea of uniting Italy in a great federative republic, of which
Rome should be the ancient and lawful head, and the free cities and
princes the members and associates. His pen was not less eloquent than
his tongue, and his numerous epistles were delivered to swift and trusty
messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, they traversed the
forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile states, the sacred
security of ambassadors; and reported, in the style of flattery or
truth, that the highways along their passage were lined with kneeling
multitudes, who implored Heaven for the success of their undertaking.
Beyond the Alps, more especially at Avignon, the revolution was the
theme of curiosity, wonder, and applause. Petrarch had been the private
friend, perhaps the secret counselor, of Rienzi; his writings breathe
the most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy; and all respect for the
Pope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was lost in the superior duties of
a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate of the Capitol maintains the act,
applauds the hero, and mingles with some apprehension and advice the
most lofty hopes of the permanent and rising greatness of the republic.
While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions the Roman hero was fast
declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people who had
gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor began to mark the
irregularity of its course and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity.
More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the
faculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason; he
magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear; and
prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to fortify his
throne. In the blaze of prosperity his virtues were insensibly tinctured
with the adjacent vices--justice with cruelty, liberality with
profusion, and the desire of fame with puerile and ostentatious vanity.
He might have learned that the ancient tribunes, so strong and sacred in
the public opinion, were not distinguished in style, habit, or
appearance from an ordinary plebeian; and that as often as they visited
the city on foot a single _viator_, or beadle, attended the exercise of
their office. The Gracchi would have frowned or smiled could they have
read the sonorous titles and epithets of their successor, “NICHOLAS,
SEVERE AND MERCIFUL; DELIVERER OF ROME; DEFENDER OF ITALY; FRIEND OF
MANKIND, AND OF LIBERTY, PEACE, AND JUSTICE; TRIBUNE AUGUST.” His
theatrical pageants had prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused, in
luxury and pride, the political maxim of speaking to the eyes as well as
the understanding of the multitude. From nature he had received the
gift of a handsome person till it was swelled and disfigured by
intemperance; and his propensity to laughter was corrected in the
magistrate by the affectation of gravity and sternness. He was clothed,
at least on public occasions, in a party-colored robe of velvet or satin
lined with fur and embroidered with gold. The rod of justice, which he
carried in his hand, was a scepter of polished steel, crowned with a
globe and cross of gold, and inclosing a small fragment of the true and
holy wood. In his civil and religious processions through the city he
rode on a white steed, the symbol of royalty. The great banner of the
republic, a sun with a circle of stars, a dove with an olive-branch, was
displayed over his head; a shower of gold and silver was scattered among
the populace; fifty guards with halberds encompassed his person; a troop
of horse preceded his march, and their cymbals and trumpets were of
massy silver.
These extraordinary spectacles might deceive or flatter the people; and
their own vanity was gratified in the vanity of their leader. But in his
private life he soon deviated from the strict rule of frugality and
abstinence; and the plebeians, who were awed by the splendor of the
nobles, were provoked by the luxury of their equal. His wife, his son,
his uncle (a barber in name and profession), exposed the contrast of
vulgar manners and princely expense; and without acquiring the majesty,
Rienzi degenerated into the vices of a king.
TIMOUR OR TAMERLANE.
BY EDWARD GIBBON.
[Tamerlane, corruption of Timour Lenk (“the lame”), born 1336, died
1405. One of the greatest conquerors of history, he was a second
Genghis Khan, whom he resembled much in character. His descendants
speedily lost the greater part of his conquests, and the last of
his family fell before the power of the English East India Company
in India, of which he had become a mere pensioner, though nominally
the “Great Mogul” and Emperor of Delhi.]
The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object of the
ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages was
the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All the civil and military
transactions of his reign were diligently recorded in the journals of
his secretaries; the authentic narrative was revised by the persons best
informed of each particular transaction, and it is believed in the
empire and family of Timour that the monarch himself composed the
“Commentaries” of his life and the “Institutions” of his government. But
these cares were ineffectual for the preservation of his fame, and these
precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian language were concealed from
the world, or at least from the knowledge of Europe. The nations which
he vanquished exercised a base and impotent revenge; and ignorance has
long repeated the tale of calumny which had disfigured the birth and
character, the person, and even the name of _Tamerlane_. Yet his real
merit would be enhanced, rather than debased, by the elevation of a
peasant to the throne of Asia; nor can his lameness be a theme of
reproach, unless he had the weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps
an honorable, infirmity.
In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession of the
house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he sprang from
the noble tribe of Berlass; his fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had
been the vizier of Zagatai in his new realm of Transoxiana; and in the
ascent of some generations the branch of Timour is confounded, at least
by the females, with the imperial stem. He was born forty miles to the
south of Samarcand, in the village of Sebzar, in the fruitful territory
of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary chiefs, as well as of
a toman of ten thousand horse. His birth was cast on one of those
periods of anarchy which announce the fall of the Asiatic dynasties, and
opened a new field to adventurous ambition. The khans of Zagatai were
extinct, the emirs aspired to independence, and their domestic feuds
could only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny of the khans of
Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, invaded the Transoxian
kingdom.
From the twelfth year of his age, Timour had entered the field of
action; in the twenty-fifth he stood forth as the deliverer of his
country; and the eyes and wishes of the people were turned toward a hero
who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of the law and of the army had
pledged their salvation to support him with their lives and fortunes;
but in the hour of danger they were silent and afraid; and, after
waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand, he retreated to the desert
with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives were overtaken by a thousand
Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible slaughter, and his enemies were
forced to exclaim, “Timour is a wonderful man; fortune and the divine
favor are with him.” But in this bloody action his own followers were
reduced to ten, a number which was soon diminished by the desertion of
three Carizmians. He wandered in the desert with his wife, seven
companions, and four horses; and sixty-two days was he plunged in a
loathsome dungeon, whence he escaped by his own courage and the remorse
of the oppressor. After swimming the broad and rapid stream of the
Jihoon, or Oxus, he led, during some months, the life of a vagrant and
outlaw, on the borders of the adjacent states. But his fame shone
brighter in adversity; he learned to distinguish the friends of his
person, the associates of his fortune, and to apply the various
characters of men for their advantage, and above all for his own. On his
return to his native country, Timour was successively joined by the
parties of his confederates, who anxiously sought him in the desert; nor
can I refuse to describe, in his pathetic simplicity, one of their
fortunate encounters. He presented himself as a guide to three chiefs,
who were at the head of seventy horse. “When their eyes fell upon me,”
says Timour, “they were overwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from
their horses; and they came and kneeled; and they kissed my stirrup. I
also came down from my horse, and took each of them in my arms. And I
put my turban on the head of the first chief; and my girdle, rich in
jewels and wrought with gold, I bound on the loins of the second; and
the third, I clothed in my own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and
the hour of prayer was arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our
horses, and came to my dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a
feast.”
His trusty hands were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he
led them against a superior foe, and after some vicissitudes of war, the
Getes were finally driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done
much for his own glory, but much remained to be done, much art to be
exerted, and some blood to be spilled, before he could teach his equals
to obey him as their master. The birth and power of Emir Houssein
compelled him to accept a vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister
was the best beloved of his wives. Their union was short and jealous;
but the policy of Timour in their frequent quarrels exposed his rival to
the reproach of injustice and perfidy; and, after a small defeat,
Houssein was slain by some sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last
time, to disobey the commands of their lord.
At the age of thirty-four, and in a general diet or _couroultai_, he was
invested with imperial command, but he affected to revere the house of
Zingis; and while the Emir Timour reigned over Zagatai and the East, a
nominal khan served as a private officer in the armies of his servant. A
fertile kingdom, five hundred miles in length and in breadth, might have
satisfied the ambition of a subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion
of the world, and before his death the crown of Zagatai was one of the
twenty-seven crowns which he had placed on his head.
The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West; his posterity is
still invested with the imperial title; and the admiration of his
subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in some
degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. Although he
was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of
his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the
world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar
discourse he was grave and modest, and, if he was ignorant of the Arabic
language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish
idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of
history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game
of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new refinements. In his
religion he was a zealous though not perhaps an orthodox Mussulman; but
his sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious
reverence for omens and prophecies, for saints and astrologers, was only
affected as an instrument of policy.
In the government of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without
a rebel to oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or a
minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim that,
whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never
be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed that the
commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than those
of beneficence and favor. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour left
six-and-thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissive
subjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty they were
corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastinado, and
afterward restored to honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not
devoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his
friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded
on the public interest, and it may be sufficient to applaud the wisdom
of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, and
for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain
the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to
protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness
from his dominions, to secure the traveler and merchant, to restrain the
depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to
encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate
assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes--are
indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these duties, he
finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast that at his
accession to the throne Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, while
under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry
a purse of gold from the east to the west. Such was his confidence of
merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse for his victories
and a title to universal dominion.
The following observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the
public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude that the Mogul emperor
was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. If some partial
disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour,
the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine,
cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their
subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the
reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities, was
often marked by his abominable trophies--by columns or pyramids of human
heads. Astrakhan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus,
Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others were sacked or burned or utterly
destroyed in his presence and by his troops; and perhaps his conscience
would have been startled if a priest or philosopher had dared to number
the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the establishment of
peace and order. His most destructive wars were rather inroads than
conquests. He invaded Turkistan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria,
Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving
those distant provinces. Thence he departed laden with spoil; but he
left behind him neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates
to protect the obedient natives. When he had broken the fabric of their
ancient government he abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had
aggravated or caused; nor were these evils compensated by any present or
possible benefits.