her honour. This was not an easy task. In A.D. 14, Germanicus, the son
of Drusus, marched into the country with a powerful force. He narrowly
escaped disaster. Had not the divisions between the German chiefs
hindered them from following up their successes--both Germanicus and
his lieutenant, Cæcina, suffered serious reverses--he might have met
with the fate of Varus. In the campaign of 16 he was more fortunate,
and, if the Roman narratives are not exaggerated, restored the old
frontiers. Arminius himself was nearly taken, and Northern Germany,
between the Rhine and the Elbe, was once again Roman. But Tiberius did
not like a "forward" policy. Tacitus, who abhorred the man, tells us
that his motive was a mean jealousy of Germanicus, but it is likely
that he saw that the resources of the Empire might be better expended.
Anyhow, Germanicus was recalled, and Germany recovered her freedom; nor
was any serious attempt again made, as far as the northern part of the
country was concerned, to reassert the authority of Rome. It was to the
south that Rome limited her efforts for dominion.
IX
THE LAST ADVANCE
When Tacitus speaks of the _urgentia imperii fata_, the irresistible
destinies of empire, he uses a phrase which every Englishman
understands. A great empire cannot stand still. Its adventurous
subjects are always pressing forward, and must be protected. Its
neighbours are continually feeling and resenting the pressure which
it exercises upon them. It has to defend boundaries which represent
to those who are outside them a series of aggressions, and it has to
satisfy the warlike tastes of the huge force which it has to keep
under arms. Augustus had done his best to limit the growth of the
Empire. His testament to his successors was an injunction, it would
be better, perhaps, to say a counsel, that no new dominions should be
sought. Tiberius religiously observed this advice. But the Cæsars that
followed Tiberius found the circumstances of the situation too much for
them. Caligula made an expedition against the nations yet unsubdued
beyond the northern frontier, which might have been serious but for his
own lunatic folly. Claudius began the subjugation of Britain, which was
carried to a conclusion by the brilliant generalship of Agricola in the
reign of Domitian. Domitian was not so fortunate in his other great
enterprise. This was the invasion of Dacia. Agricola was still alive,
but Domitian was too jealous of his abilities and his renown to entrust
to him the management of the campaign. He found a substitute in the
person of Cornelius Fuscus, Prefect of the Prætorians, who had at least
the recommendation of being a subservient courtier. Juvenal includes
Fuscus among the counsellors who were summoned to discuss the important
question of how the gigantic turbot which a fisherman had presented to
the Emperor should be cooked. He seems to have been a student of the
military art, for he is described as "planning battles in his marble
halls." Possibly he wrote a book on the subject. In the field he seems
to have had little or no capacity. The Dacian chief, Decebalus by name,
enticed the Roman general to cross the Danube, turned on him when
the opportunity came, and defeated him with the loss of at least one
legion and its exile. We have absolutely no record of the battle. It
came within the period of events covered by the histories of Tacitus,
but the book which contained the narrative is lost. Even did we possess
it, we should still be ignorant of one important detail, for Orosius,
who had the narrative before him, tells us that Tacitus held it to be
the part of a good citizen to conceal the losses suffered by the armies
of Rome. The whole story is wrapped in obscurity. It is said that the
defeat of Fuscus was retrieved in the next campaign by his successor
Julianus. But again we have no details. There is even to be found
the statement, whether well or ill-founded we cannot say, that the
Dacians exacted from Rome an annual sum of money as the price of their
forbearance.
It was to Dacia then that Trajan turned his thoughts when he found
himself seated on the imperial throne. Trajan had many reasons for
undertaking the enterprise. It was much to his taste. He was a soldier,
who had already distinguished himself in the field. And he had to
justify his elevation to the throne. The Empire really rested on
the swords of the soldiers, and no man who could not count on the
respect of the army could feel himself safe. And there was also the
cogent reason that it was easier to attack than to defend, that the
barbarians, if left to themselves, would sooner or later invade the
Empire, and that the wisest plan would be to assume the offensive.
Trajan was busied with protecting the German frontier of the Empire
when he received the news that he had been adopted by the aged Nerva.
He spent a year, after receiving the tidings, in completing the
preparation for its defence. Then he went to take up his new dignity.
Home affairs settled, he started for the Danube. Of the campaigns which
followed we know little in one way, and much in another. We know, from
the sculptures on Trajan's Column, exactly what arms and armour, and
what engines of war were used by the soldiers of Rome. But as to the
strategy of the campaign, and its chief incidents, we are almost wholly
in the dark.
[Illustration: Trajan besieging a Dacian Fort.]
Trajan crossed the Danube at two places without molestation. At first
it seemed as if the Dacians were going to give in without a struggle.
An embassy arrived to beg for peace, offering surrender without
conditions. But this was a palpable imposture. The envoys were men
of low rank--so much Trajan knew from the habits of the country--for
they were bareheaded. The next envoys were certainly nobles, but they
had no real authority to treat. The Dacian king, Decebalus by name, was
simply trying to gain time. Not long after he fell upon the legions
as they marched. A fierce battle followed, in which the Dacians were
defeated, but at a heavy cost. The Romans still advanced; when they
were near his chief stronghold, Decebalus again gave battle. This
time he was beaten even more decisively than before. For the time his
spirit was broken. The envoys whom he now sent were nobles of the
highest rank, who came into Trajan's presence with their hands bound
behind their backs in token of absolute submission. Decebalus himself
consented to pay his homage to Trajan in person, and to send deputies
to Rome to arrange conditions of peace. This was in 102 A.D.
Scarcely had Trajan turned his back--his presence being much wanted at
Rome--when the Dacians were in arms again. Decebalus's own hereditary
kingdom lay far to the east, in what is now called Transylvania, but
nothing could stop the march of the Roman legions. They made their way
over river and mountain, and stormed stronghold after stronghold.
At last Decebalus, in despair, put an end to his own life. The new
province of Dacia was thoroughly organised, for Trajan was as great an
administrator as a soldier. To this day the remains of the great works
which his engineers and architects raised at his bidding remain to
testify to the completeness with which the work was done. For more than
a century and a half it remained one of the most orderly and civilised
of the Roman provinces. It was not till 275 A.D. that Aurelian withdrew
the legions to the southern bank of the Danube.
During the time of the Good Emperor[42] Rome kept her dominions
unimpaired. Even under their weaker successors, though decay was at
work within, her power for awhile was not visibly shaken. It was with
the appearance of the Goths upon the scene that the end began.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: It began with Nerva in 96 A.D. and ended with the death
of Marcus Aurelius in 180.]
_BOOK VI_
ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE DECLINE
I. A CENTURY OF DISGRACE
One of the strangest facts in history is the rapid decline of Roman
power that set in immediately after the Empire had enjoyed such a
succession of good rulers as had never before fallen to its lot. The
period of eighty-four years which began with the accession of Nerva
and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius has always been regarded,
and rightly regarded, as the golden age of Rome. Trajan was, it is
true, a warlike Emperor by choice, and Marcus Aurelius the same by
necessity, but Rome had never had since its founding any but the
briefest intervals of peace. War, in short, was its natural condition,
and it had seldom been carried on with more success than it was by
Trajan in Dacia and by Aurelius against the Quadi and the Marcomanni.
On the other hand, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (117-161)
made up together forty-four years, considerably more than what is
usually reckoned as a generation, of almost unbroken peace. Yet the
good effects of nearly a century of wise rule seemed to vanish almost
immediately when the last of the "Good Emperors" passed away. It is
true that Aurelius had a deplorably weak and vicious successor.[43] But
Commodus was not more contemptible than Caligula, Nero, or Domitian,
and Rome had survived their rule without much apparent injury. Some
writers have found a cause in a succession of plagues which raged
throughout the Empire with an almost unexampled severity, and it is
true that the century which followed the year 165[44] was terribly
distinguished by this visitation, but no external calamities are
sufficient to account for a nation's decay. These causes are to be
sought elsewhere, within rather than without, in the life of men more
than in the calamities which years of famine or of pestilence inflict
upon them. And it is clearly beyond my province to do more than
indicate them in the very briefest way. We see signs of what was going
on in days when to all appearance the Empire was most flourishing,
while it was certainly still pursuing its career of conquest. Virgil
writes a great poem to commend the honest healthy toil of a country
life to a generation which had ceased to care for it. The cities were
more and more crowded, for the luxuries which they put within the
reach of even the poorest were more and more sought after, but the
country was passing into a desert or a pleasure ground. The farmers or
peasants who had formed the backbone of Roman armies had ceased to be;
their fields, where they had not gone out of cultivation, were tilled
by huge gangs of slaves. Provincial towns which in old days had been
strong enough to make treaties on equal terms with Rome were now half
in ruins, with a scanty population that barely contrived to exist. With
every year things grew worse and worse. And the Empire aggravated the
evils which at first it had done much to palliate if not to remedy. It
had superseded the Republic, because this had become utterly corrupt;
but in time it became as corrupt itself, and for the corruption of a
despotism there is no cure. A succession of able rulers put off the
end for a time, but it had to come. And when it came there came with
it more vigorous races out of whom was to be formed by degrees, not
without help of the old order which they swept away, a new civilisation.
Commodus, the unworthy son and successor of the good Aurelius, reigned
but for a short time. He was assassinated in his thirty-second year.
With his death began, it may be said, the rule of the sword. His
successor, indeed, Pertinax by name, was chosen by the Senate, and well
deserved his election, but he reigned for something less than ninety
days, and the Prætorians, the soldiers of the capital, murdered him and
sold the throne openly to the highest bidder. To this arrogance the
legions in the provinces refused to submit. The principal armies put
up candidates of their own. We need not follow the succession of these
short-lived rulers. It will suffice to say that in the hundred and five
years which intervened between the death of Aurelius and the accession
of Diocletian (180-285) there were no less than twenty Emperors,
not to mention innumerable Pretenders--it was said that at one time
thirty[45] claimed the throne.
For a time the spectacle of the Roman armies engaged in almost
incessant struggles with each other does not seem to have produced
the effect which might have been expected on the tribes outside the
frontiers of the Empire. No movement of any importance among the
barbarians is recorded during the fifty years which followed the murder
of Pertinax by the Prætorians. In 209, indeed, the Britons of the north
attacked the Roman province, and were punished, without any lasting
effect, by Septimius Severus. But the event was of no particular
importance, for the North Britons were not powerful enough, even if
they had succeeded, to seriously affect the course of events. Causes
with which we are not exactly acquainted kept the far more formidable
tribes of Germany inactive. We hear of a combination among them in
the reign of Aurelius which might well have become dangerous, if,
to use the language of Gibbon, it included all the nations from the
mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. But it came to nothing.
The tribes which first took the field were defeated. Discouragement
and dissension kept the others inactive. Dissension, indeed, was
the most potent influence which worked in favour of the Romans. In
his remarkable treatise on Germany and its tribes Tacitus gives a
description of the people which emphasises their superiority in many
important respects to the degenerate sons of Rome. But he speaks with
satisfaction of the internal strife which prevented them from becoming
formidable, mentioning one great conflict in which one tribe had been
wholly destroyed by its neighbours, and adds, "While the destinies of
Empire hurry us on, fortune can give us no greater boon than discord
among our foes."
But this state of things naturally would not last. It would cease when
some chief of commanding ability and strong personal influence should
come to the front, or when some tribe should become so powerful as to
attract or compel its neighbours to unite with it. Such a tribe came
upon the scene later on in the first half of the third century of our
era. The _Gothi_, to use the most common of the various forms of their
name, are first mentioned many centuries before the time of which I am
now speaking. Pytheas, of Marseilles, who travelled in Northern Europe
about the time of Alexander the Great, speaks of them as inhabiting
the coasts of the Baltic, and Tacitus, writing about 90 A.D., locates
them in much the same district. A hundred years or so after this date,
however, they are spoken of as dwelling near the Black Sea. We need not
trouble ourselves, however, with their place of abode, nor yet with
the question of their race. Some writers hold that they were of the
Slavonic family, not the Teutonic. That there were some Slavs in the
great multitude which the Romans knew by the common name of Goths is
more than probable. In just the same way there was a Celtic element in
the great Teutonic swarm which had so nearly overrun Italy at the close
of the second century B.C. But all that we know about them, whether as
regards their habits or their appearance, would lead us to think that
they were Germans.
Some time, therefore, about 247 A.D., the Goths invaded and overran
the province of Dacia. Crossing the Danube into Mœsia[46] (Bulgaria)
they besieged its capital town, now known by the name of Pravadi
(twenty-five miles to the west of Varna). The town was ill-protected,
for with the whole province of Dacia between it and the frontier of the
Empire it anticipated no danger. The inhabitants saw nothing better
to do than to buy off the enemy by the payment of a large ransom. Such
a policy is seldom successful, as we know from the history of our own
island, where the plan of buying off the Danes was tried again and
again to very little purpose. The Goths departed, and before long came
back again.
Decius, who had by this time supplanted Philip the Arabian on the
imperial throne, on receiving the news of this second invasion,
marched to the relief of the provinces attacked. He found the
barbarians besieging Nicopoli (on the southern bank of the Danube).
On his approach they promptly raised the siege, marched across Mœsia
and made their way over the Balkans with the intention of attacking
Philippopolis. Decius followed them, without apparently taking due
precautions against surprise, for the Goths turned upon him, and routed
his army. His forces were so shattered that he could not attempt to
help Philippopolis, which not very long afterwards was taken by storm
and sacked.
Decius, though he had made a disastrous mistake, was a brave and
capable soldier. He took prompt measures to retrieve his defeat,
guarding the places where the Danube could be crossed and the Balkan
passes so as to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Goths. These,
on their part, had suffered severely. The siege and storms had cost
them many lives; their supplies were running short, for they carried no
stores with them, and could draw but little sustenance from a country
which they had wasted. And they were much alarmed at the prospect of
having their retreat cut off. Under these circumstances they offered
to surrender all their booty and all their prisoners, if they were
permitted to return unharmed to their own country. Decius refused
to accept the offer. He probably thought, and had some reason for
thinking, that no agreement could be profitably made with barbarians.
The only way to deal with the Goths was to deal with them as Marius had
dealt with the Cimbri and Teutones. The invaders prepared to fight.
The battle that followed was obstinately contested. The Goths were
drawn up in three lines--we may observe from the first indications
of a certain military skill and training in the tribe--the third of
which was protected by a morass. The first and the second of these
were broken; the third stood firm, and repulsed all the attacks of the
legions. The Emperor's son had fallen early in the day; of the fate
of Decius himself nothing was ever known. What is certain is that the
army was almost annihilated. The Goths were able to make their way
home without losing their spoil or their prisoners. They even received
a great sum for promising not to molest again the provinces of Rome,
till, of course--for such must have been the proviso understood on
both sides--they should find it convenient to do so. This battle lacks
a name, for the place where it was fought cannot be identified, but
it was an event of the greatest importance. Rome had suffered worse
disasters before, but never one that entailed so great a loss of
credit. A barbarian army destroys a provincial capital, defeats two
armies, slays the Emperor himself, and returns home, not only with all
its booty, but with a heavy bribe with which its forbearance had been
purchased. Clearly this was the beginning of the end.
For some years after their campaigns in the region of the Danube,
the Goths occupied themselves with expeditions which bear a curious
resemblance to those made by their kinsmen of later times, the Vikings
and Northmen. They do not seem to have had any seamanship of their
own, but they lured or compelled the maritime population of the Black
Sea coast-line to assist them. Their first voyage was eastward. They
sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, taking Pitsunda on
their way, rounded the eastern end, and finally captured Trebizond,
the wealthiest city in northern Asia Minor, where they possessed
themselves of a vast quantity of spoil and a multitude of prisoners.
Their next voyage had a westerly direction. They overran the province
of Bithynia. The famous towns of Nicala and Nicomedia, among others,
fell into their hands, almost without any attempt at resistance. It was
more than three centuries since these regions had known the presence
of a foreign enemy. They had no troops of their own, except, possibly,
some local levies which certainly had had no experience of warfare,
and the legions which should have defended them had sadly degenerated
both in courage and in discipline. The third expedition of the Goths
took them outside the Black Sea into the Ægean. Their fleet sailed into
the Piræus. Athens, which had not attempted, possibly had not been
permitted, to repair its walls, demolished more than three hundred
years before by Sulla, was taken and plundered. Greece could offer no
resistance. It had neither means nor men. The invaders still advanced
westwards, and threatened Italy itself. Here, however, their progress
was stayed. But from this expedition also, audacious as it was, they
returned in safety. It gave another proof, not less significant than
the death of Decius, how low the Empire had already fallen.
While the Goths were evading the south-eastern provinces of the Empire,
other enemies were busy in the north and west. The Franks now make
their first appearance in history. The name which meets us frequently
in the modern world, notably in France, and in such terms as Franconia,
Frankfort, Frankenthal, means the "free," and probably originated in a
combination of the tribes who inhabited the eastern bank of the Rhine,
and who assumed this title by way of distinguishing themselves from
the subjects of Rome on the opposite side of the river. The Franks
laid waste the province of Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees and desolated
Spain. We know very little of the details of their invasion. One of the
so-called "Thirty Tyrants," Postumus by name, is said to have checked
their progress, and done something to protect the Roman provinces of
the West. Postumus was slain in 267 A.D.
This date belongs to the period of extreme depression which coincides
with the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. Valerian was a favourite
lieutenant of the Emperor Decius, and seems to have been a man of high
character and ability. But circumstances were too strong for him. Great
as were the dangers that threatened the European provinces of the
Empire, it was on the Asiatic frontier that he found his presence more
imperatively demanded. A revolution in Parthia had restored the ancient
dynasty of the Persian kings, or, at least, a family that claimed that
character. The new line of kings was now represented by a certain
Shapar, or, as the Romans spelt it, Sapor. Armenia, long a bone of
contention between Rome and Parthia, was overrun; the garrisons on the
Euphrates were forced to surrender. Valerian hastened to meet the new
enemy, encountered him near Edessa, and suffered a crushing defeat. We
know next to nothing of what happened except that the legions were led,
by the folly of their chief or the treachery of those whom he trusted,
into a hopeless situation; that their attempt to cut their way through
the hosts of the enemy was repulsed with great loss; and that in the
end Valerian had to surrender himself to Sapor, and that the legions
laid down their arms. There was nothing now to stop the Parthian king.
The splendid city of Antioch was taken and plundered or burnt. He even
crossed the Taurus range, and captured the wealthy city of Tarsus.
It is impossible to say where he would have stopped, had it not been
for the courage and ability of Odenathus, the governor of Palmyra and
his wife Zenobia. It was they, not the Roman arms that compelled the
Parthians to make their way back to their own country.
Valerian was never released from captivity. Stories--whether true or
no it is impossible to say--were told of the humiliations to which he
was subjected by the Persian king. Whenever Sapor mounted his horse, he
used to put his foot on the neck of his captive. And when the unhappy
man was released by death, his skin was stuffed with straw, and the
figure preserved in one of the Persian temples, "a more real monument
of triumph," remarks Gibbon, "than the fancied trophies of brass and
marble so often erected by Roman vanity." Whatever may be the truth
about this or that fact, it is certain that this period witnessed the
infliction of two unprecedented humiliations on the dignity of Rome,
one Emperor slain in battle, another kept in a dishonourable captivity.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 43: It is remarkable that the most philosophic of the "Good
Emperors" departed from the rule of adoption which had apparently been
so beneficial to Rome, and left the succession to his son, of whose
real character he could hardly have been ignorant. Gibbon, however,
thinks that the want of the hereditary principle was one of the great
causes of the troubles of the Empire.]
[Footnote 44: In 165 the legions returning from the East are said to
have brought the Oriental plague into Europe.]