A northern pretender, Aureolus, having marched from Rhætia against
Milan, Gallienus fell during the siege of this town, most likely by the
hands of his own men. He was a curse to the Roman empire, and his death
was its deliverance. After him came a great man, M. Aurelius Claudius,
who received the well-earned name of Gothicus. This emperor had to face
a new invasion of the Goths, who burst in by the Propontis, and once
more destroyed Cyzicus. These now made their appearance in Macedon,
besieged even Thessalonica, and from thence marched into the interior of
the country. There they met with Claudius, and they wished to retreat
back again to the Danube; but Claudius defeated them near Nissa, on the
borders of Bulgaria and Servia, in a great battle in which they were all
but annihilated. New hordes, however, were always pouring in, the East
and West Goths being now joined by the Vandals; and Claudius, while
going on with the war against them, died at Sirmium in the middle of his
career, either of the plague or of an epidemic caused by the war. The
seat of the disease seems to have been in Mœsia, where it did great
havoc, both among the Romans and among the Goths. He was succeeded by
Aurelian.
The victory of Claudius over the Goths had ensured the safety of the
Roman empire, although he still left much undone. The empire of Palmyra
evidently was friendly, and it protected the eastern frontier: with
Tetricus, the relations were at least perfectly peaceful. Claudius
himself had recommended Aurelian as the ablest of his generals, and the
senate and the army swore allegiance to him. Aurelian did great things
during the five years of his reign (until 273): he restored the empire.
One might be tempted to apply to him the remarkable passage in
Curtius;[62] but it is not to be believed that such pure Latin should
have still been written in his reign. Gibbon must have thought this less
unlikely, as far at least as regards the time of Gordian, for which he
decides; but the passage on Tyre,[63] to have any meaning at all, must
be referred to the times of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Although
Aurelian is no ideal of a character, yet there is much in his reign
which gives one pleasure, like every age in which anything that has
fallen into ruin has been restored. But unhappily there are also here no
sufficient sources; all is obscure: the imperial history, on the whole,
is much more so than that of the republic; we are much better able to
reconstruct the history of the twelfth and thirteenth century from the
chronicles. The accounts we have of Aurelian, although they may be
strung together, form no history: the coins are far safer authorities
for this time, and with these the statements of our wretched historians
cannot be made to agree. Gibbon has done everything that was possible,
nor will his work ever be surpassed.
Aurelian passed the five years of his reign in an activity which beggars
belief, going from one frontier to another, and from war to war. At
first, he wisely made peace with the Goths, to whom he gave up the
claims of Rome on Dacia. This country may have been in a condition like
that of Gaul in the fifth century. The Romans may have kept their ground
only in the impassable places of Transylvania, which he now evacuated,
there being no hope left of driving back the Goths who had made inroads
almost everywhere. The population of Dacia had been so much weakened by
the wars, that the country could not be kept: those who wished to leave
it, now settled in Bulgaria which thereby gained strength.—The war
against the great Zenobia, who was already dreaming of nothing less than
an Asiatic empire, was decided by two battles, at Antioch and at Emesa.
As Zenobia could stand her ground against the Persians, but not against
the Roman legions, her infantry must have been bad: it may be that she
had formed in Syria a militia which overawed the Persians, whereas the
Romans, who did not wish to give arms into the hands of the borderers,
carried on the war with the aid of mercenaries. Zenobia’s defence of
Palmyra did not answer the expectation which was entertained of her
courage; for she fled and was taken prisoner. In her captivity, she
showed herself to be an Asiatic woman, by sacrificing her best advisers
as having beguiled her into bad policy: among these was the ingenious
Longinus. As without doubt, even at that time, there was in many minds
the idea of a Greek Asiatic Empire, an intellectual Greek like Longinus
may indeed have suggested such a thought to his princess. It was one of
the acts which have stained Aurelian’s purple, that he had this
distinguished man put to death; and still worse was his giving up
Palmyra to destruction on account of a rebellion of its inhabitants.
Thus the East was again tranquillized, the peace with the Persians being
secured until the times of Carus, as it seems, by treaties. Aurelian now
returned to Europe to reunite the West with the empire; whereupon he was
met by Tetricus, who felt that his own life was not safe among the
mutinous soldiers, and wished to get himself out of this position: but
the soldiers of Tetricus fought with such spirit in the neighbourhood of
Chalons, that one may see how national was their cause, and how
determined was the wish for separation. It is remarkable that the French
historians have never understood nor discerned the national development
of France, which always renewed itself from the time of Julius Cæsar;
just as they also have ever overlooked the distinctly marked difference
between the literature of Northern and Southern France. It cannot be
accurately made out, whether it was now, or somewhat sooner or later,
that the German tribes broke through the frontier. The Alemanni,
Lombards (Juthungi), and Vandals—the first two at least—passed the Po
and threatened Rome: they were defeated near Fano (_Fanum Fortunæ_),
very nearly in the same neighbourhood where Hasdrubal fell in the second
Punic War.
Aurelian, who could not live without war, was on the eve of renewing
that against the Persians: but he was murdered while on his march, at
the crafty instigation, it is said, of an infamous secretary whose fraud
he had found out. This story, however, is perhaps one of the many tales
which were devised to screen the guilt of the real perpetrators: another
conspiracy had already been discovered once before. The army bewailed
him, and determined that none of the leading men who had had a share in
his murder should reap any advantage from it. This accounts for the
strange demand which the army made to the senate, to appoint the
successor of Aurelian. The senate mistrusted this, or it was afraid that
the soldiers might repent; but the latter are said to have so
steadfastly stood by their declaration, that the empire remained for
eight months without an emperor, nor did any one arise in the provinces.
At last,—so we are told,—Tacitus, the _princeps senatus_, was elected,
who was distinguished for everything that could at all distinguish a
senator,—immense fortune, of which he made a good use; a blameless life;
administrative skill; and in his youth, military valour. On his
election, he gave the senate the promise that he would look upon himself
as its servant; whereupon the senators already began to give themselves
up to their daydreams of freedom and power. The emperor was now to be
their first servant; all rule and might was to be in the hands of the
senate, and the republic was to be restored:—in a word, they expected to
be like the senate of Venice. But that dream lasted but a short time.
Tacitus went to the army in Asia Minor. The statement of his advanced
age rests on the authority of the latest Greeks, and deserves little
credit: the earlier writers say nothing about it. How they could then
have elected an old man in his seventy-sixth year, is scarcely to be
understood, as they needed a military prince. This reminds us of the
Roman Cardinals, who elect an aged Pope to have so much more the hope of
succeeding him themselves. Although Tacitus carried on the war against
the Alans with success, the Romans were not yet rid of their causes for
uneasiness in that quarter. When he died at Tarsus, in all likelihood it
was quietly in his bed, of illness or exhaustion: murder seems not to be
thought of. After his death, the throne was usurped by his brother
Quintilius,[64] to whom however the legions refused obedience.
They proclaimed Probus emperor, who is the most excellent of the Cæsars
of that age. Quite as great a general as Aurelian, he still at the same
time turned his mind to the protection of the empire against foreign
foes, and to raising it at home from the wretched condition into which
it had fallen. He had many rebellions to put down, but he had especially
to wage war against the Alans, the Franks, the Alemanni, and the
Sarmatians. The Franks he drove back into the marshes of the
Netherlands; and he not only defeated the Alemanni, but he also crossed
the Rhine, and regained the Suabian empire: he is likewise said to have
repaired the _limes_. We are told that he wanted to form Germany into a
province, which at that time was much more feasible than it had been
before: for the southern Germans had already become much nearer to the
Romans in their manners. Had Diocletian given himself the same trouble,
and established a Roman power in the south of Germany, he might perhaps
have succeeded.—It would have been possible to collect the Germans into
towns, and to accustom them to a regular city life, for in the reign of
Valentinian, we find them afterwards on the banks of the Neckar already
settled in larger villages and in fortified towns, and no longer in
scattered cottages. Probus achieved an incredible number of great
undertakings in every quarter, crossing the empire from one frontier to
the other with the power and speed of lightning: rest, during the five
years of his reign, he never once enjoyed; but, on the other hand, he
was unspeakably beloved by his people. Once also he triumphed in Rome,
as Aurelian had likewise done: yet his coins not only bear the legend,
_Invicto Imperatori Probo_, but also _Bono Imperatori Probo_. The
soldiers only became estranged from him, because he made their work too
hard, as he exacted from them, besides all their military duty,
task-service for the restoration of the provinces. Like Aurelian and
Decius, he came from the neighbourhood of the _Limes Illyricus_, being
perhaps descended from military settlers; and therefore he wished to
revive tillage in the neighbourhood of Sermium, and to drain the fens.
To this unwholesome labour he kept the soldiers, employing them in
digging the drains. As he did not yield to any representations made to
him, the soldiers can scarcely be blamed when in their despair they
would bear the heavy yoke no longer. He was murdered in the year 282;
yet they still wept over his loss.
After his death, they raised the _præfectus prætorio_ Carus to the
throne. Whether Carus was born at Rome, or in Illyricum, or at Narbonne,
we do not know: in a letter which is still extant, he calls himself a
Roman senator,—a proof that the _senatus consultum_ in the reign of
Gallienus, that no senator should be a general, must have been something
different from what is generally believed, and even Gibbon thinks it to
have been. Perhaps Gallienus only took away from the senators the
government of the provinces with the _imperium_, so that this was put an
end to altogether, except in the short time of the reign of Tacitus; but
even then, he did not shut them out from every kind of military command.
As Carus also was quite in his element when there was a war, he led his
soldiers against the Persians with the most signal success; and this was
the last war but one in which this was the case: he is said to have
retaken Ctesiphon; but this cannot be positively asserted. However this
may be, Persia had lost the power which she had in the days of
Ardaschir; and the Persian king Bahram, who was paralysed by fear, was
quite unable to make head against the Roman army. Carus penetrated very
far beyond the Persian frontier. Here he is said to have been struck by
lightning in his tent:—whether this be true, or whether he did not
rather fall by the hands of assassins, we cannot make out for certain.
The soldiers, however, could not be got to advance any further: the omen
of the _prætorium_ struck by lightning was too dreadful. Numerian the
son of Carus, a well educated and well-bred young man, good-hearted but
unwarlike, was in the camp; the other one, Carinus, had remained in
Rome: the latter was another Commodus, being a profligate and a tyrant.
Numerian died, and the _præfectus prætorio_, Arrius Aper, is said to
have concealed his death to found his own dominion on it. But it was
detected; and it was laid to the charge of Aper by the Illyrian
Diocletian, who was backed by the favour of the army. Being the most
distinguished of the generals, he put forth claims to the throne: as for
Carinus, he had made himself so hateful by his profligacy, that the army
would not hear of him. Diocletian stabbed Aper with his own hands. A
female soothsayer had told him that he should ascend the throne, if he
killed an _aper_; and therefore in all his hunts, he had tried to kill a
wild boar. The oracle now came true. Carinus gathered together the
legions of the west, and great battle in Mœsia decided the fate of the
throne. For when Carinus was on the point of gaining the victory, he was
stabbed by a man whom he had foully wronged; and the soldiers now
acknowledged Diocletian, who had been all but beaten, as their emperor,
285.
DIOCLETIAN. LITERATURE AND GENERAL STATE OF THE THEN WORLD. MAXIMIAN.
HIS SUCCESSORS. CONSTANTINE.
The reign of Diocletian forms a great epoch in Roman history. He shows
himself everywhere a distinguished man: although we may censure many of
his plans, yet even to have made an attempt is a proof of that ability
which shines forth in everything that he did, and in the whole of his
reign. There now follows a time which, when compared with the former
ones, is one of recovery, and which lasted about an hundred years, down
to the battle of Hadrianople (378). During this period, the government
is settled in one dynasty, and the establishment of the Christian
religion is greatly facilitated. One great source of relief was, the
ceasing of some years, ever since Probus, of the frightful plague which
had so long wasted the Roman empire. It had first made its appearance in
the reign of M. Antoninus and L. Verus, when, however, it was far from
spreading over every part of the world; even in the time of Septimius
Severus, as we know from Tertullian, it had not yet visited Africa:
about the middle of the third century, until just before the reign of
Decius, epidemics are mentioned. The real terrible plague broke out in
the days of Decius (249), although I would not take it upon myself to
say that it did not exist previously: in the reign of Commodus, and also
of Caracalla, there was a very fierce plague at Rome; but in that of
Decius it spreads all over the Roman empire, making dreadful ravages
even in Africa and Egypt as well. Thus it still continues. Claudius dies
at Sirmium of the plague in 270, and in the days of Gallienus and
Valerian its fury is unabated: as many as two thousand people are said
at times to have died at Rome in one day. Dionysius the bishop tells us
that, when the plague had left off in Alexandria, the number of all the
grown up persons from fourteen to seventy, was not greater than what had
formerly been the number of those who were between forty and seventy;
whence it follows, that about the third part only—not, as Gibbon states,
one half of the inhabitants had remained alive. From the beginning of
this period, date the last writings of Saint Cyprian, and his remarkable
treatise against Demetrian, in which this great mortality is distinctly
acknowledged: even at that time, people had begun to lay this decrease
of the human race to the charge of the Christians. After the black
death, as Matteo Villani, a contemporary writer, remarks, when people
thought that they should have everything in abundance, just the reverse
took place, namely a grievous famine, owing to there not being men
enough to till the fields. This also happened now; and it was even yet a
great deal worse, as the finest countries were laid waste by the ravages
of the barbarians.
In the same proportion as the world was made desolate, did intellect
also decay. Until the middle of the third century, the western world was
very civilized; we still meet with distinguished poetical talent, and
jurisprudence reached its highest state of development: but after that
time, down to the days of Constantine, we already find throughout it the
most downright barbarism: in the plastic arts, the decline begins even
as early as in the times of Septimius Severus, the busts alone being
still somewhat tolerable. As for poems, that of Nemesian on the chase,
and the eclogues of Calpurnius in the reign of Carinus, are very
characteristic of the age: it is sheer verse-making. Prose is no longer
to be met with. There is indeed not one writer of it worth mentioning,
except Lactantius the contemporary of Constantine, who has made the
style of Cicero quite his own: even as Curtius is a reproduction of
Livy, so is Lactantius of Cicero. Yet the man himself is also
interesting: in his seventh book, he shows real imagination. Before him
lived Arnobius, who is instructive and useful, his erudition being of
great value to us; but he is without originality.
In the East, a different class of writers had arisen. Instead of people
trying, as in the second and third centuries, to reproduce the ancient
Attic, the language of Plato and Demosthenes, which Dio Chrysostom and
several others after him had done; there sprang up in the third century,
from the times of Ammonius in Syria, the so-called New-Platonism, a
system which aimed at higher things, and from the intellect which there
was in it, was widely different from the rhetorical school before it.
But it became thoroughly unreal, inasmuch as its votaries tampered with
the hallowed mysteries of former times, being ashamed of them in their
old form, and had foisted in what was altogether foreign to it.
Of the events which now follow, I can give you but an outline, such as
every one ought to know by heart. Too great a stress was formerly laid
on such a chronological skeleton of history; yet it ought not to be
altogether neglected: the succession of the Roman emperors, with the
dates of their reigns, is what every one ought to have in his memory.
Diocletian had reigned for about a year, when, without any external
cause, he took his countryman Maximian as his colleague. Of Diocletian
we have many hostile accounts; but they are very much exaggerated, nor
are they the only ones. It is said that his father had been a slave, or
at best a freedman; by this, however, a _colonus_, perhaps is meant,
that is to say, a serf from the Dalmatian frontier. He cannot himself
have been a slave, as slaves were not yet at that time received in the
legions: the derivation of his name from Doclea, a town on the Dalmatian
frontier, is a very likely one indeed. Diocletian had risen in the army
by his own merit, a fact which sufficiently refutes the charge of
cowardice brought against him as well as many other great generals, such
as Napoleon. Against the latter also this charge is highly unjust. He
often wanted moral courage, as, for instance, on the 19th of Brumaire;
but the courage of a general he had. He is taxed with cowardice in cases
when he did not choose to place himself in a position in which he could
neither see nor hear, and thus neglect his duties as a general; but in
so doing he was perfectly justified. Only he ought to have died at
Waterloo: his leaving that battlefield can never be excused.—Diocletian
was, on the whole, a mild man. On two occasions only, he laid himself
open to the charge of cruelty,—in his chastisement of the rebels at
Alexandria, and in his persecution of the Christians, to the latter of
which he was beguiled in his old age by Galerius. Maximian, on the
contrary, was a coarse and cruel man, who murdered the Roman nobles to
get held of their treasures; or because he had been offended; or else
because their very rank annoyed him: for the senate seems now to have
become more and more hereditary.
Diocletian, who was a man of uncommon shrewdness, could not disguise
from himself, how highly dangerous it was to keep jarring elements
together by force. He therefore bethought himself of what would seem the
strange plan of healing the many splits between the East and the West by
a distinct government for each under different princes, they being,
however, so united by one common centre, as still to form one whole.
This worked well so long as he reigned himself. The legislative power,
the consulship, and the high offices were to be in common: but in both
parts of the empire there was to be a distinct _Augustus_; and by the
side of every Augustus a _Cæsar_ as his coadjutor, who was to succeed to
the throne after his death. The latter clause was to prevent the throne
from being kept vacant, or being given away by the soldiers. It would
seem that the senior Augustus had the right of naming the Cæsars. The
_Præfectura Galliarum_ (which consisted of Gaul, Britain, and Spain),
together with Mauretania, was to have a Cæsar; Italy and Africa were
placed under the immediate rule of the Augustus. The countries on the
Danube, Pannonia and Mœsia (afterwards the _præfectura_ of Illyria),
were likewise under a Cæsar: the other Augustus had the whole of the
East. All these were ingenious combinations: but they showed by their
result, what such combinations will generally lead to.
Diocletian reigned for twenty years (from 285 to 305), and then by his
paramount influence, he got Maximian to resign his dignity at the same
time with him (May 1st, 305); so that, while he was yet living, the
machine might be set up anew. The Cæsar in the East, Galerius, and his
colleague Constantius, were both of them Illyrians. The former was a
common soldier who had gotten the surname of _Armentarius_ from having
been a drover; the other (to whom we do not give the name of Chlorus, as
it is only to be found in Byzantine writers, and not even in the earlier
ones, nor on coins; and as we are not able to make out its derivation)
was of high birth, his father being a man of rank in the diocese of
Illyricum, and his mother a niece of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus. The
two were of a very different stamp. Constantius was an accomplished and
well educated gentleman; Galerius was a rough fellow: both of them,
however, were distinguished generals, though indeed Galerius was the
bolder of the two. This division led afterwards to that of the empire
into prefectures: not only every Augustus, but also every Cæsar had his
_præfectus prætorio_; whence arose the four dioceses, each of which had
a _præfectus_, as we see at a later period, there being traces of it
even in the times of Justinian. Of the other measures of Diocletian, we
shall mention here but the following. He transplanted the ceremonial of
the East into his court: neither of the two emperors, however, resided
at Rome; Maximian lived at Milan; Diocletian, in Nicomedia. Whatever may
be said of Constantine, he was a great man: one of the many traits which
mark him as such, is his not overlooking the situation of Byzantium. If
those who founded Chalcedon were called blind by the oracle, Diocletian
also is among the blind. In those eastern parts therefore, in which
Asiatic manners spread more and more, Diocletian completely adopted the
etiquette of the East.
The most important events in this reign, are the revolt of Britain under
Carausius; a rising in Egypt; and the Persian war, the most glorious for
a long time which the Romans had waged, and even the last glorious war
of all.
Carausius—the admiral of a fleet stationed at Bononia (Boulogne) to keep
in check the Franks and other tribes in the Netherlands, who had already
begun to carry on piracy—revolted; made himself master of Britain; and
assumed the title of Augustus. After having once been even acknowledged
by Diocletian and Maximian, he was murdered by his own soldiers: his
successor Allectus, who seized the reins of government after him, was
overpowered by Constantius.—The reduction of Egypt was achieved by
Diocletian himself: after a long siege, Alexandria had to surrender at
discretion, and was severely punished.—Against Persia, Galerius had the
command for two campaigns; and though, at first, he suffered a defeat,
he afterwards gained a decided victory, routing and scattering the
Persians, whose king was obliged to make peace. Armenia was recognised
as a tributary dependency of Rome; Aderbidjan, with Tauris its capital,
was given up by Persia to Armenia; Rome likewise gained the countries
south of Lake Van as far as Mosul to the east, that is to say the
countries on the Euphrates and Tigris, even beyond the eastern banks of
the latter river. This happened A. D. 296, four years after the
appointment of the _Cæsares_. Time hinders me from dwelling on the
persecutions of the Christians by Diocletian; so that I shall only
remark that Diocletian and his counsellors, going against the stream,
and quite heedless of the wants of the age (even looking upon the matter
in a worldly point of view), sought to crush the Christian religion.
This led them to that shocking persecution, which, however, was not so
frightful as we are wont to believe it to have been. Dodwell is right in
saying that it was nothing to what the Duke of Alva did in the
Netherlands. Yet it was after all a struggle against the tide: for
whenever a people wills a thing in good earnest, it does not allow
itself to be kept back. Annihilation or slavery alone are able to stop
its onward march.
The results of the new measures were like those which we have seen
during the last forty years in Europe, where constitutions have been
drawn up, which when brought to bear on life and its real business, have
worked quite differently from what had been expected. After Diocletian
and Maximian’s resignation, Constantius and Galerius succeeded as
_Augusti_, and the places of the Cæsars became vacant. As the _Augusti_
were bound to make Milan or Nicomedia their abode, Constantius remained
in Gaul, where his court was generally at Treves. In his stead, a Cæsar
was to be appointed, who had to rule over Africa and Italy; and
Galerius, claiming the right of nomination, made choice of another
Illyrian named Severus: over the East he set his own nephew Maximinus
Daza, a common soldier, to whom he gave the administration of Syria and
Egypt, while he himself remained in Nicomedia, and kept Illyricum,
Greece, and Asia Minor. The persecution of the Christians went on at a
fearful rate, but without any effect; so that at last it was even
obliged to slacken.
Diocletian remained quiet during all these changes; but old Maximian did
not approve of them. He returned from Lucania to Rome, where he again
came forth as an Augustus, and got the senate to proclaim his son
Maxentius a Cæsar instead of Severus. Soon afterwards, Constantius died,
and the legions proclaimed his son Constantine Augustus; but Galerius,
who had formerly plotted against his life, wished to acknowledge him as
Cæsar only, and on the other hand, appointed Severus Augustus, and set
him on against Maximian and Maxentius. But Severus died in his attempt
to invade Italy, and Constantine for the present submitted to the
degradation.
Constantine was the son of Constantius’ first wife Helena, a woman of
low birth from Roussillon, whom her husband had been obliged to put away
that he might marry Theodora, a stepdaughter of Maximian. Constantine
was thirty-two years old, when his father died. He is a truly great man,
and on him the attention of the whole of the then Roman world was
directed. Though not an accomplished scholar, neither yet was he an
untaught barbarian, as he spoke Greek and Latin.
Whilst Constantine contented himself with establishing his power in the
three western provinces, Galerius undertook to avenge the death of
Severus on Maxentius. He therefore came with an army to Italy, and
advanced as far as Narni; but there he found himself so closely hemmed
in by the forces of old Maximian, and so little supported, that he had
to retreat and make peace. How it was concluded, we have in truth no
account whatever. After the death of Severus, Galerius had given up
Illyricum to Licinius, and had bestowed on him at the same time the
title of Augustus; the east he had assigned to Maximinus Daza: he
acknowledged Constantine as Augustus. Thus the Roman world had no more
Cæsars, but six _Augusti_,—Galerius, Licinius, Maximin in the east;
Maximian, Maxentius, and Constantine in the west. Notwithstanding this,
there was no peace, and the artificial combination of Diocletian proved
insufficient. Maximian had given his daughter Fausta in marriage to
Constantine, who therefore divorced himself from his first wife
Minervina. But dissensions arose between Maximian and his son Maxentius.
Maxentius, who was a fell tyrant in the style of Caracalla, had no
dutiful feelings towards a father who had raised him to the throne; and
he answered the claims of his father to rule the state, by the counter
demand that he should retire from public affairs. The prætorians, whom
Maxentius had brought out again from the obscurity into which Diocletian
had thrown them, decided that Maxentius should reign alone. Maximian now
went to his daughter in Gaul, where at first he met with a friendly
reception; but he soon got embroiled with Constantine. When the latter
tried to secure himself against him, Maximian, who was not able to stand
his ground at Arles, fled to Marseilles, where he was besieged, and
delivered up as a victim by his own troops. He fell into Constantine’s
power, who made him kind promises; notwithstanding which, under the
pretext of his having set on foot a conspiracy, he was soon afterwards
put to death.
Shortly after began the war of Constantine with Maxentius, so memorable
for its important consequences in history, and not less memorable for
the triumphal arch of Constantine and Raphael’s painting of the battle.
Maxentius ruled Italy as a tyrant, and the oppression of the people had
increased. Italy had hitherto been free from the land-tax, having only
indirect taxes and a legacy duty to pay; but Maxentius, to whom this,
and the revenues raised from Africa, did not yet appear sufficient,
proceeded to lay a land and an income tax on Italy. Then was Constantine
called upon for help.—In the meanwhile also, Galerius had died, and the
European part of his empire had been taken by Licinius, and the Asiatic
by Maximin.—Constantine, at the head of a greatly superior force,
crossed Mount Cenis; defeated the troops of Maxentius near Turin;
marched against Verona, a very strong fortress; besieged it and beat an
army which came to its relief; took it, and advanced by the Via Flaminia
towards Rome. Maxentius met him three Italian miles from the Porta
Collina, near Ponte Mollo. But his whole army was routed and himself
killed; and Constantine, amid the general exultation, took possession of
Rome.
Soon afterwards, a war broke out in the East between Maximin and
Licinius, Their forces encountered near the Thracian Heraclea, when
Licinius conquered with a considerably weaker army: Maximin surrendered
at discretion in Tarsus, and was condemned to die. There were now but
two emperors left, Constantine in the west, Licinius in the east.
Between these two, before long, the first war arose, A. D. 314, in which
Constantine gained the victory at the battles of Cibalis and Mardia, and
Licinius sought and obtained peace on condition of giving up Illyricum,
Macedon, and Greece; so that he had only left to him the Asiatic
countries, Egypt, and Thrace, such a large and rich dominion, that no
state of modern Europe is to be compared to it. After nine years (323),
a new war broke out, although Licinius was married to Constantia a
half-sister of Constantine, and had children by her. For this struggle,
Licinius had equipped a fleet, as had also Constantine: it was the first
war since the battle of Actium, in which the Roman Emperors brought
fleets into action. Constantine gained a victory near Adrianople; and
Crispus, his son by Minervina, who commanded the fleet, decided the war
by the battle of Scutari, and forced the Hellespont. Near Chrysopolis,
he crossed over to Asia, and again beat the enemy’s reserves: on this,
Licinius fled to Cilicia. Here he capitulated. Constantine at first
promised him his life; but he did not keep his word: nay, after some
time, he even had Licinius, the son of his own sister, a guiltless and
most hopeful boy, likewise put to death. Here Constantine first showed
signs of cruelty, from which he had hitherto kept himself quite free.
Thus the whole world was again brought into unity. The rest of
Constantine’s reign is not very rich in remarkable events. He carried on
wars against the Goths and Sarmatians, the latter of whom dwelt in those
days from the Theiss to Moravia, whilst the Goths were masters of Dacia.
The Sarmatians make their appearance as the lords of vanquished Germans;
and these serfs, when arms are put into their hands, take advantage of
the opportunity to rid themselves of the yoke. Now were the Sarmatians
obliged to apply to the Romans for protection, and they were scattered
in all directions under the name of Limigantes: hence a Sarmatian colony
as far off as the Moselle, is mentioned by Ausonius. Constantine
undoubtedly ruled from the Roman Wall in Scotland to the borders of
Khurdistan, and to Mount Atlas, just as Diocletian did.
The restoration of the Empire had begun under Diocletian, and it must
also have quite recovered under the rule of Constantine and his sons.
One great drawback, however, was the very heavy weight of taxation which
Diocletian had devised and Constantine had completed, and the system of
indictions. A province was valued in the lump, and assessed at a fixed
sum, which was divided into _capita_ (quotas); and these _capita_ were
imposed in an arbitrary manner, sometimes several of them on one man,
and sometimes one on several persons. The details of this system are not
yet sifted as much as one would wish, although Savigny has written a
very fine treatise on the subject.[65] The chief revenues were those
which were derived from the land-tax, and from personal taxes. These
burthens daily became more oppressive as the expense of the army
increased, which was more and more composed of mercenaries. It is
evident that the value of every kind of produce had now quite fallen
off, and with this the complete change of the monetary system was
connected. In the third century, silver of a very bad standard was
coined, but the currency was not changed: the state seems to have paid
in bad silver, and to have required gold in exchange at the rate of good
old silver. The sesterces are done away with, and henceforth we meet
with the _aurei_, which were formerly mentioned only in connexion with
the pay of the soldiers, and even then but seldom. This most wretched
coinage, of which all the collections of the kind in Europe may afford
specimens,—these chiefly belong to the times between Valerian and
Probus,—gave occasion for a great deal of counterfeit money, of which
the dies and the whole apparatus have every now and then been found in
France. The bad money also accounts for the strange story in Aurelian’s
life of an insurrection, of which the master of the mint is said to have
been the prime mover. Aurelian, in fact, may have tried to bring in
again the good currency, whereas the master of the mint, on his side,
may have found his profit in the bad money; just as Itzig and others did
in the Seven Years’ War. Constantine, however, made the _aureus_
lighter, in the ratio of 72 to 45, which, as it was a very great relief
to the rate payers and to those who were in debt, was a very wise
measure. On the whole, there are among his laws not a few sensible and
beneficial ones. Others, on the contrary, are mischievous; for instance,
he pressed very hardly upon the municipalities.
Historians say that in the beginning of his reign, Constantine was
_optimis principibus accensendus_; but afterwards _mediis_, or _vix
mediis_. Gibbon judged of him with great fairness; otherwise, he has met
with scarcely any but fanatical admirers or detractors, and the manner
in which he was idolized by the Eastern church is so bad, that one might
easily go into the other extreme. The war against Maxentius was a
benefit, and the subjects also of Licinius were freed by his defeat from
a very harsh master. The death of Licinius, on the other hand, and that
of Crispus, are very ugly facts: but we ought not, after all, to be
harder upon Constantine than upon others. His motives in establishing
the Christian religion are something very strange indeed. The religion
there was in his head, must have been a rare jumble. On his coins, he
has the _Sol invictus_; he worships pagan deities, consults the
_haruspices_, holds heathen superstitions; and yet he shuts up the
temples and builds churches. As the president of the Nicene council, we
can only look upon him with disgust: he was himself no Christian at all,
and he would only be baptized when in _articulo mortis_. He had taken up
the Christian Faith as a superstition, which he mingled with all his
other superstitions. When therefore eastern writers speak of him as an
ἰσαπόστολος, they do not know what they are saying; and to call him even
a saint, is a profanation of the word.
In other respects, Constantine was not a bad man. He had much about him
which was like Hadrian, except only as to learning, in which he was very
deficient; for though indeed he knew Greek very well, he was destitute
of every literary accomplishment: the increasing irritability of the
last years of his life, which betrayed him into deeds of cruelty, he has
in common with Hadrian. Well known is the unfortunate death of his son
Crispus, whom he first banished to Pola, and then caused to be executed:
but as yet no proof has been brought to show that he died innocent. His
father refused him the title of Augustus, and he was also the son of a
repudiated wife; so that hence may have arisen feelings of jealousy
against the children of Fausta, his brothers, and he may thus have been
drawn into a plot against his father. Yet, even then, his death must be
deemed a shocking event. There is another story, which is that
Constantine’s wife Fausta was suffocated in a bath by his orders.
Against this, Gibbon has raised very weighty objections, as even after
Constantine’s death, Fausta was still alive: in the accounts, she is
represented as a Phædra. In the meanwhile, Constantine had founded a new
Rome in Constantinople, of which the situation is so fine. With his
three half brothers, Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, he lived
in exemplary harmony. Hannibalianus died without issue; Dalmatius had
two sons, Hannibalianus and Dalmatius; Julius Constantius likewise had
two, Julian and Gallus: he himself had three sons, Constantine,
Constans, and Constantius. He now, towards the end of his life, divided
the empire among these three sons and the children of Dalmatius; and he
died at Nicomedia, after having completed his darling city of
Constantinople, A. D. 337.
THE SUCCESSORS OF CONSTANTINE. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. JOVIAN. VALENTINIAN
I. VALENS, GRATIAN. VALENTINIAN II. THEODOSIUS THE GREAT. MAXIMUS.
It would seem that people are wrong in thinking it strange that
Constantine should also have appointed Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. He
did it, not because they had any claims; but without doubt that he might
be able, if any dissensions should arise between his sons, to throw one
weight more into the scale; so that his family might, at all events be
kept on the throne. His wish to promote harmony was not, however,
fulfilled. The causes of the outbreak are by no means clear, nor do we
know how it happened that the provisions of the will were not adhered
to: the statements which have been made about it, may have some truth in
them, but they sound rather apocryphal. Just as little can we make out
how far Constantius was guilty: heathens and orthodox Christians unite
in their hatred against him, which is perhaps the reason why he seems to
us still blacker than he really was. In short, there broke out a
military insurrection at Constantinople; the will of Constantine was
declared to be a forgery; the brothers of Constantine, and the two
princes Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were killed, and with them the
_præfectus prætorio_ Ablavius, and many other followers of Constantine.
The division was now made in the manner which we have already seen in
the times of Aurelian and Diocletian: Constantine, the eldest brother,
who was twenty-one years of age, got the West, and had Gaul, Spain, and
Britain; Constans, who was twenty, the _præfectura Italiæ_, and also
Illyricum; and Constantius, who was a youth of seventeen, the
_præfectura orientis_. Constantius was soon involved in a war with Sapor
king of Persia, which lasted with uninterrupted ill success from 337 to
361. Constantine and Constans likewise soon became at feud, as the
former demanded from his brother the cession of Africa as a compensation
to maintain the balance of power, because Constans had Illyricum and
Dalmatia:—it seems that Constantine likewise had Rhætia and Noricum.
Constantine (who on coins is called _junior_) burst upon the states of
Constans from the Norican frontier; but soon met with a decisive
overthrow, and lost his life. Constans now took possession of the West,
for which Constantius may have had a slight compensation in Illyricum.
Constans enjoyed his triumph for some years, but at last had his reward.
He was a worthless prince. Of the three brothers, Constantius seems to
have been the most bearable, although he himself also was not good for
much: he was entirely under the government of his chamberlains the
eunuchs, who, quite in the Persian fashion, held the first place in his
court. Constans was a profligate, violent man, and thus he gave rise to
much exasperation in Gaul where he resided. In that country lived
Magnentius, a general of barbarian origin, altogether rude and
illiterate, who very likely could not even read nor write:—such a thing
would have been impossible in the second century, and it is a proof of
the utter degeneracy of the times, that such ignorant people could
become generals. Magnentius raised a rebellion at Autun, on which
Constans fled, trying to reach the sea so as to cross over to Africa;
but before he was able to embark, he was overtaken and slain at
Illiberis (also called Helena) in Roussillon by the horsemen of his foe.
Against Magnentius, another general, Vetranio, arose in Illyria; but he
sought to connect himself with Constantius, and being welcomed as a
friend and enticed into a conference, he had to lay down his diadem at
the feet of his ally, who was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers. On
this occasion, Constantius did not show himself cruel. He now marched
against Magnentius, and near Mursa (which is now Essek in Sclavonia), he
won a victory over a superior force: in this battle, he seems to have
behaved well. Magnentius then fled to Italy: but every body there
zealously espoused the cause of Constantius, and he afterwards lost
another battle in Gaul; so that no other choice was left him but to take
away his own life. Constantius was now sole ruler again.
In the meanwhile, the affairs of the East had got a great deal worse. Of
nine great battles in the Persian war, eight were decidedly unfavourable
to the Romans: the night-engagement alone near Singara, was somewhat of
a success; but even then their attack upon the camp was likewise a
failure. Constantius gave his cousin Gallus the name of Constantius, and
the dignity of Cæsar: he may even have thought of adopting the children
of his uncle, as he had not any children of his own. Julian and Gallus,
the sons of Julius Constans, had by a lucky chance been preserved in the
general tumult after Constantine’s death, the former of these being six,
and the latter twelve years old at the time of their father’s murder:
Constantius’ having no children had saved their lives. They were removed
from the court, and kept prisoners in a castle of the old Cappadocian
kings near Cæsarea, not being allowed to go out of the bounds of the
district; they, however, received a careful education, for which Julian
was most happily fitted, but Gallus had no capacity whatever. In this
manner they lived, until Constantius (when he marched against
Magnentius, an affair which engaged him for two years) sent for Gallus,
and must have adopted him. He made him Cæsar, and gave him the command
of the East, where Sapor was carrying on the war very sluggishly, having
perhaps plenty to do on the borders of India, and on the banks of the
Oxus. Gallus made a very bad use of his good luck: he and his wife
Constantina, the daughter of the great Constantine, were equally savage
and cruel, and the East suffered severely. When Constantius had ended
the war in the West, the grievances of the East reached his ears. Gallus
had murdered two commissioners of the emperor, who had been sent to
watch him: this deserved to be punished. He was summoned to
Constantinople without his having any the least foreboding of what
awaited him; in Thrace, he was separated from his legions, which in the
meanwhile were made to take the oaths to Constantius; then he was
arrested, and brought to trial, and, as he was not able to clear
himself, executed at Pola, where Crispus also had been put to death.
The emperor now sent (A. D. 355) for Julian, who by the Christian
writers is called _Apostata_, παραβάτης, while the few pagan ones of
later times, Eunapius, Zosimus, and Libanius, speak of him with
enthusiastic epithets, and cannot exalt him too highly: he was
twenty-four years of age. Constantius proclaimed him emperor, on which
he went to court with a trembling heart, expecting to meet there with
his death; but he found a friendly reception, and even a protectress in
the empress Eusebia. He was married to the princess Helena, who in all
likelihood was much older than himself. He had some time before that
been set free from captivity, and allowed to reside in Ionia and at
Athens, for which last place his heart yearned. He was a true Greek,
having always lived in Hellenized countries. Greek was his mother
tongue: he thought and felt like a Greek, Latin being to him as a
foreign language. Constantius bestowed on him the command of Gaul, the
whole of which land he himself, for the sake of making a diversion in
his war against Magnentius, had brought into a wretched plight by
abandoning it to the Alemanni and the Franks. Of this they had made a
fearful use: Cologne, Mentz, Treves, Tongres, all the towns in Roman
Germany were sacked and burned to ashes; the whole country was thrown
into a state of desolation from which it did not recover. The Franks
were already settled in northern Brabant, and the Alemanni on both banks
of the Rhine; the Roman _limes_ was lost altogether. Julian, although
the forces which he had were most ill-fitted to free Gaul from these
enemies, fulfilled his task very well: the Roman discipline was very
much fallen off, so that the soldiers looked upon their antagonists as
one would upon a superior foe; and besides this, the intrigues at court,
perhaps without any fault of Constantius, were busily employed in
foiling Julian’s undertaking. In five campaigns, he marched as Cæsar
against the Germans, and won brilliant victories over the Franks and the
Alemanni; but though he more than once crossed the Rhine, he never
penetrated far into Germany. At the end of his warfare, he had regained
possession of the _limes_ from Helvetia to the Lower Rhine: yet he was
obliged to leave the Franks in Belgium, though indeed they acknowledged
the supremacy of Rome, and furnished troops for which she paid money.
After these splendid successes, when he had gotten the love of the
soldiers and the provincials, the intrigues at court revived: they
wanted to take away from him the most considerable part of his army; his
soldiers were to leave him, and to set out for the East. But as these
had become quite domesticated in the province, being bound to it by
family ties, inasmuch as on the whole they had been changed about but
little; they were filled with despair when they were told to march,
and—so say Julian and his partisans—giving loose to their ill humour,
they renounced Constantius and had proclaimed Julian emperor. Now it is
indeed possible that the agitation originated with the soldiers; at
least, there is nothing said anywhere to the contrary: but, for all
that, I cannot believe that he was so amazingly conscientious as he
makes himself out to have been, especially as with all his great
qualities, there was a good deal of ostentation about Julian. Certain it
is that he made overtures to Constantius, and that he wanted to be his
colleague as Augustus; but Constantius, although he had no children of
his own, was foolish enough not to enter into them, and chose rather to
embark in a civil war, when Sapor had already taken Singara and Amida,
and was now threatening the whole of the East. Blood would have been
shed, had not his death luckily put a stop to it. Constantius, who often
kept his court at Antioch, was on his way from thence to Constantinople,
travelling in the wake of his army, when he died in Cilicia, whilst
Julian was already approaching.
Constantius’ reign is particularly remarkable for the Arian persecution
of the Homoousians and the orthodox party, especially of the great
Bishop Athanasius. The latter displayed in it a wonderful strength of
character, and the most striking power over the minds of a vast
population: of this one may find the details in the ecclesiastical
history of that lover of truth, the Abbé Fleury. During his reign,
likewise, was the Arian council of Rimini held, which was directed
against that of Nice; but other councils, particularly in Julian’s days,
very soon renounced it.
Julian’s is an ever memorable name, which has sometimes been overrated
beyond measure, and on the other hand cried down in the most unworthy
manner. Distinguished men of most opposite minds have during the last
fifty years turned their attention to him; first of all, Gibbon, who was
not, however, carried away by his anti-christian feelings, but very
readily acknowledges his weak points; then Eckhel in his work on coins,
wherein he shows so much candour of judgment, that I altogether refer
you to him; and last of all, Neander, whose treatise on Julian is
excellent.
Julian was a man of uncommon talent: one has only to read his writings
to see this. He was truly Attic; since Dio Chrysostom, Greece has not
had such an elegant Attic writer: he is far superior to Libanius. That
he was a distinguished general, a humane and paternal ruler in Gaul,
is beyond all doubt: he was also great in delaying to march against
Constantius, that in the meanwhile he might still fight against the
barbarians, so as to hinder them from breaking out. The purity of his
morals was spotless; his passions were completely under control: his
only happiness was to live entirely in thought. Yet, leaving aside the
truth of the Christian religion, we cannot but acknowledge that the
attempt to revive Paganism was a downright absurdity. Heathenism, as a
real popular faith, had long since been dead; its place had been taken
by Neo-Platonism, the groundwork of which indeed was Monotheism, and
which was ingeniously tricked out with a good deal of eastern
demonology and theology, with theurgy and thaumaturgy. All the old
legends of the gods had been allegorized: people saw in Homer and the
other old writers everything but what the Greeks had seen in them. Had
the religion still lived in tradition, it would have still been able
to make a struggle, now it was impossible. This artificial,
new-fangled system, which itself was partly borrowed from
Christianity, was at most suited for one or two Metaphysicians.
Besides Julian and his counsellors and court-philosophers, such a
creed could not have numbered five hundred or a thousand followers:
moreover there was in the provinces a crowd of negative partisans, who
only cared to oppose Christianity. It was, therefore, in fact a
counter-revolutionary undertaking: he wished to introduce a hierarchy
into paganism, to create quite a new heathen religion which was much
nearer Gnosticism than that of the Hellenes, to which indeed it was
diametrically opposed. As it was impossible for him to carry this
through, he was driven to use tyranny and craft; and yet he could not
succeed after all. Christianity was certainly far from being the faith
of the majority as yet; but it had firmly taken root.
The lines of Prudentius[66] on Julian are the best thing which has been
said of him, doing the greatest honour, both to him who made them, and
to him on whom they were made:—
——_Ductor fortissimus armis,
Conditor et legum celeberrimus, ore manuque
Consultor patriæ;——
Perfidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi._
The absurdities of Julian in the whole of this undertaking are manifest:
hence arose his follies and his tyrannical acts, however mild he may
otherwise have been. The late Count Stolberg thought that the whole life
at the court of his uncle Constantius, which was looked upon as
Christian, was his full excuse. Julian with a cruel sneer forbade the
Christians to read the classic authors in their schools: “Ye despise
them,” said he, “and ye will have nothing to do with the heathen gods;
well then, ye ought not to know anything of their literature either.” In
many particular cases, he showed the greatest partiality; not only when
the pagans again took possession of the temples which had been shut up,
and of the estates which belonged to them, but also in actual
litigations. Real persecutions were out of question; but religion was
made a source of suffering.
Having already set out for the East against Constantius, he continued
his march even after his death. He staid for a year in Antioch, where
his philosophical strictness came into conflict with the frivolity and
luxury of the people. Since the days of Hadrian it had been the fashion
to wear beards; but, as Constantine and his sons used to shave, Julian,
so long as he was at court, was obliged to do the same: in Gaul,
however, he let his beard grow again, as it was a badge of the Greek
philosophers; and for this the people of Antioch now railed at him, From
Libanius and John Chrysostom, we learn that they were a thoroughly good
for nothing set, having all the vices of an overgrown city. By them he
was now received with hatred: there may have been, ever since the time
of Constantius, a hostile party to him in the place; his simplicity,
which indeed was carried to the verge of affectation, was offensive to
them. Another thing in his way, was the Christian religion, which,
although in the East it certainly was still that of the minority, had
both life and energy, whilst the other religions were split by
dissensions. There is no denying that Constantine’s Christianity was an
abortion; but he became a Christian, because in the empire of Galerius
and Licinius the sect of the Christians was the most numerous: the West
was attached to him, even without it, from his father’s time. In Rome,
the fashionable world were still polytheists; but of the people properly
so called, many thousands already professed the Christian faith.
Constantine had the advantage which the leaders of exclusive bodies
always have: hence also arose such a powerful party against Julian. To
this quarrel we owe the Misopogon, one of the prettiest pieces which
Greek literature has produced during the period of its revival. Here, as
well as in his _Cæsares_, Julian shows a good deal of wit and
liveliness.
He now undertook the war against Persia, which seems to have been
interrupted hitherto by other wars. The plan was beautifully devised,
only he had reckoned a great deal too much on everything turning out
well. He intended to march with his army along the banks of the
Euphrates, where supplies could always be procured by means of the
river; then to transport his fleet by canals into the Tigris, and thus
strike a deadly blow into the heart of the enemy: it was perhaps his
object to make Babylon a province. From Nisibis in Mesopotamia,
Procopius and Sebastian were to cross the Tigris and join him in the
plains of Armenia. Then he made sure that the Armenians, from whom, in
the last years of Constantine the Great (or under Constantius),
Aderbidjan had been wrested by Sapor, would advance against Media; and
no doubt he also reckoned upon the Iberians, whom Sapor had again
brought under his rule. But in Armenia and Iberia, Julian’s religious
opinions were in his way: the Armenian princes were Arsacidæ and
Christians, and therefore hostile to the Persians even because of their
bigoted Magianism; yet they were still more hostile to the Ἀποστάτης.
They would have been little inclined to give him help, even if a man
like Tiridates, who gained such distinction in Galerius’ war, had been
at their head; but they were now governed by a prince of very little
spirit. The Armenians therefore kept neutral; the Iberians even showed
themselves to be the foes of the Romans. Procopius and Sebastian met
with immense difficulties in their undertaking, and they were not the
men to overcome them. Julian marched down along the Euphrates; but he
had started on his expedition too late. For the summer is so hot there,
that he ought to have set out even in the midst of winter, so as to
reach Babylon in the real season of spring, that is to say, in March or
April; for in the middle of April, summer begins in those countries, and
they have already got in the harvest. But he did not set out before
March, when he came down the Euphrates: his approach struck the Persians
with the utmost dismay. After having reduced two strong towns, he
arrived before Ctesiphon, where he expected to find Procopius and
Sebastian waiting for him. Thus far, all his operations are masterly,
and they show his great skill as a general; but he had not thought that
Ctesiphon was so strongly fortified as it really was: (its
fortifications must have been erected since the time of Carus, as
Trajan, Septimius Severus, and Carus had taken it). He became convinced
that he should not be able to effect anything here with his army; yet
this conviction came too late. He was quite right in not attempting to
storm the place, as his soldiers wanted him to do: his fatal blunder was
not a military one. Sapor had repeatedly sued for peace in the most
pressing manner; but Julian wished, as it would seem, altogether to
destroy the Persian empire, so that he might no more be hindered by a
war in the East when facing his enemies in the West and in the North.
The Persian empire still continued to be made up of vassal kingdoms, and
therefore it would certainly have been possible to dismember it. But he
ought, after all, to have contented himself with the peace which was
within his reach, and thus in all likelihood he might have obtained the
cession of Aderbijan,—perhaps even more than that, everything indeed but
Babylon; but he was dreaming of a success, with regard to which the
scales fell from his eyes eight days after the last ambassadors had left
him. While Sapor was arming with great energy, Julian was unable to do
anything against Ctesiphon, and the army of Procopius did not come up:
he now found himself obliged to retreat. As it was impossible to drag
the fleet up the river, he resolved upon destroying it and leading the
army back again across the hills of Assyria. This retreat in the hot,
burning plains, surrounded by the Persian cavalry, in the dogdays, under
the sky of Babylon, was an almost hopeless undertaking: harassed by
continual skirmishes he was obliged to leave behind every one of the
killed and wounded; all the stragglers died, the Persians spoiling the
water for them. Nevertheless the army might have held out for five days
longer, when it would have reached the high ground where it would have
been safe; but on the 26th of July, Julian was mortally wounded: his
death caused the deepest dejection. Whether he was killed by a traitor,
or by one of the enemy, is a question which it is quite useless to enter
into: the joy of his domestic enemies was at least greater than that of
his foreign ones. As it was found necessary to proceed to an election at
once, the _præfectus prætorio_, Sallustius, unfortunately for the
empire, declared that he was too old to take upon himself the imperial
dignity; and thus the choice fell upon Jovian. The new emperor concluded
a peace, giving up Nisibis and the five provinces beyond the Tigris; and
at this price, Sapor granted him a free retreat and the needful supplies
for his army.
Jovian seems to have been a very commonplace kind of man, of whom,
however, on the other hand, not much ill can be said: great merit is due
to him for his edict for absolute freedom of belief, as he himself was a
Christian. At the end of a year and a half, while following the army
into the West, he died suddenly at Ancyra. The reports of a violent
death are not to be trusted, any more than that of his having died from
having used a pan of burning charcoal.
After his death, there was again the same difficulty about the election
of his successor. His son being an infant, the consulship was then for
the first time profaned by a child being inscribed in the Fasti.
Sallustius again declined to be elected, and so Valentinian, an
Illyrian, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Persian war, came
to the throne (365). It is remarkable that in all these appointments we
meet no more with any trace of donations: in the case of Probus, they
had already been lowered to a tenth (twenty _aurei_ = 100 dollars); now
in the fourth century, we no longer find any at all. Valentinian, a few
weeks after his accession, took Valens, his brother, as his colleague:
in this he gratified the wishes of the public, who, however, would have
looked for an able man, such a one, for instance, as Dagalaiphus.
Valentinian is a remarkable being, one of those characters of which it
is difficult to give a brief opinion. Distinguished as a general, he
raised up the state again when it was rapidly sinking; and he won
splendid trophies in a war with the Alemanni and Franks, and also in a
war with the Sarmatians. He also kept order in his realm. Many
praiseworthy laws and decrees of his are still extant; and although he
was himself an uneducated man, he did what he could for science and
learning: he also severely punished tyrannical governors and reckless
judges. But he was cruel; and whenever he was offended, or suspected a
conspiracy, he gave free vent to his rage. It may therefore be supposed
that the higher classes did not feel comfortable under his rule, whilst
the common people, on the other hand, were fond of him. His brother
Valens was not bloodthirsty, but implacable and cruel; and the more
implacable, the more cowardly he was. His government was far from doing
the good which that of Valentinian did; besides which, he was a
fanatical Arian, and exerted all his power to crush the Homoousians or
Athanasians. For this reason, the memory of his reign is deservedly
hateful with the writers of the Church. Valentinian was also an Arian;
but he always allowed a just liberty in matters of faith, oppressing
neither heathens nor Athanasians. From year to year, the Christians went
on increasing; and Manichæism also spread, though not at the expense of
orthodoxy, but of the old gnostic sects, which daily dwindled more and
more. Against the foreigner, the empire was powerful: with Persia, it
was at peace, and old Sapor remained quiet. Valentinian had two sons: by
his first wife he had Gratian, and by his second Valentinian II., an
infant. Gratian was an amiable boy, and great care was bestowed upon his
education. Valentinian, who had much good sense, had keenly felt his own
want of learning; but it is not to be wondered at, that owing to this
deficiency he erred in the choice of a master. He thought that he had
found in Ausonius an excellent tutor for Gratian; just as Antoninus had
been mistaken in Fronto.
At the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian was seventeen years of age,
and really able to hold the reins of government. During the first years
of his reign, his rule was all that one could wish; for he behaved with
justice and lenity, and allowed of religious freedom. Taking possession
of Italy and the West, he left the East to his uncle Valens, upon whom
there soon fell a fearful visitation. The Goths, who since the days of
Claudius and Aurelian had settled in Dacia, invaded the Roman empire
under Hermanric, whose memory has been handed down in the Heldenbuch,
and in the Icelandic Sagas.—The lay of the Nibelungen is originally
Gothic, from which language it has been paraphrased.—Whether Hermanric
belongs to the time in which Jornandes places him, is a question hard to
answer; I for my part rather believe him to have been much earlier: but
an historical person he is. In short, there was once upon a time a great
Gothic empire in the South-east of Europe, which was destroyed by the
Huns. I am likewise convinced that De Guigne’s idea of the early history
of the Huns is incorrect: they were a powerful nomadic people of
Mongolian race, quite distinct from the Southern Asiatics and the
Europæans; and they make their appearance like the other nations of the
tablelands of Upper Asia.
The Goths were divided into three tribes, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths,
and the Gepidæ. They were anything but uncivilized, and as a people they
had been Christians much sooner than the inhabitants of the Roman
empire: when they overran it, the great majority of them had already
embraced Christianity. It is now certain that the Huns, from reasons
which are unknown to us, pushed their way to the Danube, driving the
Goths before them. Among the latter, the Visigoths were the most
numerous: they had a national civilization of their own, and already
possessed an alphabet invented for them by Ulphilas. Being unable to
resist the Huns, they in their distress now besought the Romans, with
whom they had long been at peace, to harbour them within their empire.
It would then undoubtedly have been the true policy of the Romans, to
put forth all their strength to keep the Visigoths as they were, by
fighting for them in their own country: but this was not thought of at
all, the only question being, whether they should be received or not.
They were admitted, though on condition that they should lay down their
arms and disperse themselves throughout the empire. But this proved to
be impossible. The fear of the Huns driving them onwards, they threw
themselves into skiffs and on rafts, caring only to get over; and on the
other hand, the Romans who had been stationed to receive them, were not
sufficient for the duty, and moreover were guilty of much dishonesty:
for they allowed themselves to be bribed to let the barbarians keep
their arms. Nothing was done that ought to have been done, and
everything was done that ought not to have been done. The Goths were not
dispersed, but allowed to remain together; yet all the while they were
treated with cruelty and plundered: though a promise had been made to
supply them with necessaries until they were settled, it was taken
advantage of by the Romans to extort exorbitant prices from them. This
the Goths bore with great patience; (there were then as yet only the
Visigoths, the Ostrogoths being still in the mountains:) they must have
been immensely rich, as the Romans made them pay quite incredible sums.
At last, however, they were goaded into fury by this ill treatment; and
at Marcianopolis (in the neighbourhood of Schumla), the insurrection
broke out, and soon became general. At the head of the Visigoths, who
had no kings, were two judges, one of whom, Fritigern, a really great
man, conducted the war in a resolute manner. While the infatuated Romans
had never thought it possible that their crimes should have led to such
consequences, the whole of these Goths were all at once under arms, and
they overran Mœsia and Thrace. They in vain made attempts against
several towns, as for instance, Philippopolis; but the open country lay
entirely a prey to them. The dismay was dreadful. The Ostrogoths, who
soon followed, rushed into the places which the Western Goths had left;
yet otherwise the Goths of the East and those of the West are in every
respect two essentially different peoples.—Valens, now roused from his
listlessness, secured for himself a peace with Persia, and led the
legions of the East into the field: the Goths were besieging Adrianople.
He then summoned Gratian from the West to his assistance. Had he waited
for his arrival, it would perhaps have been still possible to withstand
the whole shock of this migration of nations. The Visigoths were one
great mass of warriors, amounting to nearly two hundred thousand
fighting men; and had they failed against Adrianople, the change of the
world would not have happened as it did. Valens, although he was
anything but a general, conducted the war, being resolved upon venturing
what he ought never to have risked. This he did, however, from jealousy
against Gratian, who was approaching in forced marches, after having
already gained a brilliant victory over the Alemanni; and instead of
waiting for a few weeks to be joined by him, he undertook the attack
single handed. Thus the battle was completely lost: two-thirds of the
Roman army were killed, and among them Valens himself. The Goths now
overran the whole diocese of Illyricum, and Thrace, extending their
inroads even as far as the gates of Constantinople: it is true that they
were not able to possess themselves of the towns; but the open country
was thoroughly laid waste by them, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea,
and to the borders of Greece. Six years now follow, the history of which
is utterly obscure.
When Valens had fallen, Gratian, seeing the impossibility of undertaking
alone the defence of the whole Roman world, called Theodosius to be his
colleague. This resolution of Gratian’s does him great honour, as it
proves him to have been capable of the feelings of a great man.
Theodosius was the son of a most distinguished person, who in the
earlier days of Gratian had recovered Britain and Africa, but had been
put to death, though guiltless, on a malignant charge. He was a native
of Spain, a province which had likewise given birth to the Emperors
Trajan and Hadrian, to whom, however, he was not related: he came from
the neighbourhood of Valladolid; the other two were from Seville. He is
rightly surnamed the Great: he achieved great things in a great manner,
being indeed the last great emperor, if we set aside Majorian whose
unlucky star was too powerful for him. His defects were passion and
rage, which, however, were allied to his great qualities; but his worst
fault was, that after great exertions, he would often give himself
entirely up to sloth, and in matters of government become the tool of
many an unworthy man, to whom he had given his confidence. Theodosius
had a task at which one shudders: with the remaining forces of the
Eastern empire,—for the West was no longer able to support him,—he was
to keep the Goths at bay. Yet he not only set them bounds, but he also
succeeded in disarming them by means of treaties of which we have no
knowledge: in a series of campaigns in which he cut off one tribe from
the other, he so managed to break them up, that they yielded to the
supremacy of Rome. But they remained, as it seems, in Northern
Illyricum, in Mœsia, and in Servia, where they dwelt in the country,
while the towns remained Roman. In Illyricum, there are still to this
day the genuine descendants of the old stock. The Goths lived there
under the Roman sovereignty, and they bound themselves to serve the
empire, as Theodosius found them very useful in his wars, and likewise
there were always Gothic troops in the Roman service: yet they were not
tributary, but in fact received a tribute under the name of pay. Matters
had been thus settled, more especially since the year 384; and so they
remained until the death of Theodosius (395).
The first war into which Theodosius was brought, was in consequence of
the hapless fate of Gratian, who had lost the popularity which he had
enjoyed in the beginning of his reign. For though he was still an
amiable, good youth of blameless morals, Gratian had really ceased to
reign: leaving business to take its own course, he had given himself up
to the frivolous pleasures of the chase; and he surrounded himself with
barbarians, favouring the Alans, and neglecting his native subjects, who
were thus made to rebel against him. At this crisis, there also broke
out a revolt of the troops in Britain under Maximus: Gratian was slain,
and Maximus was proclaimed Emperor, and acknowledged by the whole of the
West. He now offered his friendship to Theodosius, who wisely accepted
it. Maximus was a mild prince: blood he only shed when instigated by the
clergy to religious persecutions. For four years, the friendship
remained undisturbed; Valentinian II. (an infant under the guardianship
of his mother Justina), Maximus, and Theodosius, being now the three
Augusti. But Maximus took upon himself to cross the Alps, and rob
Valentinian of his territory. The youth fled with his mother to
Thessalonica, where they were received by Theodosius, who was induced by
the extraordinary beauty of the princess Galla to interest himself for
the family, and to bring Valentinian back to Italy. Maximus was defeated
at Aquileia, abandoned by his troops, and put to death; and Theodosius
gave the whole of the West to be the government of his brother-in-law
Valentinian, who seemed to have all the good qualities of his father,
without any of his faults. But he was ill-fated. A Frank general named
Arbogastes, the commander of his army, rose against him, as the Mayors
of the Palace did against the Merovingian kings. Valentinian tried to
withstand him, but to his own ruin. He happened then to be at Vienne in
Dauphiné, and there he was strangled by Arbogastes. The latter now
placed on the throne one Eugenius, a courtier of rank, who was _tribunus
notariorum_, that is to say, very much what we would call a cabinet
councillor. Against him, Theodosius now led his army: the decisive
battle was again fought (394) near Aquileia; and there Theodosius
displayed all that talent of his as a general, of which the fine lines
in Claudian tell.[67] He knew how to make the most different
peoples—Goths, Alans, Huns—useful for his ends, and willing to devote
themselves in his cause. The elements also fought for him; a
thunderstorm is said to have hastened the successful issue of the
battle.
The West was now won by Theodosius, and he became emperor of the whole
of the empire. In his last years, he had the weakness to let himself be
entirely guided by Rufinus his favourite, who was his _præfectus
prætorio_. Rufinus was insatiably avaricious and bloodthirsty; so that
even before the death of Theodosius, he caused weeping and wailing
throughout the whole of the empire: here was seen a really noble-hearted
prince under whom the empire was very badly ruled. Antioch once roused
the wrath of the emperor; but Libanius and St. Chrysostom still
succeeded in appeasing him: on another occasion, however, he gave loose
to his rage, and was obliged to do penance. The division of the empire
had under existing circumstances already become so natural, that
Theodosius likewise decided upon it: yet he was inexcusable in dividing
it between his two incapable sons, especially as Honorius was not more
than eleven years old, on which account he gave him Stilicho for
guardian. But the hereditary principle had now so firmly rooted itself,
that Theodosius took it for granted that Stilicho would keep up the
empire for his son, just as in our times a minister or general might do.