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THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
VOLUME IV
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
With a staff of specialists
VOLUME IV
The National Alumni
1905
CONTENTS
VOLUME IV
An Outline Narrative of the Great Events,
CHARLES F. HORNE
Visigoths Pillage Rome (A.D. 410),
EDWARD GIBBON
Huns Invade the Eastern Roman Empire
Attila Dictates a Treaty of Peace (A.D. 441),
EDWARD GIBBON
The English Conquest of Britain (A.D. 449-579),
JOHN R. GREEN
CHARLES KNIGHT
Attila Invades Western Europe
Battle of Châlons (A.D. 451),
SIR EDWARD S. CREASY
EDWARD GIBBON
Foundation of Venice (A.D. 452),
THOMAS HODGKIN
JOHN RUSKIN
Clovis Founds the Kingdom of the Franks
It Becomes Christian (A.D. 486-511),
FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT
Publication of the Justinian Code (A.D. 529-534),
EDWARD GIBBON
Augustine's Missionary Work in England (A.D. 597),
THE VENERABLE BEDE
JOHN R. GREEN
The Hegira: Career of Mahomet
The Koran: and Mahometan Creed (A.D. 622),
WASHINGTON IRVING
SIMON OCKLEY
The Saracen Conquest of Syria (A.D. 636),
SIMON OCKLEY
Saracens Conquer Egypt
Destruction of the Library at Alexandria (A.D. 640),
WASHINGTON IRVING
Evolution of the Dogeship in Venice (A.D. 697),
WILLIAM C. HAZLITT
Saracens in Spain
Battle of the Guadalete (A.D. 711),
AHMED IBN MAHOMET AL-MAKKARI
Battle of Tours (A.D. 732),
SIR EDWARD S. CREASY
Founding of the Carlovingian Dynasty
Pépin the Short Usurps the Frankish Crown (A.D. 751),
FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT
Career of Charlemagne (A.D. 772-814),
FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT
Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon
Heptarchy (A.D. 827),
DAVID HUME
Universal Chronology (A.D. 410-842),
JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME IV
A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for
the life of her husband, Frontispiece
Painting by R. Peacock.
Mahomet, preaching the unity of God, enters Mecca
at the head of his victorious followers,
Painting by A. Mueller.
[Illustration: A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for the
life of her husband
Painting by R. Peacock.]
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT
EVENTS
(FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE)
CHARLES F. HORNE
Our modern civilization is built up on three great corner-stones, three
inestimably valuable heritages from the past. The Græco-Roman
civilization gave us our arts and our philosophies, the bases of
intellectual power. The Hebrews bequeathed to us the religious idea,
which has saved man from despair, has been the potent stimulus to two
thousand years of endurance and hope. The Teutons gave us a healthy,
sturdy, uncontaminated physique, honest bodies and clean minds, the lack
of which had made further progress impossible to the ancient world.
This last is what made necessary the barbarian overthrow of Rome, if the
world was still to advance. The slowly progressing knowledge of the arts
and handicrafts which we have seen passed down from Egypt to Babylonia,
to Persia, Greece, and Rome, had not been acquired without heavy loss.
The system of slavery which allowed the few to think, while the many
were constrained to toil as beasts, had eaten like a canker into the
heart of society. The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the
past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egypt was the
type. Man had become wise, but worthless.
As though on purpose to prove to future generations how utterly
worthless, the Roman civilization was allowed to continue uninterrupted
in one unneeded corner of its former domains. For over a thousand years
the successors of Theodosius and of Constantine held unbroken sway in
the capital which the latter had founded. They only succeeded in
emphasizing how futile their culture had become.
The entire ten centuries that followed the overthrow of Rome have long
been spoken of as the "Dark Ages," but, considering how infinitely
darker those same ages must have become without the intervention of the
Teutons, present criticism begins to protest against the term. All that
was lost with the ancient world was something of intellectual keenness,
something of artistic culture, quickly regained when man was once more
ripe for them. What the Teutons had to offer of infinitely greater
worth, what they had developed in their cold, northern forests, was
their sense of liberty and equality, their love of honesty, their
respect for womankind. It is not too much to say that, without these,
any higher progress was, and always will be, impossible.
In short, the Roman and Grecian races had become impotent and decrepit.
The high destiny of man lay not with them, but with the younger race,
for whom all earlier civilizations had but prepared the way.
Who were these Teutons? Rome knew them only vaguely as wild tribes
dwelling in the gloom of the great forest wilderness. In reality they
were but the vanguard of vast races of human beings who through ages had
been slowly populating all Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Beyond the
Teutons were other Aryans, the Slavs. Beyond these were vague non-Aryan
races like the Huns, content to direct their careers of slaughter
against one another, and only occasionally and for a moment flaring with
red-fire beacons of ruin along the edge of the Aryan world.
Some at least of the Teutonic tribes had grown partly civilized. The
Germans along the Rhine, and the Goths along the Danube, had been from
the time of Augustus in more or less close contact with Rome. Germanicus
had once subdued almost the whole of Germany; later emperors had held
temporarily the broad province of Dacia, beyond the Danube. The
barbarians were eagerly enlisted in the Roman army. During the closing
centuries of decadence they became its main support; they rose to high
commands; there were even barbarian emperors at last. The intermingling
of the two worlds thus became extensive, and the Teutons learned much of
Rome. The Goths whom Theodosius permitted to settle within its dominions
were already partly Christian.
THE PERIOD OF INVASION
It was these same Goths who became the immediate cause of Rome's
downfall. Theodosius had kept them in restraint; his feeble sons scarce
even attempted it. The intruders found a famous leader in Alaric, and,
after plundering most of the Grecian peninsula, they ravaged Italy,
ending in 410 with the sack of Rome itself.[1]
This seems to us, perhaps, a greater event than it did to its own
generation. The "Emperor of the West," the degenerate son of Theodosius,
was not within the city when it fell; and the story is told that, on
hearing the news, he expressed relief, because he had at first
understood that the evil tidings referred to the death of a favorite hen
named Rome. The tale emphasizes the disgrace of the famous capital; it
had sunk to be but one city among many. Alaric's Goths had been
nominally an army belonging to the Emperor of the East; their invasion
was regarded as only one more civil war.
Besides, the Roman world might yet have proved itself big enough to
assimilate and engulf the entire mass of this already half-civilized
people. Its name was still a spell on them. Ataulf, the successor of
Alaric, was proud to accept a Roman title and become a defender of the
Empire. He marched his followers into Gaul under a commission to
chastise the "barbarians" who were desolating it.
These later comers were the instruments of that more overwhelming
destruction for which the Goths had but prepared the way. To resist
Alaric, the Roman legions had been withdrawn from all the western
frontiers, and thus more distant and far more savage tribes of the
Teutons beheld the glittering empire unprotected, its pathways most
alluringly left open. They began streaming across the undefended Rhine
and Danube. Their bands were often small and feeble, such as earlier
emperors would have turned back with ease; but now all this fascinating
world of wealth, so dimly known and doubtless fiercely coveted, lay
helpless, open to their plundering. The Vandals ravaged Gaul and Spain,
and, being defeated by the Goths, passed on into Africa. The Saxons and
Angles penetrated England[2] and fought there for centuries against the
desperate Britons, whom the Roman legions had perforce abandoned to
their fate. The Franks and Burgundians plundered Gaul.
Fortunately the invading tribes were on the whole a kindly race. When
they joyously whirled their huge battle-axes against iron helmets,
smashing down through bone and brain beneath, their delight was not in
the scream of the unlucky wretch within, but in their own vigorous sweep
of muscle, in the conscious power of the blow. Fierce they were, but not
coldly cruel like the ancients. The condition of the lower classes
certainly became no worse for their invasion; it probably improved. Much
the new-comers undoubtedly destroyed in pure wantonness. But there was
much more that they admired, half understood, and sought to save.
Behind them, however, came a conqueror of far more terrible mood. We
have seen that when the Goths first entered Roman territory they were
driven on by a vast migration of the Asiatic Huns. These wild and
hideous tribes then spent half a century roaming through central Europe,
ere they were gathered into one huge body by their great chief, Attila,
and in their turn approached the shattered regions of the
Mediterranean.[3] Their invasion, if we are to trust the tales of their
enemies, from whom alone we know of them, was incalculably more
destructive than all those of the Teutons combined. The Huns delighted
in suffering; they slew for the sake of slaughter. Where they passed
they left naught but an empty desert, burned and blackened and devoid of
life.
Crossing the Danube, they ravaged the Roman Empire of the East almost
without opposition. Only the impregnable walls of Constantinople
resisted the destruction. A few years later the savage horde appeared
upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul. No people had
yet understood them, none had even checked their career. The white races
seemed helpless against this "yellow peril," this "Scourge of God," as
Attila was called.
Goths and Romans and all the varied tribes which were ranging in
perturbed whirl through unhappy Gaul laid aside their lesser enmities
and met in common cause against this terrible invader. The battle of
Châlons, 451,[4] was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was
ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant,
unprogressive races, for earth's mastery.
Old chronicles rise into poetry at thought of that immeasurable battle.
They figure the slain by hundred thousands; they describe the souls of
the dead as rising above the bodies and continuing their furious
struggle in the air. Attila was checked and drew back. Defeated we can
scarce call him, for only a year or so later we find him ravaging Italy.
Fugitives fleeing before him to the marshes lay the first stones of
Venice.[5] Leo, the great Pope, pleads with him for Rome. His forces,
however, are obviously weaker than they were. He retreats; and after his
death his irresponsible followers disappear forever in the wilderness.
THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT
Toward the close of this tumultuous fifth century, the various Teutonic
tribes show distinct tendencies toward settling down and forming
kingdoms amid the various lands they have overrun. The Vandals build a
state in Africa, and from the old site of Carthage send their ships to
the second sack of Rome. The Visigoths form a Spanish kingdom, which
lasts over two hundred years. The Ostrogoths construct an empire in
Italy (493-554), and, under the wise rule of their chieftain Theodoric,
men joyfully proclaim that peace and happiness and prosperity have
returned to earth. Most important of all in its bearing upon later
history, the Franks under Clovis begin the building of France.[6]
Encouraged by these milder days, the Roman emperors of Constantinople
attempt to reclaim their old domain. The reign of Justinian begins
(527-565), and his great general Belisarius temporarily wins back for
him both Africa and Italy. This was a comparatively unimportant detail,
a mere momentary reversal of the historic tide. Justinian did for the
future a far more noted service.
If there was one subject which Roman officials had learned thoroughly
through their many generations of rule, it was the set of principles by
which judges must be guided in their endeavor to do justice. Long
practical experience of administration made the Romans the great
law-givers of antiquity. And now Justinian set his lawyers to work to
gather into a single code, or "digest," all the scattered and elaborate
rules and decisions which had place in their gigantic system.[7]
It is this Code of Justinian which, handed down through the ages, stands
as the basis of much of our law to-day. It shapes our social world, it
governs the fundamental relations between man and man. There are not
wanting those who believe its principles are wrong, who aver that man's
true attitude toward his fellows should be wholly different from its
present artificial pose. But whether for better or for worse we live
to-day by Roman law.
This law the Teutons were slowly absorbing. They accepted the general
structure of the world into which they had thrust themselves; they
continued its style of building and many of its rougher arts; they even
adopted its language, though in such confused and awkward fashion that
Italy, France, and Spain grew each to have a dialect of its own. And
most important of all, they accepted the religion, the Christian
religion of Rome. Missionaries venture forth again. Augustine preaches
in England.[8] Boniface penetrates the German wilds.
It must not be supposed that the moment a Teuton accepted baptism he
became filled with a pure Christian spirit of meekness and of love. On
the contrary, he probably remained much the same drunken, roistering
heathen as before. But he was brought in contact with noble examples in
the lives of some of the Christian bishops around him; great truths
began to touch his mobile nature; he was impressed, softened; he began
to think and feel.
Given a couple of centuries of this, we really begin to see some very
encouraging results. We realize that for once we are being allowed to
study a civilization in its earlier stages, to be present almost at its
birth, to watch the methods of the Master-builder in the making of a
race. Gazing at similar developments in the days of Egypt and Babylon,
we guessed vaguely that they must have been of slowest growth. Here at
last one takes place under our eyes, and it does not need so many ages
after all. There is no study more fascinating than to trace the slow
changes stamping themselves ineradicably upon the Teutonic mind and soul
during these misty far-off centuries of turmoil.
On the whole, of course, the sixth, seventh, and even the eighth
centuries form a period of strife. The Teutons had spent too many ages
warring against one another in petty strife to abandon the pleasure in a
single generation. Men fought because they liked fighting, much as they
play football to-day. Then, too, there came another great outburst of
Semite religious enthusiasm. Mahomet[9] started the Arabs on their
remarkable career of conquest.
THE MAHOMETAN OUTBURST
Mahomet himself died (632) before he had fully established his influence
even over Arabia: his successors had practically to reconquer it. Yet
within five years of his death the Arabs had mastered Syria.[10] They
spread like some sudden, unexpected, immeasurable whirlwind. Ancient
Persia went down before them. By 640 they had trampled Egypt under foot,
and destroyed the celebrated Alexandrian library.[11] They swept over
all Africa, completely obliterating every trace of Vandal or of Roman.
Their dominion reached farther east than that of Alexander. They wrested
most of its Asiatic possessions from the pretentious Empire at
Constantinople, and reduced that exhausted State to a condition of
weakness from which it never arose. Then, passing on through their
African possessions, they entered Spain and overthrew the kingdom of
the Visigoths.[12] It was a storm whose end no man could measure, whose
coming none could have foreseen. And then, just a century after
Mahomet's death, the Arabs, pressing on through Spain, encountered the
Franks on the plains of France.
A thousand years had passed since Semitic Carthage had fallen before
Aryan Rome. Now once again the Semites, far more dangerous because in
the full tide of the religious frenzy of their race, threatened to
engulf the Aryan world. They were repulsed by the still sturdy Franks
under their great leader, Charles Martel, at Tours. The battle of
Tours[13] was only less momentous to the human race than that of
Châlons. What the Arab domination of Europe would have meant we can
partly guess by looking at the lax and lawless states of Northern Africa
to-day. These fair lands, under both Roman and Vandal, had long been
sharing the lot of Aryan Europe; they seemed destined to follow in its
growth and fortune. But the Arab conquest restored them to Semitism,
made Asia the seat from which they were to have their training, attached
them to the chariot of sloth instead of that of effort. What they are
to-day, all Europe might have been.
Yet with the picture of these fifth and sixth and seventh centuries of
battle full before us, we are not tempted to glory overmuch even in such
victories as Tours and Châlons. We see war for what it has ever
been--the curse of man, the hugest hinderance to our civilization. While
men fight they have small time for thought or art or any soft or kindly
sentiment. The survivors may with good luck develop into a stronger
breed; they are inevitably more brutal.
We thus begin to recognize just how necessary for human progress was the
work Rome had been engaged in. By holding the world at peace, she had
given humankind at least the opportunity to grow. The moment her
restraining hand was shaken off, war sprang up everywhere. Not only do
we find the inheritors of her territory fighting among themselves, they
are exposed to the savagery of Attila, the fury of the Arabs. New bands
of more distant Teutons come, ever pushing in amid their half-settled
brethren, overthrowing them in turn. The Lombards capture Northern
Italy, only Venice remaining safe amid her marshes.[14] The
East-Franks--that is, the semi-barbarians still remaining in the
wilderness--master the more cultured West-Franks, who hold Gaul. No
sooner does civilization start up than it is trodden on.
THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE
At length there arose among the Franks a series of stalwart rulers,
keen-eyed, penetrating somewhat at least into the meaning of their
world, determined to have peace if they must fight for it. Charles
Martel was one of these. Then came his son Pépin,[15] who held out his
hand to the bishops of Rome, acknowledged their vast civilizing
influence, saved them from the Lombards, and joined church and state
once more in harmony. After Pépin came his son, Charlemagne, whose reign
marks an epoch of the world. The peace his fathers had striven for, he
won at last, though only, as they had done, by constant fighting. He
attacked the Arabs and reduced them to permanent feebleness in Spain. He
turned backward the Teutonic movement, marching his Franks into the
German forests, and in campaign after campaign defeating the wild tribes
that still remained there. The strongest of them, the Saxons, accepted
an enforced Christianity. Even the vague races beyond the German borders
were so harried, so weakened, that they ceased to be a serious menace.
Charlemagne[16] had thus in very truth created a new empire. He had
established at least one central spot, so hedged round by border
dependencies that no later wave of barbarians ever quite succeeded in
submerging it. The bones of the great Emperor, in their cathedral
sepulchre at Aix, have never been disturbed by an unfriendly hand, Paris
submitted to no new conquest until over a thousand years later, when the
nineteenth century had stolen the barbarity from war. It was then no
more than a just acknowledgment of Charlemagne's work when, on Christmas
Day of the year 800, as he rose from kneeling at the cathedral altar in
Rome, he was crowned by the Pope whom he had defended, and hailed by an
enthusiastic people as lord of a re-created "Holy Roman Empire."
In England, also, the centuries of warfare among the Britons and the
various antagonistic Teutonic tribes seemed drawing to an end. Egbert
established the "heptarchy";[17] that is, became overlord of all the
lesser kings. Truly for a moment civilization seemed reëstablished. The
arts returned to prominence. England could send so noteworthy a scholar
as Alcuin to the aid of the great Emperor. Charlemagne encouraged
learning; Alcuin established schools. Once more men sowed and reaped in
security. The "Roman peace" seemed come again.
[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME V.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Visigoths Pillage Rome_, page 1.
[2] See _The English Conquest of Britain_, page 55.
[3] See _Huns Invade the Eastern Roman Empire_, page 28.
[4] See _Attila Invades Western Europe_, page 72.
[5] See _Foundation of Venice_, page 95.
[6] See _Clovis Founds the Kingdom of the Franks_, page 113.
[7] See _Publication of the Justinian Code_, page 138.
[8] See _Augustine's Missionary Work in England_, page 182.
[9] See _The Hegira_, page 198.
[10] See _The Saracen Conquest of Syria_, page 247.
[11] See _Saracens Conquer Egypt_, page 278.
[12] See _Saracens in Spain_, page 301.
[13] See _Battle of Tours_, page 313.
[14] See _Evolution of the Dogeship in Venice_, page 292.
[15] See _Founding of the Carlovingian Dynasty_, page 324.
[16] See _Career of Charlemagne_, page 334.
[17] See _Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy_, page 372.
VISIGOTHS PILLAGE ROME
A.D. 410
EDWARD GIBBON
Of the two great historical divisions of the Gothic race the
Visigoths or West Goths were admitted into the Roman Empire in A.D.
376, when they sought protection from the pursuing Huns, and were
transported across the Danube to the Moesian shore. The story of
their gradual progress in civilization and growth in military
power, which at last enabled them to descend with overwhelming
force upon Rome itself, forms one of the romances of history.
From their first reception into Lower Moesia the Visigoths were
subjected to the most contemptuous and oppressive treatment by the
Romans who had admitted them into their domains. At last the
outraged colonists were provoked to revolt, and a stubborn war
ensued, which was ended at Adrianople, August 9, A.D. 378, by the
defeat of the emperor Valens and the destruction of his army,
two-thirds of his soldiers perishing with Valens himself, whose
body was never found.
In 382 a treaty was made which restored peace to the Eastern
Empire, the Visigoths nominally owning the sovereignty of Rome, but
living in virtual independence. They continued to increase in
numbers and in power, and in A.D. 395, under Alaric, their King,
they invaded Greece, but were compelled by Stilicho, in 397, to
retire into Epirus. Stilicho was the commander-in-chief of the
Roman army, and the guardian of the young emperor Honorius. Alaric
soon afterward became commander-in-chief of the Roman forces in
Eastern Illyricum and held that office for four years. During that
time he remained quiet, arming and drilling his followers, and
waiting for the opportunity to make a bold stroke for a wider and
more secure dominion.
In the autumn of A.D. 400, while Stilicho was campaigning in Gaul,
Alaric made his first invasion of Italy, and for more than a year
he ranged at will over the northern part of the peninsula. Rome was
made ready for defence, and Honorius, the weak Emperor of the
Western Empire, prepared for flight into Gaul; but on March 19th of
the year 402, Stilicho surprised the camp of Alaric, near
Pollentia, while most of his followers were at worship, and after a
desperate battle they were beaten. Alaric made a safe retreat, and
soon afterward crossed the Po, intending to march against Rome, but
desertions from his ranks caused him to abandon that purpose. In
403 he was overtaken and again defeated by Stilicho at Verona,
Alaric himself barely escaping capture. Stilicho, however,
permitted him--some historians say, bribed him--to withdraw to
Illyricum, and he was made prefect of Western Illyricum by
Honorius. Such is the prelude, followed in history by the amazing
exploits of Alaric's second invasion of Italy.
His troops having revolted at Pavia, Stilicho fled to Ravenna,
where the ungrateful Emperor had him put to death August 23, 408.
In October of that year Alaric crossed the Alps, advancing without
resistance until he reached Ravenna; after threatening Ravenna he
marched upon Rome and began the preparations that ended in the sack
of the city.
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the
appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable correspondence
with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the
council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures
which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. The King of
the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy
the formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece,
he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred
laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho.
The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal, or hereditary,
influence over the confederate Barbarians, could recommend him only to
the friends of their country, who despised, or detested, the worthless
characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing
instances of the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had
shown themselves of the names of soldiers, were promoted to the command
of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic troops. The Gothic
prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which the
fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout Emperor.
Honorius excluded all persons who were adverse to the Catholic Church
from holding any office in the State; obstinately rejected the service
of all those who dissented from his religion; and rashly disqualified
many of his bravest and most skilful officers who adhered to the pagan
worship or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. These measures, so
advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and might perhaps
have suggested; but it may seem doubtful whether the Barbarian would
have promoted his interest at the expense of the inhuman and absurd
cruelty which was perpetrated by the direction, or at least with the
connivance, of the imperial ministers. The foreign auxiliaries who had
been attached to the person of Stilicho lamented his death; but the
desire of revenge was checked by a natural apprehension for the safety
of their wives and children, who were detained as hostages in the strong
cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most valuable
effects.
At the same hour, and as if by a common signal, the cities of Italy were
polluted by the same horrid scenes of universal massacre and pillage
which involved in promiscuous destruction the families and fortunes of
the Barbarians. Exasperated by such an injury, which might have awakened
the tamest and most servile spirit, they cast a look of indignation and
hope toward the camp of Alaric, and unanimously swore to pursue, with
just and implacable war, the perfidious nation that had so basely
violated the laws of hospitality. By the imprudent conduct of the
ministers of Honorius the republic lost the assistance, and deserved the
enmity, of thirty thousand of her bravest soldiers; and the weight of
that formidable army, which alone might have determined the event of the
war, was transferred from the scale of the Romans into that of the
Goths.
In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the Gothic King
maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy, whose seeming changes
proceeded from the total want of counsel and design. From his camp, on
the confines of Italy, Alaric attentively observed the revolutions of
the palace, watched the progress of faction and discontent, disguised
the hostile aspect of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular
appearance of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho; to whose
virtues, when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just
tribute of sincere praise and regret.
The pressing invitation of the malcontents, who urged the King of the
Goths to invade Italy, was enforced by a lively sense of his personal
injuries; and he might speciously complain that the Imperial ministers
still delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold
which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward his
services or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an
artful moderation, which contributed to the success of his designs. He
required a fair and reasonable satisfaction; but he gave the strongest
assurances that, as soon as he had obtained it, he would immediately
retire. He refused to trust the faith of the Romans, unless Aetius and
Jason, the sons of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to
his camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the noblest
youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted, by
the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear.
They disdained either to negotiate a treaty or to assemble an army; and
with a rash confidence, derived only from their ignorance of the extreme
danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war.
While they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians should
evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches,
passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia,
Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms; increased
his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliaries; and, without
meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the
morass which protected the impregnable residence of the Emperor of the
West.
Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent leader
of the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the
sea-coast of the Adriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient
mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were
respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious
monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of heaven against the
oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself was confounded by the
solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt a secret and preternatural
impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of
Rome. He felt that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most
arduous enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to the
Goths insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious,
reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His troops,
animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian
way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine, descended into the
rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay encamped on the banks of the
Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen,
which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs. A lofty
situation, and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning, preserved
the little city of Narni; but the King of the Goths, despising the
ignoble prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had
passed through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric
victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome.
By a skilful disposition of his numerous forces, who impatiently watched
the moment of an assault, Alaric encompassed the walls, commanded the
twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent
country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the Tiber, from which
the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions.
The first emotions of the nobles and of the people were those of
surprise and indignation that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the
capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by
misfortune; and their unmanly rage, instead of being directed against an
enemy in arms, was meanly exercised on a defenceless and innocent
victim. Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected
the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother, of the
reigning Emperor; but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and they
listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny, which accused
her of maintaining a secret and criminal correspondence with the Gothic
invader. Actuated or overawed by the same popular frenzy, the senate,
without requiring any evidence of her guilt, pronounced the sentence of
her death. Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated
multitude were astonished to find that this cruel act of injustice did
not immediately produce the retreat of the Barbarians and the
deliverance of the city.
That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity,
and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of
three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing;
and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant
proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the
necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and
for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Læta,
the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome,
and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which
she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But
these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the
hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the
marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes,
who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered
how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature, and lavished
their unavailing treasures of gold and silver to obtain the coarse and
scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain.
The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the
most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly
devoured, and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion
was entertained that some desperate wretches fed on the bodies of their
fellow-creature, whom they had secretly murdered; and even mothers--such
was the horrid conflict of the two most powerful instincts implanted by
nature in the human breast--even mothers are said to have tasted the
flesh of their slaughtered infants!
Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in
the streets for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without
the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so
many putrid and unburied carcasses infected the air; and the miseries of
famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential
disease. The assurances of speedy and effectual relief, which were
repeatedly transmitted from the court of Ravenna, supported for some
time the fainting resolution of the Romans, till at length the despair
of any human aid tempted them to accept the offers of a preternatural
deliverance. Pompeianus, prefect of the city, had been persuaded, by the
art or fanaticism of some Tuscan diviners, that, by the mysterious force
of spells and sacrifices, they could extract the lightning from the
clouds, and point those celestial fires against the camp of the
Barbarians. The important secret was communicated to Innocent, the
Bishop of Rome; and the successor of St. Peter is accused, perhaps with
foundation, of preferring the safety of the republic to the rigid
severity of the Christian worship. But when the question was agitated in
the senate; when it was proposed, as an essential condition, that those
sacrifices should be performed in the Capitol, by the authority, and in
the presence, of the magistrates, the majority of that respectable
assembly, apprehensive either of the divine or of the Imperial
displeasure, refused to join in an act which appeared almost equivalent
to the public restoration of paganism.
The last resource of the Romans was in the clemency, or at least in the
moderation, of the King of the Goths. The senate, who in this emergency
assumed the supreme powers of government, appointed two ambassadors to
negotiate with the enemy. This important trust was delegated to
Basilius, a senator of Spanish extraction, and already conspicuous in
the administration of provinces; and to John, the first tribune of the
notaries, who was peculiarly qualified by his dexterity in business, as
well as by his former intimacy with the Gothic prince. When they were
introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty
style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved
to maintain their dignity, either in peace or war; and that, if Alaric
refused them a fair and honorable capitulation, he might sound his
trumpets, and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people, exercised
in arms, and animated by despair. "The thicker the hay, the easier it is
mowed," was the concise reply of the Barbarian; and this rustic metaphor
was accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his
contempt for the menaces of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury
before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the
ransom which he would accept as the price of his retreat from the walls
of Rome: _all_ the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the
property of the State or of individuals; _all_ the rich and precious
movables; and _all_ the slaves who could prove their title to the name
of _Barbarians_. The ministers of the senate presumed to ask, in a
modest and suppliant tone, "If such, O king, are your demands, what do
you intend to leave us?"
"_Your lives_!" replied the haughty conqueror.
They trembled and retired. Yet, before they retired, a short suspension
of arms was granted, which allowed some time for a more temperate
negotiation. The stern features of Alaric were insensibly relaxed; he
abated much of the rigor of his terms; and at length consented to raise
the siege on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold, of
thirty thousand pounds of silver, of four thousand robes of silk, of
three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and of three thousand
pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the
annual rents of the great estates in Italy and the provinces were
intercepted by the calamities of war; the gold and gems had been
exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the hoards of
secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of avarice; and some
remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only resource that could
avert the impending ruin of the city.
As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric,
they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and
plenty. Several of the gates were cautiously opened; the importation of
provisions from the river and the adjacent country was no longer
obstructed by the Goths; the citizens resorted in crowds to the free
market, which was held during three days in the suburbs; and while the
merchants who undertook this gainful trade made a considerable profit,
the future subsistence of the city was secured by the ample magazines
which were deposited in the public and private granaries.
A more regular discipline than could have been expected was maintained
in the camp of Alaric; and the wise Barbarian justified his regard for
the faith of treaties by the just severity with which he chastised a
party of licentious Goths who had insulted some Roman citizens on the
road to Ostia. His army, enriched by the contributions of the capital,
slowly advanced into the fair and fruitful province of Tuscany, where he
proposed to establish his winter quarters; and the Gothic standard
became the refuge of forty thousand Barbarian slaves, who had broken
their chains, and aspired, under the command of their great deliverer,
to revenge the injuries and the disgrace of their cruel servitude. About
the same time he received a more honorable reinforcement of Goths and
Huns, whom Adolphus, the brother of his wife, had conducted, at his
pressing invitation, from the banks of the Danube to those of the
Tiber; and who had cut their way, with some difficulty and loss, through
the superior numbers of the Imperial troops. A victorious leader, who
united the daring spirit of a Barbarian with the art and discipline of a
Roman general, was at the head of a hundred thousand fighting men; and
Italy pronounced, with terror and respect, the formidable name of
Alaric.
At the distance of fourteen centuries, we may be satisfied with relating
the military exploits of the conquerors of Rome, without presuming to
investigate the motives of their political conduct.
In the midst of his apparent prosperity, Alaric was conscious, perhaps,
of some secret weakness, some internal defect; or perhaps the moderation
which he displayed was intended only to deceive and disarm the easy
credulity of the ministers of Honorius. The King of the Goths repeatedly
declared that it was his desire to be considered as the friend of peace
and of the Romans. Three senators, at his earnest request, were sent
ambassadors to the court of Ravenna, to solicit the exchange of hostages
and the conclusion of the treaty; and the proposals, which he more
clearly expressed during the course of the negotiations, could only
inspire a doubt of his sincerity as they might seem inadequate to the
state of his fortune. The Barbarian still aspired to the rank of
master-general of the armies of the West; he stipulated an annual
subsidy of corn and money; and he chose the provinces of Dalmatia,
Noricum, and Venetia for the seat of his new kingdom, which would have
commanded the important communication between Italy and the Danube. If
these modest terms should be rejected, Alaric showed a disposition to
relinquish his pecuniary demands, and even to content himself with the
possession of Noricum; an exhausted and impoverished country perpetually
exposed to the inroads of the Barbarians of Germany.
But the hopes of peace were disappointed by the weak obstinacy, or
interested views, of the minister Olympius. Without listening to the
salutary remonstrances of the senate, he dismissed their ambassadors
under the conduct of a military escort, too numerous for a retinue of
honor and too feeble for an army of defence. Six thousand Dalmatians,
the flower of the Imperial legions, were ordered to march from Ravenna
to Rome, through an open country which was occupied by the formidable
myriads of the Barbarians. These brave legionaries, encompassed and
betrayed, fell a sacrifice to ministerial folly; their general, Valens,
with a hundred soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of
the ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law of
nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of thirty
thousand pieces of gold. Yet Alarie, instead of resenting this act of
impotent hostility, immediately renewed his proposals of peace; and the
second embassy of the Roman senate, which derived weight and dignity
from the presence of Innocent, bishop of the city, was guarded from the
dangers of the road by a detachment of Gothic soldiers.
Olympius might have continued to insult the just resentment of a people
who loudly accused him as the author of the public calamities; but his
power was undermined by the secret intrigues of the palace. The favorite
eunuchs transferred the government of Honorius, and the Empire, to
Jovius, the prætorian prefect; an unworthy servant, who did not atone,
by the merit of personal attachment, for the errors and misfortunes of
his administration. The exile, or escape, of the guilty Olympius,
reserved him for more vicissitudes of fortune: he experienced the
adventure of an obscure and wandering life; he again rose to power; he
fell a second time into disgrace; his ears were cut off; he expired
under the lash; and his ignominious death afforded a grateful spectacle
to the friends of Stilicho.
After the removal of Olympius, whose character was deeply tainted with
religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the
impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the
State. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of Barbarian origin, who still
adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been obliged to lay aside
the military belt; and though he was repeatedly assured by the Emperor
himself that laws were not made for persons of his rank or merit, he
refused to accept any partial dispensation, and persevered in honorable
disgrace till he had extorted a general act of justice from the distress
of the Roman Government. The conduct of Gennerid, in the important
station to which he was promoted or restored, of master-general of
Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhætia, seemed to revive the discipline
and spirit of the republic. From a life of idleness and want, his troops
were soon habituated to severe exercise and plentiful subsistence; and
his private generosity often supplied the rewards which were denied by
the avarice, or poverty, of the court of Ravenna.
The valor of Gennerid, formidable to the adjacent Barbarians, was the
firmest bulwark of the Illyrian frontier; and his vigilant care assisted
the Empire with a reinforcement of ten thousand Huns, who arrived on the
confines of Italy, attended by such a convoy of provisions, and such a
numerous train of sheep and oxen, as might have been sufficient, not
only for the march of an army, but for the settlement of a colony.
But the court and councils of Honorius still remained a scene of
weakness and distraction, of corruption and anarchy. Instigated by the
prefect Jovius, the guards rose in furious mutiny, and demanded the
heads of two generals and of the two principal eunuchs. The generals,
under a perfidious promise of safety, were sent on shipboard and
privately executed; while the favor of the eunuchs procured them a mild
and secure exile at Milan and Constantinople. Eusebius the eunuch, and
the Barbarian Allobich, succeeded to the command of the bed-chamber and
of the guards; and the mutual jealousy of these subordinate ministers
was the cause of their mutual destruction. By the insolent order of the
count of the domestics, the great chamberlain was shamefully beaten to
death with sticks, before the eyes of the astonished Emperor; and the
subsequent assassination of Allobich, in the midst of a public
procession, is the only circumstance of his life in which Honorius
discovered the faintest symptom of courage or resentment.