to the ruin of the Empire, by opposing the conclusion of a treaty which
Jovius, from a selfish, and perhaps a criminal, motive, had negotiated
with Alaric, in a personal interview under the walls of Rimini. During
the absence of Jovius, the Emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone
of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation nor his character
could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of
Honorius, was immediately despatched to the prætorian prefect, granting
him a free permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly
refusing to prostitute the military honors of Rome to the proud demands
of a Barbarian. This letter was imprudently communicated to Alaric
himself; and the Goth, who in the whole transaction had behaved with
temper and decency, expressed, in the most outrageous language, his
lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his
nation.
The conference of Rimini was hastily interrupted; and the prefect
Jovius, on his return to Ravenna, was compelled to adopt, and even to
encourage, the fashionable opinions of the court. By his advice and
example, the principal officers of the State and army were obliged to
swear that, without listening, in any circumstances, to any conditions
of peace, they would still persevere in perpetual and implacable war
against the enemy of the republic. This rash engagement opposed an
insuperable bar to all future negotiation. The ministers of Honorius
were heard to declare that if they had only invoked the name of the
Deity they would consult the public safety, and trust their souls to the
mercy of heaven; but they had sworn by the sacred head of the Emperor
himself; they had touched, in solemn ceremony, that august seat of
majesty and wisdom; and the violation of their oath would expose them,
to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.
While the Emperor and his court enjoyed, with sullen pride, the security
of the marshes and fortifications of Ravenna, they abandoned Rome,
almost without defence, to the resentment of Alaric. Yet such was the
moderation which he still preserved, or affected, that, as he moved with
his army along the Flaminian way, he successively despatched the bishops
of the towns of Italy to reiterate his offers of peace and to conjure
the Emperor that he would save the city and its inhabitants from hostile
fire and the sword of the Barbarians. These impending calamities were,
however, averted, not indeed by the wisdom of Honorius, but by the
prudence or humanity of the Gothic King; who employed a milder, though
not less effectual, method of conquest. Instead of assaulting the
capital, he successfully directed his efforts against the port of Ostia,
one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence.
The accidents to which the precarious subsistence of the city was
continually exposed in a winter navigation and an open road, had
suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar the useful design which was
executed under the reign of Claudius. The artificial moles, which formed
the narrow entrance, advanced far into the sea, and firmly repelled the
fury of the waves, while the largest vessels securely rode at anchor
within three deep and capacious basins, which received the northern
branch of the Tiber, about two miles from the ancient colony of Ostia.
The Roman port insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal city,
where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use
of the capital. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important
place, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his demands
were enforced by the positive declaration that a refusal, or even a
delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines,
on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamors of that
people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate; they
listened, without reluctance, to the proposal of placing a new emperor
on the throne of the unworthy Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic
conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, prefect of the city. The
grateful monarch immediately acknowledged his protector as
master-general of the armies of the West; Adolphus, with the rank of
count of the domestics, obtained the custody of the person of Attalus;
and the two hostile nations seemed to be united in the closest bands of
friendship and alliance.
The gates of the city were thrown open, and the new Emperor of the
Romans, encompassed on every side by the Gothic arms, was conducted, in
tumultuous procession, to the palace of Augustus and Trajan. After he
had distributed the civil and military dignities among his favorites and
followers, Attalus convened an assembly of the senate; before whom, in a
formal and florid speech, he asserted his resolution of restoring the
majesty of the republic, and of uniting to the Empire the provinces of
Egypt and the East which had once acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome.
Such extravagant promises inspired every reasonable citizen with a just
contempt for the character of an unwarlike usurper, whose elevation was
the deepest and most ignominious wound which the republic had yet
sustained from the insolence of the Barbarians. But the populace, with
their usual levity, applauded the change of masters. The public
discontent was favorable to the rival of Honorius; and the sectaries,
oppressed by his persecuting edicts, expected some degree of
countenance, or at least of toleration, from a prince who, in his native
country of Ionia, had been educated in the pagan superstition, and who
had since received the sacrament of baptism from the hands of an Arian
bishop.
The first days of the reign of Attains were fair and prosperous. An
officer of confidence was sent with an inconsiderable body of troops to
secure the obedience of Africa; the greatest part of Italy submitted to
the terror of the Gothic powers; and though the city of Bologna made a
vigorous and effectual resistance, the people of Milan, dissatisfied
perhaps with the absence of Honorius, accepted, with loud acclamations,
the choice of the Roman senate. At the head of a formidable army, Alaric
conducted his royal captive almost to the gates of Ravenna; and a solemn
embassy of the principal ministers, of Jovius, the prætorian prefect, of
Valens, master of the cavalry and infantry, of the quæstor Potamius, and
of Julian, the first of the notaries, was introduced, with martial pomp,
into the Gothic camp. In the name of their sovereign, they consented to
acknowledge the lawful election of his competitor, and to divide the
provinces of Italy and the West between the two emperors. Their
proposals were rejected with disdain; and the refusal was aggravated by
the insulting clemency of Attalus, who condescended to promise that, if
Honorius would instantly resign the purple, he should be permitted to
pass the remainder of his life in the peaceful exile of some remote
island. So desperate indeed did the situation of the son of Theodosius
appear, to those who were the best acquainted with his strength and
resources, that Jovius and Valens, his minister and his general,
betrayed their trust, infamously deserted the sinking cause of their
benefactor, and devoted their treacherous allegiance to the service of
his more fortunate rival.
Astonished by such examples of domestic treason, Honorius trembled at
the approach of every servant, at the arrival of every messenger. He
dreaded the secret enemies who might lurk in his capital, his palace,
his bed-chamber; and some ships lay ready in the harbor of Ravenna to
transport the abdicated monarch to the dominions of his infant nephew,
the Emperor of the East.
But there is a Providence--such at least was the opinion of the
historian Procopius--that watches over innocence and folly; and the
pretensions of Honorius to its peculiar care cannot reasonably be
disputed. At the moment when his despair, incapable of any wise or manly
resolution, meditated a shameful flight, a seasonable reinforcement of
four thousand veterans unexpectedly landed in the port of Ravenna. To
these valiant strangers, whose fidelity had not been corrupted by the
factions of the court, he committed the walls and gates of the city; and
the slumbers of the Emperor were no longer disturbed by the apprehension
of imminent and internal danger. The favorable intelligence which was
received from Africa suddenly changed the opinions of men and the state
of public affairs. The troops and officers whom Attalus had sent into
that province were defeated and slain; and the active zeal of Heraclian
maintained his own allegiance and that of his people. The faithful Count
of Africa transmitted a large sum of money, which fixed the attachment
of the Imperial guards; and his vigilance in preventing the exportation
of corn and oil introduced famine, tumult, and discontent into the walls
of Rome.
The failure of the African expedition was the source of mutual complaint
and recrimination in the party of Attalus; and the mind of his protector
was insensibly alienated from the interest of a prince who wanted spirit
to command, or docility to obey. The most imprudent measures were
adopted, without the knowledge, or against the advice, of Alaric; and
the obstinate refusal of the senate to allow, in the embarkation, the
mixture even of five hundred Goths, betrayed a suspicious and
distrustful temper, which, in their situation, was neither generous nor
prudent. The resentment of the Gothic King was exasperated by the
malicious arts of Jovius, who had been raised to the rank of patrician,
and who afterward excused his double perfidy, by declaring, without a
blush, that he had only _seemed_ to abandon the service of Honorius,
more effectually to ruin the cause of the usurper. In a large plain near
Rimini, and in the presence of an innumerable multitude of Romans and
Barbarians, the wretched Attalus was publicly despoiled of the diadem
and purple; and those ensigns of royalty were sent by Alaric, as the
pledge of peace and friendship, to the son of Theodosius.
The officers who returned to their duty were reinstated in their
employments, and even the merit of a tardy repentance was graciously
allowed; but the degraded Emperor of the Romans, desirous of life and
insensible of disgrace, implored the permission of following the Gothic
camp, in the train of a haughty and capricious Barbarian.
The degradation of Attalus removed the only real obstacle to the
conclusion of the peace; and Alaric advanced within three miles of
Ravenna, to press the irresolution of the Imperial ministers, whose
insolence soon returned with the return of fortune. His indignation was
kindled by the report that a rival chieftain, that Sarus, the personal
enemy of Adolphus, and the hereditary foe of the house of Balti, had
been received into the palace. At the head of three hundred followers,
that fearless Barbarian immediately sallied from the gates of Ravenna;
surprised, and cut in pieces, a considerable body of Goths; reëntered
the city in triumph; and was permitted to insult his adversary by the
voice of a herald, who publicly declared that the guilt of Alaric had
forever excluded him from the friendship and alliance of the Emperor.
The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna were expiated a third time
by the calamities of Rome. The King of the Goths, who no longer
dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under
the walls of the capital; and the trembling senate, without any hopes of
relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their
country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of
their slaves and domestics; who, either from birth or interest, were
attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight the Salarian
gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the
tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three
years after the foundation of Rome, the Imperial city, which had subdued
and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the
licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.
The proclamation of Alaric, when he forced his entrance into a
vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of
humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the
rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy
and effeminate people; but he exhorted them, at the same time, to spare
the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches of
the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul as holy and inviolable sanctuaries.
Amid the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, several of the Christian Goths
displayed the fervor of a recent conversion; and some instances of their
uncommon piety and moderation are related, and perhaps adorned, by the
zeal of ecclesiastical writers.
While the Barbarians roamed through the city in quest of prey, the
humble dwelling of an aged virgin, who had devoted her life to the
service of the altar, was forced open by one of the powerful Goths. He
immediately demanded, though in civil language, all the gold and silver
in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness with which she
conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate, of the richest
materials and the most curious workmanship. The Barbarian viewed with
wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by
a serious admonition, addressed to him in the following words: "These,"
said she, "are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you
presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your
conscience. For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend."
The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a messenger
to inform the King of the treasure which he had discovered; and received
a peremptory order from Alaric, that all the consecrated plate and
ornaments should be transported, without damage or delay, to the church
of the apostle.
From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant
quarter of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in
order of battle through the principal streets, protected, with
glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who bore
aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the
martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled with the sound of
religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians
hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of
fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the
good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the
Vatican. The learned work, concerning the _City of God_, was professedly
composed by St. Augustine, to justify the ways of Providence in the
destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar
satisfaction, this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his
adversaries by challenging them to produce some similar example of a
town taken by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been
able to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries.
In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of Barbarian
virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of the
Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could receive a very small
proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more especially
of the Huns, who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers to
the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect,
without any breach of charity or candor, that in the hour of savage
license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was
removed, the precepts of the Gospel seldom influenced the behavior of
the Gothic Christians. The writers the best disposed to exaggerate their
clemency have freely confessed that a cruel slaughter was made of the
Romans; and that the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies,
which remained without burial during the general consternation. The
despair of the citizens was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever
the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the
promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The
private revenge of forty thousand slaves was exercised without pity or
remorse; and the ignominious lashes which they had formerly received
were washed away in the blood of the guilty or obnoxious families. The
matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in
the apprehension of chastity, than death itself; and the ecclesiastical
historian has selected an example of female virtue for the admiration of
future ages.
A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the
impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious
remark of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her
obstinate resistance, he drew his sword, and, with the anger of a lover,
slightly wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still continued to brave
his resentment and to repel his love, till the ravisher desisted from
his unavailing efforts, respectfully conducted her to the sanctuary of
the Vatican, and gave six pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on
condition that they should restore her inviolate to the arms of her
husband. Such instances of courage and generosity were not extremely
common.
Avarice is an insatiate and universal passion; since the enjoyment of
almost every object that can afford pleasure to the different tastes and
tempers of mankind may be procured by the possession of wealth. In the
pillage of Rome a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which
contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight; but after
these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the
palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly
furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes
of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons, that always
followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art
were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for
the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of
the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battle-axe.
The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of the
rapacious Barbarians, who proceeded, by threats, by blows, and by
tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of hidden
treasure. Visible splendor and expense were alleged as the proof of a
plentiful fortune; the appearance of poverty was imputed to a
parsimonious disposition; and the obstinacy of some misers, who endured
the most cruel torments before they would discover the secret object of
their affection, was fatal to many unhappy wretches, who expired under
the lash for refusing to reveal their imaginary treasures.
The edifices of Rome--though the damage has been much
exaggerated--received some injury from the violence of the Goths. At
their entrance through the Salarian gate they fired the adjacent houses
to guide their march, and to distract the attention of the citizens;
the flames, which encountered no obstacle in the disorder of the night,
consumed many private and public buildings; and the ruins of the palace
of Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the
Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that
fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and that
the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations of
ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his devout
assertion that the wrath of heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile
rage; and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so
many gods and heroes, was levelled in the dust by the stroke of
lightning.
Whatever might be the number of equestrian or plebeian rank who perished
in the massacre of Rome, it is confidently affirmed that only one
senator lost his life by the sword of the enemy. But it was not easy to
compute the multitudes who, from an honorable station and a prosperous
fortune, were suddenly reduced to the miserable condition of captives
and exiles. As the Barbarians had more occasion for money than for
slaves, they fixed a moderate price for the redemption of their indigent
prisoners; and the ransom was often paid by the benevolence of their
friends or the charity of strangers.
The captives, who were regularly sold either in open market or by
private contract, would have legally regained their native freedom,
which it was impossible for a citizen to lose or to alienate. But as it
was soon discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger
their lives; and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might
be provoked to murder their useless prisoners; the civil jurisprudence
had been already qualified by a wise regulation that they should be
obliged to serve the moderate term of five years, till they had
discharged by their labor the price of their redemption.
The nations who invaded the Roman Empire had driven before them, into
Italy, whole troops of hungry and affrighted provincials, less
apprehensive of servitude than of famine. The calamities of Rome and
Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the
most distant places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror
and desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the little
island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the Argentarian
promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile attempts; and at so small
a distance from Rome, great numbers of citizens were securely concealed
in the thick woods of that sequestered spot. The ample patrimonies,
which many senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if
they had time, and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country,
to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most illustrious
of these fugitives was the noble and pious Proba, the widow of the
prefect Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful
subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and
successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the
consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by
the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of
immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at
sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter Læta,
and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin Demetrias, to the coast of
Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the
fruits, or the price, of her estates, contributed to alleviate the
misfortunes of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself
was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who
basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to
the lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants.
The Italian fugitives were dispersed through the provinces, along the
coast of Egypt and Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the
village of Bethlehem, the solitary residence of St. Jerome and his
female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex, and
every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their
past fortune. This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished
Empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and
ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to
exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who
applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were
sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the
dissolution of the globe.