CHAPTER XLVII. THE FALL OF ROME

The Vandals were of the Low German stock and closely allied to the Goths.

We first hear of them in the time of Pliny and Tacitus as occupying

a district nearly corresponding to Brandenburg and Pomerania. From

thence, in the second century, they pressed southwards to the confines

of Bohemia, where they gave their name to the mountains now called the

Riesengebirge.

After a century of hostile and desultory operations against the Roman

Empire, having been signally defeated by Aurelian (271) they made

peace with Rome, one of the conditions being that they should supply

two thousand _fœderati_ to the imperial army. Sixty years later they

sustained a great defeat from the Goths under their king Geberic, after

which they humbly sought and obtained permission from Constantine to

settle as Roman subjects within the province of Pannonia. Here they

remained seventy years, and during this period they probably made some

advances in civilisation and became Christians of the Arian type.

In 406, when the empire under Honorius was falling into ruin, they

crossed the Rhine and entered Gaul. Stilicho, the chief adviser of

Honorius, who was a man of Vandal extraction, was accused by his enemies

of having invited them into the empire, but this is probably a groundless

calumny. In Gaul they fought a great battle with the Franks, in which

they were defeated with the loss of two thousand men, and their king

Godigisclus was slain. In 409 his son Gunderic led them across the

Pyrenees. They appear to have settled in Spain in two detachments. One,

the Asdingian Vandals, occupied Gallæcia, the other, the Silingian, part

of Bætica (Andalusia). Twenty years of bloody and purposeless warfare

with the armies of the empire and with their fellow-barbarians, the

Goths and the Suevi, followed. The Silingian Vandals were well-nigh

exterminated, but their Asdingian brethren (with whom were now associated

the remains of a Turanian people, the Alans, who had been utterly

defeated by the Goths) marched across Spain and took possession of

Andalusia.

[Illustration: THE HUNS APPROACHING ROME]

In 428 or 429 the whole nation set sail for Africa, upon an invitation

received by their king from Boniface, count of Africa, who had fallen

into disgrace with the court of Ravenna. Gunderic was now dead and

supreme power was in the hands of his bastard brother, who is generally

known in history as Genseric, though the more correct form of his name is

Gaiseric. This man, short of stature and with limping gait, but with a

great natural capacity for war and dominion, reckless of human life and

unrestrained by conscience or pity, was for fifty years the hero of the

Vandal race and the terror of Constantinople and Rome. In the month of

May 428 (?) he assembled all his people on the shore of Andalusia, and

numbering the males among them from the graybeard down to the new-born

infant found them to amount to eighty thousand souls. The passage was

effected in the ships of Boniface, who, however, soon returning to his

old loyalty, besought his new allies to depart from Africa. They, of

course, refused, and Boniface turned against them, too late, however, to

repair the mischief which he had caused. Notwithstanding his opposition

the progress of the Vandals was rapid, and by May 430 only three cities

of Roman Africa--Carthage, Hippo, and Cirta--remained untaken.

[Sidenote: [430-455 A.D.]]

The long siege of Hippo (May 430 to July 431), memorable for the last

illness and death of St. Augustine, which occurred during its progress,

ended unsuccessfully for the Vandals. At length (30th of January,

435) peace was made between the emperor Valentinian III and Genseric.

The emperor was to retain Carthage and the small but rich proconsular

province in which it was situated, while Hippo and the other six

provinces of Africa were abandoned to the Vandal. Genseric observed this

treaty no longer than suited his purpose. On the 19th of October 439,

without any declaration of war, he suddenly attacked Carthage and took

it. The Vandal occupation of this great city, the third among the cities

of the Roman Empire, lasted for ninety-four years. Genseric seems to

have counted the years of his sovereignty from the date of its capture.

Though most of the remaining years of Genseric’s life were passed in war,

plunder rather than territorial conquest seems to have been the object

of his expeditions. He made, in fact, of Carthage a pirates’ stronghold,

from whence he issued forth, like the Barbary pirates of a later day, to

attack, as he himself said, “the dwellings of the men with whom God is

angry,” leaving the question who those men might be to the decision of

the elements. Almost alone among the Teutonic invaders of the empire, he

set himself to form a powerful fleet, and was probably for thirty years

the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean.[b]

The revolutions of the palace, which left the Western Empire without a

defender, and without a lawful prince, dispelled the apprehensions and

stimulated the avarice of Genseric. He immediately equipped a numerous

fleet of Vandals and Moors, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber,

about three months after the death of Valentinian and the elevation of

Maximus to the imperial throne.

The private life of the senator Petronius Maximus was often alleged as

a rare example of human felicity. His birth was noble and illustrious,

since he descended from the Anician family, his dignity was supported by

an adequate patrimony in land and money; and these advantages of fortune

were accompanied with liberal arts and decent manners, which adorn or

imitate the inestimable gifts of genius and virtue. The luxury of his

palace and table was hospitable and elegant. Whenever Maximus appeared in

public, he was surrounded by a train of grateful and obsequious clients;

and it is possible that, among these clients, he might deserve and

possess some real friends. His merit was rewarded by the favour of the

prince and senate; he thrice exercised the office of prætorian prefect

of Italy; he was twice invested with the consulship, and he obtained the

rank of patrician.

These civil honours were not incompatible with the enjoyment of leisure

and tranquillity; his hours, according to the demands of pleasure or

reason, were accurately distributed by a water-clock; and this avarice

of time may be allowed to prove the sense which Maximus entertained

of his own happiness. The injury which he received from the emperor

Valentinian appears to excuse the most bloody revenge. Yet a philosopher

might have reflected that, if the resistance of his wife had been

sincere, her chastity was still inviolate, and that it could never be

restored if she had consented to the will of the adulterer. A patriot

would have hesitated, before plunging himself and his country into those

inevitable calamities which must follow the extinction of the royal

house of Theodosius. The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary

considerations; he gratified his resentment and ambition, he saw the

bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet, and heard himself saluted

emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and people. But the day of

his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. He was imprisoned

(such is the lively expression of Sidonius) in the palace; and, after

passing a sleepless night, he sighed that he had attained the summit of

his wishes, and aspired only to descend from the dangerous elevation.

Oppressed by the weight of the diadem, he communicated his anxious

thoughts to his friend and quæstor Fulgentius; and when he looked back

with unavailing regret on the secure pleasures of his former life, the

emperor exclaimed, “O fortunate Damocles, thy reign began and ended with

the same dinner!” a well-known allusion, which Fulgentius afterwards

repeated as an instructive lesson for princes and subjects.

[Sidenote: [455-456 A.D.]]

The reign of Maximus continued about three months. His hours, of which

he had lost the command, were disturbed by remorse, or guilt, or terror;

and his throne was shaken by the seditions of the soldiers, the people,

and the confederate barbarians. The marriage of his son Palladius with

the eldest daughter of the late emperor might tend to establish the

hereditary succession of his family; but the violence which he offered

to the empress Eudoxia could proceed only from the blind impulse of lust

or revenge. His own wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been

seasonably removed by death; and the widow of Valentinian was compelled

to violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to submit

to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she suspected as the

assassin of her deceased husband.

These suspicions were soon justified by the indiscreet confession of

Maximus himself; and he wantonly provoked the hatred of his reluctant

bride, who was still conscious that she was descended from a line of

emperors. From the East, however, Eudoxia could not hope to obtain any

effectual assistance; her father and her aunt Pulcheria were dead; her

mother languished at Jerusalem in disgrace and exile; and the sceptre

of Constantinople was in the hands of a stranger. She directed her eyes

towards Carthage, secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals;

and persuaded Genseric to improve the fair opportunity of disguising

his rapacious designs by the specious names of honour, justice, and

compassion. Whatever abilities Maximus might have shown in a subordinate

station, he was found incapable of administering an empire; and though he

might easily have been informed of the naval preparations which were made

on the opposite shores of Africa, he expected with supine indifference

the approach of the enemy, without adopting any measures of defence, of

negotiation, or of a timely retreat.

When the Vandals disembarked at the mouth of the Tiber, the emperor

was suddenly roused from his lethargy by the clamours of a trembling

and exasperated multitude. The only hope which presented itself to his

astonished mind was that of a precipitate flight, and he exhorted the

senators to imitate the example of their prince. But no sooner did

Maximus appear in the streets than he was assaulted by a shower of

stones; a Roman, or a Burgundian soldier, claimed the honour of the first

wound; his mangled body was ignominiously cast into the Tiber; the Roman

people rejoiced in the punishment which they had inflicted on the author

of the public calamities, and the domestics of Eudoxia signalised their

zeal in the service of their mistress.

On the third day after the tumult, Genseric boldly advanced from the

port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. Instead of a sally

of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates an unarmed and venerable

procession of the bishop at the head of his clergy. The fearless spirit

of Leo, his authority and eloquence, again mitigated the fierceness

of a barbarian conqueror; the king of the Vandals promised to spare

the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to

exempt the captives from torture; and although such orders were neither

seriously given nor strictly obeyed, the mediation of Leo was glorious

to himself and in some degree beneficial to his country. But Rome and

its inhabitants were delivered to the licentiousness of the Vandals and

Moors, whose blind passions revenged the injuries of Carthage.

[Illustration: ROMAN PIN AND BRACELET

(In the British Museum)]

The pillage lasted fourteen days and nights; and all that yet remained of

public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently

transported to the vessels of Genseric. Among the spoils, the splendid

relics of two temples, or rather of two religions, exhibited a memorable

example of the vicissitudes of human and divine things. Since the

abolition of paganism, the Capitol had been violated and abandoned; yet

the statues of the gods and heroes were still respected, and the curious

roof of gilt bronze was reserved for the rapacious hands of Genseric.

The holy instruments of the Jewish worship, the gold table and the gold

candlestick with seven branches, originally framed according to the

particular instructions of God himself, and which were placed in the

sanctuary of his temple, had been ostentatiously displayed to the Roman

people in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards deposited in the

temple of Peace; and, at the end of four hundred years, the spoils of

Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to Carthage, by a barbarian who

derived his origin from the shores of the Baltic. These ancient monuments

might attract the notice of curiosity, as well as of avarice.

But the Christian churches, enriched and adorned by the prevailing

superstition of the times, afforded more plentiful materials for

sacrilege; and the pious liberality of Pope Leo, who melted six silver

vases, the gift of Constantine, each of a hundred pounds’ weight, is

evidence of the damage which he attempted to repair. In the forty-five

years that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion, the pomp and luxury

of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult either to

escape or to satisfy the avarice of a conqueror, who possessed leisure to

collect and ships to transport the wealth of the capital. The imperial

ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the

sideboards of massy plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the

gold and silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass

and copper were laboriously removed.

Eudoxia herself, who advanced to meet her friend and deliverer, soon

bewailed the imprudence of her own conduct. She was rudely stripped of

her jewels; and the unfortunate empress, with her two daughters, the only

surviving remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled as a captive

to follow the haughty Vandal; who immediately hoisted sail and returned

with a prosperous navigation to the port of Carthage. Many thousand

Romans of both sexes, chosen for some useful or agreeable qualifications,

reluctantly embarked on board the fleet of Genseric; and their distress

was aggravated by the unfeeling barbarians, who, in the division of the

booty, separated the wives from their husbands and the children from

their parents. The charity of Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, was their

only consolation and support. He generously sold the gold and silver

plate of the church to purchase the freedom of some, to alleviate the

slavery of others, and to assist the wants and infirmities of a captive

multitude, whose health was impaired by the hardships which they had

suffered in their passage from Italy to Africa. By his order two spacious

churches were converted into hospitals; the sick were distributed in

convenient beds, and liberally supplied with food and medicines, and the

aged prelate repeated his visits, both in the day and night, with an

assiduity that surpassed the value of his services. Compare this scene

with the field of Cannæ; and judge between Hannibal and the successor of

St. Cyprian.

The deaths of Aëtius and Valentinian had relaxed the ties which held

the barbarians of Gaul in peace and subordination. The sea coast was

infested by the Saxons; the Alamanni and the Franks advanced from the

Rhine to the Seine; and the ambition of the Goths seemed to meditate

more extensive and permanent conquests. The emperor Maximus relieved

himself, by a judicious choice, from the weight of these distant cares;

he silenced the solicitations of his friends, listened to the voice of

fame, and promoted a stranger to the general command of the forces in

Gaul. Avitus, the stranger, whose merit was so nobly rewarded, descended

from a wealthy and honourable family in the diocese of Auvergne. The

convulsions of the times urged him to embrace, with the same ardour,

the civil and military professions; and the indefatigable youth blended

the studies of literature and jurisprudence with the exercise of arms

and hunting. Thirty years of his life were laudably spent in the public

service; he alternately displayed his talents in war and negotiation; and

the soldier of Aëtius, after executing the most important embassies, was

raised to the station of prætorian prefect of Gaul. Either the merit of

Avitus excited envy, or his moderation was desirous of repose, since he

calmly retired to an estate which he possessed in the neighbourhood of

Clermont. In this retreat, where Avitus amused his leisure with books,

rural sports, the practice of husbandry, and the society of his friends,

he received the imperial diploma, which constituted him master-general

of the cavalry and infantry of Gaul. He assumed the military command;

the barbarians suspended their fury; and whatever means he might employ,

whatever concessions he might be forced to make, the people enjoyed the

benefits of actual tranquillity. But the fate of Gaul depended on the

Visigoths; and the Roman general, less attentive to his dignity than to

the public interest, did not disdain to visit Tolosa in the character of

an ambassador.

He was received with courteous hospitality by Theodoric, the king of

the Goths; but while Avitus laid the foundations of a solid alliance

with that powerful nation, he was astonished by the intelligence that

the emperor Maximus was slain, and that Rome had been pillaged by the

Vandals. A vacant throne, which he might ascend without guilt or danger,

tempted his ambition; and the Visigoths were easily persuaded to support

his claim by their irresistible suffrage. They loved the person of

Avitus, they respected his virtues; and they were not insensible of the

advantage, as well as honour, of giving an emperor to the West.

The season was now approaching in which the annual assembly of the seven

provinces was held at Arelate (Arles); their deliberations might perhaps

be influenced by the presence of Theodoric and his martial brothers, but

their choice would naturally incline to the most illustrious of their

countrymen. Avitus, after a decent resistance, accepted the imperial

diadem from the representatives of Gaul; and his election was ratified by

the acclamations of the barbarians and provincials. The formal consent of

Marcian, emperor of the East, was solicited and obtained; but the senate,

Rome, and Italy, though humbled by their recent calamities, submitted

with a secret murmur to the presumption of the Gallic usurper.

[Illustration: COSTUME OF A VISIGOTH]

Theodoric, to whom Avitus was indebted for the purple, had acquired the

Gothic sceptre by the murder of his elder brother Torismond; and he

justified this atrocious deed by the design which his predecessor had

formed of violating his alliance with the empire. Such a crime might

not be incompatible with the virtues of a barbarian, but the manners

of Theodoric were gentle and humane; and posterity may contemplate

without terror the original picture of a Gothic king, whom Sidonius had

intimately observed in the hours of peace and of social intercourse.

When the king of the Visigoths encouraged Avitus to assume the purple,

he offered his person and his forces as a faithful soldier of the

republic. The exploits of Theodoric soon convinced the world that he had

not degenerated from the warlike virtues of his ancestors. After the

establishment of the Goths in Aquitania, and the passage of the Vandals

into Africa, the Suevi, who had fixed their kingdom in Gallæcia, aspired

to the conquest of Spain and threatened to extinguish the feeble remains

of the Roman dominion. The provincials of Carthago (Cartagena), and

Tarraco (Tarragona), afflicted by a hostile invasion, represented their

injuries and their apprehensions.

Count Fronto was despatched, in the name of the emperor Avitus, with

advantageous offers of peace and alliance; and Theodoric interposed

his weighty mediation to declare that, unless his brother-in-law, the

king of the Suevi, immediately retired, he should be obliged to arm

in the cause of justice and of Rome. “Tell him,” replied the haughty

Rechiarius, “that I despise his friendship and his arms; but that I shall

soon try whether he will dare to expect my arrival under the walls of

Tolosa.” Such a challenge urged Theodoric to prevent the bold designs

of his enemy; he passed the Pyrenees at the head of the Visigoths,

the Franks and Burgundians served under his standard, and though he

professed himself the dutiful servant of Avitus, he privately stipulated

for himself and his successors the absolute possession of his Spanish

conquests. The two armies, or rather the two nations, encountered each

other on the banks of the river Urbicus, about twelve miles from Augusta

Asturica (Astorga); and the decisive victory of the Goths appeared for

a while to have extirpated the name and kingdom of the Suevi. From the

field of battle Theodoric advanced to Bracara (Braga), their metropolis,

which still retained the splendid vestiges of its ancient commerce

and dignity. His entrance was not polluted with blood, and the Goths

respected the chastity of their female captives, more especially of the

consecrated virgins; but the greatest part of the clergy and people were

made slaves, and even the churches and altars were confounded in the

universal pillage.

The unfortunate king of the Suevi had escaped to one of the ports of

the ocean, but the obstinacy of the winds opposed his flight; he was

delivered to his implacable rival; and Rechiarius, who neither desired

nor expected mercy, received with manly constancy the death which he

would probably have inflicted. After this bloody sacrifice to policy

and resentment, Theodoric carried his victorious arms as far as Augusta

Emerita (Merida), the principal town of Lusitania, without meeting any

resistance, except from the miraculous powers of St. Eulalia; but he was

stopped in the full career of success, and recalled from Spain, before he

could provide for the security of his conquests. In his retreat towards

the Pyrenees he revenged his disappointment on the country through which

he passed; and in the sack of Pallantia and Augusta Asturica he showed

himself a faithless ally as well as a cruel enemy.

Whilst the king of the Visigoths fought and vanquished in the name of

Avitus, the reign of Avitus had expired, and both the honour and the

interest of Theodoric were deeply wounded by the disgrace of a friend

whom he had seated on the throne of the Western Empire.

The pressing solicitations of the senate and people persuaded the emperor

Avitus to fix his residence at Rome, and to accept the consulship for the

ensuing year. Avitus, at a time when the imperial dignity was reduced to

a pre-eminence of toil and danger, indulged himself in the pleasures of

Italian luxury; age had not extinguished his amorous inclinations, and

he is accused of insulting, with indiscreet and ungenerous raillery, the

husbands whose wives he had seduced or violated.[69] But the Romans were

not inclined either to excuse his faults or to acknowledge his virtues.

The several parts of the empire became every day more alienated from each

other; and the stranger of Gaul was the object of popular hatred and

contempt.

The senate asserted their legitimate claim in the election of an emperor;

and their authority, which had been originally derived from the old

constitution, was again fortified by the actual weakness of a declining

monarchy. Yet even such a monarchy might have resisted the votes of an

unarmed senate, if their discontent had not been supported, or perhaps

inflamed, by Count Ricimer, one of the principal commanders of the

barbarian troops, who formed the military defence of Italy. The daughter

of Wallia, king of the Visigoths, was the mother of Ricimer; but he was

descended, on the father’s side, from the nation of the Suevi; his pride

or patriotism might be exasperated by the misfortunes of his countrymen,

and he obeyed with reluctance an emperor in whose elevation he had not

been consulted. His faithful and important services against the common

enemy rendered him still more formidable; and after destroying on the

coast of Corsica a fleet of Vandals, which consisted of sixty galleys,

Ricimer returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of

Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus that his reign was at an

end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his Gothic allies, was

compelled after a short and unavailing struggle to abdicate the purple.

By the clemency, however, or the contempt of Ricimer, he was permitted

to descend from the throne to the more desirable station of bishop of

Placentia; but the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied, and

their inflexible severity pronounced the sentence of his death. He fled

towards the Alps, with the humble hope not of arming the Visigoths in

his cause but of securing his person and treasures in the sanctuary of

Julian, one of the tutelar saints of Auvergne. Disease, or the hand of

the executioner, arrested him on the road; yet his remains were decently

transported to Brivas or Brioude, in his native province, and he reposed

at the feet of his holy patron.

[Sidenote: [456-457 A.D.]]

The successor of Avitus presents the welcome discovery of a great and

heroic character, such as sometimes arises in a degenerate age, to

vindicate the honour of the human species. The emperor Majorian has

deserved the praises of his contemporaries and of posterity; and these

praises may be strongly expressed in the words of a judicious and

disinterested historian: “That he was gentle to his subjects; that he

was terrible to his enemies; and that he excelled in every virtue all of

his predecessors who had reigned over the Romans.” Such a testimony may

justify at least the panegyric of Sidonius; and we may acquiesce in the

assurance that, although the obsequious orator would have flattered, with

equal zeal, the most worthless of princes, the extraordinary merit of

his object confined him, on this occasion, within the bounds of truth.

Majorian derived his name from his maternal grandfather who, in the

reign of the great Theodosius had commanded the troops of the Illyrian

frontier. He gave his daughter in marriage to the father of Majorian, a

respectable officer, who administered the revenues of Gaul with skill

and integrity; and generously preferred the friendship of Aëtius to the

tempting offers of an insidious court. His son, the future emperor,

who was educated in the profession of arms, displayed, from his early

youth, intrepid courage, premature wisdom, and unbounded liberality in a

scanty fortune. He followed the standard of Aëtius, contributed to his

success, shared, and sometimes eclipsed, his glory, and at last excited

the jealousy of the patrician, or rather of his wife, who forced him

to retire from the service. Majorian, after the death of Aëtius, was

recalled and promoted, and his intimate connection with Count Ricimer

was the immediate step by which he ascended the throne of the Western

Empire. During the vacancy that succeeded the abdication of Avitus, the

ambitious barbarian whose birth excluded him from the imperial dignity

governed Italy, with the title of patrician; resigned to his friend the

conspicuous station of master-general of the cavalry and infantry; and,

after an interval of some months, consented to the unanimous wish of the

Romans, whose favour Majorian had solicited by a recent victory over the

Alamanni.

[Sidenote: [457-461 A.D.]]

The public and private actions of Majorian are very imperfectly known;

but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought and expression,

faithfully represent the character of a sovereign who loved his people,

who sympathised in their distress, who had studied the causes of the

decline of the empire, and who was capable of applying (as far as such

reformation was practicable) judicious and effectual remedies to the

public disorders. His regulations concerning the finances manifestly

tended to remove, or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable

grievances.

(1) From the first hour of his reign, he was solicitous (these are his

own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials, oppressed by

the accumulated weight of indictions and superindictions. With this view,

he granted a universal amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all

arrears of tribute, of all debts which, under any pretence, the fiscal

officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of obsolete,

vexatious, and unprofitable claims improved and purified the sources of

the public revenue; and the subject, who could now look back without

despair, might labour with hope and gratitude for himself and for his

country.

(2) In the assessment and collection of taxes, Majorian restored the

ordinary jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates; and suppressed

the extraordinary commissions which had been introduced, in the name

of the emperor himself, or of the prætorian prefects. The favourite

servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were insolent in their

behaviour and arbitrary in their demands; they affected to despise the

subordinate tribunals, and they were discontented if their fees and

profits did not twice exceed the sum which they condescended to pay into

the treasury. One instance of their extortion would appear incredible,

were it not authenticated by the legislator himself. They exacted the

whole payment in gold; but they refused the current coin of the empire,

and would accept only such ancient pieces as were stamped with the names

of Faustina or the Antonines. The subject who was unprovided with these

curious medals had recourse to the expedient of compounding with their

rapacious demands; or, if he succeeded in the research, his imposition

was doubled, according to the weight and value of the money of former

times.

(3) “The municipal corporation,” says the emperor, “the lesser senates

(so antiquity has justly styled them), deserve to be considered as the

heart of the cities, and the sinews of the republic. And yet so low

are they now reduced, by the injustice of magistrates and the venality

of collectors, that many of their members, renouncing their dignity

and their country, have taken refuge in distant and obscure exile.” He

urges and even compels their return to their respective cities; but he

removes the grievance which had forced them to desert the exercise of

their municipal functions. They are directed, under the authority of the

provincial magistrates, to resume their office of levying the tribute;

but, instead of being made responsible for the whole sum assessed on

their district, they are only required to produce a regular account of

the payments which they have actually received, and of the defaulters who

are still indebted to the public.

(4) But Majorian was not ignorant that these corporate bodies were too

much inclined to retaliate the injustice and oppression which they had

suffered; and he therefore revives the useful office of the defenders

of cities. He exhorts the people to elect, in a full and free assembly,

some man of discretion and integrity, who would dare to assert their

privileges, to represent their grievances, to protect the poor from the

tyranny of the rich, and to inform the emperor of the abuses that were

committed.

The spectator who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient Rome is

tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals for the mischief

which they had neither leisure nor power, nor perhaps inclination, to

perpetrate. The tempest of war might strike some lofty turrets to the

ground; but the destruction which undermined the foundations of those

massy fabrics was prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten

centuries; and the motives of interest that afterwards operated without

shame or control were severely checked by the taste and spirit of the

emperor Majorian.

The decay of the city had gradually impaired the value of the public

works. The circus and theatres might still excite, but they seldom

gratified the desires of the people; the temples, which had escaped

the zeal of the Christians, were no longer inhabited either by gods or

men; the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense space

of their baths and porticoes; and the stately libraries and halls of

justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose repose was seldom

disturbed either by study or business. The monuments of consular or

imperial greatness were no longer revered as the immortal glory of the

capital; they were only esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials,

cheaper and more convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions

were continually addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which stated

the want of stones or bricks for some necessary service; the fairest

forms of architecture were rudely defaced for the sake of some paltry or

pretended repairs; and the degenerate Romans, who converted the spoil to

their own emolument, demolished with sacrilegious hands the labours of

their ancestors. Majorian, who had often sighed over the desolation of

the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. He reserved to the

prince and senate the sole cognisance of the extreme cases which might

justify the destruction of an ancient edifice; imposed a fine of fifty

pounds of gold [£2000 or $10,000] on every magistrate who should presume

to grant such illegal and scandalous license; and threatened to chastise

the criminal obedience of their subordinate officers by a severe whipping

and the amputation of both their hands.

In the last instance, the legislator might seem to forget the proportion

of guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a generous principle,

and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of those ages in which

he would have desired and deserved to live. The emperor conceived that

it was his interest to increase the number of his subjects, that it was

his duty to guard the purity of the marriage bed; but the means which

he employed to accomplish these salutary purposes are of an ambiguous

and perhaps exceptionable kind. The pious maids who consecrated their

virginity to Christ were restrained from taking the veil till they had

reached their fortieth year. Widows under that age were compelled to

form a second alliance within the term of five years, by the forfeiture

of half their wealth to their nearest relatives or to the state. Unequal

marriages were condemned or annulled. The punishment of confiscation

and exile was deemed so inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that if

the criminal returned to Italy he might, by the express declaration of

Majorian, be slain with impunity.

While the emperor Majorian assiduously laboured to restore the happiness

and virtue of the Romans, he encountered the arms of Genseric, from

his character and situation their most formidable enemy. A fleet of

Vandals and Moors landed at the mouth of the Liris or Garigliano: but

the imperial troops surprised and attacked the disorderly barbarians,

who were encumbered with the spoils of Campania; they were chased with

slaughter to their ships, and their leader, the king’s brother-in-law,

was found in the number of the slain. Such vigilance might announce the

character of the new reign; but the strictest vigilance and the most

numerous forces were insufficient to protect the long-extended coast

of Italy from the depredations of a naval war. The public opinion had

imposed a nobler and most arduous task on the genius of Majorian. Rome

expected from him alone the restitution of Africa; and the design which

he formed of attacking the Vandals in their new settlements was the

result of bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have

infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy, if he could have revived

in the Field of Mars the manly exercises in which he had always surpassed

his equals--he might have marched against Genseric at the head of a Roman

army.

Such a reformation of national manners might be embraced by the rising

generation; but it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously

sustain a declining monarchy that, to obtain some immediate advantage or

to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance and even

to multiply the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like the weakest of his

predecessors, was reduced to the disgraceful expedient of substituting

barbarian auxiliaries in the place of his unwarlike subjects; and his

superior abilities could only be displayed in the vigour and dexterity

with which he wielded a dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the

hand that used it.

Besides the confederates who were already engaged in the service of the

empire, the fame of his liberality and valour attracted the nations of

the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the Tanaïs. Many thousands

of the bravest subjects of Attila, the Gepidæ, the Ostrogoths, the

Rugians, the Burgundiones, the Suevi, the Alani, assembled in the plains

of Liguria; and their formidable strength was balanced by their mutual

animosities. They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the

way on foot, and in complete armour; sounding, with his long staff, the

depth of the ice or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who complained

of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance that they should be

satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of Lugdunum had presumed

to shut their gates; they soon implored and experienced the clemency

of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in the field; and admitted to his

friendship and alliance a king whom he had found not unworthy of his

arms. The beneficial though precarious reunion of the greatest part of

Gaul and Spain was the effect of persuasion as well as of force; and the

independent Bagaudæ, who had escaped or resisted the oppression of former

reigns, were disposed to confide in the virtues of Majorian.

His camp was filled with barbarian allies, his throne was supported by

the zeal of an affectionate people; but the emperor had foreseen that

it was impossible, without a maritime power, to achieve the conquest of

Africa. In the First Punic War, the republic had exerted such incredible

diligence that, within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe

had been given in the forest, a fleet of 160 galleys proudly rode at

anchor in the sea. Under circumstances much less favourable, Majorian

equalled the spirit and perseverance of the ancient Romans. The woods of

the Apennine were felled; the arsenals and manufactures of Ravenna and

Misenum were restored; Italy and Gaul vied with each other in liberal

contributions to the public service; and the imperial navy of three

hundred large galleys, with an adequate proportion of transports and

smaller vessels, was collected in the secure and capacious harbour of

Carthago Nova (Cartagena) in Spain.

The intrepid countenance of Majorian animated his troops with a

confidence of victory; and if we might credit the historian Procopius,

his courage sometimes hurried him beyond the bounds of prudence. Anxious

to explore, with his own eyes, the state of the Vandals, he ventured

after disguising the colour of his hair to visit Carthage in the

character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by

the discovery that he had entertained and dismissed the emperor of the

Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it

is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a

hero.

Without the help of a personal interview, Genseric was sufficiently

acquainted with the genius and designs of his adversary. He practised his

customary arts of fraud and delay; but he practised them without success.

His applications for peace became each hour more submissive, and perhaps

more sincere; but the inflexible Majorian had adopted the ancient maxim

that Rome could not be safe, so long as Carthage existed in a hostile

state. The king of the Vandals distrusted the valour of his native

subjects, who were enervated by the luxury of the south; he suspected the

fidelity of the vanquished people, who abhorred him as an Arian tyrant;

and the desperate measure which he executed, of reducing Mauretania into

a desert, could not defeat the operations of the Roman emperor, who was

at liberty to land his troops on any part of the African coast.

But Genseric was saved from impending and inevitable ruin by the

treachery of some powerful subjects, envious or apprehensive of their

master’s success. Guided by their secret intelligence, he surprised the

unguarded fleet in the Bay of Cartagena; many of the ships were sunk, or

taken, or burned, and the preparations of three years were destroyed in a

single day. After this event, the behaviour of the two antagonists showed

them superior to their fortune. The Vandal, instead of being elated by

this accidental victory, immediately renewed his solicitations for peace.

The emperor of the West, who was capable of forming great designs and of

supporting heavy disappointments, consented to a treaty, or rather to a

suspension of arms; in the full assurance that before he could restore

his navy he should be supplied with provocations to justify a second

war. Majorian returned to Italy, to prosecute his labours for the public

happiness; and as he was conscious of his own integrity, he might long

remain ignorant of the dark conspiracy which threatened his throne and

his life.

The recent misfortune of Cartagena sullied the glory which had dazzled

the eyes of the multitude. Almost every description of civil and military

officers were exasperated against the reformer, since they all derived

some advantage from the abuses which he endeavoured to suppress; and the

patrician Ricimer impelled the inconstant passions of the barbarians

against a prince whom he esteemed and hated. The virtues of Majorian

could not protect him from the impetuous sedition which broke out in the

camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps. He was compelled to abdicate

the imperial purple; five days after his abdication it was reported that

he died of a dysentery,[70] and the humble tomb which covered his remains

was consecrated by the respect and gratitude of succeeding generations.

The private character of Majorian inspired love and respect. Malicious

calumny and satire excited his indignation, or, if he himself were the

object, his contempt; but he protected the freedom of wit, and in the

hours which the emperor gave to the familiar society of his friends he

could indulge his taste for pleasantry, without degrading the majesty of

his rank.[c]

THE BARBARIAN EMPEROR-MAKERS

[Sidenote: [456-461 A.D.]]

The spoliation of Rome by Genseric was only a beginning of sorrows;

for, during the sixteen years that ensued Italy remained at the mercy

of her own paid leader, Count Ricimer, by birth and family alliances a

barbarian, who defeated every attempt to re-establish legal government.

After the fall of Aëtius, Ricimer obtained the command of the Western

forces and the patrician dignity. The career of Ricimer resembled in some

degree those of Stilicho and of Aëtius; for though his delinquencies were

more numerous and of a far deeper dye than theirs, like them he possessed

great military abilities, and like them he had personal interests that

could not be reconciled with those of the “Respublica Romana.”[d] The

prestige which he gained by his services against the Vandal Corsairs

enabled him to make himself virtual master of Empire and emperors for

almost twenty years (456-472). The attack of Avitus upon the Suevi in

Spain offended the Suevian Ricimer; and although it was an imperial duty

which Avitus performed in withstanding the encroachments of the Suevi,

the commander of the Roman troops found the way to his undoing. For the

next ten months Ricimer ruled under the title of patrician, which was

now very much akin to that of tyrant in the Greek sense of the word or

our modern political “boss.” He chose to be maker of emperors rather

than emperor himself and thus initiated a policy which was continued to

the fall of the Empire in the West. The history of these last years is

not that of the shadow emperors who flit across the scene, powerless in

themselves and in their circumstances, but of the great leaders like

Ricimer the Suevic-Goth, Orestes of Pannonia, or Bauto the Frank.

Meantime in the East conditions prevailed that were not altogether

dissimilar. The death of Marcian, after a reign of seven years, left no

hereditary claimant to the Eastern throne.[a] The man of most authority

in the army was the general Aspar (_magister militum per orientem_), an

Alan by descent, who with his father Ardaburius had distinguished himself

thirty-five years before in suppressing the usurper John and helping

Valentinian III to his legitimate succession. Aspar’s position in the

East resembled that of Ricimer in the West. He and his three sons, being

Arians and foreigners, could not hope to sit on the imperial throne; and

thus the only course open to Aspar was to secure the elevation of one

on whose pliancy he might count. He chose Leo, a native of Dacia and an

orthodox Christian, who was steward of his own household. Thus Aspar,

like Ricimer, was a king-maker.

But when Leo assumed the purple (7th February, 457)--on which occasion

the ceremony of coronation by the Patriarch of Constantinople (then

Anatolius) was first introduced--he did not prove as amenable to

influence as Aspar had hoped; on the contrary, he took measures to reduce

the resources of Aspar’s family, which by its close relations with the

army had considerable power, and was the centre of a large faction of

Arians and barbarians. In fact Aspar, though an Alan and not a German,

was the representative of German influence in the Empire, and the

danger which had threatened the Empire in the reign of Arcadius through

the power of Gainas was now repeated. Leo however firmly resisted the

aggressiveness of this influence, and in order to neutralise the great

fact which worked in Aspar’s favour, namely that the bulk and flower

of the army consisted of Germans, he formed the plan of recruiting the

line from native subjects. For this purpose he chose the hardy race of

Isaurian mountaineers, who lived almost like an independent people,

little touched by the influence of Hellenism, in the wild regions of

Mount Taurus. This is Leo’s great original work, for which he deserves

the title “Great,” more than for his orthodoxy, for which he probably

received it. He conceived an idea, whose execution, begun by himself

and carried out by his successor, counteracted that danger of German

preponderance which threatened the State throughout the fifth century.

Aspar appears to have possessed all the characteristics of an untutored

barbarian. Brave and active in war, he was idle and frivolous in peace.

During the reign of Marcian, and doubtless also in the reign of Leo,

while the Empire enjoyed rest, “he betook himself to relaxation and

womanly ease. His pleasures consisted in actors and jugglers and all

stage amusements, and spending his time on these ill-famed occupations

he lost all count of the things that make for glory.” But if he was no

longer active as a warrior, he won repute in the humbler part of an

energetic citizen or a competent policeman, for in the great fire which

laid waste a large part of Constantinople in 465 it is recorded that

Aspar exerted himself unsparingly for the public interest.

Leo had made a promise, apparently at the time of his elevation, to raise

one of Aspar’s sons to the rank of cæsar, and thereby designate him as

his successor, in spite of the fact that he was a barbarian. When he

delayed to perform this promise, Aspar is said to have seized him by his

purple robe and said, “Emperor, it is not meet that he who wears this

robe should speak falsely;” to which Leo replied, “Nor yet is it meet

that he should be constrained and driven like a slave.”[j]

After this extraordinary scene, it was impossible that the reconciliation

of the emperor and the patrician could be sincere; or, at least, that

it could be solid and permanent. An army of Isaurians was secretly

levied and introduced into Constantinople; and while Leo undermined the

authority, and prepared the disgrace of the family of Aspar, his mild and

cautious behaviour restrained them from any rash and desperate attempts,

which might have been fatal to themselves or their enemies. The measures

of peace and war were affected by this internal revolution. As long as

Aspar degraded the majesty of the throne, the secret correspondence of

religion and interest engaged him to favour the cause of Genseric. When

Leo had delivered himself from that ignominious servitude, he listened to

the complaints of the Italians; resolved to extirpate the tyranny of the

Vandals; and declared his alliance with Anthemius.[c]

[Sidenote: [460-467 A.D.]]

Even the genius and energy of Majorian is of no avail against the

dictatorship of Ricimer. But the spell of the imperial dignity was still

strong, and the commander of the army was not long in nominating another

to the purple.[a]

Severus, as the nominee of Ricimer, next wore the purple, and decrees

were registered in his name; but his appointment obtained no confirmation

at Constantinople, and the usurped power of Ricimer himself never

extended beyond the limits of Italy. In Gaul and in Dalmatia, the Roman

governors, Egidius and Marcellinus, continued to hold their respective

provinces in trust for the “sancta res publica,” acknowledging no

emperor but Leo; and Leo nominated both consuls. After four years of

confusion and misery Severus died; and when Ricimer, as patrician, had

exercised for above a year the power of the executive, he appears to

have become satisfied that, without a combined effort in which the naval

resources of the East should be brought to bear, the plague of Vandal

descents could not be stayed. Yielding, it would seem, to necessity, he

concurred with the senate in a request to the emperor Leo that he would

name an emperor of the West (465).

In this attempt to establish closer relations with the East, the senate

appears to have acted in conformity with the original constitution of

the two empires, and at the same time to have adopted a policy that

might under other circumstances have relieved the Roman world from its

besetting danger--namely, that of a military despotism exercised by men

who derived their wealth and importance from Roman sources and yet failed

to entertain any exclusive attachment to Roman interests.

The choice of Leo fell on Anthemius, who some years previously had

served as consul, and whose hereditary influence placed him at the head

of the Eastern magnates.[d] The virtues of Anthemius have perhaps been

magnified, since the imperial descent, which he could only deduce from

the usurper Procopius, has been swelled into a line of emperors. But the

merit of his immediate parents, their honours, and their riches, rendered

Anthemius one of the most illustrious subjects of the East. His father,

Procopius, obtained, after his Persian embassy, the rank of general

and patrician; and the name of Anthemius was derived from his maternal

grandfather, the celebrated prefect, who protected, with so much ability

and success, the infant reign of Theodosius. The grandson of the prefect

was raised above the condition of a private subject, by his marriage with

Euphemia, the daughter of the emperor Marcian.

This splendid alliance, which might supersede the necessity of merit,

hastened the promotion of Anthemius to the successive dignities of

count, of master-general, of consul, and of patrician; and his merit or

fortune claimed the honours of a victory, which was obtained, on the

banks of the Danube, over the Huns. Without indulging an extravagant

ambition, the son-in-law of Marcian might hope to be his successor; but

Anthemius supported the disappointment with courage and patience; and his

subsequent elevation was universally approved by the public, who esteemed

him worthy to reign till he ascended the throne.

The solemn inauguration of Anthemius was followed by the nuptials of

his daughter and the patrician Ricimer; a fortunate event, which was

considered as the firmest security of the union and happiness of the

state. The wealth of two empires was on this occasion most ostentatiously

displayed: and many senators completed their ruin by an expensive effort

to disguise their poverty. All serious business was suspended during the

time of this festival; the courts of justice were shut; the streets of

Rome, the theatres, the places of public and private resort resounded

with hymeneal songs and dances; and the royal bride, clothed in silken

robes, with a crown on her head, was conducted to the palace of Ricimer,

who had changed his military dress for the habit of a consul and a

senator.[c]

The unprecedented task intrusted to the emperor Leo of selecting the man

with whom he was to share the administration and defence of the whole

Roman world, makes it requisite to consider his actual position. Leo had

now attained the eleventh year of his reign, which, from the first, had

been beset with difficulties. Aspar, with his barbarian satellites,

overawed the Eastern senate; and it was only by compliances savouring

of duplicity that the government could be carried on. Leo could do no

more than turn to advantage any opportunity that might arise for the

extension of his influence. When the Huns invaded Thrace, he gained a

battle in which one of Attila’s sons was slain; a success which increased

his influence. By enlisting the services of an Isaurian prince, whose

barbaric name he changed to that of the stoic Zeno, he at length obtained

a counterpoise to Aspar. The Isaurian, though no philosopher and though

in his manners a barbarian, had at his disposal a considerable array of

hardy combatants, whose services Leo secured by accepting their leader

for his son-in-law. The resources of the Eastern Empire were then freely

devoted to an enterprise on the success and failure of which the weal or

woe of Italy depended.

Coins were struck representing the two emperors with joined hands,

and sanguine hopes were once more entertained that, by their combined

efforts, Africa with the command of the Mediterranean would be regained.

[Sidenote: [467-468 A.D.]]

In fitting out an armada of fabulous magnitude, the sum expended by Leo

exceeded £5,000,000 [$25,000,000]. Marcellinus, under whose government

Dalmatia had prospered and who had refused to obey Ricimer, declared

his allegiance to Anthemius, and the successes which his galleys

obtained over those of the Vandals enabled him to liberate the island

of Sardinia from their oppression. About the same time, the prefect

Heraclius landed at Tripolis, reconquered the adjacent settlements,

and commenced his march to co-operate with the main expedition in an

attack on Carthage. Such were the signs of an irresistible superiority

with which the war commenced, and which so far shook the confidence of

Genseric that he protested his willingness to submit to whatever terms

the two emperors might dictate; and there appears to be no doubt that

his apprehensions were shared by his coreligionists, Ricimer and Aspar,

to whom a subversion of the Arian ascendency in Africa would have been

fatal. Fortunately for them, the chief command was given to Basiliscus,

a brother of the empress consort Verina. As Leo had no son, Basiliscus,

if Procopius is to be relied upon, already aspired to the imperial

succession, and was anxious to stand well with Aspar.

The landing took place at a small seaport about forty miles from

Carthage; and while the disembarkation of stores and other impedimenta

was in progress, envoys from Genseric arrived. Basiliscus, whether

yielding to a desire to gratify Aspar, to the allurements of Vandal gold,

or to the suggestions of his own weak judgment, lent a willing ear to

their assurances. They asked and obtained a truce of five days, during

which the terms of submission might be arranged.

The panic, which would have made the reconquest of Carthage an easy

achievement, subsided, and Genseric having time for a careful examination

took note of the crowded order in which the Roman Armada lay at anchor.

His fire-ships, the torpedoes of ancient warfare, were in readiness,

supported by galleys which, however inferior to those of the Romans in

number, were the best manned and the most efficient in existence.

At nightfall the fire-ships were so placed that they drifted on the

very centre of the unsuspecting enemy, the flames spread, and when

the confusion was at its height a bold and well-timed attack did the

rest. The store-ships, on which the army depended for subsistence, were

captured or sunk; and acts of individual heroism on the part of the

Roman commander, of which there were many, were of no avail. A hopeless

resistance was for a while maintained, but the losses were irreparable.

Basiliscus saved himself by an early flight. On arriving at

Constantinople, he took refuge in the church of St. Sophia, until he

obtained a reprieve from capital punishment through the intercession of

his sister. Such was the disastrous ending of the combined effort made

for the recovery of Africa. Its success would have consolidated the power

of the two emperors; by its failure, Ricimer and Aspar were relieved from

their fears, and their arrogance became greater than ever. Leo found it

necessary to pacify Aspar by investing his son Patricius with the dignity

of cæsar, a title which conferred on its bearer a prospective claim to

the throne.

[Sidenote: [468-473 A.D.]]

To Aspar and his family, whose unpopularity was already great, the

acquisition of this dangerous honour brought no advantage, but only an

increase of hostility; for to the orthodox East Romans the idea of an

Arian emperor was insufferable. Owing to the losses incurred during the

late disastrous expedition the forces on which Aspar formerly relied

were no longer at his beck; and, rightly or wrongly, he and his son were

charged with treasonable designs against the government, over which they

had long domineered, and against the life of the emperor.

The circumstances preceding and attending their assassination are

variously and obscurely related; but no plea of state necessity can

relieve the memory of Leo from the stain of participation in the death

of his benefactor. In Italy, the reckless energy of Ricimer led to a

very different result. Having resolved to break up the alliances of the

emperors, he fixed his headquarters at Mediolanum, enlisted forces, while

Anthemius, relying on the cordial support of the senate and the bulk of

the people, remained inactive at Rome.

The Mediolanians, wishing to prevent a civil war, employed Epiphanius,

bishop of Ticinum (Pavia), as negotiator; and from the account given by

Ennodius of the bishop’s embassy, some estimate may be formed of the

difficulties that stood in the way of any attempt on the part of the West

Romans to reconstruct their dilapidated empire.

The pacific exhortations of the bishop resulted in a truce, which

gave time for Ricimer to engage the requisite number of Suevi and

Burgundiones. Having done this he threw off the mask, and making the

death of Aspar his plea, refused to acknowledge either Leo or Anthemius,

proclaimed Olybrius, an enemy of his father-in-law, emperor, and

commenced his march to Rome.

When the Roman governor of Gaul brought an army to support Anthemius, he

was defeated and slain. Rome nevertheless held out bravely until reduced

by famine when, with the exception of a few streets, occupied by his own

adherents, Ricimer condemned it to be sacked. He then added to the list

of emperors whom he had put to death the name of his own father-in-law,

and died the same year (472).[d]

Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless barbarians,

the election of a new colleague was seriously agitated in the council of

Leo. The empress Verina, studious to promote the greatness of her own

family, had married one of her nieces to Julius Nepos, who succeeded his

uncle Marcellinus in the sovereignty of Dalmatia, a more solid possession

than the title, which he was persuaded to accept, of emperor of the West.

But the measures of the Byzantine court were so languid and irresolute

that many months elapsed after the death of Anthemius, and even of

Olybrius, before their destined successor could show himself, with

a respectable force, to his Italian subjects. During that interval,

Glycerius, an obscure soldier, was invested with the purple by his patron

Gundobald; but the Burgundionian prince was unable, or unwilling, to

support his nomination by a civil war; the pursuits of domestic ambition

recalled him beyond the Alps, and his client was permitted to exchange

the Roman sceptre for the bishopric of Salona. After extinguishing such

a competitor, the emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the senate, by

the Italians, and by the provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and

military talents, were loudly celebrated, and those who derived any

private benefit from his government announced, in prophetic strains, the

restoration of the public felicity. Their hopes (if such hopes had been

entertained) were confounded within the term of a single year; and the

treaty of peace, which ceded Auvergne to the Visigoths, is the only event

of his short and inglorious reign.

[Sidenote: [473-475 A.D.]]

The most faithful subjects of Gaul were sacrificed by the Italian emperor

to the hope of domestic security; but his repose was soon invaded by a

furious sedition of the barbarian confederates, who, under the command of

Orestes, their general, were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos

trembled at their approach; and, instead of placing a just confidence

in the strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped to his ships and retired

to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the Adriatic.

By this shameful abdication he protracted his life about five years,

in a very ambiguous state between an emperor and an exile, till he was

assassinated at Salona by the ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated,

perhaps as the reward of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan.

The nations who had asserted their independence after the death of

Attila were established, by the right of possession or conquest, in the

boundless countries to the north of the Danube, or in the Roman provinces

between the river and the Alps. But the bravest of their youth enlisted

in the army of confederates, who formed the defence and the terror

of Italy; and in this promiscuous multitude the names of the Heruli,

the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugi appear to have

predominated.

The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, the son of

Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West. Orestes,

who has been already mentioned in this history, had never deserted his

country. His birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious

subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns, he

entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign, obtained

the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent ambassador to

Constantinople, to represent the person and signify the commands of

the imperious monarch. The death of that conqueror restored him to his

freedom, and Orestes might honourably refuse either to follow the sons

of Attila into the Scythian desert, or to obey the Ostrogoths, who

had usurped the dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the

Italian princes, the successors of Valentinian; and as he possessed the

qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced with

rapid steps in the military profession, till he was elevated, by the

favour of Nepos himself, to the dignities of patrician and master-general

of the troops.

These troops had been long accustomed to reverence the character and

authority of Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with

them in their own language, and was intimately connected with their

national chieftains by long habits of familiarity and friendship.

At his solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek who

presumed to claim their obedience; and when Orestes, from some secret

motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same facility,

to acknowledge his son Augustulus as the emperor of the West. By the

abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the summit of his ambitious

hopes; but he soon discovered, before the end of the first year, that

the lessons of perjury and ingratitude which a rebel must inculcate

will be retorted against himself; and that the precarious sovereign of

Italy was only permitted to choose whether he would be the slave, or the

victim, of his barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous alliance of these

strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of Roman freedom

and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and privileges were augmented;

but their insolence increased in a still more extravagant degree. They

envied the fortune of their brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, whose

victorious arms had acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance;

and they insisted on their peremptory demand that a third part of the

lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them.

[Illustration: ROMAN PINS AND BRACELET]

[Sidenote: [475-476 A.D.]]

Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to

our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than

to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious

demand; and his refusal was favourable to the ambition of Odoacer, a

bold barbarian, who assured his fellow-soldiers that, if they dared to

associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had

been denied to their dutiful petitions. From all the camps and garrisons

of Italy the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the same

hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular leader; and

the unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the torrent, hastily retreated

to the strong city of Ticinum, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanius.

Ticinum was immediately besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the

town was pillaged; and although the bishop might labour with much zeal

and some success to save the property of the church and the chastity of

female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the execution of

Orestes. His brother Paul was slain in an action near Ravenna; and the

helpless Augustulus, who could no longer command the respect was reduced

to implore the clemency of Odoacer. That successful barbarian was the son

of Edecon; who, in some remarkable transactions, had been the colleague

of Orestes himself.

The honour of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and Edecon

had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his sovereign. But

this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or repentance; his rank

was eminent and conspicuous, he enjoyed the favour of Attila; and the

troops under his command, who guarded in their turn the royal village,

consisted of a tribe of Scyrri, his immediate and hereditary subjects. In

the revolt of the nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and more than

twelve years afterwards the name of Edecon is honourably mentioned, in

their unequal contest with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated, after

two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the Scyrri. Their

gallant leader, who did not survive this national calamity, left two

sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle with adversity, and to maintain as

they might, by rapine or service, the faithful followers of their exile.

Onulf directed his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the

assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had acquired

in arms. His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among the barbarians

of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to the most desperate

adventures; and when he had fixed his choice, he piously visited the

cell of Severinus, the popular saint of the country, to solicit his

approbation and blessing. The lowness of the door would not admit the

lofty stature of Odoacer. He was obliged to stoop, but in that humble

attitude the saint could discern the symptoms of his future greatness;

and addressing him in a prophetic tone, “Pursue,” said he, “your design;

proceed to Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins;

and your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind.” The

barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the prediction,

was admitted into the service of the Western Empire, and soon obtained

an honourable rank in the guards. His manners were gradually polished,

his military skill was improved, and the confederates of Italy would not

have elected him for their general unless the exploits of Odoacer had

established a high opinion of his courage and capacity. Their military

acclamations saluted him with the title of king: but he abstained, during

his whole reign, from the use of the purple and diadem, lest he should

offend those princes whose subjects, by their accidental mixture, had

formed the victorious army which time and policy might insensibly unite

into a great nation.

Royalty was familiar to the barbarians, and the submissive people of

Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority which he

should condescend to exercise as the vice-gerent of the emperor of the

West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that useless and expensive

office; and such is the weight of ancient prejudice that it required

some boldness and penetration to discover the extreme facility of the

enterprise. The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his

own disgrace; he signified his resignation to the senate; and that

assembly, in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still

affected the spirit of freedom and the forms of the constitution. An

epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno,

the son-in-law and successor of Leo; who had lately been restored, after

a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly disclaim the

necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the imperial

succession in Italy; since, in their opinion, the majesty of a sole

monarch is sufficient to pervade and protect, at the same time, both the

East and the West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they

consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome

to Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing their

master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority which had

given laws to the world. The republic--they repeat that name without a

blush--might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer;

and they humbly request that the emperor would invest him with the title

of patrician and the administration of the diocese of Italy.

The deputies of the senate were received at Constantinople with some

marks of displeasure and indignation; and when they were admitted to the

audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment of the

two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had successively granted

to the prayers of Italy. “The first,” continued he, “you have murdered,

the second you have expelled; but the second is still alive, and whilst

he lives he is your lawful sovereign.” But the prudent Zeno soon deserted

the hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was gratified

by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues erected to his honour

in the several quarters of Rome; he entertained a friendly, though

ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully

accepted the imperial ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and

palace, which the barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of

the people.

In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian nine

emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth

recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice

of posterity if his reign, which was marked by the extinction of the

Roman Empire in the West, did not leave a memorable era in the history

of mankind. The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count

Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum. The name of Augustus, notwithstanding the

jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the

appellations of the two great founders of the city and of the monarchy

were thus strangely united in the last of their successors. The son of

Orestes assumed and disgraced the names of Romulus Augustus; but the

first was corrupted into Momylus by the Greeks, and the second has been

changed by the Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The

life of this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of

Odoacer, who fixed his annual allowance at six thousand pieces of gold,

and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania, for the place of his

exile or retirement.[c]

A REVIEW OF THE BARBARIAN ADVANCE

[Sidenote: [150-268 A.D.]]

There were two ways to Europe for the Indo-Germanic tribes,--south and

north of the Black Sea. First the Hellenic and Italic tribes came over

the sea and settled in the two countries lying near them and connected

by islands, which form the southeastern limits of one continent--Greece

and Italy.[71] The peoples in these beautiful countries quickly attained

to a wonderful state of civilisation, isolated for more than a thousand

years from northern Europe. This was the period of classical antiquity

which, for its art and literature, its statecraft and military system,

unrivalled almost up to the present day, has become the best school of

later mankind.

The second way from Asia to Europe lay north of the Pontus, and was far

longer and more fraught with weariness and danger than the first; thus it

was all the more adapted to the strengthening both of body and spirit.

At the northwest corner of the Black Sea it divided into a south and a

north road. Along the former, by the Danube between the Alps and the

Carpathians, the Celts migrated; later, along the second, north of the

Carpathians, the Germanic tribes entered western Europe, and were soon

followed by the Slavonic. Rome was already at the height of its empire

over the world when the first conflict took place between the Romans and

the Germanic tribes. The contact of the two races was of course that of

a rude primitive people with the members of a civilised state. Rome at

first tried the system of gradual repulse by the attack and subjection of

the Germans. When this policy was defeated by the battle fought by Varus,

she adopted the system of frontier protection, which lasted nearly two

centuries.

But the destinies of the future were being prepared in another way. The

remarkable aptitude for civilisation of the Germanic races made them

early recognise the value of that of Rome. Young nobles were educated in

the capital of the empire and trained in the army; the actual commercial

interests, the servitude of the one race in the countries of the other,

brought about a mutual relation whose most powerful lever was the Roman

military service, which thousands of Germans joined, satisfying in that

way their thirst for war and glory as well as their desire for monetary

gains.

Thus Rome itself trained the officers and military leaders of its

subsequent foes and final destroyers, from whom it had already seriously

suffered in the revolt of Civilis. The first act of the “barbarian

advance” opened with the war which we call the Marcomannic.

Towards the beginning of the last half of the second century the tribes

living between the Pregel, Vistula, and Baltic--now East and West

Prussia--left their unfavoured home to seek a better one in the proximity

of the Roman frontiers. It was the great Gothic family which made this

first migration, in which it carried along with it other allied races, as

the Vandals and Burgundiones. The mass separated; the chief tribe, the

Goths, went towards the Black Sea between the Don and the Dnieper, where

they only arrived after a long time on account of the long distance and

of the necessity of fighting their way.

The secondary tribes went up the Vistula through the Carpathians to the

Danube. Beyond this stream, in the year 165, one of the unceasing wars

between the Marcomanni and the Romans was in progress. The pressure of

the new rovers from the north gave fresh weight and importance to the

pressure of the Danubian Germans. The Marcomannic War lasted nearly

fifteen years; its course was terrible, and similar to that of the Punic

War.

Marcus Aurelius, however, was greater than the danger; he became its

master. Not a foot of Roman territory was lost; on the contrary, many

thousand homeless Germans settled in the empire as new brave subjects.

There was now for half a century an apparent cessation of the process of

destruction, but only of its external manifestations, not of the internal

efforts and preparations towards this end. The Roman tithe province (agri

decumates) between the Rhine and the Danube, unprotected by any natural

boundaries, was the first field of Germanic occupation. At what date the

chief mass of Vandals and Burgundiones, together with the Lygii, migrated

from their settlements between the Oder and the Vistula to the Roman

frontiers, we have no knowledge. We first encounter them under Probus in

the year 277, acting in the rear of the older frontier tribes as their

allies.

For over half a century, from 211 to 268, Rome had no great emperor;

indeed, with the exception of Maximinus, 235-238, not even a warrior. He,

however, was a rude barbarian who knew only how to fight and to conquer,

not how to organise. Then began the period of decline, in which one

emperor, Decius, fell upon the battle-field, and another, Valerian, was

carried into lifelong captivity. Simultaneously there rose up in the East

(about the year 226) a new and terrible foe, the powerful Sapor, one of

the Persian Sassanidæ, by whom the rule of the Parthians was overthrown,

and who was burning to become a second Cyrus. Under Gallienus, Valerian’s

son, 260-268, the misery of Rome reached its height. In expeditions of

hitherto unheard-of magnitude, the Goths during ten years overran Asia

Minor and Greece to Macedonia; the noblest and finest towns of antiquity

fell in flames.

[Sidenote: [268-367 A.D.]]

But the greatest evil of all, at least in the West, was the civil war.

Nineteen tyrants, usurpers, rose against the ruler; amongst whom,

however, two, Odenathus and his wife Zenobia, victoriously defended the

empire against the Persians. For fifteen years the West languished under

tyrants, of whom the first, Postumus, was certainly more powerful than

the rightful emperor.

There was no longer any talk of repulsing the foreign foe; the fact that

a great number of Germans were in both armies fighting for and against

each other was only a diminution of the danger. Further districts of

Gaul were being constantly annexed and won back from the barbarians, and

a small host of Franks pressed fighting into Spain, and after twelve

years lost itself in Africa. Not only the beginning of the end, but the

end itself seemed to have set in, when Rome was again saved and raised

almost to its former glory by a series of brave and great emperors. But

the true saviour of the empire was Diocletian (285-305), the wisest if

not the bravest of these. By his state reforms he built up the empire on

a new foundation, suitable to the needs of his time. His predecessors

had rendered harmless the most dangerous foes of the empire, the

Goths--Claudius by his glorious victory at Naissus, and Aurelian by the

cession of the large province of Dacia.

[Illustration: A BARBARIAN]

The new Probus, however, had so completely vanquished the peoples of the

West with their allies, Vandals, Burgundiones, and Lygii, that he was

able to announce to the senate: “The whole of Germania, as far as it

reaches, is subdued. Nine kings of different peoples lie at your feet.”

In the next two years, however, the conquered people uprose once more,

and the old state of affairs seemed to be returning, when Diocletian in

the year 285 brought permanent succour.

The division of the imperial government among those brave and able men

whom he appointed “cæsars” checked the German peril. His successor

and the completer of his work, Constantine the Great, brought (at all

events to the eastern portion of the empire) fresh life and more than

a thousand years’ duration, by establishing his own place of residence

at Constantinople. But once again, under the reign of Constantius, weak

son of a great father, the lust of war and plunder was awakened in the

barbarians of the West by the rise of a new tyrant in Gaul, and the civil

war resulting therefrom. Already the Rhenish strongholds, amongst them

Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), were in their hands when a new preserver,

the youthful Julian, came upon the scene.

He, like Cæsar, knew how to fight and conquer. The Salian Franks, who had

usurped the country between the Schelde and the Maas, Toxandria, were

taken as subjects; the Ripuarians, even the Saxon Chauci, were forced to

a submissive peace, and the Alamanni compelled, after four campaigns, to

the condition of tributaries.

[Sidenote: [367-476 A.D.]]

Valentinian I continued Julian’s work with an iron hand and will. During

this interlude of more than a century in the migration of the tribes the

victory of Christendom was effected in Rome, and also its entry amongst

the Germanic peoples in the form of Arianism, The Germans received a

fresh impetus by the incursions of the Huns, which extended from the

Crimean wall to the Loire. The western Goths, who were already in a state

of transition from barbarism to civilisation, fled before these Mongols

to the Romans. Tricked by imperial officers, wronged and deceived, they

seized upon the sword; the decisive battle at Hadrianopolis, in which the

emperor Valens fell, made them lords of the European provinces of the

Eastern Empire. The joint empire was once more saved by Theodosius, the

last of the great emperors, who contrived to appease the Goths. But when

in 395 the last and permanent division of the empire took place under

Arcadius and Honorius, the two weak sons of Theodosius, who were still

in their boyhood, the danger to western Rome flared up again, even more

terrible than before.

For nearly eight hundred years the capital of the world had seen no

conqueror within its walls. Alaric the Visigoth, a fearless warrior,

became after the emperor had caused his best commander Stilicho to be put

to death the first successor of the Gallic Brennus.

But the twofold occupation of Rome by Alaric was of no more importance

as an epoch in the barbarian invasion than was the later occupation by

Genseric in the year 455. Alaric did not wish to destroy the empire,

only to rule over his people in and with it; the Vandal wished for

nothing but plunder. From the passage of the Rhine by the Vandals

and Suevi, at the beginning of the year 406, to the incursion of the

Visigoths into Gaul in 412, was a far more important period in the

barbaric advance. In the year 409 the first went across the Pyrenees,

and in 411 permanently established themselves in Spain. In the year 413

the Burgundiones took possession of the country now bearing their name;

in the year 419 southwestern Gaul was at last formally ceded to the

Visigoths by the emperor Honorius. This people acknowledged a certain,

though only nominal, supremacy on the part of Rome. Rome, through its

last great commander Aëtius, brought into subjection the whole of the

rest of Gaul and the greater part of Spain. Far worse, however, was the

loss it suffered at the hands of the most terrible of all the Germanic

conquerors, Genseric the king of the Vandals; who in the year 427

deprived it of the distant and rich Africa, its granary, as well as of

the islands of the Mediterranean, and founded a piratical state which

became for him the source of enormous wealth during half a century,

but for Italy and other countries of the coast one of indescribable

devastations.

One hundred and seven years had the Vandal empire stood when, after the

Germans had become greatly degenerated, it was overthrown with ease

in the year 534 by Justinian’s general, Belisarius. Only indirectly,

as lever and impelling force, had the incursions of the Huns from 375

onwards influenced the tribal migrations, particularly the entrance of

the Germans into Gaul, Spain, and Africa.

It would seem as though the terrible Attila, that mighty scourge of God,

had determined to complete the work of destruction. But Attila’s empire

was built up on his personality; with his death it fell to pieces.

Therefore his campaigns of the years 451 and 452 in Gaul and Italy--with

the battle at Châlons, so famous in the world’s history--were only

a remarkable interlude in the great drama of race migration, and of

no decisive import in its real progress. After Attila’s death, when

Valentinian III had himself deprived the empire of its last support by

the murder of Aëtius in 454, the decline of the Western Roman Empire set

in, and continued during the next twenty years.

Not external pressure, whose severest shock had been happily averted, but

the inward germ of death, the growing power of the barbarians within

the empire itself, brought this occurrence, so important in the world’s

history, to maturity. For centuries the Roman army had consisted for

the most part of foreigners, chiefly Germans. With the need the number

increased, and at the same time their self-confidence and pretensions,

and consequently the hatred of the barbarians on the part of the Romans.

So long as the son and grandson of Theodosius reigned, the great

generals, by the habit of obedience and the magic of legitimate rights,

masked the inner dissensions and the weakness of the empire. But when

Nemesis had avenged the death of Aëtius on Valentinian III by his own

death in a similar manner, the internal corruption of the state revealed

itself under the growing pressure from without.

A bold adventurer of Suevian descent, the patrician Ricimer, acquired

as leader of the foreign troops the highest power in the state, and for

nineteen years raised emperors and overturned them at his pleasure.

Within twenty-one years nine ascended the throne. Even the ablest,

and the one among them of eminent talents, Majorian, succumbed to

the stealthy cunning and superior military strength of the barbarian

mercenaries. Their pretensions rose higher until they demanded a third of

the territories of Italy; and in Odoacer, an officer of the bodyguard,

they found the man who procured them their desire after he had forced the

abdication, in 476, of the last emperor of Rome, an immature youth who

bore the proud names of Romulus and Augustulus.

[Sidenote: [476-568 A.D.]]

Until the year 480 the emperor Nepos, driven from Italy, reigned in

Dalmatia; Odoacer accepted from Zeno, the emperor of the East, the title

of administrator, and reigned over Italy according to the old forms.

So at least in appearance. In reality it was a Germanic kingdom which was

raised on the foundation of the Eternal City which had ruled the world

for seven centuries. We now therefore consider the year 476 as that of

the fall of Western Rome, which up till then had stood for 109 years,

with short interruptions, as a separate empire, in fact, at all events,

if not in public recognition. With its fall, and Odoacer’s elevation, the

great work of expansion, distinction, and building up anew, which we call

the migration of races, was completed. Now the ground was clear for the

German colonisation on Roman territory, already in progress at various

points since the year 411.

Suevi, Vandals and Alans, Burgundiones and Visigoths, had founded new

kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and Africa, some transitional, some of more

permanent duration, whose origin and progress were closely bound up with

the history of Western Rome. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire,

the most powerful of all the German tribes arose, the Franks under

Childeric’s son Clovis, who in the year 486 destroyed the last remnant of

Roman supremacy in western Europe--that of Syagrius over a great part of

northern Gaul--by the battle of Soissons. This outer limb, as far as it

had any connection with the main body, belonged to the empire of Eastern

Rome.

Ostrogoths and Langobardi (Lombards) took part in the destruction of

Western Rome only in the second and third periods, not the first, which

was in so far an advantage that they drove out again their former

conquerors and possessors from the heart of the empire.

The moment of settlement for them came when, leaving their former

country, they prepared for colonisation on Roman territory--that is, for

the conquest of Italy; this was for the Ostrogoths in the year 488, for

the Lombards in 568.[e] [For it was in April of the latter year that the

Lombards, under Alboin, entered Italy. Fifteen years before Narses had

dealt a death blow to the Ostrogothic kingdom, and Italy once more became

a part of the Roman Empire. But now the exarch was left but a small

district to rule over and the peninsula passed forever from undivided

Roman rule.]

A FULFILLED AUGURY

[Sidenote: [476 A.D.]]

It is not to be imagined that the fall of the Roman Empire in the West

created so much stir among contemporaries as it has since done in

history. A century of constant reverse had led up to it. It was predicted

by religion, foreseen by politicians, and expected, as one might say, at

a fixed date.

An inexplicable fatality hovered over Rome from its cradle. It cannot

be denied that the failure of the town of Romulus, or the decline of

its power at the end of twelve centuries, was predicted almost from its

birth. The story of the portent of the twelve vultures appearing to

its founder on the Mount Palatine, embodied this instinctive belief,

fortified by all the authority of augural science. The Tuscan soothsayers

had, in effect, declared the twelve vultures to signify twelve centuries

of power, after which the fate of Rome would be consummated.

This political faith, already strong in the brightest days of the

republican epoch, was transmitted from generation to generation, proudly

when the end was far distant; fearfully, as it drew near. Even as the

historic date of the foundation was disputed, so there was disagreement

as to its end. The soothsayers all calculated in their own way as they

themselves understood it, but all expected it.

According to the most generally received chronology, Rome had passed the

middle of the eleventh century when Alaric took and burned it. One might

almost think the augury accomplished--allowing for a difference of a few

years. After the departure of the Goths, hope revived and calculation

recommenced. After the second sack of Rome by Genseric, in the twelve

hundred and seventh year from its foundation (455 A.D.) the fatal and

definite hour was declared to have arrived. “The twelfth vulture has

finished his flight. Now, O Rome, thou knowest thy destiny,” wrote

Sidonius Apollinaris, a firm Christian, but imbued, like every Roman

subject, with the superstitious traditions of the city of the Seven

Hills. Thenceforward began the real death throes of the empire, as it

passed to barbarian masters--from Ricimer to Gundobald, from Gundobald

to Odoacer, ever growing weaker, more despised, more crushed. When names

were heard, long strange to the nomenclature of the Cæsars--names such

as Julius and Augustus, coming from the grave of history like so many

spectres announcing the last day, and that of Romulus expiring in a

child--public consternation knew no bounds. These fortuitous combinations

presented in their fantastic aspect something of the supernatural, and

troubled the strongest minds. Men bowed their heads and were silent.

The obsequies of Rome were carried out in mournful silence. We find

in contemporary historians no accent either of regret or joy, no

declamations either in prose or verse; just a few dates and a bare record

of facts, that is all. It might almost be believed that nothing of

importance took place in the year 476. Jordanes alone, a little later,

sounds his barbarian trumpet over the grave of the empire, but only to

celebrate the coming of the Goths.

BREYSIG’S OBSERVATIONS ON THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST

It is of the death of a great nation that we have here to speak. For it

is not the physical, nor the spiritual, nor certainly a merely formal

political continuance--like that of Byzantium--which determines the

historical existence of the nations, but a political independence

at once material and powerful, and containing the essentials of

civilisation. And if we inquire once again into the reason of such a

death of nations, in the end we shall not venture to assign as a cause

some form of political or social organisation; some condition of sexual

morality; the invasion of Christianity (as Nietzsche thought), and still

less the cessation of mechanical inventions, as the folly of some natural

philosophers dabbling in history, has assumed: but solely the waning of

the nation’s vigour. We shall be compelled to consider not a few of the

political, social, moral, and intellectual phenomena towards the end of

the period as symptoms of this decay, as, for example, the degeneration

of Cæsarism and its hierarchy of officials, the social reaction of the

romancists of guilds and castes, the extravagant luxury, the complete

torpor of economical activity, and still more the decay of intellectual

life. But all these cannot have been the causes, but only tokens and

effects of the same disease of the innermost core.

But who shall say to what last final causes are to be referred the

rotting and crumbling of this nation which in the days of the flower of

its youth and manhood seemed to be possessed of eternal vigour. The Roman

nation was certainly not as short-lived as the Greek. If we measure the

periods of their development, one against the other, which is the only

possible form of comparison, we shall find that from the beginning of

their later middle age down to the loss of their political independence,

the Greeks are granted not quite half and the Romans almost the whole

of a millennium of autonomous history. Perhaps the compact and more

continental conformation of the Italian peninsula essentially contributed

to this duration; the connecting links between the two facts of the great

longevity of the Roman people and the broad surface and less broken

outline of their country might be represented by their far less rapid

economical and especially commercial development, and their much more

phlegmatic intellectual growth, and, in the sphere of politics, by the

far wider extent of the domains of the state, which consequently afforded

a much firmer base.

But, indeed, if it is permissible to enlarge further upon these

anthropogeographical conjectures, the sea was not here able to exercise

its animating, but also agitating and therefore strength-consuming

effects to the same extent as in Hellas, although it may nevertheless

have exercised sufficient influence. The fact that on the soil of Greece

there flourished an extraordinary wealth of intellectual growth and an

over-refined political civilisation, is just as explicable as that Italy

produced such a tardy, intellectual, and at the same time such a powerful

and yet carefully planned political, organisation. Italy was, to speak

in entirely hypothetical language, narrow and washed by the sea,--but

it was also sunny, and yet not too much split up into small sections

to allow of its bringing forth political institutions which were not

only sound but also really permeated with intellectual thought, and to

permit it to produce its art of government and its law. In other words,

this peninsula everywhere offered so wide a surface that it was able to

produce a state more extensive, stronger, more full of life, and, above

all, less threatened by natural separation of interests. But it was not

so continental as to permit of the formation of a despotically governed

state, stretching over a wide plain as in the vast countries of the East.

The sea had been able to exercise its invigorating effects in so far

that Italy attained a form of government, strong indeed, but also free.

And if no such finely organised intellectual culture was assigned to it,

at least its political institutions were intellectually elaborated to a

singular degree. For in all essentials they were as much the peculiar

product of her otherwise less remarkable intellectual culture as of her

political civilisation.

On the other hand Italy shares equally with Greece a life-giving but also

life-shortening effect of her geographical position: a mild climate.

Perhaps its effects in accelerating her bloom but also her decay have

been here somewhat arrested by other territorial conditions, yet perhaps

they too finally succeeded in making their influence felt. Else why

have Germans and Slavs, that is to say the only civilised peoples of

the north alone on the globe maintained themselves so much longer in

their strength, and why have they, and perhaps they only, still to-day

a prospect of millenniums of an equally robust life of political and

intellectual activity?[h]

FOOTNOTES

[69] [“The charges made by Gibbon … rest on no solid basis of evidence;

… except for a vague and feebly supported charge of ‘luxury,’ the moral

character of Avitus is without a stain.” Hodgkin.[g]]

[70] [The manner in which Majorian met his death is in dispute. While

Gibbon[c] gives credence to the report that he died from dysentery,

Samuel Dill,[i] who speaks of Majorian as “that great soldier and

far-sighted statesman,” says: “Majorian, the ‘young Marcellus’ of the

last years of the Western Empire, with all his old Roman spirit and

statesmanlike insight, failed in his mission and was treacherously slain

by Ricimer.” J. B. Bury,[j] expressing the same view, says “that Majorian

returned from Spain to Gaul, and after a sojourn in Arles passed into

Italy, without an army. At Tortona the officers of Count Ricimer, who had

judged him unworthy of empire, seized him, stripped him of the imperial

purple, and beheaded him (7th August, 461).” Niebuhr,[k] on the other

hand, tells us that “when Majorian returned, a conspiracy was formed

against him at the instigation of Ricimer; he was compelled to abdicate,

and died a few days afterwards.”]

[71] [There is great uncertainty as to these prehistoric migrations.]

[Illustration: ROMAN BRACELET

(In the British Museum)]

[Illustration]

APPENDIX A. HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF SOME LESSER NATIONS OF ASIA MINOR

Our studies of Roman history have brought us into incidental contact with

several nations of Asia Minor that from time to time have held friendly

or hostile relations with the Romans. The two most important of these,

the Parthians and the Sassanids, who successfully disputed the mastery of

the Orient with the Romans, will be given fuller individual treatment in

a later volume. But the lesser kingdoms of Pergamus, Bithynia, Pontus,

and Cappadocia, each of which had a somewhat picturesque and interesting

history when taken by itself, were hardly of sufficient importance from

a world-historical standpoint to be given individual treatment in our

text. It will be of interest, however, and will aid the reader in gaining

a clear idea of the opponents of Rome, and of the true relations of the

Roman Empire to the eastern peoples, if a brief outline of the history

of each of these nations is introduced. Such a chronological epitome of

their history is given here.

THE KINGDOM OF PERGAMUS (283-133 B.C.)

B.C.

283 =Philetærus=, governor of the Greek fortress of Pergamus,

in Mysia, revolts and founds a small principality. Owing to

the troubles incident to the Gallic invasion of Greece and

Asia Minor, he is not disturbed.

263 His nephew, =Eumenes I=, succeeds. His power increases, and

he defeats the Seleucidæ in a battle.

241 =Attalus I= succeeds. He achieves a decisive victory over

the Gauls, and makes friends with Rome. Pergamus becomes a

great art centre.

197 =Eumenes II= succeeds. Height of splendour of the kingdom,

which now covers the greater part of western Asia Minor.

Eumenes becomes the ally of Rome in her wars against the

Persians and Syrians. Building of the temple of Zeus Soter

to commemorate the great victory over the Gauls.

159 =Attalus (II) Philadelphus=, his brother, succeeds.

138 =Attalus (III) Philometor=, son of Eumenes II, succeeds.

133 Death of Attalus III, who bequeaths his kingdom to the

Romans. They form it into the province of Asia.

THE KINGDOM OF BITHYNIA (278-74 B.C.)

278 =Nicomedes I= assumes title of king, and maintains himself

on the throne in spite of civil discord and threatened invasion

by Antiochus I. He allies himself with the Gauls, who have

invaded Asia Minor.

250 His son, =Zielas=, succeeds after asserting his rights

against his half-brother.

228 His son, =Prusias I=, succeeds.

220 Prusias at war with the Byzantines in conjunction with the

Romans.

216 Prusias defeats a Gallic army invited into Asia by Attalus.

207 Prusias assists Philip of Macedon in war with Romans, and

invades Pergamus.

188 Prusias at war with Eumenes II of Pergamus. Hannibal lends

him assistance.

180 =Prusias II= succeeds his father.

156 War with Pergamus. Defeat of Attalus II.

154 Peace with Pergamus.

149 Prusias slain in a revolt in favour of his son =Nicomedes

II=, who succeeds.

131 Nicomedes assists the Romans in their war against Aristonicus.

102 He unites with Mithridates VI of Pontus in the conquest of

the vacant throne of Paphlagonia.

96 Nicomedes marries Laodice, widow of Ariarathes VI of

Cappadocia, and attempts to seize the kingdom. Rome compels him

to abandon it. The senate also deprives him of Paphlagonia.

91 =Nicomedes III= succeeds his father.

90 Mithridates VI of Pontus drives Nicomedes from his throne.

84 He is restored by Rome.

74 Death of Nicomedes. He bequeaths his kingdom to Rome and it

becomes a province.

THE KINGDOM OF PONTUS (337 B.C.-63 A.D.)

The dynasty of Pontine kings is reckoned from Ariobarzanes

I, about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. But

both he and his son Mithridates I, and grandson, Ariobarzanes

II, are Persian satraps, and it is not until

337 that Mithridates II, son of the last satrap, makes

himself independent. His rule is not uninterrupted.

318 About this time, Antigonus I forms a plan to kill him,

and he flees to Paphlagonia, and afterwards supports Eumenes

against Antigonus. He then recovers his throne and fixes

himself firmly on it.

302 =Mithridates III= succeeds his father. He adds part of

Cappadocia and Paphlagonia to his dominions. He allies himself

with the Heracleans, and obtains help of the Gauls to overthrow

a force sent against him by Ptolemy, king of Egypt.

266 =Ariobarzanes III= succeeds his father.

240 =Mithridates IV= succeeds his father. He repels the Gauls

shortly after his accession.

220 Unsuccessful attempt to capture Sinope.

190 =Pharnaces I= succeeds his father.

183 Capture of Sinope. The frontiers of Pontus are extended to

Bithynia.

181 Pharnaces attacks Eumenes of Pergamus and Ariarathes of

Cappadocia.

179 Pharnaces purchases peace, ceding all his possessions in

Galatia and Paphlagonia, excepting Sinope.

156 =Mithridates (V) Euergetes= succeeds his father.

154 He assists Attalus II of Pergamus against Prusias II of

Bithynia.

149-146 During the Third Punic War, Mithridates makes alliance

with Rome, supplying ships and men.

131-129 Mithridates aids Rome against Aristonicus, for which he

receives Phrygia.

120 Assassination of Mithridates at Sinope. Succeeded by his

son =Mithridates (VI) Eupator, the Great=. The Romans take

Phrygia from him. In the early years of his reign he subdues

many warlike tribes, and incorporates the kingdom of Bosporus

in his dominions. He attempts to gain control of Cappadocia,

and drives Nicomedes III of Bithynia from his throne.

88 War breaks out with Rome on account of the Bithynian succession.

Mithridates overruns Asia Minor, massacring Roman citizens.

84 Mithridates makes peace with Sulla.

83 Murena invades Pontus without reason and is defeated the

following year.

74 War with Rome renewed.

72 Mithridates flees to Armenia, taking refuge with his

son-in-law, Tigranes.

65 Total defeat of Mithridates by Pompey.

63 Revolt of the troops. It is put down, but Mithridates orders

a Gallic mercenary to kill him. His son, =Pharnaces II=, who

has been in revolt, succeeds him. He submits to Pompey, who

grants him the kingdom of the Bosporus.

47 Death of Pharnaces in putting down the rebellion of Asander,

governor of Bosporus.

36 Antony puts =Polemon I=, son-in-law of Pharnaces, over a

part of Pontus known as Pontus Polemoniacus. He is succeeded

about 2 B.C. by his son =Polemon II=, whose mother is nominal

ruler until 39 A.D., when Caligula invests Polemon with the

kingdom.

63 Polemon abdicates the throne and Pontus becomes a Roman

province.

THE KINGDOM OF CAPPADOCIA (_c._ 333 B.C.-17 A.D.)

The Cappadocian dynasty dates back to the time of Alexander

the Great, when =Ariarathes I= maintains himself on the throne

after the fall of the Persian monarchy.

322 Ariarathes captured by Perdiccas and crucified.

315 =Ariarathes II=, his nephew, recovers Cappadocia at death

of Eumenes. He is succeeded by his son, =Ariamnes II=, and he

in turn by =Ariarathes III= (date unknown).

220 =Ariarathes IV= succeeds his father. He joins Antiochus the

Great against the Romans, and afterwards assists Rome against

Perseus of Macedon.

163 =Mithridates=, afterwards called =Ariarathes V=, succeeds

his father.

158 Ariarathes deprived of his kingdom by Orophernes (Olophernes),

a creature of Demetrius Soter, but is restored by the Romans.

154 Ariarathes assists Attalus II in his war against Prusias II.

130 Death of Ariarathes in war of the Romans against Aristonicus.

His wife =Laodice= kills all her children except the youngest,

in order that she may rule. The people put her to death and

place her surviving child, =Ariarathes VI=, on the throne.

96 Ariarathes poisoned at instigation of Mithridates the Great

of Pontus, whose daughter he has married. Nicomedes II of

Bithynia seizes Cappadocia, but Mithridates soon expels him and

places =Ariarathes VII=, son of Ariarathes VI, on the throne.

This prince goes to war with and defeats Nicomedes.

93 He quarrels with Mithridates, who stabs him during an

interview. The Cappadocians recall the late king’s brother,

=Ariarathes VIII=, from exile and make him king. Mithridates

compels him to abandon his kingdom. The Romans now intervene

and appoint =Ariobarzanes I= king. He is several times expelled

by Mithridates and Tigranes of Armenia, but always recovers his

throne.

63 Ariobarzanes resigns Cappadocia to his son =Ariobarzanes

II=. He remains, like his father, the true ally of Rome and is

42 put to death for refusing to join Brutus and Cassius.

(Some writers say this was an Ariobarzanes III, who succeeded

Ariobarzanes II about 52.) =Ariarathes IX=, brother of

Ariobarzanes II, succeeds.

36 Antony puts him to death, and appoints =Archelaus= king.

Although an ally of Antony, Octavian leaves him in possession

of the kingdom and even adds to it.

14 Tiberius summons Archelaus to Rome.

17 Death of Archelaus. Cappadocia becomes a Roman province.

[Illustration]

APPENDIX B. THE ROMAN STATE AND THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH

WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK

BY DR. ADOLPH HARNACK

Professor in the University of Berlin; Member of the Imperial Academy of

Sciences.

During the period between the reign of Diocletian and the fall of the

Western Roman Empire, were laid the foundations of the history of the

Middle Ages; and of these the most important was the recognition of the

Christian church by the state and the privileged position thus accorded

to it. This union of state and church involved an amalgamation of their

intellectual forces, their rights and powers, and also to a certain

extent of their system of government. There arose a type of culture and

literature which was profane and Christian at one and the same time, a

Roman-Christian system of law, and an established church. An alliance was

made which would have passed for impossible down to the middle of the

third century. Had Tertullian been told that a time was coming when the

emperors would be Christians he would have stigmatised the prophecy as

impious; had any man proclaimed to Decius that in his persecuting edict

he was fighting against the future pillars of the state, he would have

flouted the suggestion as absurd. Even as late as the third century the

state and church seemed to be irreconcilable antagonists.

And yet Constantine’s resolution to recognise the church and grant her

privileges has a long and well-marked preliminary history--and that

in the case of both parties, state and church alike. If we study this

preliminary history, Constantine’s act appears in the light of the close

of a historic process of development which could not have ended otherwise

than it did. Constantine’s greatness is not impaired by this fact; he

realised and accomplished the one thing needful, and no statesman can do

more.