THE BARBARIAN AT THE WALLS
For a whole hundred years now, that is from A.D. 200 to 300, this
greatest story in the world is really made up of a succession of
small stories, each almost exactly the same as the last. They are
stories about the "barbarian," at some point or other of the
boundaries of the Empire, trying to break through, here and there
succeeding in making a breach in the wall, and penetrating into the
Empire, but again and again being thrust back, so that the old
boundaries, as established by Hadrian, were on the whole tolerably
well maintained all through this hundred years.
The first serious break in the wall was made by a tribe called the
Franks, from the east side of the Rhine, breaking through the
boundary between the Empire and Germany. There was at least one
other tribe in alliance with the Franks in this invasion, but it is
the Franks of whom we should, I think, take notice particularly,
because here we find them for the first time in what the Romans
called Gaul, and in what is now called, from these very Franks, or
from their descendants, France.
[Sidenote: The Gallic Empire]
But they did not remain long in Gaul at that time. They were driven
out by the legions. And the legions in that province had to do the
work of driving them out without getting any help from Rome. The
result of that was that these legions, finding that they had to rely
on themselves, thought that they might as well have a government of
their own. They {15} chose an "emperor" for themselves, a "Gallic
Empire" was founded--the Empire of Gaul--and it was obeyed even
across the Pyrenees, in Spain, and across the Channel, in Britain.
This so-called Gallic Empire had an existence of about thirty years,
after which it was overthrown and the Empire of Rome was
re-established over Gaul.
The story was almost exactly repeated in other parts of the Empire.
The Goths, a tribe perhaps of the same race and origin as the Franks,
and of similar habits, but living not so far towards the north, broke
in across the Danube. They were a very formidable force, and overran
the Balkans. They defeated a Roman army, under the Emperor Decius
himself, and Decius was killed in the battle. We must not allow
ourselves to be misled by the term "barbarian," applied by the Romans
to all these peoples, and to think of them as mere savages. These
Goths had possessions on the Black Sea and they are said to have sent
out, during this century, a fleet estimated at 500 ships which made
incursions along the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece as formidable as
any that the Vikings, later on, made further north. They actually
stormed and pillaged such cities as Corinth and Athens.
Further east the Persians came pressing in upon the Empire. They
were defeated and driven back by the Syrian _dux Orientis_, duke of
the East, as he was called. He was no more than a high official,
appointed by Rome, but after this success against the Persians he
proclaimed himself as an independent prince, the Prince of Palmyra.
Zenobia, his widow, who succeeded him in his real power, though a
young son was the successor to his title, maintained the independence
of Palmyra, and even conquered Egypt, but again there happened that
which we have seen more than once in the course of the great
story--the {16} enemies of Rome prevail against her for a while,
until she is provoked to put forth her full strength against them;
but, once she is roused to strenuous action, they go down before her.
Zenobia was defeated and brought in triumph to Rome about twenty-four
years before the end of the century, and in A.D. 300 the Roman Empire
stood within its bounds not greatly changed from its bounds of a
hundred years before. There was, however, a real, if not a very
visible, difference: the "barbarians," although for the time thrust
back, had probably learnt that the Roman power was not quite
invincible; and the legions guarding the frontiers had learnt that
they had to rely on their own forces, without assistance from the
central headquarters at Rome, for repelling the barbarians, and
therefore felt less disposed to look on Rome as their master.
[Sidenote: The barbarians]
The condition of the Empire within its frontiers was far less
prosperous at the close than it had been at the beginning of the
century. We saw how the Greek thought and culture had been carried
along the Roman roads to the far boundaries of the Empire. But
although the barbarian armies were still kept outside those
boundaries, a great many of the barbarians had come to settle within
the Empire and had been taken into the legions. No doubt some of
them learned the arts and the wisdom and the civilisation which the
Romans had learnt from the Greeks, but on the other hand they
prevented the spreading of these good lessons throughout the world.
If they became somewhat "Romanised," the Roman Empire at the same
time became somewhat "barbarised," by their coming in. Moreover
Gaul, as we have seen, had been the scene of war, and so, too, parts
of Italy itself, Greece, the Balkans, as we should call the district
now, Asia Minor and Egypt. There was scarcely a corner of the Empire
in which the _Pax {17} Romana_, had not been broken. Therefore the
fields were waste, the population diminished, the towns were
partially abandoned, trade was nearly at a standstill. Disease and
lack of food followed in the train of war.
Thus, although the boundaries of the Empire stood in the year A.D.
300 much as they had stood a hundred years before, the Empire within
had grown far weaker. If the barbarian should break through again,
as it was most likely that he would, there would not be the old
strength to repel him. But, before we come to the actual
breaking-through point, we would do well to consider a question which
I expect will have come to your minds: What sort of people, of what
race, and of what habits of life were these barbarians, so-called,
and what was the reason why they kept on thus trying to break in upon
the Empire?
We get our first knowledge of the way of life of these barbarians
from the great Roman historian Tacitus; and his account is especially
interesting to us, who are English, because it is the account of the
way in which those people lived who were our own ancestors. For the
very name of English or Englishmen, we may take it, was not known in
the Britain of that day, nor for some time after A.D. 300. There
were English, as we have noted, in Sleswig, and to north and south of
them were Jutes and Saxons. The three were closely allied in race
and in language, and the Romans, because they came into touch with
the Saxons chiefly, the most southern of the tribes, called them all
Saxon. It seems, however, that among themselves they commonly used
the word English, which strictly was the name of the nation or tribe
in the middle, to include all three tribes. All were Englishmen, but
the Jutes and Saxons were distinct, though allied, tribes within the
English description.
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The barbarians that Tacitus writes of lived to the south and east of
these, on the eastern side of the Rhine, but what he has to say about
them we may take to apply to those forefathers of our own, because,
just as the name English included Jutes and Saxons, so too the
English and many others, such as the Goths and the Franks, were all
to be included under a name of wider meaning still. All were
related. All spoke a language which had evidently come from the same
original source, though different tribes had learnt to speak rather
differently because they had lived far apart from each other for a
great many years. All had very similar customs and ways of life, and
the same religion. Christianity had not yet come to them.
[Sidenote: Tacitus on the Goths]
What Tacitus tells us is that all these allied nations were made up
of people living the life of farmers. They liked to live separately
from each other, in families apart. Their farm would consist of as
much plough land as the head of the family and his sons and daughters
could work and keep in good order, and as much pasture land as his
cattle required. These farmers would be established in the midst of
the great forests which covered all the land. They would be either
in natural glades in these forests or in clearances made by the
people themselves.
Each family lived by itself on its farm; but within a certain region
there would be a collection of these farms, not far apart from each
other; and this gathering of farms would form a tribe, or a division
within a tribe, by itself, apart from any other tribe. And
immediately surrounding each tribal group it seems as if the forest
was always left in its natural state, so that there was a wide strip,
or "mark"--a word we find later in the form of the "march" and the
"marches"--between one and the other. This strip was always
dangerous to traverse. It was the home {19} of wild beasts.
Moreover the farmers imagined it to be the home of evil spirits of
many kinds which might lead men astray and destroy them. And it was
necessary, if a man did have the courage and fortune to make his way
safely through this terrible belt of forest, that he should sound his
horn loudly as he passed the further side of it and came into the
farmed land of one of another tribe. If he did not give notice of
his coming by this horn-blowing, he was to be suspected as an enemy,
and was liable to be killed without further inquiry.
Thus, you see, these communities were made up of men owning their own
land. They were free-holders, as we should say. And, because they
owned land, they had the rights of free-holders, or free men. The
right, really, was the right of self-government. For although they
lived so much apart from each other, and were, as Tacitus tells us,
very much attached to their independent way of living, yet they had
intercourse together. To the Roman historian, accustomed to the
crowded cities of Italy, their solitary way of living would naturally
seem extraordinary, and very likely it was not quite so solitary as
his description would make us think. They had, at all events, their
government, their laws and customs, and had, as it appears, perfect
liberty for arranging all these for themselves.
They used to meet from time to time, probably at a set time once a
year, in a certain place, generally a hill, to which a certain
sacredness was ascribed on that account, and there they would hold
courts of law, to settle disputes brought before them, and would
impose sentences, and discuss matters of interest to the tribe
generally. Every free-man, every free-holder of land, had a right to
be there and to give his vote. The man who had no land had no vote;
he had no rights. So it was held a dreadful thing in {20} those days
to be a "land-less" man. These free-holders were called "ceorls" (in
later English, "churls"), and "ceorl" really means "man"; as if to
imply that those who had not the right which the possession of land
gave were hardly men at all. And of the "ceorls" there were some
larger proprietors, who were called "eorls" (later "earls"). From
that word too we get the "eorldermen" (or eldermen), who sometimes
deliberated apart at the meetings and were greatly considered, as men
of position and wisdom. But they had no rights over the "ceorls,"
except such as the "ceorls" voted to them and might take back again
by vote.
If any man deemed himself injured by another he could bring his case
before the court, and if he made it good the court would award him
compensation for the injury done him in the form of some cattle, or
other valuable property to be given over to him by the man that did
him the injury. The amount of the compensation it would be part of
the work of the court of law to settle when it was assembled at the
"mote hill" or place where the eldermen of the tribe gathered for the
purpose.
But, you may say, that is all very well for the man who had suffered
an injury that was not fatal. You could compensate him, perhaps.
But how about a man that had been killed? You could not very well
compensate him.
You could not. All you could do in a case like this would be to make
the killer give compensation, in form of a heavy fine of cattle or
goods, to the wife and family of the murdered man. But that would
not be enough: the killer must be personally punished too, probably
with death.
And then you may say that, if he was to be punished with death, it
would not much matter to him how many of his cattle or how much of
his goods were {21} taken from him and given to the family of the man
he had killed.
[Sidenote: The Gothic family]
It would not--to him personally; but it would matter to his wife and
family. They would be the poorer by the amount of the fine that was
paid. And it is thought likely that it was in this way that the
custom grew of looking upon the family of a person who had suffered
wrong as the people who were to be compensated for the wrong, rather
than the sufferer himself; and also of looking upon the family of the
man who had done the wrong as the people who should make the
compensation, rather than the wrong-doer himself.
The result of that was to make each person in the family look upon
every other person of the same family as one whose acts might make a
great deal of difference to him. The whole family had to suffer when
any of its members did wrong: the whole family had a claim against a
person who had wronged one of its members.
So they had this sentiment, that all the members of a family were
dependent each on the acts of the other, and that they must suffer
together when wrong was done; but in other ways they were very
independent people.
They seem to have been generally tall and big, both men and women.
They had light hair, which even the men allowed to grow long, so as
to fall on their shoulders, blue eyes and fair complexions.
That is a general description which may serve for all the tribes of
the barbarians which came knocking on the northern and eastern walls
of the Empire in Europe all the way down from Sleswig, where the
Saxons were, to the lands occupied by the Goths, some of whom lived
as far east as the shores of the Black Sea, where they had formed, as
we have seen, a large fleet. It is possible for a general account
like this to serve for the many different tribes and nations {22}
into which the barbarians on this boundary of the Empire were split
up, because they were all of one race originally, rather as we of
Great Britain and most of the Americans are of the Anglo-Saxon race,
although we are now of different nations.
All these peoples, of whom it is convenient to speak by the Roman
term of barbarians, were of the great family of mankind that is
called the Indo-European--that is the more general name, including
them all, of which I wrote a few pages back. It is given that name,
because some of the family went south, into India, and some west,
into Europe, out of some region in the north and east, which seems to
have been a great hive or nursery of mankind out of which we came
swarming south and west.
This hive seems to have had its home perhaps in the west of Russia;
but little is known about it. Probably it would be more right to
speak of many hives, scattered over a large region, than of one. But
we may know that the scattered members of the family--those in India
and those in Europe--are related by the similarity of some of the
most common words, or parts of words, in the languages of India and
of those lands of which the European members of the family got
possession.
Besides its troubles from the threats of these barbarians on its
north-west borders, the Empire, as we have seen, had its troubles
through most of this century from Persians and others on the
south-east; and I now want to ask you to notice an effect of these
troubles and threats of trouble on the Empire itself, for it was an
effect which made a very great difference to the story. This effect
was the dividing up of the one Empire into two, with a Western
Empire, as of old, having its seat of government at Rome; but also
with an Eastern Empire having its centre of government at Byzantium,
as Constantinople was then called.
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