It may not be improper now to take a more particular view of the civil
world, its condition, and of those wars at the instance of which it had
been, and then was, flooded with slaves. As an example, we select the
middle of the fifth century:
Attila, to whom the Romans gave the sobriquet, “_Flagellum Dei_,”
_Scourge of God_, was driven by Ætius out of Gaul in the year 451; and
the following year, pouring his wild hordes down upon Italy, conquered
Aquillia, Pavia, Milan, and a great number of small cities, and was in
the attitude of marching on Rome. The Emperor Valentinian III., who was
a weak prince, panic-struck, shut himself up in Ravenna; and his
general, Ætius, who had been so victorious in Gaul, partook of the
general fear when invaded at home. The destruction of Rome and its
imperial power, the slaughter and slavery of the Roman people, and the
extinction of the church appeared probable. Under such a state of
things, the emperor and his council prevailed on Leo the pontiff
himself, supported by Albienus and Tragelius, men of great experience
and talent, to undertake an embassy to the enemy’s camp, then on the
banks of the Minzo. This embassy was accompanied by a most grand and
numerous retinue—a small army—armed, not with the weapons of war, but
with the crosier and crook. Nor did Attila attempt to hide his joy for
their arrival. The most profound attention, the most convincing
demonstrations of his kindness to them, were studiously displayed by
him.
The terms proposed were readily accepted, and Attila and his army, a
tornado fraught with moral and physical ruin to Rome, the church, and
the civilized world, silently sank away far behind the Danube.
Nor is it strange that the great success of this embassy should have
been attributed to some intervention of miraculous power during the dark
ages that followed;—and hence we find that, four hundred years after, in
one of Gruter’s copies of “The Historica Miscella,” it is stated that
St. Peter and St. Paul stood, visible alone to Attila, on either side of
Leo, brandishing a sword, commanding him to accept whatever Leo should
offer; and this is quoted as credible history by Barronius, _ad ann._
452, _no._ 47–59, and has been painted by Raffaele, at a much later
period. The idea was perhaps poetical, and this piece alone would have
immortalized the artist. But it is truly singular that this appearance
of Peter and Paul should have gained a place in the Roman Breviary,
especially as it is nowhere alluded to by Leo, nor by his secretary,
Prosper, who was present at that treaty, nor by any contemporary
whatever. The facts attached to Attila, in connection with this treaty,
were:—His army was extremely destitute, and a contagious and very mortal
disease was raging in his camp; in addition to which, Marcian had
gathered a large army, then under march for Italy, to join the imperial
forces under Ætius, while, at the same moment, another army, sent by
Marcian long before, were then ravaging the country of the Huns
themselves: of these facts Attila was well advised. These were the
agencies that operated on his mind in favour of peace with Valentinian.
To us the idea seems puerile to suppose Jehovah sending Peter and Paul,
sword in hand, to frighten his Hunnish majesty from making slaves of the
Roman people.
Would it not be more consonant with the general acts of his providence
to point Attila to his diseased army; to their consequent want of
supplies, and to the threatening danger of his being totally cut off by
the two armies of Marcian, saying nothing of the possibility of a
restored confidence among the then panic-struck Romans? Besides, it has
been well ascertained that, at the time of Leo’s arrival, he had been
hesitating whether to march on Rome—or recross the Alps. See _Bower_,
vol. ii. p. 202; also, _Jornandez Rer. Goth._ c. 41, 49.
But, we acknowledge the intervening influences of the Divine will, in
this case, as forcibly as it could be urged, even if attended with all
the particulars and extravagancies of the poetic painter’s fancy. We
have alluded to this particle of the history of that day, as it stands
upon the records, in order that, while we quote, we may not be
misunderstood as to our view of the providences of God.
But to return to our subject:—Upon a review of these times, we may
notice the distractions of the church by means of the various heresies
which imbittered against each other the different professions of the
Christian faith. How the followers of Arius, for more than half a
century, spread confusion and violence over the entire Christian
world:—How, crushed and driven out by Theodosius, thousands took shelter
among the pagans, whose movements they stimulated, and whom we now
perceive in progress of the gradual overthrow of the Roman Empire:—How,
upon the partial or more general successes of these hordes, their Arian
confederates, with a fresh memory of their late oppressions and the
cruelties inflicted on them, retaliated with unsparing severity and
bloodshed upon their Nicene opponents; while, among all these savage
invaders, the Arian creed supplanted and succeeded the pagan
worship:—How this wild Attila swept the banks of the Danube and the
Rhine, carrying death or desolation to the followers of Pharamond, and
to the Goths, who had then already established themselves in the
strongholds of ancient Gaul and of the more modern Romans. True, his
career was checked on the banks of the Rhone, but, like a hunted lion,
he rushed towards the Mediterranean, and, recruiting his force in
Pannonia, directed his march to Italy; and to-day, after fourteen
centuries, it is said that Aquillia still stands the monument of his
barbarity. We have this moment noticed the extraordinary manner in
which, it is said, by the monition of Leo, his path of ruin was suddenly
directed to the ice-bound fortresses of the north. But the captives made
on both sides, in these desolating wars, greatly increased the number of
slaves of the white race, which otherwise, from operating causes, would
have been diminished.
Up to this time in these regions, and, as we shall see, to a much later
time, slavery was the result of that mercy in the victor, whereby he
spared the life of the conquered enemy. Its condition did not depend on
any previous condition of degradation, of freedom or slavery, nor upon
the race or colour of the captive,—and the wars, for ages, which had
been and were so productive of slavery, were almost exclusively among
those who, in common, claimed a Caucasian origin. Instances of African
slavery were rare. The Romans derived some few from their African wars,
valued mostly by pride, because they were the most rare.
Thus we read in the Life of Nero, by Tacitus:—“Nero never travelled with
less than a thousand baggage-wagons; the mules all shod with silver, and
the drivers dressed in scarlet; his African slaves adorned with
bracelets on their arms, and the horses decorated with the richest
trappings.” But these times had passed away. Yet we find in the Life of
Alphonso el Casto, that, upon his conquest of Lisbon, 798, he sent seven
Moorish slaves as a present to Charlemagne. And also, in Bower’s “Lives
of the Popes,” that in 849, “A company of Moors, from Africa,
rendezvoused at Tozar, in Sardinia, and thence made an incursion, by the
Tiber, on Rome. But they were mostly lost in a storm before landing. Of
those who got on shore, some were killed. in battle, some were hanged,
and a large number were brought to Rome and reduced to slavery.”
Yet the great mass of slaves were of the same race and colour of their
masters; and at this age, a most important fact with the Christian, if
they were pagans, was their conversion to Christianity.
For the first three hundred years, we may notice how Christianity had
threaded her way amidst the troublous and barbarous paganisms of that
age. But, at the time to which we have arrived, Christianity had ruled
the civilized world for more than a century. And had Providence seen fit
to have attended her future path with peace, human sympathy might have
fondly hoped that the mild spirit of her religion would have been poured
in ameliorating, purifying streams upon the condition and soul of the
slave, and like a dissolving oil on the chains that bound him.
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