The same rules were observed in the prov_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints, and to

redress grievances; and a legal government was supported by the

prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops, who, in

each revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious, and to

insult the prostrate labored, with diligence and success, to

kindle the flames of persecution, and to exalt the mitre above

the crown. Yet the national councils of Toledo, in which the free

spirit of the Barbarians was tempered and guided by episcopal

policy, have established some prudent laws for the common benefit

of the king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by

the choice of the bishops and palatines; and after the failure of

the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still limited to the

pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy, who anointed their

lawful prince, always recommended, and sometimes practised, the

duty of allegiance; and the spiritual censures were denounced on

the heads of the impious subjects, who should resist his

authority, conspire against his life, or violate, by an indecent

union, the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself,

when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to

God and his people, that he would faithfully execute this

important trust. The real or imaginary faults of his

administration were subject to the control of a powerful

aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were guarded by a

fundamental privilege, that they should not be degraded,

imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or

confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of their

peers. 124

123 (return) [ Such are the complaints of St. Boniface, the

apostle of Germany, and the reformer of Gaul, (in tom. iv. p.

94.) The fourscore years, which he deplores, of license and

corruption, would seem to insinuate that the Barbarians were

admitted into the clergy about the year 660.]

124 (return) [ The acts of the councils of Toledo are still the

most authentic records of the church and constitution of Spain.

The following passages are particularly important, (iii. 17, 18;

iv. 75; v. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8; vi. 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18; vii. 1;

xiii. 2 3 6.) I have found Mascou (Hist. of the Ancient Germans,

xv. 29, and Annotations, xxvi. and xxxiii.) and Ferreras (Hist.

Generale de l’Espagne, tom. ii.) very useful and accurate

guides.]

One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified

the code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of

Gothic kings, from the fierce Euric, to the devout Egica. As long

as the Visigoths themselves were satisfied with the rude customs

of their ancestors, they indulged their subjects of Aquitain and

Spain in the enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual

improvement in arts, in policy, and at length in religion,

encouraged them to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign

institutions; and to compose a code of civil and criminal

jurisprudence, for the use of a great and united people. The same

obligations, and the same privileges, were communicated to the

nations of the Spanish monarchy; and the conquerors, insensibly

renouncing the Teutonic idiom, submitted to the restraints of

equity, and exalted the Romans to the participation of freedom.

The merit of this impartial policy was enhanced by the situation

of Spain under the reign of the Visigoths. The provincials were

long separated from their Arian masters by the irreconcilable

difference of religion. After the conversion of Recared had

removed the prejudices of the Catholics, the coasts, both of the

Ocean and Mediterranean, were still possessed by the Eastern

emperors; who secretly excited a discontented people to reject

the yoke of the Barbarians, and to assert the name and dignity of

Roman citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed

most effectually secured by their own persuasion, that they

hazard more in a revolt, than they can hope to obtain by a

revolution; but it has appeared so natural to oppress those whom

we hate and fear, that the contrary system well deserves the

praise of wisdom and moderation. 125

125 (return) [ The Code of the Visigoths, regularly divided into

twelve books, has been correctly published by Dom Bouquet, (in

tom. iv. p. 273-460.) It has been treated by the President de

Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1) with excessive

severity. I dislike the style; I detest the superstition; but I

shall presume to think, that the civil jurisprudence displays a

more civilized and enlightened state of society, than that of the

Burgundians, or even of the Lombards.]

While the kingdom of the Franks and Visigoths were established in

Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the

third great diocese of the Praefecture of the West. Since Britain

was already separated from the Roman empire, I might, without

reproach, decline a story familiar to the most illiterate, and

obscure to the most learned, of my readers. The Saxons, who

excelled in the use of the oar, or the battle-axe, were ignorant

of the art which could alone perpetuate the fame of their

exploits; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism, neglected to

describe the ruin of their country; and the doubtful tradition

was almost extinguished, before the missionaries of Rome restored

the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of

Gildas, the fragments, or fables, of Nennius, the obscure hints

of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of

the venerable Bede, 126 have been illustrated by the diligence,

and sometimes embellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers,

whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or to

transcribe. 127 Yet the historian of the empire may be tempted to

pursue the revolutions of a Roman province, till it vanishes from

his sight; and an Englishman may curiously trace the

establishment of the Barbarians, from whom he derives his name,

his laws, and perhaps his origin.

126 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. 11-25, p.

4-9, edit. Gale. Nennius, Hist. Britonum, c. 28, 35-65, p.

105-115, edit. Gale. Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. Gentis Angloruml. i.

c. 12-16, p. 49-53. c. 22, p. 58, edit. Smith. Chron. Saxonicum,

p. 11-23, &c., edit. Gibson. The Anglo-Saxon laws were published

by Wilkins, London, 1731, in folio; and the Leges Wallicae, by

Wotton and Clarke, London, 1730, in folio.]

127 (return) [ The laborious Mr. Carte, and the ingenious Mr.

Whitaker, are the two modern writers to whom I am principally

indebted. The particular historian of Manchester embraces, under

that obscure title, a subject almost as extensive as the general

history of England. * Note: Add the Anglo-Saxon History of Mr. S.

Turner; and Sir F. Palgrave Sketch of the “Early History of

England.”—M.]

About forty years after the dissolution of the Roman government,

Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme, though precarious

command of the princes and cities of Britain. That unfortunate

monarch has been almost unanimously condemned for the weak and

mischievous policy of inviting 128 a formidable stranger, to

repel the vexatious inroads of a domestic foe. His ambassadors

are despatched, by the gravest historians, to the coast of

Germany: they address a pathetic oration to the general assembly

of the Saxons, and those warlike Barbarians resolve to assist

with a fleet and army the suppliants of a distant and unknown

island. If Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the

measure of its calamities would have been less complete. But the

strength of the Roman government could not always guard the

maritime province against the pirates of Germany; the independent

and divided states were exposed to their attacks; and the Saxons

might sometimes join the Scots and the Picts, in a tacit, or

express, confederacy of rapine and destruction. Vortigern could

only balance the various perils, which assaulted on every side

his throne and his people; and his policy may deserve either

praise or excuse, if he preferred the alliance of those

Barbarians, whose naval power rendered them the most dangerous

enemies and the most serviceable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as

they ranged along the Eastern coast with three ships, were

engaged, by the promise of an ample stipend, to embrace the

defence of Britain; and their intrepid valor soon delivered the

country from the Caledonian invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a

secure and fertile district, was allotted for the residence of

these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to

the treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing and

provisions. This favorable reception encouraged five thousand

warriors to embark with their families in seventeen vessels, and

the infant power of Hengist was fortified by this strong and

seasonable reenforcement. The crafty Barbarian suggested to

Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing, in the neighborhood of

the Picts, a colony of faithful allies: a third fleet of forty

ships, under the command of his son and nephew, sailed from

Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on the

coast of Northumberland, or Lothian, at the opposite extremity of

the devoted land. It was easy to foresee, but it was impossible

to prevent, the impending evils. The two nations were soon

divided and exasperated by mutual jealousies. The Saxons

magnified all that they had done and suffered in the cause of an

ungrateful people; while the Britons regretted the liberal

rewards which could not satisfy the avarice of those haughty

mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an

irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and if they

perpetrated a treacherous massacre during the security of a

feast, they destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains

the intercourse of peace and war. 129

128 (return) [ This invitation, which may derive some countenance

from the loose expressions of Gildas and Bede, is framed into a

regular story by Witikind, a Saxon monk of the tenth century,

(see Cousin, Hist. de l’Empire d’Occident, tom. ii. p. 356.)

Rapin, and even Hume, have too freely used this suspicious

evidence, without regarding the precise and probable testimony of

Tennius: Iterea venerunt tres Chinlae a exilio pulsoe, in quibus

erant Hors et Hengist.]

129 (return) [ Nennius imputes to the Saxons the murder of three

hundred British chiefs; a crime not unsuitable to their savage

manners. But we are not obliged to believe (see Jeffrey of

Monmouth, l. viii. c. 9-12) that Stonehenge is their monument,

which the giants had formerly transported from Africa to Ireland,

and which was removed to Britain by the order of Ambrosius, and

the art of Merlin. * Note: Sir f. Palgrave (Hist. of England, p.

36) is inclined to resolve the whole of these stories, as Niebuhr

the older Roman history, into poetry. To the editor they

appeared, in early youth, so essentially poetic, as to justify

the rash attempt to embody them in an Epic Poem, called Samor,

commenced at Eton, and finished before he had arrived at the

maturer taste of manhood.—M.]

Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, exhorted

his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity: he painted in

lively colors the fertility of the soil, the wealth of the

cities, the pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the

convenient situation of a spacious solitary island, accessible on

all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which

issued, in the period of a century, from the mouths of the Elbe,

the Weser, and the Rhine, were principally composed of three

valiant tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the old Saxons,

and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner

of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the

paths of glory, and of erecting, in Kent, the first independent

kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the

primitive Saxons; and the common laws and language of the

conquerors are described by the national appellation of a people,

which, at the end of four hundred years, produced the first

monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were distinguished by their

numbers and their success; and they claimed the honor of fixing a

perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied the most

ample portion. The Barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine

either on the land or sea, were insensibly blended with this

triple confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their

vicinity to the British shores, might balance, during a short

space, the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the

Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians, are faintly described; and

some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the Baltic,

might embark on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a

new world. 130 But this arduous achievement was not prepared or

executed by the union of national powers. Each intrepid

chieftain, according to the measure of his fame and fortunes,

assembled his followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of

sixty, vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted his

subsequent operations according to the events of the war, and the

dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many

heroes vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders

assumed, or at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven

independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, 1301 were founded by

the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been

continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign,

derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of

war. It has been pretended, that this republic of kings was

moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But such

an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and

turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their laws are silent; and their

imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of

intestine discord. 131

130 (return) [ All these tribes are expressly enumerated by Bede,

(l. i. c. 15, p. 52, l. v. c. 9, p. 190;) and though I have

considered Mr. Whitaker’s remarks, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii.

p. 538-543,) I do not perceive the absurdity of supposing that

the Frisians, &c., were mingled with the Anglo-Saxons.]

1301 (return) [ This term (the Heptarchy) must be rejected

because an idea is conveyed thereby which is substantially wrong.

At no one period were there ever seven kingdoms independent of

each other. Palgrave, vol. i. p. 46. Mr. Sharon Turner has the

merit of having first confuted the popular notion on this

subject. Anglo-Saxon History, vol. i. p. 302.—M.]

131 (return) [ Bede has enumerated seven kings, two Saxons, a

Jute, and four Angles, who successively acquired in the heptarchy

an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was

the effect, not of law, but of conquest; and he observes, in

similar terms, that one of them subdued the Isles of Man and

Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and

Picts. (Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 5, p. 83.)]

A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has

presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely

disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation

from the Western empire. Gildas 132 describes in florid language

the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed

with every tide into the Thames and the Severn the solid and

lofty construction of public and private edifices; he accuses the

sinful luxury of the British people; of a people, according to

the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable,

without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone, or

weapons of iron, for the defence of their native land. 133 Under

the long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly

moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province,

whose safety was intrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of

Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror;

they were left destitute of any civil or military constitution;

and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill, or courage, or

authority, to direct the public force against the common enemy.

The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness,

and degraded the character both of the prince and people. Their

consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished

their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more

solicitous to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they

imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries.

Yet the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant, of

the manufacture or the use of arms; the successive and disorderly

attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover from their

amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added

discipline and experience to their native valor.

132 (return) [ See Gildas de Excidio Britanniae, c. i. p. l.

edit. Gale.]

133 (return) [ Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p.

503, 516) has smartly exposed this glaring absurdity, which had

passed unnoticed by the general historians, as they were

hastening to more interesting and important events]

While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without

resistance, to the Barbarians, the British island, alone and

unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful,

struggle, against the formidable pirates, who, almost at the same

instant, assaulted the Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern

coasts. The cities which had been fortified with skill, were

defended with resolution; the advantages of ground, hills,

forests, and morasses, were diligently improved by the

inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with

blood; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the

discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve

the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of

thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and

the numerous colony which he had planted in the North, was

extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West

Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of

three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest

of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of

Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained

in the battle of Mount Badon, reduced him to a state of

inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant son, advanced into

Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that time seated on a

commanding eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to the

relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough, 134

his British enemies displayed their military science. Their

troops were formed in three lines; each line consisted of three

distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen,

were distributed according to the principles of Roman tactics.

The Saxons charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with

their shord swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained

an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive

victories, the death of three British kings, and the reduction of

Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power

of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious

arms to the banks of the Severn.

134 (return) [ At Beran-birig, or Barbury-castle, near

Marlborough. The Saxon chronicle assigns the name and date.

Camden (Britannia, vol. i. p. 128) ascertains the place; and

Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores pest Bedam, p. 314) relates the

circumstances of this battle. They are probable and

characteristic; and the historians of the twelfth century might

consult some materials that no longer exist.] After a war of a

hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied the whole

extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the

extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the

inland country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians.

Resistance became more languid, as the number and boldness of the

assailants continually increased. Winning their way by slow and

painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various

confederates, advanced from the North, from the East, and from

the South, till their victorious banners were united in the

centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still

asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy,

and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who

preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the

mountains of Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was

delayed for some ages; 135 and a band of fugitives acquired a

settlement in Gaul, by their own valor, or the liberality of the

Merovingian kings. 136 The Western angle of Armorica acquired the

new appellations of Cornwall, and the Lesser Britain; and the

vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who,

under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the

laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants

of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the

customary tribute, subdued the neighboring dioceses of Vannes,

Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal, state,

which has been united to the crown of France. 137

135 (return) [ Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan, (A.D.

927-941,) who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined

the Britons beyond the River Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, l.

ii., in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the

Cornish knights was degraded by servitude: and it should seem,

from the Romance of Sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost

proverbial.]

136 (return) [ The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved

in the sixth century, by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second

council of Tours, (A.D. 567,) and the least suspicious of their

chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop of

the Britons to the first council of Tours, (A.D. 461, or rather

481,) the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas,

(alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25, p. 8,) may

countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth

century. Beyond that era, the Britons of Armorica can be found

only in romance; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine

History of the Britons, p. 214-221) should so faithfully

transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he

has so rigorously chastised.]

137 (return) [ The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the

subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian

Valesius, (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p.

98-100.) M. D’Anville, (Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, Corisopiti,

Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248, 258, 508, 720, and

Etats de l’Europe, p. 76-80,) Longuerue, (Description de la

France, tom. i. p. 84-94,) and the Abbe de Vertot, (Hist.

Critique de l’Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols.

in 12 mo., Paris, 1720.) I may assume the merit of examining the

original evidence which they have produced. * Note: Compare

Gallet, Mémoires sur la Bretagne, and Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.

These authors appear to me to establish the point of the

independence of Bretagne at the time that the insular Britons

took refuge in their country, and that the greater part landed as

fugitives rather than as conquerors. I observe that M. Lappenberg

(Geschichte von England, vol. i. p. 56) supposes the settlement

of a military colony formed of British soldiers, (Milites

limitanei, laeti,) during the usurpation of Maximus, (381, 388,)

who gave their name and peculiar civilization to Bretagne. M.

Lappenberg expresses his surprise that Gibbon here rejects the

authority which he follows elsewhere.—M.]

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part V.

In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much

courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence

of Britain. Yet if the memory of its champions is almost buried

in oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however

destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of

blood and military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of

Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the sea-shore, as a

landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice vanquished

in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a

noble family of Romans; 138 his modesty was equal to his valor,

and his valor, till the last fatal action, 139 was crowned with

splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the

illustrious name of Arthur, 140 the hereditary prince of the

Silures, in South Wales, and the elective king or general of the

nation. According to the most rational account, he defeated, in

twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North, and the

Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was

imbittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The

events of his life are less interesting than the singular

revolutions of his fame. During a period of five hundred years

the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely

embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were

odious to the Saxons, and unknown to the rest of mankind. The

pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to

inquire into the ancient history of Britain: they listened with

fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the

merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common

enemies. His romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of

Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of

the times, was enriched with the various, though incoherent,

ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or

the fancy, of the twelfth century. The progress of a Phrygian

colony, from the Tyber to the Thames, was easily ingrafted on the

fable of the Aeneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived

their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the

Caesars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and

Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent

injuries of his country. The gallantry and superstition of the

British hero, his feasts and tournaments, and the memorable

institution of his Knights of the Round Table, were faithfully

copied from the reigning manners of chivalry; and the fabulous

exploits of Uther’s son appear less incredible than the

adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valor of the

Normans. Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe

the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants,

flying dragons, and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more

simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on

the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and

adorned the popular romance of Arthur, and the Knights of the

Round Table: their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and

the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were

devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded the

genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. At length the light

of science and reason was rekindled; the talisman was broken; the

visionary fabric melted into air; and by a natural, though

unjust, reverse of the public opinion, the severity of the

present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur. 141

138 (return) [ Bede, who in his chronicle (p. 28) places

Ambrosius under the reign of Zeno, (A.D. 474-491,) observes, that

his parents had been “purpura induti;” which he explains, in his

ecclesiastical history, by “regium nomen et insigne ferentibus,”

(l. i. c. 16, p. 53.) The expression of Nennius (c. 44, p. 110,

edit. Gale) is still more singular, “Unus de consulibus gentis

Romanicae est pater meus.”]

139 (return) [ By the unanimous, though doubtful, conjecture of

our antiquarians, Ambrosius is confounded with Natanleod, who

(A.D. 508) lost his own life, and five thousand of his subjects,

in a battle against Cerdic, the West Saxon, (Chron. Saxon. p. 17,

18.)]

140 (return) [ As I am a stranger to the Welsh bards, Myrdhin,

Llomarch, and Taliessin, my faith in the existence and exploits

of Arthur principally rests on the simple and circumstantial

testimony of Nennius. (Hist. Brit. c. 62, 63, p. 114.) Mr.

Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 31-71) had framed an

interesting, and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur:

though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table.

* Note: I presume that Gibbon means Llywarch Hen, or the

Aged.—The Elegies of this Welsh prince and bard have been

published by Mr. Owen; to whose works and in the Myvyrian

Archaeology, slumbers much curious information on the subject of

Welsh tradition and poetry. But the Welsh antiquarians have never

obtained a hearing from the public; they have had no Macpherson

to compensate for his corruption of their poetic legends by

forcing them into popularity.—See also Mr. Sharon Turner’s Essay

on the Welsh Bards.—M.]

141 (return) [ The progress of romance, and the state of

learning, in the middle ages, are illustrated by Mr. Thomas

Warton, with the taste of a poet, and the minute diligence of an

antiquarian. I have derived much instruction from the two learned

dissertations prefixed to the first volume of his History of

English Poetry. * Note: These valuable dissertations should not

now be read without the notes and preliminary essay of the late

editor, Mr. Price, which, in point of taste and fulness of

information, are worthy of accompanying and completing those of

Warton.—M.]

Resistance, if it cannot avert, must increase the miseries of

conquest; and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and

destructive than in the hands of the Saxons; who hated the valor

of their enemies, disdained the faith of treaties, and violated,

without remorse, the most sacred objects of the Christian

worship. The fields of battle might be traced, almost in every

district, by monuments of bones; the fragments of falling towers

were stained with blood; the last of the Britons, without

distinction of age or sex, was massacred, 142 in the ruins of

Anderida; 143 and the repetition of such calamities was frequent

and familiar under the Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion,

the laws and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted

in Britain, were extirpated by their barbarous successors. After

the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops, who had

declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the holy relics

into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks were left

destitute of any spiritual food; the practice, and even the

remembrance, of Christianity were abolished; and the British

clergy might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the

idolatrous strangers. The kings of France maintained the

privileges of their Roman subjects; but the ferocious Saxons

trampled on the laws of Rome, and of the emperors. The

proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the titles of

honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the

domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were

finally suppressed; and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and

plebeian slaves was governed by the traditionary customs, which

had been coarsely framed for the shepherds and pirates of

Germany. The language of science, of business, and of

conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans, was lost

in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic

words might be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants

and ideas; 144 but those illiterate Pagans preserved and

established the use of their national dialect. 145 Almost every

name, conspicuous either in the church or state, reveals its

Teutonic origin; 146 and the geography of England was universally

inscribed with foreign characters and appellations. The example

of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may not easily be

found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the arts of

Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;

and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants

was covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.

142 (return) [ Hoc anno (490) Aella et Cissa obsederunt

Andredes-Ceaster; et interfecerunt omnes qui id incoluerunt; adeo

ut ne unus Brito ibi superstes fuerit, (Chron. Saxon. p. 15;) an

expression more dreadful in its simplicity, than all the vague

and tedious lamentations of the British Jeremiah.]

143 (return) [ Andredes-Ceaster, or Anderida, is placed by Camden

(Britannia, vol. i. p. 258) at Newenden, in the marshy grounds of

Kent, which might be formerly covered by the sea, and on the edge

of the great forest (Anderida) which overspread so large a

portion of Hampshire and Sussex.]

144 (return) [ Dr. Johnson affirms, that few English words are of

British extraction. Mr. Whitaker, who understands the British

language, has discovered more than three thousand, and actually

produces a long and various catalogue, (vol. ii. p. 235-329.) It

is possible, indeed, that many of these words may have been

imported from the Latin or Saxon into the native idiom of

Britain. * Note: Dr. Prichard’s very curious researches, which

connect the Celtic, as well as the Teutonic languages with the

Indo-European class, make it still more difficult to decide

between the Celtic or Teutonic origin of English words.—See

Prichard on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations Oxford,

1831.—M.]

145 (return) [ In the beginning of the seventh century, the

Franks and the Anglo-Saxons mutually understood each other’s

language, which was derived from the same Teutonic root, (Bede,

l. i. c. 25, p. 60.)]

146 (return) [ After the first generation of Italian, or

Scottish, missionaries, the dignities of the church were filled

with Saxon proselytes.]

This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even

philosophers, that the provincials of Britain were totally

exterminated; and that the vacant land was again peopled by the

perpetual influx, and rapid increase, of the German colonies.

Three hundred thousand Saxons are said to have obeyed the summons

of Hengist; 147 the entire emigation of the Angles was attested,

in the age of Bede, by the solitude of their native country; 148

and our experience has shown the free propagation of the human

race, if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness, where their

steps are unconfined, and their subsistence is plentiful. The

Saxon kingdoms displayed the face of recent discovery and

cultivation; the towns were small, the villages were distant; the

husbandry was languid and unskilful; four sheep were equivalent

to an acre of the best land; 149 an ample space of wood and

morass was resigned to the vague dominion of nature; and the

modern bishopric of Durham, the whole territory from the Tyne to

the Tees, had returned to its primitive state of a savage and

solitary forest. 150 Such imperfect population might have been

supplied, in some generations, by the English colonies; but

neither reason nor facts can justify the unnatural supposition,

that the Saxons of Britain remained alone in the desert which

they had subdued. After the sanguinary Barbarians had secured

their dominion, and gratified their revenge, it was their

interest to preserve the peasants as well as the cattle, of the

unresisting country. In each successive revolution, the patient

herd becomes the property of its new masters; and the salutary

compact of food and labor is silently ratified by their mutual

necessities. Wilfrid, the apostle of Sussex, 151 accepted from

his royal convert the gift of the peninsula of Selsey, near

Chichester, with the persons and property of its inhabitants, who

then amounted to eighty-seven families. He released them at once

from spiritual and temporal bondage; and two hundred and fifty

slaves of both sexes were baptized by their indulgent master. The

kingdom of Sussex, which spread from the sea to the Thames,

contained seven thousand families; twelve hundred were ascribed

to the Isle of Wight; and, if we multiply this vague computation,

it may seem probable, that England was cultivated by a million of

servants, or villains, who were attached to the estates of their

arbitrary landlords. The indigent Barbarians were often tempted

to sell their children, or themselves into perpetual, and even

foreign, bondage; 152 yet the special exemptions which were

granted to national slaves, 153 sufficiently declare that they

were much less numerous than the strangers and captives, who had

lost their liberty, or changed their masters, by the accidents of

war. When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirit of

the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice of

manumission; and their subjects, of Welsh or Cambrian extraction,

assumed the respectable station of inferior freemen, possessed of

lands, and entitled to the rights of civil society. 154 Such

gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people,

who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and

Cornwall. The sage Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two

nations in the bands of domestic alliance; and four British lords

of Somersetshire may be honorably distinguished in the court of a

Saxon monarch. 155

147 (return) [ Carte’s History of England, vol. i. p. 195. He

quotes the British historians; but I much fear, that Jeffrey of

Monmouth (l. vi. c. 15) is his only witness.]

148 (return) [ Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 15, p. 52. The

fact is probable, and well attested: yet such was the loose

intermixture of the German tribes, that we find, in a subsequent

period, the law of the Angli and Warini of Germany, (Lindenbrog.

Codex, p. 479-486.)]

149 (return) [ See Dr. Henry’s useful and laborious History of

Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 388.]

150 (return) [ Quicquid (says John of Tinemouth) inter Tynam et

Tesam fluvios extitit, sola eremi vastitudo tunc temporis fuit,

et idcirco nullius ditioni servivit, eo quod sola indomitorum et

sylvestrium animalium spelunca et habitatio fuit, (apud Carte,

vol. i. p. 195.) From bishop Nicholson (English Historical

Library, p. 65, 98) I understand that fair copies of John of

Tinemouth’s ample collections are preserved in the libraries of

Oxford, Lambeth, &c.]

151 (return) [ See the mission of Wilfrid, &c., in Bede, Hist.

Eccles. l. iv. c. 13, 16, p. 155, 156, 159.]

152 (return) [ From the concurrent testimony of Bede (l. ii. c.

1, p. 78) and William of Malmsbury, (l. iii. p. 102,) it appears,

that the Anglo-Saxons, from the first to the last age, persisted

in this unnatural practice. Their youths were publicly sold in

the market of Rome.]

153 (return) [ According to the laws of Ina, they could not be

lawfully sold beyond the seas.]

154 (return) [ The life of a Wallus, or Cambricus, homo, who

possessed a hyde of land, is fixed at 120 shillings, by the same

laws (of Ina, tit. xxxii. in Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 20) which

allowed 200 shillings for a free Saxon, 1200 for a Thane, (see

likewise Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 71.) We may observe, that these

legislators, the West Saxons and Mercians, continued their

British conquests after they became Christians. The laws of the

four kings of Kent do not condescend to notice the existence of

any subject Britons.]

155 (return) [ See Carte’s Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 278.]

The independent Britons appear to have relapsed into the state of

original barbarism, from whence they had been imperfectly

reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind,

they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the

Catholic world. 156 Christianity was still professed in the

mountains of Wales; but the rude schismatics, in the form of the

clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration of Easter,

obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman

pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished,

and the Britons were deprived of the art and learning which Italy

communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the

Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West, was preserved and

propagated; and the Bards, who had been the companions of the

Druids, were still protected, in the sixteenth century, by the

laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a respectable officer of the

courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or Caermarthen, accompanied the

king’s servants to war: the monarchy of the Britons, which he

sung in the front of battle, excited their courage, and justified

their depredations; and the songster claimed for his legitimate

prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate ministers,

the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music,

visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and

the plebeian houses; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by

the clergy, was oppressed by the importunate demands of the

bards. Their rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials,

and the strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the

fancy of the poet, and of his audience. 157 The last retreats of

Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain, were

less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage: the wealth of the

Britons consisted in their flocks and herds; milk and flesh were

their ordinary food; and bread was sometimes esteemed, or

rejected, as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains

of Wales and the morasses of Armorica; but their populousness has

been maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and

the houses of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to

contain ten wives, and perhaps fifty children. 158 Their

disposition was rash and choleric; they were bold in action and

in speech; 159 and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace,

they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and domestic

war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of Gwent, and the

archers of Merioneth, were equally formidable; but their poverty

could seldom procure either shields or helmets; and the

inconvenient weight would have retarded the speed and agility of

their desultory operations. One of the greatest of the English

monarchs was requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek

emperor concerning the state of Britain; and Henry II. could

assert, from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited by

a race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the

defensive armor of their enemies. 160

156 (return) [ At the conclusion of his history, (A.D. 731,) Bede

describes the ecclesiastical state of the island, and censures

the implacable, though impotent, hatred of the Britons against

the English nation, and the Catholic church, (l. v. c. 23, p.

219.)]

157 (return) [ Mr. Pennant’s Tour in Wales (p. 426-449) has

furnished me with a curious and interesting account of the Welsh

bards. In the year 1568, a session was held at Caerwys by the

special command of Queen Elizabeth, and regular degrees in vocal

and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels.

The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged by the Mostyn family.]

158 (return) [ Regio longe lateque diffusa, milite, magis quam

credibile sit, referta. Partibus equidem in illis miles unus

quinquaginta generat, sortitus more barbaro denas aut amplius

uxores. This reproach of William of Poitiers (in the Historians

of France, tom. xi. p. 88) is disclaimed by the Benedictine

editors.]

159 (return) [ Giraldus Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and

ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The

malicious Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might

possibly be the effect of their servitude under the Normans.]

160 (return) [ The picture of Welsh and Armorican manners is

drawn from Giraldus, (Descript. Cambriae, c. 6-15, inter Script.

Camden. p. 886-891,) and the authors quoted by the Abbe de

Vertot, (Hist. Critique tom. ii. p. 259-266.)]

By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as

of empire, were contracted. The dark cloud, which had been

cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by

the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic,

and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous Islands of

the Ocean. One hundred and fifty years after the reign of

Honorius, the gravest historian of the times 161 describes the

wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western parts are

divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death, or,

more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country,

inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters

are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and

fruitful increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is

infectious and mortal; the ground is covered with serpents; and

this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits, who are

transported from the opposite shores in substantial boats, and by

living rowers. Some families of fishermen, the subjects of the

Franks, are excused from tribute, in consideration of the

mysterious office which is performed by these Charons of the

ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of midnight, to

hear the voices, and even the names, of the ghosts: he is

sensible of their weight, and he feels himself impelled by an

unknown, but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy, we

read with astonishment, that the name of this island is Brittia;

that it lies in the ocean, against the mouth of the Rhine, and

less than thirty miles from the continent; that it is possessed

by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the Britons; and

that some Angles had appeared at Constantinople, in the train of

the French ambassadors. From these ambassadors Procopius might be

informed of a singular, though not improbable, adventure, which

announces the spirit, rather than the delicacy, of an English

heroine. She had been betrothed to Radiger, king of the Varni, a

tribe of Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine; but the

perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of policy, to prefer his

father’s widow, the sister of Theodebert, king of the Franks. 162

The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing,

revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to have been

ignorant of the use, and even of the form, of a horse; but she

boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a

fleet of four hundred ships, and an army of one hundred thousand

men. After the loss of a battle, the captive Radiger implored the

mercy of his victorious bride, who generously pardoned his

offence, dismissed her rival, and compelled the king of the Varni

to discharge with honor and fidelity the duties of a husband. 163

This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval enterprise of

the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by which they acquired

the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon neglected by the

indolent Barbarians, who supinely renounced all the commercial

advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms

were agitated by perpetual discord; and the British world was

seldom connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the

Continent. 164

161 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 20, p.

620-625. The Greek historian is himself so confounded by the

wonders which he relates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish

the islands of Britia and Britain, which he has identified by so

many inseparable circumstances.]

162 (return) [ Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, and king of

Austrasia, was the most powerful and warlike prince of the age;

and this remarkable adventure may be placed between the years 534

and 547, the extreme terms of his reign. His sister Theudechildis

retired to Sens, where she founded monasteries, and distributed

alms, (see the notes of the Benedictine editors, in tom. ii. p.

216.) If we may credit the praises of Fortunatus, (l. vi. carm.

5, in tom. ii. p. 507,) Radiger was deprived of a most valuable

wife.]

163 (return) [ Perhaps she was the sister of one of the princes

or chiefs of the Angles, who landed in 527, and the following

years, between the Humber and the Thames, and gradually founded

the kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia. The English writers are

ignorant of her name and existence: but Procopius may have

suggested to Mr. Rowe the character and situation of Rodogune in

the tragedy of the Royal Convert.]

164 (return) [ In the copious history of Gregory of Tours, we

cannot find any traces of hostile or friendly intercourse between

France and England except in the marriage of the daughter of

Caribert, king of Paris, quam regis cujusdam in Cantia filius

matrimonio copulavit, (l. ix. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 348.) The

bishop of Tours ended his history and his life almost immediately

before the conversion of Kent.]

I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline

and fall of the Roman empire, from the fortunate age of Trajan

and the Antonines, to its total extinction in the West, about

five centuries after the Christian era. At that unhappy period,

the Saxons fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession

of Britain: Gaul and Spain were divided between the powerful

monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths, and the dependent

kingdoms of the Suevi and Burgundians: Africa was exposed to the

cruel persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults of the

Moors: Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were

afflicted by an army of Barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless

tyranny was succeeded by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth.

All the subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the Latin

language, more particularly deserved the name and privileges of

Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of foreign

conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany established a new

system of manners and government in the western countries of

Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly represented by the

princes of Constantinople, the feeble and imaginary successors of

Augustus. Yet they continued to reign over the East, from the

Danube to the Nile and Tigris; the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of

Italy and Africa were subverted by the arms of Justinian; and the

history of the Greek emperors may still afford a long series of

instructive lessons, and interesting revolutions.

Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.—Part VI.

General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.

The Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province,

imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the

fortune, of the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly

distributes and resumes her favors, had now consented (such was

the language of envious flattery) to resign her wings, to descend

from her globe, and to fix her firm and immutable throne on the

banks of the Tyber. 1000 A wiser Greek, who has composed, with a

philosophic spirit, the memorable history of his own times,

deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort, by

opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of

Rome. 2000 The fidelity of the citizens to each other, and to the

state, was confirmed by the habits of education, and the

prejudices of religion. Honor, as well as virtue, was the

principle of the republic; the ambitious citizens labored to

deserve the solemn glories of a triumph; and the ardor of the

Roman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often as they

beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. 3000 The temperate

struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established

the firm and equal balance of the constitution; which united the

freedom of popular assemblies, with the authority and wisdom of a

senate, and the executive powers of a regal magistrate. When the

consul displayed the standard of the republic, each citizen bound

himself, by the obligation of an oath, to draw his sword in the

cause of his country, till he had discharged the sacred duty by a

military service of ten years. This wise institution continually

poured into the field the rising generations of freemen and

soldiers; and their numbers were reenforced by the warlike and

populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resistance, had

yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance, of the Romans.

The sage historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio,

and beheld the ruin of Carthage, 4000 has accurately described

their military system; their levies, arms, exercises,

subordination, marches, encampments; and the invincible legion,

superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx of Philip

and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war Polybius

has deduced the spirit and success of a people, incapable of

fear, and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest,

which might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of

mankind, was attempted and achieved; and the perpetual violation

of justice was maintained by the political virtues of prudence

and courage. The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in

battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to

the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Ocean; and the

images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to

represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken

by the iron monarchy of Rome. 5000

1000 (return) [ Such are the figurative expressions of Plutarch,

(Opera, tom. ii. p. 318, edit. Wechel,) to whom, on the faith of

his son Lamprias, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. iii. p. 341,)

I shall boldly impute the malicious declamation. The same

opinions had prevailed among the Greeks two hundred and fifty

years before Plutarch; and to confute them is the professed

intention of Polybius, (Hist. l. i. p. 90, edit. Gronov. Amstel.

1670.)]

2000 (return) [ See the inestimable remains of the sixth book of

Polybius, and many other parts of his general history,

particularly a digression in the seventeenth book, in which he

compares the phalanx and the legion.]

3000 (return) [ Sallust, de Bell. Jugurthin. c. 4. Such were the

generous professions of P. Scipio and Q. Maximus. The Latin

historian had read and most probably transcribes, Polybius, their

contemporary and friend.]

4000 (return) [ While Carthage was in flames, Scipio repeated two

lines of the Iliad, which express the destruction of Troy,

acknowledging to Polybius, his friend and preceptor, (Polyb. in

Excerpt. de Virtut. et Vit. tom. ii. p. 1455-1465,) that while he

recollected the vicissitudes of human affairs, he inwardly

applied them to the future calamities of Rome, (Appian. in

Libycis, p. 136, edit. Toll.)]

5000 (return) [ See Daniel, ii. 31-40. “And the fourth kingdom

shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and

subdueth all things.” The remainder of the prophecy (the mixture

of iron and clay) was accomplished, according to St. Jerom, in

his own time. Sicut enim in principio nihil Romano Imperio

fortius et durius, ita in fine rerum nihil imbecillius; quum et

in bellis civilibus et adversus diversas nationes, aliarum

gentium barbararum auxilio indigemus, (Opera, tom. v. p. 572.)]

The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as

a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the

decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of

immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay;

the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest;

and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial

supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its

own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and

instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we

should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The

victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of

strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the

republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The

emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace,

were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline

which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to

the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and

finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine;

and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.

The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation

of the seat of empire; but this History has already shown, that

the powers of government were divided, rather than removed. The

throne of Constantinople was erected in the East; while the West

was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their

residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the

legions and provinces. This dangerous novelty impaired the

strength, and fomented the vices, of a double reign: the

instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were

multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was

introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of

Theodosius. Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free

people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The

hostile favorites of Arcadius and Honorius betrayed the republic

to its common enemies; and the Byzantine court beheld with

indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, the

misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the West. Under the

succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored;

but the aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful, and

ineffectual; and the national schism of the Greeks and Latins was

enlarged by the perpetual difference of language and manners, of

interests, and even of religion. Yet the salutary event approved

in some measure the judgment of Constantine. During a long period

of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victorious armies of

Barbarians, protected the wealth of Asia, and commanded, both in

peace and war, the important straits which connect the Euxine and

Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of Constantinople more

essentially contributed to the preservation of the East, than to

the ruin of the West.

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of

religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the

introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some

influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy

successfully preached the doctrines of patience and

pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were discouraged;

and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the

cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was

consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and

the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both

sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and

chastity. 511 Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly

passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological

discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by

religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and

always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted

from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new

species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret

enemies of their country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious or

absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The

bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of

passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their

frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, maintained the

communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the

gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual

alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was

devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if

superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices

would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser

motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are

easily obeyed, which indulge and sanctify the natural

inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine

influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though

imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North. If

the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of

Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the

fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.

511 (return) [ It might be a curious speculation, how far the

purer morals of the genuine and more active Christians may have

compensated, in the population of the Roman empire, for the

secession of such numbers into inactive and unproductive

celibacy.—M.]

This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction

of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and

promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country:

but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to

consider Europe as one great republic whose various inhabitants

have obtained almost the same level of politeness and

cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and

the prosperity of our own, or the neighboring kingdoms, may be

alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot

essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of

arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish,

above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The

savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized

society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether

Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities,

which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.

Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of that

mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual

security.

I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and

the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the

Northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with

innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and

turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of

industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse

of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant

revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious

enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was

swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The

flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the

spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on

the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost

were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new

assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from

the North; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the

decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress

of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages, thinly

scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a

list of two thousand three hundred walled towns: the Christian

kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been successively

established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic knights,

have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic, as

far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the

Eastern Ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and

civilized empire. The plough, the loom, and the forge, are

introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and

the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and

obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is now contracted to a

narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces

may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions

of the great republic of Europe. 6000 Yet this apparent security

should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown

dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely

visible in the map of the world, The Arabs or Saracens, who

spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in

poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed into those savage

bodies the soul of enthusiasm.

6000 (return) [ The French and English editors of the

Genealogical History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious,

though imperfect, description, of their present state. We might

question the independence of the Calmucks, or Eluths, since they

have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, who, in the year

1759, subdued the Lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country

of Badakshan, near the source of the Oxus, (Mémoires sur les

Chinois, tom. i. p. 325-400.) But these conquests are precarious,

nor will I venture to insure the safety of the Chinese empire.]

II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and

perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations, resigning

the hope, and even the wish, of independence, embraced the

character of Roman citizens; and the provinces of the West were

reluctantly torn by the Barbarians from the bosom of their mother

country. 7000 But this union was purchased by the loss of

national freedom and military spirit; and the servile provinces,

destitute of life and motion, expected their safety from the

mercenary troops and governors, who were directed by the orders

of a distant court. The happiness of a hundred millions depended

on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose

minds were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic power.

The deepest wounds were inflicted on the empire during the

minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius; and, after

those incapable princes seemed to attain the age of manhood, they

abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs,

and the provinces to the Barbarians. Europe is now divided into

twelve powerful, though unequal kingdoms, three respectable

commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent,

states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents are

multiplied, at least, with the number of its rulers; and a

Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the North, while Arcadius and

Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the South. The abuses of

tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame;

republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have

imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation;

and some sense of honor and justice is introduced into the most

defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In

peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by

the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European

forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive contests. If a

savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he

must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the

numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the

intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for

their common defence. Should the victorious Barbarians carry

slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand

vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of

civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the

American world, which is already filled with her colonies and

institutions. 8000

7000 (return) [ The prudent reader will determine how far this

general proposition is weakened by the revolt of the Isaurians,

the independence of Britain and Armorica, the Moorish tribes, or

the Bagaudae of Gaul and Spain, (vol. i. p. 328, vol. iii. p.

315, vol. iii. p. 372, 480.)]

8000 (return) [ America now contains about six millions of

European blood and descent; and their numbers, at least in the

North, are continually increasing. Whatever may be the changes of

their political situation, they must preserve the manners of

Europe; and we may reflect with some pleasure, that the English

language will probably be diffused ever an immense and populous

continent.]

III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the

strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age they have

oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and

Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterbalance these

natural powers by the resources of military art. The warlike

states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race

of soldiers; exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage,

multiplied their forces by regular evolutions, and converted the

iron, which they possessed, into strong and serviceable weapons.

But this superiority insensibly declined with their laws and

manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and his successors

armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude valor

of the Barbarian mercenaries. The military art has been changed

by the invention of gunpowder; which enables man to command the

two most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics,

chemistry, mechanics, architecture, have been applied to the

service of war; and the adverse parties oppose to each other the

most elaborate modes of attack and of defence. Historians may

indignantly observe, that the preparations of a siege would found

and maintain a flourishing colony; 9000 yet we cannot be

displeased, that the subversion of a city should be a work of

cost and difficulty; or that an industrious people should be

protected by those arts, which survive and supply the decay of

military virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an

impregnable barrier against the Tartar horse; and Europe is

secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before

they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. Their gradual

advances in the science of war would always be accompanied, as we

may learn from the example of Russia, with a proportionable

improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and they

themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom

they subdue.

9000 (return) [ On avoit fait venir (for the siege of Turin) 140

pieces de canon; et il est a remarquer que chaque gros canon

monte revient a environ ecus: il y avoit 100,000 boulets; 106,000

cartouches d’une facon, et 300,000 d’une autre; 21,000 bombes;

27,700 grenades, 15,000 sacs a terre, 30,000 instruments pour la

pionnage; 1,200,000 livres de poudre. Ajoutez a ces munitions, le

plomb, le fer, et le fer-blanc, les cordages, tout ce qui sert

aux mineurs, le souphre, le salpetre, les outils de toute espece.

Il est certain que les frais de tous ces preparatifs de

destruction suffiroient pour fonder et pour faire fleurir la plus

aombreuse colonie. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. xx. in his

Works. tom. xi. p. 391.]

Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious, there

still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The

discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic

history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations, represent

the human savage, naked both in body and mind and destitute of

laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. 1001 From this

abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of

man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilize

the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the heavens. His

progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and

corporeal faculties 1101 has been irregular and various;

infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees with

redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent have been followed

by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several climates of the

globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the

experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes, and

diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height

the human species may aspire in their advances towards

perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that no people, unless

the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original

barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a

threefold aspect. 1. The poet or philosopher illustrates his age

and country by the efforts of a single mind; but those superior

powers of reason or fancy are rare and spontaneous productions;

and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or Newton, would excite less

admiration, if they could be created by the will of a prince, or

the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The benefits of law and policy, of

trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences, are more solid and

permanent: and many individuals may be qualified, by education

and discipline, to promote, in their respective stations, the

interest of the community. But this general order is the effect

of skill and labor; and the complex machinery may be decayed by

time, or injured by violence.

3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more

necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or

national subordination: without the powers of one, or the union

of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always

possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of

fire 1201 and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic

animals; the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of

navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn, or other nutritive

grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private

genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy

plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into

the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and

Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians

subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the

invention or emblem of Saturn, 1302 still continued annually to

mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of the

Laestrigons 1401 have never been renewed on the coast of

Campania.

1001 (return) [ It would be an easy, though tedious, task, to

produce the authorities of poets, philosophers, and historians. I

shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive and

authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. i. p. 11,

12, l. iii. p. 184, &c., edit. Wesseling.) The Icthyophagi, who

in his time wandered along the shores of the Red Sea, can only be

compared to the natives of New Holland, (Dampier’s Voyages, vol.

i. p. 464-469.) Fancy, or perhaps reason, may still suppose an

extreme and absolute state of nature far below the level of these

savages, who had acquired some arts and instruments.]

1101 (return) [ See the learned and rational work of the

president Goguet, de l’Origine des Loix, des Arts, et des

Sciences. He traces from facts, or conjectures, (tom. i. p.

147-337, edit. 12mo.,) the first and most difficult steps of

human invention.]

1201 (return) [ It is certain, however strange, that many nations

have been ignorant of the use of fire. Even the ingenious natives

of Otaheite, who are destitute of metals, have not invented any

earthen vessels capable of sustaining the action of fire, and of

communicating the heat to the liquids which they contain.]

1302 (return) [ Plutarch. Quaest. Rom. in tom. ii. p. 275.

Macrob. Saturnal. l. i. c. 8, p. 152, edit. London. The arrival

of Saturn (of his religious worship) in a ship, may indicate,

that the savage coast of Latium was first discovered and

civilized by the Phoenicians.]

1401 (return) [ In the ninth and tenth books of the Odyssey,

Homer has embellished the tales of fearful and credulous sailors,

who transformed the cannibals of Italy and Sicily into monstrous

giants.]

Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and

religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and

New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been successively

propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in

the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has

increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness,

the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. 1501

1501 (return) [ The merit of discovery has too often been stained

with avarice, cruelty, and fanaticism; and the intercourse of

nations has produced the communication of disease and prejudice.

A singular exception is due to the virtue of our own times and

country. The five great voyages, successively undertaken by the

command of his present Majesty, were inspired by the pure and

generous love of science and of mankind. The same prince,

adapting his benefactions to the different stages of society, has

founded his school of painting in his capital; and has introduced

into the islands of the South Sea the vegetables and animals most

useful to human life.]

VOLUME FOUR

Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part I.

Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.—Birth, Education, And First

Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.—His Invasion And Conquest Of

Italy.—The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—State Of The West.—Military And

Civil Government.—The Senator Boethius.—Last Acts And Death Of

Theodoric.

After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of

fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly

marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno,

Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the throne

of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and

flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who might have

deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient

Romans.

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the

royal line of the Amali, 1 was born in the neighborhood of Vienna

2 two years after the death of Attila. 2111 A recent victory had

restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three

brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike

nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their

habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia.

The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their

hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and

the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother

in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of

Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of

his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the

public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor

of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of

three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at

Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to

all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of

liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most

skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of

Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first

elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent

the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. 3 As soon as he

had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes

of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality

and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the

brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of

Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for their king the

father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the strength

and stature of their young prince; 4 and he soon convinced them

that he had not degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At

the head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in

quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum,

or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of a

Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such triumphs,

however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible

Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of

clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their

Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and

wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which already

maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate

Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could

be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths

sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted

a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the

defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who

succeeded after his father’s death to the hereditary throne of

the Amali. 5

1 (return) [ Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630,

edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one

of the Anses or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian.

Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of the

Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the

grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the

Swedish commentator of Cochloeus, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c.,

Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this genealogy with the

legends or traditions of his native country. * Note: Amala was a

name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Visigoths. It

enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinther

means strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the

Nibelungen written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are

called the Amilungen. According to Wachter it means, unstained,

from the privative a, and malo a stain. It is pure Sanscrit,

Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische Bibliothek, 1. p. 233.—M.]

2 (return) [ More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso,

(Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where

Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, Jornandes, c. 52, p.

659. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph.

Antiq. (tom. i. p. 350.)]

2111 (return) [ The date of Theodoric’s birth is not accurately

determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it

between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost

Gothischen Reichs, p. 14.—M.]

3 (return) [ The four first letters of his name were inscribed on

a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew

his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm.

Marcellin p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the testimony of

Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths, (Gothic. 1. i.

c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius

(Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.

112.) * Note: Le Beau and his Commentator, M. St. Martin,

support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite

opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the

much stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.—M.]

4 (return) [ Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem,

(Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic

who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the

complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]

5 (return) [ The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of

Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52—56, p. 689—696) and

Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—80,) who erroneously styles him

the son of Walamir.]

A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the

base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any

endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth,

or superior qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian

line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be

justified in some measure by the characters of Martin and Leo,

but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored his

reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too

rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The

inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his

infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her

Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that

barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the

decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect

the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second

rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the

sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life

could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the

palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and

agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo,

claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of

deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom

she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. 6 As soon as she

sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with precipitation

into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus,

already infamous by his African expedition, 7 was unanimously

proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper

was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the

lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife,

the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic

luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of

Achilles. 8 By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno was

recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of

Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to

the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror, who

wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. 811 The

haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or

repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general, embraced

his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in

Syria and Egypt, 812 raised an army of seventy thousand men, and

persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless

rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been

predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the

East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter

Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and

fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after his

restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her mother. On

the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the

widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to

Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived his

elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character is

attested by the acclamation of the people, “Reign as you have

lived!” 9 912

6 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred

letters to the provinces. Such female pretensions would have

astonished the slaves of the first Caesars.]

7 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 504—508.]

8 (return) [ Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]

811 (return) [ Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or,

rather, of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the

enemies of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and

employed his whole time at home in confiscations and executions.

Lydus, de Magist. iii. 45, p. 230.—M.]

812 (return) [ Named Illus.—M.]

9 (return) [ The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus

are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by

Photius, (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100—102,) Constantine

Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78—97,) and in various

articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus

(Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns of Zeno and

Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last time, my

obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont,

(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472—652).]

912 (return) [ The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited by

Villoison in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the new

edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol.

with Dexippus and Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was unknown to

Gibbon. It is vague and pedantic, and contains few facts. The

same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of Priscian

edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the gram

marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the

African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref. p. xi.—M.]

Whatever fear or affection could bestow, was profusely lavished

by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician and

consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an equestrian statue,

a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand pounds, the name

of son, and the promise of a rich and honorable wife. As long as

Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported with courage and

fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his rapid march contributed

to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the

Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic

rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops. 10

But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable

enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the

Adriatic; many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the

agriculture of Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty

of the Goths, who deprived their captive peasants of the right

hand that guided the plough. 11 On such occasions, Theodoric

sustained the loud and specious reproach of disloyalty, of

ingratitude, and of insatiate avarice, which could be only

excused by the hard necessity of his situation. He reigned, not

as the monarch, but as the minister of a ferocious people, whose

spirit was unbroken by slavery, and impatient of real or

imaginary insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most

liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and

the most fertile estates became barren in their hands; they

despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials; and when

their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the

familiar resources of war and rapine. It had been the wish of

Theodoric (such at least was his declaration) to lead a peaceful,

obscure, obedient life on the confines of Scythia, till the

Byzantine court, by splendid and fallacious promises, seduced him

to attack a confederate tribe of Goths, who had been engaged in

the party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in Maesia,

on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople, he

should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reenforcement

of eight thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, while the

legions of Asia were encamped at Heraclea to second his

operations. These measures were disappointed by mutual jealousy.

As he advanced into Thrace, the son of Theodemir found an

inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic followers, with a heavy

train of horses, of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their

guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount Sondis, where he

was assaulted by the arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of

Triarius. From a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued

the camp of the Walamirs, and branded their leader with the

opprobrious names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, the

enemy of his blood and nation. “Are you ignorant,” exclaimed the

son of Triarius, “that it is the constant policy of the Romans to

destroy the Goths by each other’s swords? Are you insensible that

the victor in this unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly

exposed, to their implacable revenge? Where are those warriors,

my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now lament that their lives

were sacrificed to thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth which

thy soldiers possessed when they were first allured from their

native homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then

master of three or four horses; they now follow thee on foot,

like slaves, through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were

tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave

men who are as free and as noble as thyself.” A language so well

suited to the temper of the Goths excited clamor and discontent;

and the son of Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was

compelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of

Roman perfidy. 12 1211

10 (return) [ In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit invasor,

cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti.

Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.) to

transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia, beyond

the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p.

717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych. c. 25 p. 118,) and Theophanes,

(p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]

11 (return) [ This cruel practice is specially imputed to the

Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the

Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of

many Roman cities, (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]

12 (return) [ Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the services

of Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his revolt,

of which such curious details have been preserved by Malchus,

(Excerpt. Legat. p. 78—97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of Justinian,

under whose ivth consulship (A.D. 534) he composed his Chronicle,

(Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum, P. ii, p. 34—57,) betrays his

prejudice and passion: in Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis

munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis nunquam satiatus, &c.]

1211 (return) [ Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated

intrigues of the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The

weak emperor attempted to play them one against the other, and

was himself in turn insulted, and the empire ravaged, by both.

The details of the successive alliance and revolt, of hostility

and of union, between the two Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms

to the emperor, may be found in Malchus.—M.]

In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of

Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened

Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or retreated

with a faithful band to the mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At

length the accidental death of the son of Triarius 13 destroyed

the balance which the Romans had been so anxious to preserve, the

whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the Amali, and the

Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive treaty.

14 The senate had already declared, that it was necessary to

choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to

the support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand

pounds of gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were

required for the least considerable of their armies; 15 and the

Isaurians, who guarded not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed,

besides the privilege of rapine, an annual pension of five

thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of Theodoric soon perceived

that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected by the

Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects

were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while

their king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he

prevented the painful alternative of encountering the Goths, as

the champion, or of leading them to the field, as the enemy, of

Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy of his courage and ambition,

Theodoric addressed the emperor in the following words: “Although

your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality,

graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the

inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and

mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and

oppression of Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national

troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be

relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with the

divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to

your glory, the Roman senate, and the part of the republic

delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.” The proposal of

Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been suggested, by the

Byzantine court. But the forms of the commission, or grant,

appear to have been expressed with a prudent ambiguity, which

might be explained by the event; and it was left doubtful,

whether the conqueror of Italy should reign as the lieutenant,

the vassal, or the ally, of the emperor of the East.16

13 (return) [ As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly horse

threw him against the point of a spear which hung before a tent,

or was fixed on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, l. iii.

c. 25.)]

14 (return) [ See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35.)]

15 (return) [ Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was

decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could

lose 5000 men.] [Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has

abridged the great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and

reconcile Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian

Fragment, (p. 718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in

Chron.)]

16 (return) [ Jordanes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged the

great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile,

Procopius (Gothic. 1. i. c. i.), the Valesian Fragment (p.718),

Theophanes (p. 113), and Marcellinus (in Chron.).]

The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a

universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic

swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the

provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had heard

of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek, through

the most perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting

objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as the

emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the

Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were

carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy

baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand

wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of

Epirus. For their subsistence, the Goths depended on the

magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands

of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds;

on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the contributions

which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute the

passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding

these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and almost to

the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which

had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the

fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited

the rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated fields, and

convenient highways: the reign of barbarism and desolation was

restored, and the tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians,

who had occupied the vacant province, were prompted by their

native fierceness, or the solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the

progress of his enemy. In many obscure though bloody battles,

Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at length, surmounting

every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering courage, he

descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible

banners on the confines of Italy. 17

17 (return) [ Theodoric’s march is supplied and illustrated by

Ennodius, (p. 1598—1602,) when the bombast of the oration is

translated into the language of common sense.]

Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already occupied

the advantageous and well-known post of the River Sontius, near

the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a powerful host, whose

independent kings 18 or leaders disdained the duties of

subordination and the prudence of delays. No sooner had Theodoric

gained a short repose and refreshment to his wearied cavalry,

than he boldly attacked the fortifications of the enemy; the

Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries to

defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the first victory

was the possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls

of Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks

of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced in

its numbers, and not impaired in its courage: the contest was

more obstinate, but the event was still more decisive; Odoacer

fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to Milan, and the vanquished

troops saluted their conqueror with loud acclamations of respect

and fidelity. But their want either of constancy or of faith soon

exposed him to the most imminent danger; his vanguard, with

several Gothic counts, which had been rashly intrusted to a

deserter, was betrayed and destroyed near Faenza by his double

treachery; Odoacer again appeared master of the field, and the

invader, strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to

solicit the aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul. In

the course of this History, the most voracious appetite for war

will be abundantly satiated; nor can I much lament that our dark

and imperfect materials do not afford a more ample narrative of

the distress of Italy, and of the fierce conflict, which was

finally decided by the abilities, experience, and valor of the

Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of Verona, he visited

the tent of his mother 19 and sister, and requested, that on a

day, the most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn

him with the rich garments which they had worked with their own

hands. “Our glory,” said he, “is mutual and inseparable. You are

known to the world as the mother of Theodoric; and it becomes me

to prove, that I am the genuine offspring of those heroes from

whom I claim my descent.” The wife or concubine of Theodemir was

inspired with the spirit of the German matrons, who esteemed

their sons’ honor far above their safety; and it is reported,

that in a desperate action, when Theodoric himself was hurried

along by the torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them at

the entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove

them back on the swords of the enemy. 20

18 (return) [ Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We must

recollect how much the royal title was multiplied and degraded,

and that the mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of many

tribes and nations.]

19 (return) [ See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in

the king’s presence, could mention and praise his mother, we may

conclude that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt by the

vulgar reproaches of concubine and bastard. * Note: Gibbon here

assumes that the mother of Theodoric was the concubine of

Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in the text.—M.]

20 (return) [ This anecdote is related on the modern but

respectable authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p. 580. De

Occident. Impl. l. xv.:) his words are curious: “Would you

return?” &c. She presented and almost displayed the original

recess. * Note: The authority of Sigonius would scarcely have

weighed with Gibbon except for an indecent anecdote. I have a

recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian wars.—M.]

From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by

the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors surrendered the

Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage of his kingdom; and he

was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by the senate and people,

who had shut their gates against the flying usurper. 21 Ravenna

alone, secure in the fortifications of art and nature, still

sustained a siege of almost three years; and the daring sallies

of Odoacer carried slaughter and dismay into the Gothic camp. At

length, destitute of provisions and hopeless of relief, that

unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his subjects and the

clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was negotiated by the

bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted into the city,

and the hostile kings consented, under the sanction of an oath,

to rule with equal and undivided authority the provinces of

Italy. The event of such an agreement may be easily foreseen.

After some days had been devoted to the semblance of joy and

friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of a solemn banquet, was

stabbed by the hand, or at least by the command, of his rival.

Secret and effectual orders had been previously despatched; the

faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment, and

without resistance, were universally massacred; and the royalty

of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the tardy,

reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East. The

design of a conspiracy was imputed, according to the usual forms,

to the prostrate tyrant; but his innocence, and the guilt of his

conqueror, 22 are sufficiently proved by the advantageous treaty

which force would not sincerely have granted, nor weakness have

rashly infringed. The jealousy of power, and the mischiefs of

discord, may suggest a more decent apology, and a sentence less

rigorous may be pronounced against a crime which was necessary to

introduce into Italy a generation of public felicity. The living

author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own

presence by sacred and profane orators; 23 but history (in his

time she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just

representation of the events which displayed, or of the defects

which clouded, the virtues of Theodoric. 24 One record of his

fame, the volume of public epistles composed by Cassiodorus in

the royal name, is still extant, and has obtained more implicit

credit than it seems to deserve. 25 They exhibit the forms,

rather than the substance, of his government; and we should

vainly search for the pure and spontaneous sentiments of the

Barbarian amidst the declamation and learning of a sophist, the

wishes of a Roman senator, the precedents of office, and the

vague professions, which, in every court, and on every occasion,

compose the language of discreet ministers. The reputation of

Theodoric may repose with more confidence on the visible peace

and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years; the unanimous

esteem of his own times, and the memory of his wisdom and

courage, his justice and humanity, which was deeply impressed on

the minds of the Goths and Italians.

21 (return) [ Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus

to the ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus,

and Theophanes which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the

Ambrosian library, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]

22 (return) [ Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an

impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604)

are loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian

Fragment (p. 718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the

venom of a Greek subject—perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est,

(in Chron.)]

23 (return) [ The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was

pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond,

tom. i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was

rewarded with the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his

death in the year 521. (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14.

See Saxii Onomasticon, tom. ii. p. 12.)]

24 (return) [ Our best materials are occasional hints from

Procopius and the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by

Sirmond, and is published at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The

author’s name is unknown, and his style is barbarous; but in his

various facts he exhibits the knowledge, without the passions, of

a contemporary. The president Montesquieu had formed the plan of

a history of Theodoric, which at a distance might appear a rich

and interesting subject.]

25 (return) [ The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that

of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in

fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the

Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona.

The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi)

is never simple, and seldom perspicuous]

The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned

the third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the

sole injustice of his life. 2511 And even this act may be fairly

justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the

true interest of the Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting

a whole people, who, on the faith of his promises, had

transported themselves into a distant land. 26 Under the reign of

Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon

multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand men, 27

and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the

ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of

property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was

disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality; these

unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face of

Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his birth

and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic wealth

which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The distinction of noble

and plebeian were acknowledged; 28 but the lands of every freeman

were exempt from taxes, 2811 and he enjoyed the inestimable

privilege of being subject only to the laws of his country. 29

Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the conquerors to

assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they still

persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt

for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who

gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the

child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a

sword. 30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to

assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished

by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; 31 but these mutual

conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a monarch who

perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths; reserving

the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the service

of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his

industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence, without

enervating the valor, of his soldiers, who were maintained for

the public defence. They held their lands and benefices as a

military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared

to march under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the

whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters

of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the

frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and each

extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and

occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave

companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same

arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not

only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their victories,

but of the missile weapons, which they were too much inclined to

neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the daily

exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though

gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and

temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to

reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil society,

and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and

private revenge. 32

2511 (return) [ Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459,

&c.—Manso observes that this division was conducted not in a

violent and irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The

Barbarian, who could not show a title of grant from the officers

of Theodoric appointed for the purpose, or a prescriptive right

of thirty years, in case he had obtained the property before the

Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from the estate. He conceives

that estates too small to bear division paid a third of their

produce.—Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p. 82.—M.]

26 (return) [ Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum, ii. Maffei

(Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the injustice of

the Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian

Muratori crouches under their oppression.]

27 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius describes

(p. 1612, 1613) the military arts and increasing numbers of the

Goths.]

28 (return) [ When Theodoric gave his sister to the king of the

Vandals she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble Goths,

each of whom was attended by five armed followers, (Procop.

Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The Gothic nobility must have been as

numerous as brave.]

2811 (return) [ Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from

Cassiodorus to show that the Goths were not exempt from the

fiscal claims.—Cassiodor, i. 19, iv. 14—M.]

29 (return) [ See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, (Var. v.

30.)]

30 (return) [ Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt

the language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general

ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a

female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose

learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his

countrymen.]

31 (return) [ A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience:

“Romanus miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur

Romanum.” (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)]

32 (return) [ The view of the military establishment of the Goths

in Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus (Var. i.

24, 40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4, 25.)

They are illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the

Germans, l. xi. 40—44, Annotation xiv.) Note: Compare Manso,

Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reiches, p. 114.—M.]

Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—Part II.

Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had

spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was

satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed

into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which

was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their

quarrels and civilizing their manners. 33 The ambassadors who

resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe,

admired his wisdom, magnificence, 34 and courtesy; and if he

sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange

animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician,

admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and

industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, 35 a

wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of

Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the

Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to

maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great

republic of the West. 36 It is difficult in the dark forests of

Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli, a

fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who condemned

their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their

husbands, or the decay of their strength. 37 The king of these

savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and was

elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites

of a military adoption. 38 From the shores of the Baltic, the

Aestians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber 39 at

the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an

unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the

country 40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he

maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence: the Italians

were clothed in the rich sables 41 of Sweden; and one of its

sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found a

hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over

one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small

portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which

the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That

northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the

sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar

circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and

winter solstice during an equal period of forty days. 42 The long

night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress

and anxiety, till the messengers, who had been sent to the

mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and

proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection.

33 (return) [ See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in

Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv.

13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship,

counsel expostulation, &c.]

34 (return) [ Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.

5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the most

rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate

the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces were

intrusted.]

35 (return) [ See the public and private alliances of the Gothic

monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks,

(ii. 40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the Vandals,

(v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of

the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]

36 (return) [ His political system may be observed in

Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)

and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace,

was the constant aim of Theodoric.]

37 (return) [ The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of

Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader may

plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat, (Hist.

des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348—396. * Note: Compare Manso,

Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi. Malte-Brun brings them from

Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language, are

Gothic. “They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs

their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly

of royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied

their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the

senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no

pity for age, no refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is

the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at

their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her

days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband’s

tomb. All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar

with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli

not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles,

bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in

their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.

sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author,

(Isid. Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini,

ll,) nobles, and appears to correspond better with the

Scandinavian word iarl or earl, than with any of those numerous

derivations proposed by etymologists.” Malte-Brun, vol. i. p.

400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the Barbarians who threw themselves on

the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the

origin of the Heruli. They seem never to have been very powerful

as a nation, and branches of them are found in countries very

remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the Gothic

race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They

were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled

and confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they

were never numerous. nor did they found any state.—St. Martin,

vol. vi. p. 375.—M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the

Hirri. of which Heruli is a diminutive,—Slawische Alter

thinner—M. 1845.]

38 (return) [ Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this

martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to

have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the

language of Roman eloquence.]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 41 / 79 章

The same rules were observed in the provincial assemblies, the